Finally, season 3 comes to a merciful end. I’m glad people look back on this show fondly, but the fact is, losing this version of it was really not anything to get in a huff over. Trek still retains its iconic style and did a lot of things that no other show had ever done, or even thought to do, but somehow all the life had been stripped out of it by this time. With no budget or support, most of the episodes come off as cheap or unoriginal or just plain boring. Below is a discussion of the last batch, then I’ll restart at the beginning and work up to where we started this whole mess. That will include the first season and just a couple of discs from the second.

76. The Cloud Minders. A favorite season three trick to generate suspense is the establishment of  some dramatic deadline right off the bat that will be conveniently employed and/or forgotten as the show progresses. McCoy will say something like, “The entire crew is infected with Space Dandruff.” Kirk asks, “How long do we have?” McCoy says, “No one can know. But things might start getting itchy in three hours unless we find a cure.” Deadline established! Ensue drama! Now the episode can progress within some set confines. The problems is that Kirk will take all kinds of liberties with it. He’ll take a few minutes to flirt with some local, but then things get boring so in the next scene he’s demanding everyone drop what they’re doing and help him because he only has 1.4 hours left. So it gets added and dropped at will. It just provides a convenient ticking clock for when one is needed. The problem with tricks like this is that you never actually need them. If the story has enough interesting components already, it’s just an extra thing to tack on, and why bother? If the story doesn’t, well, this isn’t the way to solve it. “The Cloud Minders” gets right at this idea. There is a lot of rich material here, so there’s no need to toss in some odd, unbelievable deadline to generate pace. The Enterprise arrives at a planet with a vital mineral needed to cure an epidemic elsewhere, and they need to get it fast. Only the internal strife on the planet keeps them from getting it. Kirk doesn’t have time for everyone to sort out their differences, he just needs him some zenite. The story has a lot to say about class systems and prejudices, and while one wouldn’t call it good, and it’s done in a much more effective way than the other recent attempt at Racism Bad (ep. 70, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield). Seems like there could have been more to that story and less to the arbitrary deadline bit. Although there have been episodes just like that, I think in TNG, where a planet wants entry to the Federation but they need to solve their own civil problems first. I think that’s another problem here: that TNG is really just much better at talky sci-fi, and could have done something more with this. TOS tries to work in some fistfights, of course, but why? Killer Spock line: any number of innuendos with this episode’s lead guest actress. That story, too, had lots of untapped potential. Overall: a good episode with a lot going for it, though it sort of misses its own point. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
• Violation of Prime Directive
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists
• The Enterprise is the only ship within range

77. The Savage Curtain. Weirdest episode of Star Trek ever? Let’s consider. The Enterprise arrives at an inhospitable planet. Suddenly the planet disappears. It is replaced by a floating entity in space. That entity? Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States. (SPACE LINCOLN!) He assures us, “I really AM Abraham Lincoln.” Which is enough to make Kirk believe. He agrees to have him aboard the ship, and insists everyone don full dress uniforms. Why? Because the crazy space president thinks he is Abraham Lincoln, and who knows what will happen if we don’t go along with it. Maybe Kirk has a point? So what’s really odd here is that from this utterly outrageous premise, the episode actually sways you. No, it’s not Lincoln, of course, but it’s a perfect replica. The planet’s inhabitant, some sort of rock creature that we never learn much about, even cooks up a habitable zone for Kirk, Spock, and Space Lincoln, and has further replicated a bunch of other historical figures. It’s gone from bizarre to intriguing. Then, in true TOS style, it degenerates into a bunch of fighting until time is up. Kirk, Spock, and the replicas all battle (Lincoln successfully beats up Genghis Khan, which I will assume is historically accurate). Then there is a bunch of running around and scrapping. Lincoln and the Vulcan good guy die, but they are fakes anyway, so who cares really. But then the four biggest bad guys in history retreat to regroup and the mysterious rock creature decides that’s good enough, and lets Kirk and Spock go. Then it ends. Wait, what? The range here is something to behold. Act I: Insane. Act II: Somehow Transformed Into High Intrigue. Act III: Snooze-inducing. For such an elaborate setup it’s a spectacular failure. This one was written by Gene Rodenberry himself, but I don’t understand what happened. For all the careful plotting to get them to the planet, there is just a bunch of fighting and absolutely nothing is explained or resolved. It’s a play on “The Arena” (I haven’t reviewed it yet but it’s a memorable classic) only without any rationale whatsoever. Killer Spock line: bleh. Nothing. Overall: 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Strange probe president encountered in space
• Recent Earth history will always be relevant
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists

78. All Our Yesterdays. Here is a season 3 thing: take the setup from an earlier season, but instead of resolving the story, mill around for 45 minutes until you run out of time. This episode even steals the “jump through the time time travel portal and become a slo-mo photonegative of yourself” effect. It makes me sad, really, because this episode was about a sort of space librarian and had a time travel thing going. Only it ended up going next to nowhere and put me to sleep. At this point, I have a quick metric for these episodes. Did I sleep? Yes? 3 points max. Did I stay awake? Yes? 3 points minimum. Unless I was too dumbstruck to sleep (e.g., The Way to Eden). So I don’t have a lot more to say about this one. Though it is yet another example of Spock giving in to his humanity and becoming all emotional and gooey. Gross. Killer Spock line: “It should be an equation! There should be a way to solve this problem logically.” Overall: sadly another season three all setup, no payoff whiff. 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Recent Earth history will always be relevant
• Badger alien until you get what you want

79. Turnabout Intruder. I’m sure by this point we can all name our favorite sexist episode of TOS. Certainly “A Private Little War” makes a good case. “The Lights of Zetar.” Maybe “Elaan of Troyius” depending on how you look a that one. Lots of episodes have their moments. I haven’t even gotten to the first season and its frequent instances of Yeoman Rand. And we all have our favorite alternate Kirks. We’ve had milquetoast Kirk and evil Kirk, and he’s been possessed by any number of alien entities. In “Turnabout Intruder” we get a little of both of these things. Kirk meets up with an old flame, who double-crosses him and uses an experimental machine to take over his body, solely so she can gain the power of starship command. Why didn’t she just go to Starfleet Academy and earn a captaincy? Oh goodness no, women can’t be captains, silly. Apparently there’s a rule. Way to wreck up three seasons of progress, Star Trek! Well anyway, TOS-ness aside, Turnabout Intruder ends up being a solid, well-paced, fun episode. It’s not a classic, but it’s a good send-off for the show. And it’s probably a pretty good capsule of the show, or at least season 3, in general. TOS doesn’t have any kind of overarching storyline so there’s nothing left hanging, and you could watch this show first or last, really. Killer Spock line: sadly nothing to send off the third season. Overall: kinda goofy but engaging. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Kirk meets up with an old flame
• Shatner showcase
• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions

72. That Which Survives. At one point in this episode, Scotty informs Spock that he doesn’t know exactly why, but he can tell the Enterprise just isn’t running right. I have the same feeling about the show at this point. I can’t really put my finger on it, but it’s just…off.  I think one symptom of staleness in fiction is that characters are not really themselves anymore, they just become sort of caricatures of their most notable tendencies. I think maybe what happens is that the writers stop working to develop the character and start simply applying the formula.  Spock doesn’t just act logically, he acts REALLY logically and announces that he’s being logical constantly. He spends this entire show bickering with the crew about just how not logical they are. He says Scotty’s too emotional. He says the navigator isn’t precise enough. I feel like Spock had a sense of humor in the earlier episodes, and that’s disappeared. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to have a sense of humor, but he most certainly did, in a very Spockian way. See just about every Killer Spock Line I’ve posted. These days that wit is gone. It’s like when you crack a joke to someone in a rotten mood and they don’t laugh. Instead they say, “Chickens don’t cross roads.” And you know to stop talking. That registers as humorless. That’s Spock lately. This episode suffers as a result. It’s not much fun. Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and a guest character (uh-oh) are checking out a mysterious planet. But it’s controlled by a computer which has gone rogue, kicking the ship 1000 light years away (or as Grouchy Spock insists, 990.9 or something) while Kirk and Co. try to figure out what the deal is with a mysterious woman who keeps appearing and trying to kill them. The stories were mixed. We didn’t really learn anything until we learned everything. There’s a little eye roll-inducing fake suspense built in (the necessary tool is jammed! oh wait, no, it isn’t!). Scotty and Spock had a number of interesting conversations, but I think they would have been more interesting two seasons ago. Killer Spock line: I dunno. There were a few things that were supposed to be clever Spock aphorisms or cute misunderstandings of human humor but they mostly whiffed. Overall: middle of the road, not especially bad but not memorable either. 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt killed (and a named blueshirt guest star, and some engineering drone–it was a tough day at the office all around)
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds

73. The Lights of Zetar. Parallel to my Star Trek watching is my watching of Friday Night Lights with K. We find Friday Night Lights to be sort of trashy and very much a soap opera, but it is a marvel of pacing. We watch two episodes back to back and I still feel like I could sit through another one. I never look at the clock except to check to make sure I haven’t exceeded my age-and-employment-mandated bedtime. Meanwhile, recent Trek episodes are putting me to sleep in a seriously effective way. I had to re-watch the second half of “The Lights of Zetar” because I closed my eyes at some point and next thing I knew I was seeing the awkward closing scene banter. On the other hand, it’s not really fair to compare the two shows. Trek is cerebral and adheres to standard sixties TV pacing. FNL is more modern: fast and emotional and multi-threaded. I’d still say I like Trek better on the whole, but let’s face it, about half of the episodes are sleep fuel. Maybe I just want to like Trek better because it’s more to my aesthetic tastes and admitting I like a teen soap opera more sort of kills my already dubious credibility. I can’t argue against FNL being more entertaining, especially compared to some of these third-season Trek entries, but I think if Trek had had even a fraction of the FNL budget, the stories could have been deeper and the production value much better. Anyway, I’m taking my time getting around to the actual episode in question here, and the main reason is because this was frankly just a really forgettable episode. The execution was painfully slow. The story really needed to branch into more directions, and instead it just plodded along looking for things to do. The resolution makes little sense. If you want to defend Trek as a progressive show this is also not the best place to start. The guest star is possessed because (as a woman, presumably) she’s particularly “pliant” (luckily men are resistant and around to straighten her out). Scotty’s relationship with her is about as subtle (and, let’s face it, creepy) as his preening love of a good warp core. There simply isn’t anything to take away here other than the well-executed freaky possession voice. Killer Spock line: bleh. Nothing. Overall: 1 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions
• Strange probe encountered in space
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

74. Requiem for Methuselah. At this point I’m frankly surprised when I hit the end of an episode and I’d lost track of time and was never threatened by sleep. Luckily we’re about to round back to the beginning of the series and this season of dismally rare coherence will be fully behind me. Bashing aside, “Requiem for Methuselah” is a standout among what we’ve slogged through lately and here’s to hoping it’ll perk me back up for the last bits of the season. The concept is really interesting and the story is well-done, with a few unexpected twists. There’s actually a lot of good sci-fi themes covered: AI, immortality, human nature in the future, should people date robots, and if so, is it cool to have a whole harem of them, even if most are de-activated and you live alone. Getting back to what I was thinking about regarding ep. 72’s Grouchy Spock, I didn’t feel like the characters were being forced on me anymore, they were just doing what they do, and everything fell into place. Of course one of the main things they do is that Kirk falls for every new woman he meets and this time around he gets particularly pushy about it, to the point of fighting other dudes that he thinks might have their eye on his girl. (At one point when Spock interferes, he yells, “Stay out of this, we’re fighting over a woman!”) Curious ending scene, however, and inconsistent with other episodes. So if Kirk is going to fall in love over and over they need to come up with ways for him to consistently leave it all behind and be ready for the next show. There was one recent show where Kirk was in love (I don’t remember which–I can’t even keep track of them all) where it was resolved that he’d be OK because his first love is the ship. But this time he is so enamored he ends the show with his head down at his desk in his room, crying to himself. Awww…but Spock erases his memory or something, so we’re all good. Killer Spock line: “It does appear to defy the male logic, as I understand it.” Overall: a strong episode not only for the third season, but for the series. 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Kirk hits it off with alien babe
• Violation of Prime Directive
• Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again

75. The Way to Eden. This show was made in the late 1960s and addressed numerous progressive themes. Listen, if that’s your thing then at some point you need to address hippies. Here, we have space hippies, I guess. And this band has stolen a Federation shuttle and are raising hell throughout the galaxy, until they run into the Enterprise and accidentally blow up their ship trying to cheese it. Kirk gets them beamed aboard and tries to not be too much of a square (or a “Herbert” in space hippie vernacular) even though The Man is telling him to. There’s a lot of stuff about how it’s cool to be a free spirit when you’re young but all the Enterprise crew is older and wiser now and jobs are much better than the barefoot alternative, even if one can totally dig the music. Eventually we figure out that the leader is basically a nut and his followers are being led astray. We even learn that Spock is pretty much a hippie himself, and even jams with them a bit. But what we don’t learn are lessons like: is there a good reason to have a fully functional auxiliary bridge–that requires no piloting expertise of any kind–to be aboard a starship? And for that matter, if you did happen to have that, should you leave it unguarded and unlocked? Because it turns out that if you do, space hippies will just go right in there and use it to take over the ship and there’s nothing you can do about it. Anyway, I can’t say this was a good episode. In addition to frequent plot problems, the show had a lot more singing that I would like. I would say that I prefer the number of songs in my Star Trek episodes to be approximately zero. This episode, however, featured numerous musical interludes, complete with the crew really digging it inasmuch as grownups can enjoy anything, what with their slavish duty to employment and hygiene and clothing. In the end, clothing wins though, as it is the only thing protecting Kirk and Co. from the acidic plants encountered on their false Eden. The poor, barefoot hippies.But score one for clothing, so derided by the hippies earlier in the show. Killer Spock line gesture: a hapless shrug after attempting to talk some sense into those damn kids. [No one can tell me Spock’s not funny. No one.] Overall: not entirely unenjoyable, but just plain silly. 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Invisible Space Powers

68. Elaan of Troyius. Shatner doesn’t get enough credit for being funny. Because he undoubtedly is. “The Trouble with Tribbles” was the high water mark of humor for the series, but there are some clear similarities here that put Kirk in the same position with a lot of the same results. In both episodes, a number of problems are keeping Kirk moving, but the most pressing is one involving someone Kirk simply doesn’t want to deal with. His irritation is expressed as humor: rich barbs and smarmy comebacks. And so richly satisfying. Although, the irritating character here isn’t a lovable Federation bureaucrat but a spoiled royal princess. And “irritating” doesn’t begin to describe her. I don’t think the character is actually all that interesting, to start with. But she whines, she throws tantrums, and she tries to kill a guy. Oddly, the attempt is shrugged off by Kirk. Girls will be girls, he guesses. Also the victim is some blue dude rather than a regular. Her eventual turnaround is a little clumsy to me. It happens almost in an instant, and then she’s completely docile. It’s not a trick, and here’s where I think TOS’ regular shortchanging of its female characters has an effect. Any male villain worth his salt would be doublecrossing someone at this point. Elaan is actually just lovesick now and hangs on Kirk the rest of the episode. The actual villain is revealed to one of her entourage who is in cahoots with the Klingons. So then there’s some Klingon fighting and some extra reveals to flesh out the episode. Mostly it ends up being pretty effective, though there are some things that were a little puzzling. Killer Spock line: some sexist crack about the only logical women in the galaxy being Vulcans maybe, but I’ll go with his fantastic near- eye roll when McCoy is describing the enchanting beauty of the women of Elas. Overall: irritating at first but came around with a complex plot and ended up being a good watch. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Anonymous redshirt killed
• Kirk hits it off with alien babe (with surprising kinky spanking references)
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions

69. Whom Gods Destroy. When you work in a library, sometimes you get random people off the street who come in and ask questions. They might start out normal enough, something like, “Where can I find some information on patents?” As a helpful librarian, I start pointing out the Patent and Trademark Office site and explain some of the–oh wait, I’m being interrupted by the questioner, who is now telling me that he has an idea for a new type of dog food. I say that’s fine, you can do a search for terms like “pets” or “nutrition” to determine the appropriate USPTO classification–and I’m getting interrupted again to learn that he has eaten this dog food himself several times and he thinks some Purina corporate spies might be listening, so could I e-mail some of this information to his secret Yahoo address? This is when I realize I’ve quite unintentionally crossed the border into crazytown. Or like how you ask someone on the street for the time and it’s only then you realize they are carrying six bags of aluminum cans and oh no please get me out of here now. All of this goes into saying that “Whom Gods Destroy,” as it portrays inmates who have taken over their asylum, has some longish scenes that feel like you’d suddenly found yourself in a conversation with someone about their homemade dog food. Now what you also need to know about this episode is that those are some parts in an otherwise mostly enjoyable hour. Kirk and Spock are visiting an asylum planet and quickly learn that they’ve been trapped by delusional ex-Captain Garth, with the power of transmogrification no less, bent on taking over the Enterprise. And then the galaxy. Unfortunately for him, he’s stymied by Kirk’s cleverly pre-arranged passphrase to beam aboard. Numerous plots to obtain the code are undertaken, and Garth’s transformational powers make for a number of plot twists. There’s some really good and some sorta bad all mixed in here. Good: fantastic performance by Steve Ihnat as Garth, some clever reveals of various transformation tricks. Bad: long scenes of crazy ranting or odd tortures, including (for serious) blowing someone up. Really bad: Scotty and crew spend the whole hour simply standing around trying to think of something to do. At one point they try shooting at a weak part of the planet’s forcefield, and nothing at all is done after that. I honestly think they simply forgot to include what the result of that action was, or ran out of budget to film it. Which might also explain why some scenes just went on and on: (“Guys, we filmed them, we’re not throwing them out.”) A similar thing happens earlier when Kirk and Spock whisper to each other a quick escape plan, then, uh, don’t ever actually. escape. One last thought: I just realized that the guy who plays Dr. Cory is Han from Enter The Dragon. I looked him up and he’s also the shopkeeper in Gremlins (among other roles). Wow! Killer Spock line: “She’s worked out an infallible method of assuring permanent male fidelity. Interesting.” Also right after that it sounds for the life of me like he addresses Captain Kirk as “Ted.” Overall: the more you think about it the crazier it gets (wait, Garth just sort of learned to become a shape shifter? yes, this is the explanation) but fresh from viewing it I give it 3 out of 5. It retrospect it’ll probably be more like a 2.

Trek tropes:

• Shatner showcase
• Kirk hits it off with alien babe
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
• Lighthearted banter to close episode (again, not good, but an attempt)

70. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. As a franchise, Star Trek obviously has a lot to say on racism and on occasion does a fantastic job creating a story around that idea (just throwing out a few off the top of my head: Star Trek VI or a multitude of Klingon eps from TNG). Other times it’s just clumsy and as subtle as a brick to the face. I will let others decide about which category this episode belongs in, based on three things. 1. There are two aliens that are half black and half white, and the Enterprise crew notes this repeatedly, as if we need reminding that there are two black and white cookie people on the ship. 2. One of the guys is white on the left, black on the right. The other is the opposite. 3. At some point, one of the aliens denounces the other precisely because of which side of his face is the black side, and which is white. WHAT COULD THEY BE GETTING AT? Anyway, here is where I further note that I saw this episode many insane days ago now, and am therefore relying on my memory of it, which doesn’t give me much to go on. It wasn’t that memorable. It seems like there was a bunch of milling around while these two dudes tried to settle their differences. I loved “Return to Tomorrow” (ep49) for being a show where the Enterprise crew weren’t really the protagonists of the story, but something’s missing this time around. Maybe it’s that the crew not learning anything, or the story just isn’t nearly as interesting (the ship is going somewhere! oh wait, no it isn’t! wait, going somewhere back on! maybe!). Mostly it’s just saddled with a flatly simplistic message and not that effective or novel. Killer Spock line: “Change is the essential process of all existence.” Overall: just not a lot here to get excited about, and a waste of a Frank Gorshin appearance, 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Invisible Space Powers
• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds

71. The Mark of Gideon. People who actually devote lots of their lifetimes to watching these kinds of shows (much less writing about them, much less on an unpaid personal blog read by some very small number of other humans–heh, can you imagine?!) understandably want to formulate opinions on whether or not TOS or TNG (or even some other series) is the “best” one. Five years ago, before I’d watched any Trek series only haphazardly, I felt that TOS was fun and TNG was stuffy and boring. Actually watching through TNG, well yeah, sometimes it is a little stuffy. But many episodes are terrifically well-written. The production and acting are routinely excellent. TOS on the other hand, though undeniably more lively, and with a better ensemble cast, has some writing problems on the vast majority of episodes, and that’s really what it comes down to for me. I’m certainly enjoying the series, but I don’t really imagine re-watching it, whereas TNG has such great stories I could envision picking it up again. So at present I’m definitely coming down on the side of TNG being a better series. Now, understand that I’ve been slogging through season three of TOS, which would damper anyone’s opinion, and things could change once I get back into its prime. Along these lines, “The Mark of Gideon” is a prime example of how TOS often fails when it tries to achieve any kind of dense plotting goals (whereas TNG often succeeded). For the first thirty minutes of this show, I was riveted. There were two stories going, both intertwined and both totally mysterious. TNG had lots of episodes where halfway through, I was just mystified as to what was going on and really involved in how they were going to figure things out. More often than not, there was a clever resolution (although there were a fair share of technobabbly reversings of polarities to fix things, too). But TOS seems to simply not know what to do with itself at these crucial plot fulcrums. The A story kept going but went haywire, and the B story just sort of went away. The show’s typical approach is to have Kirk beat up someone, or have the dame fall for him. The latter happens here, and it not only gets dead slow but the whole plot unravels like the inside of a golf ball. Because frankly the Gideons didn’t make a lick of sense. The planet is so overcrowded multiple characters compare it to hell. But at the same time, they won’t negotiate with the Federation to join up and spread out a little. No, instead the boss thinks it’s better to introduce a killer disease to thin things out, starting with his own daughter. It’s like hell’s ultra-conservative isolationist policy, complete with insistence on the sanctity of life as a reason to avoid any form of birth control (please name me a good nerd who could watch this episode without expecting a chorus of “Every Sperm is Sacred”). But so much more stupid. Killer Spock line Scotty antic: Spock had some decent lines but the absolute highlight was Scotty’s blow-up over the Gideons’ suggestion that something might have been mechanically wrong with the Enterprise. Not only did it set off a substantive rant, but he stormed off the bridge grumbling in fury. Wonderful. Overall: First half was a 5, second half was like maybe a 2 or 3. Still, opened up a lot of themes and has a lot going for it. Let’s average (and round up), and call it 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Kirk hits it off with alien babe
• Scotty goes berserk when the Enterprise is insulted

64. The Tholian Web. Possibly the weirdest episode I’ve seen so far. Weird-good, though. Weird, 1960s TV, classic Trek good. If you want people going crazy, I mean SPACE CRAZY, this is a fine example. Mostly I think I will remember this episode for two things: space suits, and a really grumpy Spock. The Enterprise finds a missing ship and beams aboard to check it out. But there are some weird issues with this area of space. Namely, that the ships sensors don’t actually think the ship is there. Everyone can see it but it’s fading in and out and it generally seems like a bad idea to go aboard. However, they figure as long as they are wearing awkward ’60s space suits, all will be good. Nope! The ship disappears, taking Kirk with it. Seems like he must be dead, but Spock doesn’t give up, even though there’s a lot going wrong. This whole area of space is screwy. Everyone’s snapping at each other and the Enterprise is running out of energy. Everyone’s ripping Spock for his bad decisions, and Spock seems genuinely irritated the entire time. Sometimes in the past he’s seemed cold or awkward, but his personality is now going more towards curmudgeonly. And who can blame him? YOU come up with some brilliant plan to understand what the heck’s going on, entire rest of crew. Anyway, if things weren’t edgy enough, some dudes called Tholians show up and after a period of blustery threats, begin constructing an elaborate energy web around the Enterprise in an effort to contain the ship. Of course, this takes quite a long time, plenty of time for the Enterprise to figure out how to find Kirk and escape. I guess the bottom line here is that I feel like for all the directions this episode tried to go, nothing really hung together, and it all took just long enough to pad out the content until the end. Plus it was filled with weird stuff I couldn’t really relax about. For example, the Tholians laid the slowest trap ever. Was that supposed to be threatening? Basically, they say that they will kill you in one hour. And if you leave, then you get to go free. So, uh, you leave. Sure, it was complicated by the ship being disabled at the beginning of that hour, but we all knew they were going to fix it. All the other problems add up to a very difficult episode for Spock, who has to deal with crewmembers continually approaching him and barking angrily until they wear themselves out trying to get a rise out of him. Killer Spock line: none. He was not in the mood. Overall: a rich episode for sure, but too much awkward for me. 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Lighthearted banter to close episode (though in the running for the least funny instance of it – I think this is my clue the show is losing steam)

65. Plato’s Stepchildren. Mostly this episode is painful. Painful themes, painful for the cast, painful to watch. Not painful, like, bad. Painful, like, people are put through really humiliating things and you get to suffer along with them. It’s effective, but trying as an episode. The Enterprise crew is held hostage by a race of telekinetic people who use their powers to force them to perform humiliating acts for their amusement. It forces the cast to do a lot of pretending to be forced to do these things, which borders on cheesy but I don’t think quite crosses the line. It ends up being effective and a testament to the acting chops of the regulars. That said, the episode is thin on an actual plot. After a while, Kirk and company figure out the source of the telekinetic powers and are able to replicate them and fight back. But until that point we’re just watching an array of bizarre things, like Kirk and Spock doing Riverdance or Kirk being ridden by a dwarf like a horse. These are not things I really want to be watching. I think it might have been more interesting to get some character depth from any of the villains, though we do get to know Alexander, dwarf who has been enslaved as a court jester, and he ends up being very a very sympathetic character, giving the whole thing an even more serious tone. Killer Spock line, in reply to a woman’s question about how old she looks, posed to Spock, Kirk, and McCoy, and said with absolutely no compunction: “35.” Overall: it was well-done but very little fun to watch. 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

• Earth history will always be relevant (not recent Earth history, though, escaping the trope of the importance of the 20th century, but still, Greeks in space)
• Shatner showcase
• Invisible Space Powers
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway

66. Wink of an Eye. I don’t think there’s been any good mucking about with time episodes in TOS to this point. TNG was filled with them. Maybe because they looked at this one and realized how interesting it was and needed lots more like this. I dug this episode a lot. It’s got a great TNG-like strong sci-fi story combined with the swashbuckling, alien-babe loving TOS aesthetic. A race of hyper-accelerated aliens take over the Enterprise and wreak havoc on the crew by basically being a whole bunch of The Flash-es, moving so fast that the crew can’t see them or do anything about it. Eventually they shift Kirk into their time frame (the science is a little wonky–they drug Kirk’s coffee which somehow changes his temporal frame of reference–but, uh, okay) and of course that’s the wrong thing to do because we know Kirk isn’t going to stand for any of this nonsense, seductive alien babe aside. Anyway, there are a bunch of problems to solve and lots of good Kirk-Spock-McCoy-Scotty stuff. And for a series that really doesn’t put a lot of science in its sci-fi, it’s a nice change. Tor.com’s review points out about a billion plot holes, but I didn’t find myself thinking about them all that much. Killer Spock line, describing his transition to the higher-speed dimension of the aliens: “I found it an accelerating experience.” (har, har) Overall: Maybe the best 3rd season episode so far, 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
• Invisible Space Powers
• Anonymous redshirt killed (But then he comes back. But then they kill him for reals.)
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds
• Kirk hits it off with alien babe

67. The Empath. I only a little to say about this episode, and they are related to the tropes. First off, this was the third episode in a row where some sort of invisible space power was able to control Kirk and Company. I know we’re making these shows on the cheap, fellas, but man. Enough with the telekinetic rays already. Second, this is another instance of lighthearted show-closing banter that was decidedly unfunny. I think it just goes along with other problems with this third season: lots of things just aren’t as fun or as well done as in the first two years. Anyway, the rest of the episode is mostly a blur with a few bits and pieces clearly remembered. This is my fault. I probably didn’t give this one a fair watch because I was ungodly tired when I saw it. I was probably legally asleep, even though my eyes were open. When someone wants to start paying me for writing these, I promise to only watch when alert (and organize my thoughts better, proofread, not publish zero drafts, etc.). I think my biggest impression from this one is that it’s only a thin variation on the superior “The Cage”. Telepathic aliens are messing with the humans and there’s a sympathetic fellow prisoner to help them out and is actually the most interesting character. Mostly I remember that it’s a good character relationship episode between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Killer Spock line: “The sandbats of Menard IV appear to be inanimate rock crystals, Doctor. Until they attack.” Overall: I think it was good. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

• The indomitable human spirit conquers all
• Invisible Space Powers
• Lighthearted banter to close episode