I'm so happy to announce that I am finally finished with the original Star Trek series!
In case you need a refresh (or you just didn't see my earlier content), I decided back in February that one way I was going to cope with the lack of any current iterations of Star Trek being in production was that I'm just going to do a big, giant, epic re-watch of the entire Star Trek catalogue. Part of what makes this re-watch particularly interesting is that I'm actually watching some of it, including the original series, for the very first time. I'm also writing reviews per season/movie right here in this blog. (You can still read my first season review here and the second season review here!) I've also occasionally made some commentary over on my Bluesky feed as I've watched. You may want to follow me so you don't miss out on further classic insights on questionable acting, calamari fingers, Oompa Loompas, Morticia Addams lighting, rubber Gorn suits, phallic blunt weapon objects, and more!
Unfortunately, I have to forewarn most of you that my thoughts on the third and final season of Star Trek is...not great. Even though the first season started off rough, I feel like it eventually started improving toward the end. And the second season may be my favorite of the three. But this third season has a whoooole bunch of clunky episodes. You can absolutely tell that NBC was practically giving up on Star Trek at the time and slashed its budget considerably. I'm not even just talking about the fact that sets were being recycled without so much as a new coat of paint, that only two episodes of the entire season were filmed on location, or the fact that the Romulans were apparently using or borrowing ships from the Klingons. Some of OG Trek's very worst episodes also appear this season. In fact, the first episode of the season sees a woman transporting onto the bridge of the Enterprise just so that she can literally steal Spock's brain! If that sounds absurd, there are episodes that even manage to one-up that! The third episode of the season, “The Paradise Syndrome,” even fits in a little redface! And listen, I try not to be super “politically correct,” and I also understand that the late '60s were supposedly “a different time,” but this episode really does portray Native Americans and Indigenous people in a highly stereotypical fashion. There was even an author named Daniel Leonard Bernardi, who wrote in a book on Trek that, “‘The Paradise Syndrome’ stereotypes Native Americans as noble savages and whites as ‘normal’ and even divine.” My reaction to this entire episode was basically: “Yikes!” And it isn't even the only episode this season that touches on the differences among races. Wait until you see “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” later in the season, an episode with an extremely heavy-handed civil rights movement message starring two men who are literally half-black and half-white, split down the middle.
Now that we've got most of my critiques out of the way, let me assure you, dear reader, that not everything was awful this season. The episode “Plato's Stepchildren,” while not necessarily mind-blowing in any type of storytelling capacity, does feature the very first interracial kiss on American television between Kirk and Uhura. This is the moment that I often point toward when all the meatheads cry about more recent Trek iterations being too “woke.” Star Trek has been woke since the '60s, and this very episode has the receipts! I've also wrote about previous seasons how much I like seeing episodes of the OG that introduce new characters, alien races, or concepts that are standard in later installments of the franchise, and this season gave us what I deem the third season's best episode, “The Tholian Web,” which introduces the Tholians. The Romulans and Klingons also reappeared in episodes, including the introduction of Kang in “Day of the Dove,” another Klingon commander who pops up decades later in Deep Space Nine. I'm also always pleased to see that the rest of the Enterprise crew seem to get a little more screentime as time moves on. Most folks know that I'm not at all much of a fan of William Shatner's acting abilities, so any scene mostly revolving around Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, or even Nurse Chapel gives me a great sense of joy.
This third season brings the end of the original series for my rewatch, but I'm certainly not done with this crew or this Enterprise just yet! Going forward, I'll be watching The Animated Series for the first time (and for better or worse...), followed directly by the six feature films starring Shatner & Co., which I'm weirdly excited to watch now. My nephew, our resident Star Trek expert, told me that the tales of the original crew “don't really get good until Wrath of Khan,” so I'll definitely have the popcorn ready for that one!
Hope you'll all check in when I write up my thoughts about all of those, too! 🖖