Well, this season was... ummm... not good. Star Trek has never really resonated with me like I think it does for some folks, even accepting the flaws inherent when watching a TV series from the 1960s. Much as I've tried, even the episodes I would call good come with some sort of "but..." With that said, the third season of Star Trek is terrible.
At some point, I'm going to develop my Top 10 Star Trek episodes (which I will post here) and my intent was to re-watch 25 selected episodes that either I remember being good or one of two other sites I've visited had praised. I had heard all about the quality of the third season so I estimated I'd take 10 episodes from the first two seasons and five from the third. Needless to say, the third season was so bad, I couldn't pick even five episodes from the third season to make that list of 25. I almost feel compelled to go back to the first season and see if my first impression of it was too harsh!
It's pretty easy to figure out why that is the case. After the second season, the show managed to stay on the air purely from the strength of fans mailing in letters begging them to not cancel the show. Which worked... except that it was granted a season with a reduced budget and moved to Friday nights, which was basically the kiss of death. Gene Rodenberry was so frustrated that he chose to step away from the show for the third season except for as an executive producer.
It's tough to say whether the reduced budget played a hand in the quality of the show dropping. I'm leaning towards no, only because the special effects and sets have never been that impressive in the first place. Now, if the budget managed to impede the writing - they couldn't buy a script due to the price and/or they were forced to ignore a script because of budget limits - now that's something that would indirectly affect the show. But they could probably figure something out - I mean they explained why Spectre of the Gun looked cheap so there are writing ways to get around that.
What hurt the show to me was repetitive plots, women being women, and Shatner being Shatner. Look, go ahead and read my first two reviews: I've constantly said he's the one who holds this show back, the thing that has aged worse than the sets, the sex politics. With that said, he didn't hold the third season back - the writing did. It's full of plots we've seen done better, plots that go nowhere interesting, and interesting ideas that just quickly peter out.
Also, my least favorite episodes in the past have been episodes were women fawn over Kirk and holy shit that's like every episode this season. And if it's not Kirk, it's Spock or McCoy or Chekhov or Scotty (poor Sulu). These are the type of situations where they meet and boom it's love. I wish I counted, because while it might not be every episode, it's damn near close to it. Naturally, the best of these happens to be when a woman falls in love with Spock (All Your Yesterdays).
Overall, I really was only able to single out four episodes of this season that I liked. That may be a bit harsh, but it's not extremely off. "The Enterprise Incident had me hopeful for the third season as it was only the second episode of the year (After "Spock's Brain" which um, really?). Then "Spectre of the Gun" was a fun episode, "Day of the Dove" was interesting but makes less sense the more you think about it, and it's a long string of disappointing episodes. I'd go over some of them, but I don't even think they were memorable enough to remember (except the "Empath" oh man that was awful).
Thankfully it finishes sort of strong, at least compared to the rest of the season. After the space hippies episode, "The Cloud Minders" is a very un-subtle take on slavery, but it still kind of works. "The Savage Curtain" opens up with Abraham fucking Lincoln in space, I don't think any more needs to be said. (Although it's near a copy of "Arena") Lastly, "All Your Yesterdays" is the last great Star Trek episode with Spock going back in time and suddenly gaining emotion with an attractive woman.
Actually, who am I kidding? In the original series of Star Trek, it's literally always an attractive woman. By the last season, it was getting ridiculous how every episode had a woman in extremely skimpy and impractical clothes. Even in the freaking Arctic the lady wears practically nothing! (In hindsight, it really shouldn't be a surprise why Star Trek appealed particularly to self-proclaimed male geeks.)
Anyway, the show simpers out with a hilariously bad episode by just about every way imaginable. See, a former lover of Kirk's (ugh) is driven to madness and overtakes Kirk's body (ugh) and then... she pretty much typifies what I'm sure was the male idea of a female in power. Because she's really emotional. And terrible at her job. Also, we have the hammiest Shatner acting of the series and it's quite... annoying... to watch. (But also kind of funny - did people think he was a good actor ever?)
There's not much good with the third season of Star Trek. You could point to any number of factors, but the main point is that there are very few watchable episodes and ever fewer good ones. Star Trek has always had issues with the things it suffers from in this season, it's just magnified by bad scripts. I just spent roughly 20 hours watching the third season and I suppose the purpose of this post is to advise you to spend 20 hours doing something else.
Grade - C-
Playlist
1. "Endless Shore" - Melody's Echo Chamber
2. "Public Service Announcement" - Jay-Z
3. "Lola" - The Kinks
4. "Bitch" - Meredith Brooks
5. "Rock to It" - Shad
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