As some commenters have asked about The Animated Series- There will probably be a review of the animated 70's Trek at some point, but won't be for quite a while.

I've never understood the hatred of Spock's Brain when The Children Shall Lead is infinitely worse.

You have hands down the best reviews on the internet. You have an excellent voice, perfect editing, and a consistently funny sense of humor that doesn't get in the way of all the incredible writing and research and information you pack into these things. I'm so glad I found this channel!

You are one of the best, funniest and most consistent tv/movie reviewers. Thank you for the great content!

A fabulous whistle-stop tour through the awesomeness and sometimes awfulness of the original 'Star Trek. Great work as usual Stam Fine.

31:50 Everyone dismisses THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME, but I think it's amazing, with some of the highest stakes in any episode. Unusual because it begins with the crew completely knackered by a grueling mission, and headed for R & R. Giant space amoeba sucks what little energy they have left, and threatens the entire galaxy. Kirk has to choose between sending McCoy or Spock to certain death to save ship and galaxy. Plus amazing amoeba effects!

When Star Trek The Motion Picture came out, we called it “Where Nomad Has Gone Before.”

This has been probably the longest 3 part review of the original series, and I too, thought I had seen all episodes. Now I will have to go back and watch a few. Thanks for a thorough and excellent review and a bit of humor thrown in. TOS was a mixed bag of episodes, fortunately far more great episodes than bad ones (especially season 1 and 2) it appears and great acting for the most part. I like that well know sci fi writers worked on a few episodes. DC Fontana and Gene Coon were also great writers, and the big bird Gene Roddenberry did okay in rewrites to keep it consistent when he needed to do so, and steer his vision of a positive future in the stories. Lower Decks is still referencing TOS stories in many of its episodes as does SNW at times. Long live Star Trek!

Oh well, just finished James Bond movie marathon, and now it seems Where No Man Has Gone Before marathon is next. Thanks for the fine Classic Trek reviews.

Just want to say thanks for this I was giggling and laughing out loud all through the three parts.

I have an old Star Trek magazine from the 70's with a list and synopsis of every episode. As a kid I would tick off each show as I finally was able to see it on TV. Not sure when I had finally watched all 79 as we had the same issue here, with what seemed like all the same episodes being re-repeated. We sometimes forget how lucky we are now.

To this day, the woman with no face in Charlie X still creeps me out.

In Space Seed, while Khan was recuperating in sickbay, he probably came across Chekov's bio when he was using the computer as McCoy showed him.

Devil in the Dark was the first episode I ever saw. I still remember the impact it had on me as a kid.

My compliments on distilling 79 episodes of TOS into a few sentences and still managing to provide the essence of each.

mirror, mirror is still one of my absolute favourites

An absolute parade of incredible American 50s/60s science fiction writers

Harry Mudd has always been my favorite most memorable character..next to Khan!

Watching it again because the commentary is so delightful.

What kind of a MONSTER has a Ham, Jam, Cheese, Reece's Pieces, Tomato and Toffee sandwich without mayo?!?!

49:30 "Oh, Herbert, you are stiff!!"😂

Thanks for the outstanding review and your two cents about each episode of TOS. As much as Spock's Brain gets mocked for being the worst episode of TOS, at least there's a sci-fi concept to it. The worst for me it's The Way To Eden. No other episode roots Star Trek in the time it was produced. Let's Go Herbert!

I love this show when I was a kid

My two cents: Operation - Annihilate! is one of the very best Spock episodes, with that wonderful exchange with Kirk in the transporter room where Spock talks him into letting him beam back down, and then his stoicism after they realize they only needed to use UV light rather than blind him, saying he had agreed with the decision. Of course, scientifically, there's nothing "safer" about intense UV light for human eyes anyway -- it will fry your retina even more than bright visible light will. But who cares, it was good drama. Metamorphosis was a pretty lousy episode, EXCEPT you forgot to mention the one shining moment, when Cockrane asks what he's missing, and that amazing music kicks in while Kirk's speech perfectly captures the romance of Star Trek. He gives a similarly seminal speech in Return to Tomorrow, while they play the same stirring music.

40:06 As bad as the ep is, the children's chant has been permanently burned into my brain...

While I can’t remember when Star Trek started back in the late 1960”s,I have seen re-run’s in the early 1970”s.I think,it’s because,I watched;Gilligan’s Island 🏝 back in the late 1960”s.As my late mom used to say:you can’t remember everything in you’re life.Never the less,I’ve re-watched every Star Trek episode over the year’s.And,don’t forget those James Blish book’s!There a classic,too!Too,they have/‘ extra moments’ that aren’t in the t.v.show!

Have been subscribed to you for a while and really love your stuff, quite informative, a little spark of humour and so well presented. Been loving this series and even though I already knew most of what was in here because i watch a lot o behind the scenes stuff, because of your presentation if felt fresh. Too many people, even ones of my age, think of TNG when they think of trek which is fair enough. I was 6 in 1987 when TNG started but I still remember TOS as my introduction to Trek. People are to quick to dismiss TOS as, old, cheap-looking and cheesy. But they don't realise what this was to people at the time. These are some of the best Characters and they have some amazing stories to tell. Thanks for putting in the time and effort with this. Such a great watch.

Fantastic video, Stam Fine. I seriously loved this. The joke about Khan's musky balls made me laugh my head off. As with your Doctor Who videos/reviews, your stuff is superlative, brilliant, affectionate satire.

A great overview of all 79 episodes Stam. The show had ten-15 episodes that were stand out great the rest were so-so to just awful. "Live longer and prosper" to TOS.🖖

C'mon Fine! Conscience of the King Rules! It finishes the Riley Duology that began in Naked Time! Gotta Love Riley.

We used to call it star trek the motion picture, where nomad has gone before.

8:50 The 1957 film The Enemy Below was actually the inspiration for Balance of Terror.

Constantly laughing out loud listening to these.... "A little class, please." ☠️ 😂

22:50 The Mirror Mirror universe sounds like the Boskonians author E. E. Smith’s Lensman a series of novels that had a less noted, but clear influence on Babylon 5.

Trivia: the episode mentioned at 23:13 has a very young David Soul of Starskey & Hutch fame! Of course if I waited 10 seconds I would’ve seen that you mentioned that!

Man the yeomans get waay more action in this series than I remember.

You could say the energy field wanted his Cochrane.

Something I realized many years ago is the great thing about the original Trek series is you can just call each episode "The one with the _____" or "The one where they ______" And you will cover about 50 or 55 episodes of the 79. Of course I know the name of every episode but I'm just saying for casual viewers they can do it like that and almost cover the whole series

As always brilliant! You have really got some “bullshit restocking fee” issues! 😂

Great review, yet again, sir. I had no idea Harlan Ellison wrote an episode. I have no Star, and I must Trek.

Disagree about Conscience of the King. It was more of a murder mystery than science fiction, but it had great themes about the cycle of revenge and about allowing yourself to do evil for a good result. I found the Alternative Factor had a great concept but it needed some polishing. It featured probably the grimmest fate of anyone in the show- a heroic man stuck in a pocket dimension, fighting his evil half forever. That was a great ending. It needed to be attached to a better episode.

Never been a little more prepared for the final three episodes of the second season it's too bad Bread And Circuses, The Omega Glory and Assignment Earth couldn't have all been turned into a three part time travel episode with the Omega Glory and Bread And Circuses being results of time damage that could have been corrected that would have made those three episodes much better, especially the first two mentioned.

Great stuff- love the humour.

A loophole for the Chekov/Khan problem, is that "Space Seed" has a stardate of 3141.9, but the second season's "Catspaw", the first episode to feature Chekov, has a stardate of 3018.2. This means "Catspaw" takes place before "Space Seed", so Chekov was evidently already aboard even if he isn't featured in the 'earlier' episode.

Thanks, Stam Fine! Now I know which episodes I have to re-watch and which ones I don't. And I have to say some of the Season 3 episodes regarded as clunkers are among my favorites. I also liked some of the episodes that you didn't.

"well, there's some unsubscribes." Absolutely gold.

Spock and Mac Coy are kirks logical dad and his emotional mum.

Love your over the top humor

WS's Mr Tambourine Man is a thing of sheer terror. A good thing. Kudos btw!!

Love this. Please do... everything I saw when I was a kid.

Great video - never seen a review like this if the entire series, so never realised how many storylines got recycled in the next generation. I don't remember the city on the edge of forever but my favourite episode by far was the doomsday machine.

Spock's brain is my favorite bad TOS episode

Blood pressure high than normal… and pants tighter than normal.

That was vulcan wonderful, thank you.

05:25 The big dude is Lurch from The Addams Family (Ted Cassidy).

Balls may explode, Who's to say, love it .

As Spock would say, a fascinating round-up of the original 79. I tend to agree tbh -- I find it hard to not enjoy a single one of these, although "The Alternative Factor", "Assignment: Earth", and "Plato's Stepchildren" all severely press my patience. (I suppose only 1 actively bad episode per each 26 episode season isn't a bad innings, eh?)

9:30 Freaken genius! Hilarious!!

Awesome episode!

The conventional wisdom is that Season 1 was superb, Season 2 was sporadically good and Season 3 generally stank. I disagree . Each season had both quality and clunker episodes ( the price for trying to maintain quality with limited time and budgets,.) Season 3 had some of the most imaginative alien races as opposed to humans with funny wigs. The Melkotians, The Tholians, and best of all, Medusans who , if you looked directly at them, you would go mad (why were they never revisited?) Even really bad episodes would have at least a little gem of a scene or exchange between characters that was worthwhile. I even have a soft spot in my heart for Spock's Brain, widely regarded as the worst episode of TOS. It was the first full episode I saw at the age of 9 in 1968. Remember, very little good sci fi was on then. Lost In Space seemed geared for 5 year olds then. I saw that episode and was hooked for life. Sure. It's dumb as a box of hammers, but it's also great silly fun. So... There you go.

Why would you build an entire replica of the Enterprise on a planet crowded by people?

Ack, the last 1/3 is hideous! I had no idea! Lincoln in space? Gah!

Harlan Ellison had strong points in his criticism of Star Trek and Roddenberry and the cult of worship that built around both. David Gerrold was also a harsh critic of Roddenberry and brought up many of his nastier traits, like plagiarising or outright stealing other people's work, then claiming credit for it, not to mention his seedy behavior behind-the-scenes, like marital infidelity and worse (see Grace Lee Whitney). Trek die hards like to dismiss their criticisms as ego and sour grapes; but, they spoke a lot of truth and had very pointed criticisms, while praising what was good about Trek. Fan publications and glorified fan-like publications, like Starlog, milked the conflict to sell issues, exaggerating it beyond the reality of things. Like fanatics of many things, Trek fans can be rather reactionary and childis, especially when someone from within exposes a rotten core.

I absolute loved the Galileo 7 episode. One of my favorites. I hated Harry Mudd--too goofy.

11:56 It looks like The Gorn "Blinks" in that scene somehow ? Is that footage from a Special edition ? Or Am I just wrong in guessing that?

Love 'em all!

I've always felt, "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield" better story from season 3. Whenever I meet extreme conservatives and extreme liberals, I want them to watch this episode so they take a hint.

I read some place that the "Remote" from Sparks Brain was actually a pilot episode of communicator that was redressed.

That was glorious! lol

In Friday's Child the character "ob" s name keeps cracking me up funny hearing it. lol

SPOCK'S BRAIN was WILLIAM SHATNER'S way of telling LEONARD NIMOY he wasn't the star and he was replaceable

Great reviews! Trip down memory lane with the good, the bad, and the ugly eppies. As a suggestion how about looking at the TV show UFO?

If DC Fontana had had her way, Friday's Child would have been a lot more memorable Also the Cloud Minders would have been a lot more stark in its lessons I think. I mean, that can be said for a lot of these I guess. It might have felt much more like an anthology show if they hadn't tried to keep a consistent tone, no way to know if it would have been even more famous, or less, since different fans might have carried a torch for it. Decent amount of good third season episodes, looking back

S1 finale gave me nightmares as a kid, I couldn’t eat pancakes for about a decade either

28:10 I think it's so ironic that the made-up "70-year-old" Kirk looks way older than the real 92-year-old Shatner! 47:30 Stanley Adams also appeared on "Lost in Space" as a giant carrot in the episode, "The Great Vegetable Rebellion." Same year as "Trouble With Tribbles" in fact.

As talented as Harlan Ellison was, he didn't write scripts suited to TV. His original script for 'City On The Edge Of Forever' feels very long and doesn't have great focus. The rogue Enterprise crew member keeps popping up in the past scenes and it really messes with the structure of the story. The actual filmed script is properly altered to work in a 50 minute TV format.

"Where no man" needed to be the first shown. It wasn't of course and it's illogical. All of a sudden a new cast & other changes. Then the next show is back to "normal" It would been so much wiser to start w the unique 1

the MUGATO inspired FLUFFY from CREEPSHOW

Taller than usual umpalumpas. Had me dying 🤣

Nowadays, it seems amazing that there were so many good episodes in the original series. But even the clunkers were colorful and mostly watchable. I was going to say that wasn't David Soul in The Apple, but I see that he played a secondary character, Makora, not the main honcho Akuta, who was played by Keith Andes.

Does anybody else find the girls' thigh boot's drive them crazy? (in the episode "Doctor Spock's Brain").

Spock's balls might explode? That's nuts!

5:48 Mayberry!

Sertiphikut of Orthentistie~! LMAO!

13:37 ASSERT? - evidently they've deployed a debug build into production...

You should check out farscape!

I was 13 when Spock's Brain first aired. My 14-year-old-brother hated it so I was confused. I thought it was uncool to like that episode. Still, I like the episode.

Newer Treks are bigger and higher budget, but they are on a path already blazed for them. TOS cut the path.

38:30-Lounging in a wading pool that’s full of gin! Wouldn’t that enjoyment depend on the hygiene of the guy in the pool before you?!

48:06 Does anyone know if "Shari Lewis" is the same one who had a puppet show with the sock puppet Lamb Chop? Stranger things have happened. It's an unusual spelling.

Risk is a great board game

Love that accent!

43:37-No, the line should’ve been, “I’m a doctor, not a sex machine!”

🤣🤣🤣mild spoilers 🤣🤣🤣 I had a girl like the man trap😏 ☝nothing wrong with being drunk on duty

I’ve been looking. What did you find?

The interesting thing about Star Trek is no female red shirts were killed.

Here's a viewing tip: this guy is subtly rating the episodes by how little time he devotes to them. The Enterprise Incident, for instance, gets a lot of time. As for me, the only episodes I actively dislike and thus have seen the least are "The Alternative Factor," "And the Children Shall Lead," and "Plato's Stepchildren." As for "Spock's Brain," it is a classic just for the one line, "Brain and brain, what is brain????"

79 is less than all of the other Star Trek series episodes put together with all due tax rebates and filtered through inflation meaning that it was both the highest and least profitable iteraration of Star Trek until all of the others..

Notification Squad! :D

I hope you keep going through the entire cannon?