We discuss our least favorite episodes of Star Trek TOS on our Patreon --> Patreon.com/targetaudience

Season 3 has some gems, and the Spock-McCoy friendship really cements.

I have to be honest, I haven't watched some of the season 3 episodes in years. Seeing them through the TA filter had me rethink some of my opinions.

Tholian Web is one of my favorite episodes. I was surprised when you guys didnt like it that much. It's dark, it's mysterious, there's several plot threads, Shatner's gone for most of it. The whole episode feels like the crew is really in peril and Spock is so focused on trying to save it all he's more like a machine than ever. Just a really tense and exciting episode. Also has an interesting "science fiction" element to the story. The idea of parallel universes was new and Star Trek went headfirst into it with this episode and Mirror, Mirror. A well they would dip from for decades to come.

Alex: "the endings where I'm happy and they aren't are my favorite." Boy, you are going to love Deep Space Nine.

In no particular order, here are my favorites from Season 3: Is There in Truth No Beauty? Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. The Savage Curtain. All Our Yesterdays.

My Top 5 of Season 3, in chronological order so I don't have to figure out how I'd rank them: • The Enterprise Incident • Day of the Dove • The Tholian Web • Wink of an Eye • The Cloud Minders

Back in the '80s i corresponded with Ian Wolfe, who played Mr Atoz in "All Our Yesterdays". Such a nice man. He sent me notes, postcards, autographed photos including one as Mr Atoz, and a book of poetry that he had co-authored "Somewhere, Sunrise". He had climbed quite a few mountains and was an expert in comparative religions. Fabulous actor and a wonderful man.

TOS was trying to be a high concept scifi show while also being a serialized action-adventure story about exploration complete with romance & swashbuckling heros. For those of us who watched it as it aired back in the 60s there is a deep nostalgic affection for TOS as well as a "you had to be there" understanding of the cultural significance. It was very much a product of its time as are most pop culture artforms.

I've never before watched this show and thought about it in the context of 'seasons'. When I was watching these in reruns as a kid, they'd just be random episodes. I certainly never knew nor cared about what season it was in, just if I liked the episode or not. So it's kind of weird to me now that fans seem to place so much importance about what season an episode is in. I'd rather judge each ep on its individual merit.

I've probably said it before, but if you like Star Trek, you MUST watch The Orville. My husband and I are on our 3rd watch through. Such a great show!

I am really looking forward the animated series. For a Saturday morning cartoon it was really good.

I really appreciate you guys....Im one of those kids from the "70's...that inadvertently memorized every line of this show.....it great to see it through fresh eyes

5. Spectre of the Gun 4. Is There In Truth No Beauty 3. The Enterprise Incident 2. All Our Yesterdays 1. Day of the Dove

Agreed. Season three is good. It has some of the weirdest episodes and those are the most memorable to me.

Season 3 overall is much better than it’s given credit for.

I’m in the middle of season 3 right now. Love the tholians. Whoever thought those up was insane.

Nice insight to Turnabout Intruder working as a callback to earlier episodes.

Spectre of the Gun was art.

Let me see if I can summarize everything I love about you guys and the show. First, I love that you guys are open minded about a lot of the things some other audiences might find cheesy or outdated or even outmoded. The fact that you guys can kinda look past all of that and focus in on the story, the characters and 'the things that matter' (as subjective as that might sound). Also, and I've probably said this a number of times already, but the enthusiasm you guys bring. There's always joy that's infectious and super fun to watch. Also, I love it that you guys don't necessarily like everything I like and vice versa (though there is a large overlap) b/c it gives me a chance to see someone else's perspective on what it is they like about something I'm meh on. Similarly, I like hearing criticisms of the things I do like. All of it gives me a chance at seeing what it is others are seeing that I may not be. I also don't get why people have this overriding compulsion to hate on someone else's likes. I mean, I may feel a bit defensive if someone starts tearing into my favorite things... but, I don't take glee or joy in going after someone else's preferences. It's like arguing that b/c I like apple pie, I'm going to take a poop on someone who prefers cherry pie... I... don't get it. Anyway, thanks for this s3 review and looking forward to more!

Instead of "worst," I would say "least great."

Even bad Trek has good within it thanks to the hard work of the cast and crew. This is true of all series of Trek, and movies (even Star Trek V & Nemesis). Great reactions, looking forward to more.

Maybe it's because I grew up with Star Trek every weekend in syndication (where, back then, they didn't run them in any particular order), but I never thought of the series as seasons and so never ranked the seasons. In my head, the show consists of individual episodes; the vast majority of them being good, solid science fiction, with a few stand out favorites, and a few clunkers. Anyways, I think you gentlemen hit the nail on the head when you said that people enjoy watching other people react positively to things they themselves treasure. Thanks for letting us share these with you.

You want goofy, weird premises? Wait til you start watching "The Animated Series"! Everything is drawn, there were no physical constraints due to effects, props, makeup or budget. The writers could cut loose and go nuts - and so could the animators! And you'll be able to see this in the very first episode! They're not perfect by any means, but you can tell Roddenberry was pushing the limits for all it was worth!

Great work on the series. When i was a young kid in the 60’s, my parents watched Star Trek but it came on too late for my brother and I to see it. I became a big fan in the mid-70’s when it went into syndication. My favorite little thing to do is to call out the episode title as quickly as possible after the teaser starts, like Name That Tune. I think you guys were pretty great. You were thorough and mindful. Good job.

Some have talked through the years bout how because of a more limited budget the producers were forced to have allot more shows on board ship instead of planet stories. Well to each his own. But l really preferred ship board stories myself. Especially one's where we got to see some new parts of the ship. And we got to see plenty of that in the third season. We got to see an arboretum for the first time in ls There In Truth No Beauty. We got to see the ship's "Life Support Center" for the first time in Wink of an Eye. We saw a new and enlarged recreation area in And The Children Shall Lead. And other examples. The reactor access tube also in That Which Survives l thought was another cool example. Although that was still mostly a planet bound episode. But for anyone yearning to see new parts of the ship we had never seen before the third season had to be very enjoyable! I love Elan of Troyious. And l love the Metropolis analogy in The Cloud Minders! And if you add and consider Star Trek Continues to be cannon (which I do myself regardless of what Paramount may say) and taking place from the end of the third season to the end of the five year mission, then the third season and it's "delayed conclusion" as I like to call it, Star Trek Continues, is certainly just as good if not better in some ways than the first two seasons! And for a show that had it's budget cut in some way's the third season had better special fx, and by that I mean the show's original fx, than the first two seasons!

Pretty sure I commented before that season three gets a bad rap. Like you guys, it has some of my favorite episodes. I enjoyed the video.

I'm an old Star Trek fan, and I wouldn't say that S3 was the worst. I don't think there is a worst season, just episodes that you may not like. For instance, while the first season lacks a lot of the chemistry and continuity we see in the later seasons, its rawness leads to less predictability, even in the cast. And MANY of the iconic episodes that I think of when I think of Star Trek occur in S3. As for the rest of the Star Trek world, I like the OG movies as an encore of the original series because I like the cast. I don't like any of the other Star Trek properties, even though Next Generation had some very well-written scripts around the middle years. None of the other groups of characters captured my attention like the original cast. It's not even close. 🖖 If I was trying to introduce someone to Star Trek, to give them a sense of it in one episode, "Spectre of the Gun" is the one I'd choose. And yes, you guys should watch "Tombstone." Not only is it a great movie, but it helps people who thought they didn't like westerns realize that the genre has appeal. I'm not saying that as advocate of westerns. It's more like introducing a friend to a new cuisine. If you know a restaurant that does a great job of it, and a special few dishes to try, that's where you want to take your friend. Definitely "Tombstone" as the first western. And if you develop a taste, I'd suggest "Unforgiven" as the next course.

I just recently discovered a bit of Star Trek trivia. The salt vampire from the 1st season episode The Man Trap was played by a female stunt performer who appeared as a background Tolosian in the two part episode The Menagerie, but even more interesting is that she was also the blonde pigtail girl scout in the bar fight scene in the movie Airplane. I just that was funny as hell.

BTW Ralph Senensky is still alive at 100. I too found a lot to like in episodes I'd dismissed earlier.

Can't wait until you see the second movie. A+

We as trekies or trekers, have a lot of baggage. I think you guys have come across this, and I admit I'm guilty. After decades of rewatching these, we have built up a bit of groupthink. "City on the Edge of Forever is the best", "The Empath is the worst". There is a podcast called Mission Log, that goes through each episode, but one thing that has influenced me more than anything else is that they say everyone's least favorite episode has people that think it's their favorite. It's great to see someone that is entering the universe as a virgin see how it works. You've come up with unique takes on a 60-year-old show. You are now part of the collective. Your unique aspects will be absolved into the collective.(a joke you will get eventually as you get into the colecive)

I’ve genuinely never minded “And The Children Shall Lead”

Totally agree on your #1 episode pick! It's mine too

Poor Fred Freiburger. He produced the third season of star trek and second season of space 1999. I think he did a good job with the material. I really like your comment about "outside information" dominating opinion. For the record, the Tholian web is my favorite episode.

A good, accessible Western for non-enthusiasts is Silverado. An all-star cast with lots of familiar faces and a script that is engaging and fast-paced.

In my opinion, it was only the fact that Star Trek had had two good seasons that a third season produced with deep budget cuts in a horrible time slot, along with outsiders serving as script editor and producer, that it was able to work. It worked because the cast and crew KNEW how to do their jobs, despite everything.

My top 10 from this season are: 10 All Our Yesterdays 9 The Enterprise Incident 8 Spock's Brain 7 Wink of an Eye 6 That Which Survives 5 Turnabout Intruder 4 The Tholian Web 3 Spectre of the Gun 2 And the Children Shall Lead 1 Day of the Dove

Alec and Josh loved this season bc of low expectations and expectations means a ton how we experience art (movies, tv, music or paintings)

The cast of TOS continues with the animated episodes and the first 6 films. Looking forward to your reaction to those episodes.

Great, love the third TOS series too, in no ways 'the worst'! Also agree with the Turnabout Intruder choice, know it gets a lot of stick for its supposed non PC-ness, but it's great camp, especially Kirk, and a great way to bow out! :)

Very happy you guys liked season 3. Back in mid 2000s I did a 100 favorite trek episode list for trekweb. The list was from all 5 series, and I was surprised that most of my favorite TOS episodes were from season 3. Keep this example in mind when there's mixed feelings for any movie or show. Such as Superman 3 gets tons of hate, but I like it better than Superman 2. As for my 100 favorites list... each series had around 20 excellent episodes... TOS, TNG, VOY, DS9 AND ENTERPRISE.

"And the children shall lead" is a fine episode all the way around. As a kid I was surprised by the animosity others held against it. I assumed it was born out of envy, other kid-fans didn't like it because they saw kids on the Enterprise, and it wasn't them. "Day of the Dove" would have made my list.

Asking which TOS season is the worst is like asking what part of a gourmet five course meal was the worst. It’s meaningless, all three seasons were great, despite some less than savory episodes

The actress who played Miranda Jones in "Is there in truth no Beauty" shows up in season 2 of TNG.

Season 3 was a good season especially considering that it was under so much pressure. It still had some of my favorite episodes.

You Guys Are Amazing!! Binge Watched all your shows. Brilliant Stuff. Can't wait for the next generation!!

I think they did the best they could with the reduced budget and having to mostly to stay on the Enterprise sets. Fred Freiberger to his credit, was a producer was very action oriented, having come from "The Wild Wild West". The season did have many stand outs. Having re-watched "All Our Yesterdays with you guys and remembering who the main Guest Star and her romance with Spock, makes me recommend the TV movie "Genesis II" even more now. All three seasons did find new audiences after its cancellation. No one was more surprised than Paramount Television when stations kept purchasing runs for a show of only 79 episodes! This what got NBC re-interested in the show, wondering how they could get a piece of this newfound Star Trek money.

This has been a wonderful ride. Looking forward to the rest of it 😀

Some historical trivia (not meant as a criticism of TOS Season 3, which I also really like): Season 3 was the only season of the original Star Trek not to receive any nominations for the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo. The Hugos were awarded by calendar year rather than TV season, so TOS’ nominations and wins were for 1966 and 1967, coming from Season 1 and the first half of Season 2. The TOS episodes from “The Gamesters of Triskelion” through “Elaan of Troyius” first aired in 1968. It made no difference what films or TV shows the World Science Fiction Convention nominated that year, since the winner was "2001: A Space Odyssey," the greatest science fiction film ever made, which would have been certain to win against any conceivable competition. For the record, the other four nominees were: “Fall Out,” the series finale of "The Prisoner," one of the TOS-era shows which various people have recommended you watch (and which, unlike TOS, has a “series finale” in the modern sense); "Charly," a feature film adaptation of the classic SF novel "Flowers for Algernon"; the film "Rosemary’s Baby"; and "Yellow Submarine," the animated feature starring the Beatles. The final eleven TOS episodes, from “Whom Gods Destroy” through “Turnabout Intruder,” aired in 1969. The Hugo winner that year was one of the most unusual in the awards’ history: the news coverage of the Apollo 11 mission, which some might argue was not a “Dramatic Presentation” in any sense. The other nominees were the TV movie "The Immortal" and three feature films: "The Bed Sitting Room," a post-apocalyptic comedy based on a play of the same name; "The Illustrated Man." an anthology film based on Ray Bradbury’s short story collection of the same name; and "Marooned," a realistic astronaut drama which won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects and, under the alternate title "Space Travelers," eventually became the first Oscar-winning movie featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000." Although "Marooned" is the only one of these films I have seen, 1969 seemingly was not a strong year for science fiction cinema, making Worldcon’s unusual choice of winner understandable. NBC canceled TOS two episodes early, or, to put it another way, chose not to order the final two episodes of Season 3, which ran for only 24 episodes. Episode 25 would have been “The Joy Machine,” scripted by Meyer Dolinsky (writer of “Plato’s Stepchildren”) and based on a story outline from Season 2 by Theodore Sturgeon (“Shore Leave,” “Amok Time”). The story was an allegory about drug addiction (which TOS had previously addressed obliquely in “The Cage” and “This Side of Paradise”). William Shatner was going to direct the episode, which was already in pre-production when official word came down during the filming of “Turnabout Intruder” that NBC was canceling Star Trek. Sturgeon’s outline was yet another tragic love story for Kirk, but Dolinsky’s Season 3 script featured Scotty and McCoy. This would have lessened Shatner’s acting workload in the episode, making it an appropriate choice for him to direct. Science fiction author James E. Gunn novelized "The Joy Machine" in 1996, basing the book on Sturgeon’s original story outline, not the Dolinsky script. Episode 26 would probably have been “The Godhead” by former TOS showrunner and frequent writer John Meredyth Lucas (the auteur of “Elaan of Troyius”), but might possibly have been “Shol,” an extremely depressing story by Darlene Hartman which she originally submitted during Season 2. Synopses of all three of these episodes are available at the Orion Press website. Either “The Godhead” or “Shol” would have ended TOS with one last “God” story, which might have been appropriate, in a way, but would probably have irritated Alex and Josh. If NBC had renewed Star Trek for a fourth season, Margaret Armen, the writer of “The Gamesters of Triskelion” and “The Paradise Syndrome” and co-writer of “The Cloud Minders,” would have been Fred Freiberger’s choice as the show’s new story editor. Unfortunately, it would have been necessary for Season 4 to drop at least one regular cast member to save money, as would indeed happen on TAS, from which Walter Koenig is absent. If you are looking for one-off reactions to do alongside "Buffy" between now and the start of TAS, I recommend the 2019 documentary "Apollo 11," featuring spectacularly cleaned-up footage from the defining event in the history of human space exploration, which occurred shortly after TOS’ cancellation.

Since you have finished the series, it technically is All Our Yesterdays, now. Welcome to the club, yo.

I think the problem with The Cloud Minders is just that Kirk had to drag the info about Pon Farr out of Spock with wild horses in Amok Time, yet Spock openly talks about it to this total stranger (a gorgeous total stranger, I'll give you that). Otherwise, it's a good episode.

Growing up I didn’t know that season 3 was bad until I read it in the fanzines of the time. Angry writers interviews, upset actors. Some of my favorite episodes are in the third season. Plus the uniforms look better.

If you like moments of the crew just sitting around a table and talking, then you're gonna LOVE Next Generation! LOL In all serious, though, as others have already said-- watching it through the fresh eyes of new viewers has really elevated my opinion of season 3. It's maligned more than it deserves and I'm glad to have come around to it. I hope the detractors of the Animated Series will see the value of it, as well. Thanks, guys!

I absolutely connect with you guys. As a long time Trekkie, AND ex-pro wrestler, I have enjoyed your reactions, especially when you geek out on the Kirk bumps.

Perhaps you guys are right. “Worst” might be a little strong, and yes, you only have 3 seasons to go by. The quality definitely was lower though. Like Ive said before, to me, there are some gems. Also, this is an odd observation, but Im odd, so I’ll go with it….I prefer the 3rd season intro the best. I like the blue lettering more, and the original re-orchestrated theme. Im not talking about the re-mastered theme. Frankly, I dont like what they did. The opera singer is too in the forefront, and bombastic. It should be more of a muffled “oooooo” than belting the “ahhhh” that she does. If you can find a track of the ORIGINAL 3rd season theme, and compare it with seasons 1 and 2, its much more rhythmic, and has that what I can only describe as that 1950’s “UFO” sound. Anyway, great job as always. Instead of worst, maybe “weakest” might be a more accurate term?

I agree with most of what you said and enjoyed your review. In 1981, I chose "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" as my favourite episode for the whole series and it stayed for some time until I decided it's too difficult to have just one. Also, I made an evaluation of my own back then and decided 12 of the 24 episodes in the third season are either good or very good but the other 12 not so good or really awful. Since then, with maturity I've upgraded many of the not so good ones and there are just a handful (six in fact) I find difficult to watch: SB, MG, WEd, PSt, ACL, TI. Each has a redeeming quality of some kind.

You know TOS is not over if you ever want to step into the book world. There are great pocketbook stories with the TOS crew and of course other STs.. 😉

Best of Season 3: Is There in Truth No Beauty/ The Enterprise Incident/ All Our Yesterdays/ The Tholian Web

If Character interactions were your favorite part of Star Trek, You guys are Really gonna Love The Next Generation & Deep Space 9

I ended up enjoying season 3 as well! I agree with your favorite episode too.. it’s been a fun ride. On a side note.. I took some of the advice in your comment section and started watching Star Trek Continues. It took me an episode to really get tuned in, but wow.. it is very close to Trek and continues the story carrying the magic of TOS. I hope you guys watch it even if you don’t react to it.. but please share your thoughts if you do 🙂

You can't dodge a laser: you can't see it till it hits your eyeball :)

I really hope u guys start the movies next? There r call backs to the original series too.

There’s easily as much lore behind the scenes of this show. I was watching the first episode of a limited series called “The Captain’s Seat- 55 Years of Star Trek”. It would be an excellent reference for you to get up to speed.

Perhaps the reason for the third season let down for some younger viewers at the time were the special effects, which were a major component of the charm (ground breaking for a TV series, maybe a couple of movies in the 50s had comparable special effects, such as Forbidden Planet and War of the Worlds), but the third season defaulted to standard sets and FX with the lower budget, something like The Twilight Zone.

I think it's more consistency than quality. When it's good it's good, when it's bad it's really bad

Fun recap. I am an old, longtime Star Trek fan, and I think that Season 3 has some of my favorite episodes (e.g., the episode featuring the female Romulan commander). I had read some stories that the network executives wanted to get rid of the series, but I didn't know the details of budget cuts or conflicts with the stars or writers.

The Dark Knight trilogy analogy is perfect. The Dark Knight Rises was definitely not as "good" as the first two movies, but it isn't "bad". I did a full series rewatch of ST:TNG during COVID and Season 1 of that was significantly better than I remember despite the negative press it gets. Are the later seasons "better"? Yes. Is it "bad"? No.

You have never seen "The good, the bad and the ugly"? It's long but worth a watch.

Excellent job, fellas. I've enjoyed your work throughout. I probably won't be watching along for the animated series, because I don't think I could sit through it again. But when you start with the later stuff (1979+), I'll be there.

Good point about stuff being written about the show affecting its legacy; with a show like Star Trek TOS there is so much that has been said about it that the way it has been solidified in collective memory does not necessarily correspond 1:1 to what the show was like in reality. To give an example, many people have an idea of Cpt. Kirk as a brash and philanderous swashbuckler which I think is very exaggerated and does not accurately reflect the source material. What are your thoughts? Keep up the good work, guys!

When you get to The Next Generation just give season 1 a chance. It's uneven and sometimes cringy bad but it is an amazing series in total so forge ahead knowing it will get better.

They've completed TOS. Now just TAS, 13 movies, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Short Treks, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds and whatever upcoming shows and movies come out in the decade or so it takes them to go through those...

It's interesting to hear that some people were justifying their disliking of an episode by saying the writers or actors said they didn't like it after the fact. By that logic, The City on the Edge of Forever ought to be awful since Ellison hated the finished product so much.

If you like "All Our Yesterdays," a book picked up the story. Zarabeth has Spock's child.

Well, I'm glad you both enjoyed the Third Season. To me, it will always be the season of "Herbert," "I am Abraham Lincoln," and "Brain and brain what is brain?" That doesn't affect my enjoyment of "Elaan of Troyius," or "Is There in Truth No Beauty." But this season simply had many episodes that the show would be more respected overall had they never aired. "The Cloud Minders" seems so muddled compared to the elegant "A Taste of Armageddon." "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield's" treatment of bigotry seems so clumsy compared to "Balance of Terror." At least the Third Season provides Lower Decks plenty of things to riff off of. And hey, all the downplaying meant you two went in with low expectations and were pleasantly surprised!

I think you can determine which season is worse by how many episodes you dislike in season, cuz most of the episodes are good or great

I appreciate how season three was a little weirder, a little trippier, and willing to try some new things. For instance, in the first couple of seasons, very few episodes deal with the Enterprise visiting advanced planets and interacting with their cultures, A Taste of Armageddon and maybe a few others, the focus back then was on more primitive worlds, but in season three there are several of these. Sure, there are the requisite Earth parallels, but they are balanced out by these other episodes. Fred Freiberger was no Gene Roddenberry or L. Coon but he did have some good ideas. But he also, apparently, really liked romantic interests, and there were just too d**n many, every other week it seems like. Sometimes the melodrama works. For instance, Is There In Truth No Beauty is almost like a Douglas Sirk film in outer space. But a lot of times it didn't, and did grow a little tiresome. Bottom line, season three doesn't have any of my very favorite episodes, but it does have several that I like quite a bit, and on the whole is quite entertaining. Glad you guys didn't listen to the hype and arrived at your own conclusions.

I averaged the orders of the various TOS episode rankings I found online, and this is the totality of what I came up with: 1. The City on the Edge of Forever 2. Mirror, Mirror 3. Balance of Terror 4. Space Seed 5. Amok Time 6. Arena 7. Journey to Babel 8. The Devil in the Dark 9. The Trouble with Tribbles 10. The Doomsday Machine 11. The Enterprise Incident 12. The Galileo Seven 13. A Taste of Armageddon 14. Where No Man Has Gone Before 15. The Menagerie 16. Errand of Mercy 17. A Piece of the Action 18. The Enemy Within 19. The Tholian Web 20. The Corbomite Maneuver 21. The Conscience of the King 22. The Naked Time 23. All Our Yesterdays 24. Charlie X 25. Tomorrow Is Yesterday 26. Court Martial 27. The Changeling 28. The Apple 29. The Immunity Syndrome 30. Who Mourns for Adonais? 31. Metamorphosis 32. The Return of the Archons 33. Day of the Dove 34. Dagger of the Mind 35. Assignment: Earth 36. I, Mudd 37. A Private Little War 38. By Any Other Name 39. The Cloud Minders 40. Operation: Annihilate! 41. Wink of an Eye 42. The Ultimate Computer 43. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield 44. The Deadly Years 45. Spectre of the Gun 46. The Squire of Gothos 47. That Which Survives 48. This Side of Paradise 49. What Are Little Girls Made Of? 50. Friday's Child 51. For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky 52. Shore Leave 53. Obsession 54. Patterns of Force 55. Return to Tomorrow 56. The Savage Curtain 57. Catspaw 58. Requiem for Methuselah 59. Whom Gods Destroy 60. Wolf in the Fold 61. Bread and Circuses 62. The Gamesters of Triskelion 63. Plato's Stepchildren 64. The Empath 65. The Man Trap 66. And the Children Shall Lead 67. The Omega Glory 68. Is There in Truth No Beauty? 69. The Paradise Syndrome 70. Elaan of Troyius 71. Mudd's Women 72. The Lights of Zetar 73. Miri 74. Spock's Brain 75. The Mark of Gideon 76. The Way to Eden 77. The Alternative Factor 78. Turnabout Intruder

I think CBS had them slotted at 10pm in the third season. A lot of fans lost touch with the show, until after it was cancelled and went into syndication. Then it was shown nightly at dinner time, and everyone watched it. The third season wasn't much different than the first two seasons, but ratings dropped because of its time slot.

Grew up on a constant flow of TOS. Never really Knew, paid attention or cared about what season an episode came from.

Gosh I hate to spam the comments section but I have to stop again and back up what Alex is saying about budget cuts not necessarily meaning a bad story. Enterprise season 4 is its best season (to me, ranked second behind DS9 Seasons 4-7, which are essentially Peak Trek) and the budget was cut so drastically that on the Star Trek The Next Conversation podcast (which is done by 2 television writers) they were flabbergasted at how the show was even produced for the amount they were saying. So not just cut, but cut to a level 2 pros couldn’t even believe, and it produced the best season of the show.

I hated this season as a kid but when I watched them a few years back as an adult I was surprised to find out I enjoyed most of them. There were 4 or 5 clunkers. But my least favorite season of any Star Trek has to be season 1 of TNG, which I also just watched this past year.

I like the heavy use of those cool Enterprise sets in Season 3. I like the new music cues. The comedy element of Season 2 was interestingly toned down. You can feel the series transitioning out of the '60's. Love S3.

I cannot add much to the comments on how fun it has been sharing this series with you. I can recommend a western series that Josh may like, Brisco County Junior. You can't go to far wrong with Bruce Campbell in the lead.

There are many great episode ideas in Season 3, they just weren't properly developed. But a lot still turned out OK

Wow, your top fives are always surprising

The problem with season 3 is that the budget and production issues were limiting the ambition and ability to realise the stories. Moving back to season one makes this clear, while watching in sequence masks this to a degree. 'The Cloud Miners' is an interesting script that needed a season 1 budget to achieve its potential. Too many scripts were forced to fall back on the Enterprise sets. The engine room of the Romulan Warbird is so small, the missing cloaking device doesn't require the Romulans to have to turn around to spot when they enter. They should see it immediately.

I started watching TOS as re-runs in the late 70s/early 80s. So, I've never seen them in broadcast order and until later had no idea what season was what. Its a different experience I suppose. As for the season 3 my least favorite is probably the hippie episode.

This is by far my favorite channel of late. Great job guys. I've been a Star Trek fan since I was a kid, when the only Star Trek was the original series. I'm not sure if you know this but Diana Muldaur, the guest actress in your favorite episode, is going to be a regular in season 2 of TNG.

I’ve been watching these out of order for so long (decades) that I thought the one about Lazarus was one of those terrible third season episodes!

You guys have made me re-examine a lot of episodes I thought I hated, but I still can't rock with Turnabout Intruder man... Sorry Josh

Was hoping you guys would wrap up season three. I never thought it was as bad as many think.There are some great episodes, a lot of good ones and definitly a handful of clunkers. That said even the "bad" ones have moments that are worthwhile and can be goofy fun. By the way guys watch "Spocks Brain" while playing the drinking game. Every time someone says "Brain" you take a shot! Guarenteed to be hammered by the time the episode is over. 😂

Aww, damn. They’re _clearly_ back to shooting this couch in two different rooms.

There were quite a few episodes in season 3 that tie directly into the movies & future TV shows. Like let that be your last battle field & the tholian web. The latter ties right into an enterprise episode in a mirror darkly. One of the best enterprise episodes.

When you said you'd name your favorite episode in unison I knew one of you would mistitle it. Good thing it wasn't Requiem For Methuselah!

The Enterprise Incident. That’s why it’s better than you remember, or at least reason 1

People say the same thing about TNG season 1. I rewatched that during the Pandemic, and yeah, there are some bad episodes but there are also some really good episodes. The show hadn’t hit its stride yet but the season is better than a lot of people give it credit for.

I can’t believe Day of the Dove didn’t make the list.

Personally consider Spectre of the Gun The Enterprise Incident and The Tholian Web as favourites .