The third season of TOS. On the one hand, it's one to be thankful for - Season Three brought the episode count up to syndication levels, which allowed for the series' rebirth in the 1970's. However, it is fair to say that Season Three - the oft derided "turd season" - has a decidedly different reputation than TOS' first two years.
A SEASON OF TWO HALVES
I'd actually say the reputation isn't fully deserved. Particularly when viewed in production order, the first half of Season Three isn't really that much worse than the back half of Season Two. Certainly, there's a drop in quality between Season Two and early Season Three - but I'd argue it's far from precipitous, with many strong episodes. The Enterprise Incident, Spectre of the Gun, Day of the Dove, and The Tholian Web are shows that could hold their heads high in any season of Star Trek. Wink of an Eye and The Paradise Syndrome may be a bit silly, but they are also a lot of fun to watch. As of the mid-season, there really isn't any sign that Star Trek as we have known it is going to fall apart.
Then comes That Which Survives. I understand the episode has its champions. But to me, it's the first show of the season that's about absolutely nothing. And the Children Shall Lead was bad, but I honestly think the production staff was trying. That Which Survives feels like something churned out to fill an episode slot. The depleted budget clearly harms the episode, which spends a lot of its running time on one of the worst-looking planet sets of the entire series. The character writing is weak, with Spock particularly "off." Most of all, I just don't get the sense that the people making it cared anymore. And from that point on, the season declines sharply, noticeably. From that point on, the season practically becomes Wile E. Coyote, running off the edge of the cliff before plummeting to the Earth below.
The back half of the season often does live down to the "turd season" label. There are no "great" episodes in the latter half of Season Three, with only All Our Yesterdays and Requiem for Methuselah standing as particularly above the series' average. The remainder of the late Season Three episodes range from middling to downright awful. Some episodes have worthy ideas at their core, but are realized in so silly a manner that it's impossible to take them seriously. Others are simply lifeless retreads of stories the series used to do much, much better.
PRODUCTION DEFECTIONS AND SHRINKING BUDGETS
It's probably no coincidence that it's at about this point that veteran production personnel began leaving the show. A particularly notable defection is that of producer Robert Justman, who left only one episode later, in part because of the series' declining quality. D. C. Fontana had her name taken off her third season scripts (That Which Survives, The Way to Eden), in part because they were so badly rewritten to the point that her original ideas were unrecognizable. After the mangling of The Way to Eden, she refused to even submit further ideas to the series. Gene L. Coon was already gone, and his name also does not appear on his third season offerings. The people who had made Star Trek what it was were gradually dropping away - and as they did, the series' quality fell. Hard.
These production defections didn't happen in a vacuum. Justman, for example, cited declining quality as one reason for departing. But he also observed the poor treatment of the series by the network. A large part of that was budgetary. Never really a big budget show, Star Trek saw its resources cut to the bone for its final season.
The first half of the season does a decent job of disguising this. There are more ship-bound episodes to cut down on the need for new sets, and the only location filming is confined to The Paradise Syndrome. Save for an appallingly cheap planet set for And the Children Shall Lead, the series does a fair job of covering up its financial handicap. I don't know if they had a second budget cut or if they blew all their money on the effects for The Tholian Web. Either way, the second half of the season suddenly looks appallingly cheap. Even the rare good episodes late in the season feel more like filmed stage plays than like television shows... and even clever scripts like Requiem for Methuselah take a big hit in terms of pacing. The late Season Three episodes just plain "feel longer" than the episodes of seasons past - or even those of earlier that same year.
THE SHATNER EFFECT
William Shatner's performance as Kirk is probably most remembered by the general public for its, ah, enthusiasm. Readers of my reviews may remember how pleasantly surprised I was by his Season One performances. His early performances were generally underplayed, with a crisp and military tone to Kirk's interactions with his officers. This softened in Season Two, and the Shatner Ham began to really creep in. But with a few exceptions, Shatner still did good work - it was just much broader than it had been.
In Season Three, Shatner lets go of mere ham and shoots for the full boar. What's really telling is that this is no bad thing. In many episodes, the Shatner!Ham! ends up being a saving grace. In the midst of a dreary retread like Whom Gods Destroy, Shatner gnashing his teeth and howling like an animal brings welcome relief. Say what you will about him: He's a master of "good ham," with his overacting usually providing a bit of reliable entertainment value.
So yes, Shatner may be completely off the leash in Season Three... but in a season with increasing problems on a storytelling level, there's actually something to be said for that. Still, most of the jokes about Shatner's hammy acting can probably be traced back to this season more than any other.
IN CONCLUSION
I don't want to come across too negatively. Not only is this season one of the main reasons for Star Trek's enduring popularity, having clinched an episode count that allowed for its revival in syndication - It also offers some genuinely fine episodes. Still, it would be difficult to deny that it's a season that features more bad episodes than the previous two years put together. And once the Trek veterans behind the cameras start leaving around the midseason, it becomes very bad indeed.
There's no question in my mind but that the series would be a poorer place without The Tholian Web, The Enterprise Incident, Spectre of the Gun, and All Our Yesterdays. Heck, I even find unthinkable the prospect of a Star Trek without the camp classic that is Spock's Brain!
At the same time, I'm glad that the plug was pulled. The third season grew progressively worse as it went along. A fourth year would likely have deteriorated even further. All told, 1960's Star Trek ended at exactly the right time. As a series, it provided many hours of very good television, with only a handful of hours of very bad television (most of it concentrated near the very end). Even in its final year, it turned out some excellent television. And just as it lost the capacity to do that on a regular basis, it ended... leaving room for a minor revival in the early 1970's with the animated series, and a much more enduring revival with the movies and spinoff series of the decades that followed.
I don't think one could ask much more than that. Even if it does mean sitting through The Lights of Zetar.
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I had no idea that Season Three was necessary in order for there to be enough episodes for the series to be syndicated; thanks so much for that very interesting piece of information!
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