"The Tholian Web" Writer: Judy Burns & Chet Richards Director: Herb Wallerstein Producer: Fred Freiberger When it comes to lists of "actually good" episodes of third season Trek, "The Tholian Web" usually comes near the top of the list, usually under "The Enterprise Incident". And it does have a ton of stuff that makes it fodder for Trekkies: new alien races, new technology, alternate dimensions, a strong Kirk/Spock/McCoy focus, and even a good showcase for the "junior officers" due to Shatner's reduced screentime.
But "The Tholian Web" is also fascinating for the way in which it examplifies an odd trend of the entire third season, which is namely the change in genre focus of the entire series. Season three is significantly more pulpy than the show was previously. There's more of the kind of sensationalist content you'd expect from the lead cover stories of old sci-fi magazines, all with a kind of bizarre horror tinge. Previously, the Enterprise explored a galaxy full of challenges and moral questions, yes, but a galaxy that makes sense. But in season three, the bizarre and unknowable rears its head for stories that are more dedicated to be unnerving and strange than to posing intellectual or philisophical dilemmas.
In this case, "The Tholian Web" is above all a ghost story. While it's heart may be the dilemmas Spock faces while in command, and learning to turn to and appreciate the advice of McCoy, the "weird" that drives the story is that Captain Kirk (and the entire abandoned starship he was on at the time) has disappeared and is presumed dead, but then begins appearing in a spectral form around the ship to several crewmen, including Uhura initially.
The complications to recovering the captain prove equally memorable, with the introduction of one of the series most unique and memorable aliens, the titular Tholians. That it took almost forty years for another one to show up in a Trek production made them ever more mysterious and noted in the minds of fandom. And ultimately the episode's true heart, the scene where Spock and McCoy view Kirk's recorded "last orders", cuts right to the kind of character interaction that ultimately made the series so beloved and remembered over the years. If the episode has an issue, it's the one that many of the episodes this season share. Namely that it doesn't have enough content to really fill it's hour, and ends up feeling slow and repetitive through a large portion of its runtime.
"The Empath" Writer: Joyce Muskat Director: John Erman Producer: Fred Freiberger
"The Empath" is a fascinating episode of Star Trek and I've been struggling with how to talk about it. Certainly it's the episode that leans the hardest into the budgetary confinements of season, producing a surreal, stage play atmosphere that might seem familiar to anyone who sat through the third season of the 1960s Batman TV show.
Kirk, Spock and McCoy are trapped by aliens with a mysterious fourth prisoner, a woman Bones dubs "Gem". She can't speak, but she is empathic, to a sci-fi degree where in addition to feeling a person's emotional states she can also touch them and absorb their pain and injuries. She literally can cure people but only by hurting herself.
The aliens who've captured them have placed them underground in a seemingly endless black void with occasional props or furniture or devices scattered about, all designed to "test" their subjects, primarily by causing them pain and then seeing how Gem responds. They particularly want to know how far she'll go in harming herself to save others, and if she can be taught to sacrifice herself for the good of strangers.
In terms of the presence of aliens in silver robes with enlarged skulls testing captive humans for an unknown purpose, this episode definitely feels like a bizarre theatrical stage play reworking of the original pilot, "The Cage", updated from 1964 to 1968. But the focus is different. The pilot was about "can we trick this depressed human into being horny enough to mate a slave class for us?", this episode is about "Is a species of empaths worth saving from annihilation, if we can discover if they can use their powers for good?"
But ultimately the minimalist sets and sparse nature of the plot means the episode becomes focused in on the show's characters, particularly it's lead trio, and showing how Kirk, Spock and McCoy all react to the situation they've been placed in, and how they feel towards Gem and towards their captors. DeForrest Kelley cited this episode as his favourite of the series and maybe it's because its budgetary limitations meant the focus needed to be on the actors, their emotions and their performances, more than the trappings of gadgets, monsters and effects.
The actress playing Gem, Kathryn Hays, was trained first and foremost as a dancer. Her performance is extremely effective. It has perhaps it's broad moments, but given that her character is mute and must carry the episode and serve as its lynchpin without dialogue, her expressions and movements must be understood to be occuring in a mime/dance tradition, furthering the "modern theatre" atmosphere of the episode as a whole.
It's an abnormal episode of Trek, but its a standout entry in the beleagured third season.
"Is There in Truth No Beauty?" Writer: Jean Lisette Aroeste Director: Ralph Senensky Producer: Fred Freiberger
This episode is always tough for me to judge, because it's got some excellent sci-fi concepts and some really nice character exploration, but the execution stumbles and falls due to writing that doesn't trust the audience to figure things out for themselves.
The premise is there is an alien race called the Medusans, who are extremely civilized, culturally advanced, intellectually gifted, etc and who take to problems of navigation like a fish to water. Unfortunately their race is a non-corporeal shapeless mass of light who's form is so alien to human comprehension the sight of them drives people mad, HP Lovecraft style.
The Medusan ambassador is brought aboard the Enterprise accompanied by a telepath, Dr Miranda Jones -- played by Diana Muldaur in a rare example of a returning guest star in a different role. It kinda irks me that the series just decides to say "Oh yeah, human telepaths are a thing" out of the blue, but I guess the second pilot established ESP was legit, so that's fine I suppose. It at least established that she had to study with the Vulcans to learn to control her abilities. Anyway, she's supposed to communicate the ambassador's wishes to the humans around -- turns out she can interact with him fine because she's blind, which is played like a big reveal way down the episode's runtime (she can "see" with the aid of a sensor net she wears as part of her ensembles).
Most of the episode is given over to a few things - one is that all the men on the ship keep remarking on how beautiful Miranda is and trying to make it with her (except Spock of course). The other is that Spock can potentially meld with the ambassador due to his mental abilities but Miranda is fiercely jealous. Basically, y'know, the super "ugly" ambassador is a real chill dude, but the super "beautiful" telepath is all jealous and bitter and full of hate. Do you get the theme? Get it? Things get out of hand, and the climax of the episode is the Medusan ambassador entering Spock's body so as to interact with the crew to save the ship when it's lost in space due to a spell of madness having fallen on a character who saw the ambassador's true form.
The character study of Miranda Jones is very well rendered, an excellent portrayal of jealousy and bitterness and self-loathing. But the continual use of the words "beauty" and "ugly" to describe the various characters not only as rendering the episode's theme extremely obvious (why isn't this episode called "Eye of the Beholder"?), but also makes the Enterprise characters seem very crude. The Medusans are ugly? They're incomprehensible to the human psyche and madness inducing, but I don't know if that really qualifies as "ugly". Generally you need some kind of standard of beauty to compare to, don't you?The fact that the crew also find it, like, hard to believe that Miranda is kind of an awful person just because they're so attracted to her? I get that the message is all about like, surface level appearance versus inner character, but making the lead characters super shallow is a kind of shitty way to go about that. Seeing them all trip over themselves trying to get with Miranda isn't much fun.
The episode's pacing is occasionally sluggish, but it's balanced by the fact that this is a very creative episode in terms of its cinematic style. The relatively lightweight script is ably reinforced by inventive visual techniques, including the light patterns created for the Medusans, the fish-eye lens POV shots to indicate the induced madness, and various other novel experimentations from the usual Star Trek shooting style.
Ultimately, though, this can't save the episode, which often has a meandering feeling, creating different character dilemmas to pad out its running time, because its central idea doesn't have enough depth in it to sustain the entire hour. A bit ironic in an episode about being shallow. Rating: 2 out of 4
"Spock's Brain" Writer: Lee Cronin (Gene L. Coon) Director: Marc Daniels Producer: Fred Freiberger
Well, here we are. If there's an episode of Trek that's a punching bag, this is it. In truth, there are worse episodes of the show - but "Spock's Brain" gets special hate from fandom largely because of its unique history.
After the large effort Trek fandom went through to save the series from cancellation at the end of season two, this was the first episode to be broadcast in the third season. And for those loyal Trekkies who bothered to stay up and stay home for that 10pm premiere on Friday, this episode signalled that the series had been lobotimized just as Spock is.
This episode is written by the great Gene Coon, but since he was employed elsewhere during the third season, it's credited under his pseudonym, Lee Cronin. One could perhaps hope that if he had still been on staff this episode would have been polished more into something that explored its central ideas more, but...
This might be as good as time as any to discuss Star Trek's problem with gender equality. This is a television series that has received a lot of attention and praise over the years for its progressive, liberal, utopia vision of the future. And while the show does a fantastic job on issues of race & war, it stumbles and falls a lot on women's rights.
Part of this has to do with the show's creator. If you asked Gene Roddenberry if he felt women were equal to men, he'd definitely say yes. But he'd say it while he was hiding the side girl to his side girl under his desk because his wife's come to visit the office. This was a guy who was a womanizing alchoholic drug addict thief. And his attitudes translated into the "equal" women officers of the Enterprise wearing hemlines so high their underwear is frequently visible, and guest actresses wearing little more than the bare minimum of fabric to qualify getting on network television. Yes it was the Sixties and the Sexual Revolution, but Roddenberry was a womanizer: guest actresses were hired based on their potential lay factor for Gene.
At its core, Star Trek had sexism baked in, even if it didn't want it there.
So what does that have to do with "Spock's Brain"? Well, the story, such as it is, involves Spock's brain being stolen (without his hair even being disturbed!), and the Enterprise has to track it to an ice planet inhabited by a population of animalistic male cave dwellers on the surface and then an advanced society of women underground. But! The ultra-advanced society isn't actually run or maintained by the women, who are too dumb to understand how to work the technology, which is all automated. Unfortunatey their computer is broken, so they've stolen Spock's brain to put it into the computer to run their society.
The idea is supposed to be about how a gender fragmented society can't survive, the idea that we're stronger together than we are apart that's at the core of so much of Star Trek's ethos. But it's really not strongly explored at all, so what we're left with is that men without women are grunting cavemen and women without men are infantile idiots. The episode is more concerned with campy gags and plot machinations than exploring anything about the society itself.
It seems likely that the network chose the episode to air first because it ostensibly focused on Spock, the series' most popular character. But of course Spock is basically a brainless drone led around by McCoy on remote this episode -- an apt metaphor for Leonard Nimoy's own attitude to the series at this point.
However, if there's one thing to be said in the episode's favour it's this: the story is always moving forward. There isn't the feeling of tire-spinning one gets watching so many of these season three shows. Something happens, and then we're on to the next thing. The script may be ridiculous, with dialogue ripped from an Ed Wood movie, but it's paced well.
Another point in the hour's favour: without Spock, the rest of the cast -- Doohan, Nichols, Takei, Koenig -- all get ample time to shine and contribute. Indeed, season three overall has a better division of focus among the crew, an attempt to make the show more of an ensemble that perhaps may have developed more had the show lasted to a fourth season.
"Spock's Brain" is bad. It's a stupid plot based on a sexist theme. But it's fun, in a campy B-movie sort of way.
"And the Children Shall Lead" Writer: Edward J. Lasko Director: Marvin Chompsky Producer: Fred Freiberger
This episode. This episode is garbage. This garbage episode is a piece of garbage.
Ever see one of those "creepy children" stories? Y'know, where the kids in some small town all get weirdo powers and become creepy murder children who murder their parents and lord it over adults?
Cool. This is that, but on the Enterprise. Remember "Charlie X", back in season one? This is that, but with like five kids instead of one, and with pre-adolescents instead of a teenager, and a bunch of hocus-pocus oogity-boogity instead of character insight and examination. Oh, and the kids get their powers from an evil spirit called The Gorgon who's a glowing green old man in a giant floral print muumuu with a ruffled collar inexplicably played by non-actor Melvin Belli, the lawyer to countless celebrities from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Jack frickin' Ruby.
It's an egregiously terrible hour of television, and the first real sure sign of season three's descent into utter banality. It's also got the central problem that a lot of season three episodes do: not enough plot. There's simply not enough going on here for an hour of television. Kirk & co beam down to a planet to discover the adults are all dead and only the children alive. They beam back to the ship. The kids try to take over using spooky powers. Our heroes realize the kids more or less killed their own parents. Kirk defeats the evil spirit by getting the kids to turn on him by getting them to reconize their parents are actually dead.
That's basically it.
There's maybe something about the generation gap here, about the gulf between parent and child. But by making the kids so young as to be elementary school students, there's nothing really to be said here about the actual generation gap -- and such topics are covered much better in "Charlie X", and even later in "The Way to Eden". This episode is just garbage.
"The Enterprise Incident" Writer: D.C. Fontana Director: John Meredyth Lucas Producer: Fred Freiberger It is not a controversial statement to suggest that "The Enterprise Incident" is easily the best episode in season three. A fan favourite in a derided season, it sticks out like a diamond in the rough. A dynamite script from DC Fontana, excellent direction from Lucas, fantastic performances from the cast, this is an episode firing on all cylinders.
Coming as a response to the "Pueblo incident", this episode engages with the heightened Cold War fears of 1968 in a very intelligent way: by using the political backdrop set up as existing in the Star Trek universe. By using the Romulans and their Neutral Zone, the episode continues to build the world and also avoid the need for exposition that creating some new enemy would require.
The Romulans haven't really been seen since their debut in season one, largely supplanted in season two by the Klingons, though their memory has been kept alive by frequent dialoge mentions and occasional stock footage apperances of their vessels. In this episode, we finally get another deep dive into their intriguing and enigmatic culture and mindset. Unfortunately, we're denied another appearance by the excellent Bird of Prey ship designed by Wah Chang -- instead the show has decided to utilize the recently built Klingon battle cruiser model to "get their money's worth" from it, prompting a line in the script that the Romulans are now using Klingon ship designs. This suggests an intriguing anti-Federation alliance, but unfortunately the episode isn't interested in exploring that.
However, the story we do get is excellent in its own right. It includes Kirk pretending to be an insane gloryhound in order to give an alibi for the Enterprise crossing into Romulan space, Spock serving as a honeypot to distract the brilliant Romulan commander - who is probably one of Trek's best female characters, Spock pretending to kill Kirk, McCoy performing cosmetic surgery on Kirk to transform him into a Romulan, and the subterfuge of Kirk sneaking back onto the Romulan ship to steal their cloaking device... and getting the Romulan commander as a captive to boot.
This episode dives into the geopolitics (astropolitics?) of the Star Trek universe in a way that the original series was very vague upon, and that in general the franchise stayed fuzzy on until The Next Generation started to really hammer things down in it's middle seasons. This alone explains a large portion of its fan favourite nature, but I think there's a lot of other things at play here.
One is the appeal of seeing our heroes as "the bad guys". Like, there are legitimate defense reasons for the Federation wanting to steal a Romulan cloaking device -- but really our guys violate the treaty, commit espionage, sabotage, steal foreign property and capture a foreign officer. They're sneaking around and doing the kind of dirty work that, y'know, comes up in a navy but which the show has kept them largely free of.
But largely I think the thing that wins this episode the most fans are the interactions between Spock and the Romulan commander. D.C. Fontana - who invented the "Spock falls in love" genre with season one's "This Side of Paradise" - gives the series it's best iteration in this episode by creating a plot and characters that allow Fontana to take advantage of the sexual magnetism of the Spock character (who it was noted by the producers had the greatest percentage of female fan mail and also was the most frequently featured in various "adventures" in the fanzines) but doing so in a way that did not require a hackneyed "Spock gains emotions/goes crazy" plot.
Instead, Spock is allowed to remain his inscrutable self, the cool and aloof Vulcan. This is brilliant because it is likely this is a large part of what fans of the show found attractive about him -- a Spock who doesn't act like Spock loses the appeal (other than the ears). And through his subtle, sexually tense interactions with the Romulan commander -- herself a being of equal emotional and intellectual complexities -- we also receive our first real tantalizing clues of what the cultural relationship between Vulcans and their distant cousins, the Romulans, is like. It's a sketch, but a sketch so skillfully drawn it led to the popular Rihannsu novels by Diane Duane later in the 1980s.
This is a really fantastic episode. For Spock, for the Romulans, for D.C. Fontana, for all involved. Miss it at your peril.
"The Paradise Syndrome" Writer: Margaret Armen Director: Jud Taylor Producer: Fred Freiberger
When people talk about which episodes of Trek's third season are actually worthwhile, this is one that often comes up. "The Paradise Syndrome" has some problems, mostly pacing issues and some unfortunate - if well meaning - racial stereotyping. But ultimately, it is one of the better produced and written instalments of the season.
Essentially, the scoop is there's a big asteroid heading for a Class M world, and the Enterprise has to stop it using it's deflector beam. Transporting down to check out the planet, the main trio discover it's inhabited by descendants of Indigenous Americans - "a mixture of Navajo, Mohican and Delaware" according to Spock, which is basically a way for the writers to say "this is a mishmash of stereotypes we didn't do much of any research on". Turns out they were planted here by an advanced alien culture hundreds of years ago to prevent the extinction of their culture on Earth -- an intriguing sci-fi notion that causes McCoy to muse "I always wondered why there were so many humanoids scattered through the galaxy," which is a fantastic way of lampshading that particular Trekkian trope. Anyways, Spock notes that the planet is inexplicably free of craters or any other evidence of meteoric activity, and the trio finds a giant obelisk whose construction is utterly beyond the capable of the planet's inhabitants and that should be mystery solved right there but when Kirk opens his communicator it's distinctive ringtone opens a trapdoor and he gets zapped with a beam down in a control room. Spock and McCoy can't find him and Spock argues to McCoy that they don't have time to search for him or rescue him because they have to go divert the asteroid - explaining that the longer they wait the more power it will take to do so, until it is impossible. So they leave, fly off to the asteroid and totally fail to deflect it, and McCoy spends the rest of the episode bitching to Spock, questioning his every command decision, and generally just whatever Spock wants to do, he is opposed to it.
Meanwhile, on the planet, Kirk has amnesia. He's discovered by the indigenous people, and because they found him in "the temple", he must be a god. He's named "Kirok", is betrothed to the chief's daughter, made into the tribe's "medicine man", and he's expected to perform the rites at the temple that will stop the "sky" from "falling". The previous medicine man did not know the rites - but now he's lost everything and sees "Kirok" as his enemy. While "Kirok" improves the lives of those in the tribe by teaching them irrigation, crop rotation, giving them oil lamps, etc etc. Unfortunately, "Kirok" doesn't know the damn rites either, because he's not a god, and when the asteroid is about to fall onto the planet he and his wife - Miramanee, who is carrying his child - get stoned by an angry mob. Miramanee and her child die, but "Kirok" is saved by the timely arrival of Spock & McCoy.
See, all this has been happening for months, while the Enterprise has been following the asteroid and Spock attempting to decipher the glyphs on the obelisk. Turns out it's a high power deflector - duh - activated by a musical tone. They deflect the asteroid, the world is saved, but Kirk's "wife" and unborn child are dead.
So, it's a big tragedy for Kirk, and it's a pretty intelligent and well written episode all things considered. It's got good moments for all the major actors, and it's also well produced -- with good and ample special effects, location shooting (the only occurrance in season three), lots of costumes and sets (that obelisk must have been expensive). So what's the problem here?
Well, if you've been paying attention, there's a lot to unpack. First up, the entire episode is based on the idea that Kirk feels "at peace" as Kirok, a world of no cares where he can just relax. The "return to nature" trope gets of course paired with the "noble savage" trope, depicting life among the indigenous peoples as essentially utopic. They handwave away any notion of accuracy by intentionally making them mixed tribes, but of course it is worth saying that none of the major characters are played by Indigenous actors. Of their names, only Salish has an Indigenous root (it is in fact the name of a people, like naming a white character "English"), while Miramanee sounds Semitic and Goro is a Japanese name.
And then once we get past the depiction of their lifestyle as "simple and idyllic" (try living a hunter/gatherer lifestyle btw and tell me how idyllic you find it), we get to the white saviour stuff. Now, granted, the episode doesn't 100% embrace this trope because "Kirok" proves hilariously inept at being a "god", but it does show him bringing multiple advances to the people in the time he is there -- as well as depicting the people as reacting to them in awe. They are overwhelmingly portrayed as simpletons, viewing each advancement with superstitious wonder. Despite being on this planet for 500 years, the transplanted peoples have not advanced one bit in their culture or technology (aside from having clothes made by a Hollywood costume department of course). This fits into a presumed narrative of the Indigenous peoples of America being essentially too stupid to figure out how civilization works and waiting for the white man to come bring it to them. Of course, in reality, the reasons for the simpler technological status of the American peoples has to do with complex historical and cultural factors, as well as the state of the native flora and fauna of the continent, which did not promote urbanization and industrialization to the degree that factors on the Eurasian and African continents did. Which is all to say, if you dropped a bunch of Navajo, Mohicans, and Delaware onto another planet and left them there for 500 years, there's a good chance they might look a bit different when you checked on them.
Nevertheless, this is a largely good episode, coming early in the season before the true existential despair had overwhelmed the cast & crew. If you can stomach it's extreme white liberal man's picturesque idolization of Indigenous cultures, you should be fine.
"Elaan of Troyius" Writer: John Meredyth Lucas Director: John Meredyth Lucas Producer: Fred Freiberger
"Elaan of Troyius" would be good, if it wasn't so bad.
There's a lot going on, with engaging characters and plot twists and machinations. But the foundation of the story is a big bag of awful.
Basically, Elaan is the Dolman of Elas, a planet at war with Troyius, and the governments of the two planets have decided that she's going to be married to the ruler of Troyius to broker peace. Y'know, that old story? But while her name is clearly a play on "Helen of Troy", the plot is more Taming of the Shrew. See, Elaan is being a real bitch about this marriage, namely because she didn't want it. Also the Elasians are a warrior culture and the Troyians are prissy peaceniks. So the Enterprise has to take the trip between the two worlds real slow, so the Troyian ambassador can teach Elaan manners. And after she nearly kills him, that task falls to Kirk. On top of all this, it turns out Elas is rich with dilithium, and the Klingons are in the area to sabotage the wedding so they can ally with Elas and get the dilithium.
So there's a lot going on. There's politics and spies and sabotage and even a Klingon battle cruiser. But the focus of the story is largely on the fact that Elaan is a huge bitch, that Kirk has to cut her down to size, and that they of course fall in love (Elasian women's tears are a love potion it turns out, if they touch your skin). And while the explanation for Elaan's attitude problems are that Elasians are warriors and she is their rich spoiled queen, it is definitely hard to watch this episode without seeing a pretty clear subtext. Which is that Elaan's biggest problem is she's a woman, and women are irrational and stubborn and have to be disciplined by a man. And so the great dramatic thrust of the episode is whether Kirk can transform Elaan from a commanding, arrogant ruler to a docile, obediant wife. No points for guessing that he effects this transformation through becoming Elaan's lover himself.
The best stuff in this episode, aside from all the aliens and costumes on display, is the sabotage plot involving the Klingons. And no doubt, the coolest part about that is the debut of the Klingon D-7 battle cruiser. Throughout the second season, the show had avoided ever actually showing the oft-mentioned Klingon ship, because there just wasn't money in the budget for a new model. AMT to the rescue! The hobby model company had signed with Trek early on to make models of the Enterprise for sale and wanted to expand the line. So they hired actual series art director Matt Jefferies to design the Klingon battle cruiser as a companion product, then let the show use the master model created for the molds on the show!!
In the end, it turns out Kirk is able to resist the Elasian tears love potion because he's already in love with his duty, and Elaan learns to accept her obligations to her peoples. Again, if it wasn't for the steady strain of sexism permeating the entire episode, this would be a good one.
"Spectre of the Gun" Writer: Lee Cronin (Gene Coon) Director: Vincent McEveety Producer: Fred Freiberger Star Trek's third season is notorious among fans for the show's dip in quality. Not that there weren't bad episodes in previous years, but in season three even the good entries tend to feel subpar, lacking the care and attention to quality that had become the show's standard.
There are a few reasons to why season three saw such a drop, as told from a few different points of view. Some see it as the network sabotaging the show so they could justify finally cancelling it, some as the makers of the show shooting themselves in the foot. Both were probably true to some degree.
After the successful fan letterwriting campaign (organized by show creator Gene Roddenberrry) that saved Trek from the chopping block, NBC scheduled the show for Monday nights at 7:30 PM. This was a premium time slot, and thinking that the network had finally recognized the value of the show, Roddenberry agreed to return as showrunner and devote the time and energy to it that he had in the early days of season 1. To network, cast, and crew, this was great news.
Problem. Laugh-In, the popular sketch comedy show, had that slot. They threw a fit. Both it and Trek attracted a valuable college age audience, but Laugh-In was more popular, less controversial, and cheaper to do. They won the time slot battle. Trek would go on at Friday nights at 10 PM -- aka when basically none of its kid, teen, or college student audience would ever see it.
So Roddenberry gave up. Backed his bags, stole a ton of props and original footage and scripts to sell to Trekkies as mail-order merch, kept a nominal Executive Producer title and fee, and decided he was done. Most of the show's regular writers backed out at that point too -- although some have scripts early in season three due to being in development the year before. The show was handed over to Fred Freiberger as showrunner and Arthur Singer as story editor, who tried to do the best they could with a budget that had been slashed again (third season episodes were being made for about half of what season one had been shot for), a crew that was low on morale, and a cast that was on the edge of revolting.
They tried their best, but season three served as Trek's swan song -- it wasn't very good, and nobody watched it. The self-fullfilling prophecy.
But this episode isn't bad. Not great either, though.
It's premise is very simple. The Enterprise has been ordered to make diplomatic contact with the xenophobic Melkotians, despite the Melkotians making it clear they don't want it. Which is a weird mission for the "non-interference" foreign policy of Starfleet, but it's just a cheap way for the episode to force the issue.
Anyways, to throw off the landing party, the Melkotians create an illusion of Tombstone, Arizona, at the time of the OK Corral. With the landing party in the role of the Clampetts, destined to be gunned down. It must be said, this illusion is one of the best uses of Trek's anemic third season budget. Our characters all look the same, but the illusionary Earps and townsfolk see them as their historical counterparts. The buildings are nothing but facades, the sky is blood red, the entire scene is surreal. It's cost saving, but it's also effective in selling the unreality.
Unreality ends up being the point, as no genuine efforts to escape the gunfight succeed, reality re-writing itself to force the issue. Spock realizes that since the entire situation is manufactured in their minds, the bullets cannot hurt them so long as they are sure in their minds they are unreal. So the Earps fire, and nothing happens.Turns out it was all a test by the Melkotians to see if the landing party would kill when threatened. Since they didn't, it proves humans are safe to make contact with. Holy crap! I'm not sure the Melkotians are safe, guys!
"Spectre of the Gun" is smart, eerie, atmospheric and intriguing. Unfortunately it is also extremely dull in long passages. Part of this is because we have seen ideas like this a few times before on the show, but part of it is also that there simply isn't enough story to last out a full hour. So everything is dragged out into an extremely slow pacing that ends up undoing whatever good elements the episode had going for it.
Lack of story, and pacing, will be problems moving forward, too. Rating: 2.5 out of 4
