Character-Driven TOS Stories

[Lord Garth]

I'm posting this in response to a post in another forum in regards to how character-driven TOS was compared to story-driven. Below is the observation I wanted to address from here:

I often see people claim - including latter-day Trek writers - that TOS was about "the characters" - particularly the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate. Nothing could be further from the truth however. TOS was fundamentally an anthology show which was making stuff up as it went along. Something like 90% of episodes revolved around a plot which did not in any fashion involve the backstory of the characters. Even where it did, except in rare cases (like Amok Time) was the backstory something so particular it needed to be associated with that character. Really they were generic sci-fi plots (and I don't mean that in a bad way) where the Enterprise crew were always written as the "heroes of the week." But fundamentally the exact same stories could have been told with a different ship and different crew. Much of the characterization came from the actors and directors rather than the script. Even when the script put those "personal touches" in, it was generally speaking banter which wasn't really central to the mission of the week. Certainly the character dynamics are what made TOS watchable and fun. But they weren't what the show was about - they were window dressing.

I half-agree with this and half-don't. I would say the first season of TOS was extremely character-driven, despite being made up of stand-alone stories. The second season was far less character-driven and much more story-driven. The third season went back to being more character-driven, although mostly through romance.

Character’s character is the primary focus of the main-plot
Pike – “The Cage” --> Pike contemplates resigning from his command and reconsiders after having a taste of what domestic life and life away from the Enterprise is not for him.

Kirk – “The Enemy Within” --> How do the qualities within Kirk make him function as a Captain and what happens when any of those qualities are removed?

Spock – “The Galileo Seven” --> Spock is ill-prepared for command when stranded on a planet, despite thinking everything through logically, is challenged at every turn, and must learn to improvise.

Kirk – “Court Martial” --> Kirk’s integrity is called into question when he’s wrongfully accused of perjury.

Spock – “The Menagerie” --> Spock must risk his life and career to help Pike, his former Captain.

Kirk – “The City on the Edge of Forever” --> Kirk is forced to let Edith Keeler, the woman he’s fallen in love with, die in order to save history.

Spock – “Amok Time” --> Spock must return to Vulcan, because of Pon Farr, or die. From there his pre-arranged wife, T’Pring, forces him to fight Kirk to the death. Only when he thinks he killed Kirk does he get over T’Pring.

Spock – “Journey to Babel” --> When Spock’s parents arrive on the Enterprise, on a diplomatic mission, Spock acts more Vulcan than Vulcan.

Kirk – “Obsession” --> Kirk faces an intelligent cloud that 11 years earlier killed 200 of his crewmates on the Farragut.

Kirk – “The Paradise Syndrome” --> After losing his memory, Kirk lives a simple life on an alien world.

McCoy – “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” --> McCoy believes he has less than a year to live and decides to love out the rest of his life on Yonada with a woman he’s fallen in love with, Natira, until he finds a cure and can bring his discoveries back with him.

Spock – “All Our Yesterdays” --> 9,000 years in the past, Spock mentally reverts to a more primitive state and feelings he long kept under the surface begin to emerge.

Kirk, Spock – “Turnabout Intruder” --> When Janice Lester swaps bodies with Captain Kirk, Kirk-as-Lester has to prove to Spock that they’re the Captain and Lester-as-Kirk is not. After a mind-meld Spock realizes the truth and both he and Kirk-as-Lester must face Lester-as-Kirk who puts them on trial. Spock’s conviction convinces the rest of the senior crew; most importantly, Scotty and McCoy. The crew realizes, because of what they know of real Kirk after all of their adventures, that they’re being commanded by an imposter.

Character’s character is the secondary focus of the main-plot
Kirk – “Where No Man Gone Before” --> Kirk must struggle with killing his longtime friend, Gary Mitchell.

Kirk, Riley – “The Conscience of the King” --> Kirk and Riley have to come to terms with Kodos being responsible for all the deaths of a colony they lived on.

Spock – “This Side of Paradise” --> Spock, intoxicated by Spores, gives in to his animal passions and wants to stay on Omicron Seti III with Leila.

Kirk – “Operation: Annihilate!” --> Kirk’s brother and sister-in-law die on a Federation colony and now must prevent his nephew from dying as well, while also having to save the colony.

Spock, McCoy – “The Tholian Web” --> The Enterprise crew mourn what they think is the death of Kirk while Spock and McCoy are at odds with each other until they view Kirk’s message to both of them.

Scotty – “The Lights of Zetar” --> Scotty falls in love with a fellow crewwoman.

Character’s character is the primary focus of a sub-plot
McCoy – “The Man Trap” --> McCoy can’t believe his former lover has been replaced by a monster.

Chapel – “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” --> Chapel thinks her former lover has survived on a planet only to find out he never really did.

Rand – “The Enemy Within” --> Rand is sexually assaulted by the malicious version of Kirk.

Kirk – “Shore Leave” --> While taking leave on Omicron Delta, Kirk comes face-to-face representations from his past of a lover (Ruth) and a nemesis (Finnegan).

Spock – “Operation: Annihilate!” --> Spock struggles to use his mind and Vulcan logic to control the pain he feels after being attacked by a parasite, then goes temporarily blind when McCoy first attempts to stop the parasite, crippling Spock further.

Chekov – “Spectre of the Gun” --> Chekov falls in love with an illusionary woman.

Chekov – “The Way to Eden” --> Chekov is painfully reunited with a girlfriend of his from the Academy who became a hippie.

Character’s character is the secondary focus of a sub-plot
Kirk, Spock – “The Naked Time” --> Kirk and Spock’s inner demons are exposed because of the Psi2000 intoxication. Kirk can’t pursue Rand because of his command and Spock feels ashamed when he feels friendship for others.

Kirk – “This Side of Paradise” --> Kirk’s love for the Enterprise overpowers any desire he has to desert the ship for Omicron Ceti III.

Chapel – “Plato’s Stepchildren” --> Chapel, under duress, finally tells Spock about her feelings for him.

Episodes where character came into focus for a main, supporting or recurring character
* = The (sub-)plot is partially romantic.
** = The (sub-)plot is primarily or entirely romantic.

“The Cage” *
“Where No Man Has Gone Before”
“The Enemy Within”
“The Man Trap” *
“The Naked Time” *
“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” *
“The Conscience of the King” *
“The Galileo Seven”
“Court Martial”
“The Menagerie, Part I”
“The Menagerie, Part II”
“Shore Leave” *
“This Side of Paradise” **
“The City on the Edge of Forever” **
“Operation: Annihilate!”

Season 1: 15 out of 30

“Amok Time” **
“Journey to Babel”
“Obsession”

Season 2: 3 out of 26

“Spectre of the Gun” *
“The Paradise Syndrome” *
“For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” **
“The Tholian Web”
“Plato’s Stephildren” *
“The Lights of Zetar” *
“The Way to Eden” *
“All Our Yesterdays” *
“Turnabout Intruder”

Season 3: 9 out of 24

Total: 27 out of 80.

@eschaton

Anyone can feel free to add to what I might have left out. There are probably some skips. Or we can talk about some of these character plots. And we can expand them to include character moments.

This is just a starter to get the ball rolling.

TOS could be very story-driven but I think it was also character-driven and seeing how these characters tick and why makes us, or at least myself, appreciate them all the more.

 

[eschaton]

To be clear, part of my point is that even where we got a "character story" in TOS, these stories would have been interchangeable with other characters. For example, consider all of the "Kirk stories" you note above. Assume Pike remained the captain, and replace Kirk with Pike. The backstory of Kirk is just transferred to Pike, and everything works out basically the same. Spock is the main exception to this, given his background as a Vulcan (later on retconned into half-Vulcan) meaning he has something of an "origin story" which is unique to him as a character.

I presume - because TOS used spec scripts - including from professional science fiction writers - that many of the plots started out literally "generic sci-fi tale" - which Gene Coon and others massaged to have the cast's dialogue and actions be in-character. The most transparent case of this is actually from TAS, when Larry Niven decided to just straight-up adapt his existing short story The Soft Weapon for the series, having Spock, Uhura, and Sulu take the roles of his original characters.

I mean, the later series sometimes clearly just made shit up as they went along about the characters too. The Inner Light is beloved, but it's clear that Picard as a character is not really central to the story existing, even though it's a Picard-focused episode. But with the exception of a handful of Spock episodes, it doesn't seem like any TOS episode was clearly rooted in what we already knew about the characters. They just sort of flowed from a "wouldn't it be cool if we found out the Captain..." or something of that sort.

 

[Commishsleer]

You can say that about any of the series

To be clear, part of my point is that even where we got a "character story" in TOS, these stories would have been interchangeable with other characters. For example, consider all of the "Kirk stories" you note above. Assume Pike remained the captain, and replace Kirk with Pike. The backstory of Kirk is just transferred to Pike, and everything works out basically the same. Spock is the main exception to this, given his background as a Vulcan (later on retconned into half-Vulcan) meaning he has something of an "origin story" which is unique to him as a character.

You can say that about any of the series then or any of the characters if you want to go that far.
You could easily replace Picard with Janeway and replace "he" with "she".

You think McCoy is a bland doctor like Crusher? Could you substitute MBenga for McCoy and nobody would notice any difference.?

Even Scotty in the much maligned last episode is prepared to commit mutiny when he thinks something's wrong with Kirk. He's not acting like a generic 2nd officer.

I don't really understand what you are saying here? Riker is more of a standard 1st officer then Spock , Crusher could be any doctor. There's the "character" episode where Crusher falls in love with a Trill and it all goes bad in the end. Are you saying you couldn't of substituted any other character in the role? I could see Troi in the same role or Riker or Geordi. Or frankly any guest star of the week.

To me every episode where we see Trois awful mother (OK maybe not that awful) is not particularly character driven compared to a 3rd Season TOS episode like "The Empath" where we see the subtleties of McCoy and Spock's relationship, Spock's regard for Kirk. Kirk's pain (psychological).

Wasn't Spock Half Vulcan from WNMHGB - the 2nd pilot?

 

[Herbert]

I think I kinda get where eschaton is going with this but does it really matter? I don't think so. Whether the story originated from a character backstory or was just made up on the spot to create the story, who cares? Whether one character could be subbed for another and the story remained the same makes no difference. Well, at least to me, it doesn't.

 

[Armus]

"The Enemy Within" seems more character oriented than most TOS shows, and the A/B plot of the episode is makes it more like a TNG episode. Plus there are no guest stars to take focus off the main cast. The dilemma is that Kirk has an evil double, Sulu is stuck on a freezing planet and the transporter is down. So much of the drama centers on how Kirk is personally affected by the situation. His will power weakens and he is afraid of losing his authority, he feels responsibility to Sulu and the landing party, and he has revulsion towards the brutality of his double, who is a part of himself.

 

[eschaton]

You can say that about any of the series then or any of the characters if you want to go that far.
You could easily replace Picard with Janeway and replace "he" with "she".

You think McCoy is a bland doctor like Crusher? Could you substitute MBenga for McCoy and nobody would notice any difference.?

Even Scotty in the much maligned last episode is prepared to commit mutiny when he thinks something's wrong with Kirk. He's not acting like a generic 2nd officer.

I don't really understand what you are saying here? Riker is more of a standard 1st officer then Spock , Crusher could be any doctor. There's the "character" episode where Crusher falls in love with a Trill and it all goes bad in the end. Are you saying you couldn't of substituted any other character in the role? I could see Troi in the same role or Riker or Geordi. Or frankly any guest star of the week.

To me every episode where we see Trois awful mother (OK maybe not that awful) is not particularly character driven compared to a 3rd Season TOS episode like "The Empath" where we see the subtleties of McCoy and Spock's relationship, Spock's regard for Kirk. Kirk's pain (psychological).

As I said, so much of the character dynamic of TOS was in the performance and direction rather than the script. I mean, I watched the Adam Nimoy documentary recently, and Leonard openly said in it he changed up how he depicted Spock from The Cage because since he was paired with Shatner rather than Jeffrey Hunter he needed to be more of the "straight man" to Kirk's wild expressivenss. They began writing the part more for Nimoy's performance as time went on of course.

Regardless, my point was relevant to the original thread. It was that contemporary fans - and writers - are seeing more on a character basis from a writerly perspective than was there. They existed as characters of course, and barring some early-installment weirdness were much more consistent than some of the latter shows. But the purpose of TOS wasn't - for the most part - to explore them as characters. it was to use the characters to explore concepts.

Wasn't Spock Half Vulcan from WNMHGB - the 2nd pilot?

He originally just mentioned "a distant ancestor" - implying he only had a bit of Human in him. This was later retconned to be him downplaying being half human.

 

[eschaton]

I think I kinda get where eschaton is going with this but does it really matter? I don't think so. Whether the story originated from a character backstory or was just made up on the spot to create the story, who cares? Whether one character could be subbed for another and the story remained the same makes no difference. Well, at least to me, it doesn't.

The reason it matters is because contemporary writers (I'm looking at you J.J.!) don't really understand what TOS was about. The Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate (which really only became a thing in late Season 1, after Coon took over) was the icing on the cake - and iconic - but it wasn't the cake. The cake was the SFnal concepts within Trek, the exploration of the human condition, the asking questions which don't always have a pat answer. Misunderstanding it is why ST09 was a decent but ultimately hollow action movie devoted to inter-character drama with a shallow "defeat the bad guy" plot.

 

[Herbert]

I guess the question(s) is, did JJ Abrams want to do that with his movies? Did he want to emulate ToS in those aspects or did he want to go in his own direction? I don't know the answers to those questions.

 

[J.T.B.]

I mean, the later series sometimes clearly just made shit up as they went along about the characters too. The Inner Light is beloved, but it's clear that Picard as a character is not really central to the story existing, even though it's a Picard-focused episode. But with the exception of a handful of Spock episodes, it doesn't seem like any TOS episode was clearly rooted in what we already knew about the characters. They just sort of flowed from a "wouldn't it be cool if we found out the Captain..." or something of that sort.

Agreed. When Kirk's brother and family showed up, it wasn't because the audience already knew knew Kirk had a strong relationship with Sam or anything. It was just a plot factor for that episode. Just like when Steve McGarrett had a steady girlfriend, it wasn't because his romantic life was part of his character, it was so something terrible could happen to her in the plot, he'd take care of business, and she'd never be mentioned again.

OTOH, just as an example from a show I used to watch, on Magnum P.I. you knew that Thomas was a Vietnam vet, he had quit the navy, he was living a sort of arrested adolescence in his late 30s and avoiding real responsibility, and could sometimes be heavy-hearted. But the picture of exactly why he was that way was put together in pieces, in the plots of many episodes over years.

But that's not the way shows were in the '60s, and I have no problem with TOS that way.

 

[Lord Garth]

In a first season we're learning everything about a character so there really is no "before". In a second and third season, that's a different story. That's where you start to learn things about characters that springs from what came before.

Kirk was the star of the first season, so it makes sense that most of everything we'd learn about Kirk would be there. Though I'll admit Kirk's family was introduced in "Operation: Annihilate!" just to add a personal touch, not so much that the main thrust of the story was about them but to see how much a wringer Kirk could be put through by how the parasite affected those he cares about. Same deal with "The Conscience of the King", when they had a backstory Kirk living on Tarsus IV, so he could have a more personal story when facing Kodos the Executioner. Going by TOS alone, it looks like Kirk's family is spread out through various colonies; unlike in the movies where Kirk's from Iowa and a "landlubber".

With Spock, I think Spock was a discovery over the course of the first season, and the writers felt more free to explore him after they didn't have to worry about NBC being scared to death of what the South would think if they thought Spock looked too much like the Devil. So, in the second season we begin learning more about Spock's character, which is why the character-focused stories we saw that season were mainly focused on him, like "Amok Time" and "Journey to Babel".

 

[eschaton]

In a first season we're learning everything about a character so there really is no "before". In a second and third season, that's a different story. That's where you start to learn things about characters that springs from what came before.

Kirk was the star of the first season, so it makes sense that most of everything we'd learn about Kirk would be there. Though I'll admit Kirk's family was introduced in "Operation: Annihilate!" just to add a personal touch, not so much that the main thrust of the story was about them but to see how much a wringer Kirk could be put through by how the parasite affected those he cares about. Same deal with "The Conscience of the King", when they had a backstory Kirk living on Tarsus IV, so he could have a more personal story when facing Kodos the Executioner. Going by TOS alone, it looks like Kirk's family is spread out through various colonies; unlike in the movies where Kirk's from Iowa and a "landlubber".

With Spock, I think Spock was a discovery over the course of the first season, and the writers felt more free to explore him after they didn't have to worry about NBC being scared to death of what the South would think if they thought Spock looked too much like the Devil. So, in the second season we begin learning more about Spock's character, which is why the character-focused stories we saw that season were mainly focused on him, like "Amok Time" and "Journey to Babel".

My general impression is that the writing process was a lot more freeform and last-minute during the TOS era than later on. The good part of this was that the core team was watching the dailies for the early part of Season 1 while in the process of writing and/or smoothing out the scripts for the back half. Thus they had the ability to tweak the series on the fly much, much more adroitly than modern shows, where much of the writing is done before the first episode even begins filming.

 

[Lord Garth]

It was definitely more free-form in terms of backstory* and whatever stories they wanted to tell in general. I don't think they intentionally wanted Kirk's family living on colonies on the outset. Just something I noticed when you put together the picture "The Conscience of the King" and "Operation: Annihilate!" paints.

I think by the second season, the mentality was "We know who Kirk is, but I grok Spock!" Spock was becoming really big. So big that it fueled the rivalry between William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. And how important Spock became is without a doubt what led to Leonard Nimoy butting heads with Fred Freiberger, behind-the-scenes during the third season.

It's no coincidence the second and third seasons premiered with Spock Episodes.

* Beyond backstory, I think by the middle of the first season, if not earlier, the writing staff had a firm grasp of "This is what Kirk would do and what he wouldn't do!" or "This is what Spock would do and what he wouldn't do!", regardless of continuity details.

As far as the triumvirate of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, I think they discovered that in "The Enemy Within" and decided to keep going in that direction. By "The Naked Time", they had the banter between Spock and McCoy and then made that a major story point in "The Galileo Seven", by which point we had Kirk teasing Spock at the end about how "You're becoming more human all the time!" or something like that, and everyone has a laugh.

If it wasn't all free-form, they would've established the United Federation of Planets, for instance, right from the beginning instead of it not even being named until toward the end of the season.

I think it was in "The City on the Edge of Forever", where the script was in-development for a while due to circumstances, where Edith Keeler noted that Spock was right at Kirk's side and always would be. The deep loyalty is established there and the depth of their friendship was established with "Amok Time". Kirk being willing to disobey orders to save Spock and Spock having a somber breakdown after he thought he killed Kirk and an "emotional scene that would've brought the house down" when he saw Kirk alive. It all grew as it went along. And, in fact, I bet Harve Bennett might've been influenced by "Amok Time" when he wrote TSFS because in that film, Kirk also risks everything to save Spock.

It all started as a blank slate, more than later series, and then grew into what it was. The advantage TOS has over the other series is that it wasn't stuck spending up to seasons at a time trying to force something to work that they thought would work in theory but didn't work out in practice.

 

[J.T.B.]

With Spock, I think Spock was a discovery over the course of the first season, and the writers felt more free to explore him after they didn't have to worry about NBC being scared to death of what the South would think if they thought Spock looked too much like the Devil. So, in the second season we begin learning more about Spock's character, which is why the character-focused stories we saw that season were mainly focused on him, like "Amok Time" and "Journey to Babel".

Yeah, I think "Journey to Babel" is a good example; it's fair to say that the way Spock acts there follows from his inner conflicts as introduced in "The Naked Time." I don't know that @eschaton's figure of 90% was meant literally, but certainly the supermajority of the episodes listed above had character moments in plot-driven stories, rather than plots driven by what the audience would know of the character's personalities, backgrounds, relationships etc.

 

[Lord Garth]

Hmmm. I already eliminated a good number of episodes upfront, so that makes it a bit easier to comb through if I just go by what I listed, and prune it down further. I would say these are the episodes that are character-driven: meaning that the main story springs out of the character's personal situation and how the conflict is resolved rests on who the character is or, in some cases, is not...

“The Cage”
“The Enemy Within”
“The Conscience of the King”
“The Galileo Seven”
“Court Martial”
“The Menagerie"
“Shore Leave”
“This Side of Paradise”
“The City on the Edge of Forever”
“Amok Time”
“Journey to Babel”
“Obsession”
“The Paradise Syndrome”
“For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”
“The Tholian Web”
“Turnabout Intruder”

Most of these -- as will come to no surprise -- are from the first season, but I can make a case for each one of these episodes. Though I don't have time to today, so I won't right now. So that would be more like 17 episodes out of 79, counting "The Menagerie" once, since it recycles "The Cage".

Keeping the math simple, it looks like, to me, three quarters of TOS is story-driven and one quarter is character-driven, if we're only looking at the regular characters.

Guest characters of the week come and go, and I didn't include them. You could change their status quo, but you couldn't change Kirk's, Spock's, or McCoy's. Which is probably the biggest difference between TOS and a show today: today you can change where the character is from season to season and maybe even within the season itself but in the 1960s, the main characters have to be in the same situation at the end of the episode as they were in the beginning. In Kirk's case, Captain of the Enterprise. A captain who, in the eyes of his crew doesn't have, in Spock's words, "the luxury of being anything less than perfect."

 

[BillJ]

My general impression is that the writing process was a lot more freeform and last-minute during the TOS era than later on.

I think you hit the nail on the head on why TOS is so well remembered. They were simply doing the best they could, on a week-to-week basis. Without the "expectations" that come with being a franchise.

 

[Maurice]

The way TV generally works the writers invent backstory as-needed for a given story. Most stories do not emerge from the character, rather, the background revealed in them is typically specific only in that it was grafted onto a given character. It's true that as a series develops and as more backstory is added some of the writers will tend to write to that.

 

[Commishsleer]

The reason it matters is because contemporary writers (I'm looking at you J.J.!) don't really understand what TOS was about. The Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate (which really only became a thing in late Season 1, after Coon took over) was the icing on the cake - and iconic - but it wasn't the cake. The cake was the SFnal concepts within Trek, the exploration of the human condition, the asking questions which don't always have a pat answer. Misunderstanding it is why ST09 was a decent but ultimately hollow action movie devoted to inter-character drama with a shallow "defeat the bad guy" plot.

I thought there were elements of the triumvirate in "Dagger of the Mind" and "Menagerie". I agree that TOS was very much about the "human condition" too.
Its a lot of things to a lot of people here. Some people like the Scfi stories which back in the day were all reflections on society, science, morality. Some people like the cool spaceships, the attractive women, the brave handsome captain, the misunderstood alien first officer, McCoy has a lot of fans. There's the overall romance of adventures in space and there is the relationship between the big 3.
I believe it is a combination of these things that makes us (the people who write here) super fans of the series (or fanatics) so I guess we're not JJs target audience.
If JJ were trying to comtemporise the Kirk/Spock/McCoy thing then I think he did it wrong.Part of it was that in the original series Spock was a super intelligent, brave soul was misunderstood by society, his parents, peers and Kirk and McCoy were perceptive and kind enough to want him as a friend. JJ turned it around and made Spock the one everyone liked and Kirk the outcast. For goodness sake Spock had a girlfriend, he revealed to McCoy that he valued him as a friend. Something that had to be dragged out of him during the series. We lost all the angst that made the 60s/70s audience relate to Spock.

If you compare Kirk to the Avengers then theres a bit of a similarity in the heroes, A guy out of nowhere is given a super power (command of a starship) that they didn't earn and went out to save the day. I applaud JJ trying to emulate the "success" of the Avengers but those movies don't appeal to me because I guess the characters don't appeal to me,

He originally just mentioned "a distant ancestor" - implying he only had a bit of Human in him. This was later retconned to be him downplaying being half human.

I genuinely thought Spock was just participating in the banter and having a joke here.
Maybe I was fooled because Spock is such a known prankster.
I didn't see the series in production order and probably had already known Spock was half-human by the time I saw this episode.

Hmmm. I already eliminated a good number of episodes upfront, so that makes it a bit easier to comb through if I just go by what I listed, and prune it down further. I would say these are the episodes that are character-driven: meaning that the main story springs out of the character's personal situation and how the conflict is resolved rests on who the character is or, in some cases, is not...

“The Cage”
“The Enemy Within”
“The Conscience of the King”
“The Galileo Seven”
“Court Martial”
“The Menagerie"
“Shore Leave”
“This Side of Paradise”
“The City on the Edge of Forever”
“Amok Time”
“Journey to Babel”
“Obsession”
“The Paradise Syndrome”
“For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”
“The Tholian Web”
“Turnabout Intruder”

Most of these -- as will come to no surprise -- are from the first season, but I can make a case for each one of these episodes. Though I don't have time to today, so I won't right now. So that would be more like 17 episodes out of 79, counting "The Menagerie" once, since it recycles "The Cage".

Keeping the math simple, it looks like, to me, three quarters of TOS is story-driven and one quarter is character-driven, if we're only looking at the regular characters.

Guest characters of the week come and go, and I didn't include them. You could change their status quo, but you couldn't change Kirk's, Spock's, or McCoy's. Which is probably the biggest difference between TOS and a show today: today you can change where the character is from season to season and maybe even within the season itself but in the 1960s, the main characters have to be in the same situation at the end of the episode as they were in the beginning. In Kirk's case, Captain of the Enterprise. A captain who, in the eyes of his crew doesn't have, in Spock's words, "the luxury of being anything less than perfect."

If you are talking about character episodes then I would relate WNMHGB and "Operation Annihilate!" way above say "Shore Leave" for that.

 

[Lord Garth]

If you are talking about character episodes then I would relate WNMHGB and "Operation Annihilate!" way above say "Shore Leave" for that.

I was thinking in terms of Kirk goes on Shore Leave because of the case Spock makes. Otherwise he wouldn't have gone down. So we follow Kirk, who needs a break, otherwise he wouldn't have beamed down the planet. And then he runs into figments of Ruth and Finnegan. So the reason for the story is tied to Kirk and the things he imagines are about his past.

 

[Commishsleer]

I was thinking in terms of Kirk goes on Shore Leave because of the case Spock makes. Otherwise he wouldn't have gone down. So we follow Kirk, who's needs a break, otherwise he wouldn't have beamed down the planet. And then he runs into figments of Ruth and Finnegan. So the reason for the story is tied to Kirk and the things he imagines are about his past.

I thought that was a sub plot. The main plot was about the wonder of a planet that can make every dream come true.
As much as Kirk was about killing a million colonists in Deneva, "Operation Annihilate" was about Kirk causing Spock's blindness, and potentially losing Spock and his nephew.

And I thought the main plot in WNMHGB was about Kirk's duty and the guilt he has about needing to kill his best friend.

To me you're making a good case about every episode being character driven.

 

[Lord Garth]

I thought that was a sub plot. The main plot was about the wonder of a planet that can make every dream come true.
As much as Kirk was about killing a million colonists in Deneva, "Operation Annihilate" was about Kirk causing Spock's blindness, and potentially losing Spock and his nephew.

And I thought the main plot in WNMHGB was about Kirk's duty and the guilt he has about needing to kill his best friend.

To me you're making a good case about every episode being character driven.

Thanks. That's the great part about different interpretations.

I looked at WNMHGB as being more about what happens to a man when he starts to become more God-like without acquiring the wisdom to go with such power.

The main thrust in "Operation: Annihilate!" is the the parasitic epidemic on the loose on the colony. And they increasingly make things more and more difficult for Kirk. Killing off his family members, crippling his first officer, and being seemingly unstoppable. A true test for the Captain, worthy of being a season finale by constantly raising the stakes.