Still trying to pinpoint the third season "difference"

I think that humour was lost on us Brits, Delt!
JB

 

At first I was going to ask if you're watching your reverse order viewing in production order as well but now I can see it's in airdate order!
JB

 

Lots of little things throw me out of the show on the rare occasions I watch a third season episode. The new material for the uniforms, Scotty's odd hairstyles, the shaggier look on everyone, the purple transporter room... and that's before we even get to the substandard stories. But I think that @Spock's Barber hits on the right answer when he says that the loss of Bob Justman is probably the main reason. Gene Coon and D.C. Fontana also being gone didn't help either.

 

First season: new and fresh; the cast and crew are still finding their sea legs, but game for the experience.

Second season: confident and assured, with an easy chemistry among the regulars. The world was built and they inhabited every inch of it.

Third season: The effects and sets have come into their own, but the cast seems weary. The wry smiles from Shatner were hardly ever seen and Nimoy sometimes seems to be phoning it in. Kelley and the featured players, though, had some good moments. The stories, even the strong ones, could have benefited from an extra draft or a bit of polishing. Decent stories, but many could easily have been mounted for Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, or One Step Beyond.

As has been pointed out above, the dialogue didn't quite catch the "voice" or tone that Star Trek developed in the preceding seasons. This is the result, I think, of losing producers and story editors who were passionate about the show. Their replacements might have been technically proficient, but the love that was poured into the first four-plus years of the productions was lacking.

 

Yeah, but that's how little lambs for Mary are made.

Only if star Trek made it to its 10th season. They could use Donna Summer to do incidental music.

 

Something like this....

 

Season 3 did turn Chekov from a backhanded lampoon into an actual character on occasion. As much as "The Way to Eden" is hated, it's nice to see Chekov get to be more than the butt of a joke - he never came across as saying his season 2 shtick in any self-knowingly campy way. Could he have been more than a stick figure (all duty) in the same episode? Certainly. But I found his sincere adherence to duty preferable to everything being (here it comes) "inwented by a widdle owd wady fwom wenningwad with whiskey, owr owther inwention - for when we get done with owr nooclear wessels." Unless making him a total 180 compared to season 2 was a joke?

 

Whilst it's always nice to see them get on, and it could be a result of character development, I think season three also lacks the arguments between Spock and McCoy from before. Only really in Paradise Syndrome and Tholian Web do they really get heated, but even then it's just McCoy being critical of Spock's command decisions. The trio are the most prominent in terms of landing parties; much less do we see larger parties, and I think the 'look' and 'feel' I get from these particular episodes, is three people who have grown to be strong, trusting friends, exploring together. This certainly develops throughout the series, but I think more so in season three, and by All Our Yesterdays, is firmly solidified. I also think the emphasis is on the trio more so, especially by the series' end.

 

Sulu and Chekov get more time together because Sulu is actually there whereas he was absent for a chunk of S2 because of The Green Berets.

 

I would agree with that. Shatner is by nature a goofball and that started to bleed into the Kirk character to the detriment of his original Horatio Hornblower frame.

 

Yes, I agree with this. You compare his subtle, weary, heavy-laden character returning to his quarters after beaming up in The Enemy Within, to his performance in season three. The former has a lot more dimensions and reality, whereas I think by season three we are watching 'space theatre', rather than necessarily an exploration of the human condition in the future. Not just Shatner, of course, but we notice it more so with him, being the lead.

 

Also, season three tends to be more happy-go-lucky at the end of each episode. Compare the end of Man Trap, Charlie X, Alternative Factor, or even This Side of Paradise, to the end of The Tholian Web, The Lights of Zetar, Is There in Truth or even And The Children, where we are largely all smiles, despite the many deaths. I think the triumphant music, (though I like it) doesn't help.

 

I'd have to agree with that. Season 2 does have some great episodes--"The Doomsday Machine" is a personal favorite, "The Immunity Syndrome" "Journey to Babel" come to mind as well. But yeah some didn't come across as well. They do a good job providing an explanation behind how "Patterns of Force" and "A Piece of the Action" came to be, but then you have "Bread and Circuses" where a society inexplicably parallels the Roman Empire. It's not a terrible episode, but they would have been better served had they created a society that was maybe similar to Rome, instead of being Rome.

I liked season 3. I do agree that season 3 does have a different 'feel' that is a bit hard to pin down in specifics, other than the obvious change in uniform material, music, hairstyles, etc. Changes in the production team was probably part of it I'm sure. Perhaps changes were also made in cinematography and lighting. We did see more of the ship it seemed in season 3 as well I thought.

And season 3 had it's fair share of great episodes--I loved "That Which Survives" "Wink of an Eye" and "The Paradise Syndrome" for instance. And I admit, I even liked "Spock's Brain" and should I admit I liked "Spectre of the Gun" as well. I loved that they build half sets (even having people walk through doors as if there were a whole building there) and explain it away that it is probably all that is needed for their punishment (that and suggesting since Kirk's memory of the era is fragmentary, that's how it was created), and I always found the odd warbly sounds of the planet to be oddly hypnotic. And for years I thought the Earps were the bad guys because of this episode

In fact, there's no episode of Star Trek I actually dislike. I liked all 79 episodes to varying degrees. Now I have no problem admitting some of the episodes are almost ridiculous in scope and require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief (Spock's Brain anyone). But since I'm also a slasher film fan--and they are not exactly known for their plausibility, I guess that helps me be a bit more forgiving when they take liberties. I can watch "Spock's Brain" and know it is patently ridiculous, but still enjoy the trip it takes us on. Or "And the Children Shall Lead"--which has one of my favorite lines "DEATH TO YOU ALL, DEATH TO YOU ALL" well at least until Tilly's line "if I were you're captain I'd cut your tongue off and use it to lick my boot"---man, that is an all time favorite

 

Sorry but I think the whole series was pretty repetitive in the basic types of plot (most of the episodes being either Kirk fixes a dystopia, the Enterprise is hijacked or characters are made to fight), I can't offhand remember which season had fewer of those kinds of plots and more of others.

Season 3, Shatner seemed to be putting in less effort and/or being less restrained by the directors and though Nimoy was ("That Which Survives" aside) still very good you nonetheless might be able to sense he was also getting less pleased with the scripts and the direction the show seemed to be going in, I think in I Am Spock he complained it was becoming too much more about just action rather than thought-provoking.

 

Interesting... Do we see more of the ship in season three?
Offhand I believe the new sets we see are...
The extra room in eningeering
The antimatter chamber
The viewing port
Lester's private room
The weapons room
Environmental control
Captain’s private dining room
The arboretum
The children's mass quarters arguably from ATCSL
Uhura's quarters
Kollos special quarters

Any others that we haven't seen before?
Several, such as the dining room and the Chapel we have before, albeit with different lighting.

I guess as a whole, yes we do see more of the ship (both old and new sets) in season three.

 

But we never get to see the bowling alley!

 

IIRC, Takei wasn’t supposed to miss as many TOS episodes as he did, but bad weather on The Green Berets set delayed the shooting schedule.

 

They saved that idea for TAS.

 

Sulu was originally to have escorted Uhura on station K-7 rather than Chekov I believe! And wasn't he to have been with Kirk and Uhura on Triskellion?
JB

 

I’m trying to imagine if Sulu’s love scenes would have been funnier than Chekov’s...