The Last Great Episode

[Grant]

What in your opinion is the last "great" episode of TOS.

Well it doesn't have to be "City on the Edge..." great, but an all-around solid episode that you really like.....

Mine would be Day of the Dove.

I love that it's a rare all-out action episode.
I love the teaser where both the Enterprise and the landing party are ambushed.
I love Michael Ansara's Kang
I love how everybody got to do something (except Uhura--man the writers let her down)
I love the horrible thought they will just live out their lives as playthings of the entity if they don't find a solution.
I love----- "Star-date: Armageddon"
I love the first female Klingon being shown.
Love Shatner in this one--well except, "Look at me--LOOK-AT-ME"

I enjoy That Which Survives, Way to Eden, Requiem for Meth, Savage Curtain and Turnabout---to some extent, but Dove is my "last great episode"

Yours?

 

[BillJ]

"All Our Yesterdays"

Great spin on time travel, the neat Spock/McCoy dynamic in the distant past, Mr. Atoz.

Definitely a great episode.

 

[Grant]

"All Our Yesterdays"

Great spin on time travel, the neat Spock/McCoy dynamic in the distant past, Mr. Atoz.

Definitely a great episode.

Yeah, I just noticed that I left it off my "good but not great" list in the OP.

It's definitely not a great TOS episode but it's a darn good Spock/McCoy episode.

But the whole "prepared" things baffles me.

If you go back (and stay) while unprepared you will die. If you are prepared and come back to the future--you die.

But Atoz had Kirk on that sled and was pushing him into the past--but he hadn't prepared him.

So was he intending that kirk Die?

Why do that? Just lock him in a closet and escape to the past.

And the time frame is off--it's clearly said that they have 3 hours to get back to the portal, that works for Kirk's adventure, but did McCoy almost freeze, get to the cave and recover form severe frostbite in 3 hours? And the phaser doesn't work in the past--but the tricorder does?

Still ----entertaining.

 

[Marsden]

But Atoz had Kirk on that sled and was pushing him into the past--but he hadn't prepared him.

So was he intending that kirk Die?

I think he did prepare him.

Why do that? Just lock him in a closet and escape to the past.

Mr. Atoz was a very conscientious person, he was staying voluntarily to make sure everyone was saved. The problem was Kirk didn't need saving and he didn't realize or accept that.


And I think the preperation wouldn't be something that would hurt someone unless they went back after the preperation. But when I invent my time machine I will let you know.

Of course I'll have already have come back to edit this post if I'm successful so I guess I didn't figure it out.

 

[Grant]

But Atoz had Kirk on that sled and was pushing him into the past--but he hadn't prepared him.

So was he intending that kirk Die?

I think he did prepare him.

Why do that? Just lock him in a closet and escape to the past.

Mr. Atoz was a very conscientious person, he was staying voluntarily to make sure everyone was saved. The problem was Kirk didn't need saving and he didn't realize or accept that.


And I think the preperation wouldn't be something that would hurt someone unless they went back after the preperation. But when I invent my time machine I will let you know.

Of course I'll have already have come back to edit this post if I'm successful so I guess I didn't figure it out.

I had thought of that--he prepared him and was sending him somewhere. The somewhere is intriguing because it was stated you had to be prepared for the specific time you were going to.

So where did he think a guy like Kirk "belonged"

 

[Marsden]

"All Our Yesterdays"

Great spin on time travel, the neat Spock/McCoy dynamic in the distant past, Mr. Atoz.

Definitely a great episode.

Yeah, I just noticed that I left it off my "good but not great" list in the OP.

It's definitely not a great TOS episode but it's a darn good Spock/McCoy episode.

But the whole "prepared" things baffles me.

If you go back (and stay) while unprepared you will die. If you are prepared and come back to the future--you die.

But Atoz had Kirk on that sled and was pushing him into the past--but he hadn't prepared him.

So was he intending that kirk Die?

Why do that? Just lock him in a closet and escape to the past.

And the time frame is off--it's clearly said that they have 3 hours to get back to the portal, that works for Kirk's adventure, but did McCoy almost freeze, get to the cave and recover form severe frostbite in 3 hours? And the phaser doesn't work in the past--but the tricorder does?

Still ----entertaining.

I'm guessing right back to Witchville.

Just because that's where he was.


I love that one line "He called it 'Bones'"

 

[Nebusj]

I had thought of that--he prepared him and was sending him somewhere. The somewhere is intriguing because it was stated you had to be prepared for the specific time you were going to.

So where did he think a guy like Kirk "belonged"

Presumably, Atoz figured Kirk had chosen Deep Space England, since that was the disc Kirk had been looking at and ventured into already. If that wasn't good enough, well for crying out loud, he's waited until twelve minutes before the flipping supernova, he doesn't have time to dither.

 

[Warped9]

Going in production order...

"Requiem For Methuselah"

I rather like this episode and I always have in varying degrees. And that's even while acknowledging that it has a glaring flaw: Kirk falling so hard and so fast for Rayna just isn't credible. The only rationalization I can imagine is that Kirk was being manipulated or influenced beyond what we see onscreen.

Perhaps Rayna was made with highly powerful pheromones or some other agent or means that influenced and enhanced Kirk's responses. It could have been very much like Elan's tears seen previously in "Elaan Of Troyius." The pity is we can only speculate because we're not given any clue onscreen.

Setting that issue aside I do think this is an interesting story on a number of levels. Never mind the historical fudging (because this is Star Trek's reality and not ours), but that an immortal having lived through the centuries and having been many well known figures is a compelling idea for a story. And then in the far future he elects to create a mate for himself, as immortal and as brilliant as he. Then in the end he not only loses what could have been the love of his life, but also learns he himself is no longer immortal. And if Rayna had survived then she would have outlived him.

Although they sidestep any technobabble that would surely have been tossed in if this story had been done in the TNG era, I admit that Rayna's death seems very much like Lal's in TNG's "The Offspring." Both were artificial lifeforms that hadn't had time to adapt to their new found emotions.

I must also say that I was gratified to see Rayna portrayed more like the Roger Corby type androids in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" rather than the stupidity portrayed in "I, Mudd." Indeed she seems much more like the kind of construct that Sargon and Thalassa and Henock (from "Return To Tomorrow") could have inhabited.

The episode is also dressed better than some other third season episodes with Flint's and Rayna's costumes and Flint's elaborate home and laboratory.

This also wasn't a run-and-jump style adventure story. This was more a thoughtful science fiction story and an interesting compliment and contrast to "The Way To Eden" before it. The two episodes give us something of two different glimpses of TOS' far future society.

I find it rather classy for lack of a better word. That sense is certainly bolstered by its rather literary sounding title.

 

[Grant]

^^ Great review---it is a compelling and intriguing concept.

I think it's first 30+ minutes are fascinating and outstanding--it's only the part when they discover the ritalyn and start brawling where it drops off.

Love the epilogue with the mind meld!

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

My pick is "The Ultimate Computer".

 

[Grant]

My pick is "The Ultimate Computer".

Wow, not one of the last 26 episodes is great in your book?

 

[plynch]

Tholian Web

 

[Melakon]

"Spectre of the Gun", since I seem to watch it more than once a week over the past year or so. Its theme on the nature of reality hooked me when it first aired in 1968. The staging also appeals to me, because it's much like a theatre performance with the fragmentary sets.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

My pick is "The Ultimate Computer".

Wow, not one of the last 26 episodes is great in your book?

There are some very good episodes among the last 26, but I think "The Ultimate Computer" is the last truly great episode of TOS.

 

[Halifax]

Are you of the body?

Return of the Archons was a great one.

Not near the end of series though.

 

[plynch]

Ultimate Computer is under-rated, incl. by me, when I think about it. A 60s rage-against-technology (OldTrek's predominant theme, odd for a space opera, really).

 

[Gary7]

"All Our Yesterdays"

Great spin on time travel, the neat Spock/McCoy dynamic in the distant past, Mr. Atoz.

Definitely a great episode.

My favorite from the 3rd Season as well, and I vote for this one. True, it had its flaws. It was a rush job. It was hampered by budget constraints. But the premise was intriguing and I really enjoyed it. One of the best "wrap ups" of Mcoy-Spock conflicts. I really wished this was it. Turnabout Intruder was a disaster, a charade, a stain on TOS.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

"All Our Yesterdays"

Great spin on time travel, the neat Spock/McCoy dynamic in the distant past, Mr. Atoz.

Definitely a great episode.

My favorite from the 3rd Season as well, and I vote for this one. True, it had its flaws. It was a rush job. It was hampered by budget constraints. But the premise was intriguing and I really enjoyed it. One of the best "wrap ups" of Mcoy-Spock conflicts. I really wished this was it. Turnabout Intruder was a disaster, a charade, a stain on TOS.

I thought this episode was considered the poor man's "City on the Edge of Forever".

 

[CrazyMatt]

There are a number of very good episodes in the last half of the second season and in the entirety of the third. However, I think the last GREAT episode is "Journey To Babel," which was the 44th episode produced.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Gonna go with "All Our Yesterdays", too. Cool time travel. Spock goes primitive. Mariette Hartley.