Your Top Five Season 3 Episodes

[AtoZ]

Budget cuts, the absence of Roddenberry and Coon, the "Freidberger effect", Shatner's penchant for over-acting seemingly at a high point and some quirky moments where our characters seemed to step out of character based on script, S3 grows on me more and more.

There are some excellent stories and concepts from S3 that are among my favorites of the whole series. And there are some episodes that although very good, had they been done in S1 they would have perhaps had enough breathing space to make them fantastic (The Enterprise Incident)

I happen to love these ones, flawed as they be to some:

Spectre of the Gun
The Tholian Web
All Our Yesterdays
The Paradise Syndrome
The Enterprise Incident

Honorable mention: Wink of an Eye/The Cloud Minders/The Savage Curtain

What are your top five S3 episodes:

 

[Winterwind]

With one exception, my list would be the same as your list. While I like The Paradise Syndrome, I prefer The Empath.

 

[tomalak301]

There are many episodes from the third season I like. Actually, I think it get's unfairly bashed more often than not:

Tholian Web
The Enterprise Incident
All Our Yesterdays
Day of the Dove
Requiem For Methuselah

 

[Greg Cox]

In no particular order:

1. "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
2. "The Day of the Dove"
3. "All Our Yesterdays"
4. "The Enterprise Incident"
5. "The Paradise Syndrome"

I'm actually in the process of watching Season 3 again, so this could change once I actually see some of these episodes for the first time in years.

 

[Knight Templar]

The Tholian Web
The Enterprise Incident
Day of the Dove
Spectre of the Gun
Elaan of Troyius

Honorable mention

Spock's Brain (it isn't nearly as bad as its reputation or the awful title).

 

[lurok]

Only ones find re-watchable:

The Enterprise Incident
Is There In Truth No Beauty?
Elaan Of Troyius
Day of The Dove (but only for Kang)

for cheese value:
Wink of An Eye
Spock's Brain
Cloud Minders
Way To Eden

 

[CaptainMatt]

The Tholian Web
Spectre of the Gun
The Enterprise Incident
All Our Yesterdays
Is There in Truth No Beauty?

 

[Sky]

The Tholian Web
The Enterprise Incident
All Our Yesterdays
The Empath
Elaan of Troyius

 

[Octubre]

1-4 are not only my favourite eps from season 3, they are my favourite from the whole TOS.
1. Is There in Truth No Beauty? (odd one and essence of the whole series at the same time)
2. All Our Yesterdays (beautiful and poetic like the first. It's a pity Aroeste didn't write more)
3. The Enterprise Incident
4. Spectre of the Gun (these two episodes don't seem old-fashioned even now)
and
5. Plato's Stepchildren (if Is There in Truth No Beauty is essence of TOS, this one is essence of the third season for me. Weird, creepy, decadent, colorful, campy and having too much emotional power - but that power really works here)
Honorable mention: The Way to Eden and The Cloud Minders.

 

[Kelso]

"All Our Yesterdays"
"The Empath"
"Day of the Dove"
"Spock's Brain"
"The Cloud Minders"

 

[Lucky]

1. All Our Yesterdays
2. The Enterprise Incident
3. The Tholian Web
4. Day of the Dove
5. Whom Gods Destroy

 

[King Bob!]

Day of the Dove
Spectre of the Gun
Elaan of Troyius
The Tholian Web
Turnabout Intruder

 

[Cap'n Claus]

The Tholian Web
The Enterprise Incident
Day of the Dove
Spectre of the Gun
Elaan of Troyius

Honorable mention

Spock's Brain (it isn't nearly as bad as its reputation or the awful title).

You saved me the trouble of typing this out myself. My exact picks.

 

[LibraryComputer]

All Our Yesderdays
Spectre of the Gun
Day of the Dove
The Enterprise Incident
The Tholian Web

 

[Noname On A Naughty List]

In no particular order, I have 4 from the third season I find re-watchable at anytime:

The Enterprise Incident
The Tholian Web
Elaan Of Troyius
Day of The Dove

and if I have to pick a fifth, occassionaly:

That Which Survives

But overall, it has earned the fan nickname of 'the turd season'.

 

[Harvey]

The best three are:

"Spectre of the Gun"
"The Tholian Web"
"Day of the Dove"

I'm not sure about my other two picks; it's been a while since I saw the third season.

 

[gottacook]

The third-season episodes are the only ones I saw first-run (about half of them). My top five - assuming that I had to jettison the other 19 and never see them again - are these:

"Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
"The Empath"
"The Enterprise Incident"
"Elaan of Troyius"
"All Our Yesterdays"

The first four of these were produced relatively early in the season and I chose them mostly because I like their original music scores by, respectively, Duning, Duning, Courage, and Steiner.

The last one, I chose because of Mariette Hartley's last look into the camera as Zarabeth, in her furs, before she turns and walks back through the snow to her again-lonely cave. She conveys more with that look than Sabrina Scharf did in a whole episode's worth of dialogue as Miramanee.

Honorable mention: "The Way to Eden." As mentioned on other threads, I see this episode as nothing more or less than Star Trek's response to the musical Hair, and enjoyable to the extent that one enjoys the original cast recording of Hair (which I do).

 

[CaptPapa]

I like quite a few of the third season episodes, and feel that even though there were budget cuts and creative abandonment, most of the season stands up well. My favorites . . .

The Enterprise Incident
The Tholian Web
All Our Yesterdays
Elaan Of Troyius
Is There In Truth No Beauty?

and a few more since I had a bit of trouble getting down to five - these in production order . . .

Spectre Of The Gun
Wink Of An Eye
That Which Survives
The Mark Of Gideon
Requiem For Methuselah

 

[JimZipCode]

Top list:

Turnabout Intruder
Cloud Minders
Enterprise Incident
Way to Eden
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (mostly for the ultra-awesome destruct sequence; also has some nice lounge scenes)

I'm one of the only people in the world who thinks Turnabout Intruder is excellent, I have it in or near my top ten.

Utter stinkers:

Savage Curtain
And the Children Shall Lead
Requiem for Methuselah
Wink of an Eye
Empath

All Our Yesterdays is quite frustrating to me, because of the absence of story. I want to condemn it utterly. But goddam Mariette Hartley is something.