What were the low points in the original series?

Taking Spock's brain...what else.

Thanks

The Space Hippies

The Alternative Factor

Brain and brain! What is brain??




One of the low points for me was "The Mark of Gideon". Even as a kid I had problems with the premise.

Turnabout Intruder is pretty lousy, but it does feature some great bad acting by Shatner.

The Mark of Gideon would be truly terrible, but does have that super hot chick prancing around the ship.

Some of the worst episodes include The Empath, The Apple, And the Children Shall Lead, and The Alternative Factor.

But the one that both sucks and blows is The Way to Eden.

You can call me Herbert, but am I the only person in the world that likes Spock's Brain?

Could not stand And the Children Shall Lead. Gorgon the friendly angel, evil kids, just laughable to me. More meanacing children found in Miri.

The Lights of Zetar is my personal bottom episode. Why does all the bad stuff happen to Scotty. Hard to see why he would even want to be with a woman as every relationship always put him in jeopardy.

Yeah, I know, but did you check out the rack on that woman? Jesus!

My bottom five:

Spock's Brain
And the Children Shall Lead
The Way to Eden
Spectre of the Gun
Plato's Stepchildren

OK, them's fightin' words.

das

P.S. I know I'm the only one on the planet who likes that ep.

Yeah - that might be #1 on my craptacular list. I hated both of the children eps - this and Miri.

One thing I'll say about the episode is that it got me interested in the gunfight at the OK Corral and the history of Tombstone AZ in general. So it's got that going for it.

So, from reading this thread, can I conclude that the third season of TOS was pretty bad?

Overall, yes, but I do think there were a few gems: The Enterprise Incident and The Tholian Web to name 2.

In general, season 3 sucked, but Red Dog's right about those two eps.

Another shitty episode not from S3: The Apple.

Oh, and I never cared much for Miri, myself.

Yeah, Brother!

What happened in these episodes that you mentioned? I don't know the shows well enough for the titles to tell me.

What super stupid things happened in these particular episodes.

Space hippies?

Turnabout Intruder
It's Freak Friday on the Enterprise, when spurned lover Janice Lester switches bodies with Kirk.
The last episode of the series and total crapola, but we do get so see thespian Shatner's interpretation of a woman trapped in a man's body.

The Way to Eden
Kirk and crew get stuck transporting a bunch of Space Hippies to a planet called Eden.
Star Trek gets lots of dap for addressing the social problems of the sixties in space metaphor, but those Herberts really dropped the ball on this one. (Yeah, Brother) The hippies are portrayed as smug goons whose desire to go Woodstock and "get back to the land" is laughably ridiculous.

The Mark of Gideon
Kirk finds himself alone on the Enterprise with only a beautiful alien blond to keep him company.
Stoopid stuff, but check her out


And the Children Shall Lead
The Enterprise gets taken over by a bunch of kids (who practice mind control by hitting their palms with their fists) who are following the orders of an "angel" named Gorgon.

Miri
Kirk and a landing party are stranded on a planet where disease has killed all the Gr'ups, and the surviving kids have gone all Lord of the Flies.
Kim Darby plays a teenage girl who starts crushin on Jim Kirk.
The other kids include Michael J Pollard, Shatner's daughter, Roddenberry's daughter, and Phil Morris (who would grow up to be Seinfeld attorney Jackie Chiles).
Notable moment: Yeoman Janice Rand let's the Captain know that she'd like him to give her some yeogasms.

The Empath
Presumably, a Teamsters' strike forced the cast to work without sets fro a week, when Kirk, Spock and McCoy find themselves trapped on a empty soundstage with a mute woman who heal people with her empathic abilities. BORING.

The Lights of Zetar
Scotty falls in love = disaster waiting to happen
Stick with your space wrenches, you glorified grease monkey, and leave the space wenches to one James Tiberius Kirk.

The Apple
Kirk finds a planet of people living in an edenic paradise in total peace and harmony. He ruins it for them.

The Alternative Factor
There are two identical guys named Lazarus aboard the Enterprise. Each claims that the other is going to destroy the universe, and that he is trying to stop it. One Lazarus is a violent madman. The other is cool and rational. Which Lazarus should Kirk believe?

And finally, the unfairly maligned Spock's Brain
A beautiful woman steals Spock's brain, and Kirk is determined to get it back!
C'mon, that's a great premise, and McCoy wears this great hat

Not alone - I think two of the biggest myths in Star Trek (TOS) are that The City on the Edge of Forever is the best episode and Spock's Brain is the worst episode. On the latter, although the episode does have some silly stuff in it, Spock's Brain has some great Trek moments and is good enough to go by in a breeze, instead of being excruciating like one of the truly worst episodes of the show. No, Spock's Brain is better than a lot of episodes and is vastly superior to The Way to Eden (the "true" inspiration for Star Trek V - need I say more?), and the abyss of hell called ...And The Children Shall Lead ("The Agony Booth" dissects this one to perfection).

There were many low points, but I loved every one of them.

great site...thanks for the link.

the most overrated epsiode of the show. Just watched it last night after several years. It is sloppy, Kirk and Spock just hanging around waiting for McCoy to finally pop up is ridiculous, and it just doesn't flow the way it should. Space Seed is infinitely better an episode in terms of story, writing, suspense, acting and flow.

I seem to recall enjoying The Mark of Gideon... the others all mentioned I agree were pretty crap though.

Memory is a funny thing.

I recall having a lot of fun visiting my grandparents farm when I was a kid.
But all we did was run around in fields filled with cow manure.

Even the worst TOS is better than 99% of all other tv ever made?

Well, maybe not but I do find peculiar things to enjoy about the worst (campiest?) TOS episodes that is absent in the 'worst' episodes from the star trek series that followed.

i think the generally accepted worst 5 are:

1) Spock's brain
2) And the children shall lead
3) plato's stepchildren
4) the way to eden
5) turnabout intruder

As I said though I wouldn't skip any of the above on my dvds either

I'm also surprised to see the alternative factor show up in a worst thread...always thought that was a kick-ass episode myself and, while the empath may be light on the props, it is more relationship heavy than many other episodes which makes it one of the better ones IMO.

Michael