Season three of the original series of Star Trek is characterized by some of the worst episodes in the history of the franchise. NBC was pushing the further and further out of the prime-time slot (with season three, the episodes aired at 10:00 PM in most of the country!), and funding was becomming harder to come by. The network had never really liked Star Trek, and now they were showing their disdain in every way possible asside from actually cancelling the show.
They had, in fact tried to cancel the show after the second season, but due to a massive letter writing campain by the fans, they decided to keep it. By the end of season three, however, not even an avalanche of letters could save the doomed sci-fi show.
- Spock's Brain
First aired in: 9/20/1968
Stardate: 5431.4
Spock's brain is removed by a mysterious woman after she renders the entire ship unconscious. The Enterprise follows her to discover that she has taken Spock's brain to be used to control their central computer. By using a device known as the "Great Teacher," McCoy is able to put Spock's brain back into his head.
This is arguably the worst Star Trek episode ever, in all of the history of all of the Star Trek series spin-offs. First of all, you've got the generally ludicrious situation of someone stealing Spock's brain in the first place (including the fact that he's still alive, even without it), but then you've got Spock's brainless body walking around with the aid of a little remote control. In addition, somehow they have the technology to hook Spock up to this control system, yet it's far beyound them to be able to replace the brain. Finally, the "Great Teacher" can tell the aliens how to remove someone's brain and hook it up to the master computer, but it can't tell them how to actually build the master computer to work without an actual brain?
The story is so ridiculous that a song was even written about it, entitled, appropriately, "Spock's Brain"
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- Plato's Stepchildren
- Wink of an Eye
- The Empath
- Elaan of Troyius
- Whom Gods Destroy
- Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
- The Mark Of Gideon
- That Which Survives
- The Lights of Zetar
- Requiem for Methuselah
- The Way to Eden
- The Cloudminders
- The Savage Curtain
- All Our Yesterdays
- Turnabout Intruder
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