Star Trek: Season Three (wrap-up)

Data
Title: Star Trek: Season Three
Year: 1968-1969
Etc: see individual episode posts (linked below)

My reaction
Concept: Once again, the concept of the show as a whole is great, although the episode-by-episode concepts average out to much less - about 2.2/4.
Story: Rounded up from an average of about 1.8/4.
Characters: Average: about 1.7/4.
Dialog: Average: about 1.9/4.
Pacing: Average: about 2.2/4.
Cinematography: Average: 2.0/4.
Special effects/design: Average: 4.0/4. I suppose I was a lot more lenient on this category than I should have been. Whatever.
Acting: Average: about 2.1/4.
Music: Average: about 3.9/4.
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, ). It hurts me. It hurts me to only give classic Star Trek a 7/10. But I've got to be honest. Well, no, if I was honest, it would get a 6/10, rounded up from an average of about 5.8. Thing is, there are no great episodes in season three.  Some that I like quite a bit, but not a single great episode. And a surprising number of bad episodes. This whole looking at, and keeping record of my reaction to, every episode individually is quite revealing.
Objective Rating (Average):

The episdoes
sorted by subjective rating (objective rating in parentheses)
7/10
- "The Enterprise Incident" (3.1/4)
- "Whom Gods Destroy" (3.0/4)
- "The Savage Curtain" (3.0/4)
- "Day of the Dove" (3.0/4)
- "Spectre of the Gun" (2.3/4)
- "All Our Yesterdays" (2.9/4)
- "The Cloud Minders" (2.8/4)
- "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" (2.8/4)
- "Spock's Brain" (2.0/4)
6/10
- "The Empath" (2.4/4)
- "Elaan of Troyius" (2.6/4)
- "The Mark of Gideon" (2.5/4)
- "Turnabout Intruder" (2.6/4)
- "The Way to Eden" (2.0/4)
- "The Paradise Syndrome" (2.3/4)
- "The Lights of Zetar" (2.1/4)
- "Wink of an Eye" (2.2/4)
- "The Tholian Web" (2.2/4)
5/10
- "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (2.3/4)
4/10
- "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (2.1/4)
- "Plato's Stepchildren" (1.7/4)
- "And the Children Shall Lead" (1.7/4)
3/10
- "Requiem for Methuselah" (2.0/4)
- "That Which Survives" (1.7/4)

Star Trek: "Turnabout Intruder"

Data
Title: Star Trek: “Turnabout Intruder”
Year: 1969
Network: NBC
Episode: the last (of twenty-four) from season three; 50 minutes
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Herb Wallerstein
Writer: Arthur H. Singer; story by Gene Roddenberry
Starring: William Shatner
With: Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Sandra Smith, Harry Landers, James Doohan
Music: Alexander Courage (theme); Fred Steiner
Cinematography: Al Francis
Editing: Donald R. Rode
I saw it: on video and TV several times, most recently yesterday (have on DVD)
Synopsis: body swap

My reaction
Concept:
Story:
Characters: "Intense hatred of her own womanhood." What?
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting: Shatner's ridiculous, but Smith usually makes a reasonably convincing Kirk.
Music:
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, ). And the series ends with a bang, of sorts: all new heights of sexism. It could have been fixed, too, with just a tweak of two or three lines of dialog - making it so that the villain's problem is that she's criminally insane, rather than that she's a woman. Sigh.
Objective Rating (Average):

Star Trek: "All Our Yesterdays"

Data
Title: Star Trek: “All Our Yesterdays”
Year: 1969
Network: NBC
Episode: the twenty-third (of twenty-four) from season three; 50 minutes
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Marvin J. Chomsky
Writer: Jean Lisette Aroeste
Starring: William Shatner
With: Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Mariette Hartley, Ian Wolfe, Kermit Murdock
Music: Alexander Courage (theme); George Duning
Cinematography: Al Francis
Editing: Grant Hoag, Fabien D. Tordjmann
I saw it: on video and TV several times, most recently yesterday (have on DVD)
Synopsis: trapped in time

My reaction
Concept:
Story:
Characters:
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting:
Music:
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, ). Wait, an alien world that's not evil? And isn't run by a computer? How can that be?
Objective Rating (Average):

Star Trek: "The Savage Curtain"

Data
Title: Star Trek: “The Savage Curtain”
Year: 1969
Network: NBC
Episode: the twenty-second (of twenty-four) from season three; 50 minutes
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Herschel Daugherty
Writers: Gene Roddenberry & Arthur Heinemann; story by Roddenberry
Starring: William Shatner
With: Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Lee Bergere, Barry Atwater, Phillip Pine
Music: Alexander Courage (theme); Fred Steiner
Cinematography: Al Francis
Editing: Bill Brame
I saw it: on video and TV several times, most recently yesterday (have on DVD)
Synopsis: first, Abraham Lincoln In Space; then, yet another arena battle

My reaction
Concept:
Story:
Characters:
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting: Great casting. The ancient Vulcan looks like he walked in out of a medieval painting, and the guy from 21st-century Earth is a classic 1950's spaceman.
Music:
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, ). When Abraham Lincoln shows up, even though you know by this point in the series that it's just going to be some god-like-powers bullshit, you can't help being intrigued. There's just something inherently fascinating to me about showing the future to a figure from the past. And you really want to know where this could possibly be leading. It doesn't end up leading anywhere novel - just another Space Monster Wants to Make You Fight Each Other scenario. But it's one of the better episodes of that formula, with a relatively interesting character dynamic.
Objective Rating (Average):

Star Trek: "The Cloud Minders"

Data
Title: Star Trek: “The Cloud Minders”
Year: 1969
Network: NBC
Episode: the twenty-first (of twenty-four) from season three; 50 minutes
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Jud Taylor
Writer: Margaret Armen; story by David Gerrold & Oliver Crawford
Starring: William Shatner
With: Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Jeff Corey, Diana Ewing, Charlene Polite
Music: Alexander Courage (theme); Fred Steiner
Cinematography: Al Francis
Editing: Bill Brame
I saw it: on video and TV several times, most recently yesterday (have on DVD)
Synopsis: The Time Machine In Space (minus the time travel)

My reaction
Concept:
Story:
Characters:
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting: Another would-be intelligent female character, played as if she's an idiot child.
Music:
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, ). Kirk faces a realistic, complex diplomatic issue, and naturally has no good solution available. That is, of course, until midway through the episode when McCoy makes an announcement that you'd never see coming. If you think about it on a symbolic level, the story's solution is offensive. But on a literal level, it works and is fairly interesting and novel.
Objective Rating (Average):