TOS Season 3


Episodes

Summary
With Star Trek having narrowly avoided cancellation, the basic format remained the same as Season 2. The season opened with , a story in which , the priestess-leader of the underground Eymorg city, steals Spock's brain and transfers it to a receptacle so that he can rule their society.

Other episodes continued to serve as political parables.  carried a strong anti-war message, while  dealt with racial hatred, ending with the Enterprise unable to prevent the destruction of a civilization or even dissuade the two survivors from continuing their feud.  told a tightly constructed morality play with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy teach an alien woman the value of self-sacrifice. While  may not have featured television's first interracial kiss, it was still groundbreaking enough to be banned in some states.

Kirk had one of his most significant romances in , as he spent three months stranded on a planet, fell in love, and married, only for his pregnant wife to be killed in a tragic misunderstanding. He also fell in love with an android in , inadvertently bringing about her death. Spock attracted female attention in episodes like , , and , and McCoy and Scott found love in  and , respectively.

Of the junior crewmembers, Chekov had significant roles in  and , the latter giving a rare insight into his past. Sulu was given a chance to command the ship in , for the first time since , and accompanied Kirk and McCoy on an away team in , while Uhura and Christine Chapel finally had an opportunity to get closer to the two leads in , albeit at the behest of telekinetic aliens.

The Klingons made two major appearances in  and . The latter introduced the character of Kang, who was later seen in  and . The Romulans appeared in person for the first time since  when they returned in , and the Tholians were introduced in .  saw Kirk and Spock forced to play out the battle against good and evil, with three of the other participants, , , and , reappearing in later series as their original selves. The episode also marked the last appearance of Uhura on the show.

The season closed with , in which Kirk found himself trapped in the body of bitter former lover Janice Lester, who proceeded to charge his comrades with mutiny.

Credits

Cast

Regular cast
 William Shatner as James T. Kirk
 Leonard Nimoy as Spock
 DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy

Recurring performers
 James Doohan as Montgomery Scott
 George Takei as Hikaru Sulu
 Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
 Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov
 Majel Barrett as Christine Chapel
 Eddie Paskey as Leslie

Crew 
 Fred Freiberger – Producer
 Robert H. Justman – Co-Producer ( – )
 Gene Roddenberry – Executive Producer
 Gregg Peters – Associate Producer
 Edward K. Milkis – Associate Producer
 Douglas S. Cramer – Executive in Charge of Production
 Gregg Peters – Unit Production Manager
 Arthur H. Singer – Story Consultant
 Walter M. Jefferies – Art Director
 John Dwyer – Set Decorator
 Jerry Finnerman – Director of photography ( – )
 Al Francis – Director of photography ( – )
 Gil Kissel – Assistant Director
 Claude Binyon, Jr. – Assistant Director
 Gene DeRuelle – Assistant Director
 Bill Brame – Film Editor
 Donald R. Rode – Film Editor
 William Ware Theiss – Costume Designer
 Fred B. Phillips – Make-Up Artist
 Pat Westmore – Hair Stylist
 George A. Rutter – Script Supervisor
 Joseph D'Agosta – Casting Director
 William J. Kenney – Casting Director
 Irving A. Feinberg – Property Master
 Jim Rugg – Special Effects
 Douglas H. Grindstaff – Sound Effects Editor
 Richard Lapham – Music Editor
 Gordon L. Day – Re-recording Mixer
 Carl W. Daniels – Production Mixer
 George H. Merhoff – Gaffer
 George Rader – Head Grip

Uncredited 
 Larry Abbott – Makeup artist ("The Way to Eden")
 George Barr – Makeup artist ("The Way to Eden")
 Kellam de Forest – Research
 John Finger – Director of Photography ("Requiem for Methuselah")
 Al Francis – Camera Operator ("Spectre of the Gun" – "The Empath")
 Ernest Haller – Director of Photography ("Requiem for Methuselah")
 Al Jacoby – Assistant Property Master
 Mike May – Props
 Bill McGovern – Clapper/Loader
 Mike Minor – Additional designs ("The Tholian Web")
 Tiger Shapiro – Second Assistant Director
 Charles Washburn – Second Assistant Director
 Andrea Weaver – Women's Costumer

Directors
 David Alexander
 
 

 Marvin Chomsky
 
 
 

 Marc Daniels
 

 Herschel Daugherty
 

 John Erman
 

 Murray Golden
 

 Herb Kenwith
 

 Tony Leader
 

 John Meredyth Lucas
 
 

 Vincent McEveety
 

 Ralph Senensky
 
  (uncredited)

 Jud Taylor
 
 
 
 
 

 Herb Wallerstein

Background information

 Some production staff members were disappointed with season three. In a 2006 interview, Leonard Nimoy called it "very weak in general, but it was especially not good for Spock." 
 Ira Steven Behr once said that both he and his sister were disappointed with this third season.  He also commented that his disappointment with the season was similar to the reaction of "most fans." 
 For the third season, the title and credits were in a light blue color, much like the credits of .
 Kirk no longer wore a green wrap-around shirt in any of the episodes, though officers were seen wearing the full dress uniform in  and . Also in the third season, Scott's dress uniform was accompanied by a traditional Scottish kilt. The uniforms were no longer made of velour (which shrank every time it was cleaned), but of double-knit polyester.
 Each episode of the third season now cost about US$175,000, the budget having been reduced even further, while the salaries of the main cast increased. Consequently, only two episodes out of the twenty-four this season ( and ) featured location scenery.
 Gene Roddenberry was initially promised an early evening time slot (Mondays at 7:30 pm) by NBC. However, this would have required their top-rated series Laugh-In to be moved from its 8 pm time slot to 8:30. Laugh-In Producer George Schaltter threatened to take his show to another network unless it was guaranteed the 8 pm slot. NBC capitulated, forcing Star Trek to air its third season in the only remaining slot on the schedule – Fridays at 10 pm. Roddenberry threatened to leave Star Trek entirely if it wasn't put back to the promised time slot, but NBC rejected his threats due to the show's low ratings. He technically kept the post of executive producer for this season, but had actually left for MGM to work on other projects.
 Because of Roddenberry's withdrawal, scripts were no longer revised or re-written by him, nor by either Gene L. Coon or D.C. Fontana, who both left the series earlier. Script quality greatly suffered because of this. (Inside Star Trek: The Real Story)
 After Roddenberry and most of the writing staff left after the second season, Fred Freiberger took over as producer, with Arthur Singer replacing D.C. Fontana as script consultant. According to Fontana, Singer came to the set one day, and asked, "By the way, what does that transporter thing do again?" 
 Robert Justman was promoted to co-producer, but left the series after . Gregg Peters became the new associate producer.
 A most important change was the departure of cinematographer Jerry Finnerman after , and his replacement with his former camera operator, Al Francis, which affected the visual style of the series.
 Several new writers were brought in. Many of them were non-professionals, who sent in story outlines, which were read and recommended by Justman. These included Jean Lisette Aroeste, Joyce Muskat, and Judy Burns.
 While a few directors from prior seasons returned, none of them (save for John Meredyth Lucas and Ralph Senensky, the latter of whom was fired midway through his second episode) worked on more than one episode. The season was therefore mostly handled by a new set of directors, with Jud Taylor and Herb Wallerstein being the two most frequent.
 According to Star Trek Lives! writer Joan Winston, NBC passed on an option for two additional episodes (a twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth) for the third season. William Shatner would have directed the twenty-fifth episode, "The Joy Machine". Ultimately, it was another two decades before Shatner got the opportunity to direct a Star Trek production (the film , which was released almost twenty years to the day after TOS series finale ) and twenty-one years before a Star Trek episode would be directed by a member of the cast (, directed by Jonathan Frakes).

See also
 TOS Season 3 UK VHS
 TOS Season 3 DVD
 TOS-R Season 3 DVD
 TOS Season 3 Blu-ray

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cs:Třetí sezóna TOS
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it:TOS Stagione 3
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pt:Star Trek: The Original Series#Temporada 3
ru:Звёздный путь: Оригинальный сериал Сезон 3
sr:ОС: Сезона 3