World Famous Comics: Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete Third Season
Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete Third Season
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Binding: DVD Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC Label: CBS Paramount International Television Number of Items: 7 Region Code: 1 Release Date: December 14, 2004 Running Time: 1349 minutes Theatrical Release Date: September 08, 1966
Product Description: Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise travel through space in order to defend the United Federation of Planets and explore new worlds. Genre: Television Rating: NR Release Date: 8-AUG-2006 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: Saved from the brink of cancellation by its loyal fanbase, Star Trek's third and final season rewarded them with a number of memorable episodes. Tight budgets and slipping creative control, however, made it the series' most uneven season, though it did have some of the coolest episode titles ("For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," "Is There in Truth No Beauty," "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"). Some of the best moments involved a gunfight at the OK Corral ("Spectre of the Gun"), a knock-down drag-out sword battle with the Klingons aboard the Enterprise ("Day of the Dove"), the ship getting caught in an ever-tightening spacial net ("The Tholian Web"), TV's first interracial kiss ("Plato's Stepchildren," and it should be easy to guess who participated), Sulu taking command ("The Savage Curtain"), and Kirk's switching bodies with an ex-love interest ("Turnabout Intruder").
Also appearing in the set as a coda are two versions of the series pilot, "The Cage," a restored color version and the original, never-aired version that alternates between color and black and white. Starring Jeffery Hunter as Captain Pike, Leonard Nimoy as a relatively emotional Spock, and Majel Barrett (the future Nurse Chapel and Mrs. Gene Roddenberry) as a frosty Number One, this pilot was rejected, but a second was commissioned, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," now considered the "official" beginning of the series. But "The Cage" is very recognizably Star Trek with its far-out concepts (telepathic aliens collecting species samples), sexy humanoid women, character development, and of course cheesy costumes and special effects. Footage was later reused in the season 1 two-parter, "The Menagerie."
The best of the 63 minutes of bonus material focuses on three of the actors: Walter Koenig, George Takei, and James Doohan. Koenig discusses how he was cast and shows off his various collections, one consisting of Chekov figurines. Takei speaks movingly about the Japanese American internment and, in what is probably his last Star Trek appearance, Doohan, slowed by Alzheimer's but still with a twinkle in his eye, recalls his voiceover roles and his favorite episodes. The Easter eggs are amusingly called "Red Shirt Files" in tribute to those poor saps who everyone knew were only in the landing party so they could die. --David Horiuchi
If you love Star Trek, the DVD series is a must have Outstanding idea to come out w. the original series on DVD. I own all 3 seasons. Well written, great plotlines and characters - this show was ahead of its time in addressing social issues such as prejudice, custom and tradition, disaster, grief, power, gluttony, etc.
The special effects are not so bad in the 3rd season, as per the first, but this was the way that things were done back in the day. The series does not have to hang its hat on explosions and such to carry itself.
Too Far Ahead of Its Time After the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series, the show was set to be cancelled by its network. However, after receiving a flood of letters from devoted fans that wanted to keep the show on the air, the network renewed it for one more season. Of course, since the show was not the culutural phenomena that it has now become, the network buried it in a late-night time slot and forced creator Gene Roddenberry to operate on a shoe-string budget. As a result, the special effects or sets that are needed in a show which regularly shows viewers spectacular events are severely hampered in this season. One episode takes place in an empty Enterprise, one is set in a pitch-black room much of the time, and another takes place in a deserted old West town (as no money existed to pay extras).
Yet, for fans of the first two seasons, this Third Season still delivers some great action, mind-bending drama, and little doses of humor. It is only the physical environment of the scripts that go downhill...not necessarily the scripted material itself.
Here are what I consider to be the highlights of this Third Season:
Day of the Dove: The Enterprise continues its battle with the Klingons.
All Our Yesterdays: Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are thrown into different periods of past galaxies and forced to survive while trying to find a way home.
Turnabout Intruder: A body-switching tale that, while common fare now, had probably never been seen on TV to that point.
To conclude, the Third Season of Star Trek: TOS continued to produce some great dramatic TV hours, but was severely hampered by budgetary issues. Is it still worth your time? An emphatic "Yes"! Essentially, the show was so far ahead of its time that viewers did not know how to handle the "mature" (by 1960s standards!) themes it presented (i.e. many people boycotted the show because they thought Spock represented Satan due to his long ears!), thus its viewerships problems. It wouldn't be until the release of the major motion pictures in the 1970s and 1980s (after space travel was a well-established reality in this country) that Star Trek become the phenomena it is today.
.....much maligned and misunderstood No one seems able to write a positive, straight forward review about Star Trek's much maligned Third Season. As the media seem incapable or unwilling to run articles about Birmingham without the need to accompany absurd pictures of Sphagetti Junction, so Season Three is forever handicapped by the casual image of Mr Spock lobotomised without a single loss of hair!
Most observers tend to agree that the majority of the episodes in Season Three are ultimately lacking and the season's unbelievable opener (Spocks Brain) was certainly indicative of the substantial drop in quality to come. But the real betrayal was to sacrifice Star Trek's literary format, continuity and characterisation by foolishly exploiting Spock's box office potential at every opportunity and in doing so, the final season suffered a dreadful lack of plausibility and credibilty. And yet despite this, there remains an artistic voice about Season Three which few observers readily identify. In episodes such as "The Tholian Web", "Spectre of the Gun" and "All Our Yesterdays" you will find delicious, thoughtful scripts to rival any storyline from the revered First Season. Sadly, these gems are buried deep inside a mass of bland mediocrity, which is such a shame as Season Three contains some of Star Trek's greatest adventures (possibly as many as three of the all-time Top 10). Despite the obvious inadequacies, the final season is still in parts an enjoyable experience and worthy of repeated viewing.
The 7-disc DVD boxset is nicely packaged with all the bells and whistles you would expect - featurettes, retrospectives and commentaries. The discs are easy to navigate through with on screen menus resembling perspectives of the Enterprise bridge - a nice touch, but screen characters appear highly pixelated and lack smoothness around the edges.
This is what I've been waiting for! I haven't watched the 1st or 2nd season dvd's yet. I ordered the 3rd season because it has my favorite episodes. Spocks Brain and The Tholian web are 2 of my favorites. I really like The Enterprise Incident, where the Enterprise enters the Romulan Neutral Zone, Kirk disguises as a Romulan, Spock gets lucky and they steal the Romulan cloaking device. Way to go Spock! The video and audio quality is great. The packaging is good too. I especially like the video trailers. I can't remember the titles of some of the episodes so the trailers are a good preview. Some other reviews say that the 1st and 2nd seasons got higher ratings. If they are as good as the 3rd season, I'll probably buy them too.
Live long and prosper!
Staar Trek Season 3 Review The DVD series is great and the price was excellent. Cheaper than I could buy it for in any store.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
