… And “Requiem for Methuselah” was indeed the last episode aired on NBC:
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on 2 September 1969. I watched this episode simply because there was nothing better on at the moment.
I think i saw Lights of Zetar-first run…so few of us can actually say that
Omega Glory shouldn’t get shit on when the vast majority of the episode is good to great.
Hilariously, Kirk’s PD violation is vastly greater than Tracey’s. Tracey is the equiv of trying to stop The Golden Horde with one hand phaser. Kirk basically goes straight to Atilla and reinteprets their version of government.
“All Good Things” is clearly the winner as long as you can hand-wave away the glaring inconsistency. (A Q did it!)
I have never heard anyone refer to Turnabout Intruder as mediocre. IMHO, it’s on the same level as “Brain and brain! What is brain?” I don’t mind The Omega Glory or The Way to Eden. I actually like the music in it.
I would argue that “All Good Things” isn’t a finale at all, because the series continued on film with no major changes in format or characters.
I’m probably not the ideal person to rate Trek finales anyway. Although I have some affection for Star Trek: The Motionless Picture, I generally like to pretend that Star Trek stopped with “Turnabout Intruder.”
Another sleepy, dusty, Alpha Quadrant day. . .
If we’re going to pretend, I’d just as soon we pretend it stopped with Requiem for Methuselah, and the last four original episodes never aired.
“Turnabout Intruder” wasn’t the worst episode, IMO. I would give that dubious honor to the “And the Children Shall Lead.” There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING, good I can say about that one. In “Turnabout Intruder,” Scottie does get a few good lines and you can always watch Shatner chew a square mile of carpet. The Space Hippies had a couple of funny bits. “Spock’s Brain” has some humorous exchanges at the end, and “Brain and Brain! What is Brain?” is hilarious.
I’ll see your “Children” and raise you “Plato’s Stepchildren.” That one is so bad it’s off the scale at 11.
I admit I continue to be “entertained” by the performances in TA, both Shatner and guest star Sandra Smith. But the entire plot, script, and special effects were not worthy of Trek.
According to my source, the final episodes of TOS Season Three by air date were
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 Cloud Minders
The Savage Curtain
All Our Yesterdays
Turnabout Intruder
The episodes after Methuselah my have had their individual moments (Mariette Hartley in animal skins, still some good miniatures, Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Atoz) but overall they were pretty disappointing for this teenaged geek who looked forward to Friday nights, even though his parents hadn’t gotten a color TV yet.
I agree with the OP’s rankings of the various ST finales.
“Spock’s Brain” is pretty damn stinky; I think it’s probably the worst TOS episode. I haven’t seen “Turnabout Intruder” in a long time but I remember thinking that Shatner actually didn’t do too badly as an evil woman inhabiting a starship captain’s body. Maybe I’d be more critical if I saw it today.
The remastered “Turnabout Intruder” at least gave the original USS *Enterprise *a nice sendoff for the last time we would see her on the small screen: Star Trek "Turnabout Intruder" Remastered FX Reel - YouTube
The remastered special effects are one instance of tampering with the original films I heartily approve of. Well, most of the time, anyway. I think they could have done a much better job with the surface of Vulcan in “Amok Time.”
I really need to see more of the remastered episodes when I’m in North America. I just haven’t watched Star Trek much at all in the last few years.
Pretty much the entire third season sucked because the budget was cut and outsiders who didn’t understand the show were brought in to run it. Plus, NBC was no longer very supportive, since they hadn’t liked the “fan-engineered” letter-writing campaign at the end of the previous season.
Roddenberry saw the writing on the wall, and backed away from the series to preserve his health and develop new projects.
In their book, Solow and Justman talk about a first-season letter-writing campaign, but I don’t recall one at all. SFAIK, there was only the one that led to the 1968 on-air announcement of the show being renewed. Is my memory at fault here, or are theirs?
I only ever heard about the one at the end of the second season.
terentii, please check out the remastered “Doomsday Machine.” Far and away the best of the remastered sfx IMHO.
I read the book but I don’t have it handy right now. ISTR that during the first season there was a concerted letter-writing effort throughout the sci-fi community to talk up ST and show support. I think Harlan Ellison actually played a big part. I guess that was before he saw what happened to his script.
If Enterprise had ended with “Terra Prime” instead of “These Are The Voyages” I think it would be a legitimate contender.
I think I’ll stick with “Children” as the worst, but I won’t argue. “Plato’s Stepchildren” sucked so badly it could drain Lake Michigan. How can you waste Michael Dunn’s talent and charm?
That Which Survives is just flat out great. And the Scotty-Spock scenes are great. Great acting when Scotty says “Its stuck!”…just the teeny way Nimoy reacts.
LOVE that episode.
I wouldn’t call it great, but it is pretty good. Of the episodes listed by Kent Clark, there’s something good I can say about all of them, but “The Mark of Gideon.” That POS is so tedious that I may have to change my opinion of “And the Children Shall Lead.”
I genuinely thought DS9’s finale was the best of them.
Voyager’s wasn’t bad, except it honestly felt like the writers looked at their watches, said “Oops, we only have 2 minutes left of the show!!” and waived their magic Back To The Alpha Quadrant wand. I’ve rewatched it, and nothing in the episode really leads up to them suddenly being able to jump back home.
Enterprise… I prefer to think that last episode was a fevered imagination of Spock’s brain while it was going walkabout. Why on earth did they need to bring in Troi and Riker, and kill off Trip!!!