I think the thing to remember is that it’s a mid-1960s tv show, and not even that good of one in the first place.
It was, however, groundbreaking in its own way, and had enough je ne sais quoi that it had staying power into the 1980s via syndication.
So don’t go into ST:TOS expecting some sort of amazing excellence in writing, acting and costuming. Go in expecting what you’d imagine a major network sci-fi show in 1965 would be like, with something a little bit different, and it’ll make more sense.
I think it’s fair to say the difference between the really good episodes and the ones that stank was far greater than on any other series, past or present. It reached both incredible highs and unbelievable lows.
I always got the impression that it was the only example of its kind at the time, and that the good episodes were so good that they basically floated the series over the bad ones, and a decade worth of syndication as well.
A good counterexample from the same time period would be Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Same exact premise, but while TOS stunk up the joint ~ 10-20% of the time, Voyage did around 75% of the time.
I recall when it started becoming popular in syndication in the 1970s. I was in grad school, and it became a daily ritual for everyone to gather in the student lounge to watch the episodes when they came on at in the late afternoon. While people appreciated the good episodes, the bad ones were almost as much fun for camp value. Terrible episodes became a lot more fun when you were a member of an audience cheering on ripped-shirt Kirk or howling at the lame jokes at the end.
Well most of the Irwin Allen productions made Star Trek look big budget. Voyage was an interesting idea but done too cheap. I think the only exception that rose above the lack of budget, was The Time Tunnel, but that lasted only 1 season IRC.
Land of the Giants was the worst of the bunch. I would say Voyage was slightly better than Lost in Space, only as Lost in Space was really dumbed down for the children audience also.
I loved The Time Tunnel when I was in sixth grade and was pissed off when it wasn’t renewed for a second season. Even in those days, I couldn’t take Lost in Space, Voyage, or Giants as anything other than insults to my intelligence.
I can still watch and enjoy Time Tunnel today, but I really need to suspend my disbelief. The moment I realized something was not quite right about it was in the Jericho episode, when the head dude strode into the tent and said (in perfect American English) “I am Joshua, commander of the Israelites.” Even twelve-year-old me knew this just wasn’t kosher (so to speak).
Interesting footnote: This was the episode that aired on Friday, 27 January 1967. I still remember the exact point where the special bulletin announcing the death of the Apollo 1 astronauts broke into the show.
I wanted to use this quote as a jumping off point.
We had ST showing at 4:00 every week day on our station, but I wouldn’t get home from school until 4:20 at the earliest, sometimes 4:30.* You get a weird impression of what’s going on without the setup, but you could still follow them. I’d watch them every day nevertheless.
When I finally got to see the whole episode, sometimes years later, it really cleared up a lot of things!
*I would roll my pre-teen eyes at the thought of so many so-called “after school” specials airing at 2:30. In what planet is 2:30 “after school”? Maybe New York City.
His shirts DID rip all too easily, didn’t they? Star Fleet must have REALLY gone with the low bidder for their uniform contracts. But only for starship commanders and yeomen, it appears.
I recall a conversation I had with my older brother, in which we expressed a hope that Phillips and Newman would get transported to Golgotha, and find themselves taking the places of Dismas and Gestas.
