Star Trek: The Original Series - Season One Episode Guide with Ratings

See also my subsequent reviews of Season 2 linked here, Season 3 linked here, the Animated Series linked here, and the first six Star Trek movies linked here.

Over the past year, I've been watching all my Star Trek shows while I exercise on my treadmill, and have been writing a brief synopsis of them as I've been watching them.  Here then is a character driven episode guide of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series, with my thoughts about them and my personal letter grade ratings.  I've included each and every appearance by the main cast, even if it's merely a walk-on. The main cast for the first season:  William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James Doohan as Cheif Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Nichelle Nichols as communications officer Lt. Uhura, George Takai as helmsman Mr. Sulu, Majal Barrett as Nurse Chapel, and Grace Lee Whitney as the captain's Yeoman Janice Rand.

So take a trip down memory lane, enjoy the primary colors, see how many of these you might recall, and let me know if you agree or disagree with my ratings!

(Original Pilot): The Cage

Grade: B

The only regular character from the rest of the series here is Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, although in this original pilot, the Vulcan species wasn’t developed at all, and Mr. Spock has obvious emotions here.  The logical, emotionless one is Majel Barrett as the second in command, named simply “Number One”.  Later married to series creator Gene Roddenberry, she would go on to play background character Nurse Chapel in The Original Series and a recurring guest character Lwaxana Troi on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, as well as the voice of the Starfleet computer throughout all the shows.  Captain Christopher Pike is played by Jeffrey Hunter, and other main guest characters include Vina (Susan Oliver) and Meg Wyllie as The Keeper (the leader of the Talosians).  Background characters who made a strong appearance here included Dr. Boyce (John Hoyt), who has a heart to heart with the Captain, Yeoman Colt (Laurel Goodwin), who is kidnapped by the Talosians along with the Captain and Number One, and Peter Duryea as Lt. Tyler, a rather overeager young space cadet.  If this first pilot had sold the series, these actors would most likely have been series regulars.

The Man Trap

Grade: B

Of the guest stars, the highlight here is the shape-shifting Salt Vampire which masquerades as different people, but is mostly seen by others as Nancy Crater (Jeanne Bal).  The other major guest star is Nancy’s husband, Professor Crater (Alfred Ryder), a crotchety old scientist who knows Nancy is not who she appears to be, but hides her secret.  The main characters of Kirk, Spock, and Nancy’s old flame Dr. McCoy are all used well, and some of the other recurring characters were each given some great character moments as well: Mr. Sulu and Yeoman Rand  for instance, who are menaced by the creature disguised as Crewman Green (Bruce Watson), and Lt. Uhura has an interesting conversation with Spock before her near-fatal encounter with the alien of the week disguised as a black crewman (Vince Howard). 

Charlie X

Grade: B+

This episode centers around Robert Walker Jr., giving a very strong performance as the mysterious Charlie Evans, a teenage human boy with strange, and very dangerous, alien powers.  Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have strong character moments, as well as Yeoman Rand as Charlie’s unrequited object of love.  When she spurns him, he sends her into limbo, though no one knows if it is temporary or permanent.  Aside from that, the character of Uhura has the most to do, and even sings a song about both Spock and Charlie.  Meanwhile, Janice tries to get Charlie interested in a girl named Tina (Patricia McNulty), but Charlie later turns her into a lizard!

Where No Man Has Gone Before

Grade: A

Being the second pilot, McCoy wasn’t in this episode, but Kirk is central, and Spock has a pretty large role as the seemingly solitary voice of logic and reason.  Gary Lockwood gives a great performance as the main guest star Gary Mitchell, who begins turning into a rather vengeful God-character, and Sally Kellerman is equally good as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner.  Perhaps the strongest secondary character is Paul Carr as helmsman Lee Kelso.  Paul Fix as Dr. Mark Piper is basically a glorified walk-on, and speaking of walk-ons, the ones of note here are Scotty and Sulu, the only other ones besides Kirk and Spock who would become series regulars.

The Naked Time

Grade: A

This episode is famous among Trekkers as a showcase for the entire original cast, since they catch a space disease that makes them lose their inhibitions.  Spock cries, Nurse Chapel admits her love for him, Kirk admits his love for his “beautiful yeoman” Janice Rand, who has trouble getting to the bridge at one point and then is ordered to take over the helm.  Sulu pretends to be one of the Three Musketeers, and guest star Bruce Hyde as navigator Kevin Riley locks himself in engineering and sings an old Irish song over and over again (“I’ll take you home again, Kathleen!”).  Meanwhile, Dr. McCoy is successful in curing the disease in the end, and Scotty performs a cold start of the engines and ends up throwing the Enterprise into a small time warp (the first one ever!)  Secondary characters include Stewart Moss as Joe Tormolen, who starts the whole mess, and Uhura, who tries to stop Sulu’s fancy swordplay and is later reprimanded by both Kirk (“Yes, I’ve found Mr. Spock!”) and Riley (“No ice cream for you tonight!”)

The Enemy Within

Grade: C+

This is the first episode to feature the problems that can arise from the use of a transporter.  Due to a transporter malfunction, Captain Kirk is split into two men, one docile and good, the other brutal and evil, and it examines the way a man needs both elements in order to be a good leader, with Spock and McCoy relishing in the psychology of it all.  Still, it offers Shatner the chance to overact shamelessly, which means this is the first merely average episode.  Scotty has his hands full trying to fix the transporter, Sulu freezes on the planet below, and Rand is attacked by the evil duplicate of Kirk.  Sulu’s alien dog is also split by the transporter, and dies being reintegrated. 

Mudd’s Women

Grade: B+

Roger C. Carmel makes a huge impression as fan favorite Harry Mudd, even with this trio of beauties in the same episode.  Of these, Karen Steele as Eve makes the biggest impression as the one among them that doesn’t like what she is.  It is through her character that the strongest statements about the nature of beauty lie.  Still, Susan Denberg as Magda has more to do than Maggie Thrett as Ruth, who is merely another pretty face to round out the trio.  Of the regulars, Kirk is in the spotlight, forced into a bad situation by comic space pirate Mudd and with Eve being attracted to him.  And Gene Dynarski as space miner Childress manages a most impossible task of being rather plain and gruff, yet not being overshadowed by such a cast.   Since the show is primarily about Mudd and his women, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty only have a few things to do here, and Sulu and Uhura are mere walk-ons.

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Grade: B-

In this episode, Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel find her long lost fiancé Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong), who is living isolated on a planet with several androids.  Kirk and Chapel are shocked when it is revealed that Korby’s assistant Brown (Harry Basch) is an android, and then later, his beautiful assistant Andrea (Sherry Jackson).  Ted Cassidy (Lurch of The Addams Family) is Ruk, an android left behind by “The Old Ones”, and he is the main threat in this episode.  Spock is used when an android duplicate of Kirk comes aboard the Enterprise spouting racist slurs, and Korby is eventually revealed to be an android as well.  Uhura has a walk-on appearance in a few scenes.

Miri

Grade: C+

Bonk! Bonk!  Bonk on the head!  I liked seeing Kim Darby of True Grit fame and Michael J. Pollard of Bonnie and Clyde fame here as the two leaders of the children, Miri and Jahn, and they are both appealing in their roles.  This had some interesting ideas, but Star Trek and children rarely mixed very well.  This had some missed opportunities, such as in the teaser when the Enterprise comes across an exact duplicate of Earth, and then that idea was just dropped, and it also has some glaring holes in the plot, such as 300 year old children that still act like children.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Rand are the main characters here who catch the disease that killed all the adults on Miri’s planet.  Of the children, the ones used most other than Miri or Jahn are Keith Taylor as Jahn’s best friend (the one who gets that famous “Bonk Bonk” line), and Louise (Irene Sale) and the Boy Creature (Ed McCready), who succumbed to the disease when they entered puberty.

Dagger of the Mind

Grade: C-

Not a lot of action in this episode, making it merely average, plus the fact that is allows the opportunity for William Shatner to overact shamelessly again as he becomes a victim of the mind control device known as the Neural Neutralizer.  There are also no secondary characters really, just the primary characters of Kirk, Dr. Noel (Marianna Hill), and Dr. Adams (James Gregory) on the penal colony planet and Spock, McCoy, and Dr. Van Gelder (Morgan Woodward) on the ship, where Spock performs the first Vulcan mind meld seen on the show, trying to gain from Van Gelder’s tortured mind exactly what is going on in the penal colony below.  Uhura can be spotted here, the inept transporter operators actually make an impression in the first scene, and a few scenes here and there spotlight a few of Dr. Adams’ colleagues and patients, such as Lethe (Susanne Wasson), who has basically been turned into nothing but a mindless blank slate by Dr. Adams.

The Corbomite Maneuver

Grade: B

Despite the fact that the main alien Balok is actually a puppet (obviously) and then turns out to be Clint Howard with a dubbed voice (even at this young age, he looked like an alien without much help), this episode is still interesting due to the way it shows the crew dealing with a nearly insurmountable crisis.  Spock lets Kirk down because he can’t think of any way to logically circumvent the issue (“Not chess, Mr. Spock; Poker”), and Kirk and McCoy have a few heart to hearts, particularly about Crewman Bailey (Anthony D. Call), a young navigator who flips his lid during the crisis.  Meanwhile, Scotty mans the engines, Uhura opens hailing frequencies, Rand makes coffee, and Sulu keeps a countdown of how much time they all have left.

The Menagerie, Part 1

Grade: B+

Exciting first half of the two parter using clips from the original pilot starring Jeffrey Hunter as former Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike.  Spock kidnaps his former captain, who is now horribly injured (played by Sean Kenney), he commandeers the Enterprise, places himself under arrest after taking the Enterprise to the planet Talos IV, which has been restricted by Starfleet, and undergoes court martial proceedings that could mean death for Spock and Pike, and a ruined career for Kirk.  Malachi Throne gives a strong performance as Comm. Mendez, and McCoy also has a lot to do here.  Dr. Boyce, Vina, The Keeper, and Number One make strong impressions here from the limited pilot footage, and although they are merely walk-ons, there are a few nice character moments for Uhura and Scotty.  Hagan Beggs gets to command the Enterprise for a time as the relief helmsman Lt. Hanson 

The Menagerie, Part 2

Grade: B+

The conclusion is not quite as satisfying as the first part of this tale, yet Jeffery Hunter is always a welcome edition as Captain Christopher Pike.  Other very strong appearances here include Susan Oliver as Vina and Meg Wyllie as The Keeper, the leader of the Talosians.  Of course, the whole two-parter centers on not just Pike, but Spock, on trial for his career and life.  Comm. Mendez is revealed to be an illusion here, and not as strong as in the first half, though both Number One and Yeoman Colt are very important characters in the footage from the original pilot used (which was just about the entire show).  Scotty and McCoy can merely be glimpsed in the court room at one point, with no dialogue.

The Conscience of the King

Grade: B+

This show is brilliant in paralleling the lives of Shakespearian actors with a similar Shakespearian tragedy aboard the ship.  After Tom Leighton (William Sargent), a friend of Kirk’s, is murdered, Kirk and Lt. Kevin Riley become the last remaining survivors who can positively identify a butcher from their pasts, Kodos the Executioner, who ordered the deaths of 4,000 people, and who they now suspect of being the actor Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss).  Spock and McCoy express concerns over Kirk’s actions in trying to get to the bottom of the mystery, and Lenore, Karidian’s daughter (Barbara Anderson), turns out to be the killer, and quite insane.  Uhura sings a song, Martha Leighton (Natalie Norwick) cries for her dead husband, and Rand’s appearance here is a literal walk-on, as she can be glimpsed only briefly exiting the turbolift.

Balance of Terror

Grade: A

Every Star Trek show has its major alien races, and in this original series, those aliens are the Vulcans, the main human ally, and the Romulans and the Klingons, the main adversaries.  This episode introduces the Romulans, who share a history and a bloodline with the Vulcans.  The episode is a cat and mouse war game between Kirk and the Romulan Commander (Mark Lenard, who would later play Spock’s father Sarek).  The navigator Stiles (Paul Comi) provides the voice of bigotry when the Romulans are revealed to look like Vulcans.  For the other characters, McCoy adds to a delicious debate about war and gives a wonderful speech about the vastness of the galaxy and our unique place in it, and the characters of Tomlinson and Angela (Stephen Mines and Barbara Baldavin) are about to be wed when tragedy strikes and kills the groom.  The Centurion (John Warburton) and Decius (Lawrence Montaigne) on the Romulan vessel are strong characters.  Meanwhile, Scotty, Uhura, and Sulu are seen throughout the episode doing their jobs on the bridge.  Uhura even has to take over Navigation at one point.  This was the last appearance for the character of Yeoman Janice Rand.

Shore Leave

Grade: A

A fun Holodeck episode decades before the Holodeck was actually introduced into the live action shows on The Next Generation!  The thoughts of the crew become real, both pleasant and painful, on an otherwise idyllic planet.  While Kirk and McCoy get all the fun this time, and even Sulu, Spock eventually horns in, leaving Uhura and the bridge (and Scotty doesn’t appear at all!).  Yeoman Barrows (Emily Banks) has a rather substantial role here, and we find that Angela, who lost her fiancé Tomlinson in the last episode, has already moved on to another guy named Estaban Rodriquez (Perry Lopez).  As for the characters they meet on the planet below, the standouts are Kirk’s old flame Ruth (Shirley Bonne) and Finnegan (Bruce Mars), an Irish wiseacre who used to bully Kirk.  The Caretaker of the planet (Oliver McGowan) reveals all in the end.

The Galileo Seven

Grade: B-

This episode loses a point for the Sasquatch-like creatures, which are large actors wearing cheap rugs.  The episode centers on Spock during his first command, in which logic doesn’t help, and McCoy and Boma (Don Marshall) are constant, bickering thorns in his side.  Scotty has his hands full trying to repair the downed shuttlecraft, while poor Latimer (Rees Vaughn) is killed, and later Gaetano (Peter Marko), and Yeoman Mears (Phyllis Douglas) basically sits around looking pretty.  Back on the Enterprise, Kirk has his own thorn in the person of Comm. Ferris (John Crawford), and Sulu and Uhura do their jobs, while Kelowitz (Grant Woods) is part of a landing party reporting back to the captain about the dangers of the giant walking carpets.

The Squire of Gothos

Grade: B

William Campbell relishes in his role as a clueless, godlike creature named Trelane, and Kirk and Spock are the main ones who get to play along.  After Kirk and Sulu are mysteriously abducted from the bridge, Spock sends down McCoy, Jaeger (Richard Carlyle), and DeSalle (Michael Barrier) to investigate. They find the mysterious Trelane, Kirk and Sulu are freed, and from then on, it’s a virtual cat and mouse game between Kirk and Trelane.  At one point, Trelane abducts the entire bridge crew, gives Uhura the ability to play the piano, dances with the Yeoman (Venita Wolf), and puts Kirk on trial and duels with him until it is revealed that Trelane is actually an all powerful alien child, who is reprimanded by his parents for playing with humans!

Arena

Grade: C

This episode loses a few points because of the Gorn.  I know some hard core Star Trek fans get giddy over the sight of that Gorn costume, but most others use it to point out how ridiculous the old show was, and how peculiar Star Trek geeks are for liking it.  Aside from that, Kirk was wrong, and didn’t listen when Spock tried to explain everything.  Kirk thinks the Gorn are part of an invasion force, when it is actually determined in the end it was the Federation who were the invaders.  McCoy and Sulu get a few extra lines.  Carolyne Barry makes a brief but memorable appearance at the end as a Metron.

Tomorrow is Yesterday

Grade: B

This is the first time travel episode, and allows for the show to be viewed through the eyes of someone from the same time as when the show was made.  For this reason, this is probably a great episode for a new fan.  The Enterprise is thrown back in time to the 1960’s and is spotted by pilot John Christopher (Roger Perry), who is taken aboard as an unwelcome guest when the tractor beam tears his ship apart.  When Kirk tries to retrieve the footage the pilot shot by beaming down with Sulu, they only wind up taking on another unwelcome passenger in the form of an Air Police Sergeant (Hal Lynch).  While Spock must engage in time computations to return the abducted people and return the Enterprise to its own time, McCoy gripes, Kirk is temporarily captured and interrogated by Col. Fellini (Ed Peck), Scotty works his engines to the max, the computer develops an annoyingly female personality, and everything eventually works out perfectly in the end, with no altering of the time line.  This was the first appearance of John Winston as Transporter Chief Lt. Kyle.

 

Court Martial

Grade: B

Kirk is put on trial for the death of one of his crew, Finney (Richard Webb), during an ion storm.  Joan Marshall plays Kirk’s former lover and prosecuting attorney Areel Shaw and Elisha Cook Jr. is Samuel T. Cogley, Kirk’s defense attorney.  Alice Rawlings as Jame Finney is the dead man’s daughter, who blames Kirk, along with most of Starfleet, before it is finally revealed that Finney always held a grudge against Kirk and planned the whole thing, meaning he never died.  Spock is the one who determined the computer logs were altered.  Portmaster Stone (Percy Rodrigues) is the judge in this case, and McCoy does what he can to speak on behalf of his captain.  Uhura is seen in a few scenes at the end, and even helps save the Enterprise by taking over navigation again.

The Return of the Archons

Grade: B+

George Takai, as Sulu, becomes the first Enterprise crewman to be “absorbed” by the alien influence known as Landru, looking starry eyed and talking about peace and tranquility.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and a few others beam down to investigate and find what became of another crewman named O’Neil (Sean Morgan) and encounter a soulless society bent on an extremely vacant harmony and serenity (Nancy Pelosi’s dream come true), under the power of a telepathic computer named Landru, revealed as a religious figure (Charles Macaulay).  Reger and Marplon, played by Harry Townes and Torin Thatcher, are members of the society resistant to Landru’s influence.  Hacom (Morgan Farley) is a character in the beginning reporting the interlopers to the Lawgivers of Landru.  Scotty is back on the ship trying to save it from intense heat rays coming from the Landru computer and causing its orbit to decay.  As usual, Uhura mans communications.

Space Seed

Grade: A

Ricardo Montalban gives a rousing performance as the magnetic and very dangerous Khan Noonian Singh, perhaps the very reason they chose this episode and character to continue for the exciting motion picture Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Every member of the main crew is threatened by Khan at one point or another: Kirk and Spock with a hyperbolic chamber, McCoy with a knife, Uhura with a slap, and Scotty is knocked out when they take over engineering.  Even Lt. Kyle, the transporter operator, is knocked unconscious by Khan.  Madlyn Rhue as Lt. Marla McGivers falls in love with Khan when he “conquers” her heart.  She betrays Kirk, but then has second thoughts and helps him in the end. Joaquin (Mark Tobin) is the most used of Khan’s men.

A Taste of Armageddon

Grade: B+

Again, this thoughtful episode loses a few points due to the funny looking costumes and cheap cardboard computers.  The Enterprise is declared a casualty after entering Eminiar space.  Eminiar, led by Anan 7 (David Opatoshu) , has been fighting a war with a neighboring planet for 500 years exclusively with computer simulations.  Citizens that are declared casualties must then report to disintegration chambers to be killed.  While Kirk and Spock try to protect everyone, including the Eminiar citizens from themselves, such as Mea 3 (Barbara Babcock), Scotty and McCoy have their own fight against the pompous Ambassador Fox (Gene Lyons), who puts the “dip” in “diplomat”.  Yeoman Tamura (Miko Mayama) actually gets a bit more to do than Uhura, who opens hailing frequencies.   

This Side of Paradise

Grade: B+

This episode offers Mr. Spock the opportunity to experience human emotions, and fall in love with guest star Jill Ireland as Leila Kalomi, a woman from his past who loved him, yet he could never return those feelings… until now.  The crew of the Enterprise mutinies after coming under the influence of alien spores.  At various points, the affects are seen on Dr. McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, who effectively sabotages communications, DeSalle, and Eddie Paskey as Lt. Leslie, the “Where’s Waldo” of the original series who was a background character in 59 episodes and finally gets actual dialogue here when he declares mutiny against the captain.  Eventually, even Kirk comes under their influence, but is able to resist due to his strong feelings for his ship, leading him to find a way to cure everyone else, including uncooperative colony leader Elias Sandoval (Frank Overton), who suddenly becomes more obliging.

The Devil in the Dark

Grade: A

This episode is often cited as a prime example of what Star Trek is all about.  A silicon based life form that secretes acid is killing human miners on the planet Janus IV, and Spock and Kirk beam down to help stop it.  By the end of the episode, Spock reveals that the creature is the mother of her race simply trying to protect her eggs, which were being destroyed by the miners.  McCoy manages to cure the wounded creature, and Scotty likewise completes the engineering job he is assigned.  Vanderberg (Ken Lynch) and the other miners, who wanted the creature dead, reach an agreement with it in the end.  Meanwhile, poor Schmitter (Biff Elliot) is an unlucky miner killed in the first few minutes of the show.  Giotto (Barry Russo) leads an entire team of “red shirts” to help search for the creature, but surprisingly, only one of them dies here!

Errand of Mercy

Grade: B+

This is the first episode featuring the Klingons, a quite formidable foe for the peaceful Federation.  Kirk and Spock beam down to protect the peaceful Organians from the bloodthirsty Klingons, but the Organians seem to abhor violence so much, they appear to be willing sheep for the Klingons.  As the violence escalates, the Organians turn out to be quite capable of not only protecting themselves, but putting a stop to the violence occurring between Kirk and Kor (John Colicos), the leader of the Klingons, on the planet surface, the fleets massing against each other in space, and everywhere else!  Ayelborne, Claymare, and Trefayne (John Abbott, Peter Brocco, and David Hillary Hughes) represent the smiling, seemingly simple Organians, who are actually nothing of the sort!  Sulu does what he can to protect Kirk’s ship.  McCoy and Scotty do not appear in this episode.

The Alternative Factor

Grade: F

This is, by far, the worst episode of the first season, and in fact, the series, with bad effects, writing, acting, and directing.  Kirk and crew come across a phenomenon that causes existence to “blink” momentarily, and it takes them the entire episode to figure out that Lazarus is two people from two different universes.  A heady idea, very poorly executed, and Robert Brown as Lazarus makes for one of the worst guest stars ever.  Almost the entire cast is relegated to secondary character status, including Spock and McCoy!  Uhura and Lt. Leslie each get slight dialogue, and little else.  Even McCoy’s few one-liners couldn’t inject any life into this thing!

The City on the Edge of Forever

Grade: A+

The best follows the worst!  This is generally considered to be the best episode of not only the first season, but the entire original series, and with good reason.  An accident involving Sulu and a time displacement wave winds up causing McCoy to inject himself with a dangerous drug.  He beams down to the planet – the source of the time displacement wave - and jumps through a mysterious time portal called the Guardian of Forever, somehow affecting the timeline to such an extent that the Enterprise no longer exists.  Kirk and Spock must follow him back in time to the early 30’s, just after the Great Depression, and correct the damage to the timeline.  Once there, Kirk falls in love with social worker Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), yet Spock figures out that she is the key to the time displacement since she has two possible futures, and Kirk discovers that for the timeline to be corrected, Edith Keeler must die!

Operation: Annihilate!

Grade: C+

The concept of the Borg is handled a bit differently here, as Kirk’s brother is killed by parasites that act like brain cells to a larger organism, infecting people to act on behalf of their hive-mind.  William Shatner is seen in one shot with a wig and a mustache as Kirk’s dead brother Sam, and Spock is infected by the parasites, along with Kirk’s sister-in-law Aurelan (Joan Swift, in a shrill performance), who also dies, and his nephew Peter (Craig Hundley), who doesn’t.  McCoy is particularly inept here, unable to determine how to stop the creatures, and then ends up temporarily blinding Spock.  Scotty gets to act through a pretty intense scene with Spock, and ditto for the returning Nurse Chapel, arguing with Dr. McCoy.  Sulu and Uhura mostly just do their jobs, and Lt. Leslie doesn’t have lines, but does get to experience a Vulcan neck pinch.