This is where it all started for an ongoing franchise that is still going strong nearly 60 years later, which rivals Doctor Who in longevity. And it started strong. Among the authors in this first year were some very well-respected science fiction authors, including Richard Matheson (The Enemy Within), Robert Bloch (What Are Little Girls Made Of), Theodore Sturgeon (Shore Leave), Frederic Brown (Arena), and Harlan Ellison (The City on the Edge of Forever). And it almost didn’t happen at all. Gene Roddenberry took his idea to Lucille Ball of Desilu Studios. They commissioned a pilot, but it was not a success and was never aired. But Ball stuck with them and paid to do a revised pilot, then pushed NBC to buy the series. This is oddly reminiscent of Doctor Who, where the first episode was a failure but the BBC let them redo it.
Pilot: The Cage (never aired)
This pilot featured Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. Spock was in this episode, but in a slightly different role; the Number One in this pilot was played by Majel Barrett, Gene Roddenberry’s wife. The plot is essentially the same as that of the two-part episode The Menagerie, and much of the footage from the pilot was reused for that later episode. NBC objected to this pilot as being too slow and intellectual, with not enough action. Lucille Ball was able to get a green light to do another pilot, but Jeffrey Hunter declined to be involved any further, paving the way for William Shatner (though he was not the first choice; both Lloyd Bridges and Jack Lord had also been considered).
Reviews
The Man Trap (September 8, 1966)
This was not the revised pilot, that would be Where No Man Has Gone Before. But it was the first episode to be seen on American TV screens. The Enterprise arrives at the planet M-113 where it is to deliver supplies and medical assistance to the scientific team there. There is a scientist, Professor Robert Crater, and his wife Nancy. And it happens that Nancy was an old flame of Doctor McCoy. Then mysterious deaths start to happen, and it turns out that “Nancy” is not the woman McCoy knew, but an alien shape-shifter that can assume any form it likes. It killed the real Nancy, and requires salt as its food source. The dead people have had all the salt from their bodies removed by the creature as it fed. Eventually they kill the creature.
Charlie X (September 15, 1966)
Charlie is a teenager that survived a crash landing on the planet Thasus, and was later picked up by a merchant ship. The merchant ship transfers him to the Enterprise, which is to take him to his relatives on Alpha V. And it seems that the crew of the merchant ship were happy to see the last of this teen. And we soon discover why: he has powers of telepathy and telekinesis. He soon becomes a terror on the Enterprise, and Kirk attempts to get him under control. finally the natives of Thasus show up and explain that these powers are common on their world, and they gave them to Charlie to help him survive. And while the humans argue he should be with his own kind, the Thasians take Charlie away to be with them because only they can control him.
Where No Man Has Gone Before (September 22, 1966)
This was the revised pilot, and the first to be created, even though it was the third to be aired. The Enterprise is on a mission to leave the Galaxy and explore, but it encounters an energy barrier that damages the ship’s systems, forcing a retreat. And several crew members die from the encounter, and the Helmsman (Gary Lockwood) and the ship’s psychiatrist (Sally Kellerman) develop psychic powers. Gary Lockwood’s character declares that he is a now a God, and enforces his view with telepathic and telekinetic powers. Finally there is a showdown on a lonely planet, where the psychiatrist attacks him with her own powers, and weakens him enough that Kirk manages to kill him.
There is a strong similarity between this story and Charlie X in that getting psychic powers makes a person power hungry, even though the two stories had different writers. But getting them back-to-back does reinforce the idea of similarity. The battle between Shatner and Lockwood probably made NBC happy though, as it delivered plenty of action.
The Naked Time (September 29, 1966)
You may have seen video clips of of Sulu (George Takei) as a bare-chested warrior with a sword, and this is the episode where that happens. It all starts when the Enterprise is sent to observe the breakup of a dying planet, Psi 2000. While on a trip to the planet surface to retrieve a research team, a crew member becomes infected with something that acts to almost totally remove all inhibitions, something like alcohol in that respect, but without the physical effects of alcohol. It spreads by a skin contact, and one by one the crew become infected, and as they do they abandon their posts and start doing whatever they please. This causes the ship to start losing its orbit, and if it is not stopped the ship will burn up in the atmosphere. Fortunately Ship’s Doctor McCoy is able to develop an antidote in the nick of time, but to save the ship they have to try a dangerous cold start of the engines, which shoots them out of danger at very high speed with the side effect of sending them back in time 71 hours.
The Enemy Within (October 6, 1966)
This is the first of the “split-into-good-and-evil” stories in Star Trek. A transporter malfunction has split Kirk into 2 people, one good but indecisive, the other malicious and very decisive. While the good Kirk is trying to make sense of the situation, the evil Kirk gets drunk and assaults Yeoman Janice Rand in her quarters. Spock is able to use a Vulcan nerve pinch on evil Kirk, but he and McCoy realize that both Kirks are deteriorating mentally and must be reintegrated. They try first on a dog that got split, but the dog dies. Still, Spock thinks it is just that the dog’s brain couldn’t handle reintegration while Kirk’s brain would handle it. Eventually they try it, and Kirk is saved.
Reviews
Mudd’s Women (October 13, 1966)
This is one of the classic stories that many people can remember. An unregistered cargo ship is being pursued by the Enterprise, which catches them but loses some of its dilithium crystals in the attempt. The people on the cargo ship are beamed aboard the Enterprise, and prove to be 3 very attractive women and one sleazy man, Harry Mudd, who is bringing them to the planet Ophiuchus III to be wives for the settlers there, but now the Enterprise has to limp to the mining planet of Rigel XII to get the dilithium crystals. Two of the women are quickly married to miners there, but the third runs away. She is found by the remaining miner, but in the morning he wakes up and discovers that she is much plainer than the she was previously. It turns out that Mudd has been giving the women the Venus drug which makes a woman temporarily prettier. Mudd is confronted about this, but then the now plain woman grabs what she thinks is a dose of the drug. It is actually a placebo, but it boosts her self-confidence and now the miner likes her again, and she decides to stay.
Harry Mudd makes a return appearance in the second season in an episode entitled I, Mudd.
Reviews
What Are Little Girls Made Of? (October 20, 1966)
The Enterprise goes to the planet Exo-III to search for Dr. Roger Korby. His fiance, Nurse Christine Chapel, had signed on to the Enterprise as Dr. McCoy’s assistant in order to join the search. When they beam down, Dr. Korby is not there to meet them, making Kirk suspicious. He leaves one man on guard, who is then killed by a mysterious creature. Another is killed when he is sent to get help. It turns out that Korby found machinery that can create androids, and he creates a duplicate of Kirk to try and take over the Enterprise, but Kirk during the duplication process focuses on a slur about Spock being a “half-breed”, and the Android Kirk repeats that on the Enterprise, which Spock correctly interprets as a warning that things are not what they seem. finally it runs out that Korby himself, facing death, had transferred his personality into an android, so that all of the creatures on this planet are androids, and Korby kills himself.
Miri (October 27, 1966)
The Enterprise finds an exact duplicate of the planet Earth, except that the only inhabitants are children. It turns out that some kind of plague had killed the adults. The children are feral, and deeply distrust any adults, including of course the crew of the Enterprise. They find records that indicate that this plague is a side effect of life extension programs, and that the children are in fact 300 years old, but they are at the emotional age of their bodies, so still children in terms of maturity. The children beat up Kirk, and steal the communicators, so they cannot communicate with the Enterprise. This matters because McCoy thinks he may have found a cure for the disease which is now affecting the Enterprise crew on the planet who have contracted it, but until he can use the computers on the Enterprise, he is not certain ti will be safe to use. They finally convince the children to give back the communicators, but by then McCoy has used the cure on himself, and lived through it. So everyone gets cured, and the Enterprise arranges for appropriate adults to come and take charge of the children.
Dagger Of The Mind (November 3, 1966)
The Enterprise visits a facility for rehabilitating the criminally insane to deliver supplies and take on cargo. But a man stows away in one of the cargo containers and wildly attacks a crew member before being subdued by Spock. He turns out to be the assistant to the facility’s director, Dr. Tristan Adams. Dr. Adams says that the cause of his assistant’s disturbance is that he used an experimental treatment device on himself, but McCoy is suspicious, so Kirk and one of the ship’s psychiatrists investigate. Adams says that his device is only used to calm the inmates, but Kirk is still suspicious. It is then used on Kirk, but the ship’s psychiatrist manages to cut the power, and Kirk subdues Adams. Spock comes in with a security detail, and they turn the power back on, but the machine comes on full power trained on Adams, killing him. Then the assistant destroys the machine.
The Corbomite Maneuver (November 10, 1966)
You can generally assumeThis is one of the best shows of the first season, and was actually the third to be produced after the two pilots. The Enterprise encounters a large spinning cube floating in space. Kirk cautiously retreats from it, but the cube pursues them and begins emitting harmful radiation, so the Enterprise has to destroy it. then a giant glowing sphere approaches the Enterprise, explains that the cube was a border marker, and that the Enterprise will be destroyed in 10 minutes. Kirk then tells the alien Balok that the Enterprise has on board a supply of Corbomite which will destroy anyone that attacks them, though it will also destroy the Enterprise. But Kirk professes to not care about that. So then the alien vessel launches a small tug vessel to tow the Enterpise deep into their territory and take the crew off and imprison them. Kirk decides the Tug cannot be all that powerful and decides to engage the Enterprise’s engines on a course at right-angles to the tractor beam of the tug. Just as the Enterprise engines are near to blowing up, it breaks free, which disables the alien tug. The tug emits a distress signal, but the big ship does not respond, and Kirk takes a chance and goes back to the tug to render assistance, and then it turns out the alien was really a small child who was just trying to gauge the intentions of the Federation vessel, and now everything is OK.
You can generally assume that when there is a decision to help an enemy (or presumed enemy), help will be the winning move. That is part of the DNA of Star Trek.
Reviews
The Menagerie (November 17 & 24, 1966)
This first season of Star Trek consisted of 29 episodes each of which was 50 minutes long. This is a lot, and explains why NBC was concerned that the production team might not be up to the task. So for this 2-part story (the only one in the original series) they came up with a clever idea, to reuse a lot of the footage they had shot for the original pilot, The Cage, and wrap it with new footage to create a story within a story. Spock steals the Enterprise (yes!) and takes Captain Pike to the planet Talos, which they had visited previously in the pilot The Cage, and which is now forbidden and under quarantine. This leads to a court martial of Spock, and in his defense he introduces video footage from the previous visit, This is where we get to see the footage from the first pilot, and by the way now Captain Pike is canon in Star Trek. But Pike has a problem: he suffers from locked-in syndrome and cannot communicate except by yes/no signals. In the end it turns out the Talosians are masters of illusion, and arranged all of this to give Pike a chance to enjoy the rest of his life as an illusion.
This story won a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, so it is pretty good.
The Conscience of the King (December 8, 1966)
This episode takes its title from lines in Hamlet: “The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” And it is apt. The Enterprise is called to Planet Q by Dr. Thomas Leighton, an old friend of Kirk’s. He suspects that Anton Karidian, leader of a Shakespearean acting company currently performing Macbeth there, is in fact the infamous mass murderer Kodos the Executioner. He had been governor of the colony on Tarsus IV during a food shortage when supply ships were late, and ordered half of the colonists killed so that the other half could live on the rations they had, and both Kirk and Leighton were eyewitnesses to this. Kirk goes to a party at Leighton’s where Karidian will be, hoping to learn more, but instead goes outside with Karidian’s daughter Lenore, where they find Leighton dead. Upon further investigation it seems the eyewitnesses have been killed one by one, and always when the Karidian company is in the area.
Balance of Terror (December 15, 1966)
Someone is attacking outposts on the border between Federation space and Romulan space, a border that was established a century earlier when the war between them was finished. And this someone seems to have the ability be invisible. And it does turn out to be the Romulans, who have invented a cloaking device. The Enterprise goes on the attack, and what follows is pretty much a recap of the movie The Enemy Below about a World War II duel between an American destroyer and a German U-boat, with the Enterprise as the destroyer and the Romulan ship as the U-boat. The Romulan has powerful torpedoes, but they require so much power the ship has to de-cloak to fire one, and that give the Enterprise a chance to hit back. During one exchange the Enterprise is damaged, but Kirk decides to make it look like the damage is much worse to lure the Romulan in for the killing blow. His stratagem works, and the Romulan ship is seriously damaged. Kirk offers to take the Romulans aboard the Enterprise, but they elect to blow themselves up instead of surrendering.
Shore Leave (December 29, 1966)
The Enterprise encounters a congenial planet in the Omicron Delta system, and the crew are pretty tired after three months of continuous duty, so Kirk decides that maybe a little shore leave is in order. But then fantastical things start to happen, such a a large white rabbit running by, followed a bit later by a Alice asking if anyone saw a large white rabbit. Then a yeoman is attacked by Don Juan, and a knight attacks attacks Dr. McCoy, killing him with a lance. Kirk is tormented by fellow cadet from his academy days, then encounters and old girl friend. It turns out that this planet is a amusement park and that it generates all of these things from images in the minds of the crew. They meet the caretaker, who apologizes for the misunderstanding, and with appropriate safeguards in place shore leave is resumed for all of the crew.
The Galileo Seven (January 5, 1967)
This is a showcase for Spock. A shuttle craft named the Galileo is dispatched to investigate a phenomenon, with Spock in command and a total crew of seven. They crash land on a planet, and are attacked by a giant ape-like creatures with spears and shields. Several of the crew are killed, and they face technical problems getting the shuttle repaired and taking off. This is a perfectly respectable episode, but somewhat pedestrian in my view. It reminds me of a lot of the Golden Age SF stories by people like Edmond Hamilton.
The Squire of Gothos (January 12, 1967)
While on a mission the Enterprise they encounter a rogue planet never detected before. While going into orbit around it, both Kirk and Sulu disappear from the bridge. Spock organizes a landing party, and they find a medieval castle, inhabited by a humanoid who calls himself “General Trelane, Retired”. But McCoy’s tricorder does not detect that this is a living being. Whatever it is, it seems fascinated by a very idiosyncratic and frequently wildly wrong view of Earth history. But whatever he is, he has power. And when Kirk tries to leave, the planet, which is called Gothos, keeps blocking it. Finally Kirk beams down to the planet again to fight this being. When it looks like all is lost, tow mysterious energy beings appear and tell Trelane to “come along” and apologize to Kirk for his misbehavior, implying that Trelane was a child.
There are similarities between Trelane and Q from the later series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and this was picked up on by Peter David in his novel Q-squared.
Arena (January 19, 1967)
Tomorrow Is Yesterday (January 26, 1967)
Court Martial (February 2, 1967)
The Return of the Archons (February 9, 1967)
Space Seed (February 16, 1967)
A Taste of Armageddon (February 23, 1967)
This Side of Paradise (March 2, 1967)
The Devil in the Dark (March 9, 1967)
Errand of Mercy (March 23, 1967)
The Alternative Factor (March 30, 1967)
The City on the Edge of Forever (April 6, 1967)
Operation — Annihilate! (April 13, 1967)
Season 1 General
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