Star Trek: The Empath
The 67th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Kathryn Hays guest stars.
The Star Trek: Plato’s Stepchildren
The 65th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. This episode features the first interracial kiss in the history of American television; some affiliates in the southern United States pre-empt the episode as a result.
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Star Trek: The Tholian Web
The 64th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. This marks the first appearance of the Tholians and, though they will be mentioned frequently in later Star Trek spinoffs, the last appearance until the 21st century spinoff series Star Trek: Enterprise.
Star Trek: For The World Is Hollow…
The 63rd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Kate Woodville and Byron Morrow guest star.
Star Trek: Day Of The Dove
The 62nd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Michael Ansara guest stars as Kang.
Star Trek: Spectre Of The Gun
The 61st episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Ron Soble and Rex Holman guest star.
Star Trek: Is There In Truth No Beauty?
The 60th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Diana Muldaur guest stars, her second guest shot on the series; she will later appear as a regular in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Star Trek: And The Children Shall Lead
The 59th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Melvin Belli guest stars; future Space Academy cast members Pamelyn Ferdin and Brian Tochi both appear as children in this episode.
Star Trek: The Paradise Syndrome
The 58th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Sabrina Scharf guest stars as Miramanee; William Shatner is Kirok.
Star Trek: The Enterprise Incident
The 57th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Joanna Linville guest stars as the Romulan Commander.
Star Trek: Spock’s Brain
The 56th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. This is the first episode of the third season, and the first overseen by new producer Fred Freiberger. Marj Dusay guest stars.
Star Trek: Assignment: Earth
The 55th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC, guest starring Robert Lansing and Teri Garr. An oddball episode concerning itself heavily with its time-traveling guest star, Assignment: Earth is actually a sneaky “pilot” for a potential Star Trek spinoff – and Gene Roddenberry’s hedge against unemployment, as he has every reason to believe, at the end of Star Trek’s second season, that his series is about to be cancelled.
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Star Trek: Bread And Circuses
The 54th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Long before contest-style “reality TV” exists, Roddenberry predicts it with unsettling accuracy, even if he’s a little bit off on the details. Ian Wolfe guest stars.
Star Trek: The Ultimate Computer
The 53rd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. In true sixties style, the story’s “ultimate computer” is depicted as a giant mainframe with psychedelic lights; William Marshall guest stars.
Star Trek renewed again
For the second year running, NBC makes an announcement over the closing credits of Star Trek, reassuring viewers that NBC has picked up the show for a third season. Where the second season’s renewal was brought about by a substantial fan letter-writing campaign (with guidance from Gene Roddenberry), the third season pickup comes after fans stage protest marches outside NBC’s headquarters in Burbank and New York, having gotten word (from Star Trek fan Bjo Trimble, by way of Roddenberry) that the series is likely to be cancelled. The renewal is a double-edged sword, however: in the fall, NBC will move the series to Friday nights, a time slot where it’s virtually guaranteed to be cancelled at the end of its third season.
Star Trek: The Omega Glory
The 52nd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. A tale of patriotism perverted into a belief system, The Omega Glory is one of three Roddenberry scripts originally pitched to NBC as potential pilot episodes before the start of filming on season one.
Star Trek: By Any Other Name
The 51st episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. The Enterprise is hijacked by aliens from another galaxy (one of whom, to Scotty’s delight, can’t hold his liquor).
Star Trek: Patterns Of Force
The 50th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Kirk and Spock take on the Nazi menace… on a planet where there still is a Nazi menace, that is.
Star Trek: Return To Tomorrow
The 49th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Diana Muldaur, who will later become a one-season regular on Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 1980s, makes the first of two classic Trek guest appearances.
Star Trek: A Private Little War
The 48th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Though it will become best remembered for the furry horned creature that attacks Kirk, the episode is actually a surprisingly hawkish (for Star Trek) allegory to the Vietnam War written by Roddenberry himself.
Star Trek: The Immunity Syndrome
The 47th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. The Enterprise crew goes up against a psychedelic giant microbe (actually one of the most impressive effects of the original series).
Star Trek: A Piece Of The Action
The 46th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Kirk and Spock gang up on a society who has taken a piece of outdated Earth literature and turned it into a blueprint for a blood-soaked society. (As heavy as that sounds, much hilarity ensues.) Vic Tayback guest stars.
Star Trek: The Gamesters Of Triskelion
The 45th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Kirk, Chekov and Uhura find themselves drafted into playing deadly games for the amusement of unfathomable aliens; naturally, Kirk has a female “drill thrall” and introduces her to his own brand of inter-species relations.
Star Trek: The Trouble With Tribbles
The 44th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. This early script by writer David Gerrold becomes the best-loved episode of the entire series (according to many a fan poll), introducing the rapidly-reproducing, rapidly-eating, Klingon-sniffing Tribbles to the Star Trek universe. This is their only appearance in the original series, though they reappear in the animated series and Deep Space Nine years later.
Star Trek: A Wolf In The Fold
The 43rd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Robert Bloch, writer of the novel that inspired Hitchcock’s Psycho, returns with a script recasting Jack the Ripper as an extraterrestrial entity wreaking havoc down through the ages (with an airdate just before Christmas!).
Star Trek: Obsession
The 42nd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Kirk grapples with a killer alien entity that he first encountered early in his Starfleet career.
Star Trek: The Deadly Years
The 41st episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. The crew of the Enterprise contracts a disease that ages them rapidly toward death.
Star Trek: Friday’s Child
The 40th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Julie Newmar takes a break from the Batcave to guest star in an episode focusing on the prime directive (and Kirk’s typical willingness to break with that most sacred of Federation laws).
Star Trek: Journey To Babel
The 39th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Jane Wyatt and Mark Lenard guest star as Spock’s parents in their first appearance in the Star Trek mythology (in fact, their only appearance prior to the animated series or the movies, despite the characters’ prominence), and Kirk gets into a knife fight trying to salvage interplanetary diplomacy. This episode’s depiction of Vulcan/Andorian unease would become a significant element of the later Star Trek TV spinoff Enterprise.