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Star Trek: Devil In The Dark
The 25th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. The Horta guest stars.
Category: Star Trek
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Star Trek renewed
For the first time in the history of American TV, an announcer is heard over the closing credits of a network TV program, reassuring viewers that the show (in this case, Star Trek) has been picked up for a second season – and making a direct request that the series’ ardent fans bring their concentrated letter-writing campaign to an end. That campaign has actually been secretly organized by Gene Roddenberry with the help of several prominent SF writers and Star Trek fan Bjo Trimble.
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Star Trek: Errand Of Mercy
The 26th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. John Colicos guest stars in the first Star Trek episode to introduce the Federation’s arch rivals, the Klingons.
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Spock v2.0?
During otherwise typical contract negotiations in preparation for the second season of Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy’s agent demands a significant raise for his client – a raise that could well break the back of the series’ already-struggling budget. In response, Gene Roddenberry, Desilu Studios and the show’s producers play hardball, firmly suggesting that Nimoy be satisfied with a normal raise, and they prepare to recast Spock or create a new Vulcan character to replace him. The show’s casting director suggests numerous potential replacements, including Mark Lenard, Lawrence Montaigne, David Carradine (Kung Fu), and Henry Darrow, among several others – all actors who are felt to have a “Vulcan look.” Nimoy – only later learning what demands his agent has made – negotiates his return to the series, while Montaigne is interestingly cast as Spock’s rival in the second season premiere, Amok Time. Henry Darrow will also don Vulcan ears, but not until Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first season.
The
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Star Trek: City On The Edge Of Forever
The 28th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. Joan Collins guest stars in an episode written by legendary science fiction writer Harlan Ellison; rewrites performed on the script prior to filming later become a major point of contention between Ellison and Roddenberry (and, by extension, between Ellison and Desilu Studios/Paramount).
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Star Trek: Operation: Annihilate!
The 29th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek airs on NBC. This episode concludes the series’ first season, and introduces numerous “fascinating” differences between human and Vulcan physiology.
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Star Trek: Amok Time
The 30th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC, kicking off the show’s second season with its first-ever glimpse of Spock’s home planet, Vulcan, as well as one of the best-known (and most parodied) fight scenes in the history of television, accompanied by some of the best-known TV soundtrack music ever.
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Star Trek: Who Mourns For Adonis?
The 31st episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. The Enterprise once again trumps mythology with technology after encountering a powerful entity who gives the Enterprise a big hand.
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Star Trek: The Changeling
The 32nd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Captain Kirk continues his winning streak of logically talking sentient computers into self-destructing, impressing Mr. Spock to no end. Scotty becomes the latest senior Enterprise officer to die in the line of duty, and by the end of the episode becomes the latest senior officer to miraculously come back to life.
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Star Trek: Mirror, Mirror
The 33rd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. This is the first appearance of the “Mirror universe” plotline that recurs through the Deep Space Nine and Enterprise spinoff series, and remains a fan favorite. Barbara Luna guest stars.
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Star Trek: The Apple
The 34th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Once again, the Enterprise crew dismantles a machine maintaining a superstitious belief system on a backward world. David Soul guest stars.
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Star Trek: The Doomsday Machine
The 35th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. In one of the series’ most critically-acclaimed episodes, the Enterprise goes up against a monstrous device designed to devour entire worlds, and Commodore Matt Decker goes nuts.
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Star Trek: Catspaw
The 36th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. It’s the only episode of the original series themed to a specific holiday (in this case, Halloween, in which it airs in close proximity), complete with a “giant” black cat, a Macbeth-esque trio of witches, and a script by Psycho novelist Robert Bloch.
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Star Trek: I, Mudd
The 37th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Roger C. Carmel returns – the only recurring singular villain character of the original series – in the role of interplanetary rogue Harry Mudd.
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Star Trek: Metamorphosis
The 38th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. Glenn Corbett guest stars as Zefram Cochrane, the man who invented warp drive (and shouldn’t, in the 23rd century, still be alive), a portrayal very different from what is shown in future Star Trek series.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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!).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.