That Which Survives (Video; YouTube; Memory Alpha) is the episode where Mr. Spock is as annoying as he actually would be if you knew him, and you want to punch him in the face. Sadly, no one in this episode does so.
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There is, though, a holographic woman who kills by touch, an artificial planet, a black second-in-command in sickbay and a woman helmsman. There’s the continued confusion over how fast the Enterprise can go before it blows up, and a not-terrible plot. But mostly this episode is completely forgettable.
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Best Dialog
Spock: “Can you give me Warp 8?”
Scotty: “Aye, sir. And maybe a wee bit more. I’ll sit on top of the warp cores meself and nurse them.”
Spock: “That position would not only be unavailing; it would also be undignified.”
Grade
C
The Day of the Dove (HD Video; Memory Alpha) starts with Kirk getting punched in the face by a Klingon, and quickly goes downhill from there.
Best part
The Klingon Captain Kang is played by the Technomage from B5.
Worst part
Basically everything else in the episode. There’s some terrible sword fighting, Klingons in blackface, a being that’s crazy powerful but stupidly scared, a total lack of backstory, a simple plot mechanic with no twist, and a sixties pean to race relations that’s so guileless it doesn’t even pretend to be anything else.
Grade
D
Court Martial (Memory Alpha; HD Video) is a Trek-flavored courtroom drama, and it pulls it off.
The Enterprise has just been through an ion storm, and a crewman has died. But the computer claims that Kirk jettisoned the ion probe before he needed to, so a court martial is convened. Did Kirk kill the crewman?
This episode keeps up its tension quite nicely, and even has a plot twist that I didn’t see coming. It falls into a few tropes of the genre (the old no-questions-from-the-defense) but otherwise does an admirable job; it plays a little with justice, a little with witch hunts, a little with man-versus-machine.
This episode is the first time we see another Starfleet capital ship, The Intrepid. We also see an Indian Starship captain. And we get to play in a Jefferies tube.
We also get to prove that McCoy gets all the best lines:
McCoy: Are you a friend of Kirk’s?
Areel: Yes. An old one.
McCoy: All my friends look like doctors. His all look like you.
Grade
A-
