Requiem for Methuselah is cheesy and annoying.

What about the first half of season two? Amok Time, Doomsday Machine: those aren't "watchable"??

All the interesting things about Klingons from this episode were expanded in John M Ford's awesome 1984 Star Trek novel The Final Reflection. If you haven't read it, get it and read it. I think used copies are available from Amazon for like a cent. The different transporter effect, the expand-or-die thing, the…

I remember liking The Counter-Clock Incident, with Robert April in command of the Enterprise. I was a kid of course, don't know if it holds up.

Ok, how about McCoy with the two stripper-chicks on his arm after he's been healed at the end of Shore Leave?

I still think Turnabout Intruder is an excellent episode, almost a great one. It suffers from time crunch in the last act, compressing some stuff that should be spread out more; but is otherwise very good. I guess we'll argue about that in ~8 weeks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Spore-controlled McCoy had some Suthun charm working in This Side of Paradise.

TAS was slow and talky for a cartoon, its pacing was more appropriate to a grownup show.

Compare to the Animated Series, which was damn well-written. Circumstances were different. They thought they were going to have a season 4 of Star Trek so they had some good scripts ready to go. Wound up using them on the animated series.

Is this explained at all by the cancellation / letter-writing campaign / revival of the series? Had they shut down the process, and then had to restart it without sufficient time to get enough good scripts in the can to propel a season?

Spock's Brain score by Fred Steiner. Jeff Bond points out "an almost classically-styled fugal piece of fight music (Caveman Run)" that returned in later episodes including "For the Worls I Hollow" and "Day of the Dove".

I love most of the TOS music, but I hated all of George Duning's music for the show. Most of those episodes where he did the music are among my least favorite episodes, especially The Empath which sets my teeth on edge. In Truth No Beauty is the exception, still an interesting episode, but the music really detracts…

Musical stings by Alexander Courage, his first work for the series since season 1. During season 2 he was off working on Dr Doolittle.

The best of them all is The Final Reflection by John M Ford, 1984.

I put the rest in a blog post, it would be way too cumbersome to list in these comments.

Ok, so for example the teaser:

It didn't need to be translated for the Bridge crew. Everyone understood it perfectly, except McCoy.

Music
The only new music composed for either of these episodes was for the Omega Glory flag scenes. Fred Steiner did this: sort of the Star Spangled Banner mixed with with the Enterprise Fanfare, with snare drums. Recorded in the same session where they recorded the music for By Any Other Name.

I remember this as a good episode. Haven't seen it in many years, so when Zack says it's flat, I guess I have to defer. But I always liked.