I'll echo alurin's "I'm hardly enough of a masochist to read all of the Star Trek novels."

Zack really hit on a lot of that stuff in the review of The Menagerie.

Sort of implicitly reviewed as part of The Menagerie.

Condolences, best wishes.

Droxine's dress
Right??

Didn't love Creatures, found it dry or something.

Written by Mike W Barr, I think.

"a Klingon named Kahless the Unforgettable"

On the other hand, Savage Curtain is a steaming pile of poo.

Cloud Minders is one of the few strong episodes in season 3. It wouldn't be out of place in the other seasons. Derivative or not, it has a strong storyline. It reminds me a little bit of Taste of Armageddon: Kirk and his gang are so much more rough-&-tumble than the planetary society, that when he decides to roll…

I'm gonna disagree that the ending to LoL sucks. It's not a surpise twist ending, it's a "ride off into the sunset" ending, with a touch of "he's out there and will come back when needed", King Arthur-esque maybe. The actual prose of the ending is very pretty, with the child Kali giving Yama "the only offering he…

There's a nice note of tragedy when Spock speaks that line. He's trying to get thru to Adam, and runs flat up against Adam's misplaced cynicism. Spock is always the most honest guy in the room (except on board a Romulan ship): Adam stands next to Sevrin and laughs cynically at Spock.

These are good lists.

Same reaction in Charlie X, when Spock & Uhura make music.

Why do we love it?
We are heading into the last couple weeks of Zack's reviews. TOS is almost over. (Again.) I had hoped we could touch on this question while commenting on the final few episodes. Why do we love it?

I like "Conrad" from This Immortal (And Call Me Conrad). What's wrong with him?

When we rate it, what are we rating?
The underlying episode(s), or Zack's review?

On the other hand, Roger Zelazny populated his books with a lot of immortals, and they all seemed to enjoy themselves fine.

General Denning.

This is a nice bit of analysis. But I think it reflects some of the later evolution of the character, vs how the character started. Think of Spock in some of the very early episodes: barking out orders in The Corbomite Maneuver, or his intense focus on leadership and command in Enemy Within. That Spock would ascend…