As a kid I pretty much *liked* EVERY episode of TOS.
As an old guy, I now realize just how bad some of the episodes are.
Lights of Zetar?
The worst bottle show ever.
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield?
Preachy nonsense.
Agree with "City" but where is "Doomsday Machine" and "Mirror, Mirror"?
I prefer the original of Doomsday vs the new, souped up modern version. Yes the effects were crude, but that fire in the center of the 1967 era machine was plenty scary.
Devastating when Decker kills himself.
I think there was some criticism of William Windom for overacting as Commodore Decker, but consider what the character had just experienced (transporting the crew of his ship to the surface of a planet, only to watch as the machine consumed it for fuel and he couldn’t do anything about it to save them) and it was a masterful performance of utter shock and horror and then turning into a Captain Ahab.
I don’t think “...Battlefield” was a bad episode, a decent parable on racism (even if it seems a tad heavy-handed). I believe Frank Gorshin got an Emmy nomination for that performance.
I’ve been enjoying the fully restored eps running on BBC America on Friday evenings. They often had to chop close to 8-10 minutes out of them in prior runs (since now a show is roughly 36 minutes in an hour format with commercials). I like the updated special effects, too (although I’ll admit the original Doomsday Machine model was quite scary).