TOS S01E25, S01E26, S01E27, S01E28, S01E29, S01E30

(my apologies to Dan the Automator) 

All of the Trek I watched today:

Star Trek: The Original Series, S01E25: "This Side Of Paradise"
Star Trek: The Original Series, S01E26: "The Devil In The Dark"
Star Trek: The Original Series, S01E27: "Errand Of Mercy"
Star Trek: The Original Series, S01E28: "The Alternative Factor"  
Star Trek: The Original Series, S01E29: "The City On The Edge Of Forever"
Star Trek: The Original Series, S01E30: "Operation -- Annihilate!"  

Things:

• Our Treknobabble of the week is the "Berthold ray", which is mentioned again briefly in "Deja Q" (TNG S03E13).
• AMISH IN SPACE...
• "Our budget sucks again this week.  What do you want to shoot?"
  "How 'bout an episode where we can re-use all the farm and western sets on our backlot?"
  "Winner, winner, chicken dinner!"
• I love the fact that spore-ified Bones talks like Alvin York.
• "This Side Of Paradise" sees a re-use of the "If we throw violent emotions at this alien thing, it can't control us!" solution first seen in "The Cage". 
• "The Devil In The Dark" confirms what we've always known:  The Type I phaser (or "Phaser No. 1") is balls.  It's all about Type II (aka "Phaser No. 2").
• "The Devil In The Dark" is also our first encounter with a silicon-based lifeform.  Before there was Odo, there was the Horta.
• Least sexy mind-meld.  Ever. 
• "Devil In The Dark" contains the most famous iteration of "I'm a doctor, not a...".  Bones says, when Kirk demands that he treat the Horta, "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!"
• "Errand Of Mercy" marks the first appearance of the Klingons.
• When will these silly Federation people learn:  The primitives living on the unexplored planet are NEVER what they appear to be.
• The remastered D7, which we only see briefly as the Klingon vessels close with and fire on USS Enterprise, is awesome.   
• Most of these early Klingons don't even have goatees.  Lame.
• However...KOR!  My favorite Klingon >:)  
• It's supremely evident from this first encounter with the Klingons that they were intended to be a stand-in for the Soviet Union.  Kirk refers to them as a "military dictatorship" where citizens--and especially the populations of subjugated planets--live with very little or no freedoms.  State-established social order, the concept that everyone in the Empire (even Kor) is watched closely and the use of brutal interrogation techniques all jive with the US image of the USSR at the time.  It was some time--really until they started to flesh out Worf on TNG--before we saw the Klingon culture emerge instead as a much richer, warrior culture, steeped in tradition.  The Klingon society we know is much more focused on individual courage, honor and the Klingon government as we know it is much more like a plutocracy or aristocracy (with a nominal monarch as of 2369).
• The Organian Peace Treaty, established in "Errand Of Mercy", becomes established Trek canon despite never again appearing in canon material.  It is, however, referenced in a myriad of books, video games, etc.
  
  (Correction:  My pal "jbode" over in the Perpetual Star Trek Thread in the Ars Lounge have pointed out that the treaty is actually referenced as soon as the second season's "The Trouble With Tribbles", a fact that I had simply forgotten.)
  
• "The Alternative Factor" is an episode that I'd almost totally forgotten.  More importantly, it's actually a halfway-decent science fiction story--especially if you consider the time in which it was written.  Yes, the execution is a little sloppy and it's pure cheese in some places.  But the core story--the two halves of a man, each from opposite versions of the same universe, fighting each other in an eternal struggle--is among the better sci-fi scripts we get in TOS, in my opinion. 
• It's also, however, an episode where the entire audience figures out what's going on WAY before our intrepid (or should I say...enterprising) characters do. 
• "The City On The Edge Of Forever" is one of the most well-known TOS episodes, and is often included on "best of" lists--and for good reason.  Although I personally find the story to be pretty pedestrian, the execution of that story and the performances by the cast--especially Shatner, Kelley and guest star Joan Collins--make this a really special episode.
• Crazy McCoy is the best McCoy, by the way.
• The Guardian Of Forever, much like the aforementioned Organian Peace Treaty, is a prominent example of Trek lore than never again appears in a canon production.  Like the treaty though, it does make an appearance in multiple books, comics and fan productions (notably the episode "In Harm's Way" of the fan series Star Trek: New Voyages). 
  
  (Correction:  I'm also informed that the Guardian of Forever makes an appearance in the TAS episode "Yesteryear".  While TAS was considered non-canon for a long time, it's recently attained something like canon status with Paramount.  And regardless of it's official standing, I'm including it in canon for the purpose of this "mission".  I've only seen most TAS episodes once though, and a long time ago at that--so I didn't recall that there was an episode featuring the Guardian.)
  
• In "Operation -- Annihilate!", we discover a little something about Kirk's family, namely that he has (or rather, had) a brother named Sam Kirk who was married and had a young son.  I've decided that because my first name is James and my middle name is Samuel, my parents named me after the Kirk boys*.  Incidentally, the nephew that is able to be saved in this episode shows up in a recent fan production as the first openly-gay character in Star Trek (if you count fan productions, that is)--the two-part "Blood And Fire" episode of Star Trek: New Voyages.
  
  (* - Totally not true.  My parents are quite religious, and I'm actually named after one of the Twelve Apostles of Christ and the first of the major Old Testament prophets.)
•  I remember this episode grossing me out when I was younger.  I mean, giant space scabs the size of pancakes that shoot stingers into your body that take over your nervous system.  NO THANK YOU.
•  Worst.  Tanning bed.  EVER.
• The CGI of the UV satellites being deployed over Deneva is pretty cool.
• "Bones, it wasn't your fault".  Uh, it kind of totally was.  I mean, you're trying to kill these things with intense light and it doesn't occur to you to try different parts of the spectrum--in the hopes of avoiding blinding your patients?  I mean, you're usually so spot-on, McCoy.  But you kind of dropped the ball here.  Thank goodness for Spock's freaky second set of eyelids or whatever.
• Apparently this story was adapted/"re-imaged" as a comic set in the Abramsverse.