Star Trek: The Original Series consists of seventy-nine episodes, and while not all of them are ones you'd want to rewatch again and again, many are. The few that were the least favorite of the fans, for the most part, were produced in season three when the budget had been cut by $15,000 per episode, and the series had been moved to Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. It was a clear sign that the show was circling the drain, and the producer for the third season, Fred Freiberger, has always been blamed for the clunker episodes.
As it turns out, according to Margaret Armen, who wrote "The Paradise Syndrome," Freiberger didn't come across as the biggest fan of the series. As reported in The Fifty Year Mission The First 25 Years by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, Armen watched an episode of the series when Freiberger was brought in to produce the third season.
"He watched an episode with me, smoking a big cigar, and said, 'Oh, I get it. Tits in space,'" Armen recalled. And that didn't sit well with her at all as she was a Star Trek buff. And it's a telling comment, revealing that the producer didn't think there was much to Star Trek.
Freiberger wanted more action in Star Trek, and he wasn't interested in character pieces, which is why he didn't care for "The Paradise Syndrome." If it wasn't for Roddenberry, Armen thought the episode wouldn't have been produced.
And based upon his view of the series, it's a wonder some of the third season episodes did make it to screen. Freiberger clearly had an issue with Star Trek, but that didn't stop him from completing the entire third season, even if he did compare his time there to being shot down over Nazi Germany. It does make me wonder what season three could have been if it had had a different producer, one that was more supportive of the show.