1. "All Our Yesterdays"
Season 3’s “All Our Yesterdays,” feels like an accidental series finale. The Enterprise crew visits a dying world, Sarpeidon, where the librarian Mr. Atoz uses time portals to send his people into their own past to escape their sun’s imminent nova. When Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are flung into different eras, Spock and McCoy end up stranded in a frozen ice age with Zarabeth, a woman condemned to live out her days in exile.
This is the episode to cue up when everyone has eaten too much and the house has gone quiet. Spock, thrown back into an earlier stage of Vulcan evolution, begins to feel emotions more intensely and is drawn to Zarabeth, only to learn that staying with her would mean abandoning his friends and his own time forever.
McCoy’s fragile, half‑frozen arguments with Spock cut deeper than their usual bickering, and Zarabeth’s lonely courage echoes the sacrifices people make for family members they will never meet. The final image of the Enterprise leaving Sarpeidon as its sun explodes carries a sense of endings and of gratitude that, for now, this crew still has another day together.
A Thanksgiving plate for season 3
Looked at through a Thanksgiving lens, these five season 3 episodes lay out a surprisingly rich spread. “The Enterprise Incident” gives thanks for clever plans and commanders who risk their reputations; “The Tholian Web” and “All Our Yesterdays” celebrate the strength of bonds that survive grief, distance, and time. “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” and “Requiem for Methuselah” ask viewers to be grateful for the finite nature of a human life, because meaning often comes from knowing that time is limited.
Season 3 may never escape its reputation as the weakest TOS year, but these episodes prove that even in its leanest stretch, Star Trek could still serve up stories worth revisiting every holiday. Fans gathering around a table, or a viewscreen, can be thankful that, half a century later, the Enterprise and her crew are still out there in syndication, streaming queues, and hearts, showing what loyalty, courage, and compassion look like under strange new suns.
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