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That Which Survives - S3-E17

Trivia: Actress Lee Meriwether says she was teased daily by a playful DeForest Kelley while shooting "That Which Survives." He continually pulled down the glued-on cloth rectangle that NBC insisted should conceal her navel, then squinted at her tummy and asked, "What time is it?" On the final day of filming, she got back at him. When Kelley peeled off the cloth, he broke up laughing before he could ask the question. Meriwether had glued a small, ticking clock over her navel - set to the correct time, of course.

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That Which Survives - S3-E17

Trivia: In the 1960s, showing the female navel was forbidden by NBC's censors. This was why Losira's costume had that weird square patch sticking up from the otherwise low-cut hip-hugger pants. (Oddly, no such restriction applied to male costumes.) By 1969, the network had abandoned the rule, and "The Cloud Minders" became the only Trek episode with costumes shamelessly exposing women's navels.

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Day of the Dove - S3-E7

Trivia: Scotty's line to Spock is, "Keep your Vulcan hands off me!" But the word "Vulcan" is indistinct and unfortunately, sounds rather like a certain obscenity starting with the letter F. This resulted in several TV stations across the US censoring that part of Scott's misunderstood line with a "Bleep." (00:25:00)

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The Enterprise Incident - S3-E2

Trivia: The third season's tight budget forced the recycling of many props. Here, the Romulan cloaking device was rather obviously cobbled together from two items used in previous episodes: Nomad's head from "The Changeling," and Sargon's globe from "Return to Tomorrow."

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Spock's Brain - S3-E1

Trivia: In any poll, "Spock's Brain" unfailingly wins the title of Absolute Worst Star Trek Episode - Ever. Gene L. Coon wrote it under his pen name, Lee Cronin, but never intended to actually produce it. His terrible script was a practical joke, a jab at Gene Roddenberry after they'd argued over where the series should go. But by season 3, both Coon and Roddenberry had left the show, and their clueless replacements filmed the thing, thinking this shark-jumping episode was great stuff.

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A Private Little War - S2-E19

Trivia: Director Marc Daniels employed an old trick to save Nona's topless bathing scene from NBC's censors. He deliberately shot twice the needed footage, including risque side shots exposing portions of bare breast. After the censors excised the "most naked" portions, what remained was precisely what Daniels had wanted to begin with: a bare-backed Nona bathing in the waterfall.

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The Trouble With Tribbles - S2-E15

Trivia: Prop master Jim Rugg "animated" the tribbles by inserting wind-up toys under their fur to make them crawl, and by supplying some with small balloons and concealed air hoses, making them appear to breathe.

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Return to Tomorrow - S2-E20

Trivia: The title "Return to Tomorrow" didn't translate well into other languages. So in France, the episode became "You Are Nothing But Dust"; in Japan, "Energy at 160 Kilometers Underground," and in Germany, "Ghost Craves Body!"

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Season 2 generally

Trivia: Paramount's press releases in 1967 claimed that the Soviet news agency Pravda had complained about Star Trek having no Russian characters, so they were adding Chekov. This story was completely bogus. (Star Trek never aired in the U.S.S.R.) NBC wanted to appeal to the 8-14 teenybopper crowd, and asked Roddenberry to add a character who looked like Davy Jones of the Monkees. So Chekov debuted in season 2, replete with a bad Beatle wig that was, thankfully, soon jettisoned.

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Mirror, Mirror - S2-E4

Trivia: Because Barbara Luna came down with strep, all of Marlena's kissing scenes with Kirk had to be put on hold. They were shot a month later when she'd recovered. "And you can tell," Luna says. "In the kissing scenes, I'm several pounds thinner."

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Shore Leave - S1-E16

Trivia: "Shore Leave" was the first of many Star Trek episodes (and movies) partially shot at Vasquez Rocks, a distinctive California desert rock formation named for a 19th Century bandit who once had a hideout there. Kirk and Finnegan's fistfight and Kirk's encounter with Ruth were both shot at Vasquez. The formation is most prominently featured in "Arena," when Kirk pushes the boulder off its peak onto the Gorn.

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The Menagerie (1) - S1-E12

Trivia: Gene Roddenberry wanted "alien plants" for the planet's surface, but had trouble communicating the idea to the prop department. They sent dozens of lush, green potted specimens, all very terrestrial. A frustrated Roddenberry finally grabbed one potted tree, yanked it out of the soil and stuck it back in upside down with its bare, tangled roots exposed. "There," he grumped. "Now that's an alien plant!"

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The Menagerie (1) - S1-E12

Trivia: For her Orion slave girl dance, Susan Oliver was painted green from head to toe. But every time production footage of her came back from the processing lab, no trace of her green make-up job showed on film. After three rounds of Gene Roddenberry ordering the make-up crew to "paint her greener!" it was finally deduced that the lab techs, assuming her color was a lighting error, had been re-tinting her a nice, healthy pink every time.

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Shore Leave - S1-E16

Trivia: William Shatner recalls having a "lame-brained" attack of bravado during "Shore Leave's" filming and insisting that Kirk should wrestle the tiger - without a stunt double. Gene Roddenberry finally convinced him that he was much too valuable to the show to risk his life for a stunt. Thirty years later on a Sci Fi Channel special, Shatner said, "Thank you, Gene, for preventing me from becoming a hair ball!"

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Shore Leave - S1-E16

Trivia: Because Theodore Sturgeon's original script for "Shore Leave" was so complex, many scenes were too expensive to film. Gene Roddenberry had to hastily rewrite many of these minutes before they were shot, resulting in some segments that were ad-libbed because the rewrites hadn't been completed. McCoy's "distracted" scene with Yeoman Barrows is one of these.

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Plato's Stepchildren - S3-E10

Trivia: TV's first interracial kiss occurs here. But close examination reveals that Kirk's and Uhura's lips never actually meet. For fear of censorship, the kiss was simulated, so that complaints could be answered with "They only pretended to kiss." Despite this "out," however, the episode was still banned by several stations across the US. (00:42:40)

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Trivia: A perennial Star Trek extra, the tall blond Eddie Paskey played a red-shirted crewman standing in the background in virtually every Trek episode for all 3 seasons. He rarely had any lines, and was even killed off in "Obsession," but was back on duty anyhow in the following episodes and for the rest of the series.

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Trivia: Before the series went on the air, Gene Roddenberry expressed concerns about the sound effects in Star Trek's intro. He wondered if the "swish" effect of the passing ship should be removed, since there's no sound in space. Desilu Studios polled preview audiences about it; the majority said they liked the effect because it conveyed great speed, and that the scientific inaccuracy didn't bother them. So the "swish" was allowed to remain.

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Miri - S1-E9

Trivia: Many of the "onlies" in the final scenes of this episode were the children of Star Trek's cast and crew. They included William Shatner's two young daughters, Leslie and Lisabeth Shatner. (00:43:40)

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