Editing Star Trek: The Original Series (section)

===Episode analysis===
[[File:William Shatner Julie Newmar Star Trek 1967.jpg|thumb|right|Shatner and [[Julie Newmar]] (1967)]]

In its writing, ''Star Trek'' is notable as one of the earliest science-fiction TV series to use the services of leading contemporary science fiction writers, such as [[Robert Bloch]], [[Norman Spinrad]], [[Harlan Ellison]], and [[Theodore Sturgeon]], as well as established television writers.

Roddenberry often used the setting of a space vessel set many years in the future to comment on social issues of 1960s America, including sexism, racism, nationalism, and global war.{{r|page19680815}} In November 1968, just a few months after the [[Petula Clark#International fame – the "Downtown" era|first televised interracial touch]], the episode "[[Plato's Stepchildren]]" went [[First interracial kiss on television#Star Trek|incorrectly]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/20/tv-archive-discovers-couple-who-beat-kirk-and-uhara-to-first-interracial-kiss|title=TV archive discovers couple who beat Kirk and Uhura to first interracial kiss|last=Brown|first=Mark|date=November 20, 2015|website=the Guardian|access-date=July 23, 2016|archive-date=November 22, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151122022257/http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/20/tv-archive-discovers-couple-who-beat-kirk-and-uhara-to-first-interracial-kiss|url-status=live}}</ref> down in history as the first American television show to feature a scripted interracial kiss between characters (Capt. Kirk and Lt. Uhura), although the kiss was only mimed (obscured by the back of a character's head) and depicted as involuntary.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.seattlepi.com/tv/259341_tv14.html | title=Interracial romance now the norm on TV, but real-life issues are ignored. | work=[[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]] | access-date=August 11, 2012 | author=McFarland, Melanie | date=February 14, 2006 | archive-date=November 17, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201117212253/https://www.seattlepi.com/ae/tv/article/Interracial-romance-now-the-norm-on-TV-but-1195700.php | url-status=live }}</ref> There is however some dispute to this being the first interracial kiss of the series because the 1967 episode "[[Space Seed]]" – introducing the villain [[Khan Noonien Singh|Khan]] ([[Ricardo Montalbán]]) – has him seducing and kissing Lt. Marla McGivers ([[Madlyn Rhue]]) as part of his malicious machinations. "[[Let That Be Your Last Battlefield]]" presented a direct allegory about the irrationality and futility of racism. Anti-war themes appear in episodes such as "[[The Doomsday Machine (Star Trek: The Original Series)|The Doomsday Machine]]", depicting a planet-destroying weapon as an analogy to nuclear weapons deployed under the principle of [[mutually assured destruction]], and "[[A Taste of Armageddon]]" about a society which has "civilized" war to the point that they no longer see it as something to avoid.

Episodes such as "[[The Apple (Star Trek: The Original Series)|The Apple]]", "[[Who Mourns for Adonais?]]", "[[The Mark of Gideon]]" and "[[The Return of the Archons]]" display subtle anti-religious (owing mainly to Roddenberry's own [[secular humanism]]) and anti-establishment themes. "[[Bread and Circuses (Star Trek: The Original Series)|Bread and Circuses]]" and "[[The Omega Glory]]" have themes that are more pro-Christian or patriotic.{{original research inline|date=January 2012}}

The show experienced network and/or sponsor interference, up to and including wholesale censorship of scripts and film footage. This was a regular occurrence in the 1960s and ''Star Trek'' suffered from its fair share of tampering. Scripts were routinely vetted and censored by the staff of NBC's Broadcast Standards Department, which copiously annotated every script with demands for cuts or changes (e.g. "Page 4: Please delete McCoy's expletive, 'Good Lord{{'"}} or "Page 43: Caution on the embrace; avoid open-mouthed kiss").<ref>[http://infotekten.de/files/startrek/startrek_american-dream-ebook.pdf Peter Műller, ''Star Trek: The American Dream Continued? The Crisis of the American Dream in the 1960s and its Reflection in a Contemporary TV Series''; Oldenburg University thesis, 1994, pp. 63, 139] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719044007/http://infotekten.de/files/startrek/startrek_american-dream-ebook.pdf |date=July 19, 2011 }}.</ref>

The series was noted for its sense of humor, such as Spock and McCoy's pointed, yet friendly, bickering. Certain episodes, such as "[[The Trouble with Tribbles]]", "[[I, Mudd]]" and [[A Piece of the Action (Star Trek: The Original Series)|"A Piece of the Action"]], were written and staged as comedies with dramatic elements. Most episodes were presented as action/adventure dramas, frequently including space battles or fist fights between the ship's crew and guest antagonists.

Several episodes used the concept of planets developing parallel to Earth, allowing reuse of stock props, costumes and sets. "Bread and Circuses", "[[Miri (Star Trek: The Original Series)|Miri]]" and "The Omega Glory" depict such worlds; "A Piece of the Action", [[Patterns of Force (Star Trek: The Original Series)|"Patterns of Force"]] and "Plato's Stepchildren" are based on alien planets that have adopted period Earth cultures (Prohibition-era Chicago, Nazi Germany and ancient Greece, respectively). Two episodes depicting time travel ("[[Tomorrow Is Yesterday]]" and "[[Assignment: Earth]]") conveniently place ''Enterprise'' in orbit above 1960s Earth; a third ("[[The City on the Edge of Forever]]") places members of the crew on 1930s Earth.