Well, as much as I'd love to get all three, I think I really just need one. But, which one? If you were only buying a single STAR TREK: TOS season, which would encapsulate the show in the most complete, satisfying way? Help!

Season Three, though not as terrible as some make it out to be, is clearly not the best season by far.

Season One & Season Two are nearly equally worthy in my opinion, however I'm swayed to Season Two if only because the cast really seemed to hit their stride as an ensemble in that season, comfortable with the characters and their interactions. Plus Chekov doesn't show up until Season Two, and although I'm not that fond of the character, Season One in some ways doesn't feel like Star Trek without him. Season Two also has a run of episodes arguably among the best or most memorable: AMOK TIME (Spock in heat), THE CHANGELING ("Error! Error! Sterilize imperfection!"), JOURNEY TO BABEL (Spock's parents!) and my personal favorite MIRROR MIRROR (aka "the savage universe one" or "the Spock with a beard episode").

Oh, who am I kidding? The only reason I can't live without Season Two is Barbara Bouchet as Kelinda in BY ANY OTHER NAME.

I'll go along with Season Two as well, although you couldn't really go wrong picking Season One. The second year also produced "The Trouble with Tribbles" (a garbage scow!), "The Doomsday Machine" (the single most suspenseful episode of the series), the hilariously silly "I, Mudd" ("Shut up, Stella!"), the action-packed "The Gamesters of Triskelion" ("The thralls have no freedom, Shahna!"), "A Private Little War" (the trickiest, most difficult, dirtiest game of them all...), plus Kirk fights Nazis (!), Kirk recites the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution (!), Kirk drives a car (!), Kirk fights Jack the Ripper (!)...and, yeah, Kirk makes out with Barbara Bouchet.

Thanks. I was leaning towards Two, even without having seen TOS in many, many years, simply because it would be weird without Chekov. So unless there was a strong argument for One, I wanted to decide between 2 and 3, and it sounds like there's not a lot of love for season 3.

Season Three has a few very strong shows: "The Enterprise Incident" (a riff on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE), "Day of the Dove" and "The Empath" (perhaps the show's most violent episodes), as well as the campy laughfests "The Paradise Syndrome" (Kirk, er, that is, "Kirok" joins an Indian tribe), "Turnabout Intruder" (Kirk's body is possessed by a psychopathic woman!) and "Spock's Brain" (one of the series' most enjoyable episodes, albeit on a completely different level as, say, "City on the Edge of Forever," to say the least). But, overall, the season is mediocre at best and decidedly inferior to the first two.

I would go with Season 1, just because This Is Where It All Began.

Also, you have no shortage of classic episodes -- The Corbomite Maneuver ("Trania!"); Devil in the Dark (the Horta and the first mind-meld); City On the Edge of Forever (Joan Collins AND time travel!); Errand of Mercy (the Klingons and the Organians); The Menagerie (a glimpse at an earlier Enterprise and a younger Spock) and on and on.

Season 1, strangely enough, was more consistent than either 2 or 3, with fewer cringeworthy moments. But the highs of season 2 are just sooo good -- Amok Time and Journey to Babel, especially.