Star Trek On The BBC: 1973

Click here for part one: 1969  
Click here for part two: 1970 
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972

"Television's most popular space series returns," was how the Radio Times described Return To Tomorrow the episode which launched 1973's mammoth 49 week repeat run of Star Trek. This could be viewed as slightly insensitive to the BBC's home grown series Doctor Who which was in the middle of its tenth anniversary story, The Three Doctors.

Aside from the bumper length of the repeat run this was mostly business as usual for a series which had now been shown on BBC1 for five consecutive years. The only unusual event was the repeat of Dagger Of The Mind which was finally repeated after being skipped in 1971 and 1972. It was slotted in between Amok Time and Operation -- Annihilate! on 2 April 1973. This was the week Miri would have been shown for a second time if it hadn't been marked as unsuitable for broadcast following complaints in 1970. Presumably someone at the BBC realised Miri could not be repeated and looked around for another episode to show in its place. It's interesting that the BBC opted to show Dagger Of The Mind. Presumably the choice would have been between pulling the repeats forward a week, so that Operation -- Annihilate! followed on directly from Amok Time, or repeating one of either Dagger Of The Mind or The Return Of The Archons. Neither of these two episodes had been seen since they premièred in 1969, and they seem to have been caught up in the wake of the Miri complaints. The BBC must have felt that of the two episodes Dagger Of The Mind was the most acceptable for broadcast, and there must have been a desire to get value for money by repeating as may episodes as possible before the rights expired.

In the table below the number in brackets shows how many times each story has been broadcast.

1973-01-08    19.10    Return To Tomorrow (2)
1973-01-15    19.10    I, Mudd (2)
1973-01-22    19.10    Patterns Of Force (2)
1973-01-29    19.10    The Immunity Syndrome (2)
1973-02-05    19.10    The Omega Glory (2)
1973-02-12    19.10    A Piece of the Action (2)
1973-02-19    19.10    The Ultimate Computer (2)
1973-02-26    19.10    Friday's Child (2)
1973-03-05    19.10    Assignment: Earth (2)
1973-03-12    19.10    Mirror, Mirror (2)
1973-03-19    19.10    The Gamesters of Triskelion (2)
1973-03-26    19.10    Amok Time (2)
1973-04-02    19.10    Dagger Of The Mind (2)
1973-04-09    19.10    Operation -- Annihilate! (2)
1973-04-16    19.10    The Paradise Syndrome (2)
1973-04-27    19.25    Requiem for Methuselah (2)
1973-05-04    19.25    All Our Yesterdays (2)
1973-05-11    19.25    Day of the Dove (2)
1973-05-18    19.25    The Way To Eden (2)
1973-05-25    19.30    Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (2)
1973-06-01    19.30    Wink of an Eye (2)
1973-06-08    19.30    The Cloud Minders (2)
1973-06-15    19.30    Spectre of the Gun (2)
1973-06-22    19.30    Elaan of Troyius (2)
1973-06-29    19.30    The Enterprise Incident (2)
1973-07-05    19.45    And the Children Shall Lead (2)
1973-07-13    19.30    Spock's Brain (2)
1973-07-20    19.30    Is There in Truth No Beauty? (2)
1973-07-27    19.00    For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (2)
1973-08-03    19.00    That Which Survives (2)
1973-08-10    19.00    The Mark of Gideon (2)
1973-08-17    19.00    The Lights of Zetar (2)
1973-08-24    19.00    The Savage Curtain (2)
1973-08-31    19.10    The Tholian Web (2)
1973-09-10    19.10    The Alternative Factor (2)
1973-09-17    19.15    Turnabout Intruder (2)
1973-09-24    19.15    Where No Man Has Gone Before (3)
1973-10-01    19.15    The Naked Time (3)
1973-10-08    19.15    The City On The Edge Of Forever (3)
1973-10-15    19.10    A Taste Of Armageddon (3)
1973-10-23    19.15    Mudd's Women (3)
1973-10-30    19.00    Tomorrow Is Yesterday (3)
1973-11-06    19.05    The Menagerie Part 1 (3)
1973-11-13    19.15    The Menagerie Part 2 (3)
1973-11-20    19.15    The Devil In The Dark (3)
1973-11-27    19.25    Charlie X (3)
1973-12-04    18.55    Shore Leave (3)
1973-12-11    18.55    Space Seed (3)
1973-12-18    19.25    The Man Trap (3)