50: The Sun/Son Pun - a podcast by Trek.fm

There is a scientific theory that, since space is infinite,
it's not impossible for there to be planets that are almost
identical to our own. Of course, they would be impossibly far away.
In the Star Trek universe, almost every other inhabited planet is a
direct parallel to Earth. It was in Roddenberry's pitch to the
networks and even explained in-show as "Hodgkin's Law of Parallel
Planetary Development."

 

By the second season of The Original Series,
even NBC was tired of using this plot; but sometimes good sci-fi
requires some obvious parallels. In this episode
of Standard Orbit, Mike and Drew talk about three
examples from the second half of Season Two and how much of the
reuse was the stories needing to be told versus how much money they
could save.

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