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| Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973) – Scotty (James Dooham), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly), Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy) |
As part of a joint review project of
Star Trek: The Animated Series (also known as The Animated Adventures of Gene
Roddenberry’s Star Trek). Armchair Squid invited us
to join him in reviewing all 22 episodes of the show.
With the death of Leonard Nimoy this seems like a perfect time to watch
it. The show was produced by Filmation and it aired from September 1973
through October 1974 on NBC and was a sequel to the original Star Trek
series.
The show had most of the original cast reprising the voices for their
characters, except for Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig). They decided it
was too expensive to have him so his character was replaced by two
characters who made semi-regular appearances: Lieutenant Arex (voiced
by James Doohan), whose Edosian species had three arms and three legs;
and Lt. M’Ress (voiced by Majel Barrett) , a female Caitian. Koenig
still worked on the show though, writing the episode “The Infinite
Vulcan”.
“Beyond the Farthest Star” – Season 1, Episode 1
“While the crew of the U.S.S.
Enterprise is charting the space just beyond the edge of the galaxy,
the starship becomes caught in the hypergravitational pull of the dead
star known as Questar M-17. Narrowly avoiding a collision with the
massive and deadly stellar object, Captain James T. Kirk’s crew settles
the Enterprise into orbit around Questar, whereupon they discover a
highly advanced and awe-inspiringly beautiful alien ship that dwarfs
even the Federation’s mightiest starships.”
The first thing you notice is that, with animation, the show can do
anything. The massive alien ship they encounter would have been
impossible without animation. While the actual animation is minimal, the
drawings themselves are gorgeous and the aliens are imaginative. The voice
cast is brilliant and capture the characters from the show except for
McCoy acts like a scared kitten through the whole away mission. We have to assume he was dragged, kicking and screaming, onto the transporter.
Sulu gets to be in command which is awesome. Kirk shows his usual hard-as-nails approach to dealing with threats.
The polt is familiar from Star Trek: The Final Frontier, but wonderfully done. The most heartbreaking part of the episode is when the alien pleads not to be left “so lonely”.
You can watch the first part of the episode below.
Every episode is available on Hulu Plus and can be found on YouTube as
well. You can join us by adding yourself to the list below.
Find out more at http://www.startrek.com/database_article/beyond-the-farthest-star
What
do you think of the episode? Is it a worthy successor to the Original Series?
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<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="33501 ">11 Comments
I remember that episode. Much better than the fifth Star Trek movie.
Cool you guys are all covering the episodes.
Pretending to destroy the Enterprise really took the evil alien by surprise and towards the end it cries out in despair which yeah, made me feel sorry for it.
Now I have to go watch them!
And we're off…
There is something very sad about the alien's plea as they abandon him(?). He might have considered a different approach from the beginning. Who knows how many more million years he'll have to wait.
I didn't realize cutting Chekov was a cost-saving measure. Cool that he managed to keep a hand in, though.
Thanks for joining me, Maurice. I'm excited!
I watched it on Netflix a while back. The animation is a little cheesy but it has good stories.
This was a few years before my time, but I'm surprised I haven't heard of this cartoon.
I cared about cleavage even when I was 10 lol
She was a counselor, who wants to discuss their issues with someone in a high ranking uniform. You want someone more relaxed and casual to put you at ease.
Counselor Troi "a potted palm on the bridge"? I never thought that we about her.
it's too bad that when a woman's boobs sag as they get older they don't consider a size reduction rather than an enlargement. i mean by then most people know they are women and huge boobs, in my opinion, look like cow udders. MOO
The producers used her character to keep young men, who comprised the majority of sci-fi shows' audience, hooked on the show. The same as they did on Voyager when they made Jeri Ryan wear such tight cat suits that it would take her half an hour to be able to take it off to get to the bathroom. The one difference, though, was that Seven of Nine was not a member of Starfleet. Troi was and she spent six years out of uniform. It was frankly ridiculous.