Star Trek: The Animated Series - Episode Guide with Ratings

After having reviewed all three seasons of the entire original series, linked here, here, and here, I watched all the old animated shows on www.startrek.com while doing my daily exercises, and wrote down my impressions.  I hadn't seen these things since I was a kid, and I found them... actually better than I gave them credit for:

Beyond the Farthest Star

Grade: B-

Cheap and shoddy animation mars this much maligned return to television of the starship Enterprise.  Almost the entire cast returns, with the original actors supplying most of the voices, including Sulu, Uhura, Nurse Chapel (back to blond), and even Mr. Kyle, now sporting a handlebar mustache.  The exception is Checkov, replaced by an alien navigator named Arex.  The first adventure concerns the discovery of an ancient, alien ship, well drawn and taking advantage of the new medium.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty investigate (in cool new energy belts instead of bulky spacesuits) and find an alien message warning them about a malevolent energy creature that has survived for millions of years.  They wind up bringing it back with them and it tries to take over the ship, injuring Scotty and shooting at Kirk and Spock.  Kirk outsmarts it by “playing chicken,” attempting to ram the ship into a dying star, but then reversing as soon as the creature flees.

Yesteryear 

Grade: A

The animation quality is still quite sloppy, yet this is considered by fans to be the best of the animated series, and they are right!  While investigating the Guardian of Forever time portal, the timeline is changed so that nobody remembers Spock except Kirk, and Kirk’s second in command is an Andorian named Thelin.  To set things right again, Spock journeys to his own past and encounters his father and mother, and himself as a boy who is trying to determine what path he will follow: Vulcan or human.  When a trial endangers the life of his pet Selat I-Chaya, he chooses the logical, Vulcan path.  This was very well written, with references to “The City on the Edge of Forever” and “Journey to Babel”.

One of Our Planets is Missing

Grade: B-

The Enterprise crew encounters a gigantic cloud ripping planets apart, and on course for the populated planet Mantilles.  When the Enterprise becomes engulfed by the cloud, they determine it is a living, intelligent being.  Scotty buys some time with some of his engineering miracles.  Kirk warns the planet’s governor, Comm. Wesley, but there’s little time, and millions will still die if the Enterprise cannot stop the cloud creature.  With Uhura’s help, Spock rigs up a communication device to mind meld directly with the cloud creature’s brain, and makes it understand that it is killing life forms when it consumes planets.  Having understood, it doesn’t consume Mantilles, and goes back the way it came.

The Lorelei Signal

Grade: B

Like Anime, much of the artwork is well illustrated, and the shows are more intelligent than I remembered.  The crew is drawn to a mysterious planet by a siren song that affects only the men.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Lt. Carver beam down and are welcomed by a group of women.  They quickly begin to weaken and age rapidly while the women become stronger, drawing their life force.  Some of the men almost drown trying to get away while Spock makes a desperate attempt to contact the ship.  Uhura and Nurse Chapel take over command from a listless Scotty, singing Scottish hymns.  They beam down with an all-female team, shooting first and asking questions later, save the landing party using the transporter to restore them to their younger selves, and find another way to help the alien women at the same time.

More Tribbles, More Troubles

Grade: B-

This mildly amusing episode reunites the Enterprise crew with Klingon Captain Koloth, his second Korax, Cyrano Jones (Stanley Adams again), and, of course, tribbles.  Still, this is nowhere near as good as the original, or the Deep Space Nine tribble episode!  Kirk saves Cyrano Jones from the Klingons, who are accusing him of environmental sabotage.  Jones claims to have bred safe tribbles because they don’t reproduce, and has a glommer, a natural predator to the tribbles.  The Klingons unleash a new weapon on the Enterprise, and Kirk finds out the tribbles are still not so safe, as they are growing huge eating a new wheat grain.  He also discovers the glommer is not natural, having been genetically engineered by the Klingons.  It ends with Koloth once again getting a ship full of tribbles.

The Survivor

Grade: C

The poor animation wears thin, but the writing level is similar to the original series.  This one has the Enterprise crew come across a famed Federation citizen, Carter Winston, who had been missing for five years.  It is soon revealed that he is not Winston, but an alien Vendorian impersonating him and secretly working for the Romulans.  His former fiancé Anne Nored suspects, but not quickly enough to stop the Vendorian from attacking Scotty and impersonating Kirk and McCoy to take the ship into the Neutral Zone.  In the end, Kirk and the crew uncover his plot, and having impersonated the deceased Carter Winston for so long, he now shares Carter’s deep love of humanity, and Anne, and he winds up eventually helping Kirk against his Romulan co-conspirators.  The new character of M’Ress, a lioness relief communications officer, is introduced here.

The Infinite Vulcan

Grade: C-

Written by Walter Keonig (Chekov), this episode has Kirk and the crew coming across a species of living plants called Phylosians who worship the fifth gigantic clone of an old survivor of the Eugenics wars, Stavos Keniculus.  After Sulu is poisoned by a mobile plant, McCoy can do nothing for him, but he is cured by Agmar, the leader of the plant people.  Spock is then abducted and cloned by Stavos and the Phylosians, creating a giant version of him named Spock 2, in accordance with Stavos’ effort to impose peace on the galaxy.  With little time left for the real Spock, and with help from Spock 2, and even Uhura and Scotty, who communicate Stavos’ ideals to Spock 2, Kirk convinces Stavos that peace has been achieved in the Federation, and Spock’s life is saved with a Vulcan mind meld.  This one was quite weird!

The Magicks of Megas-tu

Grade: F

What starts out promising ends as a pagan endeavor!  The Enterprise crew investigates the center of the galaxy to witness the creation of matter.  There, they are swept into another dimension where they encounter Lucien, a fellow who looks like the devil.  Lucien tells them that in his realm, magic is real, and Spock agrees and demonstrates.  The other inhabitants of this realm, led by Asmodeus, test the crew, and particularly Kirk, by recreating the Salem witch trials, which they themselves had to endure when they visited earth circa 1691, and revealing that Lucien is, in fact, Satan.  Spock convinces Kirk to use magic to free them all, and Kirk stands up for Satan, welcoming him with friendship, and thereby passing the test!  This takes Roddenberry’s vision of an “enlightened”, humanistic future way over the line!  Ick!

Once Upon a Planet

Grade: C+

This was a missed opportunity!  The crew stops for rest at the same planet they visited in the original series episode “Shore Leave”, but things are different.  The Caretaker has died, and the Master Computer now runs the place, thinking itself superior and believing that people are slaves to the ships they arrive in.  It kidnaps Uhura, but she cannot reason with it.  While Kirk leads a landing party, the Master Computer begins making changes to the Enterprise, leaving Scotty, Arex, and M’Ress struggling to keep up.  Meanwhile, the landing party is attacked by pterodactyls and a giant cat, and while McCoy and Sulu are menaced by a two-headed dragon, Kirk and Spock find their way to the computer core.  The solution is simple and infantile, as they, and even Uhura (!) convince the computer that it’s only function is servitude to biological units, and McCoy and Sulu have a picnic lunch with Alice, the White Rabbit, and the dragon!  Silly!

Mudd’s Passion

Grade: B-

The bad animation really limits an episode like this, but the show was at least smart enough to consistently revisit concepts from the original series, and have the original voice cast.  Roger C. Carmel returns as the voice of Harry Mudd, this time with a love potion.  He swindles Nurse Chapel into using it, then kidnaps her, with just enough time for Spock to fall in love with her and follow them down to the planet with Kirk.  There, they are menaced by two creatures made of rock!  Back on the Enterprise, the love crystals get sucked into the ventilation system, causing Scotty and M’Ress to fall in love with each other, and McCoy sweet talks a yeoman, while on the planet surface, Spock and Kirk get pretty darned chummy!  Best moment:  When the landing party is about to be pulverized, Kirk calls the ship for an emergency beam out, but the transporter operator is too busy dancing with a young lady to answer!  The effects don’t last, the landing party is saved, and Mudd is, once again, arrested.

The Terratin Incident

Grade: B+

Shades of The Incredible Shrinking Man, Gulliver’s Travels, and Horton Hears a Who mark this rather fun episode.  The Enterprise is hit by a beam from a nearby planet that starts shrinking all organic life.  The crew soon has trouble even reaching the controls.  Sulu falls from the helm and breaks his leg.  Nurse Chapel falls into the aquarium and Kirk rescues her.  Scotty has his team work the transporter controls with ropes so Kirk can beam down to the planet and investigate.  It restores him to his normal height, where he finds a tiny city.  After negotiating with the city officials, he discovers they are earthlings whose ancestors had been shrunk by cosmic waves shortly after arriving, and will now genetically remain 1/16^th of an inch tall.  Volcanic activity was threatening their city, and the only way they could contact the Enterprise crew was to temporarily shrink them.  Kirk transports the whole city, which fits on a single transporter pad, to a new home.

The Time Trap

Grade: C+

This one is very much like the Voyager episode “The Void.”  Along with a Klingon vessel led by Kirk’s old nemesis Kor, the Enterprise is swept into a region of space known as the Delta Triangle, where many ships have disappeared without a trace.  They find themselves in a ship graveyard in a “time pocket” containing members of just about every species in the quadrant, who have come to accept that they are stuck here, and name their new community Elysia.  Kirk and Spock figure out a way to leave, by combining their ship with the Klingon ship.  Through Vulcan touch-telepathy, Spock is aware the Klingons are plotting something, but doesn’t know exactly what it is.  Right before the two ships leave, the Elysians detect an explosive device Kor planted on the Enterprise, and warn Kirk, thereby saving the Enterprise.  It was kind of fun seeing the species trapped in the time pocket, but they don’t do a whole lot, leading to another missed opportunity.

The Ambergris Element

Grade: A-

The kind of Trek story Taylor-made for animation!  Like the Voyager episode “Thirty Days”, the crew happens across a planet almost completely covered by water.  Unlike that episode, however, this one has a more colorful story, with Kirk and Spock somehow mutating into water-breathers after an attack on their futuristic motor-boat/submarine by a sea dragon!  They find underwater humanoids called Aquans, led by Domar, and distrustful of air-breathers, even former air-breathers like Kirk and Spock.  They befriend a few Aquans - Rila, Cadmar, and Lemus – to discover a way to reverse the mutation.  In the end, they uncover ancient knowledge that will not only help them, but another water planet, and they help save the Aquans’ planet Argo from underwater volcanoes.  A good episode that takes full advantage of the animation medium!

The Slaver Weapon

Grade: C

The first Star Trek episode since the original pilot that doesn’t have Kirk or McCoy!  With a plot similar to the Next Generation two-parter “Gambit”, Spock, Sulu, and Uhura, on an away mission, come across a “stasis box” left behind by an ancient race known as the Slavers.  Captured by a group of the cat-like alien Kzinti, they are helpless to stop them from opening the box, where they find an ancient weapon they want to use to rule the galaxy.  The Kzinti mostly deal with Sulu, believing Spock to be from an inferior, pacifist race, and believing Uhura to be stupid since she is a female.  Spock figures out the weapon is actually intelligent, and when the Kzinti ask it too many questions about how it operates, it believes, correctly, that it is in the hands of an enemy, and it destroys them.  It was nice seeing Uhura and Sulu allowed to participate in a mission with Spock, but the episode itself was strictly kids-stuff!

The Eye of the Beholder

Grade: B-

Looking for the crew of the Starship Ariel orbiting the planet Lactra VII, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down and are menaced by several dinosaur-sized creatures.  One of them is stunned and falls on Dr. McCoy.  Then they are abducted by huge slug-like creatures and put on display in a zoo alongside the missing Ariel crew, led by Randi Bryce and Tom Markel.  Spock attempts telepathic communication with the slug-like Lactrans and deduces they are far superior in intellect to humans and Vulcans.  Using telepathy to communicate with one of their young, they use it to attempt to contact the ship, and Scotty winds up beaming the young slug creature aboard.  The young slug then saves the day by absorbing all the information in Scotty’s head and the Enterprise computer banks, and convinces the other slugs that the Starfleet personnel would make unsuitable exhibits in the zoo.

The Jihad

Grade: C

Kirk and Spock are recruited by the cat-like Vedala as part of a covert team to recover something called the “Soul of Skorr” to help prevent an inter-galactic holy war.  On their team are Lara, an expert human female tracker with a thing for Kirk; EM, a caterpillar-like insect with a penchant for electronics and locks; Sord, a lizard creature; and TChar, a hawk-man like creature from the Skorr race.  They banter and have a few adventures trying to locate the item, and when they finally do, they correctly assess that one among them is a traitor.  It turns out to be Char, who wants to bring glory to his race, even if it means their ultimate destruction.  Kirk and Spock are able to subdue him and the team is brought back with the Soul of Skorr.  Less thrilling than it sounds, and predictable animated fare.

The Pirates of Orion

Grade: C+

Despite the constant mispronunciation of “Orion” here (“OR-ee-un” instead of “or-I-un”), this is still a pretty enjoyable outing with some great Spock/McCoy banter, cat-and-mouse intrigue, a battle in an asteroid field, and the first and only time Orion males are seen in any Star Trek incarnation.  Spock is fatally ill, and the Enterprise will rendezvous with the Huron to receive the drug needed to cure him.  But trouble arises when pirates from Orion attack the Huron and take its cargo, including the drug.  From then on, Kirk must play their game if he’s going to save Spock in time, but what can he do with a group of aliens who don’t trust him or the Federation?

Bem

Grade: C-

This episode is juggling too many elements for a half hour show.  An alien cultural observer named Bem beams down with Kirk as he investigates a new planet.  Unknown to the crew, Bem is a “colony creature” that can split into individual parts.  He allows himself to be captured by the natives, primitive lizard creatures, along with Kirk and Spock, who attempt a rescue.  A non-corporeal entity then demands that they leave her “children” (the lizards), and they do, as soon as they locate Bem, who now finds himself wanting after observing his own actions.  Scotty and Sulu, as part of the landing party, and Uhura, left in charge of the bridge, all lend a hand where needed.

The Practical Joker

Grade: A-

This was a rather fun and involving episode, and more than a decade before The Next Generation, they created the concept of the Holodeck, though here it is called the Recreation Room.  After a skirmish with the Romulans, the Enterprise passes through an energy field that changes the computer into a practical joker.  Majel Barrett probably had the most fun as the computer voice in this episode.  The computer plays many jokes on the crew, including trapping Sulu, Uhura, and McCoy in blizzard conditions in the Recreation Room, causing zero gravity, pelting Scotty with food, giving Spock black eyes, and writing “Kirk is a Jerk” on the back of Kirk’s uniform.  Kirk outsmarts the computer in the end, reversing the condition and causing the Romulan computers to malfunction.  Enjoyable all the way through!

Albatross 

Grade: C+

Working with Saurians, a really ugly species, on the planet Dramia I, McCoy is arrested and charged with the murder of hundreds of Saurians on the planet Dramia II.  The Saurians accuse him of starting a horrible plague after he had instigated an inoculation program there nineteen years ago.  Kirk and Spock go to Dramia II to investigate, accompanied by a Saurian stowaway.  There, they find another Saurian that McCoy had cured, but it may be too late for McCoy, and everyone else, when everybody but Spock catches the plague.  In the end, Spock performs a jailbreak so that McCoy can find an antidote, which he does.  A pretty good episode with McCoy at the center, some great Spock/McCoy moments, and the crew turning different colors!

How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth

Grade: C-

Yet another episode that postulates that old earth gods are ancient astronauts, this time the Enterprise crew encounters an ancient Mayan idol Kulkukan, who was also Quetzalcoatl of Aztec legend, the Chinese Dragon, and several Egyptian snake deities.  Kulkukan spares the Enterprise because the relief helmsman Lt. Walking Bear recognizes him, but the alien encases the ship in a force field and kidnaps Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Walking Bear to solve the mystery of his existence, which they do.  He then wishes them to submit to and worship him as in days of old.  Kirk uses a vicious alien Capellan Power Cat as a means of escape, and as with the episode “Who Mourns for Adonais,” and Roddenberry’s humanistic vision, Kirk convinces this ancient god he is not needed anymore, and that the people of earth have become self-sufficient, reliant only upon themselves.  This concept was visited before, and will be again.  The title is a line from Shakespeare:  “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

The Counter-Clock Incident 

Grade: B-

In this last animated adventure, the crew happens upon a ship (traveling at warp 36!) entering a star going nova, and in an attempt to stop it, the Enterprise is dragged into another universe where time runs backwards, ships travel in reverse, and where space is white and stars are black!  The crew starts growing young, and old commander Robert April and his wife Sarah must take over command from a bridge full of children in order to return them to their own universe.  This might have been more entertaining if the crew had become children sooner than in the last act; until then, the action centers on Karla Five and her old son Karl Four from the alternate universe.  Former Capt. Robert April was a creation of Roddenberry’s that never saw existence beyond conception and novels; this animated episode is his only appearance on film.  It was a fun concept to turn the crew into children, and had a few amusing moments, but it took too long to get to that point, and, unfortunately, the alternate universe really didn’t make any sense!