"Star Trek" lasted for only three seasons in its first television series. Regardless of the relatively short run, the series gained a faithful fan base and those behind the series heard the cries for more "Star Trek." A new live-action series was not the first revitalization for the starship Enterprise; an animated series carried the torch before the series went theatrical. The animated series is noteworthy for having most key members of the crew providing voice talents. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols all lent their familiar voices to the animated series. Only Walter Koenig failed to make an appearance in the animated adventures. However, even with key members of the television series reprising their roles, the animated series would barely survive past one year and was axed after just a handful of episodes in its second series. While most may not realize that Captain Kirk and his crew had a second shot at television, the series is beloved by fans and provided an opportunity for the Enterprise to undergo bigger and grander adventures that were not possible with the special effects of the time and it served as a bridge between the original television series and the first motion picture.
The 1966-1969 original television series was campy and fun. William Shatner was iconic as Captain Kirk and slept with blue alien babes and wrestled with unusually dressed aliens. He shot anything that looked threatening and the red security guy always died. The crew typically escaped injury and at times, the series played out like an old western in space, with Shatner as the all too familiar gunslinger who swept through each and every town looking for adventure. In contrast, the 1973 animated series had the advantage of having limitless worlds and creatures as a result of animation, but never seemed to capitalize on that fact and ultimately was far more reserved and less entertaining that the live action original series. Instead of just zapping the bad alien, Kirk discussed situations with Spock, Bones and the rest of the crew. Intelligent and thought out plans were put into play and every series had a life and death situation that needed to be rectified. Spock had a far more expanded role than what he had in the television series, but with Kirk playing closer to Picard and not the Kirk we know and love, the animated series lacks greatly in oomph.
Because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America in 1973, a higher breed of writers produced material for the animated series. During the strike, writers were not able to write for live action series, but animation did not fall under the restrictive guidelines. This allowed for detailed and plot heavy episodes, but a majority of the episodes carry familiar themes from the television show. For instance, one of the iconic episodes of the original series was "The Trouble With Tribbles." In the animated series, "More Tribbles, More Troubles" builds upon that well-loved live action episode and burdens it with political dealings, double-crossing and complicated discussions on reproduction. It continues on with the Tribbles story, but fails to keep the spirit. "Mudd´s Passion" finds the space age shyster peddling a love potion to a pretty blonde member of the crew who madly loves the Vulcan-blooded Spock and yearns for the pointy eared science officer to return her passion. Watching an animated Spock trying to be animated with love was painful and the character of Mudd lacked the spirit of the original series. "Yesteryear" finds Spock time traveling to his youth and performing tasks that are necessary to maintain his own survival. Spock´s father Sarek is seen in this episode.
In addition to the three episodes briefly discussed here, there are nineteen more half hour episodes contained on the four disc DVD edition of "Star Trek: The Animated Series." Sixteen of the episodes are considered to be part of the first season and six episodes comprise the second, shortened and final season where the original crew of the starship Enterprise graced the small screen. The list of episodes are as follows:
Season 1:
1. Beyond the Farthest Star
2. Yesteryear
3. One of Our Planets is Missing
4. The Lorelei Signal
5. More Tribbles, More Troubles
6. The Survivor
7. The Infinite Vulcan
8. The Magicks of Megas-Tu
9. Once Upon a Planet
10. Mudd´s Passion
11. The Terratin Incident
12. The Time Trap
13. The Ambergis Element
14. The Slaver Weapon
15. The Eye of the Beholder
16. The Jihad
Season 2:
1. The Pirates of Orion
2. Bem
3. The Practical Joker
4. Albatross
5. How Sharper Than a Serpent´s Tooth
6. The Counter-Clock Incident
I had intended to write a brief summary of each episode and give it a letter grade. Halfway through the list, I realized I was giving almost every episode a letter grade of C or D. "Beyond the Farthest Star" was one of my favorite episodes, as Kirk busted out with the blasters early on and this episode started the series out on a good foot. After that, I enjoyed the Lorelei Signal and its Amazon women in space theme. "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" was downright cheesy and strange, but I liked it. "Once Upon A Planet" finds "Alice in Wonderland" going insane. Though hokey, I enjoyed this episode as well. "Mudd´s Passion" was unique and felt much like a typical original series episode. "The Slaver Weapon" was an uneven episode, but held my interest with its interesting objects of war and the discoveries of their purposes. "The Jihad" was another of my favorite episodes. I enjoyed the overall story and conflict prevalent in the half hour adventure. Season two was very run-of-the-mill and for the most part, it neither impressed or depressed me. "The Albatross" was the episode I liked the most and allowed McCoy one of his best episodes.
There were a few episodes that I simply had to scratch my head and wonder if there were drugs involved. "The Infinite Vulcan" just threw everything we knew and loved about James T. Kirk out of the window. The oversized clones were bad enough, but if any episode found Kirk using too much intellect, it was this one. Picard didn´t arrive for over a decade later. "The Terratin Incident" was another laughable flop. Watching Kirk save somebody from a fish tank because everybody became action figure sized was an example of what bounds to not break when animation is the medium of choice. "The Eye of the Beholder" featured twenty foot slugs that made Spock look like a special education student. Need I say more on that one? Finally, "How Sharper than a Serpent´s Tooth" had not only an unusually spoken title, but took upon itself to predate "Stargate" and present an absurd tale where aliens have links to the old Aztec and other ancient civilizations.
I hate to say that "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was boring. There were certainly a couple episodes I thoroughly enjoyed. By eliminating the bounds of photographic reality and the physical capabilities and attributes of the actors, the animated series allowed for stories and plots that would have been near impossible to film in the early Seventies. The problem is, many of these episodes came across as pedestrian and repetitive. The show gave us adventure and excitement, but the animated characters almost seemed sedated. Were the actors bored with providing voice to their characters? The animated series was also to have been a children´s series, but with all the philosophy and intellect that was spewed, it was more suited to adults than children and lacked the pure fun and adventure of the original television series. It was certainly nice to have the actual talent involved in the series and in that regard, "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was quite historic.
Those hard core Trekkies out there are going to want to grab hold of this series. I´m not a "Star Trek" fan, but I did love the original series and think that Captain Kirk would kick Picard´s butt into the next universe. I watched the films, but paid little to no attention to any of the following series. Until I saw the LaserDisc box set back in the early Nineties, I didn´t even know that an animated series existed. Shatner, Nimoy and others are part of this show and many of the episodes do ring true to the characters that Gene Roddenberry created. I´ve heard that Roddenberry requested that the tales and adventures of "The Animated Series" were stricken from the official canon. Not being overly knowledgeable about the universe of Star Trek, I´m not sure of the full impact that would have on the series, but I would tend to think that some of the sillier and more absurd plots are happily forgotten. If they can ignore Richard Pryor as being part of the "Superman" canon, then I suppose this can fly too. With the release of this series onto DVD, all of "Star Trek" can now be spun on little five inch discs. For Trekkies, life is good, is it not?
The 1966-1969 original television series was campy and fun. William Shatner was iconic as Captain Kirk and slept with blue alien babes and wrestled with unusually dressed aliens. He shot anything that looked threatening and the red security guy always died. The crew typically escaped injury and at times, the series played out like an old western in space, with Shatner as the all too familiar gunslinger who swept through each and every town looking for adventure. In contrast, the 1973 animated series had the advantage of having limitless worlds and creatures as a result of animation, but never seemed to capitalize on that fact and ultimately was far more reserved and less entertaining that the live action original series. Instead of just zapping the bad alien, Kirk discussed situations with Spock, Bones and the rest of the crew. Intelligent and thought out plans were put into play and every series had a life and death situation that needed to be rectified. Spock had a far more expanded role than what he had in the television series, but with Kirk playing closer to Picard and not the Kirk we know and love, the animated series lacks greatly in oomph.
Because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America in 1973, a higher breed of writers produced material for the animated series. During the strike, writers were not able to write for live action series, but animation did not fall under the restrictive guidelines. This allowed for detailed and plot heavy episodes, but a majority of the episodes carry familiar themes from the television show. For instance, one of the iconic episodes of the original series was "The Trouble With Tribbles." In the animated series, "More Tribbles, More Troubles" builds upon that well-loved live action episode and burdens it with political dealings, double-crossing and complicated discussions on reproduction. It continues on with the Tribbles story, but fails to keep the spirit. "Mudd´s Passion" finds the space age shyster peddling a love potion to a pretty blonde member of the crew who madly loves the Vulcan-blooded Spock and yearns for the pointy eared science officer to return her passion. Watching an animated Spock trying to be animated with love was painful and the character of Mudd lacked the spirit of the original series. "Yesteryear" finds Spock time traveling to his youth and performing tasks that are necessary to maintain his own survival. Spock´s father Sarek is seen in this episode.
In addition to the three episodes briefly discussed here, there are nineteen more half hour episodes contained on the four disc DVD edition of "Star Trek: The Animated Series." Sixteen of the episodes are considered to be part of the first season and six episodes comprise the second, shortened and final season where the original crew of the starship Enterprise graced the small screen. The list of episodes are as follows:
Season 1:
1. Beyond the Farthest Star
2. Yesteryear
3. One of Our Planets is Missing
4. The Lorelei Signal
5. More Tribbles, More Troubles
6. The Survivor
7. The Infinite Vulcan
8. The Magicks of Megas-Tu
9. Once Upon a Planet
10. Mudd´s Passion
11. The Terratin Incident
12. The Time Trap
13. The Ambergis Element
14. The Slaver Weapon
15. The Eye of the Beholder
16. The Jihad
Season 2:
1. The Pirates of Orion
2. Bem
3. The Practical Joker
4. Albatross
5. How Sharper Than a Serpent´s Tooth
6. The Counter-Clock Incident
I had intended to write a brief summary of each episode and give it a letter grade. Halfway through the list, I realized I was giving almost every episode a letter grade of C or D. "Beyond the Farthest Star" was one of my favorite episodes, as Kirk busted out with the blasters early on and this episode started the series out on a good foot. After that, I enjoyed the Lorelei Signal and its Amazon women in space theme. "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" was downright cheesy and strange, but I liked it. "Once Upon A Planet" finds "Alice in Wonderland" going insane. Though hokey, I enjoyed this episode as well. "Mudd´s Passion" was unique and felt much like a typical original series episode. "The Slaver Weapon" was an uneven episode, but held my interest with its interesting objects of war and the discoveries of their purposes. "The Jihad" was another of my favorite episodes. I enjoyed the overall story and conflict prevalent in the half hour adventure. Season two was very run-of-the-mill and for the most part, it neither impressed or depressed me. "The Albatross" was the episode I liked the most and allowed McCoy one of his best episodes.
There were a few episodes that I simply had to scratch my head and wonder if there were drugs involved. "The Infinite Vulcan" just threw everything we knew and loved about James T. Kirk out of the window. The oversized clones were bad enough, but if any episode found Kirk using too much intellect, it was this one. Picard didn´t arrive for over a decade later. "The Terratin Incident" was another laughable flop. Watching Kirk save somebody from a fish tank because everybody became action figure sized was an example of what bounds to not break when animation is the medium of choice. "The Eye of the Beholder" featured twenty foot slugs that made Spock look like a special education student. Need I say more on that one? Finally, "How Sharper than a Serpent´s Tooth" had not only an unusually spoken title, but took upon itself to predate "Stargate" and present an absurd tale where aliens have links to the old Aztec and other ancient civilizations.
I hate to say that "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was boring. There were certainly a couple episodes I thoroughly enjoyed. By eliminating the bounds of photographic reality and the physical capabilities and attributes of the actors, the animated series allowed for stories and plots that would have been near impossible to film in the early Seventies. The problem is, many of these episodes came across as pedestrian and repetitive. The show gave us adventure and excitement, but the animated characters almost seemed sedated. Were the actors bored with providing voice to their characters? The animated series was also to have been a children´s series, but with all the philosophy and intellect that was spewed, it was more suited to adults than children and lacked the pure fun and adventure of the original television series. It was certainly nice to have the actual talent involved in the series and in that regard, "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was quite historic.
Those hard core Trekkies out there are going to want to grab hold of this series. I´m not a "Star Trek" fan, but I did love the original series and think that Captain Kirk would kick Picard´s butt into the next universe. I watched the films, but paid little to no attention to any of the following series. Until I saw the LaserDisc box set back in the early Nineties, I didn´t even know that an animated series existed. Shatner, Nimoy and others are part of this show and many of the episodes do ring true to the characters that Gene Roddenberry created. I´ve heard that Roddenberry requested that the tales and adventures of "The Animated Series" were stricken from the official canon. Not being overly knowledgeable about the universe of Star Trek, I´m not sure of the full impact that would have on the series, but I would tend to think that some of the sillier and more absurd plots are happily forgotten. If they can ignore Richard Pryor as being part of the "Superman" canon, then I suppose this can fly too. With the release of this series onto DVD, all of "Star Trek" can now be spun on little five inch discs. For Trekkies, life is good, is it not?
"Star Trek" lasted for only three seasons in its first television series. Regardless of the relatively short run, the series gained a faithful fan base and those behind the series heard the cries for more "Star Trek." A new live-action series was not the first revitalization for the starship Enterprise; an animated series carried the torch before the series went theatrical. The animated series is noteworthy for having most key members of the crew providing voice talents. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols all lent their familiar voices to the animated series. Only Walter Koenig failed to make an appearance in the animated adventures. However, even with key members of the television series reprising their roles, the animated series would barely survive past one year and was axed after just a handful of episodes in its second series. While most may not realize that Captain Kirk and his crew had a second shot at television, the series is beloved by fans and provided an opportunity for the Enterprise to undergo bigger and grander adventures that were not possible with the special effects of the time and it served as a bridge between the original television series and the first motion picture.
The 1966-1969 original television series was campy and fun. William Shatner was iconic as Captain Kirk and slept with blue alien babes and wrestled with unusually dressed aliens. He shot anything that looked threatening and the red security guy always died. The crew typically escaped injury and at times, the series played out like an old western in space, with Shatner as the all too familiar gunslinger who swept through each and every town looking for adventure. In contrast, the 1973 animated series had the advantage of having limitless worlds and creatures as a result of animation, but never seemed to capitalize on that fact and ultimately was far more reserved and less entertaining that the live action original series. Instead of just zapping the bad alien, Kirk discussed situations with Spock, Bones and the rest of the crew. Intelligent and thought out plans were put into play and every series had a life and death situation that needed to be rectified. Spock had a far more expanded role than what he had in the television series, but with Kirk playing closer to Picard and not the Kirk we know and love, the animated series lacks greatly in oomph.
Because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America in 1973, a higher breed of writers produced material for the animated series. During the strike, writers were not able to write for live action series, but animation did not fall under the restrictive guidelines. This allowed for detailed and plot heavy episodes, but a majority of the episodes carry familiar themes from the television show. For instance, one of the iconic episodes of the original series was "The Trouble With Tribbles." In the animated series, "More Tribbles, More Troubles" builds upon that well-loved live action episode and burdens it with political dealings, double-crossing and complicated discussions on reproduction. It continues on with the Tribbles story, but fails to keep the spirit. "Mudd´s Passion" finds the space age shyster peddling a love potion to a pretty blonde member of the crew who madly loves the Vulcan-blooded Spock and yearns for the pointy eared science officer to return her passion. Watching an animated Spock trying to be animated with love was painful and the character of Mudd lacked the spirit of the original series. "Yesteryear" finds Spock time traveling to his youth and performing tasks that are necessary to maintain his own survival. Spock´s father Sarek is seen in this episode.
In addition to the three episodes briefly discussed here, there are nineteen more half hour episodes contained on the four disc DVD edition of "Star Trek: The Animated Series." Sixteen of the episodes are considered to be part of the first season and six episodes comprise the second, shortened and final season where the original crew of the starship Enterprise graced the small screen. The list of episodes are as follows:
Season 1:
1. Beyond the Farthest Star
2. Yesteryear
3. One of Our Planets is Missing
4. The Lorelei Signal
5. More Tribbles, More Troubles
6. The Survivor
7. The Infinite Vulcan
8. The Magicks of Megas-Tu
9. Once Upon a Planet
10. Mudd´s Passion
11. The Terratin Incident
12. The Time Trap
13. The Ambergis Element
14. The Slaver Weapon
15. The Eye of the Beholder
16. The Jihad
Season 2:
1. The Pirates of Orion
2. Bem
3. The Practical Joker
4. Albatross
5. How Sharper Than a Serpent´s Tooth
6. The Counter-Clock Incident
I had intended to write a brief summary of each episode and give it a letter grade. Halfway through the list, I realized I was giving almost every episode a letter grade of C or D. "Beyond the Farthest Star" was one of my favorite episodes, as Kirk busted out with the blasters early on and this episode started the series out on a good foot. After that, I enjoyed the Lorelei Signal and its Amazon women in space theme. "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" was downright cheesy and strange, but I liked it. "Once Upon A Planet" finds "Alice in Wonderland" going insane. Though hokey, I enjoyed this episode as well. "Mudd´s Passion" was unique and felt much like a typical original series episode. "The Slaver Weapon" was an uneven episode, but held my interest with its interesting objects of war and the discoveries of their purposes. "The Jihad" was another of my favorite episodes. I enjoyed the overall story and conflict prevalent in the half hour adventure. Season two was very run-of-the-mill and for the most part, it neither impressed or depressed me. "The Albatross" was the episode I liked the most and allowed McCoy one of his best episodes.
There were a few episodes that I simply had to scratch my head and wonder if there were drugs involved. "The Infinite Vulcan" just threw everything we knew and loved about James T. Kirk out of the window. The oversized clones were bad enough, but if any episode found Kirk using too much intellect, it was this one. Picard didn´t arrive for over a decade later. "The Terratin Incident" was another laughable flop. Watching Kirk save somebody from a fish tank because everybody became action figure sized was an example of what bounds to not break when animation is the medium of choice. "The Eye of the Beholder" featured twenty foot slugs that made Spock look like a special education student. Need I say more on that one? Finally, "How Sharper than a Serpent´s Tooth" had not only an unusually spoken title, but took upon itself to predate "Stargate" and present an absurd tale where aliens have links to the old Aztec and other ancient civilizations.
I hate to say that "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was boring. There were certainly a couple episodes I thoroughly enjoyed. By eliminating the bounds of photographic reality and the physical capabilities and attributes of the actors, the animated series allowed for stories and plots that would have been near impossible to film in the early Seventies. The problem is, many of these episodes came across as pedestrian and repetitive. The show gave us adventure and excitement, but the animated characters almost seemed sedated. Were the actors bored with providing voice to their characters? The animated series was also to have been a children´s series, but with all the philosophy and intellect that was spewed, it was more suited to adults than children and lacked the pure fun and adventure of the original television series. It was certainly nice to have the actual talent involved in the series and in that regard, "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was quite historic.
Those hard core Trekkies out there are going to want to grab hold of this series. I´m not a "Star Trek" fan, but I did love the original series and think that Captain Kirk would kick Picard´s butt into the next universe. I watched the films, but paid little to no attention to any of the following series. Until I saw the LaserDisc box set back in the early Nineties, I didn´t even know that an animated series existed. Shatner, Nimoy and others are part of this show and many of the episodes do ring true to the characters that Gene Roddenberry created. I´ve heard that Roddenberry requested that the tales and adventures of "The Animated Series" were stricken from the official canon. Not being overly knowledgeable about the universe of Star Trek, I´m not sure of the full impact that would have on the series, but I would tend to think that some of the sillier and more absurd plots are happily forgotten. If they can ignore Richard Pryor as being part of the "Superman" canon, then I suppose this can fly too. With the release of this series onto DVD, all of "Star Trek" can now be spun on little five inch discs. For Trekkies, life is good, is it not?
The 1966-1969 original television series was campy and fun. William Shatner was iconic as Captain Kirk and slept with blue alien babes and wrestled with unusually dressed aliens. He shot anything that looked threatening and the red security guy always died. The crew typically escaped injury and at times, the series played out like an old western in space, with Shatner as the all too familiar gunslinger who swept through each and every town looking for adventure. In contrast, the 1973 animated series had the advantage of having limitless worlds and creatures as a result of animation, but never seemed to capitalize on that fact and ultimately was far more reserved and less entertaining that the live action original series. Instead of just zapping the bad alien, Kirk discussed situations with Spock, Bones and the rest of the crew. Intelligent and thought out plans were put into play and every series had a life and death situation that needed to be rectified. Spock had a far more expanded role than what he had in the television series, but with Kirk playing closer to Picard and not the Kirk we know and love, the animated series lacks greatly in oomph.
Because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America in 1973, a higher breed of writers produced material for the animated series. During the strike, writers were not able to write for live action series, but animation did not fall under the restrictive guidelines. This allowed for detailed and plot heavy episodes, but a majority of the episodes carry familiar themes from the television show. For instance, one of the iconic episodes of the original series was "The Trouble With Tribbles." In the animated series, "More Tribbles, More Troubles" builds upon that well-loved live action episode and burdens it with political dealings, double-crossing and complicated discussions on reproduction. It continues on with the Tribbles story, but fails to keep the spirit. "Mudd´s Passion" finds the space age shyster peddling a love potion to a pretty blonde member of the crew who madly loves the Vulcan-blooded Spock and yearns for the pointy eared science officer to return her passion. Watching an animated Spock trying to be animated with love was painful and the character of Mudd lacked the spirit of the original series. "Yesteryear" finds Spock time traveling to his youth and performing tasks that are necessary to maintain his own survival. Spock´s father Sarek is seen in this episode.
In addition to the three episodes briefly discussed here, there are nineteen more half hour episodes contained on the four disc DVD edition of "Star Trek: The Animated Series." Sixteen of the episodes are considered to be part of the first season and six episodes comprise the second, shortened and final season where the original crew of the starship Enterprise graced the small screen. The list of episodes are as follows:
Season 1:
1. Beyond the Farthest Star
2. Yesteryear
3. One of Our Planets is Missing
4. The Lorelei Signal
5. More Tribbles, More Troubles
6. The Survivor
7. The Infinite Vulcan
8. The Magicks of Megas-Tu
9. Once Upon a Planet
10. Mudd´s Passion
11. The Terratin Incident
12. The Time Trap
13. The Ambergis Element
14. The Slaver Weapon
15. The Eye of the Beholder
16. The Jihad
Season 2:
1. The Pirates of Orion
2. Bem
3. The Practical Joker
4. Albatross
5. How Sharper Than a Serpent´s Tooth
6. The Counter-Clock Incident
I had intended to write a brief summary of each episode and give it a letter grade. Halfway through the list, I realized I was giving almost every episode a letter grade of C or D. "Beyond the Farthest Star" was one of my favorite episodes, as Kirk busted out with the blasters early on and this episode started the series out on a good foot. After that, I enjoyed the Lorelei Signal and its Amazon women in space theme. "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" was downright cheesy and strange, but I liked it. "Once Upon A Planet" finds "Alice in Wonderland" going insane. Though hokey, I enjoyed this episode as well. "Mudd´s Passion" was unique and felt much like a typical original series episode. "The Slaver Weapon" was an uneven episode, but held my interest with its interesting objects of war and the discoveries of their purposes. "The Jihad" was another of my favorite episodes. I enjoyed the overall story and conflict prevalent in the half hour adventure. Season two was very run-of-the-mill and for the most part, it neither impressed or depressed me. "The Albatross" was the episode I liked the most and allowed McCoy one of his best episodes.
There were a few episodes that I simply had to scratch my head and wonder if there were drugs involved. "The Infinite Vulcan" just threw everything we knew and loved about James T. Kirk out of the window. The oversized clones were bad enough, but if any episode found Kirk using too much intellect, it was this one. Picard didn´t arrive for over a decade later. "The Terratin Incident" was another laughable flop. Watching Kirk save somebody from a fish tank because everybody became action figure sized was an example of what bounds to not break when animation is the medium of choice. "The Eye of the Beholder" featured twenty foot slugs that made Spock look like a special education student. Need I say more on that one? Finally, "How Sharper than a Serpent´s Tooth" had not only an unusually spoken title, but took upon itself to predate "Stargate" and present an absurd tale where aliens have links to the old Aztec and other ancient civilizations.
I hate to say that "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was boring. There were certainly a couple episodes I thoroughly enjoyed. By eliminating the bounds of photographic reality and the physical capabilities and attributes of the actors, the animated series allowed for stories and plots that would have been near impossible to film in the early Seventies. The problem is, many of these episodes came across as pedestrian and repetitive. The show gave us adventure and excitement, but the animated characters almost seemed sedated. Were the actors bored with providing voice to their characters? The animated series was also to have been a children´s series, but with all the philosophy and intellect that was spewed, it was more suited to adults than children and lacked the pure fun and adventure of the original television series. It was certainly nice to have the actual talent involved in the series and in that regard, "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was quite historic.
Those hard core Trekkies out there are going to want to grab hold of this series. I´m not a "Star Trek" fan, but I did love the original series and think that Captain Kirk would kick Picard´s butt into the next universe. I watched the films, but paid little to no attention to any of the following series. Until I saw the LaserDisc box set back in the early Nineties, I didn´t even know that an animated series existed. Shatner, Nimoy and others are part of this show and many of the episodes do ring true to the characters that Gene Roddenberry created. I´ve heard that Roddenberry requested that the tales and adventures of "The Animated Series" were stricken from the official canon. Not being overly knowledgeable about the universe of Star Trek, I´m not sure of the full impact that would have on the series, but I would tend to think that some of the sillier and more absurd plots are happily forgotten. If they can ignore Richard Pryor as being part of the "Superman" canon, then I suppose this can fly too. With the release of this series onto DVD, all of "Star Trek" can now be spun on little five inch discs. For Trekkies, life is good, is it not?
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