Though I knew of the existence of an animated Star Trek series almost since I began following the original series as a kid, I didn’t get a chance to watch it until college.
That might have been too late.
Don’t get me wrong. I love cartoons even more than I love Star Trek, so an animated series should have been the perfect thing for me, especially since it features the voices of most of the original cast. Several writers returned, and even Gene Roddenberry was back at the helm! But just as the live-action show was a product of its time, its animated incarnation is a product of the early 70s, budget constraints, and the Saturday morning wasteland for which it was designed. Sadly, the weakest aspect of the animated series is… its animation. If the first feature film can be called Star Trek: The Motionless Picture, this show could best be described as Star Trek: The Barely-Animated Series.
And yet, the animated series was a rare second chance for the franchise on network television. The moniker “Star Trek: The Animated Series” (or the slightly clunkier “The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek“) is merely used for convenience; the show’s title is simply Star Trek, and it is very much a continuation of the original series. Despite attempts by the creators and studios to exclude the show from canon over the years, most people view it as the continuing voyages of the Enterprise’s first five-year mission. It even used the same writers’ bible, and many plot elements and aliens are referenced in the films and later series, including J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film.
If Roddenberry’s involvement and the voice talents of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and Majel Barrett aren’t enough to confirm its pedigree, visually the show is almost an exact match for its live-action predecessor. Reportedly, many of the animation cels were actually traced over footage from the original series to ensure faithfulness. Or maybe it was just laziness. In some cases, improvements were made, such as the addition of a second set of doors on the Bridge in case the turbolifts are out-of-order–but still no bathroom.
One more striking change is the introduction of alien crewmembers M’Ress, a catlady from Cait voiced by Majel Barrett, and Arex, a tripodal alien with three arms voiced by James Doohan. (Barrett and Doohan recorded most of the other guest voices in the series, a nice moneysaver.) Arex’s extra hand must have come in handy at the conn–he replaced Ensign Chekov, because the show couldn’t afford to include Walter Koenig in the cast, though he did write one of the episodes; Nichols and Takei might have been abandoned as well if Nimoy hadn’t insisted on their involvement.
This version of Star Trek also attracted the best science fiction writers of the time, who you wouldn’t expect to write cartoons, including D.C. Fontana (who was also associate producer and story editor), David Gerrold, and Larry Niven. Even Marc Daniels, director of many episodes of the original series, turned in a story, which I’m sure Torie is looking forward to. While we’ll probably go into specifics later, the animated series directly influenced the franchise that followed, most notably with a precursor to the holodeck, the source of 95% of the plots of TNG-era episodes.
True to form, the show only lasted for one full season of sixteen half-hour episodes and a truncated second season of six episodes, from September 8, 1973 to October 12, 1974. Despite network claims of low ratings, at least in its targeted younger audience, the show garnered a Daytime Emmy–the first for Star Trek, which indicates some measure of success. It was also the only NBC cartoon, other than The New Adventures of Flash Gordon, to last more than one season.
Though we’re calling this a re-watch, in truth I’ve only seen about half of the series, so some of this will be new to me–and all of it’s new to Torie. We’re sticking to the same format and warp ratings as the original series, which seems only fitting, but because of the shorter running time of each episode we’ll be posting new reviews and responses twice a week: every Tuesday and Thursday, alternating the lead writer as usual. It remains to be seen whether this cartoon will offer as much for analysis and discussion as the live-action Star Trek, but I have a good feeling about it. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. Regardless of how this pans out, it just seems too important to Star Trek history to skip, and it seems particularly relevant in the wake of recent rumors about another animated adaptation that could be developed one day.
We hope all of you will watch or re-watch this one along with us. Again, no purchase is necessary, as all the episodes are freely available online at CBS.com. We’ll be posting links to the episodes each week like we did before, so you have no excuse not to join us on the last TV adventures of the original Enterprise crew.
Torie will start things off on Tuesday, May 24 with Season 1, Episode 1–“Beyond the Farthest Star.” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.
Oh deary me, this is not going to go well.
This show actually has a lot going for it, once you look past the animation. Not only were they able to introduce some alien characters, both crew and one-off, those aliens were more than humans with shit on their foreheads. There is also an episode where the artificial gravity fails and a couple of times where they use personal force fields as environmental suits.
Although the episodes have been deemed non-canonical (with one exception), they did have a fair amount of influence on later versions. They also, for better or worse, influenced animation. Filmation got away with their low fps stuff and the use of stills and were able to continue doing that in stuff like He-Man and Thundercats.
I haven’t seen these since their first run when I was 11-12 (and audiotaped every episode on my cassette recorder), but I’m really looking forward to this. I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised.
As for me, personally… I’m going to have a hard time watching this without thinking:
“We come in peace, we come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill!”
I’ve also heard that TAS is available on Hulu for those of you in US.
After thinking about it, I want to take exception to your description of Saturday morning TV in that era as a wasteland. This was a good 10 years before cartoons became primarily a means of pushing toy sales. Sure there was crap like The Jackson Five, The Osmond Brothers, or The Harlem Globetrotters (notice, though, that there were a lot of black people on Saturday morning!), but we also had classic Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, and Walter Lanz, newer stuff like the original Pink Panther – when he didn’t talk and included the Inspector and the Ant and the Aardvark – and Fat Albert. Live action had stuff like Lancelot Link and the psychedelic madness of the Kroffts, but there were also shows like Land of the Lost or Ark II. And in between, there was Schoolhouse Rock on ABC and CBS had these little news vignettes that explained famous people and events of the day. Heck, Walter Cronkite even did history program done as a news show. The networks were actually required to have a certain amount of educational programming and to demonstrate educational value in their children’s programming. It wasn’t just, “Buy! Buy! Buy!”.
My parents were the “go outside and play” types, so it was difficult for me to TAS in its original run – I might have seen half the episodes. I had all of Alan Dean Foster’s “Star Trek Log” adaptations, though, and read them many times. Then a few years back I saw a TAS DVD set on Amazon and scooped it up. Yep – decent stories, questionable animation. Let’s roll, anyhow!
I’m actually rather fond of this style of animation, but then I grew up with it. You’re going to need a new set of tags, though. “Kirk talks to the hand,” “Kirk and Spock run at the camera,” and “walking in silhouette” would be a good start.
I see Eugene graciously allowed Tori to go first (doubtless so he could secure “Yesteryear.”)
You may want to consider doing a bonus watch of the fan film Star Trek Farragut’s two animated episodes. They’re incredible homages to TAS, down to some of the animation cycles.
With the exception of 2 or 3 episodes, I’ve never seen these before. But I DO own them, so I will make an effort to “re-watch” them with you.
I’ve never seen any of these before and I’m going to try to watch them along with y’all as we go. I’m not a cartoon/ animation fan in general which is why I’ve never watched any of these but I’m curious and now’s as good a time to check them out as any.
The quality of the animation isn’t really something I care about; I’m more interested in the stories. With luck, that’ll help me enjoy them all the more!
I am also one of the many who has never seen this animated series. I’l look for it on Hulu (and hope for the best). I know it’s not right but I’m going into this with a rather jaded view. Very unfair…I’ll try my best to keep an open mind.
Not only did I see these when they originally aired on NBC (I’m about the same age as DemetriosX), they were my first exposure to Star Trek — I only started watching TOS after becoming a fan of TAS. I may be unique in this respect.
I for one welcome our animated overlords.
(Maybe I shouldn’t be writing this while running a fever.)
Anyway I remember watching the animated series during it’s original run. It was the only star trek available that was repeats of episode I already knew quite well. Yeah the animation is very lame and very cheap, but there were some cool ideas and frankly I LOVE the idea of the Kzniti in the Federation Universe.
@1 BSD
That’s the spirit!
@2 DemetriosX
I’m going to hint at my response to the first episode and totally agree with you about the merits of the show. It’s funny that you mention the audio recordings of the show; I’ve often thought that it would work much better as a radio program :)
However, I must rush to the defense of one of my favorite cartoons, Thundercats, which was not produced by Filmation. On the contrary, it was animated in Japan by many artists who went on to work with Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli. Thundercats did make use of some stock footage from episode to episode (not to the extent that hack work like He-Man did, which often recycled cels within the same episode), but it also showed a lot of anime influences and I still think is better animated than some of today’s cartoons.
@3 Ping
And now, so will I.
@4 DemetriosX
After thinking about it, I regret using those particular words. I was simply reacting to NBC’s stellar lineup of Inch High Private Eye, Emergency Plus Four (whatever that is), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, not to mention fare on the other networks such as The Brady Kids and Goober and the Ghost Chasers. But I do love the old Pink Panther cartoons, and the Addams Family is a classic. Sorry to unwittingly trash your childhood.
@5 Orebaugh
That reminds me, I did read most of the Foster Logs before I ever saw any of these episodes. Glad to have you on board for this! If you remember any differences with the story adaptations, please let us know.
@6 ChurchHatesTucker
Thanks for the tag suggestions. I was already thinking about one for “extreme close-up.” It’s interesting the stylistic conventions that developed in response to the low budget and short production schedule. I don’t know why I’m less forgiving of cheap animation over cheesy special effects, but there it is. Some of the cost-saving measures in the old Super Friends show still give me nightmares–reversing an animation cel to make Superman turn his head doesn’t work because the spitcurl changes sides!
@7 Mercurio
Glad to help you make use of your DVDs! I mostly bought mine in anticipation of this re-watch.
@8 Toryx
Good luck to all of us…
@9 Saturnino
Oddly, the Hulu listings simply link to CBS.com, but Hulu’s search feature is much more functional than CBS’s. We’ll keep providing them along with the reviews, in any case.
@10 Johnny Pez
I’m sure the animated series introduced a lot of kids to Trek for the first tme–another point in its favor.
@11 bobsandiego
On the other hand, it might be interesting to watch TAS while feverish. But I hope you feel better soon! And I’m really looking forward to meeting the legendary Kzinti.
BTW, it looks like the original Star Trek episodes (and Star Trek: Enterprise) are back online, over at startrek.com this time: http://www.startrek.com/videos/star-trek-the-original-series
Presumably the other series will appear there at some point (maybe when Netflix gets them), but right now they only have episode previews for The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.
Eugene @12: No problem. The weird thing is the only one of those shows you mentioned that I had ever even heard of was The Brady Kids. (A little research shows that Emergency Plus Four was a spin-off of the prime time show Emergency, which was about paramedics, but with kids.) Anyway, it’s just that Saturday morning was a very different space in those days. The commercialism was still restricted to the commercials for the most part and there was a bit of pressure to offer at least some stuff that wasn’t utterly mindless. Between the deregulation of broadcasting and the rise of cable with dedicated children’s programming, things went downhill pretty fast in the 80s.
Yay! I’ve always enjoyed TAS, and like many others here have a full set of the Foster Log novelizations of the series. There are some really, really interesting stories in this series, once you get past the animation quality. Looking forward to hearing your takes on them, E&T. :)
More comments on animation at the time.
While the series was long out of first run, Jonny Quest was still going strong in reruns in some markets at the time. The 60s and 70s were rich in animation in the Baltimore market. (Quantity if not always quality) On Saturday we had the network cartoons, weekday mornings we had the old Warner Brothers cartoons and weekday afternoons we had the Japanese cartoons (no one called them Anime back then) such as Astro Boy, Speed Racer and Marine Boy.
I remember the animation as less than impressive but I also remember enjoying the stories.
@ 1 BSD
You never know… Plenty of TOS surprised me.
@ 2 DemetriosX
I’m looking forward to it! I’m a big animation fan, though, so we’ll see if I can really look past the low framerate.
Re: Saturday Morning Cartoons, I think it’s cyclical. The 80s were an absolute wasteland of toy dreck, but the early 90s had some great stuff: Batman: The Animated Series, Chip ‘n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, X-Men, etc. By the late ’90s/early 2000s (the last time I watched this stuff, when my little sister was very little!) it had come back full swing to strictly commercialized shit.
@ 5 Orebaugh
I have a full set of those books that I haven’t read yet. Waiting for a rainy day…
@ 6 ChurchHatesTucker
Uh-oh. He said it was because he launched the TOS re-watch! Well, he’ll get his when he has to start off with ST: The Slow-Motion Picture.
@ 7 Mercurio
I’ve only seen the tribble episode.
@ 8 Toryx & @ 9 Saturnino
Woohoo! I won’t be alone.
@10 JohnnyPez
That is interesting. How did you react to TOS after TAS?
@ 11 bobsandiego
All glory to the hypnotoad!
@ 12 Eugene
Oh boy, the Great Thundercats Debate of 2011. Don’t worry, any respect and admiration you had for the show will quickly be crushed underfoot of the CGI-animated movie.
@ 15 CatieCat
I hope you’re right…
@ 16 Ludon
It’s hard to compare even contemporaneous animated shows to Filmation’s uniquely cheap presentation.
Eugene: I heard once in a broadcasting class that the most “Television” TV show ever was Mission: Impossible because there’s so much visual exposition that you have to watch if you want to have any idea of what’s going on. The most “Radio” TV show was Star Trek because all the exposition is audible. This class was in the early 1980s so those opinions may have changed, but when I was watching next week’s first episode, that whole comparison came back to me; I rarely had to give it my full-on watching attention.
We do have to give credit to a couple of things: the animation is pretty horrible (I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that point), but the music cues are pretty good for a Saturday morning cartoon. And, given the fact that the actors recorded all of their lines separately, the interactions aren’t bad.
I saw TAS when it first aired and, at the time, was just turning on to TOS at the same time, so it was all new to me then. Damn, but I’m old. Then again, most of next year’s high school graduates were born after the last episode of TNG aired.
Like several others have mentioned, I’m also a big fan of animation. As a kid I had a lot of exposure to the stuff from the classic 30s-50s, when frame rates were essentially the same as live-action film. What is that 24 or 25 fps, I think. Anyway, the animation here is in a weird class of its own. Jay Ward cartoons were done at an abysmal 4 fps, and yet I love them with all my heart and they work (awesome writing certainly helps). But what we get here is so very odd. It’s not just the low frame rate. The characters are a bit stiff and the backgrounds are utterly static. But I think the biggest problem is the use of camera movement on a single cel. They’ll freeze and zoom in (always with a musical sting) or occasionally pan and it just doesn’t work as a technique. Somehow, the animation is much less than the sum of its parts.
20. DemetriosX What is that 24 or 25 fps, I think.
24 fps.
I’d love to see some of the really modern animation houses (like the “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” crew—no joke) take on something like Trek.
Could happen.
20 & 21 Demetrious and ChurchHatesTucker
Film is currently 24 fps, television scans at 30 fps, of course animation is done, or was, done on film so high quality animation worked at 24 and then broadcast at 30. (side note: Peter Jackson is filming The Hobbit at 48 fps. There have been experiment before showing that higher frame rates yielding more realistic motion, but the price of film stock, and retrofitting theaters precluded the swicth over. Digital capture and project is changing that.
19 ccradio
When I was a teenager in the 70’s a product just released on the market was a radio that picked up TV stations so you could listen to your favorite programs, TV guide did a check of which shows were most ‘listenable’ and pretty matched what you reported.
Douglas Trumbull developed a high quality film process – Showscan – that could have been the next major breakthrough in the movie theater experience but any hope of it being fully developed ended with all the problems around the movie Brainstorm. Showscan uses 70mm stock moving at 60fps and a friend who saw a demonstration said that the projected image looked almost like the real thing. The process has been used in some high quality amusement rides but that’s about it – as far as I know. I can’t help wondering what high quality animation would look like shot and projected with that process.
@23 Ludon
Even without the issues surround the production of Brainstorm I doubt Showscan woul have caught on, see the comments I made about film costs. 70mm films stock is about 4 times as pricey as 35mm, 60 fps is more than twice as fast so the cost would be on an order of 8x to convert a film to Showscan and then you have to convert theaters to show it
As far as animation goes I’m not sure what the impact of a higher frame would be aside from increased cost as you need that many more frames painted and draw. (referring of course to cell animation.) My understanding, and that could be faulty, for one of the reason as to why higher framerates works so much better that there is far less blur induced by motion of either the subject or the camera and with animation you don;t have blurr unless you introduce it on purpose..
The only Saturday morning cartoon I recall that shared a name with a product line was Hot Wheels. Apparently the show was removed per FCC order, but I don’t remember much of it, except the theme song. -which, despite being playable in my head for 40 years, ended up sounding different once I found the soundtrack online and the opening on YouTube.
Anyway, the animated Star Trek was able to animate effects that would be impossible without CGI, had some nice concepts told within a 22 minute (or so) frame, and had most of the name talent from the earlier series. The animation mostly serves to illustrate stories, so if you have good stories to tell, I will forgive a lot of money constraints on presentation. And it is canon to me, so there!
Thundercats- it was a big improvement over ‘toons at the time, although I only watched most of the first season after NPS classes (and was shipped off to East Idaho after that). Movie? Bah, I’m not watching it.
@18 Torie
I don’t think that Thundercats movie is going to happen after all, though the CGI footage had potential. Instead, they’re doing a new animated series.
@19 ccradio
That’s an interesting way to compare shows. I know that even today there are some programs I can follow without paying much attention to the screen, which are great for multitasking, and others that I need and want to focus on actively to get the most out of the story.
@20 DemetriosX
You’re absolutely right. I love old cartoons like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Tennessee Tuxedo, which were even less animated but had fun, smart writing. I’ll forgive a lot if the story is good.
@21 ChurchHatesTucker
CBS supposedly also considered a new animated series in 2006, but nothing ever came of it.
@22 bobsandiego
I remember when I was a kid, radios that also picked up television networks were pretty common. I generally figured that non-genre shows were more listenable than shows with lots of special effects, but I guess it’s all dependent on the dialogue and sound cues.
@25 sps49
I somehow missed the second season of Thundercats as a kid. I didn’t even know about it until Cartoon Network reran it when I was in college. The first season was definitely the best.
I’m trying to get ahead on reviews since I’ll be on vacation at the end of the month, so I have to refrain commenting on my take on the animated series so far. Saving it for the posts next week!
@26 Eugene There is apparently still talk.
watched the first episode last night. looking forward to the discussion.
@ 19 ccradio
Interesting. I can’t really imagine ST having the same effect as a radio play. So much of what’s outstanding about it is visual–the physicality of the actors, the effective staging and choice of shots, and of course the bright colors.
@ 22 bobsandiego
Yeah, but booo! hiss! that Jackson is filming with digital, and not on actual film. Harumph.
@ 23 Ludon
Probably pretty crappy, since most Western animation nowadays is shipped to Korea to be done with computers. Not at all the same richness of color and texture that we used ot see in hand-drawn animation.
@29 Torie
Actually I may have poorly expressed myself. (big surprised there.) I do believe that Jackson is still using film cameras and the studios involved are eating the cost of the high fps rate for this project. Now for you to see it at 48 fps may required digital projection, but people have been seeing digital projections for years now and it just fine. (Better, no damaged prints. I once took a girlfriend to a second run theater to show her DragonSlayer and the print was so badly damage that you could not understand how the film ended.)
Now if The Hobbit blasts at the B.O., expect more 48 fps and nearly all of that I expect will be digital, but 4K digital looks likes film. (Cameron is doing a 4L scan of Titanic right now to do a retro-3D process for next year’s centennial re-release.)
@ 30 bobsandiego
Last I heard he was using digital cameras, not film. In any case, the whole thing is going to be optimized for 3D so those of us that can’t stand 3D are going to be seeing suboptimal presentation.
@ 18 Torie
Casting my mind back 35 years to the mid-70s (and my own 13-year-old self), I can still remember being disappointed that TOS used space suits instead of the life-support belts. I found the multi-colored TOS tribbles odd after seeing the orange TAS tribbles. OTOH, I was pleased to see the live-action prequels featuring Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones, since I liked both characters (I saw the Harry Mudd stories in reverse order, BTW: “Mudd’s Passion”, then “I, Mudd”, then “Mudd’s Women”). I also enjoyed the TOS episodes with the Klingons and Romulans, who both featured more frequently in TAS than in TOS. And since I saw “Yesteryear” before “Journey to Babel”, one of the highlights of the latter was hearing Amanda mention Spock’s pet sehlat.
Mark me down as one of those who can’t stand 3D. I can’t believe how popular the gimmick has gotten these last few years.
@33 Torie
This has all happened before; this will all happen again.
3D is a tricky process to do properly. It certainly does not lend itself to fast cutting that is so popular now. (With fast cuts your eye is trying to refocus ot a new plane with each edit, in a 2D film there is only one plane to focus on, but with a 3D film if the planes do not match you’ll get eye strain very very fast.) the 50s saw the first wave of 3D films and some were done quite well. (I have seen Creature From The Black Lagoon in a theater in 3D — it impressed.) It failed as a gimmick to keep people away from their TV. There was a brief revivication of the process in the 80s and now James Cameron has launched a new wave, This time, unlike the previous ones, the process has acutally been improved and the cost has been passed directly to the tickets. (which the studios LOVE) Avatar looked fantastic without any eye strain because Cameron understood the process and I suspect Jakcson does as well, but hack directors, Yes I am looking at you Mr. Bay, do not.
I should point out that there are some – like me – for whom 3D will not work. Over the years I noticed that I’d get a headache every time I tried watching a 3D movie. Now I know why. I’ve tested out with the minimum of depth perception. The old test of looking in the port and turning the dial to align the two rods didn’t detect the problem because as an artist, I was picking up on other clues. One of the newer tests picked up on it right away.
Anyway. The extra cost of a 3D ticket is a waste to me.
Is there a reason the links for “recent posts” on the front page aren’t updating? I keep missing when there are new posts, because when I fly by on my blogroll, I just see nothing new under “recent posts” and keep going…:(
@32 Johnny Pez
That’s all backwards! :) But what an interesting perspective to have. Of course, I started even later, with Star Trek VI, and worked my way backward to figure out who all those characters were. Reading the tie-in novels at the same time also helped fill in the backstory, but might have confused me about what actually happens onscreen and what doesn’t.
@36 Ludon (and others)
3-D does work for me, I’m just not all that impressed. It doesn’t really mimic how the eye perceives things, because it still forces you to focus on what the director wants you to focus on. All told, I’d rather limit my awareness that I’m watching a film, rather than noticing things popping out at me every minute.
If you’re forced to see a movie in 3-D because local theaters won’t show it in 2-D, you might want to invest in these 2-D glasses.
The problem is compounded by the fact that 3-D movies are darker than they should be, and apparently Sony 3-D projectors darken 2-D movies as well. So that’s awesome.
@37 CaitieCait
Has that ever shown the latest post under “Recent Posts”? Generally we “Feature” the newest post at the top of the page, so you know if there’s a new one. But if something’s broken, I’m sure Torie can fix it.
Glad you found the new posts anyway! We’ll be doing the Animated Series Re-Watch on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you’ll know when to come back :)
@37 CaitieCait
Oh wait, I get it now. Yeah, I think this post should have appeared under Recent…
@ 32 Johnny Pez
Apparently the director of the TAS tribbles episode was colorblind, so he didn’t realize the tribbles were pink instead of gray. It was an accident.
@ 35 and 36 bobsandiego and Ludon
I didn’t find Avatar to be any smoother than any other 3D. They all give me horrible migraines, and the picture’s dark, and you don’t know what to look at. I HATE it.
@ 37 CatieCat
Sorry!! That was my fault, I forgot to update the widget. Bad webmistress.
No biggie, thanks for the explanation. My bad for not noticing the “Featured” part. :)
Also, apologies for my somewhat peremptory tone earlier. In re-reading, I sounded a lot more brusque and demanding than I like to be with a very entertaining and free to read couple of people’s work. I have no real excuse, so just let me say sorry and leave it at that.
@41 Torie: It’s not just the tribbles episode! There are a large number of eps where things are pink when they ought to be gray. It’s something to keep an eye out for.
@42 CaitieCait
No worries. I didn’t pick up on any attitude, and we appreciate the heads-up :)