Star Trek: TAS--The Survivor

We continue on with "The Survivor". No, we're not talking immunity challenges--it's Carter Winston, a philanthropist who's been missing for five years. Of course, his fiancee is a crewman on the Enterprise.  He meets and promptly breaks up with her.  McCoy can't figure out why his instruments are out of whack.  We learn "Carter" is actually a shape-changing Vendorian, who takes out Kirk, assumes his shape, and orders the ship into the Neutral Zone.  The real Captain arrives later, and countermands the order.

Carter attacks McCoy and takes his form.  Kirk asks for a medical exam, and "McCoy" says he's busy.  Spock asks about Carter's exam, and wonders if an error was made.  McCoy's lack of a caustic reaction makes Spock suspicious, so they return to sickbay, and find the real McCoy waking up.  Kirk notices that there's a new examining table.  He threatens to drop acid on the "table", and Carter transforms. A fight ensues, and the Vendorian escapes.  The fiancee tries to take him out as he turns into Winston, but can't bring herself to do so.

Two Romulan cruisers arrive, and call for surrender.  The Vendorian is a spy for the Romulans!  Carter sabotages the ship and tries to escape thru the hangar bay.  Carter and the fiancee have a tender moment and he does some exposition--he has absorbed the real Carter's memories.  The Romulans attack, and demand surrender.  A deflector shield comes back up.  Space battles ensue--we learn the "deflector shield" is actually the Vendorian, who has switched sides. More exposition, then the Vendorian is taken into custody.  Spock and McCoy trade barbs as wacky music takes us out.

Some things to look for:

• Kyle vs. Carter Winston--battle of the mustaches
• McCoy mentions his daughter--as far as I know, she's never brought up again except in ST novels
• Carter is voiced by Ted Knight--a Filmation regular who did a lot of voiceover work while  being a regular on the Mary Tyler Moore show
• The Vendorian looks like a mix of a squid and a chess piece.
• We get a lot of the classic shot from this series--one character way in the foreground and another way in the background.  It looks like an 80's music video.
• Kirk mentions, but we don't see, Lt. M'ress until later in the episode. She's a catlike humanoid who subs for Uhura.  In the first long shot, Uhura is clearly in her regular chair.
• During the fight, Kirk appears to attack the camera
• The deflector shield controls apparently use a lot of wires

Remember, you can play along by watching the show on Netflix!

Star Trek: TAS--More Tribbles, More Troubles

Stanley Adams returns as the voice of Cyrano Jones in the sequel to the classic original series episode.

The Enterprise is escorting automated grain ships going to Sherman's Planet (apparently, the first use of quatrotriticale didn't go well).  They spot a Klingon vessel attacking a small ship. They save the occupant of the small ship--at least they get him in a transporter beam. Meanwhile, the Klingons fire a new disruption weapon at the Enterprise that shuts down the ship.  The Klingon wants the pilot for "ecological sabotage".  Kirk uses the grain ships to remotely attack the Klingons, and the Klingon's stasis field is burned out.  The pilot is beamed in--of course, it's Cyrano Jones and his cargo of tribbles.

Cyrano says the tribbles are "safe", because they don't reproduce.  He also has a tribble predator--a glommer.  McCoy determines the tribbles don't reproduce--they just get fat.  They bring the grain onto the ship, and of course the tribbles eat it.  After some space battles and the Enterprise is caught again, they transport the tribbles over to the Klingon ship to immobilize them as well.  The glommer turns out to be the Klingon's goal--they want it to combat a tribble epidemic on their planet.  The glommer is turned over, but it runs in fear from the giant tribbles, which turn out to be colonies.  Hit one with a phaser, and they break up into lots of tribbles.  Hilarty and wacky music ensues.

 Some things to look for:

• Klingons firing on other ships looks suspiciously like fireworks
• A weird moment of levity on the helpless Enterprise as Uhura says "Well, we could always throw rocks"
• The tribbles are pink--why?  Apparently, the animator was color-blind.
• The glommer looks like a cross between a crab and an octopus.
• There's a lot of comedy in this episode, just like the original tribble episode.
• Kirk covers his mouth at one point--did they change the script at one point, and his lips didn't match?
• The Klingon second in command sounds like Froggy.
• Kirk goes into smirk overdrive in the last shot.

Remember, you can play along by watching the show on Netflix!

Star Trek: TAS--The Lorelei Signal

...and we're back, with "The Lorelei Signal".  The Enterprise checks out a mysterious area where ships keep disappearing.  A signal turns out to be singing.  It's the old "sirens" bit--all the men are enthralled, and start seeing what they want to see.  They beam down to the planet, where a race of Barbies take them prisoner--but what a prison!  Headbands drain the men of their life-energy. Uhura is forced to take over the ship, since the women are unaffected.

The now feeble men try to escape the planet.  A team of female crewman/models beam down.  They find an ancient Spock, and the other men are trapped in a huge vase with rain about to drown them (don't ask).  Spock tells Chapel how to stop the Sirens, and Uhura gets the Siren leader to tell them the backstory. Uhura and the girls save the men.  The transporter is used to replace the men's bodies with a backup copy in the transporter memory.  (This brings up a real issue--if someone dies, can't they just whip up a new body via the transporter?)

Uhura does a great job as temporary captain.  Of course, she ruins it with "You're more handsome than ever" when seeing Kirk saved via transporter.

Some things to look for:

• Two crewman in a hallway unconcerned about a Yellow Alert.  Perhaps it happens so often the crew ignores them, like when the the fire alarm goes off when popcorn is burnt in the office microwave?
• Goofy smiles on the enthralled men--even on Spock
• A lot of the same faces on the sirens--must have been easy for the animators to copy and paste
• The Siren's entertainment involves diamond juggling
• The use of only two female voice actors on the show becomes really apparent here
• A musical performance by Scotty
• The architecture of the Siren's planet reminds me of the later He-Man series from Filmation.  The studio reused animation as much as they could, so it's not out of the question.

Remember, you can play along by watching the show on Netflix!

Star Trek: TAS--One of Our Planets is Missing

From the sublime of "Yesteryear", we move to the ridiculousness of "One of Our Planets is Missing".  A mysterious cloud is eating planets.  A deep discussion on whether to warn an endangered planet ensues.  The Enterprise gets caught by the cloud, which turns out to be alive.  McCoy gives a lecture about human anatomy. Scotty rigs a way to regenerate the engines using parts of the antimatter cloud.  More deep discussions--do they kill the cloud to save a planet?  Spock mind melds with the cloud, and convinces the cloud to leave the galaxy.

 Some things to look for:

• Finally, Arex gets a name and a voice
• More crewman lounging in a hallway
• A reminder of the "Trash Can" theater animation, as big balls of "antimatter" fly past the ship
• More plumbing than we've seen before in the ship
• The cloud has a lot of problems understanding things--we hear "explain?" a lot
• Random shots of Earth to convince the planet to stop--Filmation stock shots
• Kirk saying "Quiet!" for no apparent reason

Remember, you can play along by watching the show on Netflix!

Star Trek: TAS--Yesteryear

OK, I'm back after a bit of a delay. November TV sweeps means a lot of new TV, so I didn't get back to this until now.

Episode 2 of the ST animated series is "Yesteryear".  This features Nimoy, and has some decent writing--it does come from D.C. Fontana, one of the major writers from the original series.  Essentially, the Enterprise goes back to the "City on the Edge of Forever" planet--you know, the giant donut that can send you though time.  Of course, someone (I'm looking at you, Kirk) steps on a butterfly, and now no one recognizes Spock.  Spock died during his childhood, then Sarek and Amanda broke up.  An Andorian has taken Spock's place as first officer, and only Kirk and Spock (and a red shirt that went with them thru the giant donut) know the truth.

So, the only choice is for Spock to go back in time to Vulcan to save himself.

Some things to look for:

• The Guardian of Forever sounds more like a cartoon ghost than a robust narrator
• Some birdlike crewman running a tricorder
• A very depressed crewman on a display talking to Kirk
• Vulcan kids apparently look like trolls, and dress in swim trunks and a bandolier
• Mark Lenard returns as the voice of Sarek (Amanda is played by Majel)
• The "teddy bear" sehlat mentioned as Spock's childhood pet is HUGE

Remember, you can play along by watching the show on Netflix!

Star Trek: TAS--Beyond the Farthest Star

Mindy has been enjoying her comic-a-day blog, so I thought I would give it a try--and I finally found what I hope is an interesting topic.

We've just finished watching Star Trek: the Original Series on Netflix, as part of a plan to watch all available episode of all the Trek series.  Before we move on to Next Generation, we've started watching "The Animated Series" from 1973-74.  I remember watching it as a kid, and wanted to see how it holds up--in a nutshell, not too well.

Filmation is best known for the He-Man series, but they did a lot of licenced character animation for Saturday morning TV (Superman, Archie, Fat Albert).  Their style was cheap at best--the definition of "limited" animation.  Star Trek at least had Roddenberry's involvement, as well as scripts from well known sci-fi authors (David Gerald and Larry Niven both wrote episodes).  Most of the original cast lent their voice talents to the show, but since they taped each voice separately, it's rather disjointed.  Stock shots are used A LOT, to the point you see them multiple times in the same episode.  Whoever was in change of continuity took the day off--characters appear in long shots, the disappear when the camera angle changes, and then reappear again.  Roddenberry later decided the show was "not in canon", although you do see some concepts slip into later series.  The show only lasted 22 episodes--unless a Saturday morning show was a hit, they rarely made a lot of epsidoes, as they were rerun frequently,

We watched the first episode, "Beyond the Farthest Star".  If you watch it on Netflix, look for the following:

• Uhura has apparently been "roofied" in a long shot from above the bridge--she's lounging in her chair
• An orange lizard creature in Chekov's seat--that's Lt. Arex, a three-armed alien.  You wouldn't know that from this episode, as it is not explained.
• The use of "life support belts", not used in any other series
• Lots of cheap explosion effects--even for Filmation, it's crappy
• Lt. Kyle at the transporter controls--and his floating mustache
• The "automatic bridge defense system"--a spherical gun on the ceiling.  Probably a good idea, considering how often the bridge is commandeered.
• There's also a second door on the bridge--again, it's about time.
• Scotty gets stuck in the engine core "door" (more like a hatch) for no appearent reason

More to come!