Star Trek returns as a Filmation Saturday morning cartoon on NBC. The original cast (save Walter Koenig) reprise their characters, and James Doohan, Majel Barrett, and Nichelle Nichols take on double and triple duty; voicing the supporting and guest characters. And several of the writers and directors from the original show return as well, including DC Fontana who helms the series as associate producer. Season 1 features several sequel episodes to the original series, including “More Tribbles, More Troubles,” “Mudd’s Passion,” and “Once Upon a Planet” and introduces two new crew members specifically for the animated series; M’Ress, a cat-like woman, and Arex, a three armed and three legged alien. However, the animation isn’t very good, as it doesn’t allow for a lot of movement and the voice work is rather weak; with little emotion or inflection to it. Yet while it has its problems, Season 1 of Star Trek: The Animated Series is an entertaining and unique vision of Star Trek that boldly goes where the live-action series never could.
Review by Alexander von LimbergBlockedParent2023-09-18T21:02:48Z
Let me admit something: I don't like TOS. Only a handful of TOS episodes are not mediocre or worse. Thus, I don't really like TAS since it's a direct continuation of TOS. But, every Star Trek fan should watch it once (and then forget about it). On average, TAS's plots are better than TOS's plot. Episodes are condensed to 25 minutes and don't drag like many TOS episodes do. Most of them are quite entertaining. The animation feels awkwardly wooden though.
The show can't decide whether it is supposed to be for kids or not. I tend to argue it's not for kids. It's not a funny show tailored to kids.
In TAS, it's not all about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. And TAS refrains from showing Kirk as a shirtless pugilist, womanizer and alpha-male. That's welcome. Plus, TAS offers some freedom for costume, "make-up" and stage design which TOS never had or could never afford. Some worlds in TAS are much more interesting than TOS's paper mache worlds. All in all it's an okay-ish 4th year of the Enterprise's 5 year mission. Original voices make it feel like stories from the "real" Star Trek universe although some of the bad episodes really seem to have no connection to the original universe (or even timeline).
:thumbsup: Best episode: Yesteryear
:thumbsdown_tone3: Worst episode: The Jihad
:clown: My guilty pleasure: More Tribbles, More Troubles