Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Friday. I'm back with another Star Trek episode review. This week I'm taking a look at the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, "Beyond the Farthest Star", which celebrated its 50th anniversary almost a month ago. There won't be too many spoilers, because, nothing really happens in this episode. So let's get into it.
Unlike the two previous pilot episodes I've reviewed during Star Trek Month, and unlike the pilot episodes I will be reviewing in the coming weeks, "Beyond the Farthest Star" feels more like a season premiere rather than a series premiere. Because TAS feels like a continuation of TOS more than it does a separate show, even though there's a four year difference between TOS and TAS, and the fact that one is live action and the other is animation. Because of that, this episode didn't need to reintroduce the crew of the Enterprise to the audience the way Star Trek: The Motion Picture would only six years later. Especially because TOS's syndication run was already three years old at this point, and chances are the people watching the show in 1973 were already watching reruns of TOS, quite possibly on Saturday mornings, alongside TAS. At least in some markets.
Written by Samuel A. Peeples, who had also written "Where No Man Has Gone Before" eight years earlier, this episode is very similar in some ways to "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Both have a malevolent force trying to take over the Enterprise after destroying another ship. In this case, a being that requires a symbiotic relationship with technology to get around.
Aside from Leonard Nimoy as Spock, and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, I found the voice acting to be stiff in this episode. Even Shatner as Kirk is less enthusiastic than he was in TOS. I think it might be this cast, because I've seen other shows produced by Filmation, around this time and none of the other voice actors on those shows feel that way. I think it also doesn't help that their facial expressions are hindered because of the animation style that Filmation shows have. But even then, the voice acting really doesn't get much better as the series goes on.
From a writing standpoint, this episode felt like it could've been done on TOS rather than a cartoon made for children to watch on Saturday mornings. It felt like Star Trek. Which is good, because it's hard enough to have Star Trek go from Prime Time to Saturday mornings, and have it aimed at kids.
Star Trek: The Animated Series is the one Star Trek series that I had the least access to when I was a kid. While TOS was on in constant reruns and TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise were all airing new episodes throughout the '90s and 2000s, not to mention reruns airing for all four of those shows as well, TAS didn't air in reruns until 1997, when Teletoon started airing it at 11 or 11:30 at night, far too late for me to be watching it. I vaguely remember seeing a couple of episodes on VHS, as the home video releases for the series had two episodes per tape on them, one time when I was in the hospital, but I don't remember what episodes or when exactly I saw them. I just remember it was one of the times I was in the hospital when I was spending alot of time in the hospital. So it was anytime between 1990 and 1994. I wouldn't see the whole series until 2007 as I got the series on DVD from my brother and sister for my birthday in 2006. I liked it, but I still prefer TNG and later Star Trek shows over this one.
Overall, this is probably the weakest pilot episode of the classic era, simply because it doesn't introduce the characters in the way that it probably should've, given it was aimed at kids, and the kids might not know who Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are, since they might not have been watching reruns of TOS yet, depending on how old they were in 1973. It is an interesting watch though as it's not a kids show in the sense that adults can enjoy TAS as much as kids can, in the same way that they could with TOS. So from that perspective, this is more like the season 4 premiere of TOS than the pilot episode of a separate show.
Alright my friends, that's it for me for this week. I'll be back soon for more reviews and posts. Until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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