Lower Decks

One of the great buried treasures in all of Star Trek has been hiding in plain site for decades now. It’s ‘The Animated Series,’ of course, which ran from 1973-1974. Unofficially a part of the canon, it was briefly the only tether fans had when times were at their darkest, the original series having been cancelled after three seasons and the very real prospect that it would remain only a thing of nostalgia. Clearly things didn’t turn out that way, and ‘The Animated Series’ might just be the reason why.

Released just a few years ago on DVD, it may be considered the Star Trek fan’s version of a guilty pleasure, since you don’t have to have seen it to say you’re otherwise up to speed with everything the new film has almost entirely negated. But it’s a fascinating experience all the same. Reuniting all of the major actors from the original cast (except for Walter Koenig, who did however contribute a script for the series), ‘The Animated Series’ is a virtual continuation of the five year mission (which fan films recently have been attempting to do themselves), with all the familiar trappings firmly in place, and a few surprising elements thrown in, famously with the first holodeck included. But since it’s still relatively obscure, you’re not often going to find a lot of talk about what the show actually did, what its key episodes might be (there were only 22 of them). Here’s a chance to catch up:

1×2 “Yesteryear” Often cited as the best episode, featuring Spock as he goes back in time to essentially act as his own guardian and mentor as life growing up on Vulcan is explored for the first time in Star Trek history.

1x 5 “More Troubles, More Tribbles” Being that there were only three appearances by Tribbles (including their famous introduction and the ‘Deep Space Nine’ episode that revisited it), this was an episode that served as a sequel, and is thus interesting in its own right for Star Trek completists.

1×6 “The Survivor” An intriguing episode that taps into the familiar vein of introducing a key historical figure within the Star Trek mythos and finding out what strange circumstances they ended up in. Here, it’s Carter Winston, who may not have done anything quite on the scale of a Cochran, Daystrom, or Garth, but was an important civilian philanthropist.

1×20 “Albatross” For those wondering if there were any dramatic entries that spotlight familiar characters in entirely standalone scenarios, here’s one that features McCoy attempting to deal with the ramifications of an incident from early in his career that didn’t quite play out perfectly.

1×22 “The Counter-Clock Incident” Everyone knows that Kirk and Christopher Pike previously commanded the ‘Enterprise,’ but before them was Robert April, both in Gene Roddenberry’s original outlines and as featured in this episode, which also happens to be the last one of the series, which revisits another classic scenario, unusual aging, this time in reverse.

‘The Animated Series’ is well-worth watching, either as a curiosity or as a legitimately entertaining experience. It’s fascinating, for instance, to hear Leonard Nimoy contribute more vintage lines as Spock, interesting to hear a somewhat versatile Jimmy Doohan provide numerous voices for guest characters, and to see what a Star Trek that isn’t limited to budget constraints might look like. For what it’s worth, I’d be ready in a heartbeat to accept it into full-fledged canon status.

With that, I bid all my HYGOTS readers a Merry Christmas. There’s plenty left to go before I sign off for the year, however, the humungous QB50s, which includes the actual 50 and 50 more that didn’t make the list, lots and lots of comic books that helped make 2009 memorable and entertaining. That’s next week. Enjoy the rest of this one!