This one took a hot minute. It was kind of a doozy. I'm really not even sure where to start...
For those of who aren't Trekkies, or who may be reading my reviews for the first time, this is part four of an ongoing personal review of the entirety of the Star Trek franchise that I started back in February. While I've seen a majority of the material pumped out since The Next Generation, this re-watch also happens to be the very first time that I've watched the original series or The Animated Series. (You can find my reviews for the original series' first, second, and third seasons here!) I also post occasional commentary to my Bluesky feed, so be sure to follow me over there as well.
I want to preface this specific review by saying that I realize I'm an anomaly. Many fans love the original series and the animated series. And while I think there are bright spots in both, I cannot say that either series will be likely to make my top five by the end of my re-watch. I found The Animated Series especially egregious, and honestly kind of a slog to get through, so here's my full thoughts after a brief history.
NBC cancelled the original series back in 1969, after having only aired three seasons. If you read my previous reviews, you'll know that I thought the show started out very rough but improved a lot by the end of its first season, and the second season was much better. It was genuinely starting to get fun and interesting. A lot of that disappeared by the third season, though, and The Animated Series—which creator Gene Roddenberry decided to produce after reruns of the original started to prove somewhat popular— does not do much in the way of improvement. I did not even think that the cartoon was actually considered canonical to Star Trek's universe until I was nearing the end of the original.
Let's get the bad out of the way first: After firing up the first episode, I had to take a beat. It is aggressively a product of its time. The music and animation are both on par with something like Scooby-Doo. Which is honestly fine, The Animated Series was meant to continue the original's mission and story, but also aired on Saturday mornings among other children's programming. The idea that it might be a little bit corny is to be expected. But both of these mediums are like 75% of the the show, so for someone who was looking for more genuine Star Trek, it was hard to get through all 22 episodes. And they were only half-hours! I found myself taking long breaks to go and watch other shows that I was way more interested in, which probably amounts to most of the reason why it took me so long to finish. I should also be relieved that most of the live-action series' cast does return to voice their characters, but even those often sound like they were phoned in. So many scenes sound like they are literally just reading the lines, not in any way actually performing them. And I also say “most” of the cast returned, because Chekov is nowhere to be found. The production apparently could not afford to hire the entire original cast back, so Chekov was instead replaced by Arex, a three-armed alien that was also voiced by James Doohan, when he wasn't performing his lines for Scotty.
As a cat lover, one would think that I would also have appreciated the introduction of M'Riss, who is a Caitian, a cat-like species being seen for the first time in the franchise, but as the ship's communications officer when Uhura was absent, her the soft and warm delivery of her lines contrasts sharply in emergency starship situations when urgency would probably have been more appreciated. Majel Barrett performs the role of M'Riss (again, doing double duty when she isn't voicing Nurse Chapel) and Barrett can basically do no wrong in my eyes, so I'll let this one slide. Plus, we do get awesome Caitian characters much later in the franchise. I'm looking at you, Dr. T'Ana!
Pushing my negativity and distaste for this entry into the Star Trek universe aside, there are a few great things to be found here. While the voice acting and animation leave a lot to be desired, the story team and writing on this series was often still firing on all cylinders. I also feel that the transition from live-action to animation is an underrated move for a universe that scales in big ways like Star Trek's does. With animation, you are able to include much more complex and elaborate ships, species, special effects, and all manner of other things simply by having them drawn. Live-action special effects, however, are often much too expensive to use on screen. The Animated Series definitely takes advantage of this. In fact, in the episode “The Practical Joker,” we actually get what could possibly be the franchise's first “holodeck episode,” with Bones, Sulu, and Uhura getting stuck in what they refer to at the time as the “Rec Room.”
Standout episodes probably include the second episode, “Yesteryear,” which heavily features Spock going back in time to help save his younger self. Having recently lost a very beloved pet myself, the scene in which child Spock has to choose between prolonging his pet sehlat's life and pain or humanely euthanizing him resonates with me in a big way. It is apparently also critically considered one of the best episodes of The Animated Series, written by fan favorite D.C. Fontana, and having won Star Trek's first non-technical Emmy Award. I'm a big fan of powerful ladies, so I also really enjoyed “The Lorelei Signal,” an episode in which Uhura and Chapel take command of the Enterprise after all of the ship's men are incapacitated by a race of beautiful women.
I cannot express how excited I am now that I'm passed the original and animated series. While I feel that the cast has finally gelled together, it does really feel like they are just getting started. Which is probably fantastic timing, really, because the six feature films with this cast are on the horizon for me and I'm told that's when things really start picking up. I know that a few of the films were released after The Next Generation started airing, but I'll be doing them in one big bulk before starting with a fresh cast.
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