Today is the 60th Anniversary of the original Star Trek making it past two pilots, a failed early pitch, and finally making it onto television. Airing for only three seasons on NBC, it only stayed that long to make syndicated reruns possible, and that still required a fan outcry. The show would gain more fans, lead to a failed new series that became Star Trek: The Motion Picture, whose opening song became the theme song for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
In between those events, NBC wanted more Star Trek, but turned to animation. The plan was to make an hour long series, but the network opted for a half-hour Saturday morning series to be cheap. Plus kids liked Star Trek. Partnering with Filmation, the show would bring back old writers, most of the cast (Leonard Nimoy fought for most of the cast when they just wanted him, William Shatner, and DeForest Kelley, but either didn’t fight for Walter Keening or couldn’t get him involved–so he wrote an episode instead), revisit some of their episodes, and chart new adventures for the crew of the starship Enterprise.
For reasons I’ve never heard, Gene Roddenberry didn’t consider it canon, and neither did Paramount for many years. I’m not even sure they do now, so I was surprised to see it show up in the tribute video. So did Lower Decks but if Prodigy was there I missed it. It doesn’t air on any other network or streaming option except for MeTV Toons, what the Boomerang network should have remained. None of the Pluto TV Star Trek or science fiction channels carry it, nor is it on demand there. I can watch all the pre-Kurtzman shows and movies, even the Abrams movies, but not Star Trek: The Animated Series.
I know Hollywood doesn’t care about animation. It’s either “kiddie crap” or subversive adult actual crap. However, they should get over their biases and this show is a good reason why. Since it’s also the animated show’s anniversary (we’re the same age!), allow me to explain.
The Old Gang’s Back
Koenig couldn’t return due to budget or whatever he was doing, but he did write “The Infinite Vulcan”, an episode where Spock is cloned into a giant…for reasons…by a scientist who insists he can save the universe with a giant Spock clone…for reasons. The story works in spite of how silly that sounds. Admittedly a low bar, but it’s better than “Spock’s Brain”.
The rest of the cast did return. William Shatner as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, DeForest Kelley as Doctor McCoy, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, James Doohan, even Majel Barrett returned. The others outside of the main three even took on other roles. Barrett was Nurse Chapel and the ship’s computer, though a couple of episodes saw Nichols take on the computer and both of them had other roles in the show, including back-up communications officer M’Ress. Takei was already no stranger to voice acting, having done dub work for at least one Godzilla movie, and Doohan was already doing a voice as Scotty with his accent, so both blended with Filmation’s usual voice actors. Roger Carmel came back to play Harry Mudd in one episode, and nobody else could play that part…which Kurtzman Trek demonstrated, and Stanley Adams returned as Cyrano Jones. Some other characters were voiced by the Filmation actors or by the regular Trek actors, like Doohan playing Koloth in the same tribbles sequel as Adams.
Some of the writers also returned along with Filmation writers, with D.C. Fontana as the script editor. They used the traditional sound effects, though the music was new. Episodes brought back the Tribbles, Klingons Kirk and company have met before, and of course Harry Mudd had to get one in. He gets one into every classic period Trek story in everything except video games, and I only say that because I haven’t been exposed to all the Star Trek video games. He might have been in there, too. I know novels and comics have used him. They returned to the “shore leave” planet where they found a new way to make the planet a threat. That shouldn’t have worked, but it did. The same with the Guardian from “City On The Edge Of Forever”, in the episode “Yesteryear”. Mark Lenard returned as Sarek, though sadly Barrett took over for Jane Wyatt as Amanda. That episode leads into my next reason.
It did impact later canon
“Yesteryear” probably did the most to world build. Spock’s hometown is named, we get a look at his pet sehlat, who gets a name, and it matches Amanda’s description. Her maiden name, suggested in notes from “Journey To Babel”, where the sehlat was first mentioned, also appeared in that episode after she and Sarek separated following young Spock’s death in an altered timeline Spock came to fix.
James Kirk’s middle name was given here as “Tiberius”, which was different from one of the regular show’s episodes but became his official name. Filmation accidentally animated photon torpedos coming from a port in the head of the Klingon ships rather than underneath, which is how it was depicted ever since. (Thankfully the misuse of pink, blamed on either the director’s color blindness or too much pink paint, was not continued.) They also gave the bridge of the Enterprise a second turbolift, so they could walk off-screen in that direction when heading for one, and that’s been accepted into later bridge designs. The Enterprise-D had three of them and a connected ready room for the captain.
It would also introduce a few races, including two new bridge crewmembers that would be played by the main cast. Barrett was the aforementioned M’Ress, a cat girl before that was a fetish, who served as the backup communications officer, giving Nichols a break. (As also mentioned she returned the favor by taking over as the ship’s computer voice a few times.) Doohan would also take on Arex, a four-armed alien (one on his chest, one on his back, and the other two in the “usual” spots), who has popped up in the comics now and then. Even if Roddenberry wasn’t happy with the show, the writers for later shows and the extended media clearly didn’t share that sentiment. There were anthology novels that even adapted episodes.
They also essentially created the holodeck. In “The Practical Joker”, McCoy, Uhura, and Sulu head to the “recreation room”, which is a proto-holodeck. Captain Robert April from the failed pitch is shown as the first captain of the Enterprise in an episode where everyone turns younger. Add Amanda’s maiden name, Grayson, and you have to wonder how much other discarded info they later made canon, which is the best reason to make the show canon.
Plus, the episodes are that darn good
Yes, they got in trouble for the Saturday morning cartoon treating Lucifer as a misunderstood party guy or whatever. At least Hasbin Hotel wasn’t meant for kids. Ignoring that goof, the episode itself is a good one, exploring how humanity changed between the days of the Salem witch trials to their version of the 23rd century. Other episodes of course had Kirk continue his ways as the God Slayer, or at least making peace with other would-be deities since this was Saturday morning. This is why I joke about how Kirk was as good as he was. He was slaying gods and acting as Satan’s PR man. Dude’s in for a bad afterlife. I’m just saying.
Episodes had a female security officer meeting her old love (or did she?), threats that could never be depicted in live-action in the 1960s, and because the same Trek writers were there and Roddenberry still consulting, the old Star Trek feel is still there. They even have an episode where the women of the Enterprise have to take control because the men were lured by sirens, a story that has a happy ending for everyone. Sometimes the threat of the week had to be put down or returned to the planet they were stuck on, but the crew also made friends out of enemies. “The Counter-Clock Incident” features various races from both series (including the plant creatures from the giant Spock Clone episode, “The Infinite Vulcan”) living in a pocket dimension that Kirk has to work with the Klingons trying to kill them to escape. Some of these stories would influence later shows and extended media. For example, “The Counter-Clock Incident”‘s basic idea popped up in the early DC comics for The Next Generation (the cartoon did it better) and an episode of Voyager.
I could do articles reviewing this show, but watching them yourselves would give you the better idea. Granted…
Not every episode is good
“The Slaver Weapon” is a good story on its own, but it was made with lore from the writer’s novel series, and clashes with Star Trek’s own. The above clip, if it’s still up, comes from “The Terratin Incident”, where the crew starts shrinking, with the algae based uniforms used to explain why nobody’s naked on a kids cartoon. Also, they wouldn’t have to redraw as many characters. Plus the aforementioned giant Spock clone, but even those stories managed to give good action under Sat AM limitations. They might be more forgivable because they were Saturday morning cartoons for kids, and they were the exception rather than the rule.
Admittedly, Filmation was better at writing and character design than at animation. Still, with 22 episodes split rather oddly (the second season is only six episodes, airing with the rest being rerun) they managed to have less stinkers than a whole season of (insert Kurtzman made series here). Credit where it’s due.
The Fan legacy
Let’s not forget that fans have taken the Filmation style specifically and made their own Trek with it. Fan series with original casts had their own Trek cartoons in addition to the fan continuation above. Others have taken clips from later Star Trek shows and gave them the Filmation treatment for fun and practice. Sadly, the ones I found appear to be down, but it shows that not just Star Trek cartoons in general, which exists, but the Filmation series specifically had an influence in the fan film community. It’s accepted by enough fans that not making it canon feels even more wrong.
It’s not like the show messes lore up like a bunch of other animated spinoffs. It did the opposite, building on existing lore and inspiring later writers in their own world building. The animation is questionable, but the designs aren’t. The voice acting by non-professional VAs is better than you’d expect. Kelley and Shatner were the only ones who never really did as well, but Nimoy, Takei, and Doohan would do more work in the future. Star Trek: The Animated Series IS Star Trek in every metric that matters. Give this show the respect it deserves, Paramount. Make a channel for it on Pluto TV or at least put them on the regular Star Trek channel. Get it to more places than MeTV Toons. Your other classic shows are all over the place. This show deserves it’s spot among the other classic Trek shows, and you won’t convince me otherwise. It’s canon to me. Unlike the junk Abrams and Kurtzman forced into existance.
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