{"id":2879,"date":"2022-03-31T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2879"},"modified":"2022-03-26T19:44:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-26T19:44:01","slug":"trekaday-016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/31\/trekaday-016\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday 016: The Survivor, The Infinite Vulcan, The Magicks of Megas-tu, Once Upon a Planet, Mudd’s Passion, The Terratin Incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAS S01E06 The Survivor<\/strong> (\"3.5). The survivor in this case survived a meteor \u201cswarm\u201d and turns out to be a 23rd century Lord Lucan. I think that\u2019s Shatner doing his voice, and Nichelle Nichols as his fianc\u00e9e. Far from this being a post-monetary society, Lucan is a wealthy philanthropist \u2013 and in fiction they are always either masked vigilantes or psychopathic super-villains. Wanna guess which one we have here? So, this turns out to be that good old Trek stand-by: something nasty has snuck on board the ship. Lucan impersonates Kirk and takes control of the ship. While this doesn\u2019t suffer by trying to space battles in animation, it doesn\u2019t take advantage of the medium the way that Furthest Star did, so this all feels a bit rote \u2013 and the early plotting requires the crew to be dumber than usual. Some character work from \u201cCarter\u201d does something to redeem it. The relationship between the Vendorian and the grief-stricken Lt Anne feels very Star Trek in a way that many of these episodes have struggled to achieve. We also meet the leonine Lt M\u2019Ress in this episode.<\/p>\n

TAS S01E07 The Infinite Vulcan<\/strong> (\"4). Walter Koenig\u2019s script is very fast paced \u2013 we go from Sulu dropping the alien plant that just stabbed him to \u201che\u2019s got a minute to live Jim!\u201d in seconds. For the first time in ages, we get to see a really extravagant alien city and some aliens (and giant humanoids) that the 60s show would\u2019ve struggled to realise, and this feels like a really strong version of what animated Star Trek <\/strong>could and should be (although about the final exchange between Kirk and Sulu is all sorts of wrong). But the great strength of the live action episodes \u2013 the chemistry between the leads \u2013 never really comes through here. Nimoy and Kelley are fine, but it\u2019s evident throughout that William Shatner really couldn\u2019t give a shit about this job. His line readings sound as if they\u2019ve been tossed off in between golf games (and my understanding is that\u2019s basically what happened).<\/p>\n

TAS S01E08 The Magicks of Megas-tu<\/strong> (\"4). After a wobbly start, during which the show\u2019s scientific advisors seem to have gone for a liquid lunch, this generates considerable energy and pace. And even though those world-class character dynamics are never present, this admirably fulfills the brief of using the animation medium to tell thought-provoking science-fiction stories, even if it is using familiar tropes \u2013the bridge is visited by a playful being with god-like powers who puts humanity on trial.<\/p>\n

TAS S01E09 Once Upon a Planet<\/strong> (\"2) is another sequel to a TOS<\/strong> episode and early dialogue rams that fact home, even though the painted backgrounds only vaguely resemble to location chosen for Shore Leave<\/em>. The solution to the problem turns out to be the same as last time, followed by having a chat with the previously murderous computer, so this is all a bit of a bore \u2013 zero gravity on the bridge is quite good fun though.<\/p>\n

TAS S01E10 Mudd’s Passion<\/strong> (\"1). I disliked Mudd\u2019s Women<\/em> and hated I, Mudd<\/em>, and so I wasn\u2019t looking forward to this one \u2013 yet another sequel to a TOS<\/strong> episode and in this case a third instalment. If anything this was worse than I expected. This time the slimy bastard is offering a strictly heterosexual love potion, which he\u2019s knocking out at 300 credits a pop.<\/p>\n

Some of the best episodes of TOS<\/strong> have probed and pushed at the limits of Spock\u2019s logical stoicism. But this story does it with no subtlety, feeling or attention to detail. In earlier episodes such as All Our Yesterdays<\/em> Spock was sufficiently self-aware to notice his own odd behaviour. This is a 10-year-old\u2019s version of \u201cbeing in love\u201d, which is disappointing even in the context of a show aimed at children.<\/p>\n

Nurse Chapel is given more to do here but she is once again defined almost entirely as \u201chaving the hots for Spock\u201d. And McCoy refers to a fellow officer as \u201cthat pretty little Lt Uhura.\u201d Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.<\/p>\n

TAS S01E11 The Terratin Incident<\/strong> (\"3.5). Some sources give this as the 12th episode, not the 11th. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on there. This gives us another venerable science fiction idea but not one that Star Trek has attempted before \u2013 the crew is shrinking. It\u2019s a wonderful use of the animation medium \u2013 it could never have been achieved in live action. Even making the crew suddenly smaller would have wrecked the budget, let alone slowly decreasing their size. All of the usual scientific inaccuracies with size-shrinkage are present here, but it seems churlish to complain about that when this is such fun to look at. Once again, the transporter is used as an all-purpose biological reset switch.<\/p>\n

Stray thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n