star trek final frontier cartoon

The Cartoon That Helped Save Star Trek

Fifty years ago, star trek was dead. and then the animated series changed everything..

When Star Trek was cancelled in 1969, it was a dark time not just for fans, but for creator Gene Roddenberry himself. Unable to get another TV series off the ground, Roddenberry was reduced to selling Trek merch and doing the lecture circuit in order to support himself. Meanwhile, William Shatner was living in a camper home and taking any gig he could to get by.

But along the way, something amazing happened: The crew of the USS Enterprise refused to stay cancelled.

“Bringing Star Trek back from what was initially thought to be a failed three-season TV show was a little bit of a miracle, and The Animated Series I think was a big part of that,” John Van Citters, VP, Star Trek Brand Development, tells IGN. “It's got a really cool look. It's got a really odd little history to it, but it's another 22 episodes of Star Trek that I think most Star Trek fans haven't seen.”

Today, we take the long life and, well, prospering of Star Trek for granted, but back in the early ’70s that was far from the case. And while a variety of factors would combine to eventually beam Captain Kirk and company back onto our screens, it was a low-budget animated series that helped to save the franchise, while also reminding fans of what Star Trek was all about.

This is how a cartoon ensured Star Trek’s survival, with a little help from some fans. And why that animated legacy continues to live on today.

Star Trek, or TOS as we call it these days (“It stands for those old scientists ,” you know), was famously almost cancelled after its second season. But a letter-writing campaign by fans got network NBC to blink and bring the show back for a third year of boldly going. Unfortunately, the budget was slashed and Star Trek was consigned to the dreaded Friday night time slot, that dark corner of the TV galaxy where many a sci-fi show has gone to die in the years since. Marc Cushman, author of the behind-the-scenes chronicle of the show These Are the Voyages , speculates that NBC had set the show up for failure in that slot knowing the ratings wouldn’t improve, and therefore a fourth season would never happen. And in fact, it didn’t.

Well, not in the way NBC was thinking, anyway.

Less than five years after it was cancelled, Star Trek was back with most of its original cast and several members of the behind-the-scenes team for Star Trek: The Animated Series .

“I do know that a lot of people consider it like the fourth and fifth seasons of Star Trek because it had all the same writers,” says Casper Kelly, creator of Star Trek: Very Short Treks.

A lot of people consider it like the fourth and fifth seasons of Star Trek because it had all the same writers.

But Star Trek: The Animated Series didn’t just happen in a vacuum. There were other things heating up on the Trek front that would lead to Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest reuniting on the small screen.

Star Trek Is Dead, Long Live Star Trek

These days we take fan campaigns with a grain of space-vampire salt, but they were a pretty new concept back when Star Trek was rescued for its third season. The letter-writing campaign was also key to keeping Trek in the mainstream in the dark years that followed its cancellation, as the addition of Season 3’s 24 episodes brought the show’s run up to a total of 79 hours, which was enough for it to enter into nationwide syndication . 

Far from that Friday night at 10pm timeslot that Season 3 had been left to wither away in, syndication meant that stations could run the show whenever they wanted. That included counter-programming against the local news, and after school where many a new young fan discovered the exploits of the USS Enterprise for the first time.

“We were, in the early ’70s, really starting to see the power of fandom and the demand from latchkey kids like me coming home after school and watching Star Trek in syndication,” says Van Citters.

By 1972, three years after it ended, the show was playing in 125 stations in the U.S. as well as 60 foreign countries. And then there were the conventions. Everyone kinda knows what a Comic-Con is these days, but back then these fan gatherings were more of a rarity. The birth of the Star Trek convention was a key component in not just the growth of cons overall in the 1970s, but also in keeping the franchise alive in the years after TOS ended.

“We had already started to see the power of Star Trek fandom in those early years after we had the first fan conventions,” explains Van Citters. “And I think there was a little bit of a move of, ‘Oh, perhaps we made a mistake and perhaps we were a little too hasty in getting rid of Star Trek.’”

But with the sets, props, and costumes for The Original Series long since scrapped or otherwise unavailable, simply launching another live-action TV show wasn’t that easy – or cheap. NBC wanted a new pilot episode before committing to a full show, and Roddenberry claimed in interviews that it would’ve cost three-quarters of a million dollars just to rebuild those assets. That was a no-go for something that might never go to series. But there was a relatively low-cost alternative to test the appetite for new Trek material: Saturday morning animation.

Saturday Morning: The Final Frontier

“The easiest way to get everyone back together and make something happen quickly and easily is certainly not to rebuild sets and pull all the whole cast together for days and days of filming,” says Van Citters. “I think [animation] was a very simple way to bring Star Trek back to the airwaves.”

Roddenberry was able to strike a deal with Paramount, NBC, and animation studio Filmation that allowed him to retain creative control over the proposed animated series. His concern was that the show not devolve into mere kiddie humor and action stories. To that end, he brought in Original Series writer and story editor D.C. Fontana to serve as essentially showrunner, and the pair also hired a variety of scripters from the live-action show.

“I think for them, they all looked at this as a backdoor to continue something that was successful for them and that was beloved by them,” Van Citters says of the writers, a group which included familiar names to fans including Samuel A. Peeples, David Gerrold, Marc Daniels, and Margaret Armen. “And the intent really seems to have been to get the gang back together and continue doing Star Trek in the same mold of what they had done before.”

In 1973, most of the cast reunited for the first time since TOS had gone off the air to record the first batch of episodes of The Animated Series. That included William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and Majel Barrett. Walter Koenig unfortunately did not return as Chekov due to budget restraints, but he did write an episode of the show. And Doohan and Barrett did double, triple, and quadruple duty voicing many of the show’s secondary characters week to week, though listen closely and you’ll hear Nichols and Takei subbing in here or there as well.

The Animated Series, which was just called Star Trek at the time, debuted on September 8, 1973, coincidentally seven years to the day after The Original Series first aired. With episodes that were roughly half the length of the live-action stories, and with an at least theoretical target audience of children, the animated episodes would prove to be their own particular brand of Star Trek which stood next to, if didn’t quite occupy the same space as the 1960s show.

“Maybe it looks dated,” says Star Trek: Lower Decks supervising director Barry Kelly. “You can tell it's something that's old, but those are good likenesses. As an artist, I think it looks fantastic.”

Of course, the restrictions of the Saturday morning animation of the era is obvious, with lots of reused shots and production flubs.

“It is a very different creature and there are some aspects of it that are decidedly not what you would consider to be typical Star Trek and a little bit more out there,” says Van Citters. “But it really provided that core creative team the ability to do some things they couldn't on the TV show. You were able to take some adventures underwater. You were able to do things with bigger, vaster space vistas, and do creatures in a way that you couldn't with a live-action show in the ’60s. And I think they took that seriously and tried to stretch a lot of boundaries with that.” 

Indeed, it’s an interesting approach that the team took in that they were very careful to match the design of the old show – the ship looks the same, as do the costumes, props, and so on. But they also used the freedom of animation, where drawing an alien Caitian character took the same effort as drawing a regular human. And yes, that’s what new bridge officer M’Ress is – a member of the cat-like race called Caitians.

“The monster design is also more elaborate,” says Casper Kelly. “Something with a bunch of tentacles, that'd be harder to do in a live-action practical way.”

You were able to do things with bigger, vaster space vistas, and do creatures in a way that you couldn't with a live-action show in the '60s.

New navigator Arex had three arms and three legs, we got a variety of new starship designs, a Tribble predator showed up, the crew were all shrunk to tiny size, Kirk and Spock became fish-people… the list goes on and on as far as how The Animated Series was able to expand the world of Star Trek.

But perhaps most importantly, the show also had heart.

Spock Goes Home

The highlight of The Animated Series comes in the only episode Fontana actually scripted, “Yesteryear.” The writer had played a key role in Spock’s development on the live-action series with episodes like “This Side of Paradise” and “Journey to Babel,” and in fact “Yesteryear” serves as something of a sequel to that latter story. In it, Spock travels back in time to his home planet Vulcan, where he meets his younger self and some of the seeds of his future relationship with his parents are planted. The segment is a terrific example of telling a story for kids without talking down to them, as it depicts young Spock having to make the sad decision to euthanize his pet sehlat after it’s mortally injured protecting the boy. “It is fitting he dies with peace and dignity,” says the boy, simultaneously not leaving a dry eye in the house.

The show went in lots of different directions in its 22-episode run. Ask a fan and you never know what they might claim to be their favorite episode or character.

“I do really have a soft spot for ‘The Magicks of Megas-tu’ because in many ways that's the polar opposite of The Animated Series where you have the Salem Witch trials and the devil personified and our crew all coming together in a really bizarre set of circumstances,” laughs Van Citters. “And that one's just out there, but it's a lot of fun to watch.”

Barry Kelly recalls renting VHS tapes that had three Animated Series episodes on each.

“I always like the Edosians,” he recalls. “So weird to me. … You're like, ‘These are two different worlds of design clashing right now with this guy, just with an arbitrary arm just coming out of his chest.’”

“I do love ‘The Practical Joker,’ because that one had the holodeck,” says Casper Kelly. “And that just really blew my mind. And when I watched live-action Star Trek, I was like, ‘Where's the holodeck?’ And it was so cool that they brought it out in Next Generation.”

That holodeck-like rec room wasn’t the only Trek concept seen here that would eventually show up again: There’s a huge living cloud like V'ger; another Starfleet crew would meet a creature that appears to be the devil; the Spock/Chapel romance that we’re currently seeing in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds plays out here some; the Enterprise’s first captain, Robert April, is introduced; and we even get a dude who has facial hair and wears glasses, predicting both Commander Riker’s beard and Retinax V from Wrath of Khan! (That guy must’ve been allergic to Retinax too.)

There are several sequel episodes to TOS, and guest stars from the old show also returned, including Mark Lenard as Sarek, Roger C. Carmel as Harry Mudd, and Stanley Adams as Cyrano Jones. Other characters and races also recurred, even if the budget precluded bringing back all the original actors who played them. But the attempts to maintain a continuity between The Original Series and what was, after all, a Saturday morning cartoon are pretty remarkable.

In another highpoint for the show, when Kirk and the men are out of commission in “The Lorelei Signal,” Uhura takes command of the Enterprise and Chapel steps in as her second-in-command as the two lead an away team of all-female security officers to save the day.

Are there some stinkers in the 22 animated episodes? Absolutely, but the smarter stories feel like pure Star Trek, as Captain Kirk and his crew’s mission of peace and scientific exploration continues, often with some fun and thrills, and occasionally with a bit of an emotional punch as well.

“I think a basic tenet of Star Trek is … about the value of intelligence and problem-solving, and that problems are fixable,” says Casper Kelly. “And it's ultimately … a very hopeful show.”

TAS won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment Children's Series, the only time that a Star Trek show has won a non-technical Emmy.

The Animated Series received a short second season of just six episodes, but by October, 1974, it had completed its mission and ceased production. The show would go on to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment Children's Series, the only time to date that a Star Trek show has won a non-technical Emmy.

The goal of serving up new Star Trek had been accomplished, and it gave Roddenberry exactly what he needed: proof that a live-action version of the show should be next.

Star Trek… Beyond

In his book Star Trek Movie Memories , William Shatner looked back at the effect of the series like this:

“[The Animated Series] kept [Roddenberry’s] most durable brand name alive, and it served as a lightning rod, rallying the forces to cry, ‘Bring back Star Trek!’ In their minds, and this was carefully groomed by Gene at countless conventions, they won their first battle. The animated Star Trek should be seen not as a reward in and of itself, but as the first step back toward new and improved live-action Treks.”

It’s impossible today to know what really was going on in those conventions in the 1970s, but if we understand anything about fandom, it’s that they’re never satisfied. And Roddenberry certainly knew how to leverage Trekkie influence in a way that would make Zack Snyder proud, so Shatner’s take on things makes a certain amount of sense.

“It was a very important step to getting Star Trek back first through movies and then through more TV shows,” says Van Citters. “I think the earliest James Blish novelizations of the episodes and Alan Dean Foster's log books of The Animated Series episodes, the first original novels, the making of Star Trek books that were there, the technical manuals... All of those things trickling out over the decade of the ’70s wound up being hugely instrumental to keeping that drumbeat alive.”

Star Trek was most certainly alive. By the spring of 1975, about six months after the last Animated Series episode aired, Roddenberry had signed a deal with Paramount to make a live-action Star Trek movie. That project would have many ups and downs over the years – it even became a new show at one point called Star Trek: Phase II which would’ve been the cornerstone of a brand-new Paramount TV network. But ultimately, Phase II morphed again into Star Trek: The Motion Picture , which truly did bring the crew back to live-action on the big screen in 1979. Of course, the rest is history, as new incarnations of the franchise have continued to be produced in the decades since.

And in recent years, that includes new animation projects too. Star Trek: Lower Decks , Star Trek: Prodigy , Short Treks , and most recently, the Very Short Treks have all followed in the grand tradition of The Animated Series, now 50 years after it debuted. The Very Short Treks are just that – shorts that riff on the look of The Animated Series, but in a distinctly off-the-wall way.

“Think of these almost as if Star Trek had its own SNL and just did Saturday Night Live-type sketches about Star Trek,” laughs Casper Kelly.

Lower Decks, which is now in its fourth season, has become known for its amazing attention to Trek detail, cramming as many Easter eggs in each episode as possible. That frequently includes references to The Animated Series. Creator Mike McMahan is clearly a huge fan of the old show.

“Mike brings a lot of The Animated Series to bear in Lower Decks,” says Van Citters. “Sometimes it's through very subtle things where its influence pops up. Sometimes it's much, much more direct when you see certain characters straight out of The Animated Series show up on screen.”

Cartoons are also a way to attract new and younger viewers to what is, after all, an almost 60-year-old franchise.

“You talk about the fact that there's over 850 episodes of Star Trek and most people are like, I don't even know where to start with that,” says Van Citters. “I think Lower Decks is a great way for people to learn about Star Trek because in 22 minutes, 25 minutes, there's so much Star Trek that hits you and you don't have to get all of it. It'd be unusual if you got all of it, but it's so much fun and it's such a great way to experience Star Trek.”

And after you’re done with Lower Decks, you can always put on Star Trek: The Animated Series. It’s been around for 50 years, so why not give it a try?

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Update on Star Trek: Final Frontier – The New Star Trek Animated Series That Never Was

| May 3, 2010 | By: Anthony Pascale 71 comments so far

Star Trek: Final Frontier – the interview

If you need a refresher, or weren’t around back in December 2006, “Star Trek: Final Frontier” was a pitch for a web (or possibly cable TV) Star Trek animated series set in the 26th century. It was a back-to-basics approach set in a dark era for the Federation, where a new hero (Captain Alexander Chase) and a new crew of a new Enterprise tried to bring the light back to galaxy. The project was under consideration at CBS, but it died when the staff of StarTrek.com were laid off that the site went dormant in December 2007.

Now in a new interview with Trekkie Central Magazine (the official mag for the fan series Star Trek: Hidden Frontier), you can learn more about the series and its history. The article is embedded below, or you can go to issuu.com to view it there or download it.

Star Trek: Final Frontier – the website

The team behind the project have also put up a website all about it at zeroroom.squarespace.com . There you can see a gallery, learn about the history, the characters, the designs and much more. There are also detailed story boards.

It’s a shame: I thought some of the fanboy overreaction against this series was unnecessary.

Could’ve been fun!

No offense, but the look of that fugly Enterprise makes me kind of glad this thing was killed in its cradle.

I think this has potential but I have to agree with @2, that is hands down the worst looking enterprise I have ever seen. Even the Pakled would feel embarrassed driving sardine can looking ship around.

This actually looks really awesome. At first I was skeptical, but not I want it bad!

The Enterprise isn’t cool looking or anything, not like our past beauties but the show looked like it would have been amazing!

I’d love to see another Star Trek cartoon one day, but recent vaguely similar stuff like Star Wars: Clone Wars and Stargate Infinity have been terrible, IMO. I never managed a whole episode of either.

I loved old Star Trek: The Animated Series, despite it’s limitations. If a new cartoon can be creative, fun, Star Trekky (it’s a thing!) and not embarrasing mindless childrens’ garbage I’m all for it.

Somehow I think that’s not gonna happen…

Why don’t they just do it now? There’s more demand for Trek than ever, an animated series (especially one with a premise this cool) would probably do pretty well!

Yeah it’s a good thing this crap was never made.

I don’t know where in the process those uniform jackets on the third screen were for … the black ones with the department color swatches and cuffs … but those are badass and I want one.

This series, conceptually, sounded like a really bad idea, although I’m sure the same could be said of some of my own ideas for how Trek history unfolds post-Nemesis. The animation, moreover, looks terrible, like Kim Possible or the Erin Esurance commercials. I’m all for a new animated series (or a remake of the original), but it’s got to be better than this.

wow i’ve never hated any depiction of the enterprise from nx-01 to 1701-e, but this is a huge exception. Thats just plain horrible. I heard somewhere the instructions for the first movie was make it look plausible to be the same ship as the show, but more modern and up to date. They did that well. I think someone forgot to do that this time.

Has anyone noticed “PROTOCOL OFFICER WILLIAM PRESTON” is just Batman Beyond Villain Derek Powers with a mustache?

Protocol Officer William Preston: http://zeroroom.squarespace.com/storage/prestoncircle.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1242081874100

http://zeroroom.squarespace.com/crew/

Batman Beyond: Derek Powers http://www.mindeclipse.com/batmanbeyond/char/pics/powers03.jpg http://multiverse-crisis.wdfiles.com/local–files/terry-mcginnis/Blight

That ‘Enterprise’ looks like a rejected design from the “Star Wars” prequels.

While I wasn’t particularly fond of this (The era and characters didn’t speak to me, specifically), I was bummed these guys never got a chance to do anything with this. Star Trek is certainly a world with enough room for stories to be told.

Perhaps if they want their story told badly enough, comic books would be a medium that would gladly accept it.

I did like the idea of the Andorians seceding from the Federation. Andorians always have needed more interplay as a Federation member – a society of Byronic heroes as hot-tempered and passionate as a Vulcan is cold and logical. But with so much in common with humans … (in fact, humans seem to be the fulcrum balancing the two).

Amazing that they were able to come up with an even uglier Enterprise than NX-01.

It would have been nice for ANY new Trek to be green-lit, but I’m not losing any sleep over this concept. The Enterprise was fugly and the story didn’t seem like it had any depth. It only would have been good as some way to get kids watching Trek and buying toys.

the character design is neat, but they kinda let the ship designs get away from them. then again, given the time frame they were shooting for story wise i guess they HAD to stray from conventional ‘Trek’. i mean, that’s what most people complained about with STO, in that the ship designs were just modified after pre-existing models. i’m sure if they did the same with the 26th century, people would ask ‘Hey…isn’t that just…’. but i thought that there was a 26th century Enterprise already, didn’t they have it in Enterprise? The Enterprise-J?

man I have been waiting for this update for four years!

I’m a huge proponent for an animated series, but this clearly wasn’t the way to go.

Trek deserves better.

Like more detailed character design & a more consistent, familiar look to the ships & weapons.

I think Bad Monkey’s Klingon propaganda video was amazing & much more what I’d want to see in a new cartoon.

A CG series like “the clone wars” would be cool too, but only if done with more detail & realism in the characters.

But the biggest problem with this: another new crew on another new Enterprise? Are you kidding me?!

You’ve got an expansive universe that’s been outlined by top sci-fi writers for over 40 years & all you can come up with is more of the same?

No original thinking here.

Why couldn’t they do an anthology series that follows a different set of Trek characters every week, so we can take advantage of the voice talent of previous casts. Tales about the Titan, Voyager & DS9 crews after their series, the Romulan war, Pike’s Enterprise, etc. etc, etc.

Another opportunity lost to a lack of creativity amongst writers!

As for the Enterprise design?

Yeah, it’s pretty bad, but at least it’s not Abram’s disco-ship beer factory!

Hey all, thanks for the positive (and negative) response. Here is where I put my standard disclaimer that the Enterprise design wasn’t final, and would have been a lot less blocky in the final design. Sketchup doesn’t like curves too much.

#9 – the dark uniforms were one of our earliest designs. I still love them, but they never would have worked in animation.

#19 – it’s important to remember that we were working with no budget. Our designs and art were done for free by generous professionals who wanted to help out, for a pitch document that was intended to give an idea of our vision. It was not a definitive style. If the show had been greenlit, we would have been able to do another pass that would have made the style more consistent and smoothed out the rough edges. As for “another crew on another Enterprise,” it was our feeling that that is the core of Star Trek, and we wanted to return to that.

I’m happy to answer any questions, here or on the site. Storyboards for part four should be up soon.

Actually….I kinda liked the script, and I kind of like the fugly Enterprise. It’s not the kind of Star Trek I’m used to, but I could go for it.

Kinda bummed that this didn’t get made…

This was too dark for star trek. I am glad this never came to light. I agree with some of the other posts…focus on other ships like Titan or Excelsior. No need to reinvent the Enterprise over and over. The universe is rich with aliens and other stories that were barely touched in the shows and movies.

Roddenberry was focused on the positive aspect of humanity…not a terminator type of plot.

The Vanguard series of books would also make a great story for TV. The feel more like star trek than this.

“It was a back-to-basics approach set in a dark era for the Federation, where a new hero (Captain Alexander Chase) and a new crew of a new Enterprise tried to bring the light back to galaxy.”

That sounds like “Andromeda”.

I hope they make a new animated series between the Star Trek movies, but I would prefer one playing in the alternate Universe at the same time of the last movie. It musn’t be about the Enterprise, but it would be nice if it would play in that universe and time.

As a “war story” concept it is one of the better ones out there. I am getting tired of “War Trek” in all its incarnations. This appears to use that as a jumping off point for getting back to basics. Getting back to what Trek ought to be about.

The much-maligned 26th century Enterprise design is not the greatest thing in the world, but at least it is creative (beats the pants off the Trek Online recyclables–here add a fin to the Enterprise-D, voila Enterprise-G!). Also, the story of this gives the trousers of Trek Online a beating too. Trek Online is grinding, unimaginative “War Trek.” This at least reaches for something different.

(The captain’s name could be changed “Chase” seems a bit cliche, action-heroey, but…)

All in all, not a bad effort considering their constraints.

Loved the uniforms with the jackets, might have to just go and make one one of these days. They are a cool design which would look great realized.

I would have liked to seen this. There is always room for new Trek, and novel approaches to it.

This animated series had potential but I’m sorry, the hammerhead Enterprise is just terrible. If I was the designer, I would have made it more sleeker and elegant. The Dragon Fly’s, they look a bit too much like the Star Fury from BABYLON 5.

#20 Doug, I have a question. First of all, I really was hoping to see a new animated STAR TREK series and I knew that you had something very good. My question is would you consider to have a fan art section where artists and STAR TREK fans can submit their ideas for fun? I think this would be fun for everyone to do and to show how much we love STAR TREK. Thank you and never give up on your dream.

I totally get your out-of-the-box approach. My hat’s off to you for trying something different. Looks like a number of commenters aren’t on the same page, but you were willing to take a few risks.

And didn’t somebody say something about risk, once upon a time?

#6 Stargate Infinity lasted barely a year, and that was cancelled seven years ago. Hardly a recent show unlike Clone Wars, which is going into it’s third season.

I seem to recall reading somewhere Rick Berman shot down a proposed animated TNG in the 90’s.

Yeah, this idea was simply terrible, in my opinion, and I dislike the ship designs (although the character designs are very similar to what we have in STO).

But in the end, Trek does deserve better than this.

This Enterprise makes JJ’s version look beautiful. And that one was plain ugly.

What someone needs to do is remake the old Saturday morning Star Trek series, using the exact same plotline and original voice recordings, and just remake the actual animation. It would only make a limited number of episodes, but the new cast could take it from there.

What Star Trek needs right now, this minute is something/anything to fill in the rather long gap between Star Trek 09 and Star Trek 2012. A TV series is very unlikely as it would be direct competition to the movie (and most likely expensive to boot. I dont see any DTDVD type situation happening either for the same reasons. The only real viable medium would be the computer animated series, similar to Star Wars: Clone Wars. Like it or lump it, it has been a success, and smartley done a new Star Trek animated series based on Star Trek 09 could work at keeping fans interested between films, and get in the kids and younger audiences as well.

So much vitriol for conceptual work. And people wonder why the networks are sketchy about greenlighting new series.

Maybe they could use my re-design of the Connie for a web based animated series?

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?75820-Another-Connie-Re-design

Wow! I like it. I am still just amazed at the dislike some people have for this concept. While the Enterprise design isn’t my favorite (though I do like the color sketch third to last in the gallery), I think they have done a wonderful job capturing the feel of getting back to the hope and exploration of the original series.

It is interesting to see how far this concept got or didn’t get and how a lot of the same driving ideas (getting back to basics; hope; a brash, idealistic captain) matched what came in ST:09. Then again, there are people who dislike that movie too.

All in all, congratulations on what you managed to accomplish Doug M, I found it wonderful and fun. Here’s looking to the future where I hope we can all agree that any new Trek is good Trek.

This is one bad idea that died before being born, unlike Enterprise, which suffered for 4 years before the plug was pulled. We dodged a bullet with this one.

And that is not to denigrate any artistic or original concepts. It’s just that the further away from TOS that things got, the less interesting it was for me. The one thing that almost saved Enteprise near the end was how the writers began to get nearer to TOS in stories and concepts.

I wish to see new Star Trek : the animated series on tv. I like to see what the 26th century starships but I dont like this concept of starship like a hummerhead design. Make sure it same conept of real star trek’s starships on tv as new Enterpise ship. I would like to see an Enterprise J on tv in the future. I think I like this new shuttlecraft Dragonfly concept design as look good to me! That 26th century starfleet uniform seen like go to old uniform colors code is good idea. The red uniform is real security personal as officer. I think that gold uniform is a command officer as look good to me. I wish to use a blue uniform is for command officer for safely reason as dark from light but light blue or white is real doctor and nurise uniform.

Ok yeah, cool, sucks it didn’t get made, blah blah blah…but.

The animation is horrible! It looks like something a 5 year old would scribble!

40. That is ludicrous. Criticize the art if you don’t like the style (looks reminiscent of the Batman animated series), but a 5 year old? Sorry, but that’s ludicrous. Give these guys a little credit for effort, if nothing else. I’d love to see YOUR Trek sketches.

The Dragonflies look like B5! THAT’S IT! I was wondering what it reminded me of, but it escaped me.

@2 thats most likley why they killed it

A very wise man once said:

“It is far easier to criticize than to create”

Most all of the negative people fail to ever understand that, so they will always down everything they see, and never expierence the beauty of anything.

Plus, I am pretty sure #40 has never created anything at all to show you anyway.

Myself, I kind of like the style these guys were doing, and would love to see an animated Trek come back.

They should take the audio from the old Animated Series and make new animation for it, maybe similar to the “Clone Wars” show.

The project was killed due to massive layoffs at Startrek.com and CBS Interactive, the two groups who were interested in working together to make it happen.

The ugliness of our Enterprise had nothing to do with it, as everyone understood it was a concept, not a final design.

I think the only good thing in that entire project was worth looking at was the storyboard panels. The artist was choosing some really nice angles, very dynamic. Otherwise, it looks like a fan made attempt at doing something that they weren’t cut out to do. Alot of the art reminds me of my high school art classes. If another animated series is ever made, I’d maybe wish that Gendy (Samurai Jack), or Bruce Tim (Justice League) would be doing it. Anyways, I’m glad this died before it caused irreparable damage to the franchise.

we need a new series like this : STAR TREK STORIES: each week a different story set in a different place somewhere and sometime in the star trek universe. it would satisfy everyone. we could revisit TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, movies, and stories could take place in the new JJ Abrams universe as well. It would allow for many many different stories on different planets, ships, stations and settings,and it would also allow for endless cameo and guest star appearances, as each episode would be its own story, taking place in its own period. Its all star trek, and it would work.

I agree with all those who want to take the old animated series and reanimate it. Expand it to an hour. Also CBS should purchase the audio tapes from the video games from the 90s(25th anniversary, Judgment Rites and the unreleased Secret of Vulcan Fury) and reanimate those and presto you have the final two seasons of the original 5 year mission.

What’s wrong with Kim Possible? That was a fantastic show, well-written and well-animated. I don’t usually go in for “Dark Trek,” but this could have been fun — though I’m not sure I’d want it canonized.

In other — barely on-topic — news, I am really glad to see Trekkie Central Magazine getting a fairly big scoop like this one. Richard Miles works hard, and good for him getting to tell this story first.

Star Trek's New Animated Shorts Bring Back The Characters Fans Have Been Missing

The latest "Star Trek" animated series, "Very Short Treks," attempts to honor — or at least revisit and poke fun at — arguably the most underrated series in the nearly 60-year-old franchise. "Star Trek: The Animated Series" was a two-season Saturday morning cartoon show starring most of the original cast and written by many of the original writers, which filled in the gaps left in the historical records after the Enterprise's five-year mission got cut short by CBS.

While "Star Trek: The Animated Series" could be a little hit-and-miss (just like every other "Trek" show) it expanded on the original series in crucial ways. The animation was limited, but there was no longer any need to hold back on ambitious creatures and concepts due to budgetary concerns. So the cartoon featured an array of bizarre worlds and life forms that had never been possible on the show before and have rarely been explored since. "The Animated Series" also introduced the concept of a holodeck for the very first time, and featured some of the first sequels in the series, with characters revisiting important planets and story elements from classic episodes like "The City on the Edge of Forever," "The Trouble with Tribbles," and even " Shore Leave ."

And not for nothing, but the first "Star Trek" series to ever win an Emmy Award was this short-lived animated 1970s show, so have some damn respect is all I'm saying here.

But what "Very Short Treks" has reminded us "Animated Series" fans — and perhaps introduced to new generations who are, probably, less familiar with the show — is that in addition to the live-action crew members, the original "Star Trek" cartoon also introduced new regular characters into the franchise's canon. And although a lot of the modern "Trek" shows take place in roughly the same era as "The Animated Series," those characters have been, tragically, almost completely ignored for 50 whole years.

Any which way you canon

Granted, the question of whether "Star Trek: The Animated Series" is officially canon has long befuddled "Trek" fans and has led to some (hopefully good-natured) arguments over the years. 

Sure, there have been serious continuity mix-ups between "The Animated Series" and the live-action films and shows. The animated episode "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" found the Enterprise traveling to the center of the universe and meeting and befriending Satan. But in the movie "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier," Spock's half-brother Sybok forces the crew of the Enterprise to travel to the center of the universe, allegedly for the very first time, where they (sort of) meet God instead. You'd think if "The Animated Series" was canon that the whole "Actually, we've been to the center of the universe, that's where Satan lives, he's a pretty good guy if you get to know him, and we could totally introduce you" thing would have come up at least once.

Then again, even officially canonical live-action "Trek" can get retconned within an inch of its life. The final episode of "Star Trek: The Original Series" claimed that it was an actual law that women weren't allowed to be Starfleet captains, a plot point the franchise has mercifully ignored in the years that followed. 

So what's official? All we know for sure is that when  the trailer for "Very Short Treks" debuted  this new web series declared that it was "anything but canon." But that probably has a lot less to do with whether "The Animated Series" is canon and a lot more to do with the tone of the new show. The first episode, " Skin a Cat ," features Starfleet officers acting wildly out of character. Also, everyone on the Enterprise dies at the end. So that episode, at least, is obviously a comedy sketch, and not a new and vital piece of "Trek" lore.

A talking cat?!

Regardless, "Very Short Treks" placed front-and-center two characters who were very important to "Star Trek: The Animated Series" but have rarely been seen since. They're two regular crew members who, in live-action, would be difficult to bring to life on a TV budget. But again, this was animation, so all bets were basically off.

The character featured most prominently in "Skin a Cat," besides Kirk and Spock, is Lt. M'Ress. Originally voiced by Majel Barrett (who played both Nurse Chapel and Una Chin-Riley in "The Original Series," and the voice of almost every Starfleet computer, and Lwaxana Troi in "The Next Generation"), and now voiced by Cristina Milizia ("The Casagrandes"), M'Ress is a communications officer who sometimes fills in for Uhura on the bridge of the Enterprise. She's also a Caitian, which is why she looks like a humanoid cat.

Another regular bridge member who appears, without dialogue, in the first episode of "Very Short Treks" is Lt. Arex, one of the ship's navigation officers, who has taken over Ensign Chekov's post on the bridge. Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov in the original series and films, was the only regular cast member not to return for "The Animated Series," although he did get to write an animated episode featuring a gigantic Spock clone, titled "The Infinite Vulcan." Voiced by James Doohan (Scotty himself), Arex is an Edosian, a species with three arms, three legs, and three fingers on each appendage.

Caitians and Edosians both appeared in "Star Trek" in the years that followed, mostly on "Lower Decks." In that series, the ship's doctor, T'Ana is also Caitian, and an Edosian is portrayed as the proprietor of a health spa. In live-action, Caitians have also appeared in the films "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" and "Star Trek Into Darkness." So we know their species, at least, are canon! There's no excuse!

The day of retconning is at hand

So the question is ... where are M'Ress and Arex in these new "Star Trek" movies and shows?

The Kelvinverse "Trek" movies, as well as shows like "Discovery" and "Strange New Worlds," all take place during or shortly before the "Original Series" timeline. (Well, okay, not "Discovery" so much  anymore , but the first two seasons at least.) While some of the characters may be alternate reality versions of the original crew, all of these films and shows feature at least some classic characters who we've already met, before the events of the first two TV series.

"Discovery" and "Strange New Worlds" go out of their way to re-introduce younger versions of beloved characters like Spock, Kirk, and Scotty in unexpected and dramatic ways, and add new elements to their characters that expand on what we already knew about them. Even characters who had very little screen time previously, like Captain Pike, get to take center stage and keep it for a while, establishing their own greatness as both accomplished Starfleet officers and multifaceted fictional characters.

But although these new live-action films and shows have the budget to turn Caitians and Edosians into a reality, and even though characters like M'Ress and Arex have so little built-in canon that modern storytellers could build them up free from most expectations, they've been conspicuously absent until "Very Short Treks." And again, "Very Short Treks" isn't even canon.

Considering the obsessive urge long-running franchises like "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" have to turn every minor character, moment, and even stray lines of dialogue into excuses for spin-offs, "Trek's" weirdly stubborn refusal to make M'Ress and Arex series regulars — or at least prominently featured guest stars — is simply confusing. Hopefully, these new appearances remind the producers, and audiences, that they're out there somewhere, and they're just waiting to make a triumphant and  canonical  return.

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Star Trek: Prodigy cartoon series will bring the final frontier to Nickelodeon

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CBS has revealed new details on its animated Star Trek series for kids. Star Trek: Prodigy will air on Nickelodeon.

Announced in 2019 , the CGI animated show is set in the Star Trek universe, and is perhaps the first installment of the Star Trek franchise to be aimed primarily at children. The series is being developed by Kevin and Dan Hageman, of Ninjago and Guillermo del Toro’s Trollhunters .

Today’s announcement revealed an official title, Star Trek: Prodigy , and a brand new logo.

According to CBS’ press release, Prodigy will follow “a group of lawless teens who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning and salvation.”

A little bit Star Trek and a little bit Space Cases ? There have been worse ideas.

CBS did not offer a release date for Star Trek: Prodigy , but announced that the show will premiere sometime in 2021, exclusively on Nickelodeon.

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‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Trailer: The Final Frontier Gets Animated

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For the first time in about ten months — ten whole months! — there’s a new animated  Star Trek   series. (By the way, the other one,  Star Trek: Lower Decks , returns to Paramount+ next month .) To find one before that, you have to back a bit further, although  Star Trek: The Animated Series was a staple of syndicated TV through the 1970s and ’80s, including on the Nickelodeon cable channel.

Now Nickelodeon is co-producing its own  Star Trek: Prodigy , the first Trek series specifically aimed at family audiences. It features an all-new crew of alien kids who discover a Starfleet ship. In the show’s first full trailer, you might also recognize the voice of Kate Mulgrew  as Captain Kathryn Janeway. In  Prodigy , a hologram of Janeway becomes an adviser to the kids on their adventures. Watch the trailer below:

Here’s the show’s official synopsis:

Developed by Emmy® Award-winners Kevin and Dan Hageman (“Trollhunters” and “Ninjago”) the CG-animated series STAR TREK: PRODIGY is the first “Star Trek” series aimed at younger audiences and will follow a motley crew of young aliens who must figure out how to work together while navigating a greater galaxy, in search for a better future. These six young outcasts know nothing about the ship they have commandeered – a first in the history of the Star Trek Franchise – but over the course of their adventures together, they will each be introduced to Starfleet and the ideals it represents.

Star Trek: Prodigy premieres on Paramount+ this fall.

If you want to try Paramount+, you can sign up for a free trial here .

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Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Captain Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock's long-lost half-brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God at the center of the galaxy. Captain Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock's long-lost half-brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God at the center of the galaxy. Captain Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock's long-lost half-brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God at the center of the galaxy.

• William Shatner
• Gene Roddenberry
• Harve Bennett
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• 378 User reviews
• 86 Critic reviews
• 43 Metascore
• 5 wins & 5 nominations

• St. John Talbot

• Caithlin Dar

• Captain Klaa

• (as Spice Williams)

• "God"
• Young Sarek
• High Priestess

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• Trivia During pre-production meetings, screenwriter David Loughery jokingly proposed to have Commander Uhura appear as an erotic dancer in order to lure away the hostage takers from the Paradise compound. He was surprised when the producers approved of the idea right away.
• Goofs When Kirk, Bones and Spock are flying up the turbolift shaft, the deck number gets higher as they go upwards. However Star Trek ships are numbered the opposite way round with the higher decks having lower numbers. For instance, the bridge (at the top of the ship) is on deck 1.

Kirk : Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!

• Crazy credits "Highest descender fall recorded in the United States: Ken Bates." (I.e., Kenny Bates .)
• Alternate versions The CBS broadcast premiere removed a number of scenes from the movie. 1) All scenes featuring the dancing triple-breasted catwoman were removed. 2) The campfire scene was trimmed, ending with Spock producing the 'marshmellon' - effectively removing the much criticized 'Row Row Row Your Boat' sing along between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. 3) The scene between Uhura and Scotty on the bridge as they receive new orders from Starfleet Command. 4) The "I could use a shower" scene between Kirk and Spock in the turbolift.
• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Star Trek V/No Holds Barred/Dead Poets Society/Let's Get Lost/Renegades (1989)
• Soundtracks Fanfare From Star Trek TV Series by Alexander Courage

User reviews 378

• Feb 3, 2002
• How long is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? Powered by Alexa
• Why was J'Onn digging holes on Numbus 3 at the beginning? Also, what was his pain?
• What was the creature pretending to be "God"?
• What is 'The Final Frontier' about?
• June 9, 1989 (United States)
• United States
• Star Trek: The Final Frontier
• Owens Lake, California, USA (the dry lake bed stood in for the desolate Nimbus III)
• Paramount Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $27,800,000 (estimated)
• $52,210,049
• $17,375,648
• Jun 11, 1989

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Star Trek: The Animated Series

• View history
• Main Title Theme  file info (composed by " Yvette Blais " (Ray Ellis) and " Jeff Michael " ( Norman "Norm" Prescott , main partner of Lou Scheimer in the animation studio Filmation Associates )
• 2.1 Starring the voices of
• 2.2 Also starring the voices of
• 3.1 Season 1
• 3.2 Season 2
• 4.1 Origins
• 4.2 The first recordings
• 4.3 Emmy win
• 4.4 Questionable canon and reintegration
• 4.5 Production inconsistencies
• 5 Proposed CGI reworking
• 6 Related topics
• 7.2 Documentary
• 7.3 Home video formats
• 8 External links

Summary [ ]

On the television network NBC , 22 episodes of The Animated Series were aired between September 1973 and October 1974 . Reruns continued on NBC through 1975 . The series was produced by the experienced animation house Filmation and the episodes were scripted by professional science fiction and Star Trek writers, including Larry Niven , D.C. Fontana , David Gerrold , and Samuel A. Peeples .

Some of the stories were sequels to episodes from the original series, such as " More Tribbles, More Troubles " (the follow-up to " The Trouble with Tribbles "), " Once Upon a Planet " (a sequel to " Shore Leave "), and " Mudd's Passion " (the follow-up to " Mudd's Women " and " I, Mudd ").

With the exception of Ensign Chekov , all of the regular characters from the original series continued to appear, voiced by the original actors from that series (Chekov was absent to cut down on costs of hiring the voice actors, although Walter Koenig penned an episode of the series, " The Infinite Vulcan "). Dr. McCoy was a full commander, and Nurse Chapel was a full lieutenant . New characters, such as Arex and M'Ress , were also featured. The show was the most expensive animated show on the air at the time, primarily because six "name" actors from Star Trek: The Original Series provided the voices for their characters. Nearly all the aliens and guest characters were voiced by James Doohan , Nichelle Nichols , and Majel Barrett , although some actors reprised their roles from the original series. Leonard Nimoy ( Spock ) is the only actor to voice his character in every episode of TAS. James Doohan, however, voiced different characters in every episode of the series, but missed only one episode as Montgomery Scott , the episode being " The Slaver Weapon ".

Among the returning guest actors (and characters) were Mark Lenard (as Sarek ), Roger C. Carmel (as Harry Mudd ), and Stanley Adams (as Cyrano Jones ). Although the characters Amanda Grayson , Bob Wesley , Kyle , Kor , Koloth , and Korax returned in The Animated Series , their voices were provided by the aforementioned voice talents of Majel Barrett and James Doohan.

The show featured a handful of new technologies like the recreation room (later the idea was reused in TNG , where it was known as a holodeck ) and the aqua-shuttle . It also featured many non- humanoid alien species (and even some alien officers aboard the Enterprise ) who could not have been featured within the original series' budget.

Roddenberry was adamant that this show was Star Trek (i.e. the continuation of the original series) leading to it having the same title. The addition of The Animated Series to the title was not until years later.

The series, which lasted two years, could be viewed as the completion of the Enterprise 's five-year mission. D.C. Fontana personally viewed all 22 episodes as year four. StarTrek.com considers the seasons collectively to represent the fifth and final year of the mission. [1] (X)

Although at one point Paramount Pictures did not regard the animated series as canonical, with the release of The Animated Series DVD, the studio appears to have changed its stance, and is leaning towards the animated series being part of established Star Trek canon. [2] (X) [3] (X) [4] (X) References from the series have gradually become more accepted in other Star Trek series, most notably on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Lower Decks (see the " questionable canon " section below for the complete list of references). Gene Roddenberry said that if he had known there would be more live-action Star Trek in the future, the animated series would have been far more logical and "canonable," or he might not have produced the animated series at all.

A DVD collection of the complete series was released on 21 November 2006 for Region 1.

Starring the voices of [ ]

• William Shatner as Captain Kirk
• Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock
• DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy

Also starring the voices of [ ]

• George Takei as Sulu
• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
• Majel Barrett as Chapel and M'Ress
• James Doohan as Scott and Arex

Episode list [ ]

Season 1 [ ].

TAS Season 1 , 16 episodes:

Season 2 [ ]

TAS Season 2 , 6 episodes:

Background information [ ]

Origins [ ].

Former Original Series writer D.C. Fontana reported in the fanzine Star-Borne of 22 June 1972 that, " Paramount... [is] enormously impressed by the quantity (and quality) of fan mail they continue to receive. The possibility seems to be slowly developing of a Star Trek feature movie for theatrical release, aimed at becoming the new Star Trek television pilot… on the network front, NBC still expresses great interest in doing Star Trek in some form. Both NBC and Paramount continue to receive a great deal of mail and have had to assign secretaries for the sole job of answering it. " [5]

NBC's surprising complete turnaround (as it were they who had canceled the live-action precursor in 1969, purportedly for poor ratings performance) not only stemmed from the spectacular resurgence of the Original Series in syndication , but also from its own accounting department. Shortly before Fontana's report, NBC had replaced its old Nielsen rating system with a new and updated one. Mystified by the success of a show in syndication they were convinced was a flop, they decided to run the original Original Series figures through their new system they and found out much to their surprise that it had not only reached full penetration into their most coveted target audience, the male population between 18 and 45, but also that the series had been one of the most successful series the network had ever aired. The sickening realization hit upon the dismayed network executives that they had slaughtered the proverbial goose that laid the golden eggs, something that every Star Trek fan at the time could have told them. Hurriedly approaching Roddenberry to see if the series could be revitalized, it turned out to be unfeasible, as Paramount had only a few months earlier cleared out their warehouses from the vast majority of the remaining Star Trek production assets, they either being scrapped, given away or simply stolen. Recreating them, calculated at US$750,000, was deemed far too cost-prohibitive. It did however lead NBC to commission the creation of The Animated Series . ( Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before , pp. 51-52)

Roddenberry was not really interested in doing a Star Trek animated show, but had his mind set on an actual live-action resurrection of the the show. However, as Marc Cushman explained, " His ultimate goal was to get Star Trek back into [live-action] production. And he felt that the animated series, if it did really well, could bring that about. " ( The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek : "Saturday Morning Pinks")

Even though they did not produce the new series themselves, Paramount Pictures, possessing all rights and title to the Star Trek brand, was legally the owner of the new property.

The first recordings [ ]

The first recording session for the animated Star Trek series was in June 1973 (on or prior to the fourth of that month ). ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 143; Star Trek: Communicator  issue 119 , p. 32) This was with the entirety of the series' regular cast and was the first time they had reunited since production of the original series ended in January 1969 . The recording session was held at Filmation's studios in Reseda, California , where the performers recorded the first three scripts for the series (" Beyond the Farthest Star ", " Yesteryear ", and " More Tribbles, More Troubles "). ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 119 , p. 32)

Lou Scheimer reminisces about the cast, " The glorious thing was getting them all together for the first recording session […] It was a joyous occasion. " ("Drawn to the Final Frontier – The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series ", TAS DVD ) William Shatner recalls how he got into character; " [Kirk had] been locked away inside me for almost four years, but as soon as I opened my mouth to read his first line he was back. Slipping back into that character was like putting on a comfortable old sweatshirt; it fit. " ( Up Till Now: The Autobiography , p. 171)

On 4 June 1973, NBC publicly announced that the initial recording session had gone ahead. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 119 , p. 32)

Emmy win [ ]

In 1975, the animated series of Star Trek won a Daytime Emmy Award in the area of "Best Children's Series" for the 1974-1975 television season. Although Star Trek 's original series had repeatedly been nominated for Emmys, this was the first such award that the franchise actually won. It became also the only best-series Emmy ever won by Star Trek as of 2020. It beat out Captain Kangaroo and The Pink Panther . ( Star Trek: The Animated Series - special feature : "Drawn to the Final Frontier – The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series "; Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before , p. 57, et al. ) Incidentally, the series had already been nominated for the same award in its inaugural debut the year previously, [6] but lost out on that occasion to PBS 's Zoom .

The series essentially won the award on the basis of a certain episode. " When Filmation submitted Star Trek for the Best Children's Series Emmy, [' How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth '] is the episode they submitted, " explains David Wise , a co-writer of that installment. ("How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" audio commentary ) The episode's other co-writer, Russell Bates , comments, " [The episode] became the only credential submitted when Filmation received an Emmy nomination for the series, and thus was instrumental in the winning of a 1975 Emmy Award. " Bates also notes that the Emmy was not the only accolade that the episode attained. [7]

Shortly after Hal Sutherland and his family moved out of Los Angeles to Washington state , he received a call that informed him of the Emmy nomination. He remembers, " This was exciting news and I spread the word to all of our friends and neighbors in case Filmation picked up the Emmy. " As he learned prior to the event, it was to be presented in New York and Lou Scheimer decided to bring his own family to the festivities. [8] The ceremony was actually on a boat in the New York harbor. Lou Scheimer's son, Lane, heard a practice session, below-decks, of the announcements being rehearsed. The elder Scheimer reflects, " He said, 'Dad, don't worry, I just saw them down there and they said it was Captain Kangaroo ' [....] So I was sitting there, drinking wine, not worried, and [getting] half-plastered. " ( Star Trek Magazine Souvenir Special , p. 58) Scheimer also personally doubted that the animated Star Trek series was about to receive the award. He states, " I was absolutely certain we weren't going to win; there was no way that show could win because it really was not a kids' show. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 16 , p. 68)

Hal Sutherland recalls tuning into the televised coverage of the event; " I remember gathering the family to watch the award ceremonies with me. I hoped to make them proud of what we had accomplished in some way. Sitting in front of the TV, I watched with anxiety as the nominations for best animated series came up […] The award envelope was opened and Star Trek was announced the winner for its category. " [9] Lou Scheimer (who says he was "a nervous wreck" at the time), also recollects the announcement; " Cyril Richard gets up there and says, 'And the best children's programming for Saturday morning is Star Trek and Lou Shimmer [ sic ]. I didn't know what to do. You cannot tell, but I was floating. " ( Star Trek Magazine Souvenir Special , p. 58) Hal Sutherland continues, " Lou stepped to the podium to make his acceptance speech. " [10] A transcript of that speech follows:

Lou Scheimer accepts the series' only Emmy

Lou Scheimer recalls the shock of having to collect the award; " I was totally flabbergasted when we did [win]. I didn't know what to say; I was not prepared. I was just aghast at the idea of being in front of all those people, waiting to hear me say something meaningful. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 16 , p. 68)

Watching Lou Scheimer's acceptance speech was a very emotional experience for Hal Sutherland and he was enormously disgruntled that Scheimer thanked Norm Prescott rather than him. Although Sutherland never expressed his extreme disappointment to the award recipient, Scheimer finally apologized to Sutherland in 2004 . " He […] sorrowfully related to me an apology for his 'drunken' statement at the Emmy affair regarding his confusion between Norm and I and the production credits, " explained Sutherland. " We'd both carried that haunting memory all those many years, neither wanting to bring up the tender subject. We later kissed [and made up, putting the issue behind them]. " [11]

Lou Scheimer criticized the winning of the award, saying that – even though it was "the only Emmy I've ever gotten for a show" – it was inappropriate for the animated Star Trek to receive an award for a children's show, since the series was actually meant to be " a show for the entire family and anybody who was really a fan of the original live-action show. " ("Drawn to the Final Frontier – The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series ", TAS DVD ) Norm Prescott, on the other hand, considered the award to be a high point in Filmation's history. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 119 , p. 79) Both Filmation, in general, and the writers of "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth", were happy that the episode gained the series the award. David Wise reminisces, " We, Russell [Bates] and I, considered that an achievement. Filmation was thrilled and invited us to an Emmy party and all sorts of fun things like that. " ("How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" audio commentary) Gene Roddenberry regarded the award win as "the best proof" that the animated series had been "a fairly good job." ( The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture , p. 20) D.C. Fontana was also "pleased" that the franchise had finally won an Emmy, later stating, " I was thrilled to death. " ("Drawn to the Final Frontier – The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series ", TAS DVD ) In their text commentary for series finale " The Counter-Clock Incident ", Michael and Denise Okuda describe the Emmy win as the series having been "honored." The book Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before (p. 57) refers to the win as "a fitting send-off" for the series.

Considering the efforts the writers, including Bates, put in to tell more mature stories akin to the main series, the win of a "children's" award turned out to be somewhat of a mixed blessing as it cemented the impression of Star Trek being an immature, superficial show for adolescents only at best in the minds of the non-fan society at large, which started to become wary of the emerging " Trekkie " phenomenon. It became a large part of the reasons why to date a substantial part of "Trekdom", Creator Gene Roddenberry included, continued to refuse to consider The Animated Series part of canon, as related hereafter. ( Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series , pp. 8 & 153) Most ironically, the six-episode second season of Star Trek: Short Treks , which only became nominated in 2020 for Star Trek 's fifth "major" Emmy Award, did include two animated episodes, " Ephraim and Dot " and " The Girl Who Made the Stars ", specifically intended for children.

Questionable canon and reintegration [ ]

According to Voyages of Imagination [ page number? • edit ] , the Animated Series was officially removed from canon at Gene Roddenberry's request in 1988, with the exception of some parts involving Spock's youth, from Fontana's episode " Yesteryear ". Roddenberry was partly motivated to do so because of his disappointment that the animated series did not bring about his ultimate goal of getting back Star Trek as a live-action production, as mentioned above . The removal from canon had already been confirmed previously by reference book author Mike Okuda in the introductions of his works. ( Star Trek Chronology  (2nd ed., p. vii); Star Trek Encyclopedia  (4th ed., vol. 1, p. introduction); [12] (X) ) Paramount Pictures has followed suit by elevating the request to policy, having officially declared the series non-canon. ( Star Trek Encyclopedia  (1st ed., p. iii))

Despite this request, Memory Alpha recognizes The Animated Series as a valid resource. There were also strong indications from the StarTrek.com (former) official website that TAS was unilaterally, yet formally, re-added to the official canon in 2006 by the franchise for the sole purpose of commercially promoting the occasion of the series' release on DVD that year. ( [13] (X) [14] (X) [15] (X) ; See also the content policy ).

Writers from later Star Trek series have integrated various references from the series into their works. Star Trek: Enterprise writer/producer Manny Coto once remarked, " They did some great stuff in the animated series and why not use some of that? " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 37, No. 2, p. 37) Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine writing staffer Ronald D. Moore likewise commented, " It's kinda cool to throw in the odd reference [to TAS] here and there. " ( AOL chat , 1998 ) The following references were used in subsequent series:

• The city of Shi'Kahr resurfaced on an okudagram in " The Emissary " called the "Shi-Kar Desert Survival, Vulcan", which was also a reference to Spock's kahs-wan . The city was again indirectly mentioned in " Fusion " in reference to the Shi'Kahr Academy , and later served as the namesake for the USS ShirKahr , seen but not mentioned in " Tears of the Prophets ". A Vulcan city which looks very similar to Shi'Kahr was shown in the new establishing shots used in the remastered version of " Amok Time ".
• An okudagram featured in " Eye of the Beholder " referenced the Sepek Academic Scholarship , which coincides with the name of a Vulcan child in " Yesteryear ".
• Vulcan's Forge was later referenced in " Change of Heart " and was the focus of a three-episode ENT arc: " The Forge ", " Awakening ", and " Kir'Shara ".
• Both Lunaport and the kahs-wan were mentioned in " The Catwalk ".
• The sehlat , which first appeared in "Yesteryear" in animated form, was recreated in CGI in ENT : " The Forge ".
• The nearby planet seen briefly behind Shi'Kahr made it into the original version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture . For the director's cut it was decided to remove the planet (named Charis or T'Khut in the novel Spock's World ).
• The title of " healer " for a Vulcan physician was referred to for Healer Senva in " Prophet Motive ".
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country confirmed Kirk's middle name as "Tiberius", a name first revealed in " Bem ". The name had been used in novels , including in the preface to the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture .
• A chart of Federation space, seen in " Conspiracy ", contained references to solar objects first mentioned in TAS, including the planets Canopus III , Lactra VII , Omega Cygni , Phylos , and Kzin , and the stars Beta Lyrae and Pallas 14 .
• In the episode " Once More Unto the Breach ", Kor recalled his former vessel, the IKS Klothos , which was the ship he commanded in the " The Time Trap ". It was a D5 Klingon ship (where D5s were later shown in Enterprise ), rendered as a questionably-drawn D7, but in both cases it was commanded by Kor.
• The episode " Broken Link " referred to Edosian orchids , the episode " These Are the Voyages... " mentioned Edosian suckerfish , and there were several other Enterprise references to the Edosian slug – all homages to the Edosian Lt. Arex .
• Coincidental references which may or may not be attributed to terms first used in The Animated Series include Klingon Imperial Fleet (" The Time Trap ") and Starbase 23 (" The Terratin Incident ").
• Amanda 's maiden name, Grayson, was given in the series, and later established in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier .
• The holodeck concept first appeared in " The Practical Joker ", and was later adopted into Star Trek: The Next Generation . The use of holograms was used in " Lethe ", showing that USS Discovery was equipped with similar technology during 2250s .
• The idea of an additional turbolift on the bridge first appeared in TAS, and ultimately adopted in the live-action franchise from Star Trek: Phase II onward.
• The act of entering the warp nacelles first appeared in TAS, and later appeared in the TNG episode " Eye of the Beholder " and in the ENT episode " The Catwalk ".
• In " The Counter-Clock Incident ", a race is shown that has a life span where individuals start out old and grow younger until death. Star Trek: Voyager later reused this idea in one of its episodes for a race of aliens .
• In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , two members of the Caitian species are seen, which FASA 's RPG sourcebook , Star Trek IV Sourcebook Update , identified as the same species as M'Ress .
• The robot grain ships from " More Tribbles, More Troubles " have later been established in the 2008 remastered TOS episodes " Charlie X " (manned version) and " The Ultimate Computer " (robot version) as belonging to the Antares -type of starships. Later to also appear as wreckage in the Lower Decks episode " Terminal Provocations ".
• Star Trek: Discovery confirmed Robert April from " The Counter-Clock Incident " to be an important Starfleet captain in the episode " Choose Your Pain " when Saru asks the ship's computer to list Starfleet's most decorated captains. He was later confirmed as the first captain of the USS Enterprise , preceding Christopher Pike , in " Brother ".
• Lower Decks also made a mention of Spock Two from " The Infinite Vulcan " in " Veritas " before featuring his skeleton in " Kayshon, His Eyes Open ".
• " Second Contact " introduced another Caitian, T'Ana , as a series' regular.
• " Envoys " included the Aurelian from " Yesteryear "and the Vendorian from " The Survivor ".
• " Much Ado About Boimler " introduced an Edosian character whose species was first featured through the series' regular Arex .
• " Mugato, Gumato " included the appearance of a Kzinti from " The Slaver Weapon ".
• " An Embarrassment Of Dooplers " depicted a total of five TAS species appearances, the aforementioned Caitian, Kzinti, Edosian, Aurelians, and a prominent return of several members of Em/3/Green's species , who first appeared in " The Jihad ".
• " Mining The Mind's Mines " included the appearance of Kukulkan from "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth".

Several non-canon productions have also made reference to TAS:

• A second exit for the bridge, referenced in Franz Joseph 's Star Fleet Technical Manual .
• DC Comics' writer Len Wein reintroduced M'Ress and Arex into the post- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home comics , and they were further developed by Michael Carlin and Peter David until that series went into hiatus.
• Some of the worlds and aliens in the series were included in the 1989 book called The Worlds of the Federation .
• Author Peter David later integrated M'Ress and Arex into his 24th century book series Star Trek: New Frontier , beginning with the novel Gateways #6: Cold Wars . They also appear in IDW's "New Frontier" comic miniseries, Turnaround , by David.
• The trilogy Crucible by David R. George III includes the plot from "Yesteryear" in its history.
• The IDW comic miniseries Star Trek: Year Four takes place during the TAS timeframe and features appearances by Arex and M'Ress.

Production inconsistencies [ ]

One unfortunate reality of an animated television series was the occasional color discrepancy.

The most notable color discrepancy was shown with several appearances of the color pink. Unknown to the rest of the production staff, director Sutherland was color-blind, so to him, pink was light gray. (" Drawn to the Final Frontier – The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series ", TAS DVD ) While true, Kaplan was not color-blind and was often conscientious of the color decisions being made.

The following images are examples of Irv Kaplan's personal color choices:

Reversed color variant

According to Bob Kline, " Pink equals Irv Kaplan. Irv was in charge of ink and paint, coloring the various characters and props (and he would do it himself in his office, he would sit down with a cel and paint it). He was also referred to by many people there as the purple and green guy. You'll see in a lot of scenes, purple and green used together – that was one of his preferences. He made dragons red, the Kzintis' costumes pink. It was all Irv Kaplan's call. He wasn't listening to anyone else when he picked colors, or anything. " ( Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series , p. 26)

Several other unintentional coloring issues also cropped up. Kirk's type 1 phaser had its color scheme reversed (black on silver/grey, instead of silver on black), and some shots featured characters wearing Starfleet uniforms of the wrong division or colors.

As a result of the use of recycled footage, there were also many instances of randomly misplaced characters and equipment. Recurring inconsistencies in this vein include the random appearance of Lt. Kyle in several transporter room scenes, close-up shots of Scott operating the transporter controls, the interchanged appearances with Uhura and M'Ress at the communications station, and the appearance of characters on the bridge while simultaneously appearing in another section of the ship or on the surface of a planet.

Another inconsistency that appears sometimes is Scott shown with the rank of captain, and Kirk with a unknown rank insignia.

The Animated Series also made substantial changes to set locations used in the original series:

• A second turbolift is installed on the bridge, next to the main viewscreen.
• The bridge stations are rounded, and form a perfect circle, instead of the hexagonal TOS bridge set.
• The access stairs to the upper level engineering deck (seen in TOS seasons 2 and 3) are gone.

One production glitch that was avoided from being televised was Uhura having white skin. " Someone in the paint department used Nurse Chapel's colors on Uhura, who turned Caucasian with the flip of a brush! " exclaims Malcolm C. Klein, a management and marketing consultant to Filmation. " Fortunately, that one was caught before the film reached the lab. " ( Starlog , Vol. 2, No. 6, p. 47)

On many other occasions, body parts on various characters would go missing. According to animator Bob Kline , " it was usually something the cameraman did on purpose or accident to keep the cel levels at six. You couldn't use more than six cel levels under the camera. " This was often completed to allow more animation to appear on screen, as any more than six cells would make the animation appear "muddier". ( Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series , p. 27)

Proposed CGI reworking [ ]

In 1998 , there were talks of TAS being re-worked with CGI animation. According to Mainframe Entertainment ( Reboot ):

“Mainframe proposes to produce a television series continuing the original adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701). The new series will reunite the original ‘young’ crew by the use of modern technology and production methods developed by Mainframe over the last 5 years.

The new series will incorporate a ‘virtual’ cast performing in 3D computer generated sets, bringing together the advantages of new technology with the sensibilities of traditional film making.

In the early Seventies, ‘Filmation’ produced 22 one-half hour traditionally animated episodes based on the original ‘STAR TREK’ franchise.

It is our intention to take these ‘Filmation’ episodes and use them as a starting point to craft the new series. By using the original recordings of the core cast, carefully re-working the scripts, and rerecording all incidental characters, we believe that it is possible to bring the storylines up to the high standards expected of a ‘STAR TREK’ series today.”

The project was never realized. [16]

Related topics [ ]

• TAS directors
• TAS performers
• TAS recurring character appearances
• TAS writers
• Star Trek Logs by Alan Dean Foster
• Undeveloped TAS episodes
• Star Trek: Final Frontier , a proposed but undeveloped animated series
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Star Trek: Prodigy
• These Are the Voyages: Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek in the 1970s, Volume 1 (1970-75) , February 2019
• Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series , September/October 2019

Documentary [ ]

• The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek : "Saturday Morning Pinks" ( The History Channel , 5 November 2021)

Home video formats [ ]

• Star Trek: The Animated Series on VHS
• Star Trek: The Animated Series on Betamax
• Star Trek: The Animated Series on LaserDisc
• Star Trek: The Animated Series  on DVD
• Star Trek: The Animated Series  on Blu-ray

External links [ ]

• Star Trek: The Animated Series at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek: The Animated Series at Wikipedia
• Star Trek: The Animated Series at StarTrek.com
• The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series (X) at StarTrek.com
• The Animated Series Gets Real (X) at StarTrek.com
• DanHauserTrek.com – Guide to Animated Star Trek
• Star Trek: The Animated Series  at Ex Astris Scientia
• Star Trek: The Animated Series at the Internet Movie Database
• StarTrekAnimated.com – fan site
• 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)
• 3 Star Trek: The Next Generation

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Published Oct 11, 2021

10 Fun Facts About Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

"What does God need with a starship?"

StarTrek.com

Let’s just say it: Star Trek V is not always considered one of Trek ’s finest moments by some fans. Audiences were shocked to learn that Spock had a brother they’d never heard of — there would be similar indignance at the arrival of Michael Burnham 28 years later — and underwhelmed by the visual effects as well as the overall story. But despite its flaws, the movie has a lot of highly entertaining moments as well as its own special charm. What Kirk-Spock-McCoy fan can resist those campfire scenes? And what does God need with a starship?

To celebrate the film’s 32nd anniversary, here are some fun facts you may not be aware of.

The original story was going to be about meeting God… for real

William Shatner says he got the inspiration for the movie after watching people like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker on TV. This was during the heyday of televised evangelism, when people were forking over all of their money to already-rich TV celebs claiming to have a direct connection to God. In his original plan for the movie, detailed by his daughter Lisabeth in her book Captain's Log: William Shatner's Personal Account of the Making of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , the Enterprise crew was actually going to find God, only to have him turn out to be the Devil. There was even a scene where McCoy was dragged to Hell by furies, resulting in Kirk and Spock making like Orpheus to get him back.

Sybok wasn’t originally Spock’s brother

As other elements of the story shifted, so did its central antagonist. Originally named Zar, he was going to be a zealot similar to the Ayatollah Khomeini, who had become the supreme religious leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. As the story shifted, the character changed along with it, until he was less like the Ayatollah and more like professor-turned-LSD-advocate Timothy Leary.

The story called for Spock and the Enterprise crew to temporarily betray Kirk and follow Sybok. The creative team was struggling to find a way to make that seem plausible, and then producer Harve Bennett “lit up” (says Shatner in his Movie Memories book) and shouted that he had the solution: Sybok would be Spock’s brother. Shatner hated the idea but was convinced to let Bennett map out the story, and he ended up liking it.

Of course, when Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley heard that their characters were supposed to betray their captain, they each put a foot down; they knew their characters better than anyone, and they would never turn on Jim Kirk. They insisted that the story be changed, and ultimately, it was.

There were supposed to be all these Rock Men…

As William Shatner and writer David Loughery describe it, the movie’s original ending was huge in scope and highly cinematic, but every time the budget got whittled down, another key element disappeared; they chipped away at the ending until there was very little left of it.

The script called for the Furies to transform into Rock Men who’d explode from the dust, breathing fire and granite. It would feel like Dante’s Inferno ! The plan was to have ten Rock Men, until they learned the cost would be $350,000 each—which meant three and a half million dollars just for the ending. The studio told Shatner he could afford one Rock Man, so he came up with a plan for exactly how he’d film it to make his one Rock Man look like ten. Small problem: The costume wouldn’t be ready until the day before filming. When they finally saw the stuntman in the suit for the first time, it was nothing like Shatner had pictured; he said it just looked like a guy with pieces of slate stuck to him. There also wasn’t a way for the costume to breathe fire without harming the stuntman inside. They did a camera test (which is a well worth watching special feature on the Blu-ray), then dumped the whole idea.

There were familiar faces from both Trek ’s past and its future

In addition to our beloved Original Series cast members, there were other familiar faces in the cast that popped up more than once in the Star Trek franchise, including two Klingon Chancellors.

David Warner, who played St. John Talbot in The Final Frontier , would play both Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , and Gul Madred, the Cardassian who tortured Picard in TNG’s “Chain of Command.”

Charles Cooper, Klingon General Korrd, would go on to play Chancellor K’mpec in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation — in the same cloak he’d worn in the movie. Another memorable TNG guest star, George Murdock, aka “God,” would play Admiral Hanson in the TNG two-parter (and season 3 cliffhanger) “Best of Both Worlds.”

Rex Holman (J’onn, the very first person you see in the movie), has some old school Trek cred: He played Morgan Earp in the Original Series third season episode “Spectre of the Gun.”

And there are more! Look up Todd Bryant and Spice Williams next time you’re on a Trek trivia mission.

The movie would’ve shown an addition to Mount Rushmore

With the focus on the Kirk-Spock-McCoy trinity, Sulu and Chekov didn’t get a whole lot to do in this movie. (Walter Koenig even told the authors of The 50-Year Mission: The First 25 Years that he only worked on it for eight days.) They did have another scene together that was cut, which took place in front of Mount Rushmore.

“You’ve seen one national park, you’ve seen them all,” says Chekov, but in this case, he’s wrong. In the future — at least in the future of Star Trek V — there’s a fifth head there, and it belongs to a Black female president, named Sarah Susan Eckert in Dillard’s novelization.

That fan dance was more controversial than you think

For better or for worse, there’s a strange scene in the movie where  Uhura must do a sensual “fan dance” in order to distract Sybok’s soldiers. Screenwriter David Loughery suggested it as a joke and was shocked when they loved the idea. “Nichelle has great gams, so anybody would stop and take a look, and that’s all we needed,” said Shatner in the DVD extras.

Nichelle Nichols was happy to do it. She was an accomplished singer and dancer who had toured with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton,and was looking forward to having more of her singing in Star Trek. Shatner and Bennett told her that the final decision on what vocals would be used was Jerry Goldmsith’s, but they’d let her know what he decided, and then… they didn’t. She wrote in her book Beyond Uhura that she showed up for a looping session and Shatner, assuming she’d been filled in, said it was too bad “about the music,” and that he knew she “would have done just as good a job.” The song would be performed by a group called Hiroshima. Nichols was crushed, and ultimately disappointed by the scene in the final film.

For those wondering about Nichols fan dance costume, she revealed during a fan Q&A that “I was wearing… me. And, of course, I had a G-string on.”

The key to the film’s distinctive look: location, location, location

The locations were challenging, but worth the effort. The climbing scenes were done at Yosemite National Park. Shatner loved free climbing and was in his element, but the famous giant rock formation El Capitan presented a problem for the crew, who couldn’t get close enough to do closeups. A wall was built in a parking lot for those shots. But that free fall was really performed by stuntman Kenny Bates, earning him the credit for the highest descender fall in the United States at that time.

The Nimbus III scenes were filmed in Owens Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. The location was also used in the movie Tremors, starring Kevin Bacon. Six degrees achieved!

As for Ska Ka Ree, that was filmed at the Trona Pinnacles in central California. This unique geological formation was a popular location, also seen in movies like Battlestar Galactic a and the original Planet of the Apes , as well as the video for Rihanna’s “Sledgehammer,” released to promote the movie Star Trek Beyond .

The campfire scenes were the last ones filmed

To make those scenes feel special, it was the final sequence on the schedule. With all of the dust-ridden deserts and giant cliffs already behind them, the last days of production were spent around the campfire, on a set on the Paramount lot. There wasn’t time to put tops on the trees, so Shatner had to keep the shots tighter than he would’ve liked, but he’s still happy with how everything turned out. They had a small celebration with champagne and cake after the last shot was done.

There’s a backstory to Spock’s “marsh melons” mistake

About those campfire scene marshmallows…  they came from Kraft, as did Spock’s dispenser. A tie-in product was created so fans could have their very own marshmallow dispensers (via mail order; this was 1989). And yes, you can still find them on eBay.

But here’s the real question: Why does Spock mistakenly call them “marsh melons”? In J.M. Dillard’s novelization of the movie, McCoy knows that Spock is going to do extensive pre-camping research, so he pranks him by getting a computer tech to change “marshmallows” to “marsh melons” everywhere they’re referenced. That’s also why he gets such a kick out of watching Spock say it.

They made a few mistakes

This wasn’t the first movie with an onscreen blunder, and it won’t be the last. There’s one right at the beginning, when Kirk falls off El Capitan and is rescued by Spock (in his awesome levitation boots) just before hitting the ground. When he starts his fall, he has a scruffy face you’d expect from someone on a camping vacation, but by the time he gets to the bottom, he’s clean-shaven. (Even in the future, that seems like an unlikely shaving method.)

Another one happens when Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are on the run from Sybok’s followers and (once again with help from Spock’s levitation books), they zoom up the turboshaft together. They pass deck 52 twice (oops), then go all the way to 78 when Star Trek lore tells us that the ship only has 23 decks. Not only that, the lowest number is traditionally the highest deck; the bridge atop the saucer section is deck 1. But like the shaving mistake, it doesn’t really affect the story… and wasn’t it worth it just to hear McCoy tell Kirk and Spock, ‘You two go ahead, I’ll wait for the next car”?

And finally…

The movie suffered from budget cuts and numerous setbacks, but those who worked on it still had fun, with “exuberance” being the word most used to describe its enthusiastic director. Shatner took a lot of flak for the film, but he sums up his experience beautifully in the behind-the-scenes doc:

“I was in a joyful act of creation all the time, whether it was working or not… We just had a joyful time making a film.”

(And for another fascinating look at Star Trek V , check out Trek V Wrapped Filming 30 Years Ago by Maria Jose and John Tenuto.)

Laurie Ulster (she/her) is a freelance writer and a TV producer who somehow survived her very confusing adolescence as the lone female Star Trek fan in middle school. She's a writer/editor and was the Supervising Producer on After Trek.

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For Marvel, Star Wars and Star Trek, animation is now the boldest new frontier

Spin-off cartoons have come a long way since Droids and Free Willy...

Animated spin-offs from blockbuster movies are nothing new. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, heroes from Star Wars , Bill & Ted, Back to the Future, The Mask, Ace Ventura, the Ghostbusters and even Free Willy were routinely transformed into cartoon form.

They were primarily made for kids watching TV on Saturday mornings, and often bore just a passing resemblance to the source material. The original film actors rarely showed up to reprise their roles – notable exceptions were Anthony Daniels as C-3PO in Droids, and Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures – while numerous liberties were taken with character designs and stories. Suddenly nerdy spook-hunter Egon Spengler was given an incongruous bleach-blond look in The Real Ghostbusters. The cartoon version of Free Willy saw the kid developing the unlikely ability to converse with his orca BFF.

In other words, these spin-offs rarely chimed with the original filmmaker’s vision, and were not – and were never supposed to be – part of a wider mythology.

These days, however, things are different, with animated shows now being designed to function as part of the vast, multimedia universes that have become the gold standard in Hollywood. They’re also arguably the place where pop-culture behemoths like Star Wars , Marvel and Star Trek get to push their respective franchises in exciting new directions.

• How to watch the Marvel movies in order
• How to watch Star Trek in order
• Best Netflix shows : what to stream now

Marvel's sliding doors

The MCU has long been proving that Cold War-style secret agents, Norse gods, and war-mongering aliens can exist side-by-side. Now that Loki’s season 1 finale has opened a portal to the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse, we’re set to see a new breed of reality-hopping adventures. Crucially, however, it’s not the much-talked-about Spider-Man: No Way Home or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that will get the first opportunity to play around in Marvel Studios’ multidimensional sand pit. Instead, animated Disney Plus series What If…? will be built around the sort of Sliding Doors moments that have been fuelling fan conversations for decades.

What if Peggy Carter had been dosed up with the Super Soldier Serum instead of Steve Rogers? What if Erik Killmonger had saved Tony Stark from the Afghanistan bomb blast that set him on the path to redemption? What if the Avengers were turned into zombies? Bringing back the stars of the MCU to reprise their roles (including the late Chadwick Boseman’s final performance as King T’Challa), What If…? gives Marvel the chance to show us its biggest heroes in an entirely new light.

Intriguingly, What If…?’s nine episodes aren’t just throwaway one-shots with the sole aim of sparking debate. Just as the fun Harley Quinn show has played on DC’s knack for constantly reimagining Gotham City, What If…? is apparently tapping into the MCU’s trademark interconnectivity.

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Loki star Tom Hiddleston revealed on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon (via ScreenRant ) that What If…? “sets up a bunch of stuff in the MCU”, while the omnipotent, timestream-observing Watcher (played by Bond regular Jeffrey Wright) is the narrator providing the connective tissue that will presumably help to establish the rules of Marvel’s nascent multiverse.

Rather than being a spin-off it promises to be just as essential to completists as its live-action counterparts – while also having the freedom to break free of MCU’s complex, 13-year-old continuity. Once again, Marvel has found a way to have its cake and eat it.

A new Enterprise

The most radical offering on the final frontier of the flourishing TV branch of the Star Trek franchise is also animated. While Star Treks: Discovery and Picard have dabbled in more colorful metaphors and story arcs than their predecessors, they’re still fundamentally following the “crew on a mission” formula that’s been at the heart of Trek since Kirk and Spock first boldly went in the 1960s. Lower Decks, however, has shifted the rules of engagement by pitching itself as an all-out comedy.

Aside from the occasional one-liner, raised Vulcan eyebrow, or jaunt to the holodeck, laughter hasn’t always been high in the Star Trek mix. But Lower Decks functions because the jokes don’t come at the expense of its being a Star Trek show. Much like Galaxy Quest two decades earlier, it never feels like a spoof, the core cast of ensigns never questioning the goals of Starfleet or their place within it – in fact, most of the crew are impressively competent.

At the same time, the animated medium means that the effects budget for each episode is effectively limitless – want to create a massive alien monster? No problem – which brings a storytelling freedom that the writers wholeheartedly embrace. It’s much easier to be experimental and radical when you’re not risking hundreds of millions of dollars to do it, because if a gag shoots for a moon and misses, you’re not going to break the bank, or a carefully planned story arc. Lower Decks is taking advantage of a formula that has allowed Rick and Morty and Futurama to earn a place among the most inventive science fiction TV shows of the 21st century.

Force Visions

The upcoming Star Wars: Visions has the potential to innovate even further. Anime-inspired brand extensions have been a success for both The Matrix (though the quality varied, 2003’s The Animatrix successfully expanded the Wachowskis’ universe) and Pacific Rim spin-off The Black. But it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate destination for exciting Japanese animation talent than Star Wars.

That famous galaxy far, far away has always been heavily influenced by Japan, from the Samurai-inspired Jedi knights, to the way George Lucas borrowed story ideas from legendary director Akira Kurosawa – particularly his The Hidden Fortress. Now, by giving anime studios the chance to put their own spin on Star Wars, Lucasfilm is opening the door to an entirely different point of view on Star Wars – or, as Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy put it at the Disney Investor Day in December 2020, “This anthology collection will bring ten fantastic visions from several of the leading Japanese anime studios, offering a fresh and diverse cultural perspective to Star Wars."

With the stories unencumbered by adhering to existing Star Wars canon , these new creators should be getting free rein to tell the stories they want to tell. In a franchise that’s had a tendency to play it safe since Disney bought Lucas’s empire in 2012 – Rian Johnson’s efforts to be radical on The Last Jedi were quickly reset by JJ Abrams’ more by-the-numbers The Rise of Skywalker – a fresh perspective could be exactly what Star Wars needs. Visions could be the testing ground, the place where Lucasfilm figures out where it should go next on TV, in movies and beyond. A new hope, indeed.

Marvel's What If...? debuts on Disney Plus on August 11. Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 airs on Paramount Plus in the US (and Amazon Prime elsewhere) from August 12. Star Wars: Visions lands on Disney Plus from September 22.

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Richard is a freelance journalist specialising in movies and TV, primarily of the sci-fi and fantasy variety. An early encounter with a certain galaxy far, far away started a lifelong love affair with outer space, and these days Richard's happiest geeking out about Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel and other long-running pop culture franchises. In a previous life he was editor of legendary sci-fi magazine SFX, where he got to interview many of the biggest names in the business – though he'll always have a soft spot for Jeff Goldblum who (somewhat bizarrely) thought Richard's name was Winter.

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The Final Frontier

By Michael Chabon

Ensign Spock, a young half-Vulcan science officer fresh out of Starfleet Academy and newly posted to the Enterprise, found himself alone in a turbolift with the ship’s formidable first officer, a human woman known as Number One. They were waiting for me to rescue them from the silence that reigns in all elevators, as universal as the vacuum of space.

I looked up from the screen of my iPad to my father, lying unconscious, amid tubes and wires, in his starship of a bed, in the irresolute darkness of an I.C.U. at 3 A.M . Ordinarily when my father lay on his back his abdomen rose up like the telescope dome of an observatory, but now there seemed to be nothing between the bed rails at all, just a blanket pulled as taut as a drum skin and then, on the pillow, my father’s big, silver-maned head. Scarecrow, after the flying monkeys had finished with him. His head was tilted upward and his jaw hung slack. All the darkness in the room seemed to pool in his open mouth.

Hey, Dad, I need a line, I said, breaking, if only in my head, the silence that reigned between us. I’m writing dialogue for Mr. Spock.

I’d tried talking aloud to my father a few times in the hours since he’d lost consciousness, telling him all the things that, I’d read, you were supposed to tell a dying parent. There was never any trace of a response. No twitch of an eye or a cheek, no ghost of a tender or rueful smile. I wanted to believe that he’d heard me, heard that I loved him, that I forgave him, that I was thankful to him for having taught me to love so many of the things I loved most, “ Star Trek ” among them, but it felt like throwing a wish and a penny into a dry fountain. My father and I had already done all the talking we were ever going to do.

Can’t help you there, said my father, a pediatrician, though long retired from practice. Now, if you were writing dialogue for Doctor Spock . . .

My father had slipped into unconsciousness twelve hours earlier, about an hour after we stopped the intravenous adrenaline that had been keeping his blood pressure up. Until then, he’d been responsive, aware, irritable, funny, querulous, weak, confused, furious, loopy, but recognizably himself. A studied, even militant avoider of exercise all his life, he had been seriously overweight for most of the past forty years, diabetic for a decade. His kidneys were failing. So was his liver. The latest enemy was acute hypotension, which when untreated would drop him into the scary nether regions of the mmHg scale. But the norepinephrine drip that could magically restore my father to a close approximation of the man we remembered was likely to put him into cardiac arrest. His caregivers had gently and regretfully begun to suggest that it might be time to stop treating this particular element among the complex of things that were killing him. A heart attack would be painful and frightening.

It was decided, not easily and not without reservation, to let go of him, and to let him go. It was agreed that, when he went, he ought not to be alone. My stepmother and two half brothers, who had been caring for my father without respite over the course of his decline, were exhausted and depleted. My brother and I, the sons of his first marriage, had flown up from the Bay Area to Portland, hoping not just to spend time with our dad but to give everyone else a break. So I took the first night shift. Following the logic of mercy, I was hoping that it might also be the last.

Back in the turbolift, Number One made the banal observation that people were reluctant to talk in elevators. Ensign Spock conceded her point, but I wondered if this would remain true in the twenty-third century. Once the Eugenics Wars were over, and Zefram Cochrane had invented the warp drive, surely humanity would find a way to eliminate awkwardness, along with war, intolerance, avarice, superstition, and other pressing social ills. I tried to divert myself, with this question, from pondering what it would be like if my father died while I was sitting next to his bed, in a sleeper chair, wearing drawstring pajama bottoms and an “Illmatic” T-shirt, with my stocking feet up on the extendable footrest and my iPad, in its keyboard case, open in my lap, writing a short film about Mr. Spock’s first day on the job. I wondered if I would see or otherwise sense the instant when the hundred billion neurons in my father’s brain abandoned the eighty-year feat of electrochemical legerdemain known as Robert Chabon, and the father I had loved so imperfectly, and by whom I had been so imperfectly loved, pulled off one last vanishing act.

I can give you the exact date of the first time I ever saw Mr. Spock on TV, I said. September 15, 1967.

Hmm, I had just started my fellowship at Albert Einstein. We were living in Flushing. So you would have been . . . ?

Four. I must have sneaked out of bed, or come to ask for a glass of water. I didn’t know that it was Mr. Spock, or that you were watching “Star Trek.” There was just this scary-looking guy with the ears and the eyebrows. A pointy-eared woman, too, with enormous hair. Super-scary music, two guys fighting in a place made out of rocks. One of them got his shirt slashed open. It was just a glimpse, and I completely forgot it until, I don’t know, maybe six years later, when I saw “Amok Time” in reruns. And “Amok Time” first aired on September 15, 1967. The first episode of the second season.

I had looked up the date on Memory Alpha, an indispensable online repository of “Trek” lore, when, as a brief detour from my work on a new series, “Star Trek: Picard,” I began planning to write a short film, “Q&A,” that would feature a youthful Mr. Spock.

“Amok Time,” my father said. The second-best episode.

Of the original series .

There’s only one series, for me.

I knew my father felt this way, and understood why, though I didn’t necessarily share the feeling. There was plenty more “Star Trek” to love. “The Inner Light,” from “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and “Far Beyond the Stars,” from “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” were two of my favorite episodes of television, period. But, when I heard the words “Star Trek,” I never pictured, say, the conflicted Klingon Starfleet officer Worf, or the buttock-headed, avaricious Ferengi, or the sleek, cetacean U.S.S. Voyager, from later series. I thought of the originals: Kirk and Spock and their Enterprise, the NCC-1701.

The best episode, of course, my father continued, No. 1, is “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Then “Amok Time.” Then, No. 3 . . . Ricardo Montalban.

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“Space Seed.”

Fourth, the Horta.

“Devil in the Dark.”

It was my job, always, to bother with the titles.

And five. Hmm.

Come on, I said. Spock with a goatee.

Of course. “Mirror, Mirror.”

There were no surprises here. I’d heard my father’s Top Five many times before; in his view, an opinion gained authority through repetition. Every once in a while, a dark horse might slip into the ranking—“The Doomsday Machine” (he had a soft spot for William Windom) or “Balance of Terror” (ditto for submarine movies, of which this was a variation with starships).

Tough to argue, I said. But, good as it is, I always have a hard time putting “City” at No. 1.

In terms of unchallenged quality, ambition fulfilled, and enfant-terrible provenance, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” originally written by the S.F. wonder boy Harlan Ellison, was kind of the “Citizen Kane” of “Star Trek.” But it was a time-travel story, set mostly in Depression-era New York, and to me it always felt wrong, though interesting, to say that the best episode of “Star Trek” was arguably its most anomalous.

“Amok Time” might not be the best, but I think it’s the most important, I said.

By addressing the question of Spock’s sexuality, and the nature of desire in a culture that eschews emotion, it makes the classic fan-fiction gesture: to find a hole in the quilt of canon, and patch it. Look at the earliest “Trek” fanzines, like Spockanalia , the first issue of which came out right around when “Amok Time” aired: they’re obsessed with Spock’s Vulcan heritage, his childhood, and, above all, his sexuality. “Amok Time” tried to patch those holes. It rewarded the fanfic impulse, rewarded fandom itself. That probably explains why “Trek” is still around after all these years.

My father endured my disquisition with unusual forbearance. Like all our conversations from then on, this one was doomed to take place on my terms.

So they’re in a turbolift. Then what?

Then they get stuck.

I’m working on it.

I went back to my script. One of the machines connected to my father was giving off short, exasperated sighs; another beeped conventionally. From time to time, my father made sounds of mild discomfort and agitation, but he never opened his eyes or spoke. Meanwhile, Ensign Spock and Number One began to understand that they would not be getting out of the turbolift anytime soon. Alone in that placeless place, in a niche carved out from the ordinary routines of duty, they had timeless time for conversation. Hidden things would be discovered and revealed.

I remember you writing Sherlock Holmes fan fiction when you were young. Not “Trek.”

I drew my own Starfleet starships, and Enterprise crew members from alien species. But I never wrote any stories.

I’d thought about this in the weeks since I’d come on as a writer and a producer, and eventually as the showrunner, for “Star Trek: Picard.” As a kid, I had tried my hand at writing fiction that mapped to Robert E. Howard’s “Hyborian Age,” Larry Niven’s “ Known Space ,” and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “Barsoom” (and, as an adult, I wrote two Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos stories), but never to the “Trek” universe, even though it took up far more space in the atlas of my imagination.

I guess, for me, it was always about the voice on the page. That was the clue I needed to start trying to “make my own.” I read all the James Blish and Alan Dean Foster adaptations, but they were never the voice of “Star Trek.” And I didn’t have the means, or maybe the chutzpah, to make my own fan episodes. Until now.

So, what hole are you patching?

The mystery of Spock’s smile, when he encounters the singing flower on Talos IV.

“The Menagerie.”

Yeah, or really “The Cage.”

That was the title of the original, unaired “Star Trek” pilot, famously rejected by NBC for being “too cerebral.” “The Cage” featured a captain named Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) in command of the Enterprise, with Number One (Majel Barrett, the wife of “Star Trek” ’s creator, Gene Roddenberry) as first officer and Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ) as science officer. Great swaths of it were later cleverly repurposed as flashback material in a first-season episode, “The Menagerie,” to tell the story of how Mr. Spock—the only character from the rejected pilot to carry over into the series—following the logic of mercy, hijacked the Enterprise in order to come to the aid of a paralyzed and horribly disfigured Pike, who was thereby established, in the “Trek” canon, as Captain Kirk’s immediate predecessor.

Even a casual fan watching “The Menagerie” immediately noted striking differences, beyond those of cast and characters, between the eras of Captains Pike and Kirk: differences in set design, costumes, makeup, lighting, direction, visual and sound effects. Kirk and crew never commented on or seemed to notice these discontinuities, which were all implicitly attributable to the passage of time between Pike’s day and Kirk’s. All but one, that is, which had long tantalized at least one non-casual fan: apart from the ears and the gull-wing eyebrows, the Spock who served under Captain Pike was nothing like the Spock who later launched a thousand zines.

In the rejected pilot, and in Roddenberry’s original conception of the show, Number One was the expressionless, rational, cool-tempered crew member, “almost glacier-like,” according to the episode’s teleplay, “in her imperturbability and precision” (glaciers evidently having become more precise by the twenty-third century). Spock, by contrast, was decidedly warmer, his animated face and voice freely expressing such emotions as alarm, concern, relief, and even an almost childlike delight, when, having beamed down to the surface of the planet Talos IV, he encountered that singing flower and broke out, in a way that never got less disturbing, no matter how many times one saw it, in a toothy grin. The pretext for my script, the hole in the quilt, was the lack of any “in-universe”—or “Watsonian,” as opposed to “out-of-universe,” or “Doylist”—explanation for Spock’s transition from expressive, even unreserved, to thoroughly glacial.

The Doylist explanation, by the way, was sexism. The NBC brass of 1965, in rejecting “The Cage,” are said to have been unable to tolerate the idea of a woman as second-in-command of a starship in 2266. In reconceiving the show for the second, successful pilot (“Where No Man Has Gone Before”), Roddenberry transferred Number One’s emotionless, “cerebral” cool to Spock. Codified as “logical,” it became the defining characteristic of all Vulcans, creating the one-species, one-trait template—a kind of intergalactic racial profiling—that haunts the worlds of “Star Trek” to this day. When Barrett returned to the cast of the regular series, she had been demoted, and safely confined within the role of the innocuous, lovelorn Nurse Chapel, whose only distinguishing trait was her unrequited—unrequitable—desire for the character to whom Barrett’s husband had fed, as it were, the soul of Number One.

Many early fans tended to despise Nurse Chapel, in particular the female fans who essentially created modern fandom—arguably the dominant cultural mode of our time—in the pages of Spockanalia , The Crewman’s Log , and other pioneering zines. They saw her as unworthy of the formidable Mr. Spock, embodied by Nimoy with banked fire and clean-limbed grace. But, if Christine Chapel was a relative nullity, there was nonetheless an insight, canny and poignant, in the Chapel-Spock dynamic, the tension between one who longed for recognition, connection, and a return of love and one who was, by training if not by nature, incapable of delivering those things. That incapacity, and the hope that it might be cured—the imperturbable perturbed, the ice thawed—was a crucial element of Spock’s attractiveness, and not only to women, and not only in a sexual sense.

Spock was unreachable, disengaged, remote, forever caught up in his research and his work. He sought relaxation in solitary intellectual pursuits, and seemed ill at ease in a crowd. He was loyal, and steadfast in the face of trouble, but he was not available. And yet now and then, in extreme situations, often under alien influences, Spock would be seized by transports of rage, or joy, or sorrow, the emotions disinterred from their burial site inside him. The feeling was there, deep and molten—volcanic—held in check by dint of constant effort.

In “Star Trek” ’s imagined future, amid the rocks and under the red alien skies of Spock’s home world, Vulcans called that unflagging effort a “philosophy,” enshrined its founder, Surak, and looked with cool condescension on those who did not submit to its regime. But, as I would discover as an undergrad in the halls of the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburgh, a redoubt far stauncher than the planet Vulcan of a logic far fiercer than Surak’s, the Vulcan way had little to do with philosophy and even less to do with logic, and there was certainly nothing alien about it. It was just good old repression, of the sort practiced by human fathers, among others, for many long and illogical centuries.

I love Mr. Spock because he reminds me of you, I said.

I put aside the iPad, climbed out of the sleeper chair, and went over to the bed. It was past four o’clock in the morning. My father swallowed. He breathed. Every so often, his breathing gave way to the raw but nugatory cough that had plagued him since—and had perhaps been triggered by—the Reagan Administration. Only now each cough ended in a strange mewl that might have been pain but sounded more like frustration, like the whine that entered his voice when he was tired of your arguments, tired of your nonsense. He never opened his eyes, but now and then his features began to approximate a facial expression—surprise, annoyance, skepticism—before slackening, as if in a failed attempt to mark the meteoric passage across his brain of some thought or emotion. For the first time that night, I considered the possibility that he was going to survive it. There was a logic, an implacable, animal logic, in hanging on, in dying only when you could hang on no longer. I saw that now as clearly as yesterday afternoon—it felt like a thousand years ago—I had seen the implacable logic of our mercy.

I reached down to stroke my father’s hair, something I had not done or even contemplated doing in the fifty-five years of our acquaintance. The contact felt strange. It was not that we never touched. We hugged to mark arrivals and departures, and over the past year, as his passing began to feel more imminent, I had started, when saying goodbye, to sneak in a hasty kiss that was ninety per cent sound. But I wondered how long it had been since I had touched my father’s head, and if that span—half a century, say—was normal or weird.

“This is some crazy long hair you got going on here, Dad,” I said aloud.

Over the past year, as the effects of lifelong improvidence had begun to impose a final reckoning, my father had been obliged to liquidate the vast collections of stamps, coins, trading cards, autographs, comic books, and historical ephemera that he had amassed with methodical recklessness since his boyhood visits to the stamps-and-coins department of Abraham & Straus. He was no longer able to boast, with a pleasure untainted by accuracy, of having been prescient in all his investments, correct in all his predictions, wise when all others were fooled. Even the sad form of entertainment that had enlivened his decline—out-doctoring his doctors, burying nurses and therapists under encyclopedic blizzards of facts (lest anyone begin to suspect that his mighty Spock brain should be added to the list of his failing organs)—was now denied to him. His magnificent hair was the last of his vanities. It was beautiful: thick, flowing, the hair of a bard or a Romantic virtuoso. One of the many things to have broken my heart during the past year was the sight of him at the bathroom mirror in the step-down facility that had been one of the steps of his long journey down, brushing his Brahmsian hair with an old-fashioned bristle brush, the kind that his mother had used to brush mine when I was a little boy.

“Dad,” I said. “O.K., I really need you to hear me.”

I put my other hand to his head. I stood there, trying to find or feel my way into the darkness inside his skull.

As the world first learned in “Dagger of the Mind,” Spock, like all Vulcans, possessed an ability, albeit limited, to share thoughts, memories, sensations, and, somewhat paradoxically, emotions across short distances, by means of a “mind meld.” This procedure generally required that he place one or both of his hands against the face or head—as near as possible, presumably, to the brain—of the being with whom he intended to meld minds.

It’s O.K. , I told my father, through the contact of my fingertips to his febrile skin. You can let go. It will be O.K. We will be O.K.

Good for you , my father said. I’m with the Horta on this one.

In “Devil in the Dark,” which my father had ranked among his Top Five, the Enterprise came to the rescue of a mining colony on the planet Janus VI, where a terrible monster, the Horta, was preying on pergium miners, picking them off one by one. The episode rises above the banality of a premise as old as Grendel, and some creature effects that are truly risible—even to a ten-year-old in 1973, the homicidal Horta looked like an ambulatory slice of Stouffer’s French-bread pizza—by making an honest effort to imagine nonorganic life and then, in the characteristic turn that gives the “Star Trek” franchise its enduring beauty and power, by insisting that fear and prejudice were no match for curiosity and an open mind, that where there was consciousness there could be communication, and that even a rock, if sentient, had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was, in its way, a near-perfect example of what had drawn my father, and me, and fans around the world, to “Star Trek” and its successor shows for more than fifty years.

But, as I stood by my father with my hands on his head, vainly pretending that the silence that prevailed between fathers and sons, as profound and mysterious as the silence of elevators, could thus be subverted and overcome, I suddenly remembered the crude three-word sentence that the acid-secreting Horta burned into the surface of a rock, after mind-melding with Mr. Spock: “NO KILL I.”

Point taken , I told my father, abruptly letting go of his head, and then, aloud, “Dad, I’m so sorry.”

I’m not sure what my father’s last words were—possibly “I can’t believe you guys had breakfast at Kenny & Zuke’s without me”—but I know that, apart from one more whispered “goodbye,” those were mine to him. I had never in my life been more desperately sorry about anything.

My father hung on for six more interminable days without regaining consciousness. When he died, he managed to do it during a scant five-minute interval when one of my half brothers, both of whom had kept vigil at his bedside all that week, in a round-the-clock rotation with my stepmother, happened to step out for a much needed cup of coffee. Later, someone told me that this is not uncommon, that the dying, even when completely unconscious, often seem to choose a moment when they have been left alone to set out across the final frontier.

In the days and months that followed, I tried to find ways to mourn my father. I said Kaddish. I talked about him to my own children. I posted boyhood photos of him to Instagram. But mostly I wrote episodes of “Star Trek: Picard,” through and over which mortality and loss played like musical themes. The truth, I’ve sometimes had the nerve to tell someone who knows how much, in spite of everything, I loved my father, was that I had been grieving his loss since I was twelve years old; it was definitely easier the second time around. When I miss him, I find comfort—just as I did forty-four years ago, when he first left me behind—in his perfect, constant, undiminished presence in my imagination; his voice in my head, anytime I want it; his opinions, his jokes, his enthusiasms and vanities and lies. But sometimes, still, I wake up in the middle of the night, trapped in the broken elevator of insomnia, haunted by the cruelty of mercy and its logic, and by the pleading of the devil in the dark. ♦

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In 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Jokes Are The Final Frontier

Stephen Thompson

Glen Weldon

Petra Mayer

Chris Klimek

Ensign Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), Ensign D'Vana Tendi (Noel Wells), Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), and Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) in the new CBS All Access animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks. CBS All Access hide caption

Ensign Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), Ensign D'Vana Tendi (Noel Wells), Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), and Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) in the new CBS All Access animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks.

The mega-franchise Star Trek has produced a slew of movies and ten different TV series — the latest of which is a brand-new animated comedy called Star Trek: Lower Decks . The show was created by Mike McMahan, who worked on Rick And Morty , and it tells the story of some of the least powerful officers on Starfleet's least important starship, the U.S.S. Cerritos . In Star Trek: Lower Decks , we get a group of young oddballs and hotshot senior officers, with a cast that includes Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noel Wells, Eugene Cordero, Dawnn Lewis, and Jerry O'Connell. And, because it's animated, we also get epic battles, space zombies, and spectacular mass destruction.

Show Notes:

• Read Glen's review of Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Read Chris' reviews of Star Trek: Beyond and Star Trek Into Darkness

Note: We will be covering Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra in two separate upcoming episodes — and we want your questions about each series! If you have a question, email us a voice memo at [email protected] .

The audio was produced and edited by Mike Katzif and Jessica Reedy.

Leonard Nimoy Always In Ethan Peck's Head Is Why Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Spock Is So Good

• Ethan Peck carefully builds on Leonard Nimoy's iconic Spock without simply mimicking the late actor's performance.
• In Strange New Worlds, Peck plays a younger, emotionally vulnerable version of Spock compared to Nimoy's controlled character.
• Peck incorporates elements of Nimoy's Spock while preparing to channel the logical Spock of TOS.

As Lieutenant Spock in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , Ethan Peck builds on the performance of Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek: The Original Series without simply doing an impression of the late actor. Soon after his debut on TOS , Nimoy's Spock became a fan-favorite, and the Vulcan became Star Trek 's signature iconic character. Spock is recognizable even to people who know little to nothing about Star Trek . With Nimoy's performance setting the standard for Spock, Ethan Peck was aware that he certainly had big shoes to fill.

In the Star Trek timeline, Strange New Worlds takes place before Star Trek: The Original Series, making Ethan Peck's Spock a younger version of Leonard Nimoy's character, who has not yet fully embraced the Vulcan way of life. In the first two seasons of Strange New Worlds , Spock struggles with his emotions, often appearing more human than the Spock of TOS . Nimoy's Spock had his fair share of emotional moments , too, but they were typically the result of outside forces. Nimoy brought a subtly to Spock, often implying a deep sense of feeling while still maintaining tight control of any outward expression of emotion.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 - Everything We Know

Ethan peck always has leonard nimoy's spock in his head, peck thinks about how nimoy might've delivered each of his lines..

At Toronto Comic Con, Ethan Peck joined his fellow Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cast members Anson Mount and Christina Chong to discuss the show and its connections to Star Trek: The Original Series . As reported by Flickering Myth , when asked about his initial reaction to being cast as Spock, Peck said the following:

“Not [to] screw it up. Really from the beginning, I was trying to do the best Spock that I can. That sounds really obvious, but it’s going to be impossible to separate the actor from the performance, especially with this sort of role, because I have to paint by numbers in many ways. When I prepare my scenes I always have Nimoy’s voice resounding in my head and check in with how he might say it.”

As a prequel, the events of Strange New Worlds lead into the events of Star Trek: TOS , meaning Ethan Peck's Spock will presumably move closer and closer to the Spock of that series. In his romance with Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), Spock explored his more human side, allowing himself to laugh openly and be more expressive. However, when Chapel broke things off in the Strange New Worlds musical episode , Spock resolved to embrace logic and reason to avoid feeling the pain of his intense emotions. This decision sets up the more logical Spock of TOS , and Peck will likely keep channeling Leonard Nimoy as Spock works to suppress his human emotions.

Before Spock and Chapel began their romance, Spock was engaged to T'Pring (Gia Sandhu), who represents the logic of Vulcan culture. The very human Nurse Chapel, on the other hand, represents everything that Vulcans are not.

How Ethan Peck's Spock Differs From Zachary Quinto's Star Trek Movie Spock

Peck's spock incorporates elements of both quinto and nimoy's version of the character..

Ethan Peck's Spock, too, sometimes struggles to contain his emotions, but he is better able to reign them in and still has the support of his mother.

Leonard Nimoy and Ethan Peck are not the only two actors who have portrayed Spock, as Zachary Quinto took on the famous role for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek in 2009. The alternate Kelvin timeline brought incredible tragedy to Spock's life, as the villainous Romulan Nero (Eric Bana) destroyed the planet Vulcan, killing Spock's mother, Amanda Grayson (Winona Ryder). Experiencing this level of grief made Quinto's Spock more volatile and prone to emotional outbursts. Ethan Peck's Spock, too, sometimes struggles to contain his emotions, but he is better able to reign them in and still has the support of his mother (Mia Kirshner).

Star Trek (2009) revealed that the Spock of the Kelvin timeline was involved in a romantic relationship with Lt. Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldaña), something that was not present in TOS . While the Spock and Ensign Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) of Strange New Worlds are undoubtedly friends, there are no hints of any romantic feelings between the two. Ethan Peck incorporates elements of both Quinto's Spock and Nimoy's into his performance , but ultimately, the Spock of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds must become the Spock of Star Trek: The Original Series . Leonard Nimoy's voice in Ethan Peck's head should help the actor channel this more logical version of Spock.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: The Original Series, and J.J. Abrams' Star Trek are streaming on Paramount+.

Source: FlickeringMyth.com

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Cast Bruce Horak, Celia Rose Gooding, Jess Bush, Melissa Navia, Ethan Peck, Babs Olusanmokun, Rebecca Romijn, Christina Chong, Anson Mount

Release Date May 5, 2022

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Showrunner Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers