Online Encyclopedia
Star Trek: The Animated Series
Star Trek: The Animated Series is an animated science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. The series was aired under the name Star Trek, but it has become widely known under this longer name (or abbreviated as ST:TAS or TAS) to differentiate it from the original live action Star Trek. It is also sometimes referred to (such as on StarTrek.com) as "The Animated Adventures."
The series was produced by Filmation and ran for two seasons, 1973 and 1974, airing a total of twenty-two half-hour episodes. It featured most of the original cast performing the voices for their characters, except for Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig). He was replaced by Lieutenant Arex, a member of a species which had three arms and three legs. Another semi-regular addition to the cast was Lt. M'Ress, a female cat-like alien. (An earlier Filmation proposal had children assigned to each of the senior officers as cadets, including a young Vulcan for Mr. Spock.) Koenig was not forgotten and later wrote an episode of the series, becoming the first Star Trek actor to write a Star Trek story in the process.
While the freedom of animation afforded large alien landscapes, budget constraints were a major concern and animation quality was generally poor, with very liberal use of stock shots. Occasionally, though, parts of episodes would be animated at a near-theatrical quality level.
A few episodes are especially notable due to contributions from well-known science fiction authors.
- More Tribbles, More Troubles was written by David Gerrold as a sequel to his famous episode The Trouble with Tribbles from the original series. Here the infamous Cyrano Jones is rescued from the Klingons, bringing with him a genetically-altered breed of Tribbles which do not reproduce but do grow extremely large. The Klingons, due to their hatred of Tribbles, are eager to get Cyrano Jones back because he stole a creature they created: a predator that feeds on tribbles.
- Yesteryear is a time-travel episode in which Mr. Spock uses The Guardian of Forever , a time gateway from the original series episode The City on the Edge of Forever, to travel to his own childhood past. This is the only animated Trek episode written by noted original series and Next Generation writer D.C. Fontana.
- Larry Niven's The Slaver Weapon, adapted from his own short story The Soft Weapon. It includes some elements from his Known Space mythos such as the Kzinti and the Slavers.
- The Magicks of Megas-tu, by Larry Brody , sends the Enterprise to the center of the galaxy. Its crew find themselves befriended by a devil-like alien whom they must defend against accusations that he has brought evil to the world of Megas-tu. The Enterprise in this series, while supposedly the same ship as from the original series, had a holodeck very similar to the one introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation which was set approximately 80 years later.
For a variety of reasons (most likely legal ones, such as the use of concepts from Niven's own works), Paramount Pictures does not consider The Animated Series to be true Star Trek canon. Also, Gene Roddenberry reportedly asked soon before his death that the series not be considered canon. There have however been occasions where writers and other production crew have sneaked animation-series references into one of the live-action series, to many a Trekkie's delight. Most recently, the Star Trek: Enterprise episode The Catwalk included references to Yesteryear.
See also: List of Star Trek: The Animated Series episodes
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