As a culture, our love affair with all things Trek began in 1966, and as the franchise continues to grow, so does our passion. In this six-post series, we’ve been exploring Star Trek’s role in television comprehensively, beginning first with The Original Series. We’re now moving on to The Animated Series. I’m a huge fan, but no expert. I may miss something, and there’s always room for more Trek goodies. I’d love your feedback and welcome a hearty discussion, “where no one has gone before”.

As the Spring of 1973 dawned, a burgeoning Writers Guild strike took hold. The arduous hold out represented a demand for increased wages and better health benefits. The upside? Members of the Guild were only prevented from writing for live action TV programs. Authors were permitted to write one episode of an animated TV program, in essence funneling highly talented writers just where we needed them. Sci-fi writers formed the basis of a very special project: an animated series unlike any to have graced the screen.

Budgetary limitations that had previously saddled the live action series did not plague the newest member of the franchise: no makeup budget meant that more aliens could be introduced, and telling the stories via illustrations meant that more exotic starships and more mysterious planets could find their way into our homes each Saturday morning. More creative liberty also brought us precursors of the holodeck and replicators. While not everyone wholeheartedly welcomed TAS, The Great Bird approved, and that’s all that mattered.

Captain – James T. Kirk

Vessel – USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Mission – To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. (TAS is widely considered a representation of the final year of the original five-year mission.)

Setting – Milky Way Galaxy

Number of Seasons – 2

Number of Episodes – 22, each a half hour

Aired – 1973-1974 (Reruns aired in the 80’s and 90’s.)

Stardates – 1254.4-7403.6

Pilot Episode – “Beyond the Farthest Star”

Awards – Two Daytime Emmy Awards nominations, one win. Also, one Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA nomination.

Quotes –

Scotty: “Captain, the engines are buckling! We cannot keep up at this speed!”

Kirk: “I can’t command a ship from inside an aquarium.”

Scotty: “We’ve got tribbles on the ship, quintotriticale in the corridors, Klingons in the quadrant – it can ruin your whole day, sir!”

Uhara: “Due to Chief Engineering Officer Scott’s euphoric state of mind, I am assuming command of the Enterprise.”

Spock: “Two Doctor MyCoys just might bring the level of medical efficiency on this ship to acceptable levels.”

Trivia –

Also known as: “Star Trek”, “ST:TAS”, and “The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek”

A copy of the “series bible”, as revised for TAS, is held in the science fiction research collection at the Samuel Paley Library, Temple University, Philadelphia.

TAS was the only Star Trek series not to feature a cold open “teaser” and started directly with the title sequence.

Four episodes were sequels to live action episodes: “Once Upon a Planet”/”Shore Leave”, “Yesteryear”/”The City on the Edge of Forever”/”The Journey to Babel”, “Mudd’s Passion”/”I, Mudd”, “More Tribbles, More Troubles”/”The Trouble with Tribbles”

‘The life-support belts came about simply because the bulky spacesuits created for Star Trek were too complex to draw. (In the Original Series, the concept of the transporter had come about the same way: it got the crew to the planet without the expense of filming a landing sequence every week.) Ironically, the belts were never adapted for the later live-action movies and TV series because making the actors “glow” via special effects would have cost more than making spacesuits!’ ( source: IMDb)

‘The animated series was not considered canon by Paramount and could not be included in Michael and Denise Okuda’s reference books. However, they made an exception in the case of “Yesteryear” because of its importance to the STAR TREK timeline. So “Yesteryear” was mentioned on pages 29-30 of their STAR TREK Chronology.’ (source: danhausertrek.com)

Kirk’s middle name was revealed in the series: the “T” stands for Tiberius.

Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and James Doohan (Scotty) are the only actors to appear in all 22 episodes of the series.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for Star Trek and the geek it’s made me to be.