While I was a bit too young to actually grow up with the original live-action Star Trek series (1966-1969), I did happen to catch a few episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series when it was in first run on television.
Though I don’t quite remember any specific reactions to any specific episodes (I would’ve been roughly in the second and third grade at the time, so cut me some slack, folks), I know that I was intrigued by a good deal of what I saw. Having enjoyed a few episodes of its predecessor in TV syndication, I was certainly hooked on the greater adventures of the Starship Enterprise, its captain, and his crew, so much so that my parents had given me a few action figures and a makeshift bridge set when they were released in toy format. While the cartoon stuff didn’t quite hold my interest as well (I’ve struggled off-and-on throughout the years with embracing animation as much as my contemporaries), I still hung with it despite some highs and lows and even though the stories didn’t quite reach the level of greatness that William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley were given ‘in the flesh.’
Still, I’m a purist – meaning that I do very much love what I dub ‘Old School Trek’ – and I’ve wanted for a long time to go back and revisit these adventures when time permitted. Thankfully, even my wifey has come to embrace these original adventures, so we picked up (via Amazon.com) the latest and greatest Blu-ray release of The Animated Series and gave the first disc a whirl. Now that I’m older (not wiser), I still see some of the storytelling blemishes that kept me from enjoying this iteration as much as those three seasons of pure storytelling magic, but that won’t stop me from completing this rarely celebrated ‘fourth year’ of boldly going where no man had gone before …
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the episode’s IMDB.com page citation:
“The Enterprise finds an ancient, abandoned starship with a malevolent entity aboard, eager to take over the Starfleet ship.”
There is always a risk when going boldly in a different direction, especially when it comes to balancing the needs of the many against the needs of the few … or the one.
For example, I can tell you that as a serious Star Trek enthusiast I’ve also picked up many of the novels that have been published over the years and read them to varying degrees of appreciation. Though I’ve found a great number of them entertaining, there have still been a few that I’ve kinda/sorta dismissed on the grounds that the worldbuilding didn’t quite match the philosophies of the original program. Sometimes, the characterizations have been amiss. Other times, the dialogue and situations didn’t quite feel authentic to what I’d already come to know as Star Trek, so the adventure just didn’t leave me with the same level of identification.
The dirty little secret therein is that whenever a mythmaker ventures into another format – i.e. publishing – then the canvas upon which they can paint gets vastly bigger. These scriptwriters aren’t restricted by what’s filmable on the typical budget for a television show; and – as such – they often tread into spaces bigger than life itself. As a result, the novels do occasionally push the boundaries of what’s uniquely possible in Trek; and this, too, might end up confusing the franchise’s most ardent fans because it’s just too big, too vast, too different than what’s come before. While it might be refreshing to raise the stakes in ways TV production couldn’t, there will always be a risk to ‘coloring outside the lines.’
What Star Trek: The Animated Series’ first episode showed me very clearly is that this dynamic also comes into play when transitioning from live action filming to animation. “Beyond The Farthest Star” arguably feels like Trek as much as it doesn’t, and there’s never what I’d call a comfortable bridging of these two worlds into a seamless continuation of where audiences were when they last saw Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew. Mind you: this isn’t a complaint. It’s just an acknowledgement that things were not quite going to be the same.
Though I don’t quite remember any specific reactions to any specific episodes (I would’ve been roughly in the second and third grade at the time, so cut me some slack, folks), I know that I was intrigued by a good deal of what I saw. Having enjoyed a few episodes of its predecessor in TV syndication, I was certainly hooked on the greater adventures of the Starship Enterprise, its captain, and his crew, so much so that my parents had given me a few action figures and a makeshift bridge set when they were released in toy format. While the cartoon stuff didn’t quite hold my interest as well (I’ve struggled off-and-on throughout the years with embracing animation as much as my contemporaries), I still hung with it despite some highs and lows and even though the stories didn’t quite reach the level of greatness that William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley were given ‘in the flesh.’
Still, I’m a purist – meaning that I do very much love what I dub ‘Old School Trek’ – and I’ve wanted for a long time to go back and revisit these adventures when time permitted. Thankfully, even my wifey has come to embrace these original adventures, so we picked up (via Amazon.com) the latest and greatest Blu-ray release of The Animated Series and gave the first disc a whirl. Now that I’m older (not wiser), I still see some of the storytelling blemishes that kept me from enjoying this iteration as much as those three seasons of pure storytelling magic, but that won’t stop me from completing this rarely celebrated ‘fourth year’ of boldly going where no man had gone before …
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the episode’s IMDB.com page citation:
“The Enterprise finds an ancient, abandoned starship with a malevolent entity aboard, eager to take over the Starfleet ship.”
There is always a risk when going boldly in a different direction, especially when it comes to balancing the needs of the many against the needs of the few … or the one.
For example, I can tell you that as a serious Star Trek enthusiast I’ve also picked up many of the novels that have been published over the years and read them to varying degrees of appreciation. Though I’ve found a great number of them entertaining, there have still been a few that I’ve kinda/sorta dismissed on the grounds that the worldbuilding didn’t quite match the philosophies of the original program. Sometimes, the characterizations have been amiss. Other times, the dialogue and situations didn’t quite feel authentic to what I’d already come to know as Star Trek, so the adventure just didn’t leave me with the same level of identification.
The dirty little secret therein is that whenever a mythmaker ventures into another format – i.e. publishing – then the canvas upon which they can paint gets vastly bigger. These scriptwriters aren’t restricted by what’s filmable on the typical budget for a television show; and – as such – they often tread into spaces bigger than life itself. As a result, the novels do occasionally push the boundaries of what’s uniquely possible in Trek; and this, too, might end up confusing the franchise’s most ardent fans because it’s just too big, too vast, too different than what’s come before. While it might be refreshing to raise the stakes in ways TV production couldn’t, there will always be a risk to ‘coloring outside the lines.’
What Star Trek: The Animated Series’ first episode showed me very clearly is that this dynamic also comes into play when transitioning from live action filming to animation. “Beyond The Farthest Star” arguably feels like Trek as much as it doesn’t, and there’s never what I’d call a comfortable bridging of these two worlds into a seamless continuation of where audiences were when they last saw Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew. Mind you: this isn’t a complaint. It’s just an acknowledgement that things were not quite going to be the same.
When the USS Enterprise is nearly pulled catastrophically into a dead star, Captain Kirk and his valiant crew save the day by achieving orbit around the celestial body only to find that there’s a derelict spacecraft that’s been trapped similarly for what appears to be an astonishing 300,000,000 years. Venturing aboard the alien ship, they find that the vehicle had been taken over by an evil, intelligent entity that wished to use the vehicle for its own purposes (though precisely what never gets explored). Kirk and company’s presence has fully awakened the dangerous entity; and it isn’t long before the intelligence seizes control of the Starfleet flagship. Only the use of a suicide run is enough to scare this fog-like creature into a state wherein the Federation’s best and brightest can outsmart it, ultimately saving the day but ensnaring the entity for another eternity of isolation.
So …
The script is credited to Samuel A. Peebles, the same screenwriter who penned Star Trek’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the episode that ultimately served as the program’s pilot episode. Having the storyteller’s gravitas on board for this pilot was a good idea even though he gives both this alien spacecraft and this nebulous entity a bit more substance and narrative weight than audiences had seen in franchise previously. The derelict ship, in particular, is really vast, harkening visually in some ways to what had accomplished in 1972’s Silent Running but a bit more organic-looking. The aesthetics between the TV show and what’s possible in animation is a bit jarring right out of the gate; and perhaps in retrospect it might’ve been a poor choice as a first episode … but, as they say, to each his own.
Furthermore, the adventure ends on a curious note of hopelessness. Once the entity has been properly expelled from the Enterprise, it still manages to send out a plea through the ship’s communications systems. Much in the same way that the insect version of Andre Delambre pitifully cries “Help me” in the climax to The Fly (1958), this creature openly weeps about the infinite loneliness it both has endured and will now enjoy for the remainder of its days; and gone is the usual optimism that fueled so much of Star Trek’s better installments. While I’m not saying that Kirk and crew should’ve changed their course of action, “Beyond The Farthest Star” still closes on a dreadful and decidedly downbeat tone, a definite shift from the days of the original series.
Star Trek: The Animated Series’ “Beyond The Farthest Star” was produced by Filmation Associates and Norway Productions. The episode is currently available for physical or digital purchase via a variety of platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be exceptional from start-to-finish. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? There were no special features under consideration.
Recommended.
Although the last scene of “Beyond The Farthest Star” didn’t quite achieve the effect other Trek’s have, it was still pretty grand to see the crew of the Starship Enterprise back on active duty. Almost everyone showed up – Walter Koenig is noticeably absent – and a good portion of this chapter has the same intellectual grounding fans had come to expect from the franchise. If anything, the episode might push a bit too far in exploring new life and new civilizations as viewers were given a new insectoid-species and their bizarre-looking technology to embrace; but that’s still chump change knowing that the voyages of this crew were finally continuing almost as if the Federation had never incurred the wrath of network executives a few years earlier.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that I’m beholden to no one for this review of Star Trek: The Animated Series’ “Beyond The Farthest Star” (S01E01) as I watched it on a Blu-ray set entirely of my own purchase.
-- EZ
So …
The script is credited to Samuel A. Peebles, the same screenwriter who penned Star Trek’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the episode that ultimately served as the program’s pilot episode. Having the storyteller’s gravitas on board for this pilot was a good idea even though he gives both this alien spacecraft and this nebulous entity a bit more substance and narrative weight than audiences had seen in franchise previously. The derelict ship, in particular, is really vast, harkening visually in some ways to what had accomplished in 1972’s Silent Running but a bit more organic-looking. The aesthetics between the TV show and what’s possible in animation is a bit jarring right out of the gate; and perhaps in retrospect it might’ve been a poor choice as a first episode … but, as they say, to each his own.
Furthermore, the adventure ends on a curious note of hopelessness. Once the entity has been properly expelled from the Enterprise, it still manages to send out a plea through the ship’s communications systems. Much in the same way that the insect version of Andre Delambre pitifully cries “Help me” in the climax to The Fly (1958), this creature openly weeps about the infinite loneliness it both has endured and will now enjoy for the remainder of its days; and gone is the usual optimism that fueled so much of Star Trek’s better installments. While I’m not saying that Kirk and crew should’ve changed their course of action, “Beyond The Farthest Star” still closes on a dreadful and decidedly downbeat tone, a definite shift from the days of the original series.
Star Trek: The Animated Series’ “Beyond The Farthest Star” was produced by Filmation Associates and Norway Productions. The episode is currently available for physical or digital purchase via a variety of platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be exceptional from start-to-finish. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? There were no special features under consideration.
Recommended.
Although the last scene of “Beyond The Farthest Star” didn’t quite achieve the effect other Trek’s have, it was still pretty grand to see the crew of the Starship Enterprise back on active duty. Almost everyone showed up – Walter Koenig is noticeably absent – and a good portion of this chapter has the same intellectual grounding fans had come to expect from the franchise. If anything, the episode might push a bit too far in exploring new life and new civilizations as viewers were given a new insectoid-species and their bizarre-looking technology to embrace; but that’s still chump change knowing that the voyages of this crew were finally continuing almost as if the Federation had never incurred the wrath of network executives a few years earlier.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that I’m beholden to no one for this review of Star Trek: The Animated Series’ “Beyond The Farthest Star” (S01E01) as I watched it on a Blu-ray set entirely of my own purchase.
-- EZ
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