A STAR CHART MISDIRECTION

 

Episode Title:  Beyond the Farthest Star

Air Date: 9/8/1973

Written by Samuel A. Peeples

Directed by Hal Sutherland

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock        DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              James Doohan  as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”, Lieutenant Kyle, Ancient Insectoid, Magnetic Organism         George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel       

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, old unnamed alien ship

Planets: none

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is doing some basic star charting when it is caught in the gravity of a collapsed star.  It looks like they are about to crash, when Kirk askes Sulu to attempt to use their speed to establish standard orbit around the dead star.  While in orbit they come across a large, amazing, and very old space ship.  This alien ship has been in orbit for hundreds of millions of years.  Kirk was going to have Sulu do a sling-shot around the old star to help them break away but this older-than-human-existence starship stuck in the same place makes those plans seem far-fetched.  They decide to go aboard the strange craft and since there is no life-support on that ship the boarding party wore life-support belts that gave them personal forcefields against the cold and airless environment. 

The Enterprise encounters the strangest ship she has ever seen!

As they explore the alien ship, they discover that a lot of the damage is self-inflicted. They are able to access the ship’s systems and are informed by a warning left over from dead aliens that their ship was occupied by a disembodied energy magnetic organism.  It caused chaos on their ship to the point that these aliens, the Insectoids, chose to destroy themselves before they let this entity spread itself throughout the universe. Then the control center starts to self-destruct and they have to do an emergency beam out.  However, when the boarding party martializes aboard the Enterprise the find the very alien that ended life on that other ship has come aboard with them.  The energy creature escapes through the ventilation system just like Kirk’s least favorite cloud.  

The alien entity starts causing problems all throughout the ship.  Systems are turning on and off. Life support has been completely shut off in certain areas of the ship.  The bridge systems start to become unresponsive.  Spock gets around what the alien has done to the putting a shield around the navigation control.  Kirk decides to kill two birds with one stone.  He has Sulu fly straight towards the dead star.  The entity thinks they are committing suicide so it jumps from the Enterprise back to the dead star’s surface.  That is when the ship does the sling-shot maneuver breaking away.  The evil thing calls out to them not to abandon it because it is so lonely.  However, after nearly being killed by it, the crew of the Enterprise resume their star charting instead.

FF belts

Additional thoughts: After four years of being off the air Star Trek returned. Following the grand tradition of the previous series they decided to air all these episodes out of order. So, they aired the fourth episode they made first. This was a good choice for it is a decent adventure with general Star Trek themes.  There is an energy-creature alien threatening the ship and they have to pull out any trick they can think of to possibly get rid of it.  However, I am and always will be a proponent for production order in regards to classic Star Trek. 

Not their friend

Also notice the date?  Star Trek: The Animated Series shares the same birthday with its older sibling series.  I wonder if that was a coincidence or if they did that on purpose?  The new series also has a new theme song that seems to take the classic Star Trek tune and give a 1970s spin.

A new energy creature disembodied alien threat.  This one joins the ranks of the vampire cloud, the anger vampire, and that one that liked to prey on kids.  However, it wasn’t as much a threat given how easy it was to resolve.  That is the consequence of a show that is a half-hour long with commercials.  There is not enough time.  They spend too much of it building up the treat and all of it is wasted when they beat it in under two minutes. 

Trying to get away

Okay so far, I am loving these stories that The Animated Series tells but I am not too thrilled with the animation itself.  It’s not like talking about the graphics in the classic series, because that can always be explained that TV graphics in the 1960s had those natural limitations.  However, there was better animation than this in the 1940s, all you have to do is watch any of the old Superman cartoons. There is something about animation of this era that was just not good, Super Friends suffers from the same problem. Either way the “star” in this episode looked more like a moon.

That's doesn't look like a star!

Those force-field belts were pretty cool what ever happened to them?  A lot easier than a space suit.  Although they might not feel as secure.  I suppose they might have had a higher fail rate than the suits and that is why they were tossed.  They should bring them back if they perfect the technology they are rather convenient.

FINAL GRADE 3 of 5