LizstarTrek - The Animated Series

So, over the past year, I have been watching the entirety of Star Trek, and been posting my thoughts on all the episodes and movies as I watch them. Now, I’ve been posting them on Twitter, and I’ll probably continue to do so until that website explodes. But I’ve been putting off putting all my thoughts on this site…. but I’ll go ahead and do that now!

SO! If you’re interested in my thoughts on every episode of Star Trek, and boy why wouldn’t you be, or if you’re interested in just re-living Star Trek with me, go ahead and read on! For future series where I probably ONLY post here, these will have a lot more thoughts on them, but the first few were only one Twitter post, so maybe not in depth.

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Beyond the Farthest Star - TAS 7/10

Pretty solid first episode. Good action, good setup and tension, some good “how are they gonna get out of this”, with a fun villain that sounds like me when I’m doing my Goblin voice

“OBEY ME! lizstarFiteMe”

The voice acting so far is trying much harder than I expected, and while the animation is bad, it was made on like 12 cents, and I really think that they did the best they could. I like the tell-tale signs of this series so far, small glances and no other movement.

Yesteryear - TAS 9/10

While I think this episode is very good I also hate it and I will explain why

The time travel goofiness is… nonsensical but who cares, I like the big lorebuilding, the big character building, building Vulcan and the Vulcans, and Spock.

It’s very good, and well done. Like genuinely. But I also hate it, because it has a big goofy sabertooth cat dog named I-Chayah, and it SACRIFICES ITSELF TO SAVE SPOCK, and DIES.

It FUCKED ME UP. I cannot BELIEVE they put that in this.

I wondered this earlier, but I ask it again here… who is this for? NOT CHILDREN

Well actually, it was for all ages, but in a way, this is an important thing to show to children. The corpos wanted it removed, I’m STUNNED they finally allowed it.

RIP I-Chayah

One Of Our Planets Is Missing - TAS 7/10

Amazing episode name.

Just a solid episode. I kinda don’t have a lot to talk about with it, it’s a cool premise, and quite tense in an enjoyable way. It gets dark and slightly fucked, which is rad as hell.

They get to show a lot more that’s super cool. A giant space cloud that eats you. Also they show the crew doingh so much more. They had contingency plans. They were gonna blow up the Enterprise. They were evacuating a planet.

God bless D.C Fontana btw

The Lorelei Signal - TAS Like 4/10, but also 9/10

Allow me to summarize this episode.

A race of vampire women, made that way by their planet’s ambient energy, seduce all the men of the enterprise to drag them to the planet to consume their “life energy”.

All of the women on board the Enterprise are unaffected by the vampire’s siren call, and are confused and annoyed. Eventually they get fed up and beam down, with Uhura in command. The vampires get angry and refuse to give over the men until Uhura shoots EVERYTHING.

Now we know why they never put Uhura in charge, she’s a fucking menace. IMMEDIATELY just fucking blasts away everyone. Then when they refuse to tell her where the men are, she blows up their pottery. Finally, at the end, she teaches them to blow up their computer??

It’s a serious feminism power trip in a very good way. The episode and its plot and its writing are unfortunately kinda middling, but the certain parts of it are the best thing I’ve ever seen. We need to give Uhura control more often.

More Tribbles, More Troubles - TAS 8.5/10

Very solid fun episode, good follow up to TwT. Lots of cute references, fun jokes and energy to it. It dragged a little in the middle but the episodes are so short that’s no big deal. Animations errors galore, but who cares

The Survivor - TAS

8/10

A really good episode, very strong, fun infiltration, enjoyable action of all damn things, neat alien, everything is resolved real well and doesn’t feel gross like so many TOS plots where “lady falls in love with monster of the week”.

Like, a thing I need to note, is the quality of the animation is obviously quite bad. I’m ignoring that entirely for my ratings. This is on writing and everything else, mostly. And so far this series is… REALLY good? Like just very solid.

Also this was the first reveal of M’Ress, the Catgirl. I saw her and went “YAY!” then realized she was assigned to work Uhura’s station and she wasn’t there and was like “BOO! Why give us another girl just to replace ONE OF THE TWO WOMEN WE HAVE?”

The Infinite Vulcan - TAS 6/10

It’s fine, I wasn’t as interested tbh. Like it’s an okay idea and it has a nice conclusion but it just wasn’t quite as interesting. Amazing name though, and it has a giant spock mind melding with tiny spock, which is SOMEONE’S kink

The Magicks of Megas-tu - TAS 8.5/10

In this episode, the Trek cast finds Satan, and befriends him. Turns out, all Demons are real, they were mistreated and esnalved by Humans, and now the Trek cast is on a witch trial, where they also defend Satan.

What.

Satan literally teaches them Magic, which is powered by the Power of Gay.

All of this is shown as a good thing.

How in the FUCK did they do this in 1973

Once Upon a Planet - TAS 4.5/10

This one disappointed me slightly, the writing has been real smart and good so far, but the crux kinda failed. “Oh you’re an AI who’s sick of serving meat people? You should continue to be a slave!” “Oh okay yes that makes sense”.

I do have to say, I love TAS’s willingness to make sequel episodes. Like… sure, a sequel to the Mudd episodes or Tribbles was maybe obvious, but a sequel to the Shore Leave Planet?? Never woulda expected that.

That’s the episode where Sulu shot a gun btw.

Still one of my favorite moments.

Sulu had more good moments here, though cause of animation error. He was down on the planet, and the teleporters were down so they couldn’t get back up. But every time they showed the cockpit, he was there. So Sulu can teleport.

Mudd’s Passion - TAS 8/10

I love Mudd, he’s so good. And when he tends to be around the episodes get just absolutely batshit, and this one is no exception. On this episode, everyone gets infected by a love potion and they all fall in love with each other. Oh boy

It all started cause Nurse Chapel bought into Mudd’s swindling, cause she wanted to make Spock fall in love with her which is… kinda fucked, and unfortunate. Like come on Chapel, be smarter than that. We’ve dealt with Mudd twice now already.

Also they No Homo the love potion. “Oh if two people of the same gender take it, they just become best friends! Opposite genders fall in love!

Nah. Fuck that shit. There is no heterosexual explanation for this.

This episode kept jump cutting to things like “HELP THERE’S A ROCK MONSTER, TELEPORT US UP NOW” jump cut to the teleporter crew dancing and it made me crack the fuck up

Also had this fun animation error. There was no red shirt on this landing party. WHO IS THIS??

The Terratin Incident - TAS 8/10

A solid episode, very Trekky, but they’re really pushing what they can do here. There’s no way this episode would work in live action, they’re goin’ pretty wild with the ideas.

Every is shrinking, is the concept. Does it well.

Cute writing, cute concept, fun ways they try and tackle their problems while tiny. The ending felt a little… okay I guess, I feel it was maybe a tad rushed? It’s the weakest part of the episode for sure, the sudden conclusion with the Terratins.

The Time Trap - TAS 7/10

Yeah it’s fine. Klingons are always fun. It just feels maybe… a little undercooked, like they could make it a bit more exciting, a bit more fun. Instead it just didn’t QUITE capture me, and I was like “yeah, that was good I guess :)”

They brought back Kor though, which is sick. Also this is the last time we ever saw smooth-head Klingons (except for Trials and Tribblations), as they never appear again in TAS. A shame, but if we gotta say bye to Klingons, Kor is a good note to go out on.

The Ambergris Element - TAS 7/10

THE TF EPISODE! Kirk and Spock are TF’s into mermaids. It’s not as sexy as one would hope.

Pretty fun, tense in places in a good way, and it’s a neat concept. Quite trekky, but not much else. There are Conservative Mermaids. Conservative Boomer Mermaids suck.

The Slaver Weapon - TAS 7.5/10

This was a very interesting episode. The first one without the captain, at all. Kirk was NEVER seen. It’s just Spock, Sulu, and Uhura, which is an interesting combo, that I like.

Also it had these fuckers the Kzinti. I love them.

They apparently were in Lore Limbo for years, because the writer of this episode, Larry Niven, just imported this race from his book series, Known Space.

They feel out of place, but also like proto TNG ferengi. Very “FEEEMALES”, and weirdly aggressive for no reason

Because this episode is almost a tie-in episode, I guess, it feels odd but I like it. Lots of really weird lore and backstory for this “Slaver” race that’s never done with, ever again.

But hey, the Kzinti are cool. Lookit this sad one with big ol’ eyes.

The Eye of the Beholder - TAS 8.5/10

The Anti-Zoo episode! As a small summary, Captain Kirk goes to an alien zoo and shoots all of the animals, before being captured by Super Advanced Space Slugs and is locked up. Eventually the slugs let them go.

This episode feels like a GOOD Threshold. Threshold was trying to say “what if the future of humanity isn’t energy gods, but something you wouldn’t expect, like a fish?” and this is that. The future for us is Telepathic Slugs.

This episode was loads of fun.

The Jihad - TAS 9/10

Despite having such an unfdortunate name, this episode is great, and it feels like it expands the universe in a really nice way. It’s basically a heist episode, with six of the best aliens for the job, including Kirk and Spock.

I like the alien designs a lot, and they’re all… distinct, and fun characters. Even the woman! Imagine writing a fun and good lady character in the 70s, stunned they had it in them.

This is a great way to end the season. A shame NONE of these designs and species ever came back

The Pirates of Orion - TAS 8.5/10

The start of Season 2! There’s only like, six episodes. But it feels like they got an additional like, hundred dollars of budget, and used it where it counts. Animation is improved, lots of angles, especially for the spaceships.

The episode itself is rather strong too. Lots of fun character moments (albeit weird Bones racism), tense moments, good clever Kirk trying to figure out how to handle an alien menace, lots of lore building. A genuinely solid as hell episode.

Bem - TAS

6.5/10

I found points of this annoying. It was trying to do a high concept thing, and the designs are sick, but I think it missed the mark slightly, and Bem as a character is really annoying, just an asshole.

BUT they let Uhura run the ship! YAY!

The best way I can describe this is “one asshole creates problems on purpose to test people who weren’t ready for it, then lets them die when they fail, running off to create more problems.”

The Practical Joker - TAS 7/10

The Enterprise becomes sentient, and she’s a fucking asshole. This is the first Holodeck episode, and the first “shit goes wrong in the Holodeck” episode, which is the only kind of Holodeck episode.

Mostly kinda funny, not much else.

Albatross - TAS 8/10

A good episode, nice who dun it, intense, fun designs and concepts, trekky ending and figuring out where the plague comes from, and Spock doing a fucking jail break to save everyone is SO wild, Spock would never do that, but I love it.

Everyone gets infected by this thing that turns you blue, then green, then red

GOBLIN KIRK!

How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth - TAS 9/10

A very Trek episode name. And a very neat episode! It’s kind of a god-episode, but I feel it’s done nicely, and it helps it’s a very Native American centric episode, written by someone from the actual culture. It shows.

Apparently, it’s made partly to spite white people going “oh those native savages couldn’t make cities, aliens must have done it”. In this episode, it shows that this Native American God came to earth and taught EVERYONE how to build cities.

It’s Adonais, but good.

And while usually I don’t like aggressive god characters, this one, Kukulkan, is less an aggressive bratty godlike being, and more a lonely old guy who views us as his kids, and wants to help people. While also being kinda stubborn. It’s cute. I feel bad for him.

Hilariously, everyone pronounces Kukulkan correctly except Shatner. Oh, Shatner. Also, this is the only Emmy Trek ever won! Good job Trek.

Also, one more thing. There’s this animation error where Uhura is white.

White Uhura isn’t real, she can’t hurt you.

The Counter-Clock Incident - TAS 6.5/10

A universe where everything works the opposite is silly. Dead stars supernova into a live ones. A person’s children are old. It’s silly, and needs a LOT of handwaving. I can’t suspend my debelief enough for this.

But the over all theme of the episode is nice. An old, about to retire Commadore (at the ancient age of 75, the only good Commadore apparently) is with them and ages to being young, but decides to go back to being old. It’s silly but heartwarming.

And that is Season 2 of The Animated Series, and that’s the Animated Series all together! Bad animation, obviously, but there were like, no bad episodes. At all. It was very enjoyable, and I highly recommend people just watch the entire thing.

It’s not even long!