The Animated Series 1x10 "Mudd's Passion"

rating: ***

Memory Alpha summary

Poor Harry Mudd.  The guy was such a part of Star Trek lore, and the legacy of the original series (two episodes, even!), that he received one of the several "sequel episodes" in the series.  And now?  You couldn't con someone into caring about him...

It's the fault of the movies, really.  Once it was determined that Khan was the one who best suited the cinema treatment, the decidely uncinematic Mudd, and his original portrayer, Roger C. Carmel, was dropped by the wayside.  Carmel returned to voice Mudd in "Passion," such was his distinctiveness.

All the same, Mudd has a place in history if not memory, and perhaps "Passion" makes his best case for that.  Here he's involved in love potion nonsense (there's some echoes to be found in Deep Space Nine's "Fascination") that results in a lot of romantic shenanigans.  His prior appearances all had to do with robotic nonsense that invariably redirected mostly back to Mudd himself.

via Treks in Sci Fi

Leading the way is Nurse Chapel, making this episode notable for more than one recurring character.  Chapel's significance slowed significantly in later years, even though she did appear in the movies (you'd probably have to know that to really notice, though).  This is probably in part because the emphasis on the role diminished over time, and the fact that performer Majel Roddenberry became better known as Lwaxana Troi (in both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine), plus, y'know, having married Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (she was originally billed by her maiden name, Majel Barrett).

As an artifact of the series, "Mudd's Passion" has a peculiar place.  It's a strong bridging experience, and represents two experiences well, if not exceptionally.  As another candidate as an ambassador for the series, it does a fine job of displaying how animated Star Trek doesn't have to rely on anymore gimmicks than basic storytelling.

four quarter analysis

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:

Roger C. Carmel

Majel Roddenberry

Nichelle Nichols

James Doohan

The Animated Series 1x9 "Once Upon a Planet"

rating: ***

Memory Alpha summary

In this sequel to "Shore Leave," the series ends up more relevant to a far different matter, the franchise theme of the emerging sentience of machines.  Can you say Data?

via The Viewscreen

The planet that was like a precursor to all the malfunctioning holodeck episodes returns, complete with Alice's Wonderland.

Unlike the other sequel episodes in the series, however, "Once Upon a Planet" has a distinctively new story to tell, about the planet post-guardian, with the mechanism that allows its basic function to operate running on its own.  No, this is not Next Generation's "Arsenal of Freedom" redux, but rather much more akin to The Motion Picture or even Next Generation's "Emergence" (which just happens to also feature a malfunctioning holodeck).

The basic idea of technology taking on an intelligence of its own is one of those fears that permeates our perception of the future, the robot uprisings featured in The Matrix and The Terminator.  As usual, Star Trek has a broader interpretation in mind.  Things look grim in The Motion Picture until humanity actually merges with the machine in question (which has long given speculation to how much of a connection to the later Borg there exists in the film), while in "Emergence" and "Upon a Planet" a dialogue between man and machine suffices.

"Planet" tackles the nature of the transition point directly: the moment of change occurs when the original programming is superseded by a change of circumstances.  Voyager played out a different scenario in "Prototype," in which a robotic army plays out the familiar "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"/"Chosen Realm" scenario, a war of attrition that is the result of the worst possible outcome from a failure to change.  In "Planet," the machine listens to reason after initially assuming, as in Motion Picture, that it's the Enterprise itself that is the relevant entity (just as it's the ship in "Emergence" that produces new life).

It's an ideal story for the series to explore, something that might have seemed too outlandish in live action at the time, a few years ahead of Motion Picture itself (which, remember, was also a version of the earlier "Changeling"), which is still too hard to swallow as a near-purely intellectual exercise for fans more accustomed to more visceral franchise experiences (a peculiar dichotomy for a phenomenon that has always walked that fine line and draws equal support from both sides).

There's a small chance you will want to watch this as a spotlight for Uhura, although "Planet" doesn't indulge too much in the potential it sets up in that regard.  If anyone ever revisited this story, they could easily picks up on a number of possibilities, including the "Changeling" connection (an episode where she loses her memory and has to have it recreated to similarly limited exploration).

four quarter analysis
franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Nichelle Nichols
Majel Roddenberry
James Doohan

The Animated Series 1x8 "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"

rating: [no stars]

Memory Alpha summary

This whole series was always going to walk a fine line, both on its own terms and how it would be appreciated in the context of the later franchise.  It's exactly what the fans have said about Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, a dicey prospect that could and to date has been the only screen Star Trek to be considered unofficial.  "The Magicks and Megas-Tu" is a prime example why.

It's not really a good episode.  It's an interesting idea, one that would be more fruitfully explored elsewhere, but in and of itself, I would not recommend you watch it, unless you want to be a completist.

Kirk stumbles upon entities who are responsible for humanity's ideas about the Devil.  Yeah, sound familiar?  Next Generation basically did exactly the same thing, in more believable context, in "Devil's Due."  Which is not to say that the idea of beings existing who actually could fit the profile accidentally creating it is a bad one.  But this isn't the best way to do it.

The rest of the episode is likewise translated to better effect elsewhere in the form of Q in the Next Generation episode "Deja Q" and Voyager's "Death Wish."  Star Trek has a long history of beings possessing extraordinary power abusing it, and usually it's only Kirk making them realize that they've been naughty.  In the prolonged Q experience, a much more nuanced exploration became possible, so that even an episode like "Hide and Q," which took a relatively simplistic approach, could be balanced even by a minor entry like "True Q."

"Magicks" doesn't have anything but association going for it.  It a series that thought it could do anything just because it was animated finding out that really wasn't the case.  It's not the first or even last such misstep, but thankfully still not completely typical.  Every Star Trek has episodes like this.  Usually fans will interpret the bad ones as those that take risks.  "Magicks" is a risk, but other episodes prove how easily it could have been done better.  Which makes "Magicks" exactly what it is.  Something that looks like this:

via the Viewscreen

four quarter analysis

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:

James Doohan