While there’s a break between Star Trek shows, we thought we’d take a look at some past episodes of Star Trek fame. Shore Leave is going to explore the strange world of the Animated Series on a weekly basis. We’ll watch an episode a week in between new series, and give some reviews Two Captains Log style!
First up is “Beyond the Farthest Star” which has the Enterprise find an ancient star ship. This ship has almost a bug colony structure to it, though made with metal alloy. Kirk, Spock, Scotty and McCoy beam onto the ship and find its main control room. An ancient message warns of some kind of danger, and then suddenly the control room starts to be destroyed through a self-destruct mechanism. When the away team beams back, there’s an extra cloudy entity. This entity gets into the ship itself and takes control. It orders the crew to drive the ship to the center of the galaxy, and presumably to take control of other ships. Spock speculates that it’s a symbiotic entity with metallic basis. Kirk has to fly the ship manually and steers it towards the neighboring dead star which will destroy them all. At the last minute, the entity leaves and combines itself with the star. The Enterprise is safe, and with the entity crying “I’m so lonely” as the Enterprise leaves the dead star.
Here we go with our thoughts…
Music
Mr. Daps: “I will admit, I was completely charmed by this music. It was definitely a product of its time and a lot of fun. It had a nice vibe to it and the themes were definitely fun to listen to. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit!”
Murray: “For it being the animated series I was quite impressed with the score. It has a very orchestrally symphonic sound to it. It’s so beautifully done that I could hear it as a whole symphony concert on its own!”
Design
Mr. Daps: “I thought this was an interesting episode in terms of design. Some of it was quite obvious. However, the alien ship was kind of interesting and creative. It is amazing how creative the team was so many decades ago. It would be kind of interesting to take the same general idea and see what they could do with it today… like a Star Trek: Lower Decks version or something.”
Murray: “The idea of a podded spaceship is a very interesting design. I thought the artists did a great job at making it very organic, yet incorporating some more metallic ship designs. Yes, it’s animated so it’s a little hard to tell those details. But, I think they did a great job at creating a very different ship in the lore of Star Trek.”
Story
Mr. Daps: “I enjoyed this story, even though I had seen it before. There were definitely things I had forgotten. However, I thought it was an interesting idea that didn’t go exactly where one expected a Star Trek episode to go. It didn’t necessarily have a happy ending for all like some episodes did. It did have the ending I felt like it needed, though.”
Murray: “I was predicting something different than how the episode went (yes, this is my first time seeing this particular animated episode), but it was a hit for me. I thought it would focus more on the aliens that inhabited the ship, and that there would be something coming out of it again. The gaseous entity was a great switch, and the resolution really brought more edge to it all. And it was all in half the time of a normal Trek episode!”
Hit or Miss?
Mr. Daps: “I am a bit surprised to say this but this week’s episode was a hit for me. I don’t remember really caring for the animated series when watching it before. However, I thought things overall were quite enjoyable for what they were. The story was good. The pacing was good. I really liked the music. Oh, and I was ready to see what happened next by the end of it. This will be a fun diversion from new Star Trek episodes!”
Murray: “This episode was a hit for me. My memory of the cartoons of Star Trek were that they were much cheesier than this was. The story and pacing was really great. The voice acting was on par with any of the shows or movies these actors are in. It was a great first episode for the series, and actually makes me look forward to watching others.”
