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| The Enterprise crew explores an alien ship. Or possibly a giant mushroom. |
THE PLOT
The Enterprise follows a radio message out into unknown space, beyond the edge of the galaxy. The message is coming from an ancient alien ship of incredible design, which has been caught in the gravitational pull of a collapsed star.
Kirk leads a party over to the ship, and discovers that its crew deliberately sabotaged their own ship in order to contain a malevolent alien life form. The intruder is still alive, and it isn't long before it is threatening Kirk and his men. The Enterprise beams them back - but when they come back aboard, the alien follows!
CHARACTERS
In a slight departure from my reviews of the live action series, I will probably simply do one to two-paragraph summaries of the animated episodes' character beats. Given the short running time, I doubt the character material in the average episode will call for more.
Certainly, this episode doesn't offer much room for character development. Nobody feels out of character, though there is a vaguely stilted quality to some of the performances - most notably and disappointingly from DeForest Kelly, who doesn't seem entirely comfortable doing voice work. Amusingly, Kirk is given a moment of animated ham, elbowing Mr. Kyle out of the way to heroically attempt to beam the creature back into space. I guess the captain figured this was too important for a mere underling to operate the slider.
THOUGHTS
The opening credits clearly signal this as a direct continuation of the 1960s series. The titles are an animated (Rotoscoped?) version of the TOS titles, save for a change in the theme music. Even the new theme is clearly designed to evoke the old one.
Animation is extremely basic, with frequent pans over still frames or still shots in which only a character's mouth is moving. I'll confess that it took me a few minutes to adjust to it. I had to put myself almost in the mind-frame of watching a reconstruction of a missing Dr. Who episode, rather than that of watching something fully animated.
That's not to say that it's visually weak, however. The animation is crude, but many of the still frames are striking. The alien ship is particularly impressive, its design showing imagination and a considerable sense of scale. The exploration of the alien ship is intriguing. The sense of the regulars exploring something truly alien is something that was too often absent from TOS' later episodes, and it is well-realized here. From a dramatic standpoint, almost everything works up until the creature infests Enterprise at about the 15 minute mark.
Unfortunately, the quality dips substantially after that point, with rushed pacing stifling any of the tension the situation should convey. There's simply too much plot for 25 minutes. After a nicely measured pace for the first half of the show, the episode is left to spend its second half rushing from crisis to crisis. With no pauses, there's no chance for any real tension to build, and therefore no real sense of satisfaction when Kirk manages to defeat the creature.
The "life support belts" also end up being a problem. As a substitute for spacesuits, they're an economical way for the animators to visually show which character is which without having to resort to extreme close-ups. So far, so good. But in the second half, these belts become All-Purpose Plot Devices. Scotty is saved from being crushed by his life support belt. Spock and Kirk are able to sustain direct phaser hits thanks to their belts. And now I find myself hoping that future episodes won't resort to these "personal shields" to the extent that I fear will end up being the case.
With a rushed second half and a tension-killing all-purpose gadget, this opening episode ends up being a very mixed bag. I liked the first half, and I think there's potential in the series based on that. But the second half really needed some restructuring to allow the plot to more comfortably fit the short running time.
And I would love to see the life support belts all vanish in a transporter accident between now and Episode Two. But that's probably too much to ask.
Rating: 5/10
Next Episode: Yesteryear
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