WARNING: This thread WILL contain unhidden spoilers for this entry. Because this re-watch is in a slightly-subjective chronological order and not in production order, please refrain from talking about the content of other episodes or movies in this thread. If you do, please put that content inside spoiler tags. Some people here may be watching Star Trek for the first time.
#77: Star Trek: The Animated Series, season 2, episode 1 "The Pirates of Orion"
Written by Howard Weinstein, directed by Bill Reed.
Stardate 5527.3 (early 2269)
(Using the novelization Stardate)
"Blasted Vulcan! Why can't you have red blood like any normal Human?" - Doctor McCoy
Commander Spock has contracted an illness that is nothing to humans, but fatal to Vulcans due to their blood containing copper instead of iron. Since the Enterprise is warping away on mission, Captain Kirk contacts Starfleet and arranges for life-saving drugs to be handed off from the USS Potemkin to the USS Huron which will then rendezvous with the Enterprise with only days to spare. However, the Huron is ambushed by Orion pirates and their entire cargo of Dilithium (including the medicine meant for Spock) is taken and the ship left adrift. The Enterprise picks up their distress call and double backs to rescue the crew of the Huron. Now Kirk has the Enterprise chasing the emissions of the pirate ship in a desperate attempt to recover the medicine before Spock's organs give out.
Originally released: 7 September 1974
"The Pirates of Orion" on Memory Alpha (mirror)
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What did you think?
I watched a couple clips. Seems like a solid story premise, but you can really see the lack of writing polish, particularly in the dialogue. For example, McCoy weirdly wanting to scold Spock multiple times for him having copper-based blood, necessitating the Enterprise going after the pirates so urgently. In a TOS episode it would have been a one-off line, but in TAS, McCoy goes all Mister Relentless. I don't mean to harp on that one situation, but it does seem kind of emblematic of TAS' frequent lack of creativity and perfection of the little details. Again-- stories usually good (and even excellent), execution less good IMO.
Another issue is that whilst the music interludes are good, there's only a few of them, and the same ones get played almost every episode. It gets boring / annoying fast, is what I'm saying. One wonders why the ones from TOS couldn't have been cribbed, which would have greatly helped the show, but I suppose it came down to licensing issues from the composers. Same with all the little extracurricular background sounds, I guess? Those would have helped, too. Instead, Filmation seemingly pulled from their own library of sound effects in an attempt to echo what TOS sounded like.
I'm not trying to rag particularly on TAS, but after seeing something like the animated SW Clone Wars, the difference in quality is stark. Then again, SW was a rip-roaring, high budget franchise well before that series was made, while TAS was a low-budget, last-gasp kind of affair at the time. Indeed, I probably owe it to myself to watch some Lower Decks to see what animated ST looks like with far more resources available.