The Pirates of Orion

This Story: Season 2 Episode 1 (production code 2.3)
TAS Overall: Episode 17
Trek Overall: Story 96, Episode 97
Airdate: 7 Sep 1974
Written by Howard Weinstein
Directed by Bill Reed

Notes

• The first episode of Season 2.
• The first episode directed by Bill Reed, who would go on to direct the remaining Season 2 episodes as well. This is despite the closing credits saying they were directed by Hal Sutherland.
• This episode directly references the events of “Journey to Babel” from the original series.
• Howard Weinstein was 19 years old when he sold the script for this story, making him the youngest person to sell an episode of Star Trek that was produced as a proper episode of the then incumbent series.
• The name of the Orions is pronounced differently here than in every other appearance across Trek incarnations.  Here it’s “ore-eon” vs the more traditional “o-ryan”.
• Due to another coloring error, the Orions are not shown with their traditional green skin.  I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be just overlooked as a production error of the era.  :)
• Multiple references to this episode were made in the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode “Dos Cerritos” (2024).
• My tweets for this episode say it aired on the 9th of September.  That was an error, it’s the 7th.

Links