Observations, rants, and musings by Joe Siegler.

Star Trek TAS Marathon

Star Trek: The Animated Series

When most people think about Star Trek’s return after the original series went off the air, they think about the movie series that started in 1979, or they think about Star Trek: The Next Generation which started in 1987.  There’s nothing wrong with those, I enjoyed them all.  But most people forget about (or just never knew about) the first time Star Trek returned.  That was in 1973 as a Filmation animated TV series.

Officially entitled simply “Star Trek” – it later became known as “Star Trek: The Animated Series”.  It ran for just 22 episodes, spanning a 16 episode first season, and just 6 for season 2.  It is the first Star Trek I recall watching myself, as I was 8 at the time it came on the air.  It aired as part of the Saturday morning cartoon lineup on NBC, but it was NOT a kids show.  It was made to be “proper” Star Trek, as it was made by some of the same people who were a part of making the original series.

Because it was animated, they could do things you couldn’t do with live action, like having massive ships without worrying about the cost of construction – non human looking aliens (including two on the Enterprise cast which would have been impossible to realize in the original series – Hello M’ress & Arex).  There were several parts of overall Trek canon that originated here.  First was what the “T” in James T Kirk stood for.  This was the first time we ever saw a holodeck in Star Trek (although that specific name wasn’t used).   There were a few sequels to episodes of the original series as well, which was cool.

The majority of the cast was here, the only one that wasn’t was Walter Koenig as Chekov.  In fact, the production company wanted to have only a couple of the originals – but Leonard Nimoy stood up and refused to participate if they didn’t include the secondary character actors, but still, they didn’t have Koenig.  Jimmy Doohan also voiced Arex and Majel Barrett also did the ship’s computer as well as M’Ress. They did end up including Koenig, as he wrote one of the episodes.

Because it’s animation they could do things they couldn’t do in live action (especially at the time this was made, now might be different).  They had non humanoid characters – M’Ress and Arex.  Arex is a “Caitian” – a cat, basically.  Arex is a more original creation, he has three legs, definitely not something you could do in live action.   They’re on the opposite ends of the cast image above here.  I always thought that was cool.  Given the advances in tech, I wonder if we could see them in live action in Strange New Worlds.  Both races have cropped up in Star Trek: Lower Decks, as the ship’s Doctor on that show is a Caitian (and a cast regular), and Arex’s race has cropped up a few times too.

Overall there’s been discussions over the years as to whether the show is considered “canon” or not.  It wasn’t for awhile, but the general consensus now is that it does.  Many future productions (especially the remastering of the original series and Star Trek: Lower Decks) have used ships, scenes, and characters from this series in theirs, which is a backdoor acknowledgment of canon anyway.   While never acknowledged as such, many fans (myself included) view the Animated Series as the “fourth year” of the original five year mission laid out in Star Trek (with the fan series Star Trek Continues being the fifth and final).

One thing that puzzles me to this day – as much as they wanted to bill this as “Star Trek”, they never used the Alexander Courage theme song.  They created a new theme to use here.  If I had to guess, it was a cost savings measure that they didn’t have to pay Courage to use it.  But I’ve never found that out for sure.

I still very much enjoy this series, as it harks back to a time in my life when things were simpler and less complicated.

Before I get to the episodes, I wanted to mention a book.  It’s called “Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series”.  IT goes into detail on the series somewhat, and gives a bunch of detail on all 22 episodes.  It’s available in a nice looking hardback, you can reach the book on Amazon.com here.   There is a picture of the book cover below.  Finally, there are a couple of fun videos produced in 2022 by a fan.  He redid sequences from Star Trek: The Next Generation & Star Trek: Voyager in the animation style of this Animated series.  They’re a riot.  I’ve embedded them down near the bottom of the page.  Make sure and check ’em out.

Season 2

Season 2 was short, only 6 episodes, which makes me wonder if they were all part of Season 1’s production block or not.

Season 1


The show loved this “half face closeup” – they used this a LOT in the series.
My copy of the series on DVD



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