Series: Star Trek: The Animated Series
Season: 1
Episode: 1
Episode title: “Beyond the Farthest Star”
Original transmission date: September 8 1973
Total seasons (to date if current): 2
Span: 1973 - 1974
Writer(s): Samuel A. Peeples
Director: Hal Sutherland
Basic premise: The
Enterprise gets pulled into the gravity of a dead star, and encounters a deadly ancient alien.
Setting(s): The
Enterprise, the alien ship
Themes: Loneliness, power, abandonment, coercion, exploration
Timeline: 23rd century
Stardate: 5221.3
Vessel: USS
Enterprise
Class: Constitution
Registry: NCC-1701
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): Stellar cartography
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
Captain James T. Kirk
Mr. Spock, Science Officer and S-I-C
Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Ship’s Chief Medical Officer
Hikaru Sulu, Helmsman
Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Uhura, Communications Officer
Alien helmsman
Supporting:
Ancillary:
Transporter operative Kyle
Nurse Christine Chapel
Redshirts
Starring: (The voices of) (Main Cast):[/b] William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy (RIP), DeForest Kelly (RIP), James Doohan (RIP), George Takei, Nichelle Nichols (RIP), Majel Barret (Roddenberry) (RIP)
Guest Star(s):
Synopsis
In orbit around a dead star which appears to have what Mr. Spock describes as “hyper-gravity”, the
Enterprise encounters a much larger alien ship drifting in the planet’s orbit. It appears to be dead, but there is some sort of signal coming from it, so they leave it alone and head on home. Yeah right. Spock’s analysis of the strange ship dates it to about 300 million years ago. Kirk organises a boarding party where the idea quickly emerges that the ship is a living entity. Or was, once. There’s also evidence that seems to suggest the crew destroyed the ship themselves. Uhura tells them the signal the ship was sending stopped once they beamed aboard.
Scotty reasons that the entire ship was set up to receive and store energy, and when they move into a sort of honeycomb chamber they find both that communication with the
Enterprise has been lost and that their phasers do not work. Outside, something appears to be trying to get in, and they find some sort of communication that Kirk reckons could be the ship’s log. Or a warning. Spock tries to translate it, and finds that it is indeed a warning, a warning about the lifeform which is now onboard the ship. Rather than allow it access to their civilisation, the crew have decided to let the ship be drawn into the orbit of the dead star in order to destroy it. They have given their lives to protect their race.
Things start to explode, and the party makes a quick exit, beaming back to the ship. Unfortunately there’s a stowaway, and the alien creature in the form of a green mist seeps into the vents, into the computer systems and is gone. It then takes control of the ship (well, duh) and turns the phaser banks on the alien ship, destroying it. Then it starts shutting down life support, which is never good. It now communicates with them, confirming Kirk’s hypothesis that it is caught in the dense gravity of the dead star and needs a starship to help it break free. Now that it has taken control of the
Enterprise, that’s exactly what it intends to do.
Spock tells Kirk that the alien is pure energy, but is capable of symbiotic relationships and has entered one with the ship, taking it over, in effect
becoming the
Enterprise. It orders Kirk to take the ship to the heart of the galaxy, where it can reproduce and take over all ships there, but Kirk has an idea. To avoid using the computers and alerting the alien, Kirk has his own walking computer do the calculations for a sling-shot manoeuvre to get them out of the planet’s orbit; Spock can do that standing on his head. But as that would be far too undignified for a Vulcan, he remains on his feet and works out the maths. As they dive towards the planet, the alien, fearing that they too are about to destroy their ship, flees, and Kirk has Sulu cut in the warp drive and they sling-shot the fu
ck out of there! Score!
As a downbeat postscript, the alien whines and cries about being left behind as they warp off, saying it is so lonely. Aw. Fu
ck it.
The Resolution
Meh, general
Trek stuff. Basically a game of chicken that the alien loses. All right I suppose.
Questions, and Sometimes, Answers
I know the animation here is early and crude by today’s standards, but I always wondered what the deal was with the idea that whenever one of the characters ran they had to punch the air in front of them? Pretty funny really.
Personal Notes
It’s interesting when you see how much more can be done with a show like this when it can just be animated. Some of the sequences, especially inside the alien craft, while they could easily be replicated today, would have been way out of the reach of the effects around at the time of the original
Star Trek. It’s good to see they can push the envelope, even adding in a strange alien crewmember who takes the place of Chekov beside Sulu at the helm (but who never talks), and overall it’s a pretty faithful kind of continuation of the original series.