We vacillate over whether it was daring to name an episode of a 1974 children’s cartoon “The Jihad”, but we both agree that it’s not a great episode. “The Time Trap” is a bit better, with some interesting shades of “The Side of Paradise”, but ultimately it doesn’t add up to much. Also! Richard really …
Wildly inconsistent, is The Animated Series. “The Slaver Weapon” is one of the finest episodes of the show yet, with an interesting if admittedly cliche premise and a strong statement about the rights of cat women. “The Eye of the Beholder” is so bad that Eric rants about the episode until Richard adopts a kitten …
Star Trek has always had a relatively loose relationship with scientific rigor, and this week we have some of the shoddiest understandings of evolution this side of The Creation Museum. In “The Terratin Incident” everyone on board the Enterprise starts shrinking, for unknown reasons, and in “The Ambergris Element” Kirk and Spock get turned into …
The Animated Series is sequel-heavy this week. In “Once Upon a Planet”, we revisit the shore leave planet from, uh, “Shore Leave”, and discover that they probably should have left well enough alone. In “Mudd’s Passion”, an animated Harry Mudd talks Nurse Chapel into slipping Spock some ecstasy. Plus! Richard is very interested in exploring …
Seeing as how they couldn’t afford to include Walter Koenig in the cast of The Animated Series, it was super nice to buy the script to “The Infinite Vulcan” from him, even thought the episode is kind of pants. Later, in “The Magicks of Megas-Tu”, the crew of the Enterprise are menaced by a guy …
This week, on Trekabout: Episode 23, Eric and Richard discuss “The Trouble… wait, what? That can’t be right. Everything is animated! Oh, this episode is called “More Tribbles, More Troubles”, and it’s… adequate? Then, on “The Survivor”, we’re faced with a member of the 1% who is actually a monster. Not that different from the …
The Animated Series is hungry this week. In “One of Our Planets Is Missing”, a giant intelligent space cloud is eating planets–and the people too! In “The Lorelei Signal”, Amazon vampire ladies are luring men to their deaths because the women are infertile, or something. Look, Uhura and Nurse Chapel shoot people in this episode, so …
You can’t tell, since this is an audio podcast, but in honor of our move into The Animated Series, we’ve replaced ourselves with cartoon facsimiles. And just in time, too, as “Beyond the Farthest Star” and “Yesteryear” assuage Richard’s fears about an animated Trek. The former provides a possible template for the show–trippy visuals with …
Our 9-month mission is over, as we reach the end of The Original Series with “All Our Yesterdays” and “Turnabout Intruder”. If only we could go back in time to the first or second seasons–but no women, please, they’re nuts! Plus! Eric lays out a roadmap for the future of Trekabout. iTunes Google Play RSS
As we inch closer to the end of The Original Series, we’ve hit the brakes with “The Cloud Minders” and “The Savage Curtain”, two more episodes with intriguing premises that get bored with themselves halfway through. Plus! Abraham Lincoln dies again. iTunes Google Play RSS
