New Year, New Trek

We Finished Something!
We finally finished the final season of the original Star Trek.  The last season was better than the first two, on average, but still not great.  In particular, the final episode was a real stinker.  But let's not dwell on that.

Ancient Roman planet, Nazi planet, Chicago gangster planet,
Native American planet, and cowboy planet weren't enough.
Now there's Abe Lincoln planet, too.

There were actually several good episodes in season three: The Enterprise Incident, The Cloud Minders, and the poetically named Is There in Truth No Beauty? were all pretty decent.  If the whole show had been that good, it would have been much easier to watch.

But on New Year's Day 2018, we finished the first section of our trek, albeit a few months behind schedule.  That leads us to the next phase: Star Trek the Animated Series.

Trek In Toontown
Until we read about it in a museum, we had no idea there had ever been an animated series.  It is not generally considered Trek canon, but bits of the stories there have been referenced elsewhere in canon.  And I am so glad we made it part of our journey.

Prices and participation may vary.  Chekov not included.

We are already half-way through with the animated stuff.  It goes really quickly.  For one, the episodes are only half an hour.  For another, there are only 22 episodes in total.  The whole animated series takes about half as long as one season of the original series.

But that's only scratching the surface.

It turns out that, although the animated series is also hit-and-miss, it has a higher hit ratio than the original series.  And since it's kid-friendly, we don't have to keep cringing at the hyper-sexual captain.  All of the characters are voiced by the original cast members.  But my favorite part (and I'm not sure why this should be so) is that Shatner really tones done the overacting.  No weird cadence, no dramatic volume shifts, he just reads his lines.  It makes Kirk look like a much more reasonable and competent leader.

For some reason, Pavel Chekov isn't on the show, although there has been one episode so far written by Walter Koenig.  It's about Spock becoming a giant clone of himself in the service of an immortal monster.  More about that later.

Instead of Chekov, we get a tripedal alien named Arex.  He looks kind of like a really tall cousin of E.T., with three arms and three legs.  There's also a creepy cat-lady on the bridge, who is voiced by Majel Barrett and purrs a lot after her lines.

What?  The giant Spock thing?  Okay.  You've stuck with me this long, so here you go.

Giant Spock, looking menacingly at regular-sized everybody.

The giant Spock thing was bad.  It was nonsense.  And in the end (spoiler!) he stays a giant and telepathically transfers a copy of his mind back into his original tiny body, so now there are two Spocks.  And one is a giant, who is also effectively immortal.

It was so bad it was good.

Isn't It Ironic?
As bad as I felt the original series was, I really didn't get much ironic enjoyment out of it.  I kind of hated most of it.  But this... is different somehow.

I find that at worst, some episodes are a tad boring.  But some are actually pretty good, such as Yesteryear, in which Spock goes back in time to complete a time loop and prevent himself from dying as a boy.  It's hands-down better than anything on the original series.

And then... then there are episodes like The Magicks of Megas-Tu.

Satan.  On Star Trek.  In Space.

I will try to summarize to give you the full effect of the thing in one sentence.  The Enterprise goes to a place where magic is real, Spock draws a pentagram on the floor, Kirk has a magic fight with a pilgrim, and they rescue Satan from actual Salem witches, and their new friend Satan who is still actually Satan is always shirtless and ripped.

It's so bad, and I LOVE it.

Are you ready for some gifs?

This episode is just 24 minutes of stuff that beggars belief.

The Magicks of Megas-Tu: Gif-pocalypse

Aren't you glad this is a thing that exists?