Watching The Animated Series For The First Time

[Christopher]

I understand that "the only thing that is canon is that which is shown onscreen" but I don't think that means that 'canon' cannot include reasonable inferences based on what *is* shown on screen. I don't think it is plausible to say we don't know if the Enterprise embarked on a mission after the events of TMP.

You didn't read my post above. I was not objecting to the idea of a mission after TMP; I've written multiple novels and novellas set in just such a mission. I was objecting to the kneejerk assumption that it had to be 5 years long.

In my post-TMP novels, I did accept the conceit of a second 5-year tour, but only because I was staying consistent with Peter David's The Captain's Daughter, which had established that to be the case. I clarified that 5 years is not a mandated duration but merely a recommended maximum service period between refits and crew rotations, so that a ship's mission might well be longer or shorter. I also established that after the second 5YM ended, the Enterprise was assigned as Admiral Kirk's flagship, under Captain Spock's command but occasionally going on special missions commanded by Kirk -- such as the mission we saw in TWOK where Kirk took over to investigate Regula I. (Which is what the term "flagship" actually means, a ship attached to a flag officer and used as their command base, rather than the vernacular use of the term from TNG onward as a ceremonial designation for the "star" vessel in the fleet.) That allowed me to break free of the rigid 5-year paradigm and do something more creative.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I'd say the bigger problem is how heteronormative it is, assuming that every man in the crew would fall for seductive women the same way, and that no women would. But nobody was going to touch that issue in 1973 Saturday morning TV, of course.

I don't think it was "heteronormative." What gay man hasn't been obsessed with Judy Garland, or Cher, or Lady Gaga? The female archetype captures all men in one way or another, except for some fringe psychos who would never make it into a starship crew. The gay men were hypnotized to a different fantasy, that's all.

And while it is implied that every last crewman has been hypnotized, it isn't ruled out that some of the women were infatuated (literally: "made stupid"), too. Out of a hundred women onboard, let's say six of them drifted off into a desirous dreamland. Who would know?

So really, "The Lorelei Signal" was inclusive as hell for the period, and the Saturday morning time slot.

 

[TRON JA307020]

You didn't read my post above. I was not objecting to the idea of a mission after TMP; I've written multiple novels and novellas set in just such a mission. I was objecting to the kneejerk assumption that it had to be 5 years long.

In my post-TMP novels, I did accept the conceit of a second 5-year tour, but only because I was staying consistent with Peter David's The Captain's Daughter, which had established that to be the case. I clarified that 5 years is not a mandated duration but merely a recommended maximum service period between refits and crew rotations, so that a ship's mission might well be longer or shorter. I also established that after the second 5YM ended, the Enterprise was assigned as Admiral Kirk's flagship, under Captain Spock's command but occasionally going on special missions commanded by Kirk -- such as the mission we saw in TWOK where Kirk took over to investigate Regula I. (Which is what the term "flagship" actually means, a ship attached to a flag officer and used as their command base, rather than the vernacular use of the term from TNG onward as a ceremonial designation for the "star" vessel in the fleet.) That allowed me to break free of the rigid 5-year paradigm and do something more creative.

Yeah it definitely didn't have to be a five year mission. When Spock says the "These are the voyages" speech in TWOK he doesn't mention 5 year mission. It's clear missions weren't all one length.

 

[Tallguy]

Yeah it definitely didn't have to be a firve year mission. When Spock says the "These ate the viysges" speech in TWOK he doesn't mention 5 year mission. It's clear missions weren't all one length.

The training ship Enterprise had an "ongoing" mission and the Enterprise D had a "continuing" mission.

 

[TRON JA307020]

The training ship Enterprise had an "ongoing" mission and the Enterprise D had a "continuing" mission.

Exactly. I suspect the 5 year mission was added because Roddenberry hoped the network might give him 5 seasons. Lol.

 

[Christopher]

I suspect the 5 year mission was added because Roddenberry hoped the network might give him 5 seasons. Lol.

Unlikely, given that the sixties also gave us Run for Your Life, a 3-season series about a man with 18 months to live. Then in the next decade you had M*A*S*H, an 11-year series about a 3-year war. TV shows back then were usually set in a timeless present. They didn't have home video and box sets and wikis, and there was no guarantee you'd be able to see every episode of a series, so they experienced shows more on an episode-to-episode basis than as a unified whole.

Heck, even more modern shows do that. I've been watching the Agatha Christie's Poirot series from the 1990s-2000s. They started in 1935 and came up to 1936, doing several installments explicitly dated in the summer, fall, and early winter of '36 (though not in chronological order). Then, after a gap of four years in real time, they revived the series with a story where Poirot had been retired for some time and then resumed his career at the end... and the next one after that was explicitly set in May 1936.

Not to mention that only a small percentage of TV series have ever lasted long enough to get 5 seasons; probably fewer than half of new shows will ever get to a third season, let alone more. Science fiction shows in particular tended to get cancelled young back then. It would've been insanely unrealistic to expect a 5-year run.

Also, we came into the mission in medias res. The Making of Star Trek, published after seasons 2, said that Kirk had been captain of the Enterprise for at least four years. So the intent was that the start of TOS was already at least two years into Kirk's command. These days, we assume every series has to start with an origin story, but that was only sometimes the case back then. Because of the more episodic nature of the shows at the time, it was common to start with the status quo already long-established.

No, the "5-year mission" line was probably just meant to convey to the audience that the Enterprise was out in deep space for the long haul, that it was a self-sufficient community far from home. The exact number didn't matter; it just had to be a long enough span to get the idea across. I have no doubt that if the series had been an unlikely hit and had lasted to a sixth season, they would've still kept the "5-year mission" narration, like those other perpetual-present series I mentioned.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I saw it when it originally aired but I had not seen it until I bought the blu-ray set about 6 years ago. I barely remembered anything so it was like watching it for the first time.

I have to say I had a mixed reaction. Mostly it was mediocre to really good with a few bad ones. I should watch it again to see how I feel about it.

 

[Auroratrek]

The animation is pretty terrible, including the reported fact that the show runner was color blind, so we get Klingons in pink armor, for example. That said, some of the stories were actually pretty good, particularly the episode "Yesteryear" where we see Spock's sehlat. Interestingly, being the early 70's, it wasn't a problem for a Saturday morning cartoon to depict alcohol use, interspecies sexual attraction, and onscreen deaths, etc. As people have noted, the fact the it starred the original cast, and was written by real science fiction writers, makes it worth the look. Bonus that Uhura--ostensibly 4th in command--finally gets to take command of the Enterprise. It would be an interesting exercise to see what it would look like if somebody redid an episode--using the original voice work--but with decent animation.

 

[Christopher]

The animation is pretty terrible, including the reported fact that the show runner was color blind, so we get Klingons in pink armor, for example.

Myth, myth, myth. First off, it was director Hal Sutherland who was colorblind; a showrunner is a head writer, who would have nothing to do with color selection. (Also TAS didn't have a showrunner per se, the closest thing being story editor D.C. Fontana.) Second, it was actually director of color Irvin W. Kaplan who picked the colors, and he simply favored using purple, pink, and green because those were bright colors that he considered appealing to children.

Interestingly, being the early 70's, it wasn't a problem for a Saturday morning cartoon to depict alcohol use, interspecies sexual attraction, and onscreen deaths, etc.

Actually it was extremely uncommon to show death in 1970s Saturday morning TV. I was a kid in the '70s, growing up on Filmation shows, and deaths were so rare in them that it was always potent and startling to me when it did happen. Note that in TAS, outside of "The Slaver Weapon" and the animal death in "Yesteryear," there isn't a single onscreen death in the entire series. There are references to deaths that happened in the past or are at risk of happening in the future, but that's it.

And when has fantasy/SF children's entertainment ever had a problem depicting interspecies romance? After all, inhuman characters are always just metaphors for humans. For instance, 1960s Dick Tracy comic strips had Tracy's son marry and bear a child with Moon Maid, an antennaed woman from an alien civilization on the far side of the Moon.

 

[Tallguy]

Myth, myth, myth.

Thank you.

 

[mb22]

I wonder why Fontana (or anyone else involved who was familiar with TOS) didn't complain about the colors to Kaplan. Perhaps production was so rushed she didn't get a chance to see it until it was too late to do anything about it.

 

[Phoenix219]

Unlikely, given that the sixties also gave us Run for Your Life, a 3-season series about a man with 18 months to live. Then in the next decade you had M*A*S*H, an 11-year series about a 3-year war. TV shows back then were usually set in a timeless present. They didn't have home video and box sets and wikis, and there was no guarantee you'd be able to see every episode of a series, so they experienced shows more on an episode-to-episode basis than as a unified whole.

Heck, even more modern shows do that. I've been watching the Agatha Christie's Poirot series from the 1990s-2000s. They started in 1935 and came up to 1936, doing several installments explicitly dated in the summer, fall, and early winter of '36 (though not in chronological order). Then, after a gap of four years in real time, they revived the series with a story where Poirot had been retired for some time and then resumed his career at the end... and the next one after that was explicitly set in May 1936.

Not to mention that only a small percentage of TV series have ever lasted long enough to get 5 seasons; probably fewer than half of new shows will ever get to a third season, let alone more. Science fiction shows in particular tended to get cancelled young back then. It would've been insanely unrealistic to expect a 5-year run.

Also, we came into the mission in medias res. The Making of Star Trek, published after seasons 2, said that Kirk had been captain of the Enterprise for at least four years. So the intent was that the start of TOS was already at least two years into Kirk's command. These days, we assume every series has to start with an origin story, but that was only sometimes the case back then. Because of the more episodic nature of the shows at the time, it was common to start with the status quo already long-established.

No, the "5-year mission" line was probably just meant to convey to the audience that the Enterprise was out in deep space for the long haul, that it was a self-sufficient community far from home. The exact number didn't matter; it just had to be a long enough span to get the idea across. I have no doubt that if the series had been an unlikely hit and had lasted to a sixth season, they would've still kept the "5-year mission" narration, like those other perpetual-present series I mentioned.

This is also suggested by dialogue in the pilot. I've never liked the idea that WNMHGB was before the 5YM, on some earlier mission or shakedown cruise; I consider it to be the FINALE of an unseen previous season of adventures, that would have had HUGE impact after watching a full set of adventures with Kelso and Mitchell. YMMV. In the old days, I would have loved to see that expressed as a fan series.

 

[Christopher]

I wonder why Fontana (or anyone else involved who was familiar with TOS) didn't complain about the colors to Kaplan. Perhaps production was so rushed she didn't get a chance to see it until it was too late to do anything about it.

Probably because they didn't have a problem with them. Color tastes in the 1970s were different than they are today -- just look at the drab pastels, browns, and avocado greens on their cars and appliances. Pink was popular too, even in men's clothing. I remember seeing a Rockford Files episode where Charles Napier played a tough, angry thug wearing a bright pink shirt, and it wasn't treated as incongruous in any way.

Prior to WWII, pink was actually seen as a masculine color, because it was a shade of red and red = blood, raw meat, grr, argh. And blue was seen as feminine because it was a soft, gentle color. The completely arbitrary inversion of that gender color coding didn't happen until after the war, and was reinforced in subsequent decades by the makers of baby clothing and goods in their catalogs and ads. So in the '70s, there would still have been a lot of people who hadn't grown up taking that color coding for granted.

This is also suggested by dialogue in the pilot. I've never liked the idea that WNMHGB was before the 5YM, on some earlier mission or shakedown cruise; I consider it to be the FINALE of an unseen previous season of adventures, that would have had HUGE impact after watching a full set of adventures with Kelso and Mitchell. YMMV. In the old days, I would have loved to see that expressed as a fan series.

I don't see why it can't be both. After all, if 5-year missions aren't a default, that means that missions could come in any number of lengths. They could be brief, single-mission assignments, yeah, or they could be shorter tours of maybe 6 months, a year, 2 years, anything.

The way I portrayed it in The Captain's Oath was that Kirk and the crew had a handful of missions before getting the galaxy-edge assignment (including the first mission in TCO and the missions depicted by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore in SCE: Foundations Book One and Mere Anarchy Book One), and that the trip to the galaxy's edge would've taken long enough that other missions could've happened along the way. My intent was to say that the 5-year mission proper didn't begin until after the ship got back from the galaxy's edge and underwent a refit to its series configuration, since it makes no sense for such an extensive refit to happen during an ongoing mission. But I was instructed not to state that outright on the grounds that it might confuse casual readers, so I left it implicit.

 

[Forbin]

Thank you.

Looks like you were mythtaken.

 

[Tallguy]

I wonder why Fontana (or anyone else involved who was familiar with TOS) didn't complain about the colors to Kaplan. Perhaps production was so rushed she didn't get a chance to see it until it was too late to do anything about it.

Probably because they didn't have a problem with them. Color tastes in the 1970s were different than they are today -- just look at the drab pastels, browns, and avocado greens on their cars and appliances. Pink was popular too, even in men's clothing. I remember seeing a Rockford Files episode where Charles Napier played a tough, angry thug wearing a bright pink shirt, and it wasn't treated as incongruous in any way.

If she is to believed DC said she did have a problem with pink Kzinti. I think she also gave Niven a heads up about it.

This is also suggested by dialogue in the pilot. I've never liked the idea that WNMHGB was before the 5YM, on some earlier mission or shakedown cruise; I consider it to be the FINALE of an unseen previous season of adventures, that would have had HUGE impact after watching a full set of adventures with Kelso and Mitchell. YMMV. In the old days, I would have loved to see that expressed as a fan series.

From the unused captain's log:

Enterprise log, Captain James Kirk commanding. We are leaving that vast cloud of stars and planets which we call our galaxy. Behind us, Earth, Mars, Venus, even our Sun, are specks of dust. The question: What is out there in the black void beyond? Until now our mission has been that of space law regulation, contact with Earth colonies and investigation of alien life. But now, a new task: A probe out into where no man has gone before.

Looks like you were mythtaken.

Good grief. It's a running gag.

 

[Christopher]

If she is to believed DC said she did have a problem with pink Kzinti. I think she also gave Niven a heads up about it.

Well, it makes sense to me. Pink is the color of raw meat. Kzinti would probably find it appetizing. Well, on the other hand, maybe they might not appreciate looking like food.

Anyway, the colors were Irvin Kaplan's responsibility, not Fontana's. His job title was literally "Color Director." Fontana was story editor, which is a similar role in some ways to a modern showrunner but not as high-ranking. So if she had a different opinion, that doesn't mean she could override Kaplan's or Sutherland's choices. (And the myth that Sutherland was somehow unable to judge because he was colorblind is ridiculous, since the colors were specified in writing on the model sheets.)

 

[Dar70]

I know everyone has seen these. Wish they would have done a DS9 one...

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They did a really good job of getting the feel of the TOS cartoon...

 

[mb22]

Well, it makes sense to me. Pink is the color of raw meat. Kzinti would probably find it appetizing. Well, on the other hand, maybe they might not appreciate looking like food.

Anyway, the colors were Irvin Kaplan's responsibility, not Fontana's. His job title was literally "Color Director." Fontana was story editor, which is a similar role in some ways to a modern showrunner but not as high-ranking. So if she had a different opinion, that doesn't mean she could override Kaplan's or Sutherland's choices. (And the myth that Sutherland was somehow unable to judge because he was colorblind is ridiculous, since the colors were specified in writing on the model sheets.)

Are there any other Filmation shows that Kaplan worked on that have similar color choices?

 

[Christopher]

Are there any other Filmation shows that Kaplan worked on that have similar color choices?

Most of them, presumably, since Ervin L. Kaplan (sorry, I got his name wrong before) was the color director for Filmation's animated shows and films from 1971 until it went out of business in 1989. (Before that, he was a background artist and background director on their shows starting in 1966, after having previously worked as a color artist for UPA and a background artist on Gene Deitch's Popeye and Tom & Jerry cartoons and The Alvin Show. Post-Filmation, he was a background key designer for King of the Hill.)

 

[TRON JA307020]

I know everyone has seen these. Wish they would have done a DS9 one...

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They did a really good job of getting the feel of the TOS cartoon...

Yup. I saw these a year ago. They are great. I'm one of the people who enjoy and really like the filmation style of animation. It would be cool to get some original animated star trek in that style. Of course it won't ever happen. Lol