Which Season of The Animated Series Do You Think is the Best?
- Thread starter indycar
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Hard to say. In terms of production values, I'd give season 2 the edge, since its production wasn't as rushed and they were able to do a more polished job. But season 2 only has a couple of good episodes -- "The Pirates of Orion" and "Albatross" -- and the rest is weak, particularly the dreadful finale, "The Counter-Clock Incident." I'm not sure it's even a fair comparison, since season 1 had considerably more episodes and thus more chances to do well, but I'd say season 1 takes the lead from a story/writing standpoint, even though it falls behind from a production standpoint.
Pretty much where I'm at. Plus, it's hard to fairly compare the two as season one had 16 episodes and season two only had 6.
Who was the season 2 story editor? I've never been quite clear on that. IMDb credits Fontana as the story editor for all 22 episodes, for what it's worth.
Looking at the list of episodes, I'd say the best stuff is in Season 1.
Season one will always win the "best season, " with so much pressure on Filmation to live up to all that made TOS great. Right out of the gates, "Beyond the Farthest Star" and "Yesteryear" did not disappoint, and are among the oft-cited best episodes of the series. Sure, there are some uneven stories, such as "Mudd's Passion," "Once Upon A Planet" and "The Infinite Vulcan," but the season accomplished more than being a convincing follow-up to TOS, but ended up (arguably) as the most literate, well-conceived TV animation of the decade
Hmm... what's the deal with all the "which season is best" threads all of a sudden?
Anyway, I also consider TAS to basically be a single set of episodes, even if it was technically aired in two seasons. It just so happens that the episodes I like most were from the first batch of episodes. But the second "season" had way fewer episodes than the first, as has been mentioned. If it had ten more episodes, there would be a more solid basis for comparison, IMO.
Kor
Anyway, I also consider TAS to basically be a single set of episodes, even if it was technically aired in two seasons. It just so happens that the episodes I like most were from the first batch of episodes. But the second "season" had way fewer episodes than the first, as has been mentioned. If it had ten more episodes, there would be a more solid basis for comparison, IMO.
Kor
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I still think it's weird that TAS had two seasons. It feels like just one whole season to me.
I had to look up where the Season 1 finale was and Season 2 began. I don't remember Pirates of Orion (I'm doing a slow rewatch of TAS and just watched Yesteryear) or Jihad. In fact, I wonder if the writers would get away with calling an episode Jihad in today's climate.
Reading about that episode in The Star Trek Concordance was the first time I ever heard of that word.
And the TAS episode misused the word "jihad" in the way that Westerners usually do, by treating it as synonymous with "crusade." Strictly speaking, jihad isn't an aggressive war of conquest or conversion like a crusade, it's the defense of the Islamic community against threats to its freedom or survival. The Qur'an overtly defines it as purely defensive. In fact, that's the lesser jihad; the greater jihad is the struggle within oneself against the forces that endanger one's ability to be a good Muslim, such as doubt, fear, selfishness, and rage. Which is why terrorist groups who use "jihad" as the excuse for their violence are totally corrupting its meaning and perpetuating the Western misunderstanding of the word.
Anyway, it would've been more fitting for that episode to be called "The Crusade" than "The Jihad," but I suppose "crusade" was seen as a word with more positive connotations to a Western audience, even though the historical Crusades were pretty barbaric undertakings. Or maybe invoking religion was seen as too controversial for Saturday morning, and "jihad" was a comparatively obscure and exotic term at the time.
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/TAS014.htm
"But we must recover it before my people discover it is gone and go mad -- launch a jihad, a holy war on the galaxy."
It's only said once, but it is spoken.
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