The continued adventures of the starship Enterprise. It gives us the last two of the ship's five year mission, high on the list of "worst ideas of specific details to main concepts", because before this, it only lasted three, and if this had gotten a third season, oops, it lasted more than the five. It slips right back into the soft continuity, with a similar opening, and if you watched this right after The Original Series, and wasn't told there were years between it, you'd barely be able to tell. Like that, no (aired) pilot or finale. This was made when NBC realized that the old Nielsen system didn't get the ratings right, it had actually been one of the most successful series, but props from it were gone, so they did what other live-action prime time did in the 70's, including Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, The Partridge Family, and The Dukes of Hazzard. Go Saturday morning cartoon with it. It even won an Emmy in that category. It is smarter and more mature, and not specifically for kids. You *can* go in blind: if this is the first Star Trek you watch, while there are elements and such that are followed up on that you won't appreciate as much, you will pick up anything you need to know to follow it: You'll learn what warp speed, Klingons and phasers are. And this fits in nicely tonally. This review is co-written by my ex-fiancée, who has graciously lent her expertise on the franchise each time I delve into one of these.
We are again led by the adventurous, and though it's less present here, seducer-of-women, Captain James Tiberius Kirk(Shatner, clever and determined, who still pauses here and there, the rest of his trademark not as clear, given the medium). His Second in command and Science Officer is Spock(Nimoy, R.I.P., half-Vulcan and -human, driven by the former to logic, intelligence, away from the emotions of the latter, in spite of clearly caring about his friends, including Jim, who he represents the mind of. He will now sometimes Troi). Where the modern takes on this are ensembles, the two aforementioned, are the focus, along with Dr "Bones" McCoy(Kelley, R.I.P., Southern, gives his opinion and driven to protect and heal), the passion of the Cpt. The two last-mentioned people have a sibling relationship, picking on each other, yet you never doubt, and will see, they'd do anything to help the other when it counts.
The Chief of Engineering is Scotty(Doohan, who's love of the ship rubs off on the audience. He also gives us Arex, an orange-skinned, goofy-grinned crew member). He performs as a lot of guests, and I'm not certain why... did he jump at the chance, was it someone's idea they ran with, was he deemed the best at changing his voice of the mains, was he less expensive than some of the others, maybe he demonstrated that he could produce the most variety, perhaps it helped that he was the only one who didn't speak in his real accent as his regular? The pilot is Sulu(Takei, a swashbuckler). In charge of communication is Uhura(Nichols, a strong woman, who here may just get to take command... and *own* it!). Nurse Chapel(Barrett, now a full lieutenant. She also does M'Ress, the purring, cat-like being). Chekov is Sir-Not-Appearing-On-This-One, and he's the only bridge person. It was because of costs cut of hiring. He did pen a script. This was the most expensive drawn shows on the air at the time, primarily because of the six "names". They, and any one-offs and such, all give solid performances. It's very unusual and impressive for those not trained for voice acting to do this well – I don't know if it's themselves or the direction...anyway, kudos to them all.
This has 2 seasons, 22 episodes total, each of 20-21 minutes, fantastical, personal, or both. They kept up a similar ratio of 'serious' ones, to 'action' ones, to 'light/funny' ones. They vary some in quality... with that said, there isn't a single one I would suggest you skip, and this has a handful that live up to the standards expected from Gene Roddenberry's idealistic, utopian, optimistic view of what's in store for us. The characters are the driving force and we get cool, compelling and/or fun sci-fi concepts explored well: vastly different forms of life from what we know, including intelligent plants and huge monsters, unusual situations, and frequently amazing, detailed aliens, tech, vast settings, they really build an incredible world. This is exciting, at a fast pace, tight, and rarely too fast. There are a handful of new technologies like the recreation room (later the idea was reused, where it was known as a holodeck) and the aqua-shuttle. They can now go onto non-M-class planets, ones that don't support human life, with life-support-belts. As a result of the use of recycled footage, there were also many instances of randomly misplaced people and equipment.
The events, phenomena, and as already mentioned, non-humanoid aliens, are much freer and more surprising than before, since with animation, you can basically do anything, and with the humans on our crew being, well, human, and that they look and move fairly realistically, it grounds this in our reality, just in our future and in space. As envisioned by the time it was made, of course. And thus, the amazing things are that much more effective, than in some fiction where everything is outlandish, nothing is like our world, our time, us. This was done by Filmation. Relatively simple visuals. Often fairly limited angles and movement in the frames. When someone runs, they will often appear as a silhouette.
There are themes, ideas and sights that aren't for the youngest of viewers... one's age should probably be in double digits. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys speculative fiction, and would urge those thinking this is "just for kids" to give it a chance. 7/10
We are again led by the adventurous, and though it's less present here, seducer-of-women, Captain James Tiberius Kirk(Shatner, clever and determined, who still pauses here and there, the rest of his trademark not as clear, given the medium). His Second in command and Science Officer is Spock(Nimoy, R.I.P., half-Vulcan and -human, driven by the former to logic, intelligence, away from the emotions of the latter, in spite of clearly caring about his friends, including Jim, who he represents the mind of. He will now sometimes Troi). Where the modern takes on this are ensembles, the two aforementioned, are the focus, along with Dr "Bones" McCoy(Kelley, R.I.P., Southern, gives his opinion and driven to protect and heal), the passion of the Cpt. The two last-mentioned people have a sibling relationship, picking on each other, yet you never doubt, and will see, they'd do anything to help the other when it counts.
The Chief of Engineering is Scotty(Doohan, who's love of the ship rubs off on the audience. He also gives us Arex, an orange-skinned, goofy-grinned crew member). He performs as a lot of guests, and I'm not certain why... did he jump at the chance, was it someone's idea they ran with, was he deemed the best at changing his voice of the mains, was he less expensive than some of the others, maybe he demonstrated that he could produce the most variety, perhaps it helped that he was the only one who didn't speak in his real accent as his regular? The pilot is Sulu(Takei, a swashbuckler). In charge of communication is Uhura(Nichols, a strong woman, who here may just get to take command... and *own* it!). Nurse Chapel(Barrett, now a full lieutenant. She also does M'Ress, the purring, cat-like being). Chekov is Sir-Not-Appearing-On-This-One, and he's the only bridge person. It was because of costs cut of hiring. He did pen a script. This was the most expensive drawn shows on the air at the time, primarily because of the six "names". They, and any one-offs and such, all give solid performances. It's very unusual and impressive for those not trained for voice acting to do this well – I don't know if it's themselves or the direction...anyway, kudos to them all.
This has 2 seasons, 22 episodes total, each of 20-21 minutes, fantastical, personal, or both. They kept up a similar ratio of 'serious' ones, to 'action' ones, to 'light/funny' ones. They vary some in quality... with that said, there isn't a single one I would suggest you skip, and this has a handful that live up to the standards expected from Gene Roddenberry's idealistic, utopian, optimistic view of what's in store for us. The characters are the driving force and we get cool, compelling and/or fun sci-fi concepts explored well: vastly different forms of life from what we know, including intelligent plants and huge monsters, unusual situations, and frequently amazing, detailed aliens, tech, vast settings, they really build an incredible world. This is exciting, at a fast pace, tight, and rarely too fast. There are a handful of new technologies like the recreation room (later the idea was reused, where it was known as a holodeck) and the aqua-shuttle. They can now go onto non-M-class planets, ones that don't support human life, with life-support-belts. As a result of the use of recycled footage, there were also many instances of randomly misplaced people and equipment.
The events, phenomena, and as already mentioned, non-humanoid aliens, are much freer and more surprising than before, since with animation, you can basically do anything, and with the humans on our crew being, well, human, and that they look and move fairly realistically, it grounds this in our reality, just in our future and in space. As envisioned by the time it was made, of course. And thus, the amazing things are that much more effective, than in some fiction where everything is outlandish, nothing is like our world, our time, us. This was done by Filmation. Relatively simple visuals. Often fairly limited angles and movement in the frames. When someone runs, they will often appear as a silhouette.
There are themes, ideas and sights that aren't for the youngest of viewers... one's age should probably be in double digits. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys speculative fiction, and would urge those thinking this is "just for kids" to give it a chance. 7/10