Exploring the outer reaches of the universe the starship is pulled towards a dead star where alien advanced tech portents events of the past and opens a door to a malevolent miasma.
Star Trek: The Animated Series (TV Series)
Beyond the Farthest Star (1973)
User Reviews
Review this title7 Reviews
The Malevolent Miasma...
Xstal28 February 2022
An Alien Civilization Takes Over the Ship
Hitchcoc17 March 2017
This seems to be the typical Saturday morning animation of the time. Very little has gone into the presentation of the events. This is the first episode of this series. The Enterprise explores a 300 million year old civilization that faced ruin and had to take dramatic actions. The ship looks a bit like some sort of kelp or seaweed in space, but quite beautiful. There are some explosions on this strange ship and the crew barely gets back, but a sentient force accompanies them on the transporter and it begins to absorb the Enterprise to form a new life form. The story is adequate. The animation sub-par.
Crackerjack "Star Trek" Adventure, And A Possible Precursor To ALIEN
Steve_Nyland26 January 2010
I would easily pick this as my favorite installment from the "Star Trek" Animated Series from 1973 - 1974. Written by Sam Peeples, the same chap who penned the 2nd "Star Trek" pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", this one has same authority to its storytelling and plays very much like a classic era episode in spite of its cartoonish roots:
While on a "routine" star charting assignment the Enterprise finds itself drawn to a dead planet orbiting a dead star. Locked in orbit is a massive, intricate, derelict alien spacecraft that has been trapped there for uncountable eons of time. Kirk leads an away team to explore the eerie derelict and discovers that its not quite as uninhabited as originally believed. After finding a warning message from the ship's long dead & fossilized captain, the away team departs only to find that a formless energy being has come back with them. And it wants the Enterprise for a very specific, horrifying purpose.
The episode is fast paced, serious in tone, introduces us to the Life Support Belt concept that would allow the animators to place the familiar characters in more fantastic circumstances like the vacuum of space, and concludes with the classic stock device of a self destruct countdown of sorts. You can do much worse for "Star Trek" material regardless of how it was made, and I'd actually rank this up there with "Arena" and "The Tholian Web" as one of "Star Trek"'s most effective television adventures. It was a great choice as the installment to introduce the animated series to viewers.
The episode also serves a curious footnote in the development of what would eventually become ALIEN (1979), believe it or not. Or rather I suspect it may have suggested ideas to the late writer Dan O'Bannon, whom I have been thinking about a lot since his sad passing away in December of 2009. First you have the idea of finding a derelict, abandoned spacecraft trapped in the vicinity of a dead planet. Then you have your basic warning message left by a fossilized member of the crew, who's corpse is propped up next to the viewing screen for good measure, both ideas that also harken back to Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1965) and Roger Corman's QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966).
Then you have your standard alien life form sneaking back onto the ship where it does battle with the human crew, ala FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) and IT! TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1959) QUEEN OF BLOOD, PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, and even THE THING (1952). The creature even lacks a discernible form like the Id creature from FORBIDDEN PLANET and very much like the shape-shifting life form that would evolve into the H.R. Giger designed Alien -- a creature who's shape is defined by genetic mutation based on its host organism's structure.
The episode even concludes with a sequence where the crew has to work themselves into a frenzy to destroy the ship before the creature can use it to get back to civilized portions of the galaxy and eventually take over, reproducing itself by mitosis, a concept that would also find form in John Carpenter's 1982 remake of THE THING, as well as Allan Holzman's overlooked MUTANT (or FORBIDDEN WORLD) which also features a shape shifting genetically mutated life form preying on humans. Heck if the very robot-like Spock had been an android we'd have a working proof here, though the android "Ash" character from ALIEN was a later addition to the screenplay by other hands.
So you know, what ever; O'Bannon certainly would have had a chance to see the show during the period 1974 - 1976 in which he was developing the story idea that would become ALIEN. I can sort of picture O'Bannon and Ron Shusset with their TV on one Saturday morning as they were getting started with the day's writing, and all of a sudden their eyes light up as they watch this cartoonized version of one of their favorite shows. Heck I can even map out Amando de Ossorio pillaging that "Scooby Doo Where Are You?" episode with the ghost pirate ship & the giggling green ghoul for his GHOST SHIP OF THE BLIND DEAD Euro Horror favorite. Inspiration can come from the damndest places sometimes!
9/10
While on a "routine" star charting assignment the Enterprise finds itself drawn to a dead planet orbiting a dead star. Locked in orbit is a massive, intricate, derelict alien spacecraft that has been trapped there for uncountable eons of time. Kirk leads an away team to explore the eerie derelict and discovers that its not quite as uninhabited as originally believed. After finding a warning message from the ship's long dead & fossilized captain, the away team departs only to find that a formless energy being has come back with them. And it wants the Enterprise for a very specific, horrifying purpose.
The episode is fast paced, serious in tone, introduces us to the Life Support Belt concept that would allow the animators to place the familiar characters in more fantastic circumstances like the vacuum of space, and concludes with the classic stock device of a self destruct countdown of sorts. You can do much worse for "Star Trek" material regardless of how it was made, and I'd actually rank this up there with "Arena" and "The Tholian Web" as one of "Star Trek"'s most effective television adventures. It was a great choice as the installment to introduce the animated series to viewers.
The episode also serves a curious footnote in the development of what would eventually become ALIEN (1979), believe it or not. Or rather I suspect it may have suggested ideas to the late writer Dan O'Bannon, whom I have been thinking about a lot since his sad passing away in December of 2009. First you have the idea of finding a derelict, abandoned spacecraft trapped in the vicinity of a dead planet. Then you have your basic warning message left by a fossilized member of the crew, who's corpse is propped up next to the viewing screen for good measure, both ideas that also harken back to Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1965) and Roger Corman's QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966).
Then you have your standard alien life form sneaking back onto the ship where it does battle with the human crew, ala FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) and IT! TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1959) QUEEN OF BLOOD, PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, and even THE THING (1952). The creature even lacks a discernible form like the Id creature from FORBIDDEN PLANET and very much like the shape-shifting life form that would evolve into the H.R. Giger designed Alien -- a creature who's shape is defined by genetic mutation based on its host organism's structure.
The episode even concludes with a sequence where the crew has to work themselves into a frenzy to destroy the ship before the creature can use it to get back to civilized portions of the galaxy and eventually take over, reproducing itself by mitosis, a concept that would also find form in John Carpenter's 1982 remake of THE THING, as well as Allan Holzman's overlooked MUTANT (or FORBIDDEN WORLD) which also features a shape shifting genetically mutated life form preying on humans. Heck if the very robot-like Spock had been an android we'd have a working proof here, though the android "Ash" character from ALIEN was a later addition to the screenplay by other hands.
So you know, what ever; O'Bannon certainly would have had a chance to see the show during the period 1974 - 1976 in which he was developing the story idea that would become ALIEN. I can sort of picture O'Bannon and Ron Shusset with their TV on one Saturday morning as they were getting started with the day's writing, and all of a sudden their eyes light up as they watch this cartoonized version of one of their favorite shows. Heck I can even map out Amando de Ossorio pillaging that "Scooby Doo Where Are You?" episode with the ghost pirate ship & the giggling green ghoul for his GHOST SHIP OF THE BLIND DEAD Euro Horror favorite. Inspiration can come from the damndest places sometimes!
9/10
One of my favorite episodes.
Blueghost9 December 2006
A little more inventive (though somewhat stark) than some of the more recent sci-fi offerings, the voice acting and backgrounds offset stagnated and sparse animation. Even so the actors are more speaking into a microphone while using their character's voice, as opposed to letting themselves get entirely into characters and emote in full.
The story, though basic, is highlighted with some rather interesting premises. The driving character's motive is only loosely touched on, and never fully explored. Most likely this was done to placate to both an adult and child audience for easy story digestion.
Character development is kept to a minimum for both crew and opposition, leaving a rather sparse yet interesting installment into the franchise.
The story, though basic, is highlighted with some rather interesting premises. The driving character's motive is only loosely touched on, and never fully explored. Most likely this was done to placate to both an adult and child audience for easy story digestion.
Character development is kept to a minimum for both crew and opposition, leaving a rather sparse yet interesting installment into the franchise.
Hmm I spy w my little eye
schlagzeugplayer19 August 2019
A alien ship w a bow or handshake to the great Roger Dean. Its probably just me but if you've seen his work w Yes both album art and stage design, you would see it. About the story its very good as a cartoon and yes its 1973 T. V. animation at this time was meh. I give you Sealab 2020 nuff said. Not until Flash Gordon later in the 80's did the animation greatly improve. Not going to spoil it on the story, just watch. Nice touch w the life support belt btw.
Star Trek: Season 4 Opener?
Samuel-Shovel11 November 2018
Warning: Spoilers
"Beyond the Farthest Star" is the pilot to Star Trek: The Animated Series or Season 4 of Star Trek as some fans like to call it. In it, the crew encounters an ancient abandoned starship of complex figuration. It appears to be empty so the crew beams aboard to investigate. They find that the original crew destroyed the ship in order to stop the evil that had invaded the ship's systems.
After accidentally bringing it aboard the Enterprise, the crew must think fast before it takes over all the systems and begins spreading over all the starships in the galaxy. Spock and Kirk pretend to suicide dive the Enterprise into a nearby planet, causing the being to jettison itself at the last minute before the Enterprise course-corrects into a slingshot movement that breaks them free of the being and the planet. They head on to chart more stars.
Woof! A very inauspicious start to The Animated Series. The animation style is cheap and not thrilling (this was to be expected in this time period) but I at least thought we might get a solid storyline and arc. The plot is extremely hard to follow in this one. I suppose this might be a theme (due to the short 20 minute run time.) I did see some potential pros of this being animated. We have already introduced an alien lifeform aboard the Enterprise with a cool design. TOS didn't have the money or the capability to introduce such characters so hopefully over the course of the 2 seasons this runs, we will get into cooler character designs. The show also expands on the Star Trek universe.
We are introduced to a new piece of technology that allows the characters to roam deep space without any kind of specialty space suits. The Life Support Belts allowed the animators to explore new boundaries without having to spend a lot of time on complex space exploration attire (always comes down to money).
But this episode is still a mess. I hope there are better episodes to be found in the future.
After accidentally bringing it aboard the Enterprise, the crew must think fast before it takes over all the systems and begins spreading over all the starships in the galaxy. Spock and Kirk pretend to suicide dive the Enterprise into a nearby planet, causing the being to jettison itself at the last minute before the Enterprise course-corrects into a slingshot movement that breaks them free of the being and the planet. They head on to chart more stars.
Woof! A very inauspicious start to The Animated Series. The animation style is cheap and not thrilling (this was to be expected in this time period) but I at least thought we might get a solid storyline and arc. The plot is extremely hard to follow in this one. I suppose this might be a theme (due to the short 20 minute run time.) I did see some potential pros of this being animated. We have already introduced an alien lifeform aboard the Enterprise with a cool design. TOS didn't have the money or the capability to introduce such characters so hopefully over the course of the 2 seasons this runs, we will get into cooler character designs. The show also expands on the Star Trek universe.
We are introduced to a new piece of technology that allows the characters to roam deep space without any kind of specialty space suits. The Life Support Belts allowed the animators to explore new boundaries without having to spend a lot of time on complex space exploration attire (always comes down to money).
But this episode is still a mess. I hope there are better episodes to be found in the future.
Ugly animation and a semi-decent story.
planktonrules8 April 2015
I noticed that many folks who saw this animated series gave it scores like 9 or 10. Well, that is ridiculous, as the animation quality is just horrible--even by the low standards of the 1970s. So much of it looks like a terrible slide show and the ship the Enterprise encounters is a garish acid-trip sort of thing. As for the crews, the voices were the original characters but the animation made everyone look zombie-like! So, while the notion of being sucked towards a dead sun where a magnetic entity takes over the ship and, in essence, becomes the ship is interesting, the overall effect is severely muted due to Filmation's insistence that the show look like a pile of crap.
I would give the story a 6. It was reasonably interesting but underdeveloped. The dialog was rather stilted. The animation I would give a negative 4 if it was allowed, but IMDb likes scores between 1 and 10--so I'll score this a 1! Overall, a score of 3 seems reasonable and that's a bad indication as to what is likely to come in the next 21 episodes!
I would give the story a 6. It was reasonably interesting but underdeveloped. The dialog was rather stilted. The animation I would give a negative 4 if it was allowed, but IMDb likes scores between 1 and 10--so I'll score this a 1! Overall, a score of 3 seems reasonable and that's a bad indication as to what is likely to come in the next 21 episodes!
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