Beyond the Farthest Star by: Samuel A. Peeples and directed by: Hal Sutherland

 

“Beyond the Farthest Star” is written by: Samuel A. Peeples and is directed by: Hal Sutherland.  It was produced under production code 22004, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 8, 1973.

 

The fact that there is an animated version of Star Trek fascinates me.  It’s a project from Filmation and only lasted 22 episodes, but it’s clear the show had popularity enough in syndication to be commissioned, all with Gene Roddenberry’s approval but less of his general input as running the show was split between himself and D.C. Fontana.  It’s essentially a fourth season of Star Trek but in a very different form.  Intriguing matters further is Leonard Nimoy advocating for the inclusion of Nichelle Nichols and George Takei, meaning that the animated series reunites the entire cast except Walter Koenig who would provide one script.  “Beyond the Farthest Star” is the opening episode bringing back Samuel A. Peeples, writing his second script for Star Trek and his second pilot episode after “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, and the title to this one is particularly accurate.  After a brand-new theme that evokes the original Alexander Courage theme, the episode launches into a far more contemplative adventure with its own similarities to “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, the Enterprise finding a destroyed spaceship of alien origin and an incredible design.  While the animation on this episode and the show is often rough, it is a Filmation production from 1973 so the limited movement and shortcuts are expected, the backgrounds on this episode are particularly beautiful.  This is apparent on the ship which becomes the major set piece outside of the Enterprise (itself lovingly recreated with its own increase in technology), and it is a gorgeous and alien design, something that could not have been realized in live action.

 

Peeples writing a contemplative script, however well suited to the limited animation style actually suffers from being overwritten in terms of its dialogue.  This is a 24 minute episode, standard for animation, but every scene is packed wall to wall in dialogue, going back and forth between the characters yet still taking the time to getting to the main idea behind the episode, taking a whole seven minutes to get to the actual inciting incident for the episode.  Sadly these seven minutes aren’t really devoted to character beats, largely instead building the idea of the problem of the elevated gravity dragging the Enterprise off-course.  It also wouldn’t be Star Trek without a godlike alien which appears at the climax of the episode to reveal that the ship found had its crew nearly destroyed.  The idea behind the episode is great, but honestly the pacing of the dialogue is really the problem here, despite Peeples contributing several scripts to animation the sheer amount of dialogue sees all the actors struggling to get it all out in time.  There are points where it almost sounds like the characters are out of breath.  The animation does mean that William Shatner has to be reserved and James Doohan who is contributing extra voices of the non-regulars in addition to Scotty shows some of his own range as an actor which is great.

 

Overall, “Beyond the Farthest Star” is an episode that does exactly what it says it’s going to on the tin.  While the animation is limited, the weaker aspects of the episode is the fact that there is so much dialogue that the actors aren’t actually contending with well.  It’s a solid enough start, but the audience of children doesn’t quite work and there is almost too little happening in the 24 minutes of the episode, instead reintroducing the premise of Star Trek over really fulfilling the animation in terms of setting (the animators doing a lot of the heavy lifting on the expansive ship on-screen than any indication in the script).  6/10.