“Once Upon a Planet” is written by: Chuck Menville and
Len Janson and is directed by: Hal Sutherland.
It was produced under production code 22017, was the 9th episode
of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on November 3, 1973.
I didn’t really expect Star Trek: The Animated
Series to write a sequel to “Shore Leave” but here we are. “Shore Leave” was one of those episodes that
has a fantastic premise that is let down by the limitations of live action
television and the fact that the episode was being rewritten on the fly while
filming. “Once Upon a Planet” is not
from “Shore Leave” writer Theodore Sturgeon, but Chuck Menville and Len Janson
a pair of television writers with Menville having a fairly extensive career in
animation. This is perhaps why “Once Upon
a Planet” is the best looking episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series
thus far, Menville as a writer was allowed to cut loose and the animators are
clearly having a joy in switching from the science fiction vistas to
fantastical vistas and back to science fiction at points. Menville and Janson also attempt to not
repeat the general plot of “Shore Leave”, using the first few minutes of the
episode to recap the events and premise of that episode including the Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland connection that once again becomes the first
fantastical thing appearing in the episode.
The actual premise of “Once Upon a Planet” is that the computers that govern
the pleasure planet are going haywire, capturing Uhura while the keeper of the
planet is nowhere to be seen, and it’s up to the crew of the Enterprise
to stop it.
This means that “Once Upon a Planet” is the second
episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series to really focus on Uhura as a
character and allow Nichelle Nichols the chance to really explore what she can
do with the character. It’s a shame than
that instead of having Uhura lead her own subplot, Menville and Janson saddle
her with being the damsel in distress and a figure for exposition to reach the
audience before Kirk can come in and rescue her. This is buffered somewhat by the fact that
this is an episode where despite William Shatner receiving top billing as
Captain Kirk, he doesn’t actually appear nearly as much in the 25-minute runtime
as you would expect. The actual conflict
of the episode also hinges on a computer malfunction that sadly doesn’t have
enough time in the runtime to be really explored when compared to even other
episodes in the series. The idea is that
the computer has come to see other forms of life serving aboard vessels
specifically as slaves to a machine masters that it wishes to free by powering
down, killing them, intending to do this to Uhura. This is where we have a rather uncomfortable
issue of our one black character being treated by the villain as a slave, and
there isn’t much Nichelle Nichols can really do about it except work with the
material given. It’s also brought down,
at least in my eyes, by having Kirk be the one to save the day when he really
was a passive character in the episode.
“Once Upon a Planet” genuinely seemed more interested
in exploring the other characters: Sulu gets some moments to shine early on
while the focus of finding Uhura is placed more on Spock and McCoy (though in a
general sense of what their banter is).
When the Enterprise is interfered with by the computer it gives a
chance for James Doohan as Scotty to shine and the first real extended dialogue
for the new recurring alien characters Arex and M’Ress, the former being a navigator
with three pairs of arms and the latter being a feline alien which I’m fairly
certain was Gene Roddenberry’s idea (she’s voiced by Majel Barrett). It isn’t a problem that Kirk doesn’t have
much to do, Star Trek in my mind works better as an ensemble show
already so the captain taking a back seat isn’t a problem, but Shatner really
pushes his performance to make the story about him when it really shouldn’t be,
which really brings down what could have been a great episode.
Overall, “Once Upon a Planet” is a script that gets a
little too bogged down in recap and not thinking through the decision of who
has to be the damsel in distress and called a slave several times. The actual visuals of the episode are great,
taking full advantage of animation as a medium even if the budget of each of
these episodes isn’t always up to scratch, and the actual character work does
its best to follow, but it honestly leaves too much to be desired in terms of
what it was trying to accomplish. 5/10.
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