Once Upon a Planet by: Chuck Menville and Len Janson and directed by: Hal Sutherland

 

“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 9^th 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.