The Terratin Incident by: Paul Schneider and directed by: Hal Sutherland

 

“The Terratin Incident” is written by: Paul Schneider and is directed by: Hal Sutherland.  It was produced under production code 22015, was the 11^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on November 17, 1973.

 

You know “The Terratin Incident” is an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series that if it wasn’t for William Shatner phoning it in, it’d be rivaling “Yesteryear” as one of the absolute best of this series so far.  Paul Schneider writes the episode, returning to Star Trek after “Balance of Terror” and “The Squire of Gothos”, the former being my personal favorite episode of the original series, while the later is a solid, more surreal episode.  “The Terratin Incident” is one of those episodes that works because there’s a particularly strong mystery at the core of the episode: why is the crew of the Enterprise shrinking?  Schneider’s script is particularly methodical in investigating the mystery, starting from wondering if they are shrinking, or the ship is growing.  The fear becomes how far can they actually shrink, though this is soon revealed to be finite, so the bulk of the episode is trying to stop this from happening.  Were this made in the original series, it would likely have been a ship only episode, though likely one using a lot of greenscreen to achieve the shrinking effects.  Using it in Star Trek: The Animated Series means that it’s actually a lot easier to depict in the animated format, and for my money it looks far better than it could.  It’s clear the animators are having a fun time playing around with the scale of the characters and drawing up the work arounds to run the Enterprise while the crew gets smaller and smaller.  The episode also goes fairly far in terms of exploring the dangers of being too small, there’s the general point of where the crew will be too small to work the Enterprise, but Sulu also falls off a console and breaks his leg while Nurse Chapel falls into a fishtank.  Okay the later event is really there for Kirk to have a daring rescue scene which feels a bit like padding, but it also has a workaround for using the regular sized medical equipment to heal Sulu’s leg.

 

Schneider also doesn’t drop the ball in terms of explanations as to why the Enterprise is shrinking.  While the big twist is that Terratin is a lost Earth colony, Terra Ten, it’s seeded in the inciting incident of the radio waves and Schneider makes you feel the colonist’s desperation to be heard and saved as their planet is being destroyed.  It’s perhaps a little silly that shrinking the Enterprise crew so they can be heard, and then trying to negotiate from a standoff, but it’s sold really quite well for the episode.  Another benefit of this being an entry in Star Trek: The Animated Series is that the destruction on the planet Terra Ten can actually be depicted, as can an entire city in miniature once again designed by a team that leans into the alien environment aesthetic that would be near impossible to portray in live action.  I mentioned Shatner giving an underwhelming performance (he sounds almost bored at points), but he’s not the only one who sounds off during this episode.  DeForest Kelley is giving it his all as Bones, but it sounds like he might have been suffering from a cold when this episode was recorded and there’s something about Leonard Nimoy’s voice that also sounds off.  Nimoy in particular sounds like whatever recording setup they are using isn’t quite mixed correctly with the rest of the episode, making this an episode where I’m guessing technical glitches impact the total production.

 

Overall, “The Terratin Incident” is an incredibly strong piece of animation, working because the animators are allowed to be let off their leashes through the entire thing.  Paul Schneider has contributed an excellent script that understands the medium while clearly having its origins in the original series and actually balancing the ensemble of the cast better than much of Star Trek actually has by giving every major character a role to play.  It’s just a shame that there’s clearly something going on to make the performances out of whack be it Shatner phoning it in or just technical errors in recording.  8/10.