The Pirates of Orion by: Howard Weinstein and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“The Pirates of Orion” is written by: Howard Weinstein and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22020, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 17^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 7, 1974.

 

The second and final season of Star Trek: The Animated Series opens its second and final season with an adventure of Spock nearly dying from illness while the only cure is stolen by space pirates and it’s up to Captain Kirk and the Enterprise to get it back.  Okay, so the idea of this being a second season is actually quite silly, it’s just the final six episodes in the 22 episode order of Star Trek: The Animated Series but it is handled by a different director, Bill Reed, although both Reed and previous director Hal Sutherland are credited in different places during the episode.  I’m not entirely certain if the switch in direction is responsible for this, but “The Pirates of Orion” is an episode where every actor is delivering their lines in an almost rushed manner.  It’s possible that this is an episode whose script ran long and they needed to cut things down, the usual pauses between lines feel as if they’ve been edited out in several moments during the episode.  The performances of the villains of the episode are also particularly odd, the lines are performed in almost one breath with little between the lines, again an odd aspect of the episode’s editing.

 

This is also an episode where Orion is consistently pronounced with a different stress on the “i” because for whatever reason this is meant to be a completely different race of people than the green aliens that Star Trek has already established as Orions.  It’s far too consistent, coming from every actor involved in the episode, to just be a fluke from say William Shatner getting his lines wrong.  The plot itself also suffers from being particularly overstuffed, Howard Weinstein was only 19 when writing this episode and clearly going from his memory of watching Star Trek growing up.   This is an episode where everything just keeps moving without any real time to let things breathe, though putting Spock in danger as the ticking clock of the episode is good to keep the danger up.  While it feels partially as a workaround for limited availability from Leonard Nimoy, but it does allow DeForest Kelley as McCoy to get a few moments of kindness towards Spock and William Shatner as Kirk to get some nice bits of diplomacy.  The designs of the Orions are fairly nice though, and their actual presentation has some hints at a deeper culture.  There is an attempt to make some commentary on political neutrality and a society that is willing to end their own lives to keep that neutrality, but it’s one of those really dark themes that doesn’t actually get explored because this is a Saturday morning kid’s cartoon.

 

Overall, the second season of Star Trek: The Animated Series opens with an episode that despite some nice character interactions doesn’t really do a whole lot of note in terms of having a consistent plot.  Yes, the weird editing is bringing it down quite a bit, because there is a lot of potential here, but even with the editing problems this is an episode that is just another example of Star Trek: The Animated Series being perfectly fine.  This is also just something that Star Trek: The Animated Series struggles with, it’s often fine with a lot of potential lacking.  5/10.