Albatross by: Dario Finelli and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“Albatross” is written by: Dario Finelli and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22019, was the 4^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 28, 1974.

 

In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner the killing of an albatross, a bird representing innocence, leads to punishment.  “Albatross” is an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series given the title to possibly reference Coleridge, or at least that is possibly what is happening because the episode doesn’t ever actually mention an albatross, or poetry, or really anything.  Perhaps writer Dario Finelli is attempting to write guilt for McCoy as a character as this is an episode that sees actions of 20 years previous catch up to him: he accidentally poisoned a race of aliens with a virus while he believed he was curing them.  Finelli’s script sadly doesn’t actually give McCoy much guilt, or even real focus, as the plot of the episode more actively focuses on Kirk and Spock trying to get to the bottom of this mystery and find a cure when the plague comes back.  This makes the title and allusion to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner pointless.  That’s the episode, there’s some drama about Spock having to convince the Dramians to actually pursue proper justice and not the perversion of justice that they have.  The plague also infects everyone on the Enterprise except for Spock, meaning that everyone turns blue which is a great visual even if it’s something that really doesn’t get explored in any significant amount of time.

 

The episode’s big twist is that McCoy isn’t actually at all responsible for any of the deaths, instead an aurora in space being responsible for the plague and its symptoms.  This allows a cure to be found, but it also feels like a cheap fake out to restore the status quo which isn’t terrible for a Saturday morning cartoon show meant for children.  This is still Star Trek however where the characters at least have an attempt at developing, but then again this is from an author who is difficult to find really anything about his career.  “Albatross” is also an episode that feels bare bones in terms of what actually happens, the dialogue suffers from not really feeling like it is meant for each character until the very end of the episode with the stinger.

 

Overall, “Albatross” can be used as a case study for the weaknesses of Star Trek: The Animated Series.  It’s an episode that has a good concept, perfectly adequate performances, and with a couple more drafts and a guiding hand could be considered one of the great installments of Star Trek.  The problems come to a head with the fact that the ideas don’t really resolve into anything of interest, there is a plot but not a particularly memorable one, there is an alien society that gets focus but also has one trait of not understanding justice, and there are characters but they largely aren’t affected.  It’s half a satisfying episode that reaches and achieves mediocrity.  5/10.