Star Trek: The Animated Series allowed fans of Star Trek to see the continuation of the original five year mission and bring in alien races that the live show would not have had the budget for. For the most part, it captured the spirit of the original show and remains a fun, if often overlooked part of Star Trek history; though interestingly it was not considered canon until more recently. But things could have been far worse. There was a genuine pitch, before for the actual animated show was created, for a different kind of animated Star Trek. This series would have seen the Enterprise crew landing on strange planets and shooting everything on sight that was different or seemed ugly. Absent was the essence of exploration where no one had gone before. This was xenophobia at its worse and you can easily see why this never made it as far as the development stage.