10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: The Animated Series
1. Strangely Familiar Old Worlds
In the original story outline for the Original Series' “A Private Little War,” the Klingon antagonist was none other than Kor from “Errand of Mercy.” Upon reading this, associate producer Bob Justman wrote, “Here we are in the outer reaches of our galaxy and who should Captain Kirk run into, but good old Kor... Just think of it — billions of stars and millions of Class M-type planets and who should he run into, but a fella he has had trouble with before.” Kor did not appear in the final episode.
The animated Star Trek did not subscribe to the same philosophy. Kor himself reappears in the animated episode, “The Time Trap,” and is just the tip of the iceberg of episodic sequels and reappearing persons, places, and things.
The Guardian of Forever, the planet Vulcan, Sarek, and Amanda reappear in “Yesteryear.” Robert Wesley from “The Ultimate Computer” reappears in “One Of Our Planets Is Missing.” “More Tribbles, More Troubles” is a direct sequel to “The Trouble with Tribbles” and features Cyrano Jones, Koloth, and Korax from the original episode. “Once Upon A Planet” is a direct sequel to “Shore Leave” complete with the White Rabbit and Alice. And “Mudd’s Passion” features the one antagonist to appear in more than one original Star Trek episode, Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel). That means major callbacks in 22% of the episodes and eight reprised characters … ten if you count Alice and the White Rabbit.
Captain Kirk’s familiar narration still promises “to explore strange new worlds” at the start of each episode, but much is far too familiar. Stupid small universe syndrome? Starts right here in 1973.