10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: The Animated Series

The infamous Star Trek V: The Final Frontier wasn’t the first time the franchise toyed with the notion of the Enterprise crew meeting “God.” Gene Roddenberry’s rejected 1975 “Star Trek II” script (known as “The God Thing” in fandom, though that was only the name of the never finished novelization based on that script) featured this premise. But it was the Animated Series that first tried to go there, albeit obliquely: it implies the existence of the Almighty by portraying his opposite number, the devil.

Admittedly, “Lucien” wasn’t called out specifically as Satan, but from his almost-Lucifer moniker and his aka’s that’s clearly who he stands in for. But nothing in this nonsense script makes any sense at all. The prosecutor is named Asmodeus, the king of demons in Jewish legends, so why would he pick a simulacra of the Salem witch trials as a setting for his kangaroo court? Because the show was made in America and that’s the dumb go-to, that’s why.

But the stupidest thing here is that the show’s makers knew they couldn’t get away with actually exploring the premise, because coming to any conclusion whatsoever as regards the supernatural was going to offend some segment of the audience. The most daring thing the show does is portray Lucien in a sympathetic light. It’s a narrative dead end, and just a silly excuse to do magic stuff.