10 Essential Star Trek: The Animated Series Episodes You Must See

One great word: Uhura. Four even greater words and an exclamation mark: Uhura commands the Enterprise! As Nichelle Nichols herself put it, "Uhura got to captain the damn bridge. It was so satisfying, and I loved it."

The overarching plot of The Lorelei Signal is very much take-it-or-leave-it — a siren's call, alien-life-sucker femmes fatales, men going mad, aging rapidly, and so forth — but it's the central and crucial role given to Uhura and the female crew of the Enterprise that makes this a must-see episode.

All of the lieutenant's scenes are as brilliant as you would hope; a triumph for a character who wasn't given anywhere near enough to do in The Original Series or arguably in the movies, all too often reduced to a few one-liners or left behind at spacedock.

In The Lorelei Signal, once Uhura realises what's going on with the menfolk, she boldly takes charge of the situation and the ship, doing her duty with the utmost professionalism and panache, going on to lead the all-female rescue party on the surface of the Taurean system planet, phasers forward.

Just as Uhura gets a lot more time to shine across The Animated Series in general, so does Nichols, lending her impressive vocal talents not just to the pathfinding communications officer, but to three other characters in this episode alone.

You might also want to give Lorelei a try for the comedic timings of a certain songful Scotsman.