STAR TREK - THE COMPLETE ANIMATED SERIES (NBC 1973-75) William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Majel Barrett

Boldly continuing where Star Trek: The Original Series left off, these animated adventures chart the progress of Captain Kirk, Spock, Bones and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise for 22 new adventures.

Produced by Filmation, Star Trek: The Animated Series is often referred to as Star Trek's "fourth season" because it was created in 1973, four years after the third and final season of the original series, and because most of the original cast provided the voices. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and Majel Barrett reprised their characters, and some contributed other voices as well. The only major omission was Walter Koenig's Chekov, who was replaced at the navigation console by Lieutenant Arex, the three-armed alien. Lieutenant M'Ress, a female Caitian, sometimes stood in for Uhura as communications officer.

Initially, Filmation was only going to use the voices of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Doohan and Barrett. Doohan and Barrett would also perform the voices of Sulu and Uhura. Nimoy refused to voice Spock in the series unless Nichelle Nichols and George Takei were added to the cast, claiming that Sulu and Uhura were proof of the ethnic diversity of the 23rd century and should not be recast. Nimoy also took this stand as a matter of principle, as he knew of the financial troubles many of his Star Trek co-stars were facing after cancellation of the series.  According to Lou Scheimer of Filmation, when Nimoy pointed out that the casting would cut the only two minority actors from the series, "We were horrified at our unintended slight, made all the worse because we were the one studio who had been championing diversity in its output." Koenig was not forgotten, as Filmation were able to assuage Nimoy's complaints on his account by buying a script from Koenig for one episode ("The Infinite Vulcan").

The episode "Yesteryear" goes back to Spock's early years on Vulcan, continuing some explorations from the original series' "Journey to Babel," and offers the familiar voice of Mark Lenard as Sarek. "One of Our Planets Is Missing" raises some interesting philosophical questions about the value of life, and "More Tribbles, More Troubles" and "Mudd's Passion" revisit favorite characters. Other guest voice actors included Ed Bishop, who voiced the Megan Prosecutor in "The Magicks of Megas-tu", and Ted Knight, who voiced Carter Winston in "The Survivor".

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Number of DVDs: 5

 

Quality: 9.5/10

Running Time: 8 hrs 48 min (approx)

Aspect Ratio: Full Screen

NOTES: This is a fan-made DVD set. Not    a studio release. Video/audio is from digital source with no logos or commercials.