Saturday morning flashback-Star Trek

1973

The Survivor

The guests-

Ted Knight as Carter Winston a rich dude who used his money to help people has been missing for years. Knight is most known for being on Mary Tyler Moore show, Too close for comfort and Caddyshack. He did quite a few voices for Filmation’s super heroes cartoons in the 60’s too.

Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) does the voice of Lt. Ann Nored who is engaged to Carter Winston.

What’s this about? The Enterprise finds a small disabled ship containing one Carter Winston who was presumed daed. Hey, he’s alive and his fiance Ann Nored is aboard. Winston says he’s changed and he cannot be engaged to her. What a cad, except it get’s worse. He’s not really Winston, but instead is a shape shifting alien hired by the Romulans to get the Enterprise into Romulan territory. That dirty shape shifter. He does this after turning into Kirk and ordering a course change. The Romulan ships trap them – oh, no! Hey this a only a twenty soem minute cartoon so things need to be wrapped up quickly. The alien has a change of heart and helps get the Enterprise out of the jam and get free of the Romulans, so long pointy eared rat finks!. The alien turns himself in and roll the animated credits.

The negatives-It’s quite a bit like “The mantrap” from the original series, so no originality points but it does have a more postive ending. The part where the alien turns in a bed in sick bay is a stretch because Kirk notices it before McCoy or Spock. The part where he becomes a shield on the Enterprise is even more of a stretch.

The postives-It’s not original, but it was interesting. The plot plays out well enough. I liked Winston’s back story because it showed a non-military person in a good light. I also thought having the relationship be with a non-main crew member was good and Nored was a female security officer something we didn’t see much of in the original series. Overall a good episode.

Animated oddities-It seems like Ann Nored’s insignia jumps to the wrong side during one scene. Kirk is trying to shoot the phaser with his left hand, I don’t believe Kirk is left handed.