Star Trek: The Animated Series Review

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today, visit www .sfi .org. Greetings my fellow

Starfleet officers! It is I, Mike the Birdman

Dawg, but I'm not alone as we continue this trek,

this animated trek with Future Imperfect. I'm

joined by my very own Helmsman. Steve Megatron

Phillips. And this is the show that could not

be recorded simply because we were supposed to

get this out originally in February. But, you

know, with Steve having a kid and school and

honestly just got really busy with my MTV thing

right towards the end of the month, it happens

now. So happy Thursday! We're back here on Future

Imperfect, brought to you by the wonderful folks

over at SFI .org, Starfleet, the world's largest

Star Trek online fan club. As of this recording,

I think it's the Region 2 Summit just wrapped

down in Alabama, so hopefully you guys all had

a great time. I've been following it on Facebook

via our Starfleet leader, the... Oh, great leader,

Dave Blazer. I always love reading his Facebook

status. He always has the shittiest days beginning

right first thing in the morning. So it's always

fun to read about how his day's likely going

to end up. But since it has been probably about

three weeks since we last did a show, Steve,

what have you been up to? Getting ready for various

events on ksradio .com. Been doing the whole

college thing, which I started in January. It's

actually I really like it. I'm going for media

and entertainment Technology stuff. So it's I'm

learning quite a bit in the art of editing So

that's that's been a great thing also Got a new

job offer, but I'm not sure about yet, which

I talked to you off air but And gonna be going

to a couple cons this year now is this your first

time at college uh technically i i went after

graduating high school and i was clearly not

ready to go and i bailed after a month so this

is actually my return trip and i'm kicking everyone's

ass and taking names well good good good i mean

that's something i know podcasting definitely

gives you a bit of an edge especially since you've

had your um kind of feet wet in the the pool

so to speak for a little bit of time so that's

awesome man uh i myself have been uh more or

less just kind of doing my own thing just kind

of hanging out um Trying to think, things of

unfortunately due to health reasons, just I've

got problems with my back and knees and I may

have to look at a surgical option, depending,

which really sucks. I've rediscovered my love

for vintage toys over the last couple of weeks.

I got... The coolest thing I've gotten recently

is I got a Mint in the Box Castle Grey Skull

for a retarded price. Let's just say I love stupid

people. Um, and then tonight I found an equal,

uh, an equally dumb person and scored myself

this huge lot of transformers. Now, a lot of

them aren't complete. I am going to have to pay

a little bit to, uh, repair them. Like just,

you know, getting the, you know, fist guns or

whatever, but, uh, I'm really looking forward

to getting these. So hopefully they'll be in

the mail later on this week. And, uh, what else

have I gotten that's really neat in the last

little bit? Uh, that's pretty. much about it.

So I guess let's kind of talk about what what

we're going to be talking about today. Today's

feature is going to we're going to go back to

Star Trek. This time around, we're going to talk

about the often or sorry, the rather not often

mentioned Star Trek animated series. I mean,

it's something you've probably heard of, but

something you don't know a whole shit ton about.

which is mainly the reason why I wanted to do

this, because I used to watch this on Nickelodeon

when it aired in the afternoons when I was a

kid. But we're going to save all that conversation

for afterwards. But here is Steve and the L -CARS

computer network to tell us about Star Trek The

Animated Series. This computer terminal provides

full access to the L -CARS computer net. It can

be operated both by voice and keypad commands.

initiating update hello and welcome to another

edition of Elcarce this week on Elcarce we're

featuring Star Trek the animated series a little

bit of background history on the show is it was

formally entitled Star Trek and the animated

adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek was

a continuation of sorts of the Voyages of the

USS Enterprise previously featured in the original

Star Trek series. The show, as it is now, it

was originally on NBC for 22 episodes of the

animated series, airing between September 1973

and October 1974. They continued to do reruns

through 1975, The series was produced by Filmation,

which if you don't know about them, they've done

Fat Albert, they've done He -Man, She -Ra, all

of those type shows, the Filmation Ghostbusters,

so that's a little bit of history on Filmation.

The series was written by Star Trek writers and

professional sci -fi writers, Larry Niven, DC

Fontana, David Geralt, and Samuel A. Peoples.

Some of the stories were, as follows, sequels

to original animated episodes of the original

series, such as More Tribbles, More Tribbles,

which was a follow -up of The Trouble with Tribbles,

Once Upon a Planet, a sequel to Shore Leave,

and Mud's Passion, the follow -up to Mud's Women

and I, Mud. The series comprised of all of the

original cast, with the exception of Ensign Chekov.

Due to budgetary costs, they had to cut him out,

so he ended up actually writing an episode of

the show. This series actually features Dr. McCoy

as a full commander and Nurse Chapel as a full

lieutenant. New characters such as Eryx and Emras...

are also featured in the show, voiced by Jimmy

Doohan and Majel Barrett respectively. The show

was primarily comprised of the six core Star

Trek actors. Nearly all aliens and guest characters

were voiced by James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols,

and Majel Barrett. Although some actors reprise

their roles from the original series, Leonard

Nimoy is the only actor to voice his character

in every single episode of the animated series.

Everyone has a different opinion of the animated

series. It is said though that this series does

take place in the last two years of The Enterprise's

five -year mission by DC Fontana. But Star Trek

.com considers the seasons collectively to represent

the fifth and final year of the mission. So that's

it for me and back to the show. Please confirm

deactivation request. Deactivation complete.

Now disconnected from this terminal. Welcome

back to Future Impert. Thank you, Steve, for

consulting the Elcar's computer system on this.

Well, I don't quite know how to quantify this

series. I don't know whether I hated it, enjoyed

it, or somewhere in the middle. Let's start with

you. What did you think? Not to not to slam it

because I do love the fact that they they attempted

to continue with the best way they knew how which

was with an animated series and Like every other

show in the 60s or 70s. They had to have an animated

series of it whether it be Batman or Super Friends

or Star Trek and Although the show is severely

dated as far as the characters and the backgrounds

are concerned Some of the ship views or the planet

views from space looked halfway decent for the

time But I'm really glad that they actually had

and all of the cast reprised their roles with

the exception of Walter Cohen Which was honestly

very very surprising to me now from what I heard

I Since at the end of this recording, I haven't

heard Steve's Elkar, so I'm going to break the

illusion of radio here. I heard when they wanted

the principal cast to come back for this, they

were going to find sound -alikes for some of

the other characters. And Leonard Nimoy says,

unless you hire Nichelle Nichols and Sulu, I'm

not coming back. and they're like um shit so

they hired everyone back but the one they couldn't

afford is because it wasn't in the budget was

Walter Cohen and Chekov and they replaced him

with I don't even know how how to describe this

thing because that's what it is a thing to me

I know what you're talking about too it's the

weird three -legged guy uh Thannex I think his

name was or something like that I I don't remember

uh and yeah I I watched the first 13 or 14 episodes.

I'm pretty sure he spoke once Yeah Yeah, I can

I can definitely agree with you there I don't

think he spoke very much if at all I think I

heard him say yes captain in like the first or

like second episode of the series and that was

about it and Then the other thing that I remember

you were saying Eriks, right? Yeah, Eriks. Yeah.

Yeah. He was voiced by Scotty That was James

doing yes, holy dog shit. Yep And then the other

character that showed up was MRS, which is the

cat lady which was hated her voice That was major

Barrett. Oh my god. Every time she talked she

had to put in this Okay, she talked normal for

a line talk and then get this stupid purse out

of it just it sounded so bad it was typical of

filmation though yeah and that's something that

i think the series some people may say oh this

series sucks No, you pretty much just sum it

up right there. It's Filmation, and that's not

necessarily a bad thing. Filmation, for those

of the listeners that don't necessarily know,

this is the same animation house and company

that produced He -Man, Masters of the Universe.

They did Ghostbusters first, which is why the

1984 version was called The Real Ghostbusters.

And I know they did a bunch of other shows as

well during the time, and they all had a very

unique look to them. And that is some of the

character animations. would look really, really

good, and some of the backgrounds would look

really, really frigging terrible. Or it would

be vice versa. It was never totally consistent.

So this series, I don't know. I mean, because

Star Trek, a lot of people wanted this series

to come back, which is why we got this. And I

saw this series. probably in 1993 or 92. And

the reason I remember this is my family used

to have this giant ass satellite dish in my backyard,

the kind that you swear to God would pick up

alien signals. And I remember watching this on

Sunday afternoons on Nickelodeon. Because they

would show all these really weird older TV shows.

I remember seeing this mr. Wizard The world of

David the gnome, which has a wonderfully depressing

ending you should watch it sometime Okay, seriously,

what happens at the end of David the gnome? He's

like, well, it's my hundredth birthday time to

die But he tells his best friend this Fox well,

I got to go up the mountain fuck off I'm gonna

go die now and that's pretty much what happens.

It's so depressing That's dumb. That's pretty

ballsy for a kids cartoon. And that's something

else that I liked about this cartoon is that

it was kind of ballsy. The fact that I don't

think it truly treated its audience as stupid

as a lot of people may have thought. Now there

were some dumb episodes. Let's get that out of

the way first. Namely Giant Spock. There was,

yeah, it was an episode and they tried to involve

uh the kind of space seed storyline with like

con these were the genetic super people and they

would clone people and implant the memories into

somebody else and they decided spock was the

perfect person for them to clone And they're

like, OK, now we've cloned him. This is Spock

2. And they transferred his mind into him. And

then the giant Spock touched the little Spock,

and they transferred minds again. And it was

just really frigging weird. But the episode that

I really liked, it was very, very early on, like

episode three or four. And it was something.

like they went through Spock's past and suddenly

the new future was different. There was like

a transporter thing and Spock was replaced by

this Andorian guy. Captain Kirk remembered who

Spock was but nobody else would. So Spock had

to go back through time to his time on Vulcan

and he had to go and correct um him dying at

during the vulcan trials and you get to see Spock's

giant saber -toothed cat pet Icha that actually

mentions and that you actually meet Sarek. So

it's weird, it's almost like Star Trek animated

established a lot of really cool canon because

they've mentioned each other in other forms of

media. I'm pretty sure I'm getting his name right.

They've talked about Sarek and they've talked

and there's also the Vulcan City you see during

one of the episodes during the series is actually,

they make... homage to it in Star Trek III The

Search for Spock when they land on Vulcan in

the Klingon Bird of Prey. I enjoyed the fact

that they brought back all the original voice

cast. And one of the things that I did notice,

and you see all this in the pilot episode, where

they go deal with basically what I would call

Star Trek V, the animated version, because they

more or less find this god at the center of the

galaxy. And if you know astronomy at all, you

don't go to centers of galaxies. Normally they're

quasars or giant black holes, places you don't

want to be. And yet, just go hang out. And there's

like this living ship there, this consciousness.

It's almost like Vager. Yeah, yeah, very much

so. So I kind of wonder if that's where they

kind of got some inspiration for it. And they

go and get the ship and they try and take over

the Enterprise. And the Enterprise leaves him

trapped on this other thing because they're going

to destroy it. And he's like, don't leave me

alone. And it was actually kind of sad. I thought

because the series it didn't discriminate like

when someone died They said they are dead not

they're destroyed or whatever So that's something

else that I kind of noticed and there was another

episode where they reference a guy who went out

on this exploratory mission and his ship crashed

and unfortunately he died, but the shape -shifting

creature had taken his memories and he was trying

to tell this guy's girlfriend when he was alive

stay away from me just we're done break up don't

talk to me anymore and he was actually doing

it to protect her and the creature shows her

his true face which is like this squid thing

and she's like i could learn to love you and

that's something i really liked about the animated

series like i said it didn't treat its audience

totally stupid until you get to giant spock So

what about what are some of your thoughts on

this deal? Well, I mean, yeah, they weren't afraid

to push the envelope to some degree just for

the fact that, you know, they could actually

animate some of this and not have to deal with

makeup or costumes or any of that stuff. They

could just it was as far as the the artist was

concerned. I also like the fact that they had

the Klingons in it. They revisited back to Hardcore

mud See that now that is something Harry mud.

That's And then they have Also, they have Cyrano

Jones back in it as well, which is the Tribble

guy, right? Yes, the Tribble guy That episode

was actually a lot of fun. I like the fact that

they made this weird hunter creature Which squats

on top of Tribble then eats it with its vagina?

It's called a glamour a glamour and then it gets

on par the like Klingon ship And then it just,

I'd say that's probably my favorite episode of

what I saw of this series. Now, one of the things

that I did like also once again talking about

my other favorite episode, the time travel one,

they use the guardian of forever. That actually

really impressed me. about that the fact that

they would do this now there actually were episodes

of the show that were written by guys who actually

wrote the original um kind of star trek and i

think walter cohen actually wrote one too yeah

he did but i don't think i saw that one um it

was the i'm trying to think of the name the infinite

vulcan what happens in that one because that's

one that i missed that's the one where spock

dies i think really oh you see maybe no No, it

was the the plague yep that one I completely

missed but um I'm trying to think what else was

I really gonna mention about this um I guess

Well, you mentioned I don't know if we said this

on air or like off air. How would this series

survive today? Kind of looking at I mean I like

the fact that Trek continued. And this would

be the last Trek you'd get on TV before Star

Trek The Next Generation. I mean, you'd get the

movie in 1980, was it? Yeah, it was around that.

I think it was 79. Yeah, so there was a good

at least six to seven year gap when this was

the only game in town outside of the reruns and

phase two. would become TNG more or less but

not a lot of people talk about this because supposedly

from what I've read is that this is no longer

considered canon pieces of this because it was

decanonized when it got signed over to someone

which I can't say I'm entirely surprised but

One of the things that I didn't like about this

and I guess I can see why they did it from a

budget standpoint is they had the the life belts

and The life belts were basically their versions

of spacesuits so they could walk around literally

with no gravity No atmosphere or anything as

long as they wore these belts that would save

them animating environment suits every single

episode That's kind of asinine, though. Yeah,

I don't know. I mean, I kind of like the concept

because it could be like an invisible force field

around them. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense from

a money standpoint. Well, yeah, I can definitely

see that. But the fact that they don't have this

technology in TNG, but once again, because it

was decanonized, you know. Another thing that

I noticed with this is, I mean, let's talk about

the animation about the show itself. The Enterprise

looks great when it comes in swooping in against

planets. Some of the space battles look a little

cheesy, but when it's just the Enterprise or

if it's doing something like, say, talking about

the episode that had the tribbles, they're hauling

these boats of grain to send to some Klingon

colony or something. The Enterprise looks really

good. It looks almost like it came from the animated

series. Yeah, I mean, it looks phenomenal. And

that's something that I think the series deserves

a fair chunk of recognition for is its animation.

When it was great, it was great. When it was

bad, it was fucking bad. And what I mean by that

is I remember one episode where it was McCoy

talking to Spock and Kirk and the background

behind McCoy just randomly changes. It's almost

like they forgot what scene they were animating

and just went, oh fuck it, and just kept going.

So that's something that I didn't much care for.

That and the characters themselves, if they weren't

saying anything, if they were in a moment of

contemplation and they weren't moving, they looked

great. This series could not animate faces to

save its life. Everybody looks like they're trying

to take a poop. That's the best I can describe

it. It's so true. I don't know, there's just

no expression in the faces. But I guess this

was very early filmation. I mean, things would

get better with He -Man and Ghostbusters. I honestly

think the height of filmation stuff was the real

Ghostbusters. Look how well that series moved

in terms of background, atmosphere, and just

playing colors. Looking at the Star Trek The

Animated Series, I can see why it's probably

a piece of forgotten history, that not a lot

of people, like I said, not a lot of Trekkies

that I know talk about it. Now, I know there

was a four disc DVD set released a couple years

ago, because this series is only 22 episodes

long. And it only lasted for like a year on CBS

back in the day. Back when CBS used to have a

cartoon block. And... I ca - I can't think of

anywhere right now that's broadcasting it outside

of Netflix. I remember they used to show it the

odd time on the sci -fi channel. I think I saw

it on the space channel up here in Canada for

maybe a couple of months, but even then I'm not

100 % sure of that. Yeah, I think I remember

seeing it on the sci -fi channel years ago, but

the most and I actually I think my first run

at this was around the time I first got internet.

I found some website because I was looking up

Star Trek and all kinds of other stuff I could

get my hands on online. And I remember finding

this and going, what the hell is this? Just because

I saw images of it online somewhere on some GeoCity

site. I forgot about it until probably I was

in college, and there was one of the guys in

one of my production classes, a real meathead

of a guy, like we used to call him Mr. Nascar,

so hopefully he's not listening, and randomly

I found out he was a Trekkie, and he started

talking to me about the animated series of all

things, and I kept thinking, wow, first off,

you fucking weirdo, and second of all, there

was an animated series and I didn't remember

that during the 90s I used to watch this and

I don't know there it's got kind of a charm to

it I mean if anything you can say the voice acting

at least from the main cast is fantastic although

they never ever did record at the same time in

the same place because well William Shatner would

would travel a lot so he'd record his sessions

in whatever city he happened to be in at the

time and send them in But I would actually say

its tone was fairly consistent throughout the

series. I mean, there were no over the top performances

from anybody who was in the main cast. And that's

something that I think that should be kind of

series as well, though I don't know who the series

composer is right off the top of my head. It

was Yvette Belyas and Jeff Michaels. Now, what

other works did they perhaps work on? Anything

that maybe we might know? They, I know that...

Mean, I'm pretty sure the one guy I think they

worked on a lot of the other filmation stuff.

Yeah, cuz one of them I'm pretty sure does stuff

for he man I think they both did he man and I

think they both did like the Cosby kids I forgot

they did the Cosby kids. Yes. That was another

filmation travesty the new adventures of Superman

Yeah, Spider -man cartoon series now Really,

Filmation did the early Spider -Man one? Yeah,

it appears so. I think they did. Yeah, the Brady

Kids, My Favorite Martian, Shazam, Fat Albert,

Ghostbusters, Mighty Mouse, Tom and Jerry, early

stuff. Wow. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm still stuck

on the Brady Kids. Yes. Wow, man. Filmation really

did everything, didn't they? Yeah, I think that

they were the go - to animation company of that

time. Before some other one stepped up and said,

hey, look, our art's better. Yeah. I mean, not

to take away from what they did, but filmation.

I don't know. I mean, it's. It's a company I'm

only really starting to learn about now because

I've got the new Masters of the Universe set

from Mill Creek and there's a bunch of documentaries

on there. I mean this thing closed back in 1989

so it died right at the end of the really good

era of animation. I mean I guess all things considered

at least it went out on a high note when animation

was mostly meant to sell toys but I think the

80s had held a special part in this. Now, let's

kind of talk about that for just a couple of

minutes, Steve. If the series was done in the

80s, do you think it would have been who... What

company would you like to have seen maybe do

it? I would like to have seen maybe the Marvel

Studios people do it. I could kind of see that.

It would have been interesting to say the least

because... But at the same time Marvel at around

that time had the Star Wars saga so DC would

have had Star Trek Now do you think it would

have maybe held up though? I mean cuz there was

The Superpowers cartoon or like the yeah, they

had the super friends. They had you know, the

the many different names for it Justice, you

know friends and all that kind of stuff but they

It could have held up but again in the 80s not

a lot of the animated stuff held up now if it

were made towards the end of the 80s or You know

the mid to late 80s or you know, I I could see

it being done very well, you know, maybe Sun

bow doing it maybe I Wouldn't throw it towards

deep even though I like some of the stuff they've

done. I don't I would not want to see them do

it But yeah, I mean I could see like some of

those studios Handling it see I think if this

had happened during the 80s I think the series

would have only had life until about 1987 or

86 and you might be asking why Star Trek the

next generation Yeah, that would have definitely

killed it. Now. Do you think they would have

ever done? Something like don't like do Star

Trek the animated series with the TNG crew. Can

you honestly picture an animated Captain Picard?

No, and I think that's that's the thing Star

Trek the Star Trek the original the 1960s I think

this is the only one that would really translate

well To animation I think it's because it's from

a simpler time and a simpler design Mm -hmm.

So I think that it would it would translate more

evenly with animation than some of the later

series, only for the fact that it gets a lot

more complicated in design later on. Well, one

of the things that I think they could have gotten

away with, because you saw how many exotic aliens

and locations they visited during the animated

series run, is that they could have had a lot

more fun to open up the kind of universe with

that. I mean, I'd like to see an animated Star

Trek series today. because if you look at the

advances in CG animation, you could, and especially

with the new rebooted, with the, the rebooted,

JJ Abrams, you could do so much, and you could

even hire sound -alikes to do the roles. I mean,

hell, I'm pretty sure Zachary Quinto is not doing

much right now. He could probably even still

voice it. He could even be the main narrator

for the show. Or you could hire Leonard Nimoy

to say, these are not my memories, but I now

have them or something. Or, yeah, I can definitely

see that. Honestly, if this were to be made today,

I think I'd like to see Nickelodeon make it.

I think they've been pretty respectful of the

stuff that they've handled. I mean, I remember

I was really skeptical of their new Ninja Turtles.

Yeah. And now it's probably one of the best pieces

of animation on TV right now. Oh, hands down.

I have to agree with you. Other than maybe the

hub, which handles. The Transformers Prime and

and stuff like that. That's the only other studio

I could see possibly doing it But again, it would

have to be in a 3d, you know CGI kind of standard

the one network or studio I would not I would

like to keep away from this with you know Cartoon

Network. Yes, because they cancel everything

when it gets really good Like Young Justice Green

Lantern the animated series bone wars. They killed

the new thundercats Yeah, I mean, it's like I

mean everybody says right now 80s nostalgia coming

back. And yeah, it's very true, but the people

that are in the boardrooms don't necessarily

get it because they're not us. Now, that being

said, we as geeks maybe don't understand how

the business side of it works. Because I remember

there was an article I read on Bleeding Cool

recently talking about what happened with Young

Justice and the Green Lantern animated series.

It's because of merchandise sales. Things didn't

continue now if I'm pretty I'm pretty sure there

were toys based upon the Star Trek animated series

Because I'm pretty sure I saw them on my toy

hunter which you can see on the trout on the

the Travel Channel Which I kind of wish we talked

about this guy when they when we did our toy

episode Because I think this guy rips people

off something fierce But that's a different show

for a different day So I kind of wonder how it

would succeed because I think you'd have to do

you'd have to position it like the Clone Wars

We'd have to show it in primetime. I Don't think

Star Trek would survive on a Saturday morning

Especially because of the group of people that

we are that would watch it I mean your average

30 something let's just say is more apt to watch

something at night as opposed to you know get

up on a Saturday morning but then again that's

an over general generalization so I don't know

I'm trying to think of another network that could

maybe handle it I would say sci -fi but they're

so far off the mark now well they aren't even

sci -fi they're like they're totally like they're

WWE and all this other weird indie sci -fi crap

and I do mean crap Yeah, I mean what happened

to the good sci -fi channel that existed pre

1997 the one that played mystery science theater

and Transformers and and all kinds of other good

sci -fi stuff captain power. I remember being

on there. You know what I actually think Sci

-fi channel for showing them for showing me my

first anime at 2 o 'clock in the morning completely

by accident. That's where I first saw Akira didn't

know what the hell it was. And I saw that and

Vampire Hunter D and Lensman, all three in a

row in one night. That night was awesome. But

I mean, Star Trek animated, I think its legacy

is gonna be that it's the show. It's probably

the show that kept Star Trek alive, at least

in terms of the pop culture. I mean, yeah, there

are always reruns, but those reruns don't necessarily

always bring in the new fans. So you have to

think of the animated series as something to

bring in the young people to get kids interested.

And these kids likely went on to go see, well,

admittedly, the very disappointing Star Trek

1 when it came out in, in like theaters. So.

Well, and that's probably where the, the honeycomb,

you know, beager looking thing came from. Yeah,

in that film and then also another little fun

fact I discovered while doing some research for

this show They have a room it's called the rec

room and they have a console that they can turn

on and it's the holodeck Yeah, that's right.

This kind of did have a lot of the precursor

tech. And that's something that couldn't necessarily

be shown on the original run of the show because

they didn't have the budget or they simply just

didn't think of it. So animation does open up

a lot of possibilities for you to really let

the mind run. Admittedly, like I said, it was

on a filmation budget. But I think with what

they did make, it has its charm in a way. Is

this a series I'd watch again? Probably not.

Probably not. But I'm glad that I'm gonna finish

it out. Like I said, I only have another 10 episodes

to go. I mean, for 22 episodes, I find this is

the kind of show you can watch a couple in a

row and then you have to stop or you're gonna

get sick of it. Yeah, I tried to power through

and I think that's part of why I... got burnt

out a little bit with it. Yeah, it's not something

you can marathon. This is not something you're

going to sit down and say, honey, let's watch

Star Trek together, because you will turn them

off of the series almost immediately, I think.

But like I said, if you have a little bit of

a background on Trek, it's a nice, it's something

different. It's like, I'm trying to describe

this to you. It'd be like... Everybody has that

one friend in college where they're like, here,

try this. Be it a different food, be it a different

drink at the bar, or even something that we can't

talk about on air, and they talk you into it

somehow. And then leave you alone in a room locked

in and they keep telling all your friends and

they pass around on the internet. Not like this

has ever happened to me. It's kind of one of

those things where you're glad you tried once,

but it's not something I'm sure you'd care to

repeat again. That being said, if you have Netflix,

you have no reason not to try out at least a

few episodes. um but i don't know if i'd go so

far as to track down the dvds now if they ever

did a star trek the complete franchise like i'm

talking every movie every tv series every special

every documentary in one box set sure that would

be worth a pickup probably around two thousand

dollars when you really break it down but it

would be something you could probably if it's

included yeah but if it's if they re -release

it I don't see this game the Blu -ray treatment,

to be honest with you. No, it's definitely not

up to par to actually get that. But I will say

this just before we kind of close this out. The

quality of the transfer on Netflix is surprisingly

clean. Like seriously go back and go back and

watch a couple of the episodes like I said It's

only gonna take 22 minutes of your time if that

and just look how bright everything is Oh, I

know it's pretty flawless as far as color on

on Netflix usually you would expect in a translation

to have some kind of a graininess in it or Something

that kind of take away draws you away from it

from paying attention to the story of it Yeah,

it's like somebody had kept the master copies

of this in really good shape. So I kind of wonder

if the Okudas had cleaned this up for the DVD

release a couple years ago. I don't know that

being said I kind of wondered like now that's

just me talking straight out of my like butthole

but I wonder if it will get a blu -ray release

in like a year or two because that transfer on

netflix is way too clean and just be oh we had

the master tapes because you look at the you

look at the conversion for a program like say

transformers and look how flawed that one is

but then again it's not to say maybe the the

tapes are kept worse And we're looking at a generation

two or three copy of it because you look at between

the Hasbro DVDs, or sorry, not Hasbro, the Shout

Factory DVDs and the Rhino DVDs from earlier

in the decade. And they look like shit compared

to these ones. But even they had certain elements

that the Shout Factory ones didn't have. So I

don't know who's to say. So I guess that kind

of wraps it up for this month's edition of Future

Improvement. We will be back next month. What

do we want to talk about, Steve? We should talk

about something more positive here on the show.

Maybe what do you want to talk about? How about

some of the side stories from the novels? OK.

I think we can do that. I've definitely read

a couple of them and we'll see how they fit in

terms of canon or you'll find out what a Mary

Sue is. They use those a lot. Oh, God, yes. So

we'll tell you about some of those on the next

show of Future Imperious. Once again, brought

to you by SFI .org, the world's largest Star

Trek online fan club. And we would love to get

you guys involved. If there's anybody out there

who is a huge Star Trek novel fan, please get

in contact with us. We'd love to have you. on

the show. So email us at feedback at thisweekengeek

.net, subject line Star Trek, and we'll get in

touch with you to see if we can make something

happen. We'll make you famous for 45 minutes.

But anyway, guys, like I said, big thanks to

everybody. And well, Steve, for this month's

Future Imperfect, we have been... Steve Megatron

Phillips. And I've been Mike the Birdman Dodd

saying, live long and prosper.