86. The SurvivorFORMULA: The Man Trap + Metamorphosis + Whom Gods Destroy + The Enterprise Incident + What Are Little Girls Made Of?
WHY WE LIKE IT: The Romulans are back!
WHY WE DON'T: The interspecies romance is a tad sappy.
REVIEW: The Survivor features a shape-changing alien whose true form is so strange that it could never have been done on the live-action series. That's fine, and adds depth to the Star Trek universe, though it does seem off-style sometimes. At least there's an explanation for Vendorians not ever being seen. "Carter Winston" is voiced by Ted Knight of Mary Tyler Moore Show fame, which may interest his fans. Speaking of aliens, the episode is also the first appearance of the cat-like communications officer M'Ress. Like Arex, we don't learn anything about her here, and why she's even there is a mystery, since Nichelle Nichols voices another character in this episode and was obviously available. Too cute a design for my tastes, but probably targeting the kiddies.
A third species here is the Romulans, which are back in full force. Excellent, and they prove to be more duplicitous than in the original series. The Vendorian connection is fairly well thought-out, and we can understand why Winston would cooperate with them. The romantic component of the story is fine too, though it's perhaps unrealistic that Ann Nored would fall for the alien. It's kind of sweet, though some may think TOO sweet. If I have a problem with the Vendorian in this story, it's where he shape-shifts into a deflector field. That seems a bit much, especially after being afraid of being burned by acid.
I must mention the direction in this episode, which isn't something that tends to attract attention in the animated series. The fight, with Kirk flying towards camera, the zoom-in on Winston after he transforms, the various reveals, are all well-handled, and show some flair. It makes this story more dynamic than the previous ones, in my opinion. Also of note is the mention of McCoy's daughter, previously cut out of The Way to Eden and remaining more or less canonical to this day.
LESSON: Beauty... something something... beholder.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: The cartoons all tend to feel a little irrelevant, so unless they're really something special, they'll score a Medium. Otherwise, this is an good little one-off episode.
Comments
Alan Dean Foster's novelization of this episode substitutes that Carter transforms in to a ship's component that allows the Enterprise to activate its deflector shield. Like all his novelizations, Foster greatly expanded the plot and characterization, sometimes explained cartoon shorthand more logically, and at least a couple times right-out contradicted some of the sillier aspects of the series: for example, the vastly-illogical backwards universe where people are born old and grow younger until they disappear up their mother's womb in The Counter-Clock Incident is explained away as an illusion later on, and I seem to remember the alien responsible chiding Kirk and Company for believing it could exist in the first place.