A message from D.K. Henderson, moved when fixing a mistake:

The episode wasn't much, especially with it's deus ex machina contrivance with the "VOICE". However, Foster's expanded novelization was great!

This episode carries a stardate of 7403.6. This is only 9 stardates before Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This isn't anywhere near enough time for an 18 month refit described in the film.

Well hardly surprising since the animated series was such a load of bollocks anyway. And don't even get me started on the crap that was 'The Motion Picture'. I demand that all existing tapes of TAS be put under a big magnet.

Dear old friend--

You're name wouldn't happen to be "Digger", would it?

As to your demands, if you don't like it, why don't you avoid purchasing it or watching it, rather than interfere with other people that are trying to have a conversation.

He insulted "More Tribbles, More Troubles." We fell back. He insulted "The Infinite Vulcan." We fell back. We draw the line here!

(A reference to First Contact, for those who haven`t seen the film)

Arex`s name is pronounced "Arrex" in this and later episodes.

One final thing - That should have been "the line must be drawn here". It had been a while since I saw the film, and when I saw it again I realised I had mis-quoted it.

Oh come on! You have to admit that the animated Star Trek is pathetic!

A lot of things are pathetic. "Lost in Space" is pathetic. That doesn't prevent some people from enjoying them anyway.

You will also note that the idea for the holosuites was first aired on this series, in "The Practical Joker."

Different people enjoy different things. I liked the animated series, and Lost in space too, for what they were, flaws and all. Hell, I even like Spocks brain! LOL! It cracks me up!

I'll never understand why some people insist on trying to ruin a good time for others, and that they are right and whoever does not agree MUST be wrong. Lets not forget what Trek is really all about, Infinte Diversity.

There where many things introduced in the animated series that still linger in Trekdom even today. Holosuites, Kirk's middle name, 2 lifts on the bridge, just to name a few.

I think for what it was, the animated show was pretty good. It held me glued to the TV in '73, and I relive those days everytime I watch the show. It's flawed yes, but it's a cherished memory. By the time this show came out I had seen every episode of the original series about 20 times each. I was thrilled to have some new Trek. Kids are spoiled today with all the movies and spin-offs, and VCR's. God, I feel old now. Where's my Geritol?

The animated series was like the gruel scene in "Oliver Twist": "Please sir, may I have some more?" I too was so desparate for ST back then that I was almost pathetically happy to watch this terrible animation.

I used to read the old "Gold Key" comic books, too. Anybody ever see those? They were really sad. The artists had obviously never watched a single episode of ST; for the first several issues, they drew flames coming out of the warp nacelles!

For my money, the animated series told some very good, intelligent stories that were very worthy of the original live-action Trek series. The thing is that since the program was aimed primarily at kids, there were a number of things from the live-action series that were toned down for the cartoon. For instance, no one in the twenty-two episodes dies, and Kirk doesn't have any romantic interludes (in fact, the one time a woman shows interest in him, in "Jihad", he turns her down!)

BTW, Mike, the Gold Key comics may have been bad, but if you happened to hang on to them they're worth a fortune today.

Todd--just goes to show you, someone's trash is another person's treasure. I wish I still did have my copies but, back when I was a kid, we read our comic books until they fell apart.

Me too! I'm just a few years too young to remember the Gold Key mags, but growing up in the mid-seventies I do remember the Power series of comic books which always came with a record that you could follow along with. The stories were written by Alan Dean Foster. I still have some of the records. The series contained the following stories: "Passage to Mouv", in which the Enterprise ferries an alien ambassador's cat-like pet which takes over the crew with its telepatchic control; "A Crier in Emptiness," in which the ship is attacked by a "being of pure sound" (a storyline ideal for the audio format); "The Mirror of Futility," in which the Enterprise is caught in the crossfire of two robot-controlled ships which have been battling each other for eons; and "The Time Stealer," in which a savage warrior (who suspiciously resembles Conan the Barbarian) beams aboard. "In Vino Veritas" was a more thoughtful tale than the rest - it concerned a peace conference between the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans which was sabatoged by a Harry Mudd-like character who spiked the libations with truth serum, forcing the three parties to tell each other what they really thought of them! This story went over my head as a kid, although I immensley enjoyed it after listening to the record again many years later. One odd feature of the comics was that Uhura was drawn as a white woman and Sulu as a black man!

I wonder when David Gerrold came up with the name Bem he was thinking of the abbreviation for Bug-Eyed-Monster?

I saw Gerrold at several cons in the '70's. He said that this story (and I believe "More Tribbles, More Troubles") were written for TOS.

I think Gerrold has said that Bem was meant to be an acronym for Bug-Eyed Monster. I can't remember where I read that though.

Todd Pence-- "BTW, Mike, the Gold Key comics may have been bad, but if you happened to hang on to them they're worth a fortune today."

OMG!!! Where did I put them ? Where did I put them??

For instance, no one in the twenty-two episodes dies... - Todd Pence

Sorry, Todd, but that's not true. In "The Slaver Weapon", four or five Kzinti are killed when the Slaver Weapon self-destructs. In "The Pirates of Orion", it appears that at least two of the S.S. Huron's crew died. That and the death of the tribble in "More Tribbles, More Troubles" and I-Chaya's death in "Yesteryear" gives TAS a death count of 9 or 10. So far.

This is the second episode of TAS not directed by Hal Sutherland. It was directed by Bill Reed, as was "The Pirates of Orion".

As green as Delta Theta III is, it doesn't look like a class-M world to me. It looks more like a gas giant.

Interesting that McCoy wasn't made a part of the landing party. You would think that with the possibility of meeting a new race, someone from the field of medicine would be along to file a report on Delta Theta's natives.

Okay, the thing that has always bugged me about Bem is how the hell does his body parts defy gravity? Even accepting that he can detach any part of his body at will, why do the detached parts not fall to the ground?

Why don't Scotty or Sulu see the hands coming out of the water to grab Kirk and Spock's phasers and communicators? How does Bem's lower half see to walk behind the Starfleet officers and take the devices? How come Kirk and Spock fail to notice someone taking these things. Is Bem that good a pickpocket?

Scotty deserved to be chewed out about the transporter co-ordinates as much as Bem. I mean, Mr. Scott did check the settings himself and said they looked okay. And did Kyle double check the co-ordinates? Seems to me, Kirk's crew was slacking on the job.

There's a long shot of the landing party walking through the forest. Only problem is, there's only four people seen walking. The landing party consisted of five people - Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu and Bem.

You know, this is the first time in the series, that Uhura and M'Ress have been seen in the same shot? Previously, you only saw one or the other on the Bridge.

Boy, during the scene where Uhura and Scotty are talking over the communicator, the door to the turbolift stays open a long time. I mean, a really long time. Like throughout the entire scene.

Spock pronounces the communicators Bem slipped them fakes. Well, yeah. Especially since the one Spock holds has a black antenna grid.

Kirk presses the button on the fake phaser. If you look close, he has no thumbnail.

Several of Kirk's and Uhura's lines have a hissing tone to them. Maybe the tape used to record their voices was defective?

Not since "Where No Man Has Gone Before" have phaser rifles been mentioned, much less seen in TREK.

This is, of course, the episode to establish Kirk's middle name, "Tiberius". And boy, does David Gerrold's script hammer it into our skull. Kirk pronounces his full name - James Tiberius Kirk - three times in this ep.

Where'd Spock get the tools to link up the two communicators? And do it so quickly at that?

Why would Kirk think a communicator was needed to contact the village's goddess? Or whatever it was? She spoke to the landing party without the communicator the first time. They shouldn't need one the second time.

Kirk tells the Redshirt Squad that beamed down to search for Bem, that Ari bn Bem was split into three parts. How does the Captain know that? The last he's seen of the Pandronian, Bem was one whole unit.

That Kirk's middle name is "Tiberius" is mentioned yet a fourth time in this ep. This time by the Village Goddess. Gerrold really wanted to make sure we knew what Kirk's middle name was, didn't he?

"Live long and prosper."

Despite having three fingers on each hand, if you look closely at Bem's hand in and around the lake scene, you'll see he has four knuckles.

Kirk's communicator was later discovered to be a non-working fake that Bem slipped him. Yet, shortly after the Pandronian made the switch, Kirk uses the communicator to contact the Enterprise.

"Live long and prosper."

When Scotty blasts open Kirk's cage door, the wooden bars fall to the ground, however, one second later, the wooden bars still appear in front of Kirk. (as if the cage were still closed!)

TRIVIA: Nichelle Nichols does the voice of "god" in this episode.

They mention that Bem comes from a race that has only recently been contacted, and then is Honorary Commander and part of a landing party. Does this make sense? Not only did they just meet the guy, they just met his race! They clearly don't know anything about him.

Why did Bem only choose this planet to start observing? While watching the ep, I had assumed that he had some special knowledge of or connection to this planet, but no- apparently he randomly chose the one with the alien entity/intelligence.

Something else odd about BEM. Look at his eye-brows. I think the artist was having a good laugh.

Summary nits (oh man where to start?) - where he is promptly kidnapped by the locals
Well, given that the idiot ran to the natives instead of trying to remain unseen, you can hardly blame the natives for taking him into custody.

a female voice pretending to be God
She makes no claim to be a god. If it wasn't for David Gerrold's commentary I wouldn't have even known what to call her.

he breaks into three piece 'cause he can do that
We actually see him break into 5 pieces, head, both arms, torso & legs.

So where is the transporter controller when Bem was tampering with the transporter? How come there weren't any security personnel watching/guarding Bem?

Bem is a jerk. His "tests" are more likely to cause harm then anything else. I mean Kirk & Spock drop, what, 10 feet into waist high water? Yeah, drop into the shallow end of a pool from 10 feet sometime.

Bem's right arm separates from his body, then disappears until he reconnects. As a matter of fact we see his torso with left arm connected reconnect to his body then his right arm reappears when he starts walking again.

Kirk gets his phaser & communicator back then starts blasting at the cage instead of trying to contact the ship & have them beam them out of there. (True it's later established that their communicators are being blocked, but you'd think Kirk would have tried the communicators first.)

NANJAO. The flashing lights effect for the god makes it seem more like the Companion from Metamorphosis.

Beaming down an armed security team rather than just beaming up (as they were told) & scanning for Bem (or leaving him to become dinner) was not a very bright idea.

In the Briefing Room Kirk states that the landing party was to plant monitoring devices on the planet Delta Theta III,so where were they? The landing party didn't carry anything except their phasers & communicators.How come none of the landing party had any tricorders with them at all? Seems like that would be a critical piece of equipment on all explorations of a newly discovered planet.Bem only replaced Kirk & Spock's communicators & phasers,why? How could he be sure that it would be the captain & his first officer who would pursue him with their non-working replicas?

I wonder why the fact Bem could split into different sections wasn't discovered during the six months he had been on board?

Funny thought: I wonder if Bem ever said, "Sorry, man...I gotta split!"

Bem goes through a particularly thick section of the jungle by splitting into his smaller individual parts. Kirk and Spock have to make a long detour to get past that point. Why didn't they try using their phasers to cut their way through? Granted, the phasers were fakes, but they didn't know that yet.