In the novelization, Foster had the Vendorian becoming the damaged linkages that powered the deflector shields, rather than a shield itself. Made more sense.
I liked M'Ress. It was nice to see more aliens than one single Vulcan on the ship.

A possible nit. At one point in the episode, Kirk gives the stardate as 5143.3. Later on he gives it as 5148.6. That makes 5.3 stardate units difference, or about two days. Does the episode really take two days? Or was the second stardate supposed to br 5143.6?

More aliens was one of the animated shows strongest points. A character like M'Ress or Arex could not have been done in live action. The Vendorian himself was a VERY cool looking alien.

The Survivor is currently the featured episode on my animated Star Trek site. Lots of pictures, 2 avi's, RealVideo, and the entire episode in RealAudio format. http://mainengineering.simplenet.com/tas_main.html
The Vendorian is my personal favorite TAS alien. Please stop by and comments are always welcome. Thank you.

Great job as always, Kail!

Hey, that's awesome! Thanks, Kail.

Thanks Mike, Jennifer.

How about a scene with M'Ress and Nurse Chapel?

A few nits with this one. The Vendorian impersonates Kirk, orders the course change.
Kirk wakes up, goes to the bridge and learns of the course change. There's a shot of Kirk giving orders from the turbo-lift. Sulu and Arex are in the background. Watch the blank viewscreen (a nit
in itself). For a second or two the display lights from the consoles shift and appear over the viewscreen.

Spock says the Vendorian can change its molecular
structure to mimic anything of roughly the same
mass and size. The medical bed and its indicator
are of roughly the same size and mass as the Vendorian? Very roughly.

During the battle with the Romulans there's an overhead shot of the bridge crew as the Enterprise is hit by a phaser blast. Look carefully at communications. M'Ress has briefly disappeared and been replaced by Uhura.
(I know this gaffe happens alot in the Animateds.)

Too many elements of this episode reminds me of
"The Man-Trap" from the Original Series.

This is one of the few eps I have recorded. I haven't seen TAS in awhile and thought I'd watch what I have. A few more nits and comments:

As the Enterprise approaches Carter Winston's ship, Kirk states in his log entry that Carter's ship was damaged by a meteor swarm. You mean, it was not equipped with deflectors? I'd've thought deflectors would be standard equipment aboard space faring vessels in the Star Trek universe.

After Spock informs Kirk that the vessel is registered to Carter Winston, McCoy says "That's impossible." Why? "Carter Winston's been missing for over five years." So? Space is awfully big. Getting lost in it would seem to me to be a fairly easy thing to do.

If I'm not mistaken, this ep marks the first and perhaps only filmed refernce to McCoy's fabled daughter. (The only reason we know the Good Doctor has a daughter [Joanna] is because of the Writer's Guide. She was never mentioned in any live action ep. She, however, supposed to appear in "The Way to Eden".) Bones said she was attending medical school on the planet, Cerberus, that was suffering from a shortage of food supplies. Winston used his wealth to obtain more food for the planet.

Uh, I thought money wasn't supposed to exist in the Trek uiverse. So how could Carter Winston be wealthy? Of course, he was a trader...

Notice that when Spock explains to McCoy that regulations require that the crew verify Carter Winston's creditials, the black collar on Spock's uniform is larger than it should be.

Carter Winston impersonates Kirk and then goes to the Bridge. There, he orders Sulu to take the Enterprise on a direct course to Rator III. That would take the ship through the Romulan Neutral Zone. Sulu warns the Captain that violating Romulan space will give the Romulans the right to "confiscate" the Enterprise. Somehow, I don't think confiscation is the worst result of crossing the Neutral Zone. I think starting an intergalactic war is the worst result.

While giving a report on what's appearing on long range scanners, Spock is looking at his control panel. However, in the next shot, he's looking through his hooded screen.

When Kirk wakes up after being knocked out by Winston, he looks at a display with a series of numbers on it (190808, I think it reads). Is this supposed to be Kirk's clock? It's pretty big if it is.

And apparently it is. Kirk arrives on the Bridge and looks at a display on the helm/navigation console. One set of numbers looks like it's the stardate (51431). The other set is 190828.

After being informed that "he" gave the order to invade Romulan space, why doesn't the Real Captain Kirk countermand that order? He knows it's in violation of Federation treaties.

Carter goes to Sickbay. He encounters McCoy there. Bones is sitting behind a desk and Winston is standing at about 9 o'clock from the doctor. Somehow, without McCoy being aware of it Carter changes into his true Vendorian form and walks behind McCoy to render him inconscious. Apparently Dr. McCoy has a serious lack of peripheral vision.

Kirk and Spock are in Sickbay to ask Dr. McCoy to perform an examination on the Captain. As the Doctor puts off the examination he is shown standing in one shot and seated behind his desk in another.

Three crewmen can be seen running through the ship's corridor while Spock is giving orders over the ship's intercom. They must be able to read the Vulcan's mind, they're running even before Spock proclaims "Intruder Alert".

When Kirk contacts the Bridge, the overhead shot shows Scotty in the command chair. However, it looks like that's Spock at the Science Station. Yet Spock is standing next to Kirk on another deck.

After Carter Wiston disables the deflectors shields of the Enterprise, Sulu announces that the doors to the hangar deck were opening. I assumed that meant that Winston was already on board a shuttle and was getting to launch the shuttle. However, the next time we see Winston, it is in one of the corridors of the Enterprise. Was Carter going to walk through the hangar deck and into a shuttle in the vacuum of space? I assume that's what would happen if he walks through the hangar deck with the bay doors open.

When Lt. Ann Nored confronts Carter Winston in the corrdor (as he prepares to go to the hangar deck), note that her delta insignia is on the wrong side. It's on her right, rather than left. In the next shot it flips back to its proper side. Then back again. Then back to its proper side again.

I thought M'Ress was the communications officer in this ep. Yet, when the Enterprise is hit the second time by the Romulans, Uhura can be seen in the overhead shot of the Bridge.

The Enterprise's deflectors are down and need to be repaired. For some strange reason in the midst of this crucial repair work, Scotty finds time to mosey up to the Bridge. Shouldn't he be in Engineering supervising the repair to the deflectors?

So much for Scotty multiplying his repair by a factor of four (or whatever it was. I can't remember it off hand.) In this ep, when he tells Kirk the deflectors repairs will take two hours, he apparently meant it. When Kirk congratulates him on getting the shields fixed, Scotty emphasizes that he told the Captain that it would take hours.

Carter's hair style is very much a Seventies one, isn't it?

Could the Vendorian's tentacles really be used to support it's body and for transportation?

Watch how throughout the ep, the color of the crew's pants change from grey to brown.

Wow, that's quite a list! Yes, there are alot of continuity mistakes in all of TAS. They had to produce them VERY fast.

http://www.startrekanimated.com

Yeah, Kail, I know. But I wouldn't be a nitpicker if I didn't point out the continuity errors as well as other errors I see.

BTW, it looks like you've updated the look of your website. It looks good. I also liked the comic book you and Charles Kelso produced, "Nature to Eternity". It's as good as the one you did for "Yesteryear." It was great seeing an Animated version of Chekov. Your version retained the art style of TAS very well.

BTW, Kail, I downloaded the Enterprise screensaver off your site. Thanks. I like it.

Hey Benn, thanks!! I'm glad you liked the comic, I have another one in the works. The new one takes a page from what's going on now with Iraq. The Kzinti will not allow Federation weapons inspections. Sarek, the Vendorian, the Dramians, the Orions, and an Andorian, all make guest appearances. Also, you may have noticed that "Nature to Eternity" had some of my original artwork mixed in with screen-caps, the new one will be made entirely of new art.

Cool site, cool comic! I like that you're using Okazaki's starship designs, too.
Looking forward to the next comic.

"I like that you're using Okazaki's starship designs, too."

Masao is a friend of mine, and I used them with his permission. He has some awesome ship designs. They should have used one of his designs for the pre TOS Enterprise.

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly! His Starfleet Museum is extrememly well-designed; not only are the ships (and their evolution) cool, their histories all fit nicely into the Star Trek timeline... until Enterprise went into production! I admire the fact that he willingly isn't going to alter his history to account for that new series.
Please pass along my regards and compliments.

And Mine as well.

When Winston changes, the sound is from the transporter materialization

When McCoy examines Winston on the Medical Bed, McCoy is using a scanner WITH A POWER CORD.

SINCE WHEN does any of McCoy's doodads have POWER CORDS?

NANJAO: Ted Knight from "Mary Tyler Moore" does the voice of Winston

After being informed that "he" gave the order to invade Romulan space, why doesn't the Real Captain Kirk countermand that order? He knows it's in violation of Federation treaties.

He does. He orders Sulu to plot a course out of the Neutral Zone at warp 8. Obviously it wasn't fast enough as the Romulans caught them anyway.

Ted Knight from "Mary Tyler Moore" does the voice of Winston.

And got no credit for it. In fact, the closing credits of each animated episode were identical.

You know, despite the fact that it's most likely Majel Barrett again doing the voice of the Enterprise's computer, the voice still doesn't sound the same as in TOS. On the other hand, if it's Nichelle Nichols doing the computer's voice, why didn't they use Majel?

Exactly what does the identification tape prove? If they wanted to be sure Carter Winston was who he said he was, why not get a sample of his fingerprints, have him speak into a microphone and submit to a retina scan and have these things checked with what's in the library computer banks?

Nichelle provides the voice of Lt. Ann Nored for this ep. In case you couldn't tell.

Kirk tells Spock he's going back to his quarters to complete the report on Carter Winston's rescue. Kirk then has his first officer take the conn. When the two pass, Kirk is going to the left, Spock to the right. That makes it look like Kirk is going to Spock's science station rather than the turbolift.

In his Vendorian form, Carter Winston lifts Kirk and sets him on his bed. Somehow I have hard time believing Carter's tenacles are strong enough to support both his own weight and Kirk's.

Why is McCoy so dead sure they readings on Carter are off because of a mechanical problem? Did he bother to use the instruments on himself and Nurse Chapel or other crewmembers to see if the readings were off on them, too? And if the readings weren't off on them, too, wouldn't that inform the good Doctor that it's Winston who's not right?

What does it matter if Carter Winston says there weren't any Romulans in the area a week ago? A lot can change in a week. By now the path to Rator III could be swarming with Romulans.

BTW, this is the first mention of the Romulans in TAS.

Supposedly, after falling asleep in his cabin, Kirk returns to the Bridge. However, when he exits the turbolift, on the wall behind him is a intercom speaker. The turbolift alcove on the Bridge has no such intercom on that wall. Instead, there's a dedication plaque on that wall. I guess Kirk must've been so sleepy he got off on the wrong deck, telling Spock he'll take the conn. Boy, I'll bet he was embarrassed when he realized his mistake.

After the commercial break, Spock records a log entry dated "Stardate 5148.7". When Kirk returns to the Bridge and looks at the chronometer on the helms/navigation board, the stardate is "5143.7"

Kirk and Spock find McCoy waking up on the laboratory floor in Sickbay. As Kirk leaves the room, look closely at Spock's delta insignia on his shirt. Except for the "eye", it's as blue as the rest of his uniform.

You know, Carter wouldn't have to just impersonate the examination table in Sickbay. He'd also have to be the readout board over the bed. Somehow, I don't think he'd be able to spread himself out that much. (Which does. But I just don't see how the Vendorian could impersonate the table and readout board. There simply isn't enough Vendorian to go around.)

Kudos to the show's artists for putting a bird-like emblem on the engine strut of the Romulan vessel. It helps distinguish it from a Klingon battlecruiser.

This episode contains the three shot of Arex, Kirk and Sulu at least twice. In each use of the shot, Spock and M'Ress are at their posts.

"Live long and prosper."

SPECIAL VOICE: Ted Knight as Winston

(Yeah, I know I mentioned that before, but I'm trying to maintain some continuity with my "Special Voice" postings)

In space they are called meteoroids or asteroids, not meteors.

NANJAO. I found myself cracking up when "Winston" is trying to tell Anne it's over. He's telling her he's changed, that he had a male nurse, she comments that she doesn't see anything physically wrong, what is it that's changed? *snicker*

After the third bed has changed back to the Vendorian you can see the third bed in a following shot.

Benn,you're correct that money as we know it now doesn't exist in the Trek Universe,but credits are mentioned in various Star Trek episodes such as "The Trouble With Tribbles."Perhaps Carter has amassed more credits than many people or aliens of that era.

I enjoyed this episode & the design for the Vendorian was very sharp.How come in Sickbay it is Kirk who notices that there is an extra medical table & not Dr.McCoy who works there? Ann tells Kirk that she could not fire her phaser at the Vendorian because it looked just like her fiance Winston even though she knows it really isn't him.Isn't the phaser set on stun,she wouldn't be killing him with it? Doesn't it seem as if there should be more elaborate protocols regarding a starship crossing over into the Neutral Zone than just having a captain give an order to do so? The table in the Briefing Room that Kirk & Spock sit at is much smaller than the one seen on the live action Star Trek TV show.

Dr. Ann's badge moves from one side of her tunic to the other with each passing scene

Clearly it was just the Vendorian, copping a feel.

Kirk inserts Winston's credential tape in the viewscreen on the briefing room. However, those screens have no slots that could accept such tapes.

Why is the Vendorian speaking with Winston's voice when he is in his native form?

Why is an undamaged Romulan ship backing off from the battle? Kirk suggest that it's because of their spy's presence on the Enterprise. Somehow, I doubt very much the Romulans would care enough to let that impede their attack.

I also find it hard to believe that a living creature could imitate a deflector shield well enough to actually withstand disruptor fire from a Romulan war ship.