TAS S1E9 "Once Upon A Planet" Review by AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

There's a recurring theme in these animated episodes of going back and revisiting the same stories from TOS and presenting them for a new audience. While they're technically sequels, really they're just the same story again. "Once Upon A Planet" is the sequel/reboot/remake of "Shore Leave." I reviewed that episode, and found it to be horrible. So naturally I wasn't excited about going back down that road. In this iteration, the crew returns to the amusement park planet for some R&R, because absolutely nothing went wrong the first time, except when McCoy got lanced to death and everyone got shot at by WWII fighter planes. But that's no reason to stay away, right?



Immediately everything goes wrong. Again. McCoy is terrorized by a tyrannical monarch, and everyone beams up to escape the carnage. Except Uhura. She is taken to the planet's main computer. The computer thinks that the people serve the ship as slaves. There is some very uncomfortable dialog about slaves and masters between the only black main character on Star Trek to date and the computer. Meanwhile the crew is mounting a rescue, and the computer has said that since it only needs one hostage it will probably kill the others. It turns out that the caretaker of the planet has died of old age, and the computer has been running things. Over time it became self-aware and stopped serving the needs of the people, and started acting out on its own desires of exploration. It is no longer fulfilling fantasies for visitors. It has even taken over the computer systems of the Enterprise, and is planning a way to board it and take off. This is causing the crew all kinds of problems, like loss of navigation and gravity. After quite a bit of hassle the landing party of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Sulu are finally able to reach Uhura and the computer. Once there, they simply explain to the computer that it's wrong about the relationship between the ship and the crew, and that it's actually the crew that are in charge and the ship is just a tool for their mission. See? It was all just a Three's Company style misunderstanding! But frankly I'm not even sure why this is a key distinction for the computer. Next Kirk convinces it that the best way to explore is to stay in one place. Ohhhhkay... sure. Then the computer resets functions on the planet to normal, no longer using the resources to terrorize people, but returning it to its state as an amusement park for those in need of a holiday.

I like this version better than the original. The premise of a computer that has gained intelligence in the absence of programming and causing chaos makes much more sense than an inherently dangerous toy left out with no instructions. Also TAS is able to easily portray events and objects that would be too difficult to film in live action, and that reality serves this episode well. For instance, we have a giant kitty cat, some pterodactyls, and a fire-breathing dragon. The floating robot devices that carried Spock to the computer and held Uhura hostage were really neat, and never could have been done properly with TOS special effects. And finally, we have loss of gravity on the Enterprise! No matter what is wrong with the ships on Trek, we never lose gravity because it would be just so hard to film. But on TAS, it's no problem. In the minus category we have M'Ress's annoying purring after ever single line. I mean, cats don't just go around purring all the time, it's reserved particular states of comfort and pleasure. Is this bitch just turned on all the time, or what? Overall I sort of liked "Once Upon A Planet," and found it to be an Adequate episode. Even though the resolution was way too easy, we still got to see some fun stuff along the way, and maybe right some of the wrong that was "Shore Leave."

Published June 10, 2017