TAS S1E13 "The Ambergris Element" Review By Answerman

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

I struggle with reviewing these animated episodes of Trek. In my reviews, I attempt to take into account the cultural context at the time, as well as the limitations on effects, and the norms for television series at the time like an overbearing score and cheesy camera angles. For instance, when reviewing TOS, I may mention that the episode features some misogyny, but I won't dock it much for it, because the takeaway isn't that Trek is misogynistic, it's just that society at the time was. Similarly with The Animated Series, while I like to think of it as the continuation of the same five year mission, it now has to be understood that we are discussing a Saturday morning cartoon. So while this episode is certainly dumb by regular Trek standards, is it any better by cartoon standards? In this case I'm afraid the answer is no.



The crew is checking out a planet that earthquakes are causing to be entirely covered by water. Let's think about this for a minute. Can severe seismic activity cause an entire planet to be covered by water? Take Earth for example. It's two-thirds water already. With enough shaking, could the remaining third fit in the oceans? I guess the answer is maybe? Actually, this is kind of an interesting proposition.

Anyway, the aqua shuttle is attacked by a giant Derp Monster, and Kirk and Spock go missing. Later they are found, but now they can only breathe underwater because they have been transformed by sea people, who I guess were only trying to help? Luckily, they can still communicate because they are somehow able to talk under water. Sure, people can talk underwater, but only because they have lungs full of air in which to force through their larynx. However, if you were getting oxygen through water, you would not have that luxury. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but it bothered me. It also bothered me that the suits that the others used to breathe underwater were just a yellow halo-type outline. One of the nice things about animation was supposed to be that episodes like this are possible because it's much easier to draw an undersea community than to try to live-action shoot one on film. So why get lazy with SCUBA gear? I mean the sea people eventually appear on the bridge with simple helmets on, couldn't they have drawn something like that for Scotty?

When Kirk asks Spock why the sea people would be hiding from them, Spock delivers the one redeemable line of the episode:

'It is quite possible, Captain, that they find us grotesque and ugly. and many people fear beings different from themselves."

However this opportunity to discuss what separates us is immediately dismissed by Kirk when he replies:

"Well, speculation isn't much help."

Seriously? What a dick. I mean, you asked man.

Anyway, apparently long ago there was a war between those that stayed on land and those that mutated to live in the water. The older generation is still quite bitter about it, while the younger generation is ready to move on. Through cooperation with the young sea people, Kirk and Spock are returned to normal with the help of venom extracted from the Derp Monster, in a scene that is annoying due to McCoy's running live narration of their condition. "Heart rate fading.....heart rate normal.  HE'S DEFINITELY DYING......now he's normal." Ugh. In exchange, the Enterprise crew divert the earthquakes to protect the sea people community, and connect them with historical documents that should allow the old ones to better contextualize the war. The young ones are now even going to rebuild on land, and perhaps adapt back to breathing air. Kirk warns them to stay in contact so that they don't end up with another war due to misunderstanding each other.

Perhaps I should cut this episode some slack, but it just really had a hard time even keeping my attention. There are decent Trek themes of bringing people together and putting aside old prejudices, but over the whole thing is just Horrible. I think that TAS suffers from having bold ideas, but failing to get them across in the very short time that these episodes have. Oh and, what in the world is ambergris, you may be asking? It's whale poop. Enjoy your Cheerios.

Published November 18, 2018