The Pirates of Orion

DVD, Star Trek: The Animated Series (The Pirates of Orion)

A packed episode in terms of characters and voices, and though one with various visual and audio gaffes, one of the stories that had the closest feeling to the series it was based on: Dr. McCoy is especially prevalent for a change as he has a most important patient, his own First Officer, Spock, who has contracted a deadly virus that will finish him off unless they can get a specific drug. But the nearest supply is just out of range for the time the Vulcan has left! It's a good scenario, written by Howard Weinstein who was very young at the time and whose success at selling the script led him to write Trek novels, including one of the earliest in the Pocket Books range from 1981! You can see how much of a fan he was by how close the characters and situations are to 'TOS,' while also seeking to expand upon existing lore and weave in connections with what had come before. We see a whole different kind of Starfleet ship, as well as a fearsome alien vessel, Kirk gets to be the hero, but at the same time everyone else is involved, even Nurse Chapel, and the dialogue between Spock and McCoy, their eternal friendly feud coming naturally from the story, making it quite enjoyable.

Perhaps the only flaw with the story is the way the Orions look, nothing like the glimpses we saw of them in 'The Cage' and 'Whom Gods Destroy,' though they certainly behave in nefarious fashion as demonstrated by the example from 'Journey To Babel,' who committed suicide when his plot to destabilise relations failed. That episode is clearly a touchstone for this story as Kirk refers back to it directly (and pleasingly), saying that Orion neutrality has been in question ever since that affair - updating the status of races and their politics is one of those aspects regular viewers love about Trek, solidifying this world we visit, and revisit, proving that even when we're not seeing the individual pieces in every episode or story the wheels keep turning and the galaxy isn't standing still. Hence we have Orions showing up as pirates. They're about as pale green as you can get, almost turquoise or very light blue, so perhaps this is where 'DSC' got its inspiration from when they included them in Season 1. Thankfully the modern era eventually changed them to be much darker green, as it was almost like they were ashamed how green they used to be, so at least they saw sense in that regard (even if they don't like giving us the kind of details we see in this episode). It's actually their uniforms that are really green, which only makes their skin seem paler. Perhaps this is a particular branch of the race who make up for their pale skin by wearing the brightest green possible?

Their name was one of the gaffes of the episode as both Lieutenant Arex and Captain Kirk pronounce is as 'Orry-on' rather than the usual 'Ory-on,' which is a little disconcerting, but I suppose comes from them being audio lines recorded with no expert on hand to explain proper pronunciation. It's not like they were a commonly used race on 'TOS' anyway, so Doohan and Shatner wouldn't have remembered the right way to say it. I must say I was impressed with Doohan's versatility as while he was recognisable to varying degrees in most of the guest voices he did, even though he does have a good variety (Arex sounding completely different from Scotty, for example - just watched an episode of 'Taxi' where Andy Kaufman switches between Latka as himself and then an American version, which was somewhat similar!), for some time I wasn't sure it was him as the Orion Captain, though in the end I settled on it being him. But there were at least a couple of other guest voices who weren't part of the regular cast, Captain O'Shea of the SS Huron (or is it?), and the other Orion crew-members, I think. Majel Barrett gets to portray the good old Enterprise computer again, but also what appears to be the Helmswoman for the Huron, and Nurse Chapel herself. And even George Takei plays another crewman on the Huron as well as Sulu. Only Nichelle Nichols sticks purely to Uhura.

Another way you can tell this is written by a fan is that we have a different set of characters who beam over to the Huron - when do we ever see Kirk accompanied by Scotty, Uhura and Chapel on a Landing Party? It was fascinating to see another starship, both its external, which had more of the look of a converted cargo vessel than a Federation starship, and its Bridge. In fact we get to see three different Bridges and as many different View-screens, all unique: the Huron's has the usual horizontal lights flashing along, but vertically in this case, and the screen's a square shape, while the layout of the Bridge is quite different, smaller and simpler. I can't say it was an attractive design, but at least we got to see a proper starship. The questions is, is it the SS Huron, as spoken in dialogue by Kirk and its own Captain O'Shea (complete with a rare beard), or the 'USS' Huron, as depicted on screen? A case of the animators not paying attention to the script, or the voice artists not realising it was written wrong, who knows? It would depend on whether the audio was recorded first and then animated, or the reverse, but even so you'd think it would be defined in the script! At least they got the idea right of each starship having its own unique insignia badge: rather than the arrowhead chevron we know from the Enterprise, the Huron crew have a pointed star that looks almost like the later combadges we'd see from 'TNG' and beyond.

One thing I noticed about the animation was they did seem to be playing for time by hanging on establishing shots of ships for longer than usual - it's rich of me to point that out when I'm always chiding modern Trek for not caring enough to have decent external views of ships and preferring everything to be seen through the ridiculously giant windows that came from the Kelvin Timeline and thus have no place in the Prime, and I didn't mind it, but it was noticeable as if they were saving a few precious seconds of expensive time. The reuse of footage, something I'd always had the impression of from my previous viewings as a child, but which on this run through I hadn't found as common or obvious, was clearly evident, especially in the shots after Spock's collapse as we see a phantom McCoy in both instances when he's supposed to be in Sickbay! The first time you see him next to Kirk's chair, then Kirk calls down to Sickbay for a medical alert and McCoy isn't to be seen in any other shot of that scene. Then exactly the same mistake happens again later on, only this time it's even more glaring as McCoy is contacting the Bridge from Sickbay to tell them to send Spock for his next shot, and then he collapses and phantom McCoy is hovering by Kirk's chair again! It's so brief you'd easily miss it if you weren't paying attention, but it still looks pretty lazy! If they were going to reuse it they could at least have coloured McCoy's shirt as another division so it wasn't as obvious!

What isn't lazy is the story's attention to detail, such as reiterating that Spock has copper-based blood as opposed to humans' iron-based. I was really hoping the Orions were going to be revealed to have copper blood too, maybe they'd have to give Spock a transfusion and that might help to explain their green colouring, but that never came up, sadly. I did wonder if they meant pneumonia is no longer a dangerous illness in this time as Kirk said something about the virus outbreak coming under control and now being not even as dangerous as pneumonia, which would suggest it's easily cured. And it was good to see McCoy practically pulling rank on Spock about halving his duty shifts - I always like it when we get to see a Doctor overrule command personnel on medical grounds as it adds a whole other level to the hierarchy of a functioning starship. And Spock behaves as Spock-like as ever, knowing he's dying, but preferring to carry on with his duties, as stoic and dependable as ever. Even the ending is fun with McCoy adamant Spock has to cave in and admit his physiology would have been better if it were human, which of course he doesn't, so it's very much in the 'TOS' vein.

We even get scenes in the Briefing Room with its Tri-screen, and when Kirk beams down to the asteroid to meet with the treacherous Orion Captain, and Spock is incapacitated, Scotty gets to have command again, sitting in the Captain's Chair as we've seen a number of times. The Orions see the only way to protect their perceived neutrality is to blow themselves up in this explosive asteroid field, taking the Enterprise with them, but this goes a little far for the sake of protecting their piracy! It's like the Ferengi giving up a valuable hoard so no one will ever know they were greedy! But it does fit with the Orion spy from 'Journey To Babel,' and gave the race a hard edge (all unsuccessful Orion missions end in suicide!), especially for a Saturday morning cartoon, though Kirk makes it clear he's not going to allow it, the Captain will stand trial for his actions. I'm not sure there was a strong enough message at the heart of the tale to make it one of the best of 'TAS,' but it's certainly one of the better stories by virtue of using the whole cast rather than just Kirk and Spock. We even learn (if this were canon), that McCoy has been a doctor for twenty-five years, in a moment that was closest to exploring an idea: he expresses disgust with his profession that with all they know he still can't save Spock's life and it's all no use, then Kirk says he wouldn't have been a doctor so long if he truly believed that. Finally, it would have been nice to see the USS Potemkin which is the starship which delivers the drug to the SS Huron, but there were probably enough starships for one short episode (and the Orions' looked a bit Vulcan, as in the T'Plana-Hath, the ship that made first contact with Earth - maybe they took their inspiration from that?).

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