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Star Trek: The Animated Series 50th Anniversary Episode Review

Episode: The Ambergris Element

Season: 1

Episode: 13

Stardate: 5499.9 – 5506.2

Original airdate: December 1, 1973

Written by: Margaret Armen

Directed by: Hal Sutherland

Music by: Yvette Blais and Jeff Michaels

Executive producers: Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott

Studio: Filmation Associates

Network: NBC

Series created by: Gene Roddenberry

Cast:

Captain James T. Kirk (voice by William Shatner)

Mr. Spock (voice by Leonard Nimoy)

Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (voice by DeForest Kelly)

Lt. Uhura (voice by Nichelle Nichols)

Lt. Hikaru Sulu (voice by George Takei)

Eng. Montgomery Scott, Lt. Clayton, Cadmar, Cheeron, Domar (voices by James Doohan)

Nurse Christine Chapel, Rila, Aquan females #1 to 3 (voices by Majel Barrett)

Lemus, Aquan harvester (voices by Lou Scheimer)

Nephro, Aquan male, Aquan guard (voices unknown)

Synopsis:

Argo, an Earth-like planet in anicient times, had suffered a transformation on its surface submerging most of its dry land into the deepest of its seas. The crew of the USS Enterprise was assigned to investigate the phenomenal seismic activity in hope to save millions of lives on a Federation planet similar to Argo.

An away team has been assembled. It is composed of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Lieutenant Clayton. They await to be launched in a special shuttlecraft mounted on a catamaran, the aqua-shuttle. Engineer Scott is in the shuttlebay ready for the launch.

Upon their arrival, the team had an encounter with a sea monster. It is called a sur-snake, a creature not found on previous surveys. The beast hits once the shuttle and captain orders to his first officer to shoot to stun with the small ship's phasers. After knocking down the creature, Kirk orders Clayton to submerge the vessel to make research on the oceanic beast. McCoy found it has a dual respiratory system and Spock also found its skeleton structure it is very similar to the one of the Denbian whales.

Suddenly, the giant monster regained its consciousness. The captain orders to shoot the creature again but this time, the phasers do not respond. Kirk orders Scott to beam them up. The sur-snake took the aqua-shuttle with its jaw and threw the ship against a pile of rocks. Only McCoy and Clayton were beamed up to safe place. But Kirk and Spock remain on the planet. Their whereabouts it is unknown to the rest of the crew.

After five days of an intense search, the captain and his first officer have been found –along the wreckage of the aqua-shuttle-- at a rock mass above the sea level. They were still alive, but with their metabolisms changed. Making them uncapable of living in the air. Also they have no memory of whatever happened to them after the sur-snake incident.

On the starship, they were put in a water tank. After 48 hours of being rescued, Dr. McCoy have only found an unknown substance on their bloodstreams. Their internal structure had changed so much that even they have now second eyelids like those from fishes. Bones have found no information on the Federation computers about any kind of such procedure. All the efforts to change them to their normal structure were useless.

This made them to conjecture about intelligent lifeforms on the depths of the oceans of Argo. The only shuttlecraft available to reach such place was destroyed by the sea monster. Both Kirk and Spock realized it is useless to spend more time inside the aquarium and decided to went to the deepest of the seas by themselves.

The first encounter with the Aquans were made while some of them are gathering food. They were hostile to who they call air-breathers. They warn them to go away. They also tell them that the young ones were those who saved them and they do not leave, they will not save them again. After this, they left. Kirk and Spock will follow them.

After both of the Enterprise's officers went into an ocean rift and a tunnel, they have found a fantastic underwater city with a surprising architecture. Spock made a guess that the Aquans may found the ugly and grotesque as the reason for running away from them. Next, they were trapped into a fishnet.

Kirk and Spock are brought to a chamber were the Ruling Tribunal of the Aquans. Domar, the High Tribune accuses both officers of espionage. According to the anicient records, air-breathers never came in peace. A female Aquan, Rila intercede for both officers of the Enterprise along with her fellow young tribunes. They want the High Tribune to give the captain and his first officer the chance to revert the process.

At the planet's surface Scotty awaits for Kirk and Spock. He received a message from the main ship telling him a seaquake so strong to change the topography of Argo it is going to happen within four hours. The engineer have been hurry to find the captain and the first officer as soon as posible.

Just when Kirk and Spock came to an arragement with the High Tribune, all was turned down officers of the Enterprise coming down to the surface. Both officers are sentenced to death by suffocation.

Rila came to their help again by telling Officer Scott where Kirk and Spock are located. After they have been rescued, They want the female Aquan to help them to find the ancient medical records on how to revert the mutation process. At first, Rila was hesitant on helping them, but she finally decided to do so.

With the medical archives on hand, Doctor McCoy have found a substance similar to the ambergris element found in Earth's whales. Kirk and Spock are brought back to Argo to find that substance. They wanted the help of Rila and the young tribunes after resisting for a short time, they agreed on finding the sur-snake to extract the venom from its fangs.

Once they got the element from the giant sea monster, Bones is ready to process it to get the antitoxin to get both Kirk and Spock to their normal metabolisms again. The captain was the first to receive doses from antitoxin. After a couple of reactions from the shots, Kirk was turned back to his normal condition and then Spock.

Rila and Domar are beamed up to the starship to be witness of the procedure to save their civilization from the seaquake. The Enterprise shoot phasers to an abandoned place to change the seaquake's epicenter. As a result, the Aquans's city was saved and the underwater ruins are back to the open air land.

The Aquans are so grateful of the Federation efforts to save them. In exchange, they gave the Enterprise's officers all the ancient archives for their study. The young Aquans wants to live in open air, but the all ones do not. Kirk gives an advice to Domar: that the old ones no lose contact with the young ones. The High Tribune agrees to change the old codes to new ones that forbid the isolation from the old Aquans living underwater to the young Aquans living in the surface.

Fascinating facts:

This episode was written by Margaret Armen. Previously, Armen worked as writer for The Original Series season two episode, “The Gamesters of Triskelion”, season three episodes “The Paradise Syndrome” and “The Cloud Minders (script only). And for The Animated Series episode “The Lorelei Signal”.

James Doohan made six voices for this episode (Scott, Arex, Clayton, Cheeron, Domar), very close to his record of seven voices for the episode “Yesteryear”.

Producer Lou Scheimer also had done voice acting for this episode as both as Lemus and an Aquan harvester.

This episode introduced two vehicles to be used on water, the aqua-shuttle and the scouter-gig. The aqua-shuttle is the first armed shuttlecraft in Star Trek. Those two small vessels appeared for the first and last time.

The ambergris is a waxy substance that originates as a secretion in the intestines of the sperm whale, found floating in tropical seas and and used in perfume manufacture. It is illegal in some places.

#space opera #space western #filmation #star trek #70s sci fi #star trek: tas 50th anniversary #star trek: the animated series 50th anniversary

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