You’d think allergy/sinus issues would take a break during the Winter months. Not a chance in Central Texas. I guess now is when the trees decide to share their output with the bees, hornets, wasps, wind and ants to spread their stuff since it’s how plant reproduce. The lack of rain doesn’t help.
The result? Around here. A strong sense of fatigue among a large population chunk including yours truly.
I did get around to updating the header to the next incarnation Star Trek had, a Saturday morning cartoon in the early-to-mid Seventies. The show’s popularity in syndication continued to grow but there was no way to capitalize on this yet. An animated version became the solution thanks for a writers’ strike before Star Trek: the Animated Series debuted. Those who wrote for cartoons weren’t brought into the WGA until the Nineties (probably due to The Simpsons using active sitcom writers) and it was a loophole for others, hence many episodes were written by former Star Trek people. Loophole? If they worked on a cartoon, they weren’t crossing the (virtual) picket line.
The cartoon is a bit slow, uses cheap methods to avoid drawing new cels (mostly closeups) and pink was employed too often; allegedly, a major producer involved was color blind. In its defense, animation could do things that were too expensive or impossible for live action: the Caitian communication officer who filled in for Uhuru; the three-armed/legged Edoan navigator; scale issues on alien worlds; and there was one alien who could divide itself into three parts…obviously the division went along logical cel breaks. Walter Koenig/Chekov was omitted for budget reasons yet he did right an episode and Larry Niven chipped in, giving his blessing to include the Kzinti from his Ringworld novels.
I think the cartoon is canon and part of what would the Enterprise‘s fourth year of the five-year mission.