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"The Pirates of Orion" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-03-21 18:00:08
Imported:
2026-06
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"The Pirates of Orion" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2

Comments

Skyman's Follies

Hey Bunny, great reaction - I feel exactly the same way as you. Strong start, and then maybe not as strong ending but still good. I think these were supposed to be Orions (as introduced by TOS) but maybe they just pronounced incorrectly because Babel is mentioned so it's gotta be the same race, also as evidenced by their willingness to off themselves so readily. That's another thing I was impressed with - the writer's commitment to stay true to Orion's "self-destruct" obedience. I thought that gave this episode a lot of heft and is still shocking to me. Like, a villain willing to commit to suicide to achieve end goal is a scary thing to contend with and so gave the situation real gravity, especially for the animated series. Once again showing that TAS, despite its Sat morning timeslot, was "willing to go there". Also really dug the introduction of the USS Huron and crew (yes that was Takei and Barrett). Not sure who the voice of the Orion commander was, but maybe Doohan? Anyway, five to go and TAS is way better than I expected : )

Greg

I think I liked this episode a bit more then Bunny does. It's a fun fast paced episode to me, with a good idea and some interesting plot angles, and builds on ideas and people that were first seen in TOS. It's a little above average for me. However, a quick check online shows this episode is very polarizing, with a wide range of opinions and thoughts on it. Once again I need to suggest the Wikipedia article on this episode be read. The script writer, Howard Weinstein, was a fan of Star Trek and first wrote the story which would become this episode when was in high school. It was bought, the ending was changed, and it was shown as the first episode of the short lived season 2 when Howard was only 19 and in the dorms at UConn. He would go on to write a lot of books for Star Trek over the years and appear at cons and is still active today. Several animation errors/issues I saw: despite the fact that the episode name screen correctly shows the copyright date of 1974, the main Star Trek screen we see at the end of the intro still says 1973 on it. I guess they were too lazy to change it. Also, twice in this episode when the bridge is shown and Kirk calls down to McCoy in Sickbay, we can clearly see McCoy standing next to Kirk on the bridge! I do not know why they pronounced 'Orions' the way they did in this episode. It was CLEARLY meant to be the same race as the green skinned women and Kirk makes reference to what happened with a Orion suicide mission in the episode 'Journey to Babel', a nice touch. But it's said in a totally different, and as far as I know, not correct way. We would not see any more men of the species, however, until an episode of Enterprirse many years later. Yes, that was George Takai doing some voice work in this episode, along with the others doing extra voices that you've come to know and love. We don't see or hear much about it, but the merchant fleet for the Federation is HUGE, and very important. Just like in our world with trucks and ships and planes and trains, there are ships running around all over the place bringing cargo from spot to spot. This frees up starships for more critical and important roles. Often these ships have small crews, people who either flunked out of the Academy or chose not to go into Starfleet, and are content spending their lives doing these runs. We get to meet some of these Captains in later shows. The transport ships themselves are part of the Federation and named but not commissioned (hence the use of S.S. in the name) and are not designed for combat, having weak shields and minimal weapons, and can go a top speed of about Warp 6. Great banter with Kirk, McCoy and Spock on this one for sure. It's a shame that Season 2 was so short, we're almost done with the show already! It would take a long time for Star Trek to go back to a idea of a animated show (with Lower Decks) but this really shows what the format can do. Looking forward to seeing what comes next after this before we get to The Next Generation!

Greg

Yes, that was Doohan voicing the commander, doing heavy lifting with additional voices as he always did.

William Terry

Bunny makes some excellent points! I hope it's just Amazon Prime but this wasn't the next episode on the list! Sounds familiar Lol. The whole Orion/Oreeon thing is strange, like they were prevented from using the previous characters' name at the last minute and they didn't have time to fix it. My main issue is Spock's refusal to stay in sickbay or at least his quarters when he keeps fainting at his station. They don't have a compelling reason he needs to be there so I guess that's another plot hole of the others that bunny reacted to. Spock comes off as kind of rude with the old "I'm glad I'm not human" schtick, maybe he could use time more efficiently with saying thx Bones, Jim. I think the Orions were attempting to detonate the asteroid with a small fuse that wouldn't do much by itself but wow; it was strong enough to start a chain reaction but the ship's phasers were too weak? Sounds like a cat laser. I grade this high because of the new artwork depicting Uhura, the navigator, Erik, and the neat asteroid conclusion. The music sounds good.

Bret Kay

There's a lot of odd pronunciations in TAS. In this episode: Bet-uh (Beta), Kahn-tracted (Contracted), Yuron (Huron) etc. Although in this case, Or-Ree-On is closer to the original Greek pronunciation. Someone probably told them to say it that way and they didn't remember or know it was pronounced Oh-Rye-An in the original episode (as it's pronounced in English).

Mark Gosine

The Oh-Ree-On captain needs to fire the guy who rigged the button.

SuicuneSol

The reason the detonator didn't go off is because Scotty beamed up the crystals directly from his backpack just before the Orion Captain pressed the button. You see Scotty holding the crystals in his arms after Kirk is beamed up. It happens really fast, so it's easy to miss.

Lee

There's another glaring animation error in the last scene, set in sickbay. The backgrounds briefly shift to the bridge, then return to sickbay. Someone really fouled up the continuity on this episode.

Lee

This might be a wee bit spoilery, but the recent Trek animated series Lower Decks established that the blue-skinned Orions seen here belong to a rival faction from the green Orions, and they use the alternate pronunciation to further differentiate themselves. (It doesn't quite explain why the Enterprise crew used the other pronunciation before having seen the pirates, but at least they tried to fix it.) That isn't the only callback to Star Trek (1973) the newer show made, but I'll refrain from spoiling any others. It may be another twenty years down the line, but I really want Bunny to cover Lower Decks! LOL

Matthew Graves (Graviton)

A little bit of a mess of an episode, but fun. This one always reminds me most strongly of trying (and failing) to figure out to have the Orion faction stand up to the D7 and the OP constitution class back in an old strategy game called Star Fleet Battles. Sorry, showing my age there but, others have already done a good job commenting here.

Trilogian

Bunnytails is killing me with the whole “no spoilers” rule. I mean, I get it, I’ll respect it, but she kills me. As far as this ep goes, again, it’s bigger than the format. I need to watch these with Bunnytails and a bowl of Cheerios. Also enjoyed another Filmation ship design in the spirit of the originals with SS Huron!

bunnytails

I'll have to look again and try to see it!

Timothy Bennett

Yes so many good series for Bunny to watch