Star Trek: The Animated Series
The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek
Blu-ray Edition
Created by Gene Roddenberry
Directed by Hal Sutherland, Bill Reed
Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Majel Barrett
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: November 15, 2016

When the original Star Trek was cancelled in 1969 after three seasons, it left a void with fans who wanted NBC to renew the television series about the starship Enterprise and its crew’s five-year mission to explore new worlds and new civilizations. Audiences grew to love William Shatner‘s Captain Kirk and his first officer, the half-human half-Vulcan Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, but the ratings just weren’t high enough after the show was moved for the third season to a Friday night “death” slot. While Star Trek got to live on in syndication, it wasn’t until 1973 that new life was breathed into it with Star Trek: The Animated Series, produced by Filmation, the company behind Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

Recently, we started a new podcast here at Geeks Of Doom called Violent Delights. It follows HBO’s reboot of Westworld, which began airing and streaming on October 2nd, and takes a deep look into the themes and storytelling that take place on the show. We couldn’t possibly hope to understand what Westworld 2016 could become without taking a look back at the original Westworld (1973). Here’s how this 43-year-old iconic film stands up to the scrutiny of fall 2016.

Anyone who’s ever delved into a DC or Marvel comic has noticed that, for the most part, while the world those stories take place in may be nearly identical to our own, it’s just slightly…better. The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers both took place in New York in 2012, but both stories employ superior technology and characters with the goodwill to use them well — to take their power, however gained, and employ it in opposition of the selfish, the greedy, and the grim for the embetterment of all those who are too weak to stand up and face those threats themselves. We call these people heroes.