StillPaisleyCat

There was a third species in TAS that some interpret as felinoid, but are more likely lemurians.

The ancient, advanced space-faring species the Vedala was introduced in the TAS episode’The Jihad’ written by Stephen Kandel, whose other episodes featured Harry Mudd.

Here are a few more images from TAS that show the breadth of sentient species that the show established

Kzinti are Star Trek canon.

Niven himself wrote The Animated Series (TAS) episode ‘The Slaver Weapon’, adapted from his short story ‘The Soft Weapon.’

Niven sees Star Trek as a separate universe or timeline, but it shares the Kzin with his own Known Space universe.

In Lower Decks, there is an ensign who is Kzin in addition to Dr T’Ana being Caitian.

Also, it was Niven himself, writing on the official Star Trek website, who put forward the view that Caitians and Kzinti are cousins, with the Caitians having settled on their planet Cait, and adopting a more scientific and technologically oriented culture.

In TAS, Lt. M’Ress was the Caitian second communications officer.

Erica was a young thing in a romantic triangle with a guy heading off to Vietnam in the early 70s. She became a cougar in the 80s.

Nor do we talk about John Colicos’ character in The Starlost…

Even if Ursula LeGuin had the script credit for that episode.

Then gatekeeping fans will say it breaks canon, has to be an alternate timeline/universe because they didn’t need those in TOS/TNG.

Oh, wait, that’s one of the criticisms of the environmental suits in Discovery and SNW…

Here she is as one eccentric and haunted character, two different versions, in a single episode of SurrealEstate season one.

‘Wackier than TOS on its most TAS day’ …

You packed an awful lot in that comparison.

🤩

Ogawa was initially a nurse on TNG but decided to become a physician and medical officer.

While he was a Shakespearean actor at Stratford in Canada, and in fact was Christopher Plummer’s understudy before taking on leading roles himself, Shatner’s US career kicked off in the 1950s in film noir. He was considered a quite serious actor.

Bezos was particularly jerky about it when its established fact that Shatner was one of the celebrity calls that astronauts asked to have in the early days of the space station when communication was more limited.

So this actor, who was an inspiration for astronauts, had been asked to talk to them during their missions and hear their perspectives for morale benefits. But when he finally has his own experience, Bezos assumed no one wanted to hear it. Just tone deaf and uninformed.

Star Trek was considered big budget television in the 1960s. It was early peak broadcast television made to show off colour technology.

Roddenberry modeled and pitched the original pilot (The Cage) on MGM’s movie Forbidden Planet, which was the most expensive science fiction movie to date when it was made in the mid 50s.

Some engineer friends think it’s failure by design to avoid greater risks - much like a fuse burning out.

But why not do it more safely?