Star Trek: The Animated Series

[A l t e r E g o 9]

Star Trek: The Animated Series

#15 The Eye Of The Beholder

Written by: David P. Harmon

Directed by: Hal Sutherland

Airdate: Jan. 5, 1974

Stardate: 5501.2

Guest Characters:

Lt Cdr Tom Markel James Doohan

Randi Bryce Majel Barrett

Notes:

This episode's author, David P. Harmon also wrote the original STAR TREK episodes "The Deadly Years" and

"A Piece of the Action."

This episode had a visual error: in a close-up Spock had normal eyebrows.

The aliens in "The Eye of the Beholder" would have been impossible to do in a live action series.

Another small error in the episode: Lieutenant Commander Tom Markel was shown with Commander stripes.

In this episode, a purple flying lizard-like creature (see picture above) menaced members of an Enterprise landing party. The animated sequence made use of drawings originally created for the flying plant creatures that menaced the Enterprise landing party in "The Infinite Vulcan". Another example of similar life forms evolving on different planets.

There was a seventh season STAR TREK: The Next Generation episode "Eye of the Beholder", and also a classic Twilight Zone episode by that name.

There also was a STAR TREK novel by A. C. Crispin entitled "The Eyes of the Beholders" published by Pocket Books in September 1990, but it is an entirely different story.

Another visual error: the crew of the U.S.S. Ariel wore the insignia of the Enterprise. (Bjo Trimble's 1976 Concordance conjectured that the insignia of the Ariel was an elongated and more angular arrowhead design than the Enterprise insignia.)