Getting animated, at last!

Yesterday, Star Trek: The Animated Series finally reached Region 4 (Australasia) DVD, and I must say, even though I'm a biased TAS supporter of long ago, the remastered images on my TV screen today were magnificent.

I've owned scratchy old TAS audiotapes from the 70s, shabby, flickery old crosstapes of illegal crosstapes (of TAS episodes shown on Perth TV in the 80s and snatched by fans with old, boxy Beta and VHS videorecorders), a few UK-imported sell-through tapes (marked "Not for retail sale in Australia or New Zealand"), and some half-hearted home recordings, with parts of ads left in (damn new pause button) from TAS's last Saturday morning run Down Under in the early 90s.

But now, I have pristine copies -- and they are glorious. The box and enclosed pamphlet fail to describe the bonus features, but inside you'll find:

Season 1 (1973-1974)
101 "Beyond the Farthest Star"
102 "Yesteryear" (text commentary from Mike & Denise Okuda)
103 "One of Our Planets is Missing"
104 "The Lorelei Signal"
105 "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (audio commentary from David Gerrold)
106 "The Survivor"
107 "The Infinite Vulcan" (with Filmation storyboards)
108 "The Magicks of Megas-tu"
109 "Once Upon a Planet"
110 "Mudd's Passion"
111 "The Terratin Incident"
112 "The Time Trap"
113 "The Ambergris Element"
114 "The Slaver Weapon"
115 "The Eye of the Beholder" (text commentary from Mike & Denise Okuda)
116 "The Jihad".

Season 2 (1974)
201 "The Pirates of Orion"
202 "Bem" (audio commentary from David Gerrold)
203 "The Practical Joker"
204 "Albatross"
205 "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" (audio commentary from David Wise)
206 "The Counter-Clock Incident" (text commentary from Mike & Denise Okuda).

There is also an excellent new documentary, "Drawn to the Final Frontier: The Making of 'Star Trek: The Animated Series'", which interviews DC Fontana and many others, plus "What's the 'Star Trek' Connection?", which references TAS concepts that have turned up in the latter-day Trek series.