Ensign Pavel Chekov served aboard the Starship Enterprise for most of “Star Trek: The Original Series.” When the actor who played Chekov, Walter Koenig, wrote one of the Enterprise’s adventures in “Star Trek: The Animated Series,” however, Chekov wasn’t aboard. Koenig’s character had been written off the cartoon “Trek” spin-off for cost-cutting reasons. Koenig penned the seventh episode of the debut season of “TAS,” which premiered on NBC in the fall of 1973. Titled “The Infinite Vulcan,” the plot follows a giant clone of Spock who nearly kills the original. Reviews for “The Infinite Vulcan” were mixed.
“Obviously, the writing was better than the animation,” Koenig told StarTrek.com. “That put it in a very untenable place because the people [adults] who could appreciate the storylines had to sit through some primitive animation and those [children] who were happy with the animation were not likely to absorb the storylines as well as their grown-up counterparts.”
Koenig also said the experience of writing the episode was not enjoyable. He penned ten drafts and had to deal with “Star Trek” creator, Gene Roddenberry, demanding that he include “talking vegetables.” Given that the opportunity to write for the series could almost be seen as an attempted make-good after a painful snubbing, it’s not hard to see why Koenig didn’t love his time with the cartoon.
Walter Koenig was hurt Chekov was cut from The Animated Series for budget reasons
With “The Infinite Vulcan,” Walter Koenig became the first “Star Trek” cast member to write an episode for the franchise, though it would be his only involvement in “The Animated Series.” Due to budget constraints, the cartoon originally wasn’t even going to have George Takei and Nichelle Nichols return to voice Sulu and Uhura. It was only when Leonard Nimoy, upset that the two most diverse members of the show were being excluded, threatened to quit that they were brought aboard. Koenig received no such reprieve; Chekov was simply not in the show, replaced by a six-limbed alien named Arex.
“I felt really abused by not being involved,” Koenig shared with StarTrek.com. He said he appreciated what Nimoy did for his co-stars and understood why Chekov, who only joined “TOS” in the second season, didn’t get the same defense. “But all the same I felt I was kind of screwed around.” To add insult to injury, Koenig first learned he wouldn’t be in the cartoon spin-off when fans asked him about it as a convention. One of the show’s producers had just broke the news to an audience during another panel, and when Koenig tried to ask Gene Roddenberry about it, he waved him off and said “Well, that’s just the way it goes.”
In the end, Koenig would return to “Star Trek,” playing Chekov in the first five films. He would write for other shows, too, including perhaps the best episode of the NBC sci-fi series “Land of the Lost.”
