Star Trek: The Animated Series S1E11 – The Terratin Incident
The Animated Series shrinks its ambition—quite literally—with The Terratin Incident, an episode that leans into the sci-fi trope of miniaturisation with a decidedly Trek twist. While it’s a fun and inventive premise, the execution falls just short of delivering on the promise of its setup, resulting in an episode that’s clever in concept but limited in impact.
The story begins with the Enterprise responding to a mysterious distress signal emanating from a nearby star system. Upon arriving, the crew is hit by a peculiar energy wave that causes them to gradually shrink, while the ship itself remains unaffected. The episode takes full advantage of the absurdity of its premise, with Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew navigating the increasingly impractical challenges of operating a starship at a fraction of their normal size. From oversized controls to outsized dangers, the crew faces unique challenges as their reduced size renders the Enterprise’s systems nearly impossible to operate, while external threats loom just as large.
The reveal that the distress signal comes from the Terratins, a civilisation of microscopic humans descended from Earth colonists, adds an interesting layer to the story. Their plight—struggling to survive as their planet destabilises—frames the episode’s central conflict. The Terratins’ decision to shrink the Enterprise crew to force their attention is morally dubious but feels believably desperate. It’s a neat twist that ties the wacky premise back to Trek’s core values.
Visually, the episode has fun with scale, turning mundane aspects of the ship into oversized obstacles. The animation embraces the concept, but the designs lack the polish to make the visuals truly pop and for the fist time the animation inhibits the storytelling rather than frees it. While the animated series can explore much more visually ambitious creations, for a story like this, where accuracy in scale is crucial, the animation’s, shall we say, economical approach results in inconsistent perspectives that undermine the concept. While the oversized communicators and towering consoles are clever, the art style misses the chance to elevate the episode beyond its gimmick. Of course, Star Trek would eventually revisit the concept decades later in the Deep Space Nine episodes One Little Ship, where both the crew and a runabout are miniaturised, offering a different yet no less whacky twist on the idea.
The episode’s reliance on Kirk to resolve the crisis feels particularly heavy-handed here. While his quick thinking and willingness to negotiate are classic Trek staples, the supporting characters are left with little to do besides react to their diminishing stature. Spock’s scientific expertise and McCoy’s gruff medical observations add some texture, but this is very much Kirk’s show. Not even spiroid radiation, it seems, can reduce the size of Shatner’s ego.
In the end, the Enterprise crew restores their normal size and helps the Terratins relocate, wrapping up the episode with a tidy resolution that feels a bit rushed. The pacing suggests this might have been conceived as a longer story, perhaps for an episode of the original TV show which was then trimmed down to fit the constraints of the 24-minute animated timeslot. The Terratin Incident delivers a serviceable 24 minutes of sci-fi escapism but appropriately doesn’t loom large in the memory as one of The Animated Series’ stronger entries.
