page_title: The Infinite Vulcan
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: The Infinite Vulcan / Production
caption_attribution_description: Walter Koenig promoting Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 1979 Tex-Con science fiction convention in Irving, TX. Guests included Dr. Donald Curtis and Walter Koenig. Shot on 35mm film using a Canon A1 and Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 lens.
context_page_description: "The Infinite Vulcan" is the seventh episode of the first season of the American animated science fiction television series Star Trek: The Animated Series. It first aired on NBC on October 20, 1973, and was written by Original Series cast member Walter Koenig. It was the actor's only involvement in the series, as he had not been hired to voice Pavel Chekov in the animated version due to budgetary limitations. With "The Infinite Vulcan", Koenig became the first member of the Star Trek cast to write an episode for the franchise. As with the rest of the first season, the episode was directed by Hal Sutherland.
  Set in the 23rd century, the series follows the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starfleet starship Enterprise. In this episode, the crew visit a planet inhabited by plant-based lifeforms and must save the life of Science Officer Spock after he is abducted by a giant clone of Dr. Stavos Keniclius.
  Koenig was hired to write the script after some of his work was passed from Susan Sackett to series creator Gene Roddenberry. Koenig found the writing process for the episode unenjoyable, due to the number of re-writes required.
context_section_description: Walter Koenig joined the main cast of Star Trek: The Original Series during the second season as Pavel Chekov and continued to appear in the series until it was cancelled at the end of season three. Although the remaining main cast of the series were hired as voice actors for Star Trek: The Animated Series, Koenig was not brought in due to financial restraints. He only found out about his omission from the show when Sackett announced it on stage at a Star Trek convention he was attending. His character was replaced by a new animated character voiced by James Doohan.
  Koenig first became involved with writing a script for The Animated Series after he asked Susan Sackett, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's assistant, to type up some writing he was working on. After reading it through, she thought it was good and passed it to Roddenberry, who agreed and asked Koenig if he was interested in writing for the animated show. He accepted the offer, and started working on a plot involving cloning which was inspired by newspaper articles about the subject, becoming the first actor from Star Trek to write for the franchise.
  He found the writing process for "The Infinite Vulcan" "unbearable". This was due to interference from Roddenberry, resulting in Koenig producing ten drafts of the screenplay, and because of Koenig's frustration in not otherwise being involved in the series. He could not understand why so many redrafts were required, a view shared by story editor/associate producer D.C. Fontana. Roddenberry was keen in particular to make use of the benefits of an animated medium, by including things which could not have been shown on a live-action series. These included "talking vegetables" as characters, which Koenig said were not his idea but were so silly as to not be worthy of a fight. David Alexander, in his book Star Trek Creator: The Authorised Biography of Gene Roddenberry, suggested that Koenig was hired to write "The Infinite Vulcan" because Roddenberry felt "bad" about Koenig's exclusion from the series.
  Koenig asked to play the part of Dr. Keniclius. Roddenberry and Fontana approved, and the show's producers allowed him to audition, but he said later that he suspected it was "a very token gesture" and they were not seriously considering him. He included a reference to himself in the episode, as the walking plant is called a Retlaw – Walter spelled backwards. This was a reference to aliens in the 1940s comic book Planet Comics who spoke backwards. He later used a similar idea in "The Stranger", a Land of the Lost episode he wrote, in which Koenig introduced the character Enik. This character was originally called Eneg, backwards for Gene as a reference to Gene Roddenberry.
  Koenig felt that "The Infinite Vulcan" turned out "OK", and had heard a number of opinions on it ranging from it being the best episode of The Animated Series to it being the very worst. He felt overall that it was "an interesting take and certainly a little different." Fellow cast member George Takei felt the episode showed that Koenig was "enterprising". The producers liked the episode so much that they wanted Koenig to write another, but he turned them down. Koenig later explained that he was still upset at the time over not appearing as Chekov in the series. Keniclius later appeared in Kevin Lauderdale's story "The Rules of War," which takes place during the Eugenics Wars, in the anthology Strange New Worlds IX.
caption: Walter Koenig (pictured in 1979) became the first actor in the franchise to write an episode.
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