Welcome to Planet of Hats! This is a weekly webcomic recap of the episodes of Star Trek (the original series).

The main goal of this comic is to improve my comic drawing skills. I'm aware they're not great, and hopefully we'll see them improve as this goes along. The secondary goal is to hopefully entertain some of you folks!

I had the idea for this comic some time ago. In fact, I mentioned the concept in my comment back in November 2013 on Shaenon Garrity's Monster of the Week comic (the same idea applied to The X-Files). Besides providing the "TV show recap comic" concept template, Shaenon also inspired me to start Planet of Hats even more directly. We met in San Francisco in February, at the Cartoon Art Museum (which is curated by her husband, and well worth a visit if you're in that city). Naturally we chatted quite a bit about comics, and I mentioned my idea to start a series like Monster of the Week, but based on Star Trek. Her response?

"You must do this!"

I'm certainly not going to argue with that.

This episode, "The Man Trap", was the first episode to air on TV, but the sixth episode produced. I will be recapping the 79 episodes of Star Trek in their original screening order (which means the Stardates will jump back and forth a bit). I have not yet decided if this project will continue with other Star Trek series or films after that. Let's see how we go with this first.

Transcript

1
Captain's log, Stardate 1513.1. Orbiting planet M-113. I guess nobody bothered naming it. Routine medical exam of archaeologist Robert Crater & wife Nancy. Routine except I can tease Dr McCoy about Nancy being his old flame.
Kirk: Wanna pick her some flowers?
McCoy: Ha ha.
2a
Nancy: Leonard!
McCoy: Nancy! Wow, you haven't aged a day.
2b
Kirk: Yikes! Went for older women back then, huh?
3
Captain's log, additional entry. We were unaware we were seeing different Nancy Craters. At first.
Darnell: Hubba hubba!
Kirk: Hmm. Lucky git.
4
Caption: But then...
McCoy: Dead, Jim.
Kirk: Okay, not so lucky then.
5
Uhura: Tell me how beautiful I am, Mr Spock. Or how your planet Vulcan looks under a full moon.
Spock: Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.
Uhura: Okaaay. And the other one?
6
McCoy: I don't know how Darnell died.
Kirk: How can you not know?! This is the 23rd century! We're advanced & socially progressive! The crew includes a black woman, an Asian guy, and an honest to goodness alien who barely even looks human!
7
Redshirt: How'd you like to have her as your "personal yeoman"? Nudge, nudge.
Blueshirt: Hubba hubba!
8
McCoy: I know how Darnell died. Something sucked all the salt out of him.
Kirk: No salt? I guess he can't be cured.
9a
Sulu: Hi, Green. Do you want something?
Green: Saaaaalt...
9b
Spock: Green. Dead.
Kirk: But he beamed up with me earlier…
Caption: Ruh roh!
10
Kirk: Dr Crater! Your wife is a shapeshifting vampire thing!
Crater: She's the last of her kind! You can't wipe her out like the passenger pigeon or buffalo!
Spock: Mmm. Perfect set up for an environmental moral lesson.
11
McCoy: I'll teach you to impersonate my dead ex-girlfriend, you salt sucker!
SFX: ZAP!
12
Spock: So much for the moral.
Kirk: You do know the buffalo never died out, Mr Spock?