Several years later after the first Star Trek series had ended, the crew appeared again in an animated series. It continues more of the adventures of the original series and is presumably in the fourth year of the five-year mission. More crew members are introduced, such as the felinoid M'Ress and the tripedal Arex. However, Checkov and Rand are not seen, although Walter Koenig is a writer for the series.
Star Trek: The Animated Series is produced by Lou Scheimer & Norm Prescott, directed primarily by Hal Sutherland, and supervised by D.C Fontana and Gene L. Coon, and Gene Roddenberry is the executive producer. Many writers, including Walter Koenig, were involved with the first Star Trek series. This series was produced in association with Filmation.
Filmation is known for using many budget saving techniques and in being well written. Both are true for this series. Some static backgrounds are seen, animation is re-used, and lip synching is avoided as much as possible by not showing the characters that were talking whenever they could. Some examples are showing other characters that aren't saying anything, or the characters that are speaking might be seen with their hands over their mouths. Unless the characters were seen in live action in the first series, they were voiced by Majel Barrett, Nichelle Nichols, and James Doohan.
The script writing and concepts (mostly by writers from the original series) are generally of high quality (the show won an Emmy for best Children's Programming in '73) and the show is in many worthy of inclusion in the Trek annals.
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Finished this in two days, it's different from Star Trek: ToS, in a sense that it has unlimited potential (because it's animated, not live action), but a few episodes take that potential too far away from the original series. For instance, all of the sudden there are 2 new species aboard the bridge. Two species who are not as humanoid as Spock is (a feline creature and a 3-legged and 3-armed creature). This obviously wasn't possible in the 60's live-action series, but it's too big of a change all of the sudden if you ask me.
Nonetheless, I recommend this brief series to everyone who wants to watch the entire Star Trek saga. (I have to say, it has some issues about being canon, but several episodes are indeed important for the Star Trek evolution, and since all episodes are just 20 minutes, in contrast to the 40 minutes of the live-action Star Trek: ToS, it's no trouble going trough all these)
Also, a lot of old planets or persons are seen in this show again, which is a lot of fun. Examples are: Mudd, Tribbles and Shore Leave.
The animation is a little simplistic, but it's about the story in this case, not about the looks.