Star Trek: The Animated Series Star Trek: The Animated Series Star Trek: The Animated Series ("ST: TAS"), originally aired as Star Trek and as The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, is an American animated science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry. It originally aired from September 8, 1973 to October 12, 1974 on NBC, spanning 22 episodes over two seasons. The second series in the "Star Trek" franchise, it is the first sequel to "". Set in the 23rd century, when Earth is part of a United Federation of Planets, it follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS "Enterprise" as it
Star Trek: The Original Series show. "Star Trek"s first-season ratings would in earlier years likely have caused NBC to cancel the show. The network had pioneered research into viewers' demographic profiles in the early 1960s, however, and, by 1967, it and other networks increasingly considered such data when making decisions; for example, CBS temporarily cancelled "Gunsmoke" that year because it had too many older and too few younger viewers. Although Roddenberry later claimed that NBC was unaware of "Star Trek"s favorable demographics, awareness of "Star Trek"s "quality" audience is what likely caused the network to retain the show after the first and second seasons. NBC