From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos   
   From Address: jphalt@gmail.com   
   Subject: The Ambergris Element (TAS): my review   
      
   THE AMERGRIS ELEMENT: PLOT   
   The planet Argo has undergone severe seismic shifts, which have turned it from   
   a land planet to a waterworld (minus Kevin Costner, thankfully). While   
   investigating the causes and effects of this shift, Kirk and Spock are   
   attacked by a sea monster and cut off from the ship's sensors. It takes five   
   days for search parties to locate them - and when they're found, their entire   
   internal structure has been changed. They can no longer live outside the   
   water! Dr. McCoy determines that this was done by injection, and so must have   
   been done by somebody intelligent. Kirk and Spock go back to the planet to   
   find that intelligence, to get themselves changed back.   
   CHARACTERS   
   When McCoy protests that Kirk and Spock going into Argos' waters with no   
   backup will be too risky, Kirk responds by stating that he prefers the risk to   
   having to live his life in a tank. "I can't command the Enterprise from in   
   here," he says - and the thought of being unable to command, unable to be   
   useful, is far worse to him than of death. Beyond this, not too much for the   
   characters, though the "big three" of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all get decent   
   roles.   
   THOUGHTS   
   After The Lorelai Signal, Margaret Armen was just about the last writer I   
   wanted to see getting a second try. Fortunately, The Ambergris Element is a   
   much better episode than its predecessor. Armen seems to have been advised to   
   not focus on writing for kids, but instead to focus on writing a decent Star   
   Trek script. The result is still flawed, but it is entertaining.   
   Like many episodes, it feels rushed. Once again, there is a decent 50-minute   
   story that's just a bit too much to comfortably squeeze into 25 minutes. A   
   final plot turn that has further seismic activity endgangering the underwater   
   city is one complication too many, and the result is a badly rushed climax.   
   This series' most successful episodes have been the ones with the simplest   
   storylines, and by this point in the run that should have been noticed.   
   Design is one of this episode's overall strengths. The undersea setting could   
   not have been effectively realized on a live action budget, making it a good   
   use of the freedom afforded by animation. Several of the underwater   
   backgrounds are eye-catching, showing a bit more imagination than many   
   episodes, and even the planet's underwater denizens are well-drawn and   
   generally pretty well-animated.    
   So on the whole: not bad. It's just a shame the writers and producers still   
   haven't learned that the 25-minute format demands that the stories be kept   
   simple.   
   Rating: 6/10.    
   --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux NewsLink 1.92-mlp   
    * Origin: http://groups.google.com (1:2320/105.97)   
   --- SBBSecho 2.12-Linux   
    * Origin: telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - Dial-Up: 502-875-8938 (1:2320/105.1)