"Star Trek": 50 years ago today

[Benzadmiral]

Who saw it when it premiered, or remembers the promos on TV or in TV Guide (you remember TV Guide, don't you, that indispensable roadmap to television viewing, rather than the gossip and fan mag it's become)?

I did not see the early episodes until some years later. My family and I came across the "Arena" episode, the one with Kirk battling the reptilian captain, and I recall later switching channels and seeing part of the "Devil in the Dark," with the silicon mother creature protecting its stony eggs. Both were very strange to me; I was not much of an SF fan in those days, despite having visited the Twilight Zone every week, and frequenting The Outer Limits as well. It was not until the next year, when my best friend coaxed me into it, that I began to enjoy the adventures of Kirk, Spock, & Co. (He said that he was watching the first episode, expecting the starship to land, as all space ships had in TV and movies before . . . and was utterly astonished to see Kirk and McCoy "beam down.")

Who knew that something which was not a super hit in its broadcast days would live on as it has, and spawn multiple TV series and movies to boot?

 

[Trenchfriend]

Oh yeaaaah!! ST8...

Starfleet-Anthem:

 

[Doctor Strange]

I was waiting for someone to start a thread. I figured it would be you, Paul!

I watched from day one. I was 11-1/2, and already something of a science fiction fan - on TV, anyway. (I wouldn't start reading mass quantities of hardcore SF for another couple of years.) I'd been a fan of the Irwin Allen shows, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space (which was a lot more serious in its 65-66 first season than it became later), and had seen some classic films, notably Forbidden Planet (several times: this was back when NYC's "Million Dollar Movie" ran the same film everyday for a week). We weren't TV Guide subscribers, but there had been some articles about the show elsewhere that piqued my interest - my folks were news junkies, we got lots of daily papers and weekly magazines - and there was a bit of buzz among the proto-geek kids that were my crowd.

Trek's premiere and early episodes hit me very hard. It was an instant favorite, with so much better stories than other shows of the era, fascinating technology, great characters (with Mr. Spock quickly pulling the Ilya Effect and becoming more interesting than the designated hero)... and that SHIP! After so many cigars-with-fins and flying saucers, here was a spacecraft that seemed so much more real, not to mention unbelievably cool!

I was hooked. While I initially missed some of the later-season Friday night episodes (I was studying for my bar mitzvah and attending Sabbath services, and this was LONG before VCRs, etc.) and didn't see them until syndication, I was a very dedicated Trekker. Though we wouldn't start making Super 8 films until the early 70s, we wanted to make our own paramilitary-vessel-explores-space story, and one of my friends got as far as sketching our "Starship Magellan". A couple of years later, when I got my hands on The Making of Star Trek ("The first book about how to write for TV"), it was nearly more than I could handle: I devoured it and passed it to my friends.. and eventually had to buy another copy because mine fell apart. When the show hit syndication in 1970, we had just gotten our first color TV... so I had an excuse to (re)watch the show religiously. A couple of years later, my friends and I were attending cons and publishing a fanzine, Cerebrum - we included a 5x7 glossy of William Shatner (with my parents being pro photographers, I had access to a darkroom and plenty of photo paper) with the first issue.

As far as Trek's revival in 79 with Star Trek: The Motionless Picture and subsequent franchise success, yes, it was unprecedented. There have been ups (TNG) and downs (ENT), but it's been a heckuva ride!

I'm sure I'll have more to add to this thread later...

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I don't have any recollection of watching Star Trek in the 60's or even early 70's, (our's was more of a Dr.Who household) but I do remember seriously watching it from the late 70's to the early 80's (no doubt repeats). I was never a Trekkie but there was something endearing about wobbly polystyrene sets & people dressed in rubber alien cotumes speaking wiith American accents, which is why I enjoyed Stargate SG1 so much........they have a lot in common.
I haven't seen any of the 'Star Trek' movies though.

 

[MisterCairo]

I was born in 1967, so I saw the show in repeats, along with the original run of the cartoons, starting in 73 or thereabouts. I always loved the show, sometimes it was a bit over my head at a young age.

I never took to the Next Generation, but I did enjoy the original cast run of movies, and only those ones...

 

[Benzadmiral]

I was waiting for someone to start a thread. I figured it would be you, Paul!

... and that SHIP! After so many cigars-with-fins and flying saucers, here was a spacecraft that seemed so much more real, not to mention unbelievably cool!

Ever notice how much the ship looks in profile like a racing horse? That angled neck holding the upper saucer hull to the lower cigar-shaped hull is angled just like the neck of a thoroughbred. If you recall, Roddenberry's instructions to the designers for the first pilot was pretty much, "I don't care how, but make it look like it's got power."

 

[Doctor Strange]

I never noticed that, but then, horses have never loomed large in my thinking. Much has been said about how designer Matt Jeffries was an airplane buff, and he applied aerodynamic principles (ironically, not really necessary in the vacuum of space and no gravity!) during the design process.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Constitution_class_model_(original)

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Matt_Jefferies

http://www.startrekhistory.com/models.html

 

[Trenchfriend]

Never forget "Aldebaran Whisky"!!

 

[scottyrocks]

I was 4 or 5 when the pilot was aired in 1964, and only 8 when the show was finally canceled, so I didn't see much of in its original prime time run, but I started watching it soon after that as soon as it hit syndication. I was a fan from then on.

I enjoy TNG, dislike DS9 and Voyager, and tried to like Enterprise, but couldn't get into it.

The original cast movies varied in quality. I feel that series didn't hit its stride until II, and then III and IV were the best of the six.

The TNG movies were pretty much meh.

The new, current reboot series is fascinating. I was able to make the leap from old to new without too much trouble.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

And Shatner's " To boldly go where no man has gone before" is used throughout the English speaking world as a prime example of a split infinitive.

 

[Fading Fast]

I "discovered" the series in the early '70s on repeats on Channel 11 from NYC. I watched them on a B&W television so the over-the-top '60s colors weren't part of my early experience which, I think, made the show seem more serious. And its seriousness, or that it was, using a word I'm sure I didn't know then, cerebral, was the thing that struck me as most of the other stuff on TV form the '60s or '70s was goofy nonsense like "The Brady Bunch" or "Gomer Pyle."

I think it was the first episode I saw, or the first one that stayed with me, but "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (the half black, half white face one - as everyone knows it) blew me away. Race was a huge issue then, as now, and while we can pick it apart today for, perhaps, being overly simplistic, it was pretty powerful stuff back then.

I also remember trying to discuss it with my Dad who was not a Sci-fi person (nor into talking) and getting dismissal comments like, "it's in outer space," "he's half what," "it's make-believe" and realizing "Star Trek" was going to be something I'd have to think through on my own. And that's what I loved then, and love now, it makes you think. Sure, at its best, it's a fun romp, a good action adventure show with enjoyable buddy buddy dynamics, but when most (not all) of TV was laugh-track dross, "Star Trek" was addressing questions of race, social status, cultural values, resource usage and on and on.

I've watched most of the follow up series: "TNG" was too '80s PC, touchy feely and wimpy for my tastes (but good on its best days), enjoyed "Voyager" more than it seems most did, thought "Enterprise" was a fine quirky one and know that "Deep Space Nine" (one that Lizzie seems to like a lot) is a gapping hole in my "Star Trek" knowledge.

N.B. Lean 'n' mean: great point and proving that every rule has exceptions that work really, really well.

 

[Frunobulax]

Like Scotty, I was only about 5 when it premiered. Since Dad ran the TV (I was just the "remote"), and didn't like such shows, we never watched it, or Lost in Space during their initial runs. I didn't start watching TOS until I was 11 or 12, and I'd already been devouring Sci-Fi novels for a few years (started with Heinlein, still my fav). After that, I was hooked. My wife and I are both sci-fi fans, and devoured every Trek film up until Generations, then sort of trailed off. I enjoyed the first reboot, but we haven't kept up with it.

Loved DS9 - it may be the best of the lot save for TOS. I must be one of the five people on Earth who liked Enterprise. It got off to a rocky start, and the ending was awful, but there was some good stuff in there, IMHO.

 

[scottyrocks]

I must be one of the five people on Earth who liked Enterprise. It got off to a rocky start, and the ending was awful, but there was some good stuff in there, IMHO.

I thought the best part of Enterprise was the theme song. In fact, I used the full version as the dedicated father/daughter dance at her sweet-16.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I have not seen more than 2 episodes of Enterprise. I'm not sure why. I think I'd read they had ignored or retconned some of the original series' future history, and that annoyed me. If you're gonna play in the universe established by Roddenberry, Coon, Fontana, Berman, et al., you need to observe their rules. Bend 'em, sure; ignore 'em, no.

 

[Frunobulax]

I have not seen more than 2 episodes of Enterprise. I'm not sure why. I think I'd read they had ignored or retconned some of the original series' future history, and that annoyed me. If you're gonna play in the universe established by Roddenberry, Coon, Fontana, Berman, et al., you need to observe their rules. Bend 'em, sure; ignore 'em, no.

I'm not one of those that remembers every detail and whether it was canon, but there was a lot of time travel!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Like Scotty, I was only about 5 when it premiered. Since Dad ran the TV (I was just the "remote"), and didn't like such shows, we never watched it, or Lost in Space during their initial runs. I didn't start watching TOS until I was 11 or 12, and I'd already been devouring Sci-Fi novels for a few years (started with Heinlein, still my fav). After that, I was hooked. My wife and I are both sci-fi fans, and devoured every Trek film up until Generations, then sort of trailed off. I enjoyed the first reboot, but we haven't kept up with it.

Loved DS9 - it may be the best of the lot save for TOS. I must be one of the five people on Earth who liked Enterprise. It got off to a rocky start, and the ending was awful, but there was some good stuff in there, IMHO.

I was just old enough to catch the last season of TOS on NBC, and was transfixed by it. I had thought Lost in Space was dopey, like all the Irwin Allen shows, even as a small child, but I could see right away that Trek, though it had its dopey moments, at least was trying.

I was the only member of my family to have any interest in such a show, and it especially went straight over my mother's head. "Your Doctor Spock show is on now!" she'd say as she left the room shaking her head. Although the episode where Kirk teams up with Abraham Lincoln to fight Genghis Khan and friends gets a lot of snickers today, it was probably my favorite from that season. When I was six years old, that is. It's still better than the Lost In Space episode where Dr. Smith gets turned into a talking carrot.

Trek started showing here in syndication about two years after it was cancelled by NBC and I was able to catch up on the first two years, and I was old enough at this point to appreciate it beyond just a "monster of the week" level. I also discovered the James Blish paperbacks around this time, so I spent the rest of the seventies soaking up as much of Trek as I could. I was also very impressed with the animated series, cheap Filmation animation nonwithstanding, and remember being epically disappointed with The Motion Picture, which I saw the night of its local premiere, and walked away from shaking my head. Loved the story, actually, but all the LOOK AT THIS SHIP ITS SO COOL junk at the start really left me cold.

I had moved on to Doctor Who by the time Next Generation came on, and was never all that big a fan of Picard & Co., with the exception of the "Q" episodes, which I thought were consistently hilarious. But when DS9 came along I became a militant fan -- the Bajoran religious-politics stuff was unlike anything I'd ever seen on television before, and the whole "you say terrorist, I say freedom fighter" tone of that aspect of the program was something you absolutely could not do on TV today, which is probably why it never had a substantial life in reruns. And the character depth not just for the main cast but also for supporting figures like Garak, Winn, and Dukat, was some of the best work done in '90s television. DS9 remains, to me, the best thing I've ever seen American television do in any genre

Voyager -- meh. I liked that they finally came around to a female Federation captain as lead, but I was never convinced that Kasidy Yates couldn't have wiped the floor with Janeway eight ways from Sunday.

I watched Enterprise for its first two years, but then I got sick -- that was the year my life pretty much fell apart, so I had little time for any television, and by the time I'd recovered, it was gone. Someday I mean to give it a look and see if it lived up to its promise. Aside from the theme music, which was like fingernails on the blackboard to me. You can't tell me that "light AC" will still be a thing in the 22nd Century.

I do not like the Abramsverse movies. Too much blowing stuff up and too little substance.

I don't have a computer that can do "streaming," so I guess I'm SOL on the new show unless it comes out on DVD at some point. But at least it's to be set in the Original Universe, so that's something.

 

[MisterCairo]

I watched the first of the new films, thinking it was what I'd heard it would be, the story's beginnings (altered enough from the canon to enable all the known cast to be included).

When it became apparent early on it was one of these "alternate universe" things, i.e. "hey, I know better than the creator", that was it. I finished watching, and haven't given it a moment's thought until starting this post.

 

[AmateisGal]

My brothers and I watched it every evening right around suppertime (6 p.m.) in the 1980s. We loved them.

 

[Stearmen]

I did not see it until the 70s. I believe My Three Sons was opposite it, so there was no way I was going to be allowed to change the channel! Oddly, I was allowed to watch the Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. I really don't remember any one talking much about Star Trek until the movie came out, it just wasn't as big as I think every one remembers!

 

[Trenchfriend]

I believe, they did still OK on ST9 and killed the franchise finally on ST10. When "First Contact" was great Hard-Rock and "Insurrection" was still OK-Pop-Rock, "Nemesis" was stupid plastic-Pop and that was the story...

ST8 got the great music, the great acting (James Cromwell, woohoo!! ), the great horror-atmosphere of "Alien", the philosophy-thing of TNG and the real pissy BORG-a......s!

And my first life-motto:
"Don’t try to be a great man, just be a man. And let history make its own judgments."