Of course, I’m speaking specifically
of the original series, often referred to as TOS by fans, which
premiered on CBS on Sept. 8, 1966 — a Thursday according to my
smartphone.
Considering it launched 11 years before
I was born, I really don’t know how it was received at the time of
its initial airing. Even if I was alive, I doubt I would have been
able to watch it. I grew up near Hardy after all, and the only
channels that were available were KAIT, an ABC affiliate, and AETN (a
PBS affiliate).
I do know the show had made quite an
impression on a lot of people at the time of its initial airing and
syndicated run through the 1970s.
Me, I can't really call myself a super
fan of the show. No matter which series you speak of, whether it be
the original one or any of its followups, there were lots of terrible
episodes. Look at the first season of “Star Trek: The Next
Generation.” If one were to watch the full first season, which I
don't recommend, a person would scratch their head wondering “how
on earth did it get a second?” I think anyone that even calls
themselves a super fan will tell you what the bad episodes are …
then recommend you watch them anyway.
Another thing that always bothered me
about “Star Trek” in pretty much all of its incarnations, but
especially the original, was the sheer amount of supposed aliens
that were identical to humans. Of course, in the 1960s TV budgets
were limited and make-up was still underdeveloped as a craft. Other
series that dealt with humans traveling to (actually more like
getting stuck on) alien worlds like “Land of the Giants” and
“Lost in Space” was dominated by rather human-looking aliens too.
So I can understand the why, but it is still one of those things that
bothers me when I watch Star Trek and other old-school sci-fi shows.
Those other two shows I mentioned also
saw several years of syndication after their initial runs too. Even
when we first got cable TV at my house when I was a kid, it seemed
like “Lost in Space” was on somewhere at any hour of the day.
But unlike “Star Trek,” those other
shows didn’t endure in the public’s imagination. While “Star
Trek” launched not one, but two, movie franchises and many
different TV shows, its contemporaries faded away, living on in the
land of digital sub channels.
So why did “Star Trek” endure?
Well, probably first and foremost is
because it really connected with its fans. Or maybe a better word
would be that it made an impression. An impression that would stick.
How did it do that? How about with its
vision of the future. Instead of largely white male cast with one
woman cast for eye candy, which was the norm for most science fiction
until then, “Star Trek” had a crew of many men and women of
several races holding a variety of positions and ranks based on
neither physical trait. That was pretty revolutionary to some people.
Something like that can make an
impression on people. Just ask actress Whoopi Goldberg, who said
“When I was 9 years old, ‘Star Trek’ came on. I looked at it
and went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, Mum, everybody,
come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on TV, and she ain’t
no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted
to be.”
Goldberg would go on to play a
recurring character named Guinan, who was a bartender, and sometimes
counselor, on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
It also made an impression in other
ways, like how we perceive technology.
Want proof? Check out your cellphone.
Although not exactly a kid at the time
“Star Trek” first aired, he was 28 in 1966, Martin Cooper, who
led the Motorola team that developed the first handheld mobile phone
said that watching Captain Kirk using his communicator on the
television show “Star Trek” inspired him to develop a handheld
mobile phone. The mobile phone eventually evolved to the smartphone,
which is likely years beyond those initial Star Trek communicators,
save the teleportation part.
Other technology that showed up in
“Star Trek” first: Tablets, smart watches, Bluetooth devices …
just to name a few. Some other technologies featured on the show,
like the food replicator, is on the verge of becoming reality by
combining 3-D printing and knowledge of amnio acids and other
building blocks of life. The USS Enterprise’s mission launched in
2245, but by the time the real 2245 gets here, its technology might
be considered archaic.
But what is probably “Star Trek”’s
most enduring legacy is that it helped make science fiction
respectable. Sure, it still took time for the movies to catch up —
studios still didn’t have faith that science fiction could be box
office gold until Star Wars beat all expectations — but we can say
“Star Trek” helped pave the way. It’s partially thanks to Star
Trek that science fiction can be taken seriously now.
With “Star Trek: Discovery”
premiering next year, we can't really expect it to take us where no
one has gone before, but we can look forward to the ride.
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