Torie: For the past two years, Eugene and I have written about 50,000 words–each–about Star Trek, not including plot summaries, comment threads, and trivia. All week I’ve wondered, is there anything left to say about the series that hasn’t been said already?
I felt foolish. Of course there is, and there always will be. Star Trek has given us a remarkably rich vein to mine, for decades and decades. There is always more to say because like all great science fiction it left so much open to the imagination. The ideas are big and the problems are never trivial. Thematically, it’s timeless. Loneliness, adventure, yearning for challenge, loyalty to friends, alienation, and trying to find a path in a confusing and difficult universe–who can’t relate? It’s unlike anything that’s been on television since, and I’m confident that nothing like it will ever be made again. It believed passionately that we had such potential within us all to do great things. Week after week, it showed us a future that seemed within reach if only we worked toward it: one of tolerance, the pursuit of truth (both personal and scientific), and camaraderie among a broad swath of very different people and personalities. I wonder if my generation, culturally, even believes in those things anymore.
You all know that I came to the original series from its descendants. Though I would catch the odd episode here or there on syndication it seemed cheesy and didn’t hold my interest. I discovered the movies and adored–well, some of them–but until this re-watch, it never felt like my show. It should be everyone’s show, but it’s my show now. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chapel, and even nobodies like Lt. Galloway have become deeply meaningful threads in my personal tapestry. They have earned a place in my heart somewhere between Pride and Prejudice and Tintin, on my mantle. I take such pride in it; I want everyone to have seen it. My life is richer having seen it, and how many shows can I really say that about?
The good and the bad, the ups and downs, the frustratingly middling–even at its worst Star Trek always aimed higher than its reach. That quality above all others is what defines the series for me and explains why, forty-five years later, we still have so much to talk about. It’s a lesson I will take to heart. Thank you, Star Trek, for giving me a thought-provoking series that I continue to mull over and wrestle with; and thank you, readers, for sharing the ride with me.
Eugene: Nope, I don’t have anything to add. I think we’ve pretty much covered everything.
Maybe if I’d done that as a Lolcat, Torie would let me get away with it. As she pointed out, combined we’ve written what amounts to a novel’s worth of text about Star Trek, but we’re only two people in a long line of others who have already written volumes about the series, and we’re certainly not going to have the last word. I mean, how many shows can sustain multiple, simultaneous online re-watches with vastly diverse viewpoints like this has? The wonder of shows like Star Trek (and as Torie said, there aren’t many that can compare) is that it means something different to everyone. It can be a very personal experience, like any form of art, whether it’s inspiring a young viewer to pursue a career in science; encouraging people to be proud of who they are; giving hope for a positive, progressive future for everyone; or cultivating the science fiction writers of tomorrow. Star Trek also may offer something different each time you watch it. I have no doubt that if we decided to re-watch it in forty-five years, around the time we’re wrapping up our Star Trek: Enterprise Re-Watch, we’d discover even more in each episode of the original series and have plenty of new things to say–especially about “The Deadly Years.”
I suppose, if anything, I’m surprised there was so much to discuss that we couldn’t cover it all in these short reviews. (I say they’re short, but you’ll note that as the re-watch continued, our reviews got longer and more involved, because Torie and I were frequently bursting with things to talk about.) It’s amazing that our posts often generated upwards of 70 comments each week, digging ever deeper into the plots and themes and stimulating interesting, fun, and meaningful discussions with all of you. Obviously I love Star Trek, but I’d never really approached it quite so critically. When I first watched the series, it was escapist and thought-provoking entertainment, but many episodes hold up under the sort of analysis normally reserved for “serious cinema.” I am delighted that our experiment worked so well. It’s a testament to the show, not our analytical skills, that we could tease so much out of 51-minute episodes. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to challenge myself to look at it all in a new light, and treat the series with the respect that so often eludes it.
I’ve mentioned before that I also came to the show a bit backwards. When I was a kid, before I knew what Star Trek was, I actively avoided it, as many people do. Despite my early interest in literary science fiction, this old show with its dated effects didn’t appeal to me, even while I was enjoying reruns of Lost in Space and Land of the Giants on my summer breaks. I like to think I just wasn’t ready to appreciate it. I finally came to Star Trek via my seventh grade Latin teacher, a devout Trekkie, who asked me to videotape Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country from HBO for him. Of course I watched it too, with no idea who any of the characters were, and I was immediately and completely hooked.
I caught a 2-hour broadcast of “The Menagerie” shortly afterward, which gave me the advantage of seeing Star Trek at its best right out of the gate. It was a strange time to find the franchise, because I came to it in the middle of TNG’s sixth season, just as DS9 was starting up. I basically watched those three very different shows simultaneously, and through the magic of syndicated reruns and trading VHS tapes with friends, I inhaled all of the original series and TNG in short order, absorbing the trivia through the series companion books, and fully immersing myself in the rich Star Trek universe through the tie-in novels. It all fed the imagination of my 13-year-old self, even if I clearly missed a good portion of what it was all actually about.
The first longform writing I completed and submitted was a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine script, which was soundly rejected seven long months after I typed it (on an actual typewriter) and mailed it to Paramount. I wrote and submitted a Star Trek: Voyager script after that, but by the time that came back and I had finished a second Voyager script, they were no longer accepting unsolicited submissions. That creative process, and the rejections, taught me the importance of discipline, finishing work, sending it out, being patient, and always working on the next thing–setting me up for my later attempts at publishing short stories, and then the whole journey of writing a novel, querying agents, and submitting to publishers. I’m hesitant to reread those old telescripts, let alone share them with anyone, but they certainly contributed to the writer I became.
And though I never managed to sell a Star Trek script, I’m thrilled that I’ve actually been paid to write about a show that I love. I’m amazed that a childhood obsession of mine enabled me to connect with other fans here and in real life, sparked a wonderful collaboration with Torie, and gave me a useful outlet for all that trivia I memorized. On the surface, our attachment to Star Trek might seem childish or too much fuss over nothing, but all of us here know better than that. Star Trek encourages us to keep an open mind, and I hope that anyone who hasn’t given the show a fair shake is willing to keep an open mind and try it out, because it can offer a lot if you give it a chance.
I used to have a poster in my bedroom, which followed me to my college dorm room and my first apartment: “All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek.” That might be hyperbole for most people, but I did learn a lot from the show, and so did hundreds of thousands of other people. Looking beneath the fake ears and homemade costumes, most Star Trek fans question the world as we know it. They aren’t satisfied with the status quo. They don’t watch the show passively, they talk about it. They write about it. They write their own stories or produce their own shows and films. Many of us are inventors, scientists, writers, programmers, lawyers, doctors, filmmakers–or we’re aspiring to be one of those or any number of other options. Star Trek inspires people to create, if not art, then a better world. And a better future.
I first came to Trek when TOS was all we had, as it made its way in syndication through the various independent channels in the LA market. I’m not sure how much of an impact it really made on me at the time, but I knew who the characters were when TAS came along a couple of years later. By then, I was pretty thoroughly vested in written SF; I think I even recognized “The Slaver Weapon” as the Niven story, but I could be wrong about that.
In any case, in my teens I saw them all, over and over. I could quote dialogue with the best of them and spot an episode from just a couple of seconds of the teaser. And yet, when I wrote an off-the-cuff, unresearched 3-5 page paper on media SF my freshman year in college, I completely forgot Star Trek! OK, I was more focused on movies and at that point there was only The Motionless Picture, but it’s indicative that I was still getting most of what the show had to offer out of written SF. I think it was The Wrath of Khan that really vested me in the ST universe.
My earliest memories of Star Trek are of watching it with my mom on syndication, though I didn’t really understand it at the time. I have a vague memory of when she took my siblings and I to the theater (this was in California, where I was born) to see STII: The Wrath of Khan, but I don’t really remember the experience all that well. The one thing I do remember is Leonard Nimoy voicing the “Space, the final frontier…” at the end of the movie.
I do quite clearly remember seeing STIII: The Search for Spock and being touched by that final scene when everyone gathers together to welcome Spock back. I lived in a very small town at the time and didn’t have much in the way of family but I did have a group of friends and I remember thinking that the way they gathered around Spock was the way I felt about my own friends. Inclusion, acceptance. It was one of the first times that I saw something on the big screen that represented an emotional reality for me.
It wasn’t until 1986 when ST IV: The Voyage Home came out that I really became a fan. My entire life had changed substantially from when I’d seen the last movie. We’d left California for Colorado and…well, suffice it to say I was miserable. We were visiting my grandparents in CA for Christmas and we went to see ST IV. By that point I was old enough to understand most of the humor, and I’d been to San Francisco so I was totally able to relate to that as well. What really impressed me, however, was Spock’s attempt to find a place for himself among the crew. He was the classic outsider which was something I could totally relate to. When we went back to Colorado and I had to go back to the nightmare that was school, Star Trek became my solace and I became a total Trek fanatic.
I found the James Blish novelizations at the library and devoured them. In those days there used to be Star Trek marathons on tv every four or six months and I’d watch them devotedly. I even bought the insignia pins and pinned them on my jackets (I still have them somewhere). I became the classic Trek geek in school but hey, it got me through a lot of miserable years.
Anyway, Trek was there for me when I needed it and it taught me a lot about perserverance, patience and friendship. Most of all, I think it gave me hope and optimism for a better future than my present. I certainly wouldn’t be where I am now without it.
I was born May 1961 and as a child I was a fanatic about space. I remembered watching the launches and doodling the Mercury and Gemini capsules. My eldest sister love SF and she’s the real reason our household watched Star Trek. I fondly recall the show from fragmented memories of the original run. (We had a model of the Enterprise and it puzzled how that set it up for lift-off. My sister explained that it was built in space and never launched or landed. The very next week Kirk ordered Uhura to prepare a landing party and I thought a celebration because they were landing.)
My real attachment to the series formed when I was a teenager watching in in syndication. Old enough to appreciate more of the themes, if some of the subtle writing in the better episode still escaped me.
While I disagree with much of Roddenberry’s economic visions of the future, his deeply optimistic view of mankind and our potential has always resonated with me. Watching Star Trek so young made it difficult for racial prejudice to find any way to take root in my mind. We aren’t born with that we’re taught it, the Star Trek vaccine gave me the immune system to resist it. I can’t be the only one. If for no other reason that is cause to celebrate. I take that third season for that magical inoculation.
My first ST moment came as a tiny child being scared out of my skin by that sock puppet in the ‘Corbomite Maneuver.’ The neighbor teens laughed when I jumped and, yes, it was ridiculous, but things were different then.
My story is a lot like DemetriosX’ in that I’d watched the things so many times in syndication growing up I could ID an episode in seconds and could win most trivia contests. I read the Blish books, but I was never a ‘Trekkie,’ I would never be caught dead wandering convention halls in foam ears and gold velour.
The series never really got old or dated for me, or even terribly silly, until I’d been away from it for many years. Watching an episode in the late 90s, I realized the creators had almost completely misanticipated the role computers would play in a futuristic society (most SF did, actually), and the ‘sneakerware’ aspects of data transfer seemed laughable and grating. Clearly, some writers had a better sense of this than others–Khan reading the ship’s library from a sickbay console vs Spock walking floppy discs down to the conference room, for example. I was older than the captain now, in chronological years, and a lot of Kirk’s womanizing antics struck me as juvenile. Still, Shatner was enough of a polished scenery chewer that he could convey that moment when Kirk tumbled to a realization or strategy, a fierce and active intelligence that was fun to relive.
I recall when Dee Kelly died (read it over Usenet), the first to go, and realized that era was done. The landing team would never again be reassembled. I bumped into some old Westerns and realized what crotchety and rascally roles DK was usually cast into; and his casting into the role of ship’s doctor seemed genius to me.
Since then, things have lightened up and modern miracles are so commonplace that TOS seems bright and fresh again. Weirdly, it’s TNG that feels dated.
Thanks for the hard work in bringing these episodes back to life, with credible–even respectful–analysis. Can’t say, despite my enjoyment, I ever thought so hard about the series.
I grew up with space and science fiction. The promotional material for the school Saving Stamps Program (How many here remember that?) featured fabulous spacecraft and rockets. Like bobsandiego, I watched the space shots on TV and I borrowed every book on space and spaceflight from the libraries multiple times during my school years. The old Tom Corbett series re-ran regularly on the local TV stations and science fiction movies were often featured on the afternoon and weekend movies on those stations. And lets not forget the episodes of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. Additionally, with my interest in art, the paintings of Norman Rockwell and Bob McCall caught my attention. (Rockwell did do a few space program paintings.) Then there was that period of science fiction overload. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants, I Dream of Jeannie, It’s About Time, and Star Trek. I watched them all.
Of all those science fiction shows, the two I related to the most were Lost in Space and Star Trek. With Lost in Space it was mostly because I was a kid at the time and I wanted to be friends with Will, the Robot and even with Dr. Smith. Today I can only take Lost in Space in small doses – with wide separations. Star Trek was different. Star Trek told me stories that I’d think about long after the episode ended. Then Star Trek even slipped into the art world for me when the James Blish novelizations appeared with those fun cover paintings. Looking for more by James Blish led me to discover the Sector General stories by James White. Many of James White’s ideas could easily fit within the Star Trek Universe and my experience with Star Trek made it easy for me to fall in love with his stories.
It was not until TNG and DS9 that I fully understood that Star Trek’s strength was its storytelling. Looking back at the original series, I can see that that strength was in even the worst of the third season episodes. Look at our discussions here. We tried to find ways that an episode could have worked. How many of the bad episodes of Lost in Space could hold up to that? (A Trip Through the Robot? Anyone want to have a go at it?) That strength is, I believe, why Star Trek was able to influence popular culture. The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits – the other two science fiction cultural milestones from that period (I’m not counting 2001 here) – were also strong storytelling vehicles.
Star Trek, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits were anthology shows. Yes. I look at TOS as an anthology despite the strong chemistry between the cast. The stories were mostly stand alone stories. Still, the viewers related to those regular characters and looked forward to seeing how those characters would handle each week’s story. TNG transitioned the Trek universe into the long story-arc format but as I suggested in an earlier comment, I feel that Star Trek may have played a part in the development of the story-arc format. I can see a lot of Star Trek in the M*A*S*H series and that series was a key part of the transition of the story-arc from the daytime soaps to the prime-time format.
Apart from the fun of watching the shows and movies, Star Trek entered my life in another way. I had the pleasure of counting Walt Jefferies among my friends during the last ten years of his life. I met him when I joined the American Society of Aviation Artists and started attending their annual forums. He was a storyteller. He shared his lessons through his stories abut Star Trek, Little House, and Riptide along with his stories of aviation history. So, here it is again – storytelling. I think that explains Star Trek – Storytelling.
I came to Star Trek through the books. When I was 14, a friend lent me a copy of Peter David’s “Imzadi”, (A TNG story, about Riker and Troi’s relationship) and it just blew me away. From there, I jumped to TOS books and loved those even more. We lived overseas, so I couldn’t watch the shows on TV, but my family sent me VHS tapes of the episodes and the movies, and I continued to read all the books I could find. I especially loved Diane Carey’s and Diane Duane’s portrayals of the Enterprise crew. We moved soon after, and for a long time, until I got settled into my new school, Kirk and Spock and the rest were my only friends.
To me, Star Trek has always been about possibilities and promise, finding and celebrating the good in everyone. As Edith Keeler says in “City on the Edge of Forever”: “Hope, and a common future.” Add that hope to some excellent stories, and characters that I truly care about, and you have a great experience. Today, 17 years after I read my first Star Trek novel, I am proud to call myself a Trekkie, with a Star Trek tattoo and a whole room full of collectibles, and I am teaching my daughter to love it, too.
Thanks, Torie and Eugene, for doing this rewatch! It was great to read some in-depth analysis, and you both have a lot of interesting things to say. I can’t wait to start the TNG one!
What, you’re not doing the Animated Series? The movies? Slackers.
We had just arrived in Germany at the time of the Apollo 11 landing; my dad went out and bought a little television set so we could watch it in our hotel room. I don’t recall having seen Star Trek prior to then, and it’s very likely I hadn’t.
My first recollection of Star Trek was watching on a black-and-white television on the floor of my parents’ bedroom, being allowed to stay up late on Friday night to watch this strange show, although I recall they seemed to think it was too adult for a little kid. I don’t remember the episode; all I remember is the head of Balok during the closing credits — that image haunted me for years.
Obviously, somewhere along the line I became hooked. My brother and I would make transporter pads out of bits of cardboard box, and beam from our playroom out to the back garden, armed with phasers made from Tinkertoys. As the years went by, I collected model kits, and went through several Enterprise models, each one constructed and painted just a bit better than the last. Eventually, at one point, I had all the Star Trek ships hanging from nylon string from my bedroom ceiling, and a model of the bridge on my dresser. All the episode titles were memorised, and I watched every single episode, every single afternoon after school, and knew every detail by heart. There was the week that the station forgot to switch the tape, and my brother and I watched Space Seed three or four days in a row. I tape-recorded all of them, and had a collection of tape cassettes, one for each episode, with bits spliced in when I managed to get a part of an episode that had been cut before for commercial time.
I remember buying each new James Blish novelisation as it came out, until I had the entire series, and marvelled at the differences, and wished often that the television version of an episode had matched the adaptation, which was so frequently superior. I still have them. They have prices on the close order of 75¢ on the spines.
And the first Star Trek novel, Blish’s Spock Must Die!. I have that, too.
At university, I cut class every day for a week to watch the first Star Trek movie at the local cinema.
Why?
If you’ve been watching and reading along for the past couple of — shit, the past couple of years, you’ll already know why. And if you don’t get it by now, there’s no point in trying to explain it.
Everything I need to know about life — well, everything worth knowing — I learned by watching Star Trek. The importance of decency, of compassion, of respect, of loyalty, of integrity, of curiosity, of science. And, yes, of love.
And the amazing thing to me is that even after all this time, I still have so much fun reading and writing about this set of characters and this set of stories. It’s like students of Shakespeare or Hemingway or any other great body of literature. Star Trek is literature; it is undeniably a part of the canon of Western civilisation, and it will, I hope, be remembered long after pale imitations and successors have faded from our collective memory.
In the same way that, after 600 years, people still recall the characters in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, I like to think that people will still remember characters named Kirk, and Spock, and McCoy, and that those characters will have something to teach us.
Thanks, Torie & Eugene. Let’s see what else is out there.
Put me in the syndication camp. For years my brother and I would watch Star Trek on WPIX, New York’s Channel 11 every day at 6 p.m., running through the series again and again and again to the point where we’d seen each episode half a dozen times each. Then came the years of midnight rerun viewings! I watched religiously, thrilled whenever the opening scene revealed a high-quality season one episode; disappointed whenever it was a poor season 3 episode– but watching nonetheless. I felt like I *knew* Kirk, Spock and McCoy; I understood their worldview, appreciated their relationship. Then I grew to appreciate all of the supporting players and wished that more episodes had been devoted to Uhura, Sulu, Nurse Chapel, Janice Rand, etc. I would watch each episode with anticipation, waiting for the moment where Spock would cry out “The children! The children!” at the end of “Devil in the Dark,” mourning the destruction of the Horta eggs. Or for the Kirk doppelganger to plead, “I want to LIVE! I want to LIIIIIVE!” at the end of “The Enemy Within” — which always got to me every single time. Or for the devastated Kirk to proclaim “Let’s get the hell out of here” at the end of “City on the Edge of Forever.” Much of my childhood and adolescence was tied to these Star Trek memories and lessons about friendship and duty and the adventure of exploration. For a time, I thought I had outgrown it, but then I got hooked on reruns again during law school. I remember contests with my friends in which we would watch the first 10 seconds of any particular Star Trek episode to see who could correctly identify the episode first.
When TNG first aired I was excited but skeptical they could pull it off again. It took all of about, oh 30 minutes of “Encounter at Farpoint” to convince me that you *could* catch lightning in a bottle twice.
Anyhow, thanks Tori and Eugene for allowing me to relive the series YET AGAIN through your excellent recaps and reviews!
Now, what are your Top 10 Star Trek episodes in order of preference?
What I loved about Star Trek is something that can’t really be articulated. It’s a feeling; a sense of wonder, a peek at the future. How cool was it when those sliding doors on the Enterpise opened as people approached them? Now it happens at every supermarket and drug store. What about those disks Mr. Atos the librarian offered to Spock and Kirk to take the to any time and place they desired? Sure reminds me of DVDs that every child takes for granted today. But WAY cool back then. Remember the “floppy disks” that were used at Kirk’s court-martial to record testimony? (I forget which trail that was; there seemed to be many where Kirk was being tried for some transgression.) The point is that it provided me with a wonderful escape from the “today” of a 12-year old on Friday nights in 1966 and opened the possibility of an exciting future. Mission accomplished!
@9 Mercurios
hmm top 10?? hmmm
1) City On The Edge of Forever
2) The Doomsday Machine
3) Balance Of terror
4) Mirror, Mirror
5) a Taste Of Armegeddon
6) The Galileo Seven
7) Arena
8) Space Seed
9) The Ultimate Computer
10) Where No Man Has Gone Before
But I will not swear to the order, because my mood is fickle such taste are wholyl dependant upon my mood.
I love these stories so much!! You had me tearing up on my walk from work.
@ 1 DemetriosX
Don’t just leave us hanging… what did you write about for your paper?
@ 2 Toryx
I became a Trek fan through my parents, too, who watched Voyager every week (in addition to whatever drek they put on before it–anyone remember The Sentinel?). But The Voyage Home is very special to me. It was the first Trek I really remember, mostly because it was filmed in my backyard, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which was like one of my absolute favorite places in the WORLD.
@ 3 bobsandiego
I am still a fanatic about space, even though it’s basically unthinkable in my lifetime. The Moon Landing Day thing is still probably my proudest moment ever.
@ 4 Lemnoc
Awww, Dee Kelley. I remember very clearly when James Doohan died, and the battle over getting his ashes into space.
@ 5 Ludon
You’re absolutely right about storytelling. One of the liberating aspects of a non-arc, syndicated TV show is the ability to tell a tight story and not think about how it’s bookended. You don’t have to worry about a show book, or parallel plot threads, or planting this or that minor character for some later arc. All you have to do is tell one story in 50 minutes.
@ 6 trekkiechick
Ahhh what’s your tattoo?!
@ 7 S. Hutson Blount
Of course we are!
@ 8 NomadUK
Your experience pretty much mirrors my growing up with Tintin. My parents had brought them back from Europe in the ’70s and I devoured those books. I used to make up elaborate (well, elaborate for a kid) mysteries for my dad and I to solve.
@ 9 Mercurio
Re not outgrowing the show and rediscovering it as an adult: I think Star Trek is a rare bird indeed, in that it can take years to really grow into it, to fully appreciate just how many layers of meaning and insight were packed into those hours. As I said in my Season 1 Wrap-Up, it’s so grown-up. Compare that to, say, Lost in Space.
@ 10 Saturnino J. Rivera
Yes! A sense of wonder, and awe. It’s inspiring.
@ 11 bobsandiego
No, wait! That’s what we’re doing next week!
@12 Torie
It’s the Star Fleet symbol from Kirk’s uniform shirt, on my bicep. I get lots of comments and compliments on it, especially when I go to conventions.
Born October of ’62, my family bought our first TV (small B&W) in 1969 to watch the moon landing. I was a space nut; I could identify every rocket or capsule in the US inventory from their silhouettes, and most of the lunar and planetary probes as well.
From 1970 to 1972, I watched the syndicated show every day after school, on my babysitter’s color (!) TV. Hooked for life.
Top 10 (in no particular order):
The City on the Edge of Forever
A Taste of Armageddon
The Trouble with Tribbles
Balance of Terror
The Enterprise Incident
Devil in the Dark
Mirror, Mirror
Amok Time
The Doomsday Machine
Return to Tomorrow
Honorable mention:
For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky
The Corbomite Maneuver
Errand of Mercy
@12 torie
Sorry I was asked. I had no idea I was jumping guns. (Is gun jumping a sport somewhere?) You remember the moon landing, no offensive but I always assumed you were too young for that memory.
Torie @12: I really couldn’t tell you anymore. It was a very long time ago. Just sort of tracing the development of media SF up to that point. I remember nothing about it beyond the comment of one of the other class members (everybody got a copy of everybody else’s paper for the week [mimeo fluid high!] and returned them with comments. Sort of a Clarion approach). Anyway, he wrote something along the lines of “Captain, this paper fails to mention certain television shows of the late 1960s.” I’d have said D’oh, but there was no Homer Simpson, then. Matt Groening was still drawing Life in Hell.
Bonus: They used grad students for the class (it was required for incoming freshmen) and our instructor grew up to be Kim Stanley Robinson. Another brush with greatness. (Even if he did ruin the end of Absalom, Absalom for me.)
All of this is why I want it to be a requirement that everyone directing, producing, writing, and acting in any Star Trek descendant should watch the first series. Don’t go with only the later series’ as a reference, and especially without viewing ANY Star Trek.
I first watched Star Trek while also seeing Apollo launches from outside our house in Florida; I don’t know why everyone else didn’t become as interested in space as I did.
Man, there are a lot of great stories in this particular thread.
Lemnoc @ 4:
I remember Dee Kelly’s death too. That one hurt. I also remember quite clearly the day Roddenberry died. I was sitting in a theater waiting for the trailers to start and listening to the radio they were piping into the sound system when it was announced that he’d died of a heart attack. I was so upset that I can’t even remember the movie I was there to see.
Torie @ 12:
You were in/ near Monterey? Very cool. I’ve lived all over California, including an area just outside of where they filmed parts of Star Trek V: Shatner’s Ego Ruins It For Everyone. Anyway, I went to the Monterey Aquarium years after they filmed there and kept wandering around thinking, “This looks really familiar” until I figured out why.
Trekkiechick @ 13:
That’s very cool. I’m not likely to ever get a tattoo, but if I did, that’d be one of the possible choices.
DemetriosX @ 16:
You were in a class taught by Kim Stanley Robinson? That’s so cool. I always hear those kinds of stories but never have any of my own, dagnabit.
sps49 @ 17:
Ironically, neither Harve Bennett, who produced most of the TOS movies or Nicholas Meyer, who directed Wrath of Khan, had ever seen the series until after they were hired to work on them. I believe Meyer only saw a handful of Roddenberry’s favorites before deciding to focus on Khan. It’s weird but sometimes it seems that people are better off coming to the show with a fresh eye.
@18 Toryx
Actually according the materials I have heard and read, Harve Bennet sat down and watched every single episode when Paramaount gave him the job of producing a Star Trek Sequel and he focused on Space Seed at the natural point for a new story. Nicholas Meyer came aboard cold knowing only about STar Trek “This show with the guy with the ears’, but Mr. Meyer is a fantastic film maker and writer and understood the characters instantly.Hence why the best Trek Films, II, IV, and VI all have his input,
Thank you all for sharing your stories here. Sorry I’ve been so behind on commenting, but I loved reading all these remembrances.
@19 bobsandiego
I’ve definitely seen that bit of trivia before, probably in several places. I still want to read Nick Meyer’s A View From the Bridge.
@ 15 bobsandiego
Remember the moon landing? No way, I’m much younger than that. :) I meant putting together Moon Landing Day at Tor.com. It’s my second proudest achievement (after “What Men Dare Do”).
@ 16 DemetriosX
That’s amazing! KSR is fantastic. One of my favorite sentences in a novel is from Red Mars. He describes two of the women as “like sisters: not at all alike, and yet intimate.” I just love that phrasing. We use “like sisters” as shorthand all the time for exactly alike, and instead he turns that on its head to tease out a new and yet more perfect meaning.
@ 18 Toryx
I’m spent my early years in Watsonville, which is just outside of Monterey. So we went to the aquarium on field trips every year. I was back there in 2007 and the Pacific Grove to Santa Cruz bay is still the most gorgeous place on earth. No more whales, though.
bobsandiego @ 19:
That’s pretty much what I was saying, except that I’d thought it was Meyer who wanted to focus on Khan. Actually, I’ve heard it both ways. I know Bennet had a lot of different ideas for how the movie should go until Meyer was brought into it.
Eugene @ 20: I’ve always wanted to read that too. I should go see if I can find it in a used bookstore or something.
Torie @ 21: Whenever I make it back to California, which isn’t very often, I make it a point to drive up some part of Highway 1. I love almost the whole trip from Morro Bay to Santa Cruz, though I agree that the section you’re talking about is probably the best part.
I haven’t gotten to read through every episode review here yet, just a few of my favorites. But I wanted to say Hi to everyone commenting here because I feel like I am among friends.
I”ve been watching Star Trek reruns my whole life. Basically I think my parents just propped the baby seat in front of the tv when it was on. So by the time I was 12 and starting to be interested in the show for myself I had seen every episode many, many times. It led to this weird thing happening where I would start to watch an episode I thought I hadn’t seen then partway through I’d get to a bit that was familiar and then remember the whole rest of it at once.
Anyway, I could go one and on about why I like Star Trek, but I won’t (aren’t you relieved?) and just mention what was personally significant–it was one thing my whole family could agree on and enjoy together. As a teenager it can be hard to have a common frame of reference with your parents but in my family the common reference was Star Trek. I was in high school when ST:TNG started and we sat down together as a family and watched it every week (and taped it to watch again later). It was really nice to be able to have that shared interest.
That’s all I wanted to say except:
What side of a Tribble has the most hair?
The outside!
@ 22 toryx
It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
@ 23 Rachel
Hello! You can definitely go on about why you love Star Trek. I mean, that’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?
It was a family thing for us, too. The only shows we could agree to watch together were Voyager and The X-Files (and whatever came on before/after those two. Anyone remember The Sentinel or Millennium?)
And your tribble joke did make me laugh out loud.
@23 Rachel
Welcome! Thanks for sharing your Star Trek memories. From your great tribble joke, I can tell you’re going to fit right in around here. :)
@24 Torie
I never watched The Sentinel and I’ve only seen a few episodes of Millenium. I always intended to go back and try to watch the rest of the series.