It is remarkable that any
entertainment property has been able to sustain itself for a full forty five
years and it certainly is not over. I
myself became a fan in the second season of the franchise’s run, but never
really bothered to watch the succeeding reincarnations. I had aged out I guess. Yet I did take in the movies thereafter with
my enthusiastic daughter.
Longetivity has imparted a
cultural importance to Star Trek far beyond the wildest dreams of any writer or
artist. It presently remains the prime
platform for putting the imaginary worlds of science fiction onto the
screen. It is the true inheritor of the
pulp literature of the thirties.
None of us ever thought that this
particular show could actually be generational as it has been. I also have little doubt that the next
incarnation will emerge just as successfully and grab many more years of fan
loyalty. It is not as if the winning
formula needs to be discovered.
To boldly go: Ars explores 45 years of Star Trek
By Ryan Paul | Published 5
days ago
NBC viewers were introduced to an innovative new television show
called Star Trek on September 8, 1966—exactly 45 years ago today. The
original groundbreaking series ran for only three years, but it left a lasting
mark both on television and the science fiction genre.
After the cancellation of the original series, Star
Trek continued with 11 feature-length movies, four additional live-action
television shows, an animated series, and numerous adaptations to other
media—ranging from video games to a major Las
Vegas
Space Seed
Star Trek was created by television writer Gene Roddenberry. He
reportedly began crafting the concept for Star Trek as early as 1961,
but the idea didn't sail out of drydock until 1964 when he proposed the series
to Desilu Studios. Roddenberry's original vision for Star Trek is
preserved in a first draft of the pitch, which is dated March 11, 1964.
Although some key elements of Star Trek appear in that early
document, the show it describes is quite different from the Star
Trek that fans know and love.
Roddenberry intended to model Star Trek after the 1957
show Wagon Train, bringing the successful formula of the popular Western
television series into a science fiction setting. The cornerstone of the
original Star Trekproposal was the idea that the characters would visit
"parallel worlds" with similar culture to our own, but with
differences "ranging from the subtle to the boldly dramatic."
The pragmatic Roddenberry thought that the familiarity of earth-like
parallel worlds would make it easier for viewers to relate to the events and
situations depicted in the show. It would also simplify production because it
would allow allow conventional locations and props to be used in the series.
The "parallel worlds" idea (which seems slightly similar to
the premise of the 1995 show Sliders) didn't really stick when Star
Trek entered production. Although a number of earth-like planets—including
some with histories that parallel earth's—appeared throughout the show, the
settings were more varied than Roddenberry had originally anticipated.
Who am I to argue with history?
That wasn't the only major change between concept and production.
According to the early draft, the show would feature the starship S.S.
Yorktown, captained by Robert M. April. The main characters were to include an
unemotional female first officer called only "Number One," a
half-Martian lieutenant named Mr. Spook (yes, an extra "o") with
"satanic" red skin and pointed ears, a cynical old doctor named
Phillip "Bones" Boyce, and a South American navigator named José
Ortegas.
The original unaired Star Trek pilot, which was called The
Cage, was sort of a stepping stone between the original concept and the
actual Star Trek series. The pilot features the starship USS Enterprise
The pilot had fairly slow pacing and an introspective flavor. It
tackled the existential implications of illusion and delved into the troubled
Pike's struggle with the isolation of command. The pilot was rejected by NBC
because the station thought it was too heavy for a mainstream television
audience. Despite this setback, the show was still destined to move forward.
NBC requested a second pilot with a number of changes and were eventually
satisfied.
Pike became Kirk, played by William Shatner. The character of Number
One was dropped (though the nickname would later be used in the The Next
Generation), Mr. Spock became the emotionless first officer, and Barret was
recast in the role of Nurse Chapel (she would later play the voice of the
computer and Lwaxana Troi on subsequent series). A considerable amount of
footage from the first pilot would later be used in a two-part Star
Trek episode called "The Menagarie," which won a Hugo Award for
Best Dramatic Presentation.
Star Trek was culturally significant and broke new ground in
several different ways. The show featured an ethnically diverse cast and the
very first inter-racial kiss (Kirk and Uhura) ever shown on television. Its
depiction of an idealized future for humanity, without poverty or conflict, was
bold.
Despite the progressive characteristics, the show was still quite
shallow in some ways. Roddenberry advised writers to avoid discussing or
visiting Earth in their scripts because "television today simply will not
let us get into details of Earth's politics of Star Trek's century; for
example, which socio-economic system ultimately worked out best." Writers
were instructed to extrapolate an optimistic future while avoiding specificity
in areas that would make people uncomfortable.
Another area where the progressive tone and culture of the show falls
short is in its treatment of alien species. The original series is relentlessly
ethnocentric—it often depicts alien cultures as deficient and in need of human
influence (in the form of mainstream 1960s American values, no less) to set
them on the right track. It wasn't until the later series that Star
Trek gained deeper anthropological substance and a more balanced view of
humanity's cultural strengths and weaknesses relative to other alien species.
Fated to die of suffocation in the icy cold of space?
Although Star Trek was initially successful after the airing
of the first episode in 1966, the positive ratings didn't last. The show had a
loyal following, but its popularity was not broad enough to win NBC's continued
support.
NBC was going to cancel the show after its second season, but
reluctantly agreed to renew it for a third season after receiving a significant
number of letters from fans. One of the chief organizers of the letter-writing
campaign was Star Trek enthusiast Betty Jo Trimble, who would later
be granted a minor role in the first Star Trek film in honor of her
commitment to the show.
At the start of the third season, NBC decided to air Star
Trek on Friday nights—a highly undesirable time slot that is typically
used for sagging shows because it is notoriously bad for ratings and
viewership. There was little hope that Star Trek would survive for a
fourth season. Although a second letter-writing campaign was launched, NBC
canceled the show.
With only three seasons, the original show is the shortest of the
live-action Star Trek series. It continued to gain popularity after
the cancellation, however, when reruns started to play after its cancellation
in 1969. It remained enormously popular in syndication for two decades after it
was canceled.
Turning death into a fighting chance to live
As the show gained post-mortem popularity, Paramount
Pictures began talks with Roddenberry in 1975 to launch a feature-length film
based on the series. The project was fraught with problems during its earliest
stages and was practically abandoned. The were many iterations on the script,
but none that satisfied all parties.
Paramount salvaged the project by dropping the film and instead
preparing to launch a new series, an initiative that was called Star Trek:
Phase II. A pilot concept for the new series that was written by Alan Dean
Foster impressed Paramount executives so much
that they decided to shift the project back to the big screen after all. They
expanded it into a feature-length movie that became Star Trek: The Motion
Picture.
The movie was a major production, with some big-name talent and a big
enough budget to show viewers the Enterprise West
Side Story (he was also the chief editor on Citizen Kane, which
earned him an academy award nomination).
Although the underlying plot of the Star Trek movie was
sound, the writers had difficulty delivering a solid ending. There was also
reportedly some friction between Roddenberry and other contributors. The script
endured frequent modification throughout production.
Main filming for the first movie began in 1978 and it was released the
following year. It was a financial success, netting $139 million in box office
revenue with a budget of $45 million, but it was not as profitable as Paramount
Opinions about the first movie vary greatly among fans. It drags during
some parts and there are elements that feel too contrived. The fact that it's
an episode-quality story stretched to a feature-film length really shows.
Despite its deficiencies, it offered Star Trek fans something really
special: a much richer view of the Enterprise Enterprise
The original film was followed up by The Wrath of Khan in
1982, which was a vastly superior movie. It brought back the much-loved villain
Khan Singh, played by Ricardo Montalban, and offered a riveting plot with
vengeance, death, and creepy little alien parasites. The second movie was
adored by fans and critics, though Spock's death was highly controversial.
The Vulcan was resurrected in The Search for Spock, which was
released two years later. That was followed by The Voyage Home in
1986, The Final Frontier in 1989, and The Undiscovered
Country in 1991.
A new ship, but she's got the right name
Motivated by the continuing success of the Star Trek films, Paramount Enterprise
TNG got off to a good start, but the writing during the first
season was flat in a lot of ways. Roddenberry had a very strong desire to
minimize conflict between the crew members, a mandate that was hard for other
writers on the show to accommodate.
As many viewers remember, philosophical conflicts between McCoy and
Spock were a really fundamental ingredient in the original series. Toning down
that kind of interpersonal sparring made it more difficult to create an
engaging story, but eventually forced the writers to find better ways of
drawing out drama and building tension without making the characters seem
petty. As Roddenberry's involvement decreased due to health issues, the writers
gained more flexibility.
Several characters from the original series made prominent appearances
in a few TNG episodes. During the first episode, "Encounter at
Farpoint," the now-ancient Dr. McCoy inspects the Enterprise-D prior to
its launch. In a later episode, the TNG crew encounter Montgomery Scott when
they investigate a Dyson sphere and discover that the engineer preserved
himself in a transporter buffer after crashing there many years ago. Spock also
makes an appearance in a celebrated two-part episode called "Unification"
in which the elderly Vulcan travels in secret to Romulus
TNG picked up a lot in quality during season two and three. By the
fifth season, it was delivering some of the best stories that have graced
science fiction television. "The Inner Light," a beautiful episode
that came towards the end of season five, won a much-deserved Hugo award for
Best Dramatic Presentation.
TNG was originally intended to run for eight seasons, but was
concluded after the seventh season so that work could begin on new
feature-length Star Trek films. The TNG cast participated
in four feature-length films:Generations, First Contact, Insurrection,
and Nemesis.
The spin-off series Deep Space Nine (DS9) was launched in
1993, one year before TNG went off the air. The two shows had some
sparse overlap, but were largely complementary due to thematic
differences. DS9 took place on a former Cardassian space station in
Bajoran space near wormhole that connected the alpha and gamma
quadrants. DS9 moved Star Trek forward in some important
ways, by shifting to longer plot arcs and showing a less idealized view of the
Federation during the desperate war with the Dominion.
A second spin-off called Voyager was launched in 1995,
featuring a joint Federation and Maquis crew that was stranded in the delta
quadrant. It offered many opportunities for unusual first-contact scenarios and
difficult moral conundrums that emerged from the ship's relative isolation from
Star Fleet and the Federation.
The last Star Trek series was a prequel called Enterprise , which went back and showed the first mission
of the Enterprise
Like TNG, Voyager and DS9 each ran for a total of seven
seasons. Enterprise Enterprise
You told him about the statue?
Although Roddenberry's relationship with Star Trek was
sometimes contentious and the franchise reached its greatest heights after he
stopped participating, he is still rightfully regarded as the father
of Star Trek's greatness. He was a gifted writer and science fiction
visionary who deeply understood how to create a meaningful narrative.
A 26-page guide that Roddenberry produced to help writers for the
original series understand the Star Trekformat offers some insight into
his vision for the series and creative expectations. The document stresses the
importance of believability and instructs writers to avoid confronting viewers
with scenarios that defy common sense.
Writers were encouraged to ask themselves whether each situation they
drafted for the show would still make sense if translated into an equivalent
present day, real-life scenario. This was especially important for character
interaction and other constants that are outside of the spectrum of
incongruities that can be comfortably explained by science fiction.
As a parallel maxim, Roddenberry insisted that Star
Trek stories should always focus on people rather than technology. Just
like Western shows don't discuss the mechanics of guns or the breeds of
horses, Star Trekdidn't need to offer specific details about its technology.
These characteristics humanized Star Trek, distinguishing it from
more technical science fiction and enhancing its accessibility to a mainstream
audience. This philosophy has attracted some valid criticism over
the years, but has also been tremendously influential in television science
fiction and is likely responsible for the genre's continued sustainability on
the screen.
Roddenberry passed away in October 1991, a few months before the launch
of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He reportedly viewed an early
cut of the movie shortly before his death. During the later stages of
production, the film was dedicated to him.
Treat her like a lady and she'll always bring you home
After 45 years of exposing delighted fans to strange new worlds, new
life, and new civilizations, the Star Trekmission continues—another
full-length film from J.J. Abrams is expected to arrive next year.
Star Trek's legacy is prodigious and its contributions to science
fiction and television are too numerous to count. The show has an immense and
highly loyal audience of fans that has continued to grow as new viewers
discover it for the first time. Although Gene Roddenberry is no longer with us,
his brilliant vision of the future might just endure into the 23rd century.
star trek, live long and prosper!
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