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Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise...
Admit it, even if you hadn't clicked on the link that said "Star Trek" on the previous page, you'd have known what show I was talking about by the time you got to the fourth word. Fifth at the latest. Everyone who has ever been into SF (and most of the people who haven't), at least since 1966, knows the name Star Trek and has probably seen an episode or two, or one of the movies. Or more. Possibly a lot more.
I've seen every episode. Multiple times. I have them all on tape. If Paramount wasn't so damned greedy, I might have them on DVD instead of having taped them myself. (Come on. Two episodes for twenty bucks? Not quite as bad as the one episode for fifteen they used to want on VHS, but still ridiculous.)
"Geek! Geek!" you shout in your mind. Perhaps, but people who live in glass starships shouldn't throw photon torpedoes. After all, you reading a review of (or maybe a rant about) a science fiction television show that has only been seen in syndication for the last thirty-four years. Think about it.
I will further prove that I am in touch with my inner geek by stating that I firmly believe it to be the best science fiction television show ever to make it to air.
Yes, there was overacting, plot holes, logical inconsistencies, and the occasional bit of science that was just plain wrong even then (although far, far less of this last than any of its offspring have contained). There were quite definitely bad episodes, but there's never been a show of any genre that was good all of the time, and for every "Spock's Brain", "Cloudminders", or "And the Children Shall Lead Them" there was a "Doomsday Machine", "Balance of Terror", and "City on the Edge of Forever".
Sure almost everyone spoke English and the Universal Translator had it covered for those who didn't, but the future was a mostly bright and hopeful, positive place. You didn't just go places, you went there at warp speeds or you beamed there. You could have friends who were aliens, cool gadgets, and pets from other planets.'
It had great direction, great production, great special effects, great music (can't you hear the fight scene theme going through your head right now?), and great dialogue.
"I'm a doctor, not an escalator!"
"He's dead, Jim."
"Set phasers to stun."
"My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts."
"Skin sample, Chekov. Tissue sample, Checkov. Marrow sample, Chekov. Just a little bit more, Chekov. It won't hurt much, Chekov. If I live long enough, I'm going to run out of samples."
"Hailing frequencies open, Captain."
"I canna change the laws of physics!"
"Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard."
"With an arm full of this stuff, I wouldn't be afraid of a supernova."
"Miramanee!"
Okay, so it wasn't all great dialogue, but the good outweighed the bad by at least an order of magnitude. In general, the writing was great. And there was one very simple, very easy to pin down explanation of why the writing was great, something so incredibly obvious that I don't understand why it's done so rarely for science fiction shows.
Ready?
To write the episodes of a science fiction television series, they used, get this, science fiction writers.
Brilliant! Amazing! In-freaking-credible! Once in a while, the buttheads in Hollywood scrape together a brain cell collectively and actually manage to do something intelligent.
It was a sad day when Trek went off the air. A sad day before I was born, in fact. Yet one of my earliest memories is of sitting in my father's lap watching "The Immunity Syndrome" (aka The Giant Space Amoeba Episode). Trek's audience continued to grow then and still does.
I'm a Trekkie (not a Trekker - they take themselves way too seriously). I grew up on it. I watched it as a child, first with my father and later on my own. As a teenager, I watched it when I got home from school. I hauled my ass out of bed early on Sunday mornings to watch it when I was in university. As an adult, I successfully completed my quest to tape all of the episodes - in order, no less. If I'm channel surfing and come across it, I stop to watch. I can name every episode less than fifteen seconds into the teaser and tell you which season it's from.
It has spawned dozens (scores!) of books, fiction and non, movies, spoofs, comedies, words and terminology now part of the language, four successor shows and a cartoon. There's been more fan fiction written for Star Trek than for any other show. It has influenced and effected everything that has come after in the genre, and many things in the real world (what was the name of the first space shuttle?).
I gave us action, adventure, romance, excitement, characters we gave a damn about and it didn't treat us all like we had IQs in the shoe size range. It dealt with ideas, concepts, and issues - scientific, social, philosphical, moral. It gave SF to the world at large and brought us into a world where anything could happen including a multi-ethnic crew and even (and I don't know how they managed to get it past the censors at the time) a white man kissing a black woman on prime time network television.
So yes, I'm a Star Trek fan. I'm a Trekkie. And you should be, too.
Just remember, if you're ever on a landing party, be sure you're not wearing red.
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This way to the Episode Guide.
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Page last updated: 15 Aug 2003.