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In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.
- Gene Roddenberry
- William Shatner
- Leonard Nimoy
- DeForest Kelley
- 275 User reviews
- 99 Critic reviews
- 16 wins & 31 nominations total
Episodes 80
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- Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk …
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- Trivia In the hallways of the Enterprise there are tubes marked "GNDN." These initials stand for "goes nowhere does nothing."
- Goofs The deck locations for Kirk's Quarters, Sickbay and Transporter Room vary (usually between decks 4-7) throughout the series.
Dr. McCoy : "He's dead, Jim."
- Crazy credits On some episodes, the closing credits show a still that is actually from the Star Trek blooper reel. It is a close-up of stunt man Bill Blackburn who played an android in Return to Tomorrow (1968) , removing his latex make up. In the reel, He is shown taking it off, while an off-screen voice says "You wanted show business, you got it!"
- Alternate versions In 2006, CBS went back to the archives and created HD prints of every episode of the show. In addition to the new video transfer, they re-did all of the model shots and some matte paintings using CGI effects, and re-recorded the original theme song to clean it up. These "Enhanced" versions of the episodes aired on syndication and have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
- Connections Edited into Ben 10: Secrets (2006)
- Soundtracks Star Trek Music by Alexander Courage
User reviews 275
- May 17, 2006
- How do they maintain Gravity on the the U.S.S. Enterprise ? .
- All aliens on all planets speak the English language?
- What does "TOS" mean?
- September 8, 1966 (United States)
- United States
- Star Trek: The Original Series
- Backlot, Culver Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA
- Desilu Productions
- Norway Corporation
- Paramount Television
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- Runtime 50 minutes
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Star Trek: The Original Series Timeline Explained
The timeline of "Star Trek" is a long and complicated one. It's been more than half a century since the first episode aired, and that was merely the first of ten TV series and counting, not to mention ten movies in the original continuity and three in a rebooted timeline. Within the "Star Trek" universe, the timeline is far longer than that, stretching from our own time (or long before if we start getting into ancient Vulcan history) to the 32nd century, where the later seasons of "Star Trek: Discovery" are set.
So for this recap, we'll limit ourselves to the in-universe timeline first "Star Trek" series that began airing in 1966, which most people now refer to by the retronym "Star Trek: The Original Series." What circumstances led to the events of that series, what were the major incidents during it, and what became of its ship and characters after it ended? Let's take a journey through it, piece by piece and year by year.
Long, long ago
The path that leads to Star Trek begins in 2063, when the eccentric scientist known as Zefram Cochrane creates Earth's first warp drive and proves that faster-than-light travel is possible. This is a major turning point for the human race, which was rebuilding from a long and bloody World War 3. There is still a long way to go, but Cochrane's invention marks a shift that leads to humanity not just getting back on its feet on Earth, but stepping out into the larger galaxy.
A nearby Vulcan ship detects the warp signature from Cochrane's test flight. The Vulcans figure that if Earth's people are now capable of traveling faster than light, it is time for them to meet people from other worlds. So the Vulcans land on Earth and introduce themselves to Cochrane and his contemporaries.
In time, Earth builds a variety of spacefaring ships utilizing Cochrane's warp technology, which comes in handy a century later when Earth and Vulcan join two other worlds, Tellar Prime and Andoria, in forming the United Federation of Planets . As interstellar diplomatic relations prove largely successful, the Federation expands to include more than 150 planets. Starfleet, which had already been formed on Earth to explore space and make contact with new worlds, is folded into the Federation upon its creation in 2161.
Not so long ago
The Constitution-class Starfleet ship commissioned as the USS Enterprise , bearing the registry number NCC-1701, is first launched in the mid-23rd Century, almost a hundred years after the formation of the Federation. Its first Captain is Robert April. From the very beginning, the Enterprise's primary mission is to explore the Galactic Frontier, seeking out previously undiscovered worlds and making contact where appropriate.
When April is promoted to commodore and steps down from command of the USS Enterprise, First Officer Christopher Pike is promoted to replace him. As captain of the Enterprise, Pike becomes one of the most decorated officers in Starfleet. During this time, Spock joins the crew as a science officer. This Enterprise crew visits the planet Talos, where Pike is briefly held captive by the highly evolved psychic beings who dwell there and has a brief romance with a woman named Vina (depicted in the original "Star Trek" pilot, "The Cage" ).
Later, Pike and the Enterprise come to the aid of the USS Discovery, whose crew includes Spock's adopted human sister, Michael Burnham (revealed in "Star Trek: Discovery" Season 2). The Enterprise plays a role in helping the Discovery and its crew travel to the far future (in the "Discovery" Season 2 finale, "Such Sweet Sorrow" ).
The five year mission begins
In 2265, Christopher Pike is promoted and Captain James T. Kirk is given command of the USS Enterprise. Commander Spock remains a science officer but also became Kirk's first officer. Chief engineer and second officer is Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott, affectionately known as Scotty. One of Kirk's oldest friends, Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell, initially serves as helmsman at Kirk's request.
One of this crew's first missions sends them to the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, where an encounter with a mysterious energy barrier imbues Mitchell with godlike psychic powers. Elizabeth Dehner, a doctor serving under Enterprise Chief Medical Officer Mark Piper, is also affected and later developed similar powers. Mitchell is driven insane by the experience and becomes a threat to the Enterprise and even the galaxy. Doctor Dehner sacrifices her life to stop him, and both perish. Captain Kirk keeps the circumstances of their deaths private, wanting Mitchell to be remembered positively. This all happens in the second "Star Trek" pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
Following this incident, Lt. Hikaru Sulu, who has been working in the science divison, becomes helmsman of the Enterprise. With Dehner's death and Piper's retirement, Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy became the chief medical officer. Around the same time, Lt. Nyota Uhura joins the bridge crew as a communications officer. With this crew in place, the Enterprise sets out on the five-year exploratory mission that is the focus of "Star Trek: The Original Series."
Although the time period is vague on the show, the original "Star Trek" is set three hundred years after it originally aired, so the first year of their mission, as depicted in Season 1 , runs from 2266 to 2267. During that year, the USS Enterprise has a run-in with the Romulans ( "Balance of Terror" ), who haven't been seen since their war with Earth a century earlier. They also deal with the fall-out of failed negotiations with the Klingons ( "Errand of Mercy" ). Captain Kirk fights a Gorn captain ( "Arena" ) and deals with the death of his brother, Sam Kirk ( "Operation — Annihilate!" ). The Enterprise crew also has their first encounter with the notorious con artist and pimp Harry Mudd ( "Mudd's Women" ).
Admiral Christopher Pike briefly returns to the Enterprise after an accident leaves him paralyzed and nonverbal. After a fiercely loyal Spock helps Captain Kirk understand the situation, they take Pike to Talos, where the Talosians can help him live out his life free of physical constraints, and where he is reunited with Vina ( "The Menagerie" ).
Perhaps most significantly, the USS Enterprise encounters a drifting derelict ship, the USS Botany Bay, which houses cryogenically frozen war criminals from the Eugenics Wars of the past. Their leader, Khan Noonien Singh, is revived and attempts to take control of the Enterprise. Kirk defeats Khan, leaving him and his allies marooned on the planet Ceti Alpha V. Starfleet historian Marla McGivers, who had fallen in love with Khan and betrayed the Enterprise for him, chose to join him in exile rather than stay on the ship and face court martial ( "Space Seed" ).
As the mission entered its second year in 2267 (corresponding with the fall 1967 debut of Season 2 ), the bridge crew of the USS Enterprise is joined by Ensign Pavel Chekov, a young man from Russia. He and Sulu become close friends, and in time he becomes a vital member of the ship's inner circle.
The Enterprise soon travels to Spock's home planet of Vulcan for his marriage to his betrothed, T'Pring. However, T'Pring had already chosen another lover in Spock's absence, and the visit became a fiasco in which Spock and Kirk are made to engage in ritual battle until Kirk fakes his own death. Freed from his betrothal, Spock returns to the ship a confirmed bachelor ( "Amok Time" ).
Later that year, the Enterprise crew is involved in an incident on Deep Space Station K-7 involving a poisoned shipment of grain, a Klingon spy, and the rapidly reproducing trilling fuzzballs known as tribbles, which are peddled by the shady Cyrano Jones ( "The Trouble with Tribbles" ). Although they didn't know it, they are also visited at this time by time travelers from the 24th Century, who infiltrate the Enterprise crew to avert an attempt to change history by the future version of the same Klingon spy (as seen in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" ).
Other incidents in year two included the return of Harry Mudd ( "I, Mudd" ), the discovery of a Mirror Universe ( "Mirror, Mirror" ), and a visit from Spock's parents ( "Journey to Babel" ).
The third year of the mission (and the 1968 TV season) kicks off with a bizarre incident in which an alien civilization steals Spock's brain from his body. Even weirder, Spock survives the incident long enough for his brain to be returned to his skull before he suffers any permanent effects ( "Spock's Brain" ). Spock's brain was also affected by an encounter with a Medusan ambassador, a member of a non-humanoid race whose appearance drives any humanoid who sees one mad. Fortunately, Spock is also able to recover from this incident ( "Is There in Truth No Beauty" ).
Another non-humanoid alien race, the Tholians, traps the Enterprise in an energy web for trespassing into their space. Spock is in command at the time and is unwilling to move the ship because Captain Kirk has shifted out of phase with the universe after an incident involving the USS Defiant, and they need to remain in the area to get him back safely ( "The Tholian Web" ).
The Enterprise command crew also takes part in an undercover mission aboard a Romulan ship, where Kirk is able to steal a Romulan cloaking device while Spock romances a female captain ( "The Enterprise Incident" ). As the third year draws to a close, the crew has a series of increasingly bizarre adventures. These include an encounter with Abraham Lincoln ( "The Savage Curtain" ), finding themselves trapped in the past of a doomed planet ( "All Our Yesterdays" ), and Kirk temporarily swapping bodies with a nefarious woman ( "The Turnabout Intruder" ).
The mission continues
Since "Star Trek: The Original Series" only ran for three seasons, it fell to other media to tell the stories of the last leg of the USS Enterprise's five-year mission. Countless comic books and novels have been published that recount other adventures of Captain Kirk and his crew. While they're not really considered part of the official canon of Star Trek continuity, they've still provided ample entertainment for fans nostalgic for the show, and some of the best ideas that originated in them have found their way into more widely-seen media.
In 1973, the USS Enterprise returned to TV screens on "Star Trek: The Animated Series." Whether this series counts as official canon has been the subject of much debate, but so much of it has been referenced in later TV and movies (including the second animated series in the franchise, "Star Trek: Lower Decks" ) that it seems safe to count. However, certain things, such as life support belts (a force field-based method of saving money by not redrawing the characters in space suits), have to be glossed over.
During the leg of the mission depicted on the animated series, Ensign Chekov is replaced by Lieutenant Arex, an orange alien with three arms and three legs. Lieutenant Uhura is sometimes replaced at the communications station by Lieutenant M'Ress, a catlike female alien.
On one memorable adventure, Spock goes back in time to his childhood on Vulcan ( "Yesteryear" ). Harry Mudd also returns to cause more trouble ( "Mudd's Passion" ), as do Cyrano Jones and his tribbles ( "More Tribbles, More Troubles" ).
The crew reunited
Fans pick back up with the crew after the end of the five-year mission in the first of the "Star Trek" feature films, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Jim Kirk has been promoted to Admiral and becomes Chief of Starfleet Operations, which is based at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. Spock returns to Vulcan and begins training to purge himself of emotions and further devote himself to logic. Doctor McCoy leaves Starfleet to practice medicine on Earth. Three years later, in 2273, the USS Enterprise is being completely refitted under the supervision of Scotty and the ship's new captain, Willard Decker.
When a massive, destructive anomaly was discovered heading for Earth, Admiral Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise on a mission to intercept it, to the annoyance of Decker, who is temporarily demoted to first officer. At Kirk's request, McCoy's Starfleet commission is reactivated, bringing him back to the Enterprise as well. After the new science officer is killed in a transporter accident, Spock soon rejoins the crew as well.
After the anomaly is revealed to be an ancient probe from Earth, Captain Decker joins with it so that it can fulfill its purpose of reuniting with its creator. Decker and the anomaly vanish, leaving Kirk in sole command of the USS Enterprise.
The death of Spock
In 2285, the Enterprise is on what is meant to be a short training voyage, but that changes when Khan Noonien Singh reappears, looking for Admiral Kirk. The planet where Kirk left Khan and his people more than fifteen years earlier has become a harsh desert after a catastrophic shift in orbit, and Marla McGivers, who had become Khan's wife, was killed. Khan and his remaining followers escape by commandeering the USS Reliant, but Khan can't be satisfied until he takes personal revenge on Kirk. Kirk barely manages to defeat Khan, but the Enterprise sustains heavy damage. Captain Spock saves the rest of the crew by manually repairing the ship's main reactor but receives a lethal dose of radiation in the process. Spock reassures Kirk that he would always be his friend, and then dies ( "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" ).
During his funeral service, Spock's body is launched from the Enterprise and falls to the surface of a planet that is in the process of being radically terraformed by the experimental Genesis Device. This creates a unique opportunity to restore Spock to life. Before he died, Spock infused Dr. McCoy with his psychic essence, which is soon found to have a deleterious effect on the doctor's mental state, which can only be cured by returning it to the correct body.
The return to Earth
To reunite Spock's psychic essence with his body that is regenerating on the Genesis Planet, Kirk and his loyal crew (McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov) must defy Starfleet orders and steal the USS Enterprise from spacedock. In the course of rescuing Spock, the Enterprise has a deadly encounter with Klingons that results in the destruction of the Enterprise ( "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" ). Escaping in a commandeered Klingon Bird of Prey, the crew travels to Vulcan, where Spock can heal. They stay there for three months, until early 2286.
As the crew travels back toward Earth on the Bird of Prey, facing court-martial for their actions, a mysterious alien probe is discovered heading toward Earth, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. When Spock realizes that the probe is attempting to contact humpback whales, an extinct species in the 23rd Century, the crew traveled back in time to 1986 and returns with a mated pair of whales, saving Earth from the probe. With their heroism taken into account, the charges are dropped at their court-martial. However, Kirk is demoted back to Captain for disobeying Starfleet orders and given command of the newly commissioned Enterprise NCC-1701-A ( "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" ).
The later years
In 2287, the new Enterprise and its crew are sent to deal with a diplomatic crisis when Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ambassadors on Nimbus III are taken hostage by a renegade Vulcan. The Vulcan, Sybok, is Spock's half-brother, who rejected Vulcan logic in favor of emotion and was exiled. He recruits a cult-like army by using his psychic abilities to help people conquer painful memories, inspiring gratitude and loyalty. Sybok, along with his followers, hijacks the Enterprise and travels to a mysterious planetoid in the center of the galaxy, where he believes he will find God. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy join Sybok on the planetoid, where they meet an entity claiming to be God, which turns out to be an incredibly powerful malevolent being who has been imprisoned there. Sybok is killed, and the entity is destroyed ( "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" ).
In 2293, three months before the aging Enterprise crew is scheduled to stand down, they embark on a diplomatic mission to accompany the Klingon chancellor to Earth for peace negotiations. En route, the chancellor is assassinated, while Kirk and McCoy are framed for his death. After being tried by the Klingons, they are sentenced to a prison planet, leaving Spock to root out a conspiracy to escalate hostilities between the two civilizations. Ultimately, peace is established, Kirk and McCoy are freed, and the Enterprise crew is free to move on to the next phase of their lives ( "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" ).
A series of epilogues
Later in 2293, Kirk, Chekov, and Scotty are present as guests on the maiden voyage of the new Enterprise NCC-1701-B, where an incident involving a time nexus leads to James Kirk's disappearance. In 2371 he is discovered alive inside the nexus by Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise NCC 1701-D, but Kirk dies helping Picard thwart the villainous Soran ( "Star Trek Generations" ).
After retiring from Starfleet, Spock becomes an ambassador. He is instrumental in achieving peace with the Romulans. He also encounters Captain Picard and his crew during a crucial part of that effort (in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" two-parter "Unification" ). At the end of his life, Ambassador Spock travels back in time, finding himself in an alternate timeline alongside a younger version of himself and his friends, who led very different lives ("Star Trek" 2009).
Doctor Leonard McCoy, who has always been grumpy about being in Starfleet, ironically has the longest Starfleet career of the three. He becomes a branch admiral and Chief of Starfleet Medical. In 2371, as a very old man, Admiral McCoy tours the Enterprise-D during its first mission (in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" premiere "Encounter at Farpoint" ).
In 2294, newly retired Captain Montgomery Scott is a passenger aboard the USS Jenolan when the ship crashes into a Dyson Sphere. Scotty manages to put himself into suspended animation using the Jenolan's transporter and is revived in 2369 by the crew of the Enterprise-D. After some time aboard the new Enterprise, he sets out aboard a shuttlecraft to enjoy his retirement ("Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Relics" ).
Hikaru Sulu becomes captain of the USS Excelsior and has his own illustrious career. Serving under him is a young Vulcan named Tuvok, who later becomes the chief tactical officer of the USS Voyager under Captain Kathryn Janeway (Tuvok remembers this time in the "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Flashback" ).
Less is known about the post-Enterprise-A careers of Pavel Chekov and Nyota Uhura. Still, even if they retired to live quiet lives, they must have been remembered as Federation heroes for their many adventures serving under Captain Kirk. Even all these years, there are still many stories left to be told.
How to Watch Star Trek in Order: The Complete Series Timeline
The full star trek timeline, explained..
Ever since 1966’s premiere of the first episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, the entertainment world has never been the same. This franchise that has boldly gone where no property has gone before has captured the hearts and minds of millions around the world and has grown into a space-faring empire of sorts filled with multiple shows, feature length films, comics, merchandise, and so much more. That being said, the amount of Star Trek out in the world can make it tough to know exactly how to watch everything it offers in either chronological or release order so you don’t miss a thing. To help make things easier for you, we’ve created this guide to break down everything you need to know about engaging with this Star Trek journey.
It used to be a bit trickier to track down all the Star Trek shows and movies you’d need to watch to catch up, but Paramount+ has made it a whole lot easier as it has become the home of nearly all the past, present and future Star Trek entries.
So, without further ado, come with us into the final frontier and learn how you can become all caught up with the adventures of Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sisko, Spock, Pike, Archer, Burnham, and all the others that have made Star Trek so special over the past 56 years.
And, in case you're worried, everything below is a mostly spoiler-free chronological timeline that will not ruin any of any major plot points of anything further on in the timeline. So, you can use this guide as a handy way to catch up without ruining much of the surprise of what’s to come on your adventure! If you’d prefer to watch everything Star Trek as it was released, you’ll find that list below as well!
How to Watch Star Trek in Chronological Order
- How to Watch Star Trek by Release Order
1. Star Trek: Enterprise (2151-2155)
Star Trek: Enterprise is the earliest entry on our list as it takes place a hundred years before the adventures of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew of Star Trek: The Original Series. The show aired from 2001 to 2005 and starred Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer, the captain of the Enterprise NX-01. This version of the Enterprise was actually Earth’s first starship that was able to reach warp five.
While the show had its ups and downs, it included a fascinating look at a crew without some of the advanced tech we see in other Star Trek shows, the first contact with various alien species we know and love from the Star Trek universe, and more.
2. Star Trek: Discovery: Seasons 1 and 2 (2256-2258)
This is where things get a little bit tricky, as the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery take place before Star Trek: The Original Series but Seasons 3 and 4 take us boldly to a place we’ve not gone before. We won’t spoil why that’s the case here, but it’s important to note if you want to watch Star Trek in order, you’ll have to do a bit of jumping around from series to movie to series.
As for what Star Trek: Discovery is, it's set the decade before the original and stars Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham, a Starfleet Commander who accidentally helps start a war between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. She gets court-martialed and stripped of her rank following these events and is reassigned to the U.S.S Discovery.
3. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2259-TBD)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also begins before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series and is set up by Star Trek: Discovery as its captain, Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike, makes an appearance in its second season. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Pike first appeared in the original failed pilot episode “The Cage” of Star Trek: The Original Series and would later become James T. Kirk’s predecessor after the original actor, Jefferey Hunter, backed out of the show.
Fast forward all these years later and now we get to learn more about the story of Christopher Pike and many other familiar faces from The Original Series alongside new characters. It’s made even more special as the ship the crew uses is the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701, the very same that would soon call Kirk its captain.
4. Star Trek: The Original Series (2265-2269)
The fourth Star Trek series or movie you should watch in the order is the one that started it all - Star Trek: The Original Series . Created by Gene Roddenberry, this first Star Trek entry would kick off a chain reaction that would end up creating one of the most beloved IPs of all time. However, it almost never made it to that legendary status as its low ratings led to a cancellation order after just three seasons that aired from 1966 to 1969. Luckily, it found great popularity after that and built the foundation for all the Star Trek stories we have today.
Star Trek: The Original Series starred William Shatner as James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Spock, but the rest of the crew would go on to become nearly as iconic as they were. As for what the show was about? Well, we think Kirk said it best during each episode’s opening credits;
“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise . Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
5. Star Trek: The Animated Series (2269-2270)
While Star Trek: The Original Series may have been canceled after just three seasons, its popularity only grew, especially with the help of syndication. Following this welcome development, Gene Roddenberry decided he wanted to continue the adventures of the crew of the Enterprise NCC-1701 in animated form, and he brought back many of the original characters and the actors behind them for another go.
Star Trek: The Animated Series lasted for two seasons from 1973 to 1974 and told even more stories of the Enterprise and its adventures throughout the Milky Way galaxy.
6. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (2270s)
The first Star Trek film was a very big deal as it brought back the crew of Star Trek: The Original Series after the show was canceled in 1969 after just three seasons. However, even it had a rough road to theaters as Roddenberry initially failed to convince Paramount Pictures it was worth it in 1975. Luckily, the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and other factors helped finally convince those in power to make the movie and abandon the plans for a new television series called Star Trek: Phase II, which also would have continued the original story.
In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, James T. Kirk was now an Admiral in Starfleet, and certain events involving a mysterious alien cloud of energy called V’Ger cause him to retake control of a refitted version of the U.S.S. Enterprise with many familiar faces in tow.
7. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (2285)
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture written, but Paramount turned it down after the reception to that first film was not what the studio had hoped for. In turn, Paramount removed him from the production and brought in Harve Bennett and Jack B. Sowards to write the script and Nicholas Meyer to direct the film.
The studio’s decision proved to be a successful one as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is considered by many, including IGN, to be the best Star Trek film. As for the story, it followed the battle between Admiral James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise vs. Ricardo Montalban’ Khan Noonien Singh. Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman and he and his people were exiled by Kirk on a remote planet in the episode ‘Space Seed’ from the original series. In this second film, after being stranded for 15 years, Khan wants revenge.
8. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (2285)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock continues the story that began in Wrath of Khan and deals with the aftermath of Spock’s death. While many on the U.S.S. Enterprise thought that was the end for their science officer, Kirk learns that Spock’s spirit/katra is actually living inside the mind of DeForest Kelley’s Dr. McCoy, who has been acting strange ever since the death of his friend. What follows is an adventure that includes a stolen U.S.S. Enterprise, a visit from Spock’s father Sarek, a run-in with Klingons, and so much more.
9. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (2286 and 1986)
While it is undoubtedly great that Kirk and his crew saved Spock, it apparently wasn’t great enough to avoid the consequences that follow stealing and then losing the Enterprise. On their way to answer for their charges, the former crew of the Enterprise discover a threat to Earth that, without spoiling anything, causes them to go back in time to save everything they love. The Voyage Home is a big departure from the previous films as, instead of space, we spend most of our time in 1986’s San Francisco.
10. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (2287)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier once again brings back our favorite heroes from Star Trek: The Original Series, but it’s often regarded as one of the weakest films starring Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. In this adventure, our crew’s shore leave gets interrupted as they are tasked with going up against the Vulcan Sybok, who himself is on the hunt for God in the middle of the galaxy.
11. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (2293)
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the final movie starring the entire cast of Star Trek: The Original Series, and it puts the Klingons front and center. After a mining catastrophe destroys the Klingon moon of Praxis and threatens the Klingon’s homeworld, Klingon Chancellor Gorkon is forced to abandon his species' love of war in an effort to seek peace with the Federation. What follows is an adventure that calls back to the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall and serves as a wonderful send-off to characters we’ve come to know and love since 1966, even though some will thankfully appear in future installments.
12. Star Trek: The Next Generation (2364-2370)
After you make it through all six of the Star Trek: The Original Series movies, it’s time to start what many consider the best Star Trek series of all time - Star Trek: The Next Generation . The series, which starred Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, ran from 1987 through 1994 with 178 episodes over seven seasons.
There are so many iconic characters and moments in The Next Generation, including William Riker, Data, Worf, Geordi La Forge, Deanna Troi, and Dr. Beverly Crusher, and many of these beloved faces would return for Star Trek: Picard, which served as a continuation of this story.
While we are once again on the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation, this story takes place a century after the events of Star Trek: The Original Series. However, there may just be a few familiar faces that pop up from time to time.
13. Star Trek Generations (2293)
While Star Trek Generations is the first film featuring the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew, it also features a team-up that many had dreamed of for years and years between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain James T. Kirk.
Our heroes are facing off against an El-Aurian named Dr. Tolian Soran, who will do whatever is necessary to return to an extra-dimensional realm known as the Nexus. Without spoiling anything, these events lead to a meeting with these two legendary captains and a heartfelt-at-times send-off to The Original Series, even though not every character returned that we wished could have.
14. Star Trek: First Contact (2373)
Star Trek: First Contact was not only the second film featuring the crew from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it also served as the motion picture directorial debut for William Riker actor Jonathan Frakes. In this film, the terrifying Borg take center stage and force our heroes to travel back in time to stop them from conquering Earth and assimilating the entire human race.
This movie picks up on the continuing trauma caused by Jean-Luc Picard getting assimilated in the series and becoming Locutus of Borg, and we are also treated to the first warp flight in Star Trek’s history, a shout-out to Deep Space Nine, and more.
15. Star Trek: Insurrection (2375)
Star Trek: Insurrection, which unfortunately ranked last on our list of the best Star Trek movies, is the third film starring the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew and followed a story involving an alien race that lives on a planet with more-or-less makes them invincible due to its rejuvenating properties. This alien race, known as the Ba’Ku, are being threatened by not only another alien race called the Son’a, but also the Federation. Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew disobey Federation orders in hopes to save the peaceful Ba’Ku, and while it sounds like an interesting premise, many said it felt too much like an extended episode of the series instead of a big blockbuster film.
16. Star Trek: Nemesis (2379)
The final Star Trek: The Next Generation movie is Star Trek: Nemesis , and it also isn’t looked at as one of the best. There are bright parts in the film, including Tom Hardy’s Shinzon who is first thought to be a Romulan praetor before it’s revealed he is a clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but it also features a lot of retreaded ground. There are some great moments between our favorite TNG characters, but it’s not quite the goodbye many had hoped for. Luckily, this won’t be the last we’ll see of them.
17. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (2369-2375)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the fourth Star Trek series and it ran from 1993 to 1999 with 176 episodes over seven seasons. Deep Space Nine was also the first Star Trek series to be created without the direct involvement of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, but instead with Rick Berman and Michael Piller. Furthermore, it was the first series to begin when another Star Trek Series - The Next Generation - was still on the air.
The connections between The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine don’t end there, as there were a ton of callbacks to TNG in Deep Space Nine, and characters like Worf and Miles O’Brien played a big part in the series. Other TNG characters popped up from time to time, including Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and certain Deep Space Nine characters also showed their faces in TNG.
Deep Space Nine was a big departure from the Star Trek series that came before, as it not only took place mostly on a space station - the titular Deep Space Nine - but it was the first to star an African American as its central character in Avery Brooks’ Captain Benjamin Sisko.
Deep Space Nine was located in a very interesting part of the Milky Way Galaxy as it was right next to a wormhole, and the series was also filled with conflict between the Cardassians and Bajorans, the war between the Federation and the Dominion, and much more.
18. Star Trek: Voyager (2371-2378)
Star Trek: Voyager is the fifth Star Trek series and it ran from 1995 to 2001 with 172 episodes over seven seasons. Star Trek: Voyager begins its journey at Deep Space Nine, and then it follows the tale of Kate Mulgrew’s Captain Kathryn Janeway (the first female leading character in Star Trek history!) and her crew getting lost and stranded in the faraway Delta Quadrant.
The episodes and adventures that follow all see the team fighting for one goal: getting home. Being so far away from the Alpha Quadrant we were so used to letting Star Trek be very creative in its storytelling and give us situations and alien races we’d never encountered before.
That doesn’t mean it was all unfamiliar, however, as the Borg became a huge threat in the later seasons. It’s a good thing too, as that led to the introduction of Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine, a character who would continue on to appear in Star Trek: Picard and become a fan favorite.
19. Star Trek: Lower Decks (2380-TBD)
Star Trek: Lower Decks debuted in 2020 and was the first animated series to make it to air since 1973’s Star Trek: The Animated Series. Alongside having that feather in its cap, it also sets itself apart by choosing to focus more on the lower lever crew instead of the captain and senior staff.
This leads to many fun adventures that may not be as high stakes as the other stories, but are no less entertaining. There have already been three seasons of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the fourth season is set to arrive later this summer.
The series is also worth a watch as it is having a crossover with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds that will mix the worlds of live-action and animation.
20. Star Trek: Prodigy (2383-TBD)
Star Trek: Prodigy was the first fully 3D animated Star Trek series ever and told a story that began five years after the U.S.S. Voyager found its way back home to Earth. In this series, which was aimed for kids, a group of young aliens find an abandoned Starfleet ship called the U.S.S. Protostar and attempt to make it to Starfleet and the Alpha Quadrant from the Delta Quadrant.
Voyager fans will be delighted to know that Kate Mulgrew returns as Kathryn Janeway in this animated series, but not only as herself. She is also an Emergency Training Holographic Advisor that was based on the likeness of the former captain of the U.S.S. Voyager.
The second season of Star Trek: Prodigy was set to arrive later this year, but it was not only canceled in June, but also removed from Paramount+. There is still hope this show may find a second life on another streaming service or network.
21. Star Trek: Picard (2399-2402)
Star Trek: Picard is the… well… next generation of Star Trek: The Next Generation as it brings back not only Partick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard, but also many of his former crew members from the beloved series. The story is set 20 years after the events of Star Trek Nemesis and we find Picard retired from Starfleet and living at his family’s vineyard in France.
Without spoiling anything, certain events get one of our favorite captains back to work and take him on an adventure through space and time over three seasons and 30 episodes.
The show had its ups and downs, but the third season, in our opinion, stuck the landing and gave us an “emotional, exciting, and ultimately fun journey for Jean-Luc and his family - both old and new - that gives the character the send-off that he has long deserved.”
22. Star Trek: Discovery: Seasons 3 and 4 (3188-TBD)
While Star Trek: Discovery begins around 10 years before Star Trek: The Original Series, the show jumps more than 900 years into the future into the 32nd Century following the events of the second season. The Federation is not in great shape and Captain Michael Burnham and her crew work to bring it back to what it once was.
Star Trek: Discovery is set to end after the upcoming fifth season, which will debut on Paramount+ in 2024.
How to Watch Star Trek by Order of Release
- Star Trek: The Original Series (1966 - 1969)
- Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973 - 1974)
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1984)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 - 1994)
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993 - 1999)
- Star Trek: Generations (1994)
- Star Trek: Voyager (1995 - 2001)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
- Star Trek: Enterprise (2001 - 2005)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
- Star Trek (2009)
- Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
- Star Trek Beyond (2016)
- Star Trek: Discovery (2017 - Present)
- Star Trek: Picard (2020 - 2023)
- Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020 - Present)
- Star Trek: Prodigy (2021 - TBA)
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022 - Present)
For more, check out our look at the hidden meaning behind Star Trek’s great captains, why Star Trek doesn’t get credit as the first shared universe, if this may be the end of Star Trek’s golden age of streaming, and our favorite classic Star Trek episodes and movies.
In This Article
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Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki
A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the finale of Picard and the continuations of Discovery , Lower Decks , Prodigy and Strange New Worlds , the advent of new eras in Star Trek Online gaming , as well as other post-56th Anniversary publications such as the new ongoing IDW comic . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} or {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old . Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. ' Thank You
- View history
- 1 Odyssey class
- 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel
- 3 Yeager class
- 1969 endings
- 1960s television shows
- Science Fiction
- Live-Action Shows
Star Trek: The Original Series
- View history
The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy , circa 2266–2269. The ship and crew are led by Captain James T. Kirk ( William Shatner ), First Officer and Science Officer Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ), and Chief Medical Officer Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ). Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose:
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise . Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before .
Norway Productions and Desilu Productions produced the series from September 1966 to December 1967. Paramount Television produced the show from January 1968 to June 1969. Star Trek aired on NBC from September 8, 1966, to June 3, 1969. [1] It was first broadcast on September 6, 1966, on Canada's CTV network. [2] Star Trek ' s Nielsen ratings while on NBC were low, and the network cancelled it after three seasons and 79 episodes. Several years later, the series became a hit in broadcast syndication , remaining so throughout the 1970s, achieving cult classic status and a developing influence on popular culture . Star Trek eventually spawned a franchise, consisting of eight television series, 13 feature films, and numerous books, games, and toys, and is now widely considered one of the most popular and influential television series of all time. [3]
- 2 Development
- 3.1 Season 1 (1966–1967)
- 3.2 Season 2 (1967–1968)
- 3.3 Season 3 (1968–1969)
- 3.4 Syndication
- 3.5 Remastered edition
- 4.1 Characterizations
- 4.2 Characters' cameo appearances in later series
- 4.3 Notable guest appearances
- 5.1 Broadcast history
- 5.2 Episode analysis
- 5.3 Top ranked episodes
- 5.4 Leonard Nimoy: Star Trek Memories
- 6.1 Theme tune
- 6.2 Dramatic underscore
- 6.3 Episodes with original music
- 8.1 Home media
- 8.2 Online distribution
- 10.1 Action figures
- 10.2 Comic books
- 11.1 Parodies
- 11.2 Fan productions
- 11.3 Series sequels
- 12 Reception
- 13 See also
- 14 References
- 15 External links
Creation [ ]
On March 11, 1964, Gene Roddenberry , a long-time fan of science fiction, drafted a short treatment for a science-fiction television series that he called Star Trek . [4] This was to be set on board a large interstellar spaceship named S.S. Yorktown in the 23rd century [5] [6] bearing a crew dedicated to exploring the Milky Way galaxy .
Roddenberry noted a number of influences on his idea, some of which includes A. E. van Vogt 's tales of the spaceship Space Beagle , Eric Frank Russell 's Marathon series of stories, and the film Forbidden Planet (1956). Some have also drawn parallels with the television series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954), a space opera that included many of the elements integral to Star Trek —the organization, crew relationships, missions, part of the bridge layout, and some technology. [3] Roddenberry also drew heavily from C. S. Forester 's Horatio Hornblower novels that depict a daring sea captain who exercises broad discretionary authority on distant sea missions of noble purpose. He often humorously referred to Captain Kirk as "Horatio Hornblower in Space". [7]
Roddenberry had extensive experience in writing for series about the Old West that had been popular television fare in the 1950s and 1960s. Armed with this background, the first draft characterized the new show as " Wagon Train to the stars." [4] [8] Like the familiar Wagon Train , each episode was to be a self-contained adventure story, set within the structure of a continuing voyage through space. Most future television and movie realizations of the franchise adhered to the "Wagon Train" paradigm of the continuing journey, with the notable exception of the serialized Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Star Trek: Discovery , Star Trek: Picard , and the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise .
In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was Captain Robert April of the starship S.S. Yorktown . This character was developed into Captain Christopher Pike , first portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter . April is listed in the Star Trek Chronology , The Star Trek Encyclopedia , and at startrek.com as the Enterprise ' s first commanding officer, preceding Captain Pike. [6] [9] [10] The character's only television/movie appearance is in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode " The Counter-Clock Incident ". [11]
Development [ ]
In April 1964, Roddenberry presented the Star Trek draft to Desilu Productions, a leading independent television production company. [12] He met with Herbert F. Solow , Desilu's director of production. Solow saw promise in the idea and signed a three-year program-development contract with Roddenberry. [13] Lucille Ball , head of Desilu, was not familiar with the nature of the project, but she was instrumental in getting the pilot produced. [14]
The idea was extensively revised and fleshed out during this time—" The Cage " pilot filmed in late 1964 differs in many respects from the March 1964 treatment. Solow, for example, added the " stardate " concept. [13]
Desilu Productions had a first-look deal with CBS . [15] Oscar Katz, Desilu's Vice President of Production, went with Roddenberry to pitch the series to the network. [16] They refused to purchase the show, as they already had a similar show in development, the 1965 Irwin Allen series Lost in Space . [17]
In May 1964, Solow, who had previously worked at NBC , met with Grant Tinker , then head of the network's West Coast programming department. Tinker commissioned the first pilot—which became "The Cage". [12] [18] NBC turned down the resulting pilot, stating that it was "too cerebral". However, the NBC executives were still impressed with the concept, and they understood that its perceived faults had been partly because of the script that they had selected themselves. [7]
NBC made the unusual decision to pay for a second pilot, using the script called " Where No Man Has Gone Before ". Only the character of Spock , played by Leonard Nimoy , was retained from the first pilot, and only two cast members, Majel Barrett and Nimoy, were carried forward into the series. This second pilot proved to be satisfactory to NBC, and the network selected Star Trek to be in its upcoming television schedule for the fall of 1966.
The second pilot introduced most of the other main characters: Captain Kirk ( William Shatner ), Chief Engineer Lt. Commander Scott ( James Doohan ) and Lt. Sulu ( George Takei ), who served as a physicist on the ship in the second pilot, but subsequently became a helmsman throughout the rest of the series. Paul Fix played Dr. Mark Piper in the second pilot; ship's doctor Leonard McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ) joined the cast when filming began for the first season, and he remained for the rest of the series, achieving billing as the third star of the series. Also joining the ship's permanent crew during the first season were the communications officer, Lt. Nyota Uhura ( Nichelle Nichols ), the first African-American woman to hold such an important role in an American television series; [19] the Captain's yeoman , Janice Rand ( Grace Lee Whitney ), who departed midway through the first season; and Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett), the ship's nurse and assistant to McCoy. Walter Koenig joined the cast as Ensign Pavel Chekov in the series' second season.
In February 1966, before the first episode was aired, Star Trek was nearly cancelled by Desilu Productions. Desilu had gone from making just one half-hour show ( The Lucy Show ) to deficit-financing a portion of two expensive hour-long shows, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek . [20] Solow was able to convince Lucille Ball that both shows should continue. [15]
Production [ ]
Once the series had been picked up by NBC, the production moved to what was then Desilu Productions' Gower Street location. It had previously been the main studio complex used by RKO Pictures , and is now part of the Paramount Pictures lot. The series used what are now stages 31 and 32. [15] The show's production staff included art director Matt Jefferies , who designed the starship Enterprise and most of its interiors. [21] His contributions to the series were honored in the name of the " Jefferies tube ", an equipment shaft depicted in various Star Trek series. In addition to working with his brother, John Jefferies, to create the hand-held phaser weapons of Star Trek , Jefferies also developed the set design for the bridge of the Enterprise (which was based on an earlier design by Pato Guzman ). Jefferies used his practical experience as an airman during World War II and his knowledge of aircraft design to devise a sleek, functional, and ergonomic bridge layout.
The costume designer for Star Trek , Bill Theiss , created the striking look of the Starfleet uniforms for the Enterprise , the costumes for female guest stars, and for various aliens , including the Klingons , Vulcans , Romulans , Tellarites , Andorians , and Gideonites, among others.
Artist and sculptor Wah Chang , who had worked for Walt Disney Productions , was hired to design and manufacture props: he created the flip-open communicator, often credited as having influenced the configuration of the portable version of the cellular telephone . [22] Chang also designed the portable sensing-recording-computing "tricorder" device, and various fictitious devices for the starship's engineering crew and its sick bay. As the series progressed, he helped to create various memorable aliens, such as the Gorn and the Horta .
Season 1 (1966–1967) [ ]
NBC ordered 16 episodes of Star Trek , besides "Where No Man Has Gone Before". [23] The first regular episode of Star Trek , " The Man Trap ", [24] aired on Thursday, September 8, 1966, from 8:30 to 9:30 as part of an NBC "sneak preview" block. Reviews were mixed; while The Philadelphia Inquirer and San Francisco Chronicle liked the new show, The New York Times and The Boston Globe were less favorable, and Variety predicted that it "won't work", calling it "an incredible and dreary mess of confusion and complexities". [25] Debuting against mostly reruns, Star Trek easily won its time slot with a 40.6 share. [26] The following week against new programming, however, the show fell to second (29.4 share) behind CBS. It ranked 33rd (out of 94 programs) over the next two weeks, then the following two episodes ranked 51st in the ratings. [27] [28]
Frederik Pohl , editor of Galaxy Science Fiction , wrote in February 1967 of his amazement that Star Trek ' s "regular shows were just as good" as the early episodes that won an award at Tricon in September. Believing that the show would soon be canceled because of low ratings, he lamented that it "made the mistake of appealing to a comparatively literate group", and urged readers to write letters to help save the show. [30] Star Trek ' s first-season ratings would in earlier years likely have caused NBC to cancel the show. The network had pioneered research into viewers' demographic profiles in the early 1960s, however, and by 1967, it and other networks increasingly considered such data when making decisions; for example, CBS temporarily cancelled Gunsmoke that year because it had too many older and too few younger viewers. Although Roddenberry later claimed that NBC was unaware of Star Trek ' s favorable demographics, [31] awareness of Star Trek ' s "quality" audience is what likely caused the network to retain the show after the first and second seasons. [32] NBC instead decided to order 10 more new episodes for the first season, and order a second season in March 1967. [33] The network originally announced that the show would air at 7:30–8:30 pm Tuesday, but it was instead given an 8:30–9:30 pm Friday slot when the 1967–68 NBC schedule was released, [34] making watching it difficult for the young viewers that the show most attracted.
Season 2 (1967–1968) [ ]
Star Trek ' s ratings continued to decline during the second season. Although Shatner expected the show to end after two seasons and began to prepare for other projects, NBC nonetheless may have never seriously considered canceling the show. [35] As early as January 1968, the Associated Press reported that Star Trek ' s chances for renewal for a third season were "excellent". The show had better ratings for NBC than ABC's competing Hondo , and the competing CBS programs (number-three Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and the first half-hour of the number-12 CBS Friday Night Movie ) were in the top 15 in the Nielsen ratings. [36] Again, demographics helped Star Trek survive. Contrary to popular belief among its fans, the show did not have a larger audience of young viewers than its competition while on NBC. The network's research did indicate that Star Trek had a "quality audience" including "upper-income, better-educated males", however, and other NBC shows had lower overall ratings. [37]
The enthusiasm of Star Trek ' s viewers surprised NBC. The show was unusual in its serious discussion of contemporary societal issues in a futuristic context, unlike Lost in Space , which was more campy in nature. [38] The network had already received 29,000 fan letters for the show during its first season, more than for any other except The Monkees . When rumors spread in late 1967 that Star Trek was at risk of cancellation, Roddenberry secretly began and funded an effort by Bjo Trimble , her husband John, and other fans to persuade tens of thousands of viewers to write letters of support to save the program. [39] [40] [41] Using the 4,000 names on a mailing list for a science-fiction convention, the Trimbles asked fans to write to NBC and ask 10 others to also do so. [42] NBC received almost 116,000 letters for the show between December 1967 and March 1968, including more than 52,000 in February alone; [43] [44] according to an NBC executive, the network received more than one million pieces of mail but only disclosed the 116,000 figure. Newspaper columnists encouraged readers to write letters to help save what one called "the best science-fiction show on the air". [45] More than 200 Caltech students marched to NBC's Burbank, California studio to support Star Trek in January 1968, carrying signs such as " Draft Spock" and " Vulcan Power ". [46] Berkeley and MIT students organized similar protests in San Francisco and New York City.
The letters supporting Star Trek , whose authors included New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller , were different in both quantity and quality from most mail that television networks receive:
The show, according to the 6,000 letters it draws a week (more than any other in television), is watched by scientists, museum curators, psychiatrists, doctors, university professors, and other highbrows. The Smithsonian Institution asked for a print of the show for its archives, the only show so honored.
In addition:
Much of the mail came from doctors, scientists, teachers, and other professional people, and was for the most part literate–and written on good stationery. And if there is anything a network wants almost as much as a high Nielsen ratings, it is the prestige of a show that appeals to the upper middle class and high-brow audiences. [47]
NBC—which used such anecdotes in much of its publicity for the show—made the unusual decision to announce on television, after the episode " The Omega Glory " on March 1, 1968, that the series had been renewed. [48] The announcement implied a request to stop writing—NBC's policy of replying to each viewer mail meant that the campaign cost the network millions of dollars—but instead caused fans to send letters of thanks in similar numbers. [49]
Season 3 (1968–1969) [ ]
NBC at first planned to move Star Trek to Mondays for the show's third season, likely in hopes of increasing its audience after the enormous letter campaign that surprised the network. In March 1968, though, NBC instead moved the show to 10:00 pm Friday night , an hour undesirable for its younger audience, [50] so as not to conflict with the highly successful Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In on Monday evenings, [51] from whose time slot Laugh-In producer George Schlatter had angrily demanded it not be rescheduled. In addition to the undesirable time slot, Star Trek was now being seen on only 181 of NBC's 210 affiliates. [52]
Roddenberry was frustrated, and complained, "If the network wants to kill us, it couldn't make a better move." He attempted to persuade NBC to give Star Trek a better day and hour, but was not successful. As a result of this and his own growing exhaustion, he chose to withdraw from the stress of the daily production of Star Trek , though he remained nominally in charge as its "executive producer". [53] Roddenberry reduced his direct involvement in Star Trek before the start of the 1968–69 television season, and was replaced by Fred Freiberger as the producer of the television series. NBC next reduced Star Trek's budget from $185,000 per episode in season 2 (it was $190,000 per episode in season 1) to $175,000 per episode in season 3 (as the per-minute commercial price had dropped from $39,000 to $36,000 compared to the season-two time slot). [54] This caused what some perceive as a decline in quality for the 1968–69 season, although there was a trade off in some lower production costs since the special effects technology had improved over time. By season 3 William Shatner felt that the main characters had become more compromised or exaggerated and the story lines more improbable. [55] Leonard Nimoy felt that financial concerns dominated [56] Associate Producer Bob Justman, who left during the third season, said budget cuts caused the crew to become necessarily limited in the type of filming that could be done, such as outdoor work, [57] with only one episode, "The Paradise Syndrome", shot largely outdoors. Nichelle Nichols described the budget-cutting during the final year as an intentional effort to kill off Star Trek :
While NBC paid lip service to expanding Star Trek ' s audience, it [now] slashed our production budget until it was actually 10% lower than it had been in our first season ... This is why in the third season you saw fewer outdoor location shots, for example. Top writers, top guest stars, top anything you needed was harder to come by. Thus, Star Trek's demise became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I can assure you, that is exactly as it was meant to be. [58]
The last day of filming for Star Trek was January 9, 1969, and after 79 episodes [59] NBC canceled the show in February despite fans' attempt at another letter-writing campaign. One newspaper columnist advised a protesting viewer:
You Star Trek fans have fought the "good fight", but the show has been canceled and there's nothing to be done now. [60]
In 2011, the decision to cancel Star Trek by NBC was ranked number four on the TV Guide Network special, 25 Biggest TV Blunders 2 .
Syndication [ ]
Although some of the third season's episodes were considered of poorer quality, it gave Star Trek enough episodes for television syndication . [61] Most shows require at least four seasons for syndication, because otherwise not enough episodes are available for daily stripping . Kaiser Broadcasting , however, purchased syndication rights for Star Trek during the first season for its stations in several large cities. The company arranged the unusual deal because it saw the show as effective counterprogramming against the Big Three networks ' 6 pm evening news programs. [62] Paramount began advertising the reruns in trade press in March 1969; [63] as Kaiser's ratings were good, other stations, such as WPIX in New York City and WKBS in Philadelphia, also purchased the episodes [64] for similar counter-programming.
Through syndication, Star Trek found a larger audience than it had on NBC, becoming a cult classic. Airing the show in the late afternoon or early evening attracted many new viewers, often young. By 1970, Paramount's trade advertisements claimed that the show had significantly improved its stations' ratings, and the Los Angeles Times commented on Star Trek ' s ability to "acquire the most enviable ratings in the syndication field". By 1972, what the Associated Press described as "the show that won't die" aired in more than 100 American cities and 60 other countries; and more than 3,000 fans attended the first Star Trek convention in New York City in January 1972. [65] [66]
Fans of the show became increasingly organized, gathering at conventions to trade merchandise, meet actors from the show, and watch screenings of old episodes. Such fans came to be known as " trekkies ", who were noted (and often ridiculed) for their extreme devotion to the show and their encyclopedic knowledge of every episode. [68] Because fans enjoyed re-watching each episode many times, prices for Star Trek rose over time, instead of falling like other syndicated reruns. [69] [70] [71] [72] People magazine commented in 1977 that the show "threatens to rerun until the universe crawls back into its little black hole". [73] By 1986, 17 years after entering syndication, Star Trek was the most popular syndicated series; [74] by 1987, Paramount made $1 million from each episode and by 1994, the reruns still aired in 94% of the United States. [75]
From September 1 to December 24, 1998, the Sci-Fi Channel broadcast a "Special Edition" of all the original series episodes in an expanded 90-minute format hosted by William Shatner. Now titled Star Trek: The Original Series , these broadcasts restored scenes that had been edited out of the syndicated episodes. In addition to introductory and post-episode commentary by Shatner, the episodes included interviews with members of the regular production team and cast, writers, guest stars, and critics (titled as " Star Trek Insights"). The episodes were broadcast in the original broadcast sequence, followed by "The Cage", to which a full 105-minute segment was devoted. (For details on each episode's original airdate, see List of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes .) Leonard Nimoy hosted a second run from December 28, 1998 to March 24, 1999, but not all the episodes were broadcast because the show was abruptly canceled before completion.
Remastered edition [ ]
In September 2006, CBS Domestic Television (now known as CBS Media Ventures , the current rights holders for the Star Trek television franchises) began syndication of an enhanced version of Star Trek: The Original Series in high definition with new CGI visual effects. [76]
Under the direction of Star Trek producer David Rossi, who consulted with Mike and Denise Okuda, the visual and special effects were recreated to give Star Trek: The Original Series a more modern look. Special attention was given to such elements as the Enterprise , alien planets and their images depicted from space, planets seen from orbit, alien spacecraft, and technology such as computer readouts, viewscreen images, and phaser beams.
The restoration and enhancement was performed by CBS Digital . All live-action footage was scanned in high definition from its first-generation 35 mm film elements. While it was possible to retouch and remaster some visual effects, all new exterior ship, space, and planet shots were recreated under the supervision of Niel Wray, a recent visual-effects Emmy nominee.
As noted in the "making of" DVD feature, first-generation "original camera negatives" were used for all live-action footage, but not for external shots of the ship and planets. Notable changes include new space shots with a CGI Enterprise , and other new models (for example, a Gorn ship is shown in " Arena "), redone matte background shots, and other minor touches such as tidying up viewscreens.
A small number of scenes were also recomposed, and sometimes new actors were placed into the background of shots. [77] The opening theme music was also re-recorded in digital stereo.
The first episode to be released to syndication was " Balance of Terror " on the weekend of September 16, 2006. Episodes were released at the rate of about one a week and broadcast in a 4:3 aspect ratio. Despite the HD remastering, CBS chose to deliver the broadcast syndication package in Standard Definition (SD TV) . The HD format was made commercially available through Blu-ray , or by streaming and download such as iTunes, Netflix , and Xbox Live . [78]
While the CGI shots were mastered in a 16:9 aspect ratio for future applications, they were initially broadcast in the U.S. and Canada—along with the live-action footage—in a 4:3 aspect ratio to respect the show's original composition. If the producers were to choose to reformat the entire show for the 16:9 ratio, live-action footage would be cropped, significantly reducing the height of the original image.
On July 26, 2007, CBS Home Entertainment (with distribution by Paramount Home Entertainment) announced that the remastered episodes of TOS would be released on an HD DVD /DVD hybrid format. Season one was released on November 20, 2007. Season two had been scheduled for release in the summer of 2008, but it was cancelled when Toshiba (which had been helping finance the remastering of the show) pulled out of the HD DVD business. [79] On August 5, 2008, the remastered season two was released on DVD only. [80] For this release, CBS and Paramount used discs without any disc art, making them look like the "Season 1 Remastered" HD DVD/DVD combo discs, despite having content only on one side. Season 3 was released on DVD only on November 18, 2008. [81] On February 17, 2009, Paramount announced the season one of TOS on Blu-ray Disc for a May release to coincide with the new feature film coming from Paramount. [82] The second season was released in a seven disc set on Blu-ray in the U.S. on September 22, 2009. [83] The third season was released on Blu-ray in the U.S. on December 15. [84] With the release of the "Alternate Realities" box set, remastered Original Series episodes were included in a multi-series compilation for the first time. If future compilation releases would exclusively use the remastered episodes or not was unknown. [85]
In regions two and four, all three seasons of the remastered Original Series became available on DVD in the slimline edition (in the UK and Germany in steelbook editions) on April 27, 2009, as well as the first season in Blu-ray.
While still casting the roles, Gene Roddenberry did not mandate Bones McCoy and Spock be male. According to Nichelle Nichols, "They gave me a three-page script to read from that had three characters named Bones, Kirk and somebody called Spock, and they asked me if I would read for the role of Spock. When I looked at this great text, I said to myself, 'I'll take any one of these roles,' but I found the Spock character to be very interesting, and I asked them to tell me what she [Spock] was like." [86]
It was intended that Sulu's role be expanded in the second season, but owing to Takei's part in John Wayne's The Green Berets , he appeared in only half the season, his role being filled by Walter Koenig as the relatively young, mop-topped Russian navigator Ensign Pavel Chekov . When Takei returned, the two had to share a dressing room. [87] The two appeared together at the Enterprise helm for the remainder of the series. There may be some truth to the unofficial story that the Soviet Union 's newspaper Pravda complained that among the culturally diverse characters there were no Russians, seen as a personal slight to that country since the Soviet Russian Yuri Gagarin had been the first man to make a spaceflight. Gene Roddenberry said in response that "The Chekov thing was a major error on our part, and I'm still embarrassed by the fact we didn't include a Russian right from the beginning." [7] However, documentation from Desilu suggests that the intention was to introduce a character into Star Trek with more sex appeal to teenaged girls. [7] Walter Koenig noted in the 2006 40th anniversary special of Star Trek: The Original Series that he doubted the rumor about Pravda , since Star Trek had never been shown on Soviet television. It has also been claimed that the former member of The Monkees , Davy Jones , was the model for Mr. Chekov. [88]
In addition, the series frequently included characters (usually security personnel wearing red uniforms) who are killed or injured soon after their introduction. So prevalent was this plot device that it inspired the term " redshirt " to denote a stock character whose sole purpose is to die violently in order to show the danger facing the main characters.
Characterizations [ ]
Star Trek made celebrities of its cast of largely unknown actors. Kelley had appeared in many films and television shows, but mostly in smaller roles that showcased him as a villain. Nimoy also had previous television and film experience but was not well known either. Nimoy had partnered previously with Shatner in a 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. , "The Project Strigas Affair," and with Kelley (as a doctor) in a 1963 episode of The Virginian , "Man of Violence," both more than two years before Star Trek first aired. Before Star Trek , Shatner was well known in the trade, having appeared in several notable films, played Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway, and even turned down the part of Dr. Kildare . However, when roles became sparse he took the regular job after Jeffrey Hunter's contract was not renewed.
After the original series ended, cast members found themselves typecast because of their defining roles in the show. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Michael Dorn stated in 1991, however: "If what happened to the first cast is called being typecast, then I want to be typecast. Of course, they didn't get the jobs after Trek . But they are making their sixth movie. Name me someone else in television who has made six movies!")
The three main characters were Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, with writers often playing the different personalities off each other: Kirk was passionate and often aggressive, but with a sly sense of humor; Spock was coolly logical; and McCoy was sardonic, emotional, and illogical, but always compassionate. In many stories the three clashed, with Kirk forced to make a tough decision while Spock advocated the logical but sometimes callous path and McCoy (or "Bones", as Kirk nicknamed him) insisted on doing whatever would cause the least harm. McCoy and Spock had a sparring relationship that masked their true affection and respect for each other, and their constant arguments became popular with viewers. [89] The show so emphasized dialogue that writer and director Nicholas Meyer (involved with the Star Trek films) called it a radio drama , playing an episode for a film class without video to prove that the plot was still comprehensible.
The Spock character was at first rejected by network executives, who were apprehensive that his vaguely "Satanic" appearance (with pointed ears and eyebrows) might prove upsetting to some viewers, and (according to Leonard Nimoy) they repeatedly urged Roddenberry to "drop the Martian." Roddenberry was also dismayed to discover that NBC's publicity department deliberately airbrushed out Spock's pointed ears and eyebrows from early publicity stills sent to network affiliates, because they feared that his "demonic" appearance might offend potential buyers in the religiously conservative southern states. Spock, however, went on to become one of the most popular characters on the show, as did McCoy's impassioned country-doctor personality. Spock, in fact, became a sex symbol of sorts [90] —something no one connected with the show had expected. Leonard Nimoy noted that the question of Spock's extraordinary sex appeal emerged "almost any time I talked to someone in the press ... I never give it a thought ... to try to deal with the question of Mr. Spock as a sex symbol is silly." [91]
Characters' cameo appearances in later series [ ]
The sequel to the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation , which premiered in 1987, was set about 100 years after the events of TOS . As that show and its spin-offs progressed, several TOS actors made appearances reprising their original characters:
- James Kirk disappears in 2293 during the maiden voyage of the Enterprise -B as seen in the film Star Trek: Generations . However, now chronologically 138 years old, but still only physically 60 years old Kirk is recovered after spending 78 years in The Nexus , an alternative plane of existence, by Enterprise -D Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the same film. Kirk's time in the 24th century is short however; he is killed while helping to defeat Dr. Tolian Soran .
- Spock, now a Vulcan ambassador, goes underground in the Romulan Empire in hopes of fostering peaceful coexistence with the Federation and reunification with Vulcan society (" Unification, Parts I and II "). He also appears in the 2009 reboot film where his science vessel originated from the 24th century–era of TNG. He ends up stranded in the 23rd century of the film series, where he settles on new Vulcan; in the sequel film Star Trek Into Darkness , he is contacted by his younger self regarding the villainous Khan Noonien Singh . While not appearing in Star Trek Beyond , it is mentioned in the film that the character has died, as an homage to the real-life passing of actor Leonard Nimoy .
- Leonard "Bones" McCoy, now a crusty 137-year-old admiral and head of Starfleet's Medical Division, inspects the Enterprise -D before her first mission in " Encounter at Farpoint ," briefly meeting the android officer Lt. Cdr. Data , telling him, "Well, this is a new ship. But she's got the right name. Now, you remember that, you hear? ... You treat her like a lady, and she'll always bring you home."
- Montgomery Scott, now chronologically 147 years old, but still only physically 72 years old after spending 75 years trapped in a transporter buffer, is rescued by the Enterprise -D crew and resumes his life in " Relics ." Working along with Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge , Scotty uses some creative engineering to save the Enterprise . A grateful Captain Picard lends him a shuttlecraft indefinitely.
- Sarek , Spock's father, continues to be an ambassador for the next century until his final mission during which he and Captain Picard mind-meld together because Sarek shows signs of Bendii Syndrome ("Sarek"). He later dies suffering from this affliction, but not before giving Captain Picard key information for locating his missing son ("Unification").
- Kang , Koloth , and Kor , the three Klingons featured in " Day of the Dove " (Kang), " The Trouble with Tribbles " (Koloth) and " Errand of Mercy " (Kor), continue to serve the Empire well into the 24th century. They appear in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Blood Oath " in which Kang and Koloth are killed. Kor later appears in two more episodes: " The Sword of Kahless " and finally in " Once More Unto the Breach " where, fighting in the Dominion War, he dies honorably in battle. A younger version of Kang, from the era of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , later appears in the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Flashback ".
- Hikaru Sulu , promoted to captain of the USS Excelsior in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , reprises his role from that performance in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback". Janice Rand also appears in that same episode.
- Arne Darvin , the Klingon disguised as a human in " The Trouble with Tribbles ", appears in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Trials and Tribble-ations " with the intent to return to Deep Space Station K7 in 2267 and assassinate Kirk, whom Darvin blamed for his disgrace in the Klingon Empire.
Besides the above examples, numerous non-canon novels and comic books have been published over the years in which The Original Series era crew are depicted in The Next Generation era, either through time-travel or other means. In addition, many actors who appeared on The Original Series later made guest appearances as different characters in later series, most notably Majel Barrett , who not only provided the voice for most Starfleet computers in episodes of every spin-off series (including a single appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise , where the computers normally did not speak at all), but also had the recurring role of Lwaxana Troi in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine . Diana Muldaur , a guest star in the episodes " Return to Tomorrow " and " Is There in Truth No Beauty? " of the original Star Trek series, played series regular Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation .
Notable guest appearances [ ]
Guest roles on the series have featured actors such as:
- Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman in " Where No Man Has Gone Before ";
- Diana Muldaur in " Return to Tomorrow " and " Is There in Truth No Beauty? " (Muldaur also appeared throughout the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation as the Enterprise-D's chief medical officer, Dr. Pulaski);
- Ricardo Montalbán as Khan Noonien Singh in " Space Seed ". He then reprised the role in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ;
- Madlyn Rhue as Lieutenant Marla McGivers in " Space Seed ".
- Michael Ansara as Klingon commander Kang in " Day of the Dove ", reprising the role in the Deep Space Nine episode "Blood Oath" and the Voyager episode "Flashback";
- William Marshall in " The Ultimate Computer ";
- Julie Newmar in " Friday's Child ";
- Kim Darby and Michael J. Pollard in " Miri ";
- Robert Lansing and Teri Garr in " Assignment: Earth ";
- William Windom in " The Doomsday Machine ";
- John Colicos as the Klingon Commander Kor in " Errand of Mercy ," reprising the role in three episodes of Deep Space Nine ;
- Robert Walker Jr. in " Charlie X ";
- Lee Meriwether in " That Which Survives ";
- Roger C. Carmel and Karen Steele in " Mudd's Women ". Carmel returned in " I, Mudd ";
- France Nuyen in " Elaan of Troyius ," possibly the first Vietnamese actress to appear on American television; [92]
- Mark Lenard , the only actor to play members of three major non-human races, as the Romulan commander in " Balance of Terror ," the Klingon Commander in Star Trek: The Motion Picture , and most notably as Spock's father Sarek in " Journey to Babel ," reprising this role in the films Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , as well as in the TNG episodes "Sarek" and "Unification, Part 1";
- Jane Wyatt as Spock's mother Amanda Grayson in " Journey to Babel ," reprising the role in the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ;
- Glenn Corbett and Elinor Donahue in " Metamorphosis ";
- Elisha Cook Jr. and Joan Marshall in " Court Martial ";
- Nancy Kovack in " A Private Little War ";
- Vic Tayback in " A Piece of the Action ";
- Jeff Corey and Fred Williamson in " The Cloud Minders ";
- Barbara Bouchet and Warren Stevens in " By Any Other Name ";
- Michael Forest and Leslie Parrish in " Who Mourns for Adonais? ";
- Charles Napier in " The Way to Eden ";
- Frank Gorshin and Lou Antonio in " Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ";
- Ted Cassidy and Sherry Jackson in " What Are Little Girls Made Of? "; Cassidy also appeared as the barbarian warrior in the original pilot The Cage , voiced the Balok mannequin in The Corbomite Maneuver , and voiced the Gorn in Arena ;
- Mariette Hartley in " All Our Yesterdays ";
- Joan Collins in " The City on the Edge of Forever ";
- Celia Lovsky and Arlene Martel in " Amok Time ";
- David Soul in " The Apple ";
- James Gregory in " Dagger of the Mind ";
- Barbara Anderson in " The Conscience of the King ";
- James Daly in " Requiem for Methuselah ";
- Jill Ireland in " This Side of Paradise ";
- Melvin Belli and Pamelyn Ferdin in " And the Children Shall Lead ";
- Keye Luke , Yvonne Craig and Steve Ihnat in " Whom Gods Destroy ";
- Michael Dunn and Barbara Babcock in " Plato's Stepchildren ";
- Clint Howard in " The Corbomite Maneuver ";
- Barbara Luna in " Mirror, Mirror ";
- David Opatoshu in " A Taste of Armageddon ";
- Barbara Babcock in " A Taste of Armageddon " and " Plato's Stepchildren ". Her voice was also heard in "The Squire of Gothos", "Assignment: Earth", "The Tholian Web" and "The Lights of Zetar".
- Morgan Woodward in " Dagger of the Mind " and " The Omega Glory ";
- Arnold Moss as mysterious actor Anton Karidian, who proves to have originally been the tyrannical Governor Kodos of Tarsus IV in " The Conscience of the King ";
- Marianna Hill in " Dagger of the Mind ";
- Joanne Linville in " The Enterprise Incident ";
- Louise Sorel in " Requiem for Methuselah ";
- John Fiedler in " Wolf in the Fold ;"
- Vic Perrin in "Mirror, Mirror." His voice was also heard in "The Menagerie", "Arena" and "The Changeling".
- Susan Oliver , Jeffrey Hunter and Malachi Throne in " The Menagerie ". Malachi Throne also voiced the main Talosian Keeper, with the voice modified so as not to be heard to be the same as the other character he played, Commodore Mendez.
- Antoinette Bower in " Catspaw ".
- Angelique Pettyjohn in " Gamesters of Triskelion ".
Episodes [ ]
Main: List of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes
Broadcast history [ ]
Episode analysis [ ].
In its writing, Star Trek is notable as one of the earliest science-fiction TV series to use the services of leading contemporary science fiction writers, such as Robert Bloch , Norman Spinrad , Harlan Ellison , and Theodore Sturgeon , as well as established television writers.
Roddenberry often used the setting of a space vessel set many years in the future to comment on social issues of 1960s America, including sexism, racism, nationalism, and global war. Template:R In November 1968, just a few months after the first televised interracial touch , the episode " Plato's Stepchildren " went incorrectly [93] down in history as the first American television show to feature a scripted interracial kiss between characters (Capt. Kirk and Lt. Uhura), although the kiss was only mimed (obscured by the back of a character's head) and depicted as involuntary. [94] Though there is some dispute to this being the first interracial kiss of the series because the 1967 episode, " Space Seed " – introducing reoccurring villain Khan ( Ricardo Montalbán ) – has him seducing and kissing Lt. Marla McGivers ( Madlyn Rhue ) as part of his malicious machinations. " Let That Be Your Last Battlefield " presented a direct allegory about the irrationality and futility of racism. Anti-war themes appear in episodes such as " The Doomsday Machine ", depicting a planet-destroying weapon as an analogy to nuclear weapons deployed under the principle of mutually assured destruction , and " A Taste of Armageddon " about a society which has "civilized" war to the point that they no longer see it as something to avoid.
Episodes such as " The Apple ", " Who Mourns for Adonais? ", " The Mark of Gideon " and " The Return of the Archons " display subtle anti-religious (owing mainly to Roddenberry's own secular humanism ) and anti-establishment themes. " Bread and Circuses " and " The Omega Glory " have themes that are more pro-Christian or patriotic. Template:Original research inline
The show experienced network and/or sponsor interference, up to and including wholesale censorship of scripts and film footage. This was a regular occurrence in the 1960s and Star Trek suffered from its fair share of tampering. Scripts were routinely vetted and censored by the staff of NBC's Broadcast Standards Department, which copiously annotated every script with demands for cuts or changes (e.g. "Page 4: Please delete McCoy's expletive, 'Good Lord Template:'" or "Page 43: Caution on the embrace; avoid open-mouthed kiss"). [95]
The series was noted for its sense of humor, such as Spock and McCoy's pointed, yet friendly, bickering. Certain episodes, such as " The Trouble with Tribbles ", " I, Mudd " and "A Piece of the Action" , were written and staged as comedies with dramatic elements. Most episodes were presented as action/adventure dramas, frequently including space battles or fist fights between the ship's crew and guest antagonists.
Several episodes used the concept of planets developing parallel to Earth, allowing reuse of stock props, costumes and sets. "Bread and Circuses", " Miri " and "The Omega Glory" depict such worlds; "A Piece of the Action", "Patterns of Force" and "Plato's Stepchildren" are based on alien planets that have adopted period Earth cultures (Prohibition-era Chicago, Nazi Germany and ancient Greece, respectively). Two episodes depicting time travel (" Tomorrow Is Yesterday " and " Assignment: Earth ") conveniently place Enterprise in orbit above 1960s Earth; a third (" The City on the Edge of Forever ") places members of the crew on 1930s Earth.
Top ranked episodes [ ]
Several publications have ranked the ten best episodes of Star Trek :
Of the seventeen episodes listed above, ten – "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Enemy Within", "The Naked Time", "Balance of Terror", "The Galileo Seven", "Arena", "Space Seed", "This Side of Paradise", "The Devil in the Dark", and "The City on the Edge of Forever" – are from the first season and five – "Amok Time", "The Doomsday Machine", "Mirror, Mirror", "The Trouble with Tribbles", and "Journey to Babel" – are from the second season. Only two – "The Enterprise Incident" and "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" – derive from the third season.
Leonard Nimoy: Star Trek Memories [ ]
In 1983, Leonard Nimoy hosted a one-hour special as a promotional tie-in with the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , in which he recounted his memories of working on the original series and explained the origins of things such as the Vulcan nerve pinch and the Vulcan salute , as well as a re-airing of the TOS episode " Space Seed ". [101]
Theme tune [ ]
The show's theme tune, immediately recognizable by many, was written by Alexander Courage , and has been featured in several Star Trek spin-off episodes and motion pictures. Gene Roddenberry subsequently wrote a set of accompanying lyrics, even though the lyrics were never used in the series, nor did Roddenberry ever intend them to be; this allowed him to claim co-composer credit and hence 50% of the theme's performance royalties. Courage considered Roddenberry's actions, while entirely legal, to be unethical. [102] Series producer Robert Justman noted in the book Inside Star Trek The Real Story , that work on the film Doctor Dolittle kept Courage from working on more than two episodes of the first season. However, Justman also believed that Courage lost enthusiasm for the series because of the "royalty" issue. [40] Courage did not score any episodes of the second season; however, he did conduct a recording session for about 30 minutes of "library cues" for the second season, on June 16, 1967. [103] Courage returned to score two episodes of the third season.
Later episodes used stock recordings from Courage's earlier work. Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson recorded a jazz fusion version of the tune with his band during the late 1970s, and Nichelle Nichols performed the song live complete with lyrics.
The lyrics for the song are:
Beyond the rim of the starlight My love is wandering in star flight I know he'll find In star clustered reaches Love, strange love A starwoman teaches I know his journey ends never His Star Trek will go on forever But tell him while He wanders his starry sea Remember Remember me
[104] }}
Dramatic underscore [ ]
For budgetary reasons, this series made significant use of "tracked" music, or music written for other episodes that was reused in later episodes. Of the 79 episodes that were broadcast, only 31 had complete or partial original dramatic underscores created specifically for them. The remainder of the music in any episode was tracked from other episodes and from cues recorded for the music library. Which episodes would have new music was mostly the decision of Robert H. Justman, the Associate Producer during the first two seasons.
Screen credits for the composers were given based on the amount of music composed for, or composed and reused in, the episode. Some of these final music credits were occasionally incorrect.
Beyond the short works of "source" music (music whose source is seen or acknowledged onscreen) created for specific episodes, eight composers were contracted to create original dramatic underscore during the series run: Alexander Courage , George Duning , Jerry Fielding , Gerald Fried , Sol Kaplan , Samuel Matlovsky, Joseph Mullendore, and Fred Steiner . The composers conducted their own music. Of these composers, Steiner composed the original music for thirteen episodes and it is his instrumental arrangement of Alexander Courage's main theme that is heard over many of the end title credits of the series.
The tracked musical underscores were chosen and edited to the episode by the music editors, principal of whom were Robert Raff (most of Season One), Jim Henrikson (Season One and Two), and Richard Lapham (Season Three). [105]
Some of the original recordings of the music were released in the United States commercially on the GNP Crescendo Record Co. label. Music for a number of the episodes was re-recorded by Fred Steiner and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the Varèse Sarabande label; and by Tony Bremner with the Royal Philharmonic for the Label X label. Finally in December 2012, the complete original recordings were released by La-La Land Records as a 15-CD box set , with liner notes by Jeff Bond. [106]
Episodes with original music [ ]
Listed in production order. Episodes that were only partially scored are in italics. [107]
- "The Cage" ( Alexander Courage )
- "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (Alexander Courage)
- "The Corbomite Maneuver" ( Fred Steiner )
- "Mudd's Women" (Fred Steiner)
- "The Enemy Within" ( Sol Kaplan )
- "The Man Trap" (Alexander Courage)
- "The Naked Time" (Alexander Courage)
- "Charlie X" (Fred Steiner)
- "Balance of Terror" (Fred Steiner)
- "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (Fred Steiner)
- "The Conscience of the King" (Joseph Mullendore)
- "Shore Leave" ( Gerald Fried )
- "The City on the Edge of Forever" (Fred Steiner)
- "Catspaw" (Gerald Fried)
- "Metamorphosis" ( George Duning )
- "Friday's Child" (Gerald Fried)
- "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (Fred Steiner)
- "Amok Time" (Gerald Fried)
- "The Doomsday Machine" (Sol Kaplan)
- "Mirror, Mirror" (Fred Steiner)
- "I, Mudd" (Samuel Matlovsky)
- "The Trouble with Tribbles" ( Jerry Fielding )
- "By Any Other Name" (Fred Steiner)
- "Patterns of Force" (George Duning)
- "The Omega Glory" (Fred Steiner)
- "Return to Tomorrow" (George Duning)
- "Spectre of the Gun" (Jerry Fielding)
- "Elaan of Troyius" (Fred Steiner)
- "The Paradise Syndrome" (Gerald Fried)
- "The Enterprise Incident" (Alexander Courage)
- "And the Children Shall Lead" (George Duning)
- "Spock's Brain" (Fred Steiner)
- "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (George Duning)
- "The Empath" (George Duning)
- "Plato's Stepchildren" (Alexander Courage)
Note : Although "The Way to Eden" had no original score, the episode had special musical material by Arthur Heinemann (the episode's writer), guest star Charles Napier and Craig Robertson. "Requiem for Methuselah" contains a Johannes Brahms interpretation by Ivan Ditmars.
Although this series never won any Emmys, Star Trek was nominated for the following Emmy Awards :
- Outstanding Dramatic Series (Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon ), 1967
- Outstanding Dramatic Series (Gene Roddenberry), 1968
- Outstanding Supporting Actor ( Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock), 1967, 1968, 1969
- Individual Achievement in Art Direction and Allied Crafts (Jim Rugg), 1967
- Individual Achievement in Cinematography (Darrell Anderson, Linwood G. Dunn, and Joseph Westheimer), 1967
- Individual Achievement in Film and Sound Editing ( Doug Grindstaff ), 1967
- Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing (Donald R. Rode), 1968
- Special Classification of Individual Achievement for Photographic Effects (The Westheimer Company), 1968
- Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction and Scenic Design (John Dwyer and Walter M. Jefferies), 1969
- Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing (Donald R. Rode), 1969
- Special Classification Achievements for Photographic Effects (The Howard A. Anderson Company, The Westheimer Company, Van der Veer Photo Effects , Cinema Research), 1969.
Eight of its episodes were nominated for one of science-fiction's top awards, the Hugo Award , in the category "Best Dramatic Presentation". In 1967, the nominated episodes were " The Naked Time ", " The Corbomite Maneuver ", and " The Menagerie ". In 1968, all nominees were Star Trek episodes: " Amok Time ", " Mirror, Mirror ", " The Doomsday Machine ", " The Trouble with Tribbles ", and " The City on the Edge of Forever ". Star Trek won both years for the episodes "The Menagerie" and "The City on the Edge of Forever", respectively. In 1968, Star Trek (the TV show) won a special Hugo Award for Dramatic Presentation. No episode was named. This was the show's 3rd Hugo Award .
In 1967, Star Trek was also one of the first television programs to receive an NAACP Image Award .
In 1968, Star Trek ' s most critically acclaimed episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever," written by Harlan Ellison , won the prestigious Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Teleplay, although this was for Ellison's original draft script, and not for the screenplay of the episode as it aired.
In 1997, "The City on the Edge of Forever" was ranked #92 on TV Guide ' s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time . [108]
In 2004 and 2007, TV Guide ranked Star Trek as the greatest cult show ever. [109] [110]
In 2013, TV Guide ranked Star Trek as the greatest sci-fi show (along with Star Trek: The Next Generation ) and the #12 greatest show of all time.
Distribution [ ]
Home media [ ].
Episodes of the Original Series were among the first television series to be released on the VHS and laserdisc formats in North America. The first episode on VHS for sale to the public was Space Seed released in June 1982 (to celebrate the release of the second Star Trek film, The Wrath of Khan ) at a price of $29.95, as prior to this titles were rental only. [111] In 1985, the first 10 episodes went on sale on video at a price of $14.95 with further batches of 10 during 1985 and 1986, making it the first long-running TV series to be released on home video in its entirety, with all episodes eventually being released on both formats. By 1986, sales had reached 1 million units. [112] With the advent of DVD in the mid-1990s, single DVDs featuring two episodes each in production order were released. In the early 2000s, Paramount Home Video reissued the series to DVD in a series of three deluxe season boxes with added featurettes and documentaries. In February 2009 CBS and Paramount announced that they would release the Original Series on Blu-ray. Season one, two, and three were released on April 28, September 22, and December 15, respectively. The Blu-ray releases let the user choose between "Enhanced Effects" or "Original Effects" via a technique called multi-angle . [113]
All 79 episodes of the series have been digitally remastered by CBS Home Entertainment (distributed by Paramount ) and have since been released on DVD. CBS Home Entertainment released season one of The Original Series on Blu-ray on April 28, 2009. The Blu-ray release contains both Original and Remastered episodes by seamless branching .
Online distribution [ ]
CBS Interactive is presenting all 3 seasons of the series via the tv.com iPhone app . The full-length episodes, without the new CGI but digitally processed to remove the original celluloid artifacts, are available to users in the US at no charge but with embedded ads. Short clips from the shows are also viewable at their web site. [114] The company has recently presented all 3 seasons of the series via its Paramount+ premium streaming service. It has all full-length episodes, without the new CGI, like the tv.com app, and is available to users in the US with subscription without ad interruptions.
In January 2007, the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series became available for download from Apple 's iTunes Store . Although consumer reviews indicate that some of the episodes on iTunes are the newly "remastered" editions, iTunes editors had not indicated such, and if so, which are which. All first-season episodes that had been remastered and aired were available from iTunes, except " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", which remains in its original form. On March 20, 2007, the first season was again added to the iTunes Store, with separate downloads for the original and remastered versions of the show, though according to the customer reviews, the original version contains minor revisions such as special effect enhancements.
Netflix began online streaming of five of the six Star Trek television series on July 1, 2011; Deep Space Nine followed on October 1, 2011. [115]
The Original Series films Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first suggested the idea of a Star Trek feature in 1969. [116] When the original television series was canceled, he lobbied to continue the franchise through a film. The success of the series in syndication convinced the studio to begin work on a feature film in 1975. A series of writers attempted to craft a suitably epic screenplay, but the attempts did not satisfy Paramount, so the studio scrapped the project in 1977. Paramount instead planned on returning the franchise to its roots with a new television series ( Phase II ). The massive worldwide box office success of Star Wars in mid-1977 sent Hollywood studios to their vaults in search of similar sci-fi properties that could be adapted or re-launched to the big screen. Following the huge opening of Columbia 's Close Encounters of the Third Kind in late December 1977, production of Phase II was cancelled in favor of making a Star Trek film. [117] Beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, it was followed by five sequels, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). Leonard Nimoy directed Star Trek s III and IV, while William Shatner directed Star Trek V.
Reboot films (The Kelvin Timeline) After the poor reception of the final Next Generation film Nemesis and the cancellation of the television series Enterprise , the franchise's executive producer Rick Berman and screenwriter Erik Jendresen began developing a new film, [118] titled Star Trek: The Beginning , which would take place after Enterprise but before The Original Series . [119] In February 2007, J. J. Abrams accepted Paramount's offer to direct the new film, having been previously attached as producer. [120] Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman wrote a screenplay that impressed Abrams, featuring new actors portraying younger versions of the original series' cast. The Enterprise , its interior, and the original uniforms were redesigned.
This revival of the franchise is often considered to be a reboot , but is also a continuation of the franchise, with Nimoy reprising his role of the elderly Spock. This route was taken to free the new films from the restrictions of established continuity without completely discarding it, which the writers felt would have been "disrespectful". This new reality was informally referred to by several names, including the "Abramsverse", "JJ Trek" and "NuTrek", before it was named the "Kelvin Timeline" (versus the "Prime Timeline" of the original series and films) by Michael and Denise Okuda for use in official Star Trek reference guides and encyclopedias. The name Kelvin comes from the USS Kelvin , a starship involved in the event that creates the new reality in Star Trek (2009). [121] Abrams named the starship after his grandfather Henry Kelvin, whom he also pays tribute to in Into Darkness with the Kelvin Memorial Archive. [121] [122]
The three films in the Kelvin Timeline include Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek: Beyond (2016). The last was dedicated to Nimoy, who died in 2015 and Anton Yelchin , who died in a car crash in the summer it was released.
Merchandising [ ]
Star Trek: The Original Series has inspired many commercial products, including toys, comic books, and many other materials. The comics are generally considered non-canon .
Action figures [ ]
In the early 1970s the Mego Corporation acquired the license to produce Star Trek action figures , which the company successfully marketed from 1974 to 1976. During this period, the company produced a line of 8" figures featuring Captain Kirk , Mr. Spock , Leonard McCoy , Mr. Scott , Lt. Uhura , "Aliens" (a Klingon , a Neptunian , the Keeper , a Gorn , a Cheron , a Romulan , a Talosian , an Andorian , and a Mugato ), and numerous playsets. (Mego also produced a "life-size" toy tricorder .)
In the mid-2000s, Paul "Dr. Mego" Clarke and Joe Sena founded EMCE Toys (pronounced "MC") to bring Mego toys back to the marketplace. (Mego went out of business in 1983.) [123] Working with Diamond Select Toys , current holders of the Star Trek license, these figures have been selling in comics shops. New characters are currently being produced that Mego did not originally make, such as Lt. Sulu , Ensign Chekov , and " Space Seed " villain Khan Noonien Singh . The Gorn that Mego produced had a brown Lizard head (identical to the Marvel Comics villain) on a brown body wearing a Klingon outfit. Star Trek fans had frequently wished that Mego had made a "TV-accurate" Gorn; EMCE Toys and DST produced a new green Gorn based on the TV episode " Arena ". EMCE Toys hired original Mego packaging artist Harold Schull to illustrate new artwork for Sulu, Chekov, Khan, and the Gorn. EMCE Toys is continuing the Mego revival with the production of more Star Trek figures, including Captain Pike and the Salt Vampire .
Comic books [ ]
The first Star Trek comics were published by Gold Key Comics between 1967 and 1978. These comics were highly stylized and diverged wildly from the TV series continuity. Most storylines used in the Gold Key series featured original characters and concepts, although later issues did include sequels to the original series episodes " The City on the Edge of Forever ", " Metamorphosis " and " I, Mudd ". Writers included George Kashdan, Arnold Drake and Len Wein . Originally they were illustrated by Alberto Giolitti , an Italian artist who had never seen the series and only had publicity photos to use as references. Since Giolitti didn't have a publicity photo of James Doohan , early issues of the series had Mr. Scott drawn differently. The original issues, most of which featured photographic covers showing images from the series, are highly collectable. They are fondly remembered by fans, and a series of reprints ("The Key Collection") of these original titles began to appear in 2004, published by Checker . The Gold Key series had a run of 61 issues. Gold Key lost the Star Trek license to Marvel Comics in 1979 (although Marvel's license from Paramount prohibited them from utilizing concepts introduced in the original series). [124]
From 1969 to 1973, a series of weekly Star Trek comic strips ran in the British comics magazine eventually known as TV Century 21 . A total of 258 issues were produced, as well as various annuals and specials. All were original stories. Two more annuals, under the Mighty TV Comic banner, also produced original Star Trek materials. In addition, the weekly TV Comic reprinted serialized versions of the U.S. Gold Key comics. [125]
In 1977–1978, before home video was widely available, Mandala Productions and Bantam Books published FotoNovels of TOS that included direct adaptations of actual color television episode frames (with word balloons ) in comics format.
From February 1984 through February 1996, DC Comics held the license to publish comic books based upon the Star Trek franchise, including Star Trek: The Original Series . The main DC Comics Star Trek title was published in two series, comprising 136 issues, 9 annuals, and a number of special issues, plus several mini-series that linked TOS and the subsequent series Star Trek: The Next Generation ( TNG ).
Marvel Comics again obtained the Star Trek license in 1996. Marvel (under the "Marvel/Paramount comics" imprint) published various one-shots and the quarterly Star Trek Unlimited series, which covered TOS as well as TNG . [126] They also introduced the new series Star Trek: Early Voyages , which dealt with Christopher Pike 's adventures as captain of the Enterprise (as depicted in the rejected TOS pilot " The Cage "). Fan acceptance of these comics got off to a shaky start when Marvel's inaugural publication of its new Star Trek line turned out to be a crossover between TOS and Marvel's popular superhero team, the X-Men . However, the series turned out to be relatively popular, registering strong sales.
Beginning in 2006, Tokyopop published two projects based upon the original series. The new comic anthologies, produced by Joshua Ortega , were released annually in September 2006 ( Shinsei Shinsei ) and 2007 ( Kakan ni Shinkou ). Five artists and writer teams presented five new stories, per volume, based on the original series. [127]
Legacy and cultural influence [ ]
Parodies [ ].
The Original Series has been parodied many times in other television series. Saturday Night Live produced two famous sketches parodying The Original Series , "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise " in 1976 [128] and William Shatner's own " Get a life " sketch in 1986 (which parodied the show's "trekkie" followers). "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise " is a twelve-minute sketch, written by Michael O'Donoghue . It was described by TrekMovie.com as "one of the best Star Trek parody sketches of all time". [128] TVSquad ranked Shatner's "Get a life" sketch alongside "The Last Voyage ..." as one of the most famous parodies of the show. [129]
The Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster parodied Star Trek as Star Schtick in the late 1970s. An entire Finnish parody series Star Wreck was produced starting in 1992, culminating with Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning in 2005, all available as legal downloads on the web. [130]
The series has also been parodied on The Simpsons , [129] Family Guy and notably in the Futurama episode " Where No Fan Has Gone Before ", which was described by Wired magazine as a "touchstone" for fans. [131] The 1999 film Galaxy Quest portrays the lives of a once-popular television space-drama crew who are kidnapped by real aliens who have mistaken the fictional series for reality. [132] [133] The main characters are parodies of Star Trek characters, and many of the plot elements refer to or parody popular 1960s TV-series customs. [134] On Adult Swim ' s FishCenter Live , a parody of the USS Enterprise was featured called the "USS FishCenterprise NCC-1065." [135]
The series was also parodied in print as "Star Blecch" in the December, 1967 issue of Mad Magazine (Issue #115) [136]
John Scalzi's novel Redshirts , winner of the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel, uses the theme of red-shirted Star Fleet officers as cannon fodder .
(T)raumschiff Surprise – Periode 1 (2004) is a movie directed by Michael Herbig which parodies Star Trek and Star Wars .
Fan productions [ ]
Star Trek has inspired many fans to produce stories for free Internet distribution. Many of these are set in the time of The Original Series , including Star Trek: Phase II which was nominated for a Hugo Award and received support from actors and writers who were involved with The Original Series .
" Star Trek: Continues " chronicles the last year of the 5-year voyage of The Enterprise. Gene Roddenberry's son, "Rod" announced after a showing in 2014 that this series would have been considered canon by his father. [137] Comprising 11 full episodes and numerous additional materials, Star Trek: Continues was produced from 2013 to 2017 and funded by a kickstarter.
Series sequels [ ]
The original Star Trek was followed in 1973 and beyond with more shows filling in its legacy, including the equally successful, yet ever-popular The Next Generation , starring Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard . The following series include:
- The Animated Series (1973–1974)
- The Next Generation (1987–1994, films )
- Deep Space Nine (1993–1999)
- Voyager (1995–2001)
- Enterprise (2001–2005)
- Discovery (2017–present)
- Star Trek: Short Treks (2018–2020)
- Picard (2020–present)
- Lower Decks (2020–present)
- Prodigy (2021)
- Strange New Worlds (TBA)
Reception [ ]
Rod Serling said of the series that " Star Trek was again a very inconsistent show which at times sparkled with true ingenuity and pure science fiction approaches. At other times it was more carnival-like, and very much more the creature of television than the creature of a legitimate literary form." [138]
Isaac Asimov and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry developed a unique relationship during Star Trek ' s initial run in the late 1960s. Asimov wrote a critical essay on Star Trek ' s scientific accuracy for TV Guide magazine. Roddenberry retorted respectfully with a personal letter explaining the limitations of accuracy when writing a weekly series. Asimov corrected himself with a follow-up essay to TV Guide claiming despite its inaccuracies, that Star Trek was a fresh and intellectually challenging science fiction television show. The two remained friends to the point where Asimov even served as an adviser on a number of Star Trek projects. [139]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , Season 1 received an approval rating of 92% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 9/10. The critical consensus reads, "An optimistic ode to humanity, Star Trek may look dated, but its gadgetry and solid storytelling solidify its place as one of pop culture's most enduring franchises." [140] Season 2 received an approval rating of 100% based on 6 reviews, with an average rating of 7.33/10. [141] Season 3 received an approval rating of 50% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The critical consensus reads, "Budget cuts leave the stars of Star Trek stranded among shoddy set pieces and clunky writing – though even at its worst fans may still enjoy its campy delights." [142]
In 2016, in a listing that included each Star Trek film and TV series together, this series was ranked first by the L.A. Times , ahead of the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , in third place. [143]
In 2017, Vulture ranked the original Star Trek the third best live-action Star Trek television show, while at the same time praising it for "laying down the foundation". [144]
In 2018, IndieWire ranked Star Trek the original series as the 8th best space science fiction show set in outer space, including 18 overall shows from this genre. [145]
In 2018, Io9 / Gizmodo ranked the fictional spacecraft design shown in this television series, the Enterprise, as the number one best version of starship Enterprise of the Star Trek franchise. [146] They felt that the original design was still superior to almost a dozen different later versions. [146]
In 2019, Nerdist ranked the original series number one best out of seven Star Trek franchise television series, including up to the second season of Star Trek: Discovery . [147]
In 2019, Popular Mechanics ranked Star Trek the 6th best science fiction television show ever. [148]
In 2021, Empire magazine ranked it the 36th greatest television show ever. [149]
See also [ ]
- " Beam me up, Scotty "
- Outline of Star Trek
- Timeline of Star Trek
References [ ]
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- ↑ What happened to Star Trek: Phase II? : A canceled Star Trek show from the '70s quietly shaped every sequel since . SyFy (September 27, 2017). Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved on July 28, 2020.
- ↑ McNary, Dave (February 13, 2005). " Trekkers consider series' future ". Variety . Retrieved on June 1, 2007.
- ↑ Hinman (April 12, 2006). Star Trek XI Is Down, But It Is Not Out . SyFy Portal . Archived from the original on January 9, 2008. Retrieved on September 24, 2007.
- ↑ Siegel, Tatiana (February 24, 2007). Abrams takes helm of Star Trek . Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved on April 14, 2008.
- ↑ 121.0 121.1 "The Kelvin Timeline"- Official Name for the New Star Trek Universe . MSN (June 27, 2016). Archived from the original on August 19, 2016. Retrieved on July 24, 2016.
- ↑ Staff, TrekCore (June 26, 2016). STAR TREK Alternate Universe Finally Gets Official Name | TrekCore Blog . TrekCore.com. Archived from the original on July 23, 2016. Retrieved on July 24, 2016.
- ↑ Caringer, Kevin (January 1996). The Rise and Fall of a Toy Giant . New Force Comics. Archived from the original on May 30, 2015.
- ↑ Curt Danhauser. Guide to the Gold Key Star Trek Comics . Archived from the original on January 9, 2002. Retrieved on December 25, 2006.
- ↑ Handley, Rich. The Star Trek Comic Strips . Archived from the original on February 12, 2006. Retrieved on December 25, 2006.
- ↑ Star Trek: Unlimited monthly series from Marvel Paramount Comics, 1996–1998 . Archived from the original on August 29, 2011. Retrieved on December 29, 2006.
- ↑ Yahoo Store . Archived from the original on February 4, 2012.
- ↑ 128.0 128.1 Pascale, Anthony (May 29, 2010). Flashback to May 29, 1976 – Watch SNL's "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise " Skit . TrekMovie.com . Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved on July 23, 2010.
- ↑ 129.0 129.1 Keller, Richard (July 18, 2008). Star Trek: the television parodies – Videos . TV Squad . Archived from the original on May 31, 2009. Retrieved on July 28, 2010.
- ↑ Star Wreck mirror @ . Lame.lut.fi. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved on August 2, 2012.
- ↑ Baker, Chris (December 17, 2007). Videogames & Futurama, Part 1: Raiders of the Lost Arcade . Wired. Archived from the original on February 13, 2012. Retrieved on February 2, 2008.
- ↑ What did Patrick Stewart think of Galaxy Quest? . BBC Online . Archived from the original on January 13, 2014. Retrieved on August 11, 2012.
- ↑ Lyall, Sarah (January 27, 2008). To Boldly Go Where Shakespeare Calls . Archived from the original on November 6, 2015. Retrieved on June 28, 2008.
- ↑ " Wil Wheaton dot NET: Where is my mind?: Tangent ". Wilwheaton.net (September 24, 2001). Retrieved on August 15, 2021.
- ↑ Hillebrand, Jörg (January 1, 2020). Ex Astris Scientia – Visual Crossovers with Other Series/Movies . ex-astris-scientia.org. Archived from the original on January 4, 2020. Retrieved on January 3, 2020.
- ↑ " Star Blecch ". Mad Magazine (December 1967).
- ↑ Statement of Rod Roddenberry about Star Trek Continues . Facebook . Archived from the original on November 17, 2020. Retrieved on December 20, 2019.
- ↑ Charlie Jane Anders (April 15, 2014). Was Star Trek Ever Really Intelligent, Grown-Up Science Fiction? . IO9. Archived from the original on April 19, 2014. Retrieved on April 20, 2014.
- ↑ " Getting Star Trek on the air was impossible ". Letters of Note (June 25, 2012). Retrieved on September 6, 2014.
- ↑ Star Trek: Season 1 . Archived from the original on August 7, 2020. Retrieved on June 6, 2020.
- ↑ Star Trek: Season 2 . Archived from the original on August 7, 2020. Retrieved on 2020-06-06.
- ↑ Star Trek: Season 3 . Archived from the original on August 7, 2020.
- ↑ Bernardin, Marc (September 8, 2016). Ranking every 'Star Trek' movie and TV series from first to worst . Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on July 12, 2019. Retrieved on July 12, 2019.
- ↑ Every Star Trek TV Show, Ranked From Worst to Best . Vulture.com (September 22, 2017). Archived from the original on July 12, 2019. Retrieved on July 12, 2019.
- ↑ The 18 Best Sci-Fi TV Shows Set In Space, Ranked . IndieWire (April 18, 2018). Archived from the original on July 6, 2019. Retrieved on February 27, 2019.
- ↑ 146.0 146.1 Whitbrook, James. All 11 Versions of the U.S.S. Enterprise, Ranked . io9. Archived from the original on July 9, 2019. Retrieved on July 9, 2019.
- ↑ All 7 Star Trek Series, Ranked . Nerdist. Archived from the original on July 9, 2019. Retrieved on July 6, 2019.
- ↑ Hoffman, Jordan (July 12, 2019). The 50 Best Sci-Fi TV Shows Ever . Popular Mechanics. Archived from the original on January 29, 2015. Retrieved on July 20, 2019.
- ↑ " The 100 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time ". Empire. Retrieved on March 29, 2021.
External links [ ]
- Official website
- Star Trek: The Original Series at Paramount Plus
- Star Trek: The Original Series at Wikipedia
- Star Trek: The Original Series at Memory Alpha
- Star Trek: The Original Series at Memory Beta
- Star Trek: The Original Series collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- 1 Dora the Explorer (2024 reboot)
- 2 Paranormal Activity: The Other Side
- 3 Derek Morgan
- Science Fiction
- United States
Star Trek: The Original Series
- View history
- 1.1 Main cast
- 1.2 Recurring cast
Main cast [ ]
- William Shatner as James T. Kirk, commanding officer of the USS Enterprise
- Leonard Nimoy as Spock, first officer, and science officer
- DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy, chief medical officer
- James Doohan as Montgomery Scott, chief engineer
- Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, communications officer
- Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov, navigator and security/tactical officer
- George Takei as Sulu, helmsman
Recurring cast [ ]
- Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel, medical officer
- Roger Holloway as Mr. (Ensign) Lemli
- Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand, Captain's yeoman
- John Winston as Lieutenant Kyle, a bridge and transporter officer
Gallery [ ]
- 1 The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries
- 3 Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent
Star Trek: The Original Series
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- View history
Star Trek is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that aired on NBC from September 8, 1966, to June 3, 1969. [1] Though the original series was titled Star Trek , it has acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series ( ST:TOS or TOS ) to distinguish it from the spinoffs that followed, and from the Star Trek universe or franchise that they make up. Set in the 23rd century, [2] the original Star Trek follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew, led by Captain James T. Kirk ( William Shatner ), his First Officer Mr. Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ), and his Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ). William Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose:
Template:Cquote
When Star Trek premiered on NBC in 1966, it was not an immediate hit; ratings were low and advertising revenue was lackluster. Before the end of the first season of Star Trek , there were calls in the network for the cancellation of the series because of its low Nielsen ratings . [3] Desilu head Lucille Ball at that time "single-handedly kept Star Trek from being dumped from the NBC-TV lineup." [4]
Towards the end of the second season, the show was also in danger of cancellation. Its fans gained a third season; but NBC subsequently moved the show to the Friday Night Death slot , at 10 P.M. [5] Star Trek was cancelled at the end of the third season, after 79 episodes were produced. However, this was enough for the show to be stripped in syndication , allowing it to become extremely popular and gather a large cult following during the 1970s. The success of the program was followed by five additional television series and eleven theatrical films. Guinness World Records lists the original Star Trek as having the largest number of spin-offs among all television shows in history.
- 1 Creation, development, and production
- 2.1 Characterizations
- 2.2 Original Series cameo roles in later series
- 3.1 Notable episodes
- 3.2 " Star Trek Memories"
- 4.1 Theme song
- 4.2 Dramatic underscore
- 6 Home video release
- 7 Remastered series
- 8 Star Trek 2.0 on G4
- 9 Fan material and downloads
Creation, development, and production [ ]
A longtime fan of science fiction, in 1964 Roddenberry put together a proposal for Star Trek , a science fiction television series set on board a large interstellar space ship dedicated to exploring the galaxy. Some influences Roddenberry noted were A. E. van Vogt 's tales of the Space Beagle , Eric Frank Russell 's Marathon stories, and the 1956 science-fiction film Forbidden Planet . Parallels have also been drawn with the 1954 TV science fiction series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger , a much less sophisticated space opera that nevertheless included many of the elements—organization, crew relationships, missions, elements of bridge layout, and even some technology—that made up Star Trek . [6] Roddenberry also drew heavily from the Horatio Hornblower novels depicting a daring sea captain exercising broad discretionary authority on distant missions of noble purpose; often humorously referring to his James T. Kirk character as "Horatio Hornblower in Space". [7] Roddenberry had extensive experience in writing westerns that were particularly popular television fare at the time, and pitched the show to the network as a " Wagon Train to the stars." [8]
In 1964, Roddenberry secured a three-year development deal with leading independent TV-production company Desilu (founded by comedy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz ). In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was Captain Robert April of the S.S. Yorktown . This character became Captain Christopher Pike . The first pilot episode, " The Cage ", was made in 1964, with actor Jeffrey Hunter in the role of Pike after Roddenberry's first choice, Lloyd Bridges , had reportedly turned it down.
At a time when racial segregation was still firmly entrenched in many areas of the United States, Roddenberry envisaged a multi-racial and mixed-gender crew, based on his assumption that racial prejudice and sexism would not exist in the 23rd century. He also included recurring characters from alien races, including Spock , who was half human and half Vulcan , united under the banner of the United Federation of Planets .
Other Star Trek features involved solutions to basic production problems. The idea of the faster-than-light warp drive was not new to science fiction, but it allowed a narrative device that permitted the Enterprise to traverse space quickly. The matter transporter, by which crew members were "beamed" from place to place, solved the problem of moving characters quickly from the ship to a planet, a spacecraft-landing sequence for each episode being prohibitively expensive. The famous flip-open communicator was introduced as a plot device to strand the characters in challenging situations by malfunctioning or being lost, stolen, or out of range. [7]
The Star Trek concept was first offered to the CBS network, which turned it down for the more mainstream Irwin Allen production, Lost In Space . Star Trek was then offered to NBC, who commissioned and then turned down the first pilot, saying it was "too cerebral". [7] However, the NBC executives were favorably impressed with the concept (and understood that the faults were partly because of the script they had selected) [7] and made the unusual decision to commission a second pilot, " Where No Man Has Gone Before ". Only the character of Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy ) remained from the original pilot, and only two cast members ( Majel Barrett and Leonard Nimoy ) carried on to the series. Much of the first pilot's footage was re-used in the later, two-part episode " The Menagerie ".
According to Herb Solow , Executive in Charge of Production at Desilu , NBC was looking for series that would take full advantage of the new color TV technology. NBC was owned by RCA , the leader in manufacturing color televisions, and sought to sell more TVs by creating interest through its NBC network.
The second pilot introduced the main characters: Captain Kirk ( William Shatner ), chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Scott ( James Doohan ) and Lieutenant Sulu ( George Takei ). Sulu's title in this episode was Ship's Physicist (changed to Helmsman in subsequent episodes). Paul Fix played Dr. Mark Piper in the second pilot. Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy , ( DeForest Kelley ) joined the cast when principal photography began on the first season, along with Yeoman Janice Rand ( Grace Lee Whitney ) and communications officer Lieutenant Uhura ( Nichelle Nichols .) Majel Barrett's role of Nurse Christine Chapel would make her debut later in " The Naked Time ". Barrett, later Roddenberry's wife, also did the voice for the ship's computer. Roddenberry's inclusion of the Asian Sulu and black Uhura, both of them intelligent, well-spoken professionals, was a bold move when most television characters of the time were white and those who weren't were often presented in a highly stereotypical manner.
Roddenberry's production staff included art director Matt Jefferies . Jefferies designed the Enterprise ; his contribution was commemorated in the so-called Jefferies tube , which became a standard part of the (fictional) design of Federation starships. Jefferies' starship concepts arrived at a final saucer-and-cylinders design that became a template for all subsequent Federation space vehicles. In addition to working with his brother, John, to create the series' famed phaser weapons, Jefferies also developed the main set for the Enterprise bridge (based on an original design by Pato Guzman) and used his practical experience as a WWII airman and knowledge of aircraft design to come up with a sleek, functional, ergonomic bridge layout. Costume designer William Ware Theiss created the striking look of the Enterprise uniforms and the risqué costumes for female guest stars. Artist and sculptor Wah Chang , who had worked for Walt Disney , was hired to design and manufacture props: he created the flip-open communicator (credited by some with having influenced the configuration of the cellular phone) and the portable sensing-recording-computing "tricorder", anticipating contemporary handheld computing devices like the US Robotics Palm PDA. Later, he would create various memorable aliens, such as the Gorn .
The series introduced television viewers to many ideas which later became common in science fiction films: warp drive, force fields, wireless hand-held communicators and scanners, desktop computer terminals, laser surgery, starship cloaking devices. Although these concepts had numerous antecedents in sci-fi literature and film, they had never before been integrated in one presentation and most of them were certainly new to TV. Even the ship's automatic doors were a novel feature in 1966. In the 2002 book Star Trek: I'm Working On That , William Shatner and co-author Chip Walter explore some of these technologies and how they relate to today's world.
After a few episodes were filmed, but before they had been officially aired, Roddenberry screened one or two of them at Worldcon in Cleveland in August, 1966 and, as he related in a telegram to Desilu production executive Herbert F. Solow , received a standing ovation.
During the show's second season, the threat of cancellation loomed. [9] The show's devoted fanbase conducted an unprecedented letter-writing campaign, petitioning NBC to keep the show on the air. [10] This time the show was saved by an unprecedented write-in mail campaign spearheaded by a collection of science fiction fans of the show, most notably Bjo Trimble , and who succeeded in getting more than one million letters of support written to NBC corporate to save the show. The letters were written in such a way that NBC corporate, not a fan service, had to open and read them all, which severely challenged NBC's mail handling department. One NBC official indicated that one hundred and fifty thousand would have been enough to do the trick. NBC actually came on the air after Star Trek, one episode, and announced that the show had been renewed and to please stop writing to them. This prompted letters of thanks in similar numbers and with similar conditions requiring specific corporate attention. [11]
When the show was renewed, however, it was placed into the Friday Night Death Slot , a time slot undesirable for its audience. Roddenberry attempted to force NBC to give it a better slot, and failed. As a result, Roddenberry chose to withdraw from the stress of daily production, though he remained nominally in charge of the series as executive producer. [12] Roddenberry reduced his direct involvement in Star Trek before the start of the final season to protest the changed timeslot, and was replaced by Fred Freiberger . NBC then substantially reduced Star Trek's budget which brought about a marked decline in the quality of many third season episodes. [13] As Nichelle Nichols writes: Template:Quotation
Template:Reference necessary
Sulu and Uhura were not given first names in this series. Sulu's first name, Hikaru, was revealed non-canonically in Vonda McIntyre 's Pocket Books novel The Entropy Effect . The name was "officially" put into the canon by George Takei in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . Uhura's first name was never mentioned on screen, but the name Nyota was used in fandom and in Pocket Book novels. It was finally put to canon in the 2009 movie chronicling the origins of the crew. Kirk's middle name was never used in the series until the Animated Series episode " Bem ". Due to internal disagreements on the status of The Animated Series as official Star Trek canon, Kirk's middle name ('Tiberius') would not become canon until the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . A tombstone in the second pilot intended for Kirk reads "James R. Kirk". However, this is often explained by Gary Mitchell, the person who created the tombstone, not knowing Kirk's actual name.
Majel Barrett also provided the voice of the computer in TOS and many other Star Trek series and movies. She also played (as a brunette) the part of Captain Pike's First Officer in the pilot episode " The Cage ". Barrett married Roddenberry in 1969.
The relatively young, mop-topped Russian navigator Ensign Chekov was added in the second season. There may be some truth to the unofficial story that the Soviet newspaper Pravda complained that there were no Russians among the culturally diverse characters; this was seen as a personal slight since Russian Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. Template:Citation needed However, studio documentation suggests that the intention was to introduce a character with more appeal to teenagers, especially girls. Template:Citation needed Walter Koenig noted in the 40th (2006) anniversary special of Star Trek: The Original Series that he doubted the Pravda rumor since Star Trek was never shown on Soviet television. It's also been claimed that former Monkees member Davy Jones may have served as a model for the character. [14]
In addition, the series frequently included characters (usually security personnel wearing red uniforms) who are killed or injured soon after their introduction. So prevalent was this plot device that it inspired the term " redshirt " to denote a stock character whose sole purpose is to die violently in order to demonstrate the dangerous circumstances facing the main characters.
Characterizations [ ]
Star Trek made celebrities of its cast of largely unknown actors. Kelley had appeared in many films and TV shows, but mostly in smaller roles that showcased him as a villain. Nimoy also had previous TV and film experience but was also not well-known. Nimoy had partnered previously with William Shatner in a 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. , "The Project Strigas Affair", a full two years before Star Trek aired for the first time. Prior to Star Trek, William Shatner was well-known in the trade, having appeared in several notable films, played Cyrano on Broadway, and even turned down the part of Dr. Kildare. However, when roles became sparse he took the regular job after Jeffrey Hunter's contract wasn't renewed. After the episodes aired, many performers found themselves typecast due to their defining roles in the show.
The three main characters were Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, with writers often playing the different personalities off each other: Kirk was passionate and often aggressive, but with a sly sense of humor; Spock was coolly logical; and McCoy was sardonic but always compassionate. In many stories the three clashed, with Kirk forced to make a tough decision while Spock advocated the logical but sometimes callous path and McCoy (or "Bones," as Kirk nicknamed him, short for "sawbones," a traditional, slightly pejorative nickname for a surgeon) insisted on doing whatever would cause the least harm. McCoy and Spock had a sparring relationship that masked their true affection and respect for each other, and their constant arguments became very popular with viewers.
The character Spock was at first rejected by network officials who feared his vaguely "Satanic" appearance (with pointed ears and eyebrows) might prove upsetting to some viewers. The network had even airbrushed out Spock's pointed ears and eyebrows from publicity materials sent to network affiliates. Spock however went on to become one of the most popular characters on the show, as did McCoy's impassioned country-doctor personality. Spock, in fact, became a sex symbol of sorts to many young girls [15] – something no one connected with the show had expected. Leonard Nimoy notes that the question of Spock's extraordinary sex appeal emerged "almost any time I talked to someone in the press...I never give it a thought....to try to deal with the question of Mr. Spock as a sex symbol is silly." [16]
Original Series cameo roles in later series [ ]
The sequel to the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation , which premiered in 1987, was set approximately 100 years after the events of TOS. As that show and its spin-offs progressed, several TOS characters made appearances:
- Leonard "Bones" McCoy, now a 137-year-old admiral, inspects the Enterprise-D during its first mission in " Encounter at Farpoint ".
- Scotty, now chronologically 147 years old, but still only physically 72 years old due to spending 75 years trapped in suspended animation, is rescued by the Enterprise-D crew and resumes his life in " Relics ". Working along with Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge , Scotty uses some creative engineering to save the Enterprise . A grateful Captain Picard indefinitely lends him a shuttlecraft.
- Spock, now a Vulcan ambassador, goes underground in the Romulan Empire in hopes of fostering peaceful coexistence with the Federation and reunification with Vulcan society (" Unification, Parts I and II "). Eventually, the Romulan homeworld, Romulus, and the United Federation of Planets are threatened with destruction by a supernova , but Spock proposed a solution to deal with the potential catastrophe. Unfortunately, Spock is unable to prevent Romulus from being destroyed. The Romulan Nero , who observes the tragedy, blames Spock for the loss of his planet and family. Enraged, Nero pursues Spock but is caught in the artificial black hole created by the " red matter " and the supernova. As a result, Nero's ship is sent 154 years into the past, where it encounters the USS Kelvin in the year 2233 and destroys it, thereby altering history to create an alternate timeline. Ambassador Spock also enters the black hole, but only travels 129 years back in time. This results in a timeline with two Spocks, the "original" young Spock, and the older Ambassador Spock from the future. ( Star Trek )
- Sarek (portrayed by Mark Lenard ), Spock's father, continues to be an ambassador for the next century, finally retiring to Vulcan where he dies during the events of "Unification". Mark Lenard also appears as Sarek in several of the movies, as well as playing the Romulan commander in the ST:TOS episode " Balance of Terror ", and as a Klingon in Star Trek: The Motion Picture .
- James Kirk disappears in 2293 during the maiden voyage of the Enterprise-B but 78 years later Kirk is recovered from The Nexus , an alternate plane of existence, by Enterprise-D Captain Jean-Luc Picard . Kirk's time in the 24th century is short however; he is killed by Dr. Soran in Star Trek Generations .
- Kang , Koloth , and Kor , the three Klingons featured in " Day of the Dove ", " The Trouble With Tribbles " and " Errand of Mercy ", continued to serve the Empire well into the 24th century. They appeared in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Blood Oath " in which Kang and Koloth were killed. Kor later appeared in two more episodes: " The Sword of Kahless " and finally in " Once More Unto the Breach " where he died fighting in the Dominion War. A younger version of Kang, from the era of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , later appeared in the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Flashback ".
- Sulu, promoted to captain of the USS Excelsior in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , reprises his role from that performance in the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Flashback ". Grace Lee Whitney also reprises her role as Janice Rand in that same episode.
- Walter Koenig returned to the role of Pavel Chekov in the second episode of the fan series Star Trek: New Voyages , "To Serve All My Days", an episode written by D.C. Fontana . Pavel saves Scotty from a plasma eruption in engineering and this affects a dormant virus (contracted in the original series episode " The Deadly Years ") which causes him to age considerably faster. Chekov dies in the closing minutes of this episode, as this was intended to Koenig's "on-screen" death of him portraying the character. However, many fans of the New Voyages series responded negatively to both the death of Chekov and Fontana's dismissive attitude towards the complaints. New Voyages producer James Cawley was nevertheless urged by the sheer number of complaints to add a post-credit scene where it is revealed that the events of To Serve All My Days was merely a nightmare brought on by Chekov having imbibed with a bit too much vodka the night before.
- Sulu and Janice Rand (with George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney reprising their roles) appear in the third episode of the fan series Star Trek: New Voyages , "World Enough and Time". The episode which also features Sulu's daughter Demora Sulu , played again by Jacqueline Kim , who portrayed the character in Star Trek: Generations .
- Arne Darvin , the Klingon disguised as a human in " The Trouble With Tribbles ," appears in " Trials and Tribble-ations " with the intent to return to Deep Space Station K7 in 2267 and assassinate Kirk, whom Darvin blamed for his disgrace within the Klingon Empire.
Besides the above examples, there have been numerous non-canon novels and comic books published over the years in which TOS -era crew are depicted in the TNG era, either through time-travel or other means. In addition, many actors who appeared on TOS later made guest appearances as different characters in later series, most notably Majel Barrett , who not only provided the voice for most Starfleet computers in episodes of every spin-off series (including a single appearance on Enterprise , where the computers normally did not speak at all), but also had the recurring role of Lwaxana Troi in TNG and DS9 . Diana Muldaur played Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Muldaur was also a guest star in the episodes " Return to Tomorrow " and " Is There in Truth No Beauty? " of the original Star Trek series.
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, and Walter Koenig all played themselves in an episode of Futurama called Where No Fan Has Gone Before , a parody of the extensive fanbase and devotion to the series.
Episodes [ ]
In terms of its writing, Star Trek is notable as one of the earliest science-fiction TV series to utilize the services of leading contemporary science fiction writers, such as Robert Bloch , Norman Spinrad , Harlan Ellison and Theodore Sturgeon , as well as established TV writers. Series script editor Dorothy C. Fontana (originally Roddenberry's secretary) was also a vital part of the success of Star Trek -- she edited most of the series' scripts and wrote several episodes. Her credits read D.C. Fontana at the suggestion of Gene Roddenberry since he felt that a woman might not be taken seriously because almost all science fiction writers were men.
Several notable themes were tackled throughout the entire series which involved the exploration of major issues of 1960s USA, including sexism, racism, nationalism, and global war. Roddenberry utilized the allegory of a space vessel set many years in the future to explore these issues. Although Sammy Davis, Jr. and Nancy Sinatra had briefly kissed on the December 1967 musical-variety special Movin' With Nancy [17] , Star Trek was the first American television show to feature an interracial kiss between fictional characters (between Capt. Kirk and Lt. Uhura in the episode " Plato's Stepchildren ") although the kiss was only mimed (obscured by the back of a character's head) and depicted as involuntary. [18]
Episodes such as " The Apple ", " Who Mourns for Adonais? ", and " The Return of the Archons " display subtle anti-religious (owing mainly to Roddenberry's own secular humanism ) and anti-establishment themes. " Bread and Circuses " and " The Omega Glory " have themes that are more overtly pro-religion and patriotic.
Roddenberry also wanted to use the series as a ' Trojan Horse ' to push back the envelope of NBC's censorship restrictions by disguising potentially controversial themes with a science fiction setting. Network and/or sponsor interference, up to and including wholesale censorship of scripts and film footage, was a regular occurrence in the 1960s and Star Trek suffered from its fair share of tampering. Scripts were routinely vetted and censored by the staff of NBC's Broadcast Standards Department, who copiously annotated every script with demands for cuts or changes (e.g. "Page 4: Please delete McCoy's expletive, 'Good Lord'" or "Page 43: Caution on the embrace; avoid open-mouthed kiss") [19] .
The Original Series was also noted for its sense of humor, such as Spock and McCoy's pointed, yet friendly, bickering. Episodes like " The Trouble with Tribbles ," " I, Mudd ," and " A Piece of the Action ," however, were all written and staged as comedies. Star Trek's humor is generally much more subdued in the spin-offs and movies, with notable exceptions such as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home .
Several episodes used the concept of duplicate Earths, allowing re-use of stock props and sets. "Bread and Circuses," " Miri " and "The Omega Glory" depict such worlds, and three episodes, " A Piece Of The Action ," " Patterns Of Force ," and " Plato's Stepchildren " are based on alien planets that have adopted period Earth cultures (Prohibition-era Chicago, Nazi Germany, and ancient Greece, respectively). However, "A Piece Of The Action" and "Patterns Of Force" show this as having resulted from contaminations of the native cultures of those planets, either before the imposition of the Prime Directive , as in "A Piece Of The Action," or in violation of it, as in "Patterns Of Force."
All 79 episodes of the series have been digitally remastered by CBS Home Entertainment (distributed by Paramount ) and have since been released on DVD. (Note: this is not to be confused with the Star Trek Remastered project, discussed below.) Paramount released Season One of The Original Series on Blu-Ray on April 29, 2009. The Blu-ray release contains both Original and Remastered episodes via seamless branching .
Notable episodes [ ]
According to Entertainment Weekly , the following are the ten best episodes of Star Trek : [20]
- " The City on the Edge of Forever "
- " Space Seed "
- " Mirror, Mirror "
- " The Doomsday Machine "
- " Amok Time "
- " The Devil in the Dark "
- " The Trouble With Tribbles "
- " This Side of Paradise "
- " The Enterprise Incident "
- " Journey to Babel "
IGN.com listed its top ten: [21]
- " Balance of Terror "
- " Where No Man Has Gone Before "
- " The Enemy Within "
- " The Naked Time "
Spacecast.com viewers voted on their top ten episodes in 2009: [22]
- " A Piece of the Action "
- " The Tholian Web "
As of 2009, the sixteen highest rated episodes on IMDB (note some episodes share the same rank) are:
- " The City on the Edge of Forever " [23]
- " Mirror, Mirror " [24]
- " Balance of Terror " [25] ," Space Seed " [26]
- " The Trouble with Tribbles " [27] , " The Doomsday Machine " [28]
- " Amok Time " [29]
- " The Menagerie " [30] [31] , " The Devil in the Dark " [32]
- " Journey to Babel " [33] , " The Enterprise Incident " [34]
- " Errand of Mercy " [35]
- " Arena " [36] ," Day of the Dove " [37] , " All Our Yesterdays " [38]
- " The Corbomite Maneuver " [39]
" Star Trek Memories" [ ]
In 1983, Leonard Nimoy hosted a one-hour special as a promotional tie-in with the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , in which he recounted his memories of working on The Original Series and explained the origins of things such as the Vulcan nerve pinch and the Vulcan salute . This special continues to be widely seen in some areas; it was included in the syndication package for The Original Series , in order to bump up the episode count to 80. [40]
Theme song [ ]
The show's theme tune, immediately recognizable by many, was written by Alexander Courage , and has been featured in a number of Star Trek spin-off episodes and motion pictures. Gene Roddenberry subsequently wrote a set of accompanying lyrics; this allowed him to claim co-composer credit and hence 50% of the theme's performance royalties, even though the lyrics were never used in the series, nor did Roddenberry ever intend them to be. [41] Courage considered Roddenberry's actions, while entirely legal, to be unethical, and chose to leave the series. Later episodes used stock recordings from Courage's earlier work. Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson recorded a jazz fusion version of the tune with his big band during the late 1970s, and Nichelle Nichols performed the song live complete with lyrics.
Dramatic underscore [ ]
For budgetary reasons, this series made significant use of "tracked" music, or music written for other episodes that was re-used in later episodes. Of the 79 episodes that were broadcast, only 31 had complete or partial original dramatic underscores created specifically for them. The remainder of the music in any episode was tracked from a different episode. Which episodes would have new music was mostly the decision of Robert H. Justman, the Associate Producer during the first two seasons.
Screen credits for the composers were given based on the amount of music composed for, or composed and re-used in, the episode. Some of these final music credits were occasionally incorrect.
Beyond the short works of "source" music (music whose source is seen or acknowledged onscreen) created for specific episodes, eight composers were contracted to create original dramatic underscore during the series run: Alexander Courage , George Duning , Jerry Fielding , Gerald Fried , Sol Kaplan , Samuel Matlovsky, Joseph Mullendore, and Fred Steiner . The composers conducted their own music. Of these composers, Steiner composed the original music for thirteen episodes and it is his instrumental arrangement of Alexander Courage's main theme that is heard over many of the end title credits of the series.
The tracked musical underscores were chosen and edited to the episode by the music editors, principal of whom were Robert Raff (most of Season One), Jim Henrikson (Season One and Two), and Richard Lapham (Season Three). [42]
The original recordings of the music of some episodes were released in the United States commercially on the GNP Crescendo Record Co. label. Music for a number of the episodes was re-recorded by the Varese Sarabande label, with Fred Steiner conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra ; and on the Label X label, with Tony Bremner conducting the Royal Philharmonic.
Although this series never won any Emmys, Star Trek was nominated for the following Emmy awards:
- Outstanding Dramatic Series (Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon ), 1967
- Outstanding Dramatic Series (Gene Roddenberry), 1968
- Outstanding Supporting Actor ( Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock), 1967, 1968, 1969
- Outstanding Guest Appearance ( Frank Gorshin as Commissioner Bele), 1969
- Individual Achievement in Art Direction and Allied Crafts (Jim Rugg), 1967
- Individual Achievement in Cinematography (Darrell Anderson, Linwood G. Dunn, and Joseph Westheimer), 1967
- Individual Achievement in Film and Sound Editing (Douglas Grindstaff), 1967
- Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing (Donald R. Rode), 1968
- Special Classification of Individual Achievement for Photographic Effects (The Westheimer Company), 1968
- Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction and Scenic Design (John Dwyer and Walter M. Jeffries), 1969
- Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing (Donald R. Rode), 1969
- Special Classification Achievements for Photographic Effects (The Howard A. Anderson Company, The Westheimer Company, Van der Veer Photo Effects, Cinema Research), 1969.
Eight of its episodes were nominated for one of science-fiction’s top awards, the Hugo Award , in the category "Best Dramatic Presentation". In 1967 the nominated episodes were " The Naked Time ", " The Corbomite Maneuver ", and " The Menagerie ". In 1968 all nominees were Star Trek episodes: " Amok Time ", " Mirror, Mirror ", " The Doomsday Machine ", " The Trouble with Tribbles ", and " The City on the Edge of Forever ". Star Trek won both years for the episodes "The Menagerie" and "The City on the Edge of Forever", respectively.
In 1967, Star Trek was also one of the first television programs to receive an NAACP Image Award .
In 1968, Star Trek's most critically acclaimed episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever," written by Harlan Ellison , won the prestigious Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Teleplay, although this was for Ellison's original draft script, and not for the screenplay of the episode as it aired.
Home video release [ ]
Episodes of the Original Series were among the first television series to be released on the VHS and laserdisc formats in North America in the 1980s, with all episodes eventually being released to VHS. With the advent of DVD in the late 1990s, single DVDs featuring two episodes each in production order were released. In the early 2000s, Paramount Home Video reissued the series to DVD in a series of three deluxe season boxes with added featurettes and documentaries. In February 2009 Paramount announced that they will release the Original Series on Blu-ray. Seasons one and two have been released on blu-ray; the third was released on December 15, 2009. The Blu-ray releases contain both Original and Remastered episodes via seamless branching . [43]
Remastered series [ ]
In September 2006, CBS Paramount Domestic Television (now known as CBS Television Distribution , the current rights holders for the Star Trek television franchises) began syndication of an enhanced version of Star Trek: The Original Series in high definition with new CGI visual effects. [44] These were done under the supervision of Mike Okuda , technical consultant to several of the later series. The restoring and updating of the visual effects was performed by CBS Digital . All live-action footage was scanned in high definition from its first generation 35 mm film elements, while visual effects shots have been digitally reproduced. As noted in the "making of" DVD feature, first generation "original camera negatives" were used for all live-action footage but not for external shots of the ship and planets, etc. Notable changes include new space shots with a CGI Enterprise , and other new models (for example, a Gorn ship is shown in Arena ), redone matte background shots, and other minor touches such as tidying up viewscreens. A small number of scenes have also been recomposed, and in some cases new actors have been placed into the background of some shots. [45] In addition, the opening theme music has been re-recorded in digital stereo.
The first episode to be released to syndication was " Balance of Terror " on the weekend of September 16, 2006. Episodes were released at the rate of about one a week and broadcast in a 4:3 aspect ratio. Despite the HD remastering, CBS chose to deliver the broadcast syndication package in Standard Definition (SD TV) . The HD format is currently commercially available via Blu-ray , or by download such as iTunes, XBox Live and streaming Netflix . [46]
While the CGI shots have already been mastered in a 16:9 aspect ratio for future applications, they are currently broadcast in the US – along with the live-action footage – in the original 4:3 aspect ratio TV format to respect the show's original composition. If the producers chose to reformat the entire show for the 16:9 ratio, live-action footage would have to be recropped, widening the frame to the full width of the 35 mm negatives while trimming its height by nearly 30%. Although this would add a marginal amount of imagery on the sides, much more would need to be eliminated from the tops and bottoms of the frames to fit.
On July 26, 2007, CBS Home Entertainment (with distribution by Paramount Home Entertainment) announced that the remastered episodes of TOS would be released on a HD DVD /DVD hybrid format. Season 1 was released on November 20, 2007. Season 2 had been scheduled for release in the summer of 2008, but it was cancelled when Toshiba (which had been helping finance the remastering of the show) pulled out of the HD DVD business. [47] On August 5, 2008, the remastered Season 2 was released on DVD only. [48] For this release, CBS and Paramount used discs without any disc art, making them look like the "Season 1 Remastered" HD DVD/DVD combo discs, despite having content only on one side. [49] Season 3 was released on DVD only on November 18, 2008. [50] On February 17, 2009 – Paramount announced the Season 1 of TOS on Blu-ray for a May release to coincide with the new feature film coming from Paramount. [51] The second season was released in a seven disc set on Blu-ray in the U.S. on September 22, 2009 [52] The third season was released on Blu-ray in the U.S. on December 15. [53] With the release of the "Alternate Realities" box set, remastered Original Series episodes were included in a multi-series compilation for the first time. It is unknown if future compilation releases will exclusively use the remastered episodes or not. [54]
In region 2 and region 4, all three seasons of the remastered Original Series became available on DVD in the slimline edition (in the UK and Germany in steelbook editions) on April 27, 2009 as well as the first season in Blu-ray. Template:Citation needed
Star Trek 2.0 on G4 [ ]
On April 10, 2006, an interactive version of TOS, known as "Star Trek 2.0," began broadcast on the television channel G4 where members can use the online chat and "Spock Market." Messages from the online chat may be shown during the broadcast along with "Trek Stats" and "Trek Facts." However this effort was marred by several of the "Trek Facts" being incorrect (Bread and Circuses was not the first episode to eschew the ubiquitous establishing shot of the Enterprise in orbit of a planet as the opening after the teaser, as one example), and several personal and editorial comments scrolled across the screen revealed a fair amount of ignorance on not only Star Trek but a great many subjects (G4 2.0 claimed that the use of the term "azimuth" in determining trajectory for artillery by the landing party in Arena was incorrect because azimuth, they claimed, is a term only used in astronomy) on the part of the 2.0 staff, which explains why a great deal of the information, both Trek and non-Trek, was erroneous. The feature debuted on the cable network G4 when began playing episodes of Star Trek along with showing interactive menus. Sometime in 2007, they stopped airing the show in its 2.0 format. The show aired though on the network every Monday in a marathon until it was cancelled.
- As a promotion of "Star Trek 2.0", advertising agency 72andSunny created four 30-second stop-motion commercials using detailed Mego action figures of the crew, which became enormously popular on video site YouTube as well as G4TV.com's "Streaming Pile" video site. Spock was voiced by Charlie Murphy (brother of Eddie Murphy ). They also released a minute-long "Director's Cut" of the "Cribs" clip. [55] Template:Failed verification
On January 15, 2007, G4 launched "Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0" at 9:00pm Monday through Friday. A press release for the show indicated it features TNG Facts and Stats along with 32 (up from 24) new stocks for the Spock Market game. "Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0" was later removed from Monday nights.
An "urgent subspace message" on the Star Trek 2.0 Hailing Frequencies e-newsletter stated that "Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0" was scheduled for a "refit". It no longer featured live chat, stats, or facts on screen. The Spock Market game continued running as usual until it was shut down.
Fan material and downloads [ ]
Star Trek has inspired fan-made and -produced series for free internet distribution, including Star Trek: Phase II . Walter Koenig , D. C. Fontana and other Star Trek actors and production personnel have participated in producing various episodes.
The cancellation of the series was remembered in a famous Saturday Night Live comedy sketch called " The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise ", written by Michael O'Donoghue , which aired on NBC-TV on May 29, 1976, which became an instant classic among Star Trek fans.
CBS Interactive is presenting all 3 seasons of the series online via Adobe Flash streaming media. They are full-length episodes available free of charge, but with ads embedded into the stream of each episode. They are viewable at http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek . [56]
In January 2007, the first season of Star Trek became available for download from Apple 's iTunes Store . Although consumer reviews indicate that some of the episodes on iTunes are the newly "remastered" editions, iTunes editors had not indicated such, and if so, which are which. All first season episodes that had been remastered and aired were available from iTunes, except " Where No Man Has Gone Before ," which remains in its original form. On March 20, 2007, the first season was again added to the iTunes Store, with separate downloads for the original and remastered versions of the show, though according to the customer reviews, the original version contains minor revisions such as special effect enhancements. Template:Citation needed CBS also uploaded all 3 Seasons of the show on their Veoh account. [57]
- ↑ Template:Cite web
- ↑ Nichelle Nichols, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, G.P. Putnam & Sons New York, 1994. pp. 165–167
- ↑ From a 1975 discussion Stanley had with Ball, as described on Stanley's website, http://www.stanleybooks.net/
- ↑ William Shatner, Star Trek Memories, Harper Torch, 1994 paperback, p. 257
- ↑ Template:Cite book
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Template:Cite book
- ↑ Star Trek is
- ↑ Herbert Solow and Robert H. Justman , Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, Pocket Books, 1996, pp.377–394
- ↑ Solow & Justman, op. cit., pp.377–386
- ↑ David Gerrold, quoting Bjo Trimble , in The World of Star Trek, Ballantine Books, 1973, pp 166
- ↑ David Gerrold, The World of Star Trek, Ballantine Books, 1973
- ↑ Shatner, Star Trek Memories, pp.290–291
- ↑ Leonard Nimoy, I am Spock, Hyperion Books, 1995. pp.85–88
- ↑ Robert Jewett & John Lawrence, The Myth of the American Superhero, William B. Eerdsman Co, 2002. p.230
- ↑ Template:Cite interview
- ↑ McFarland, Melanie. "Interracial romance now the norm on TV, but real-life issues are ignored." Article at SeattlePI.com [1]
- ↑ Peter Műller, Star Trek: The American Dream Continued? The Crisis of the American Dream in the 1960s and its Reflection in a Contemporary TV Series ; Oldenburg University thesis, 1994, p.63, p. 139
- ↑ Entertainment Weekly Special Edition Jan. 18, 1995
- ↑ IGN's Top 10 Classic Star Trek Episodes
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708455/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708438/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708420/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708447/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708480/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708461/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708416/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0394904/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708472/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708460/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708434/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708464/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708429/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708418/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708427/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708415/
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708458/
- ↑ Template:Imdb title
- ↑ Unthemely Behaviour
- ↑ Template:Cite news
- ↑ TrekMovie.com "TOS Remastered: Format"
- ↑ http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Star-Trek-Season-3-Bluray/12702
- ↑ TV shows on DVD.com . Retrieved Sept. 17, 2008.
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBXal1GAA4A Template:Failed verification
- 1 Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- 2 Robert Wise
- 3 Michael Giacchino
Screen Rant
Every star trek movie in chronological order.
With 13 entries in the Star Trek movie series from 1979-2006, there are a couple of ways to watch the films chronologically.
- Learn how to watch all 13 Star Trek movies in chronological order by following their theatrical release timeline.
- Dive deeper into the Star Trek universe by watching the films in their in-universe timeline order instead.
- Keep an eye out for new Star Trek movies - one on Paramount+ focusing on Section 31 and potential future theatrical releases.
Here's how to watch the 13 Star Trek movies in chronological order in a couple of ways. Starring William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, Star Trek: The Original Series ' 3 seasons aired on NBC from 1966-1969, but the show exploded in popularity in syndication. After the blockbuster success of Star Wars in 1977, Paramount refashioned a planned TV series revival titled Star Trek: Phase II into a feature film: 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Star Trek officially became a movie franchise.
Since the 1970s, every decade up to the 2020s thus far has seen a Star Trek movie produced. Star Trek: The Original Series ' cast starred in 6 films from 1979-1991. The torch was then passed to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation , who starred in 4 films from 1994-2002. Producer and director J.J. Abrams then rebooted Star Trek: The Original Series , casting stars such as Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban to play younger, alternate reality versions of Captain James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in a trilogy of Star Trek movies from 2009-2016. Whether you want to watch them in order of theatrical release or in order of when the films stand in the Star Trek timeline , here's how to watch the 13 Star Trek movies.
Star Trek 2009 Cast & Character Guide
How to watch the star trek movies chronologically in theatrical release order, the first 6 star trek movies are helpfully numbered.
Watching the Star Trek movies in their theatrical release order is the simplest way to go . The 13 films are broken up into easy-to-digest blocks: the 6 Star Trek: The Original Series films, the 4 Star Trek: The Next Generation films, and the three Star Trek movies produced by J.J. Abrams that are set in the alternate Kelvin timeline. Here are the 13 Star Trek movies in theatrical release order:
How To Watch The Star Trek Movies By In-Universe Timeline Order
From 1986 to 2379 in two different star trek timelines.
A more interesting, and challenging, way to watch the Star Trek movies is by in-universe timeline order. Although the 'present day' of the Star Trek movies is either The Original Series ' 23rd century or The Next Generation 's 24th century, some of the Star Trek movies involve time travel and flashbacks, while the J.J. Abrams films are actually before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series.
In J.J. Abrams' Star Trek 2009 , the destruction of the USS Kelvin in 2033 by time-traveling Romulans, which led to the death of James T. Kirk's father, Lt. George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth), spawned an alternate reality where numerous major events happened in an accelerated pace. Factoring in time travel and alternate universes, here's how to watch the Star Trek movies by in-universe timeline order.
What Is The Next Star Trek Movie?
The next star trek movie won't be released in theaters.
The next Star Trek movie won't be a theatrical release, but it will be a made-for-streaming film on Paramount+. Star Trek: Section 31 starring Academy Award-winner Michelle Yeoh is the first Star Trek movie made for Paramount+ . Section 31 is written by Craig Sweeney and directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi. A spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery , Section 31 will detail what happened to Yeoh's popular anti-heroine, Emperor Phillippa Georgiou after she left Discovery in season 3, and the film will purportedly explore Georgiou's ties to and the history of Section 31, Starfleet's infamous black ops organization.
Star Trek: Section 31 introduces a new cast of characters joining Michelle Yeoh's Emperor Georgiou. Section 31 began filming in January 2024 in Toronto and is expected to wrap in March. Although no release date has been announced yet, Star Trek: Section 31 could be released on the streamer in late 2024 if not in 2025.
Depending on Star Trek: Section 31 's success, a new Star Trek movie could be released on Paramount+ every 2 years.
Will There Be A Star Trek 4 From J.J. Abrams?
Two star trek theatrical movies are reportedly in development.
8 years after Star Trek Beyond hit movie theaters, there is still no Star Trek 4 produced by J.J. Abrams . Star Trek 4 (AKA Star Trek 14 ) was scheduled for a December 2023 release date after audience polling by Paramount Pictures determined there was audience interest in seeing another Star Trek movie starring Chris Pine and the cast Abrams assembled. However, high-profile filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Noah Hawley, S.J. Clarkson, and Matt Shakman were unable to overcome the "creative differences" to get Star Trek 4 in front of cameras.
Star Trek 4 is said to be the "final chapter" of the voyages of the USS Enterprise commanded by Chris Pine's Captain James T. Kirk and his crew.
Following the resolution of the WGA writers' strike, a new report indicated two Star Trek movies are in development at Paramount. Star Trek 4 is said to be the "final chapter" of the voyages of the USS Enterprise commanded by Chris Pine's Captain James T. Kirk and his crew. Meanwhile, a Star Trek origin film set "decades before" Star Trek (2009) is being developed by director Toby Haynes ( Star Wars: Andor ) and writer Seth Grahame-Smith ( Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunte r). While it seems inevitable that a new Star Trek movie will return to the big screen one day, it looks like the long wait will continue into the foreseeable future.
Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation movies are available to stream on Max.
Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness , and Star Trek Generations are available to stream on Paramount+.
Den of Geek
Why Star Trek Uniform Colors Changed From the Original Series to Next Generation
The uniforms on Star Trek have changed over time, but for reasons that make a lot more sense behind the scenes than on the Enterprise bridge.
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Even if you don’t know an El-Aurian from an Illyrian, even if you can’t tell the original Enterprise from the Enterprise-D, you’re probably familiar with one of the fundamental rules of Star Trek : redshirts always die.
Unlike many of the popular misconceptions about the series (Kirk doesn’t actually chase women, for example), the redshirt stereotype does have grounding in the show. Over the course of three seasons in The Original Series , 26 characters wearing red tunics died, as opposed to 15 wearing gold and blue combined. But that trend stopped with the Star Trek movies, and continued to fall away with The Next Generation and the spinoffs that followed.
Why, you ask? Because the costume colors signify a crewman’s role on their particular ship, and the color scheme changed between TOS and TNG .
Although some Trekkies hate to admit it, Star Trek didn’t really have much in the way of canon in its first few episodes. Leaving aside the infamous grinning Spock in the original pilot, it took several episodes to decide on the name of Starfleet or the Prime Directive. The same was true of the uniforms, as demonstrated by the luscious green shirt that Kirk sometimes sported.
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By the end of the series, however, the three main colors solidified into the following divisions: those in command wore gold, people such as Kirk and Sulu. Science officers and doctors, namely Spock and Bones, dressed in blue, while everyone else had red shirts. And by everyone else, that includes engineers like Scotty and security personnel, which is why they tended to get killed.
But as is so often the case with all things Trek , the uniforms weren’t entirely what creator Gene Roddenberry had in mind. Most notably, the gold uniforms were actually intended to be green, but read on camera as the color that we know today. During production of the never-released follow-up show, Star Trek: Phase II , Roddenberry wanted continuity between TOS and the new series, not only in terms of the cast, which mixed Kirk and Sulu with newcomers, but also production. In particular, Roddenberry brought back his original series costume designer William Ware Theiss.
However, when production shifted and Phase II became Star Trek: The Motion Picture , Theiss was replaced by Robert Fletcher, who designed costumes for the movie crew through Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . Fletcher maintained some of Roddenberry’s vision for TMP , which tried to match ’70s aesthetics by giving the crew pastel pajamas. But when Nicholas Meyer took over for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Fletcher designed military-inspired uniforms to match the director’s naval warfare vision.
Although most Trekkies prefer the Meyer movies, Roddenberry hated the militarization of Starfleet and, equally important, resented the way his franchise was taken from him. So when Roddenberry regained some power for The Next Generation , he sought to right the ship, so to speak, by making Starfleet explorers again. And with it, he brought back Theiss.
For the most part, Theiss succeeded where Roddenberry and Fletcher failed in TMP . The TNG uniforms feel like ’80s versions of the ’60s original, especially after they were revised in season 3. However, with the emphasis on division colors came a confusing switch. Once again, science officers and doctors wore blue, but command now wore red while operations wore gold. Also, there’s the skant, but only Lower Decks talks about that now.
So why did the colors change? Once again, the answer is simple and almost mundane. Patrick Stewart apparently didn’t look commanding enough in yellow, while Brent Spiner , in his pale Data makeup, didn’t look good in red.
Roddenberry and the producers may have also been amenable to these changes because of the public’s changing perception of the aesthetic of Star Trek at the time. It was the massive success of Star Trek IV that gave Roddenberry the green light for TNG , and in that movie the crew wore the same civilian clothes that they sported in The Search for Spock , but during the first three Trek movies, Kirk wore red (as did Spock and the rest of the crew, because everyone wore red in Meyers’ more militarized uniforms).
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So in the eyes of casual fans, the Captain wore red. And even Trekkies had seen enough of Kirk in red that the idea didn’t seem outlandish.
The Trek uniforms have been altered many times since. TNG and Deep Space Nine later limited colors to the shoulders, a look continued in Voyager . The TNG movies then introduced darker uniforms in Star Trek: First Contact , with division colors on the underliner, a look adopted by later seasons of Deep Space Nine .
These stories adhere to the division colors from TNG , but whenever the franchise goes back to pre- TNG era — including the J.J. Abrams reboot movies or Strange New Worlds — the TOS colors come back into play. Even the prequel series Enterprise , in which the crew of the NX-01 wears blue jumpsuits with TOS division colors on the piping. And then there’s Discovery , which began with blue uniforms and a different division color scheme, but that show started out as its own thing, anyway.
Rest assured, writers both official and on the internet have offered in-Universe explanations for the evolution of the costumes. But the best explanation is that Star Trek , as an ongoing story over six decades old, had evolved and mutated over the years, sometimes in ways that don’t make sense. And as long as some unnamed operations ensign gets killed now and again, that’s just fine.
Joe George | @jageorgeii
Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!
Star Trek: The Original Series - Seasons 1-3 Remastered
- View history
The Star Trek: The Original Series – Seasons 1-3 Remastered DVD collection is a box set containing all three seasons of the remastered Star Trek: The Original Series . Released simultaneously with the last individual, Season 3 DVD set, this collection was in essence nothing more than a simple bundled shrink wrapped repackaging of this and the previous two individual season releases for Region 1.
Compared to the later released Region 2 and 4 counterparts this release contained two extra discs, which however did not constitute extra content; it was due to the fact that Region 1 had the disc contents for Season 1 differently arranged, whereas the other regions followed the more compact arrangement as utilized on their later "slimline" releases.
Contents [ ]
The episodes on the discs, and their arrangement among them, are identical to the individual Original Series Region 1 season sets. Please refer to the following entries for the discs' episode and special features arrangement,
- TOS-R Season 1 DVD
- TOS-R Season 2 DVD
- TOS-R Season 3 DVD
Still missing though, remain the "Red Shirt Logs" hidden mini-featurettes, and Mike and Denise Okuda 's episode text commentaries , not ported over from the original DVD releases.
Episodes in production order [ ]
Since episodes on the discs are in the order in which they aired, and episodes are listed on Memory Alpha in production order, here is a handy guide to watching TOS-R in production order:
- ↑ "The Cage" is on Disc 7 of the Season 3 boxset
- 1 Kenneth Mitchell
- 3 Kol (Klingon)
List of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes
Created by Gene Roddenberry , the science fiction television series Star Trek (which eventually acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series ) starred William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk , Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock , and DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy aboard the fictional Federation starship USS Enterprise . The series originally aired from September 1966 through June 1969 on NBC . [1]
Series overview
Pilots (1964–65), season 1 (1966–67), season 2 (1967–68), season 3 (1968–69), production order, british transmission, external links.
This is the first television series in the Star Trek franchise, and comprises 79 regular episodes over the series' three seasons, along with the series' original pilot episode , " The Cage ". The episodes are listed in order by original air date, [2] which match the episode order in each season's original, [3] [4] [5] remastered, [6] [7] [8] and Blu-ray DVD [9] box sets. The original, single-disc DVD releases placed the episodes by production order, with "The Cage" on the final disc. [10]
After the series' cancellation , Paramount Television released Star Trek to television stations as a syndication package, [11] where the series' popularity grew to become a "major phenomenon within popular culture". [12] This popularity would eventually lead to the expansion of the Star Trek catalog, which as of 2020 includes nine more television series and thirteen Trek motion pictures .
In 2006, CBS Paramount Domestic Television (now CBS Television Distribution ) announced that each Original Series episode would be re-syndicated in high definition after undergoing digital remastering , including both new and enhanced visual effects . [13] (To date, the remastered episodes have only been broadcast in standard definition , though all three seasons are now available on the high-definition Blu-ray Disc format.) [14] [15] The remastered episodes began with " Balance of Terror " (along with, in some markets, " Miri ") during the weekend of September 16, 2006, [16] and ended with "The Cage", which aired during the weekend of May 2, 2009. [17] The remastered air dates listed below are based on the weekend each episode aired in syndication. [16]
Star Trek ' s pilot episode , "The Cage", was completed between November 1964 and January 1965, [18] and starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike , Majel Barrett as Number One , and Leonard Nimoy as Spock . The pilot was rejected by NBC as being "too cerebral" among other complaints. [19] Jeffrey Hunter chose to withdraw from the role of Pike [20] when creator Gene Roddenberry was asked to produce a second pilot episode " Where No Man Has Gone Before ". A slightly edited version with the same title aired in 1966 as the third episode of the new series. [21] [22]
"The Cage" never aired during Star Trek ' s original run. It was presented by Roddenberry as a black-and-white workprint at various science fiction conventions over the years after Star Trek ' s cancellation but was not released on home video until 1986 when Paramount Home Video produced a "restored" release of "The Cage" (a combination of the original black-and-white footage and color portions of the Season 1 episode " The Menagerie ") along with an introduction by Gene Roddenberry. [23]
On October 15, 1988, Paramount Pictures aired a two-hour television special, hosted by Patrick Stewart , called The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next , which featured, for the first time, a full-color television presentation of "The Cage". [23] In the United States, "The Cage" was released to DVD in December 2001. [24] It was later included on the final disc in both the original and "remastered" season 3 DVD box sets listed with its original air date of October 15, 1988. [5] [8] [25]
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" in its original form (production number 02a) had been forwarded to NBC, but only a re-edited version was aired, not as a pilot but as the third episode of the series (production number 02b). The original version was thought to be lost, but later appeared on bootleg VHS tapes at conventions, until a print of it was discovered in 2009 and subsequently released on home video under the title "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" - The Restored, Unaired Alternate Pilot Episode as part of the TOS season 3 box set on Blu-ray; [26] it has not been released on DVD.
After Roddenberry's second pilot episode, " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", received a more favorable response from NBC , [21] [22] Star Trek finally aired its first episode—" The Man Trap "—at 8:30PM on September 8, 1966. [28] "Where No Man...", which eventually aired in a re-edited format as the series' third episode, retained only Spock as a character from "The Cage" but introduced William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk , James Doohan as chief engineer Scotty , and George Takei as physicist (later helmsman) Sulu . Also joining the cast were DeForest Kelley as ship's surgeon Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy and Nichelle Nichols as the communications officer Uhura in "The Man Trap", the first aired episode of the series.
Although her character of Number One was not retained from "The Cage", Majel Barrett returned to the series as a new character, nurse Christine Chapel , and made her first of many recurring appearances in " The Naked Time ". Grace Lee Whitney appeared in eight episodes as yeoman Janice Rand , beginning with "The Man Trap". Whitney left the series after " The Conscience of the King ", [21] [29] [30] but would later make minor appearances in the first , third , fourth , and sixth Star Trek films as well as one episode of the companion series Star Trek: Voyager .
Star Trek ' s first season comprised 29 episodes, including the two-part episode " The Menagerie ", which includes almost all of the footage from the original pilot, "The Cage". Other notable episodes include " Balance of Terror ", which introduces the Romulans ; " Space Seed ", which introduces Khan Noonien Singh and serves as the basis for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ; " Errand of Mercy ", in which the Klingons make their first appearance; and the critically acclaimed, [31] Hugo-Award-winning episode [32] " The City on the Edge of Forever ", which features Kirk, Spock, and McCoy traveling into the past through the Guardian of Forever .
- 1 2 Credited as S. Bar-David
- ↑ Credited as Nathan Butler
The show's 26-episode second season began in September 1967 [2] with " Amok Time ", which introduced actor Walter Koenig as Russian navigator Pavel Chekov , and granted viewers the first glimpse of Spock's homeworld, Vulcan . The season also includes such notable episodes as " Mirror, Mirror ", which introduces the evil " mirror universe "; " Journey to Babel ", featuring the introduction of Spock's parents Sarek and Amanda ; and the light-hearted " The Trouble with Tribbles ", which would later be revisited in a 1973 episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series and a 1996 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The season ended with " Assignment: Earth ", an attempt to launch a spin-off television series set in the 1960s. [ citation needed ]
- ↑ Credited as Jud Crucis
- ↑ Credited as John Kingsbridge
After Star Trek ' s second season, NBC was prepared to cancel the show due to low ratings. [33] [34] Led by fans Bjo and John Trimble , Trek viewers inundated NBC with letters protesting the show's demise and pleading with the network to renew the series for another year. [34] [35]
After NBC agreed to produce a third season, the network promised Gene Roddenberry that the show would air in a favorable timeslot (Mondays at 7:30 p.m.), [33] [34] but later changed the schedule so that Trek would air in the so-called " death slot "—Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. [33] [36] In addition to the "mismanaged" [34] schedule, the show's budget was "seriously slashed" [33] and Nichelle Nichols described the series' eventual cancellation as "a self-fulfilling prophecy ". [37]
Star Trek ' s final, 24-episode season began in September 1968 with " Spock's Brain ". [2] The third season also includes " The Tholian Web ", where Kirk becomes trapped between universes; this episode would later be revisited by two 2005 episodes of the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise . The last episode of the series, " Turnabout Intruder ", aired on June 3, 1969, [2] but Star Trek would eventually return to television in animated form when the animated Star Trek debuted in September 1973.
- 1 2 3 4 Credited as Lee Cronin
- 1 2 Credited as Michael Richards
The list below details the series' episodes in production order, including the original series pilot , " The Cage ". While the "complete season" DVD releases (listed above) follow the original broadcast order, the original episodic DVD releases [10] are numbered by production order. [38]
Star Trek was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One starting on July 12, 1969, with the episode " Where No Man Has Gone Before ". [39] The first episode broadcast in color was " Arena " on November 15, 1969. The episodes were broadcast in a different order than in the United States and were originally aired in four seasons between 1969 and 1971. The BBC edited the episodes for broadcast by showing the title sequence first, then the teaser segment that aired before the titles in the United States, then the rest of the episode. These edited episodes aired until the 1990s [ vague ] , after which the BBC was supplied with NTSC videotape transfers of the first season instead of new film prints, resulting in a substandard picture, and with edits originally made for syndication in the United States. Viewer complaints led to the BBC obtaining film prints for the subsequent two seasons.
" The Cage " was first broadcast on Sky One in July 1990. Three episodes, " Plato's Stepchildren ", " The Empath ", and " Whom Gods Destroy ", were not broadcast on the BBC until 1994, although "The Empath" was listed in the Radio Times as scheduled to broadcast on December 16, 1970, at 7:20 pm. [40] Sky One was the first network to air these three episodes in the UK in 1990, although with the title sequence and teaser shown in the order as they were aired in the United States, whereas the rest of the episodes were broadcast as edited by the BBC.
- Lists of Star Trek episodes
Related Research Articles
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. It acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series ( TOS ) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began.
Star Trek: The Animated Series ( TAS ) is an American animated science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry. It originally aired simply under the title Star Trek , subtitled Created by Gene Roddenberry , on Saturday mornings from September 8, 1973 to October 12, 1974 on NBC, spanning 22 episodes over two seasons. The second series in the Star Trek franchise, it features mostly the same characters as Star Trek: The Original Series . Set in the 23rd century, the series follows the further adventures of the Starship USS Enterprise as it explores the galaxy.
Vulcans , sometimes referred to as Vulcanians , are a fictional extraterrestrial humanoid species in the Star Trek universe and media franchise. In the various Star Trek television series and films, they are noted for their attempt to live by logic and reason with as little interference from emotion as possible. Known for their pronounced eyebrows and pointed ears, they originate from the fictional planet Vulcan. In the Star Trek universe, they were the first extraterrestrial species to make contact with humans.
Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. He first appeared in the original Star Trek series serving aboard the starship USS Enterprise as science officer and first officer and later as commanding officer of the vessel. Spock's mixed human–Vulcan heritage serves as an important plot element in many of the character's appearances. Along with Captain James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, he is one of the three central characters in the original Star Trek series and its films. After retiring from active duty in Starfleet, Spock served as a Federation ambassador, and later became involved in the ill-fated attempt to save Romulus from a supernova, leading him to live out the rest of his life in a parallel universe.
Star Trek: Phase II was the initial working title for what officially became titled Star Trek II , an unproduced American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as a sequel to the original Star Trek , which had run from 1966 to 1969. The plans for the series were first developed after several failed attempts to create a feature film based on the property, coupled with plans for a Paramount Television Service (PTS) as a fourth broadcast television network in the United States.
" The City on the Edge of Forever " is the twenty-eighth and penultimate episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . It was written by Harlan Ellison; contributors to and/or editors of the script included Steven W. Carabatsos, D. C. Fontana and Gene L. Coon. Gene Roddenberry made the final re-write. The episode was directed by Joseph Pevney and first aired on NBC on April 6, 1967, with a repeat broadcast on August 31, 1967.
" The Cage " is the first pilot episode of the American television series Star Trek . It was completed on January 22, 1965. The episode was written by Gene Roddenberry and directed by Robert Butler. It was rejected by NBC in February 1965, and the network ordered another pilot episode, which became "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Much of the original footage from "The Cage" was later incorporated into the season 1 two-part episode "The Menagerie" (1966); however, "The Cage" was first released to the public on VHS in 1986, with a special introduction by Gene Roddenberry, as a hybrid of the color footage that was used in "The Menagerie" and black and white footage which was not used in "The Menagerie". It was not broadcast on television in its complete all-color form until 1988. The black and white version and all-color version were also released in various standard-definition media including LaserDisc, VHS, and DVD formats.
" Where No Man Has Gone Before " is the third episode of the first season of the American science-fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Samuel A. Peeples and directed by James Goldstone, it first aired on September 22, 1966.
Christine Chapel is a fictional character who appears in all three seasons of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Original Series , as well as Star Trek: The Animated Series and the films Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . Portrayed by Majel Barrett, she was the ship's nurse on board the Starfleet starship USS Enterprise . A younger version of Chapel appears in the 2022 series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , portrayed by Jess Bush.
Una Chin-Riley , commonly and originally only known as Number One , is a fictional character in the science-fiction franchise Star Trek . She is Christopher Pike's second-in-command during his captaincy of the starship Enterprise .
" The Infinite Vulcan " is the seventh episode of the first season of the American animated science fiction television series Star Trek: The Animated Series . It first aired on NBC on October 20, 1973, and was written by Original Series cast member Walter Koenig. It was the actor's only involvement in the series, as he had not been hired to voice Pavel Chekov in the animated version due to budgetary limitations. With "The Infinite Vulcan", Koenig became the first member of the Star Trek cast to write an episode for the franchise. As with the rest of the first season, the episode was directed by Hal Sutherland.
The Menagerie is a two-part episode from the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . It comprises the eleventh and twelfth broadcast episodes of the series. Written by series creator Gene Roddenberry, with portions directed by Marc Daniels and portions directed by Robert Butler, it is the only two-part story in the original series. Part I was broadcast by NBC on November 17, 1966, and Part II was broadcast on November 24, 1966. In the episode, Spock abducts his former commander Christopher Pike, locks the starship Enterprise on a course to the forbidden planet Talos IV and turns himself in for court-martial where he presents an elaborate story explaining his actions.
" The Man Trap " is the first episode of season one of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by George Clayton Johnson and directed by Marc Daniels, it featured design work by Wah Chang and first aired in the United States on September 8, 1966.
" Is There in Truth No Beauty? " is the fifth episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Jean Lisette Aroeste and directed by Ralph Senensky, it was first broadcast on October 18, 1968.
" The Empath " is the twelfth episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Joyce Muskat and directed by John Erman, it was first broadcast on December 6, 1968.
" The Pirates of Orion " is the second season premiere episode of the American animated science fiction television series Star Trek: The Animated Series , the 17th episode overall. It first aired on NBC on September 7, 1974. It was directed by Bill Reed and written by Howard Weinstein. The episode was Weinstein's first professional sale at the age of 19, making him, as of 2023, the youngest writer of any Star Trek TV episode.
The first season of the American science-fiction television series Star Trek , originally created by Gene Roddenberry, premiered on NBC on September 8, 1966, and concluded on April 13, 1967. The season debuted in Canada on CTV two days before the US premiere, on September 6, 1966. It consisted of 29 episodes, which is the highest number of episodes in a season for the original series of Star Trek . It features William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, and DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy.
The second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek , premiered on NBC on September 15, 1967 and concluded on March 29, 1968. It consisted of twenty-six episodes. It features William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock and DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy.
The third and final season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek , premiered on NBC on Friday, September 20, 1968 and concluded on Tuesday, June 3, 1969. It consisted of twenty-four episodes. Star Trek: The Original Series is an American science fiction television series produced by Fred Freiberger, and created by Gene Roddenberry, and the original series of the Star Trek franchise. It features William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock and DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy.
The development of Spock, a fictional character first introduced in the American science fiction television series Star Trek, began prior to the start of the series. The first known mention of Spock was in a discussion between Gene Roddenberry and Gary Lockwood, where the latter suggested Leonard Nimoy for the role. Roddenberry agreed with the suggestion, and Nimoy became the first choice actor for the part. However, Roddenberry was required to audition other actors for the role. It was offered to both DeForest Kelley and Martin Landau before Nimoy. Nimoy disliked the prosthetic ears he was required to wear, and there were concerns from the studio that they made him appear satanic. Roddenberry fought to keep the character in the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" after the rest of the main cast was dropped from the initial pilot, "The Cage".
- 1 2 3 4 5 Trimble, Bjo (1976). Star Trek Concordance . New York: Ballantine Books . pp. 37–89. ISBN 0-345-25137-7 .
- ↑ "Star Trek: Season 1 DVD Information" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2009 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- ↑ "Star Trek: Season 2 DVD Information" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2009 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- 1 2 "Star Trek: Season 3 DVD Information" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2009 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- ↑ "Star Trek: Season 1 (Remastered) DVD Information" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on March 8, 2009 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- ↑ "Star Trek: Season 2 (Remastered) DVD Information" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2009 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- 1 2 "Star Trek: Season 3 (Remastered) DVD Information" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2009 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- ↑ "CBS & Paramount Announce First Star Trek Blu-ray sets - TOS S1 & All TOS movies coming April/May" . TrekMovie.com. February 16, 2009 . Retrieved April 28, 2009 .
- 1 2 "Star Trek on DVD, Release Info, Reviews, News at TVShowsOnDVD.com" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on May 1, 2009 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- ↑ "Star Trek Syndication Advertisements, Circa 1969-1970" . TelevisionObscurities.com. December 15, 2008 . Retrieved May 2, 2009 .
- ↑ "Star Trek (U.S. Science Fiction)" . The Museum of Broadcast Communication. Archived from the original on April 11, 2018 . Retrieved January 26, 2015 .
- ↑ "It's Official: Classic Trek Coming to HDTV With New CGI" . TrekMovie.com. August 30, 2006 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- ↑ "TOS Remastered: Format" . TrekMovie.com. August 30, 2006 . Retrieved April 30, 2009 .
- ↑ "Star Trek: The Original Series - Season 1 Blu-ray" . blu-ray.com. April 28, 2009 . Retrieved June 3, 2009 .
- 1 2 "TOS Remastered Episode Guide - Season 1" . TrekMovie.com . Retrieved April 28, 2009 .
- ↑ "First Look: Preview for Star Trek Remastered "The Cage" Airing Next Weekend" . TrekMovie.com. April 22, 2009 . Retrieved April 28, 2009 .
- ↑ David Alexander, Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry , p. 218.
- ↑ Shatner, William (2008). Up Till Now: The Autobiography . New York: Thomas Dunne Books . pp. 119 . ISBN 978-0-312-37265-1 .
- ↑ David Alexander, Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry , p. 244.
- 1 2 3 Alexander, David (1994). Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry . Roc. ISBN 0-451-45440-5 .
- 1 2 Whitfield, Stephen E & Roddenberry, Gene (1968). The Making of Star Trek . Ballatine Books. ISBN 1-85286-363-3 .
- 1 2 3 "A Look Back at The History of Star Trek's First Pilot "The Cage" " . TrekWeb.com. November 12, 2008. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011 . Retrieved May 1, 2009 .
- ↑ "Volume 40: Turnabout Intruder/The Cage" . TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on December 16, 2004 . Retrieved May 1, 2009 .
- 1 2 Both the original Season 3 and "remastered" season 3 sets list the original air date for "The Cage" as October 15, 1988.
- ↑ DVD News Archived September 24, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- 1 2 "Star Trek: Episodes (Season 1)" . StarTrek.com. Archived from the original on June 21, 2009 . Retrieved June 4, 2009 .
- ↑ Leonard Nimoy (1995). I Am Spock . Hyperion. pp. 38 . ISBN 0-7868-6182-7 .
- ↑ Herbert F. Solow and Robert H. Justman (1996). Inside Star Trek: The Real Story . Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-00974-5 .
- ↑ Grace Lee Whitney and Jim Denney (1998). The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy . Quill Driver Books. ISBN 1-884956-03-3 .
- ↑ Entertainment Weekly Special Edition January 18, 1995
- ↑ "1968 Hugo Awards" . TheHugoAwards.org. July 26, 2007 . Retrieved May 1, 2009 .
- 1 2 3 4 Leonard Nimoy (1995). I Am Spock . Hyperion. pp. 112–113 . ISBN 0-7868-6182-7 .
- 1 2 3 4 Shatner, William (2008). Up Till Now: The Autobiography . New York: Thomas Dunne Books . pp. 131–132 . ISBN 978-0-312-37265-1 .
- ↑ David Gerrold, quoting Bjo Trimble, in The World of Star Trek , Ballantine Books, 1973, p. 166
- ↑ William Shatner, Star Trek Memories , Harper Torch, 1994 paperback, p. 257
- ↑ Nichols, Beyond Uhura , p. 189
- ↑ "StarTrek.com: DVD" . StarTrek.com. Archived from the original on January 13, 2010 . Retrieved April 28, 2009 .
- ↑ "Search - BBC Programme Index" . genome.ch.bbc.co.uk . Retrieved March 11, 2023 .
- ↑ Fulton, Roger (1997). The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction . London: Boxtree . pp. 429–440 . ISBN 0-7522-1150-1 .
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Star Trek: The Original Series:About
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The Star Trek:The Original Series is all about the Star Trek original series. It consists of characters, actors, episodes, places, and the all-around famous, The U.S.S Enterprise.
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‘Star Trek' Origin Story Movie Set From ‘Andor' Director, ‘Star Trek 4' Still in the Works as ‘Final Chapter' of Main Series
A new "Star Trek" film is in the works at Paramount with "Andor's" Toby Haynes on board to direct and Seth Grahame-Smith penning the script, Variety has confirmed.
While plot details are being kept under wraps, the upcoming feature will be an origin story that is set decades before 2009's "Star Trek," as well as an expansion of the "Star Trek" universe. J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot is producing.
Meanwhile, the fourth installment of the rebooted "Star Trek" film series remains in development, with the studio describing it as the "final chapter." In the third film, 2016's "Star Trek Beyond," the crew of the USS Enterprise crash-lands on a mysterious world after being attacked by the lizard-like dictator Krall (Idris Elba).
A fourth "Star Trek" movie starring Chris Pine was first announced in July of 2016, with Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho and Simon Pegg expected to return. Chris Hemsworth, who appeared in the 2009 original, was set to return to the space saga as George Kirk, the father of Captain James T. Kirk (Pine). According to Paramount at the time, "Star Trek 4" would see Pine's Captain Kirk cross paths with his father, who was "a man he never had a chance to meet, but whose legacy has haunted him since the day he was born."
During a Paramount Global investors day presentation in February of 2022, Abrams announced that a new "Star Trek" movie would begin shooting by the end of that year with the Pine-led crew. Pine and his co-stars reportedly had no idea Paramount was moving forward with another "Star Trek" film, which was eventually removed from the studio's film slate in September of that year.
Haynes recently directed six episodes of the "Star Wars" series "Andor," starring Diego Luna as the titular role. He also helmed the "Star Trek"-inspired episode of "Black Mirror," titled "USS Callister." Haynes is repped by WME and attorney Peter Nelson.
Grahame-Smith is best known as the author of the best-selling novels "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." He also wrote and produced 2017's "The Lego Batman Movie." Grahame-Smith is repped by WME and attorneys PJ Shapiro and Wendy Kirk.
Deadline was first to report the "Star Trek" news.
More from Variety
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Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. It acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began.. The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, c. 2266-2269.
Star Trek: The Original Series (referred to as Star Trek prior to any spin-offs) is the first Star Trek series. The first episode of the show aired on 6 September 1966 on CTV in Canada, followed by a 8 September 1966 airing on NBC in America. The show was created by Gene Roddenberry as a "Wagon Train to the Stars". Star Trek was set in the 23rd century and featured the voyages of the starship ...
The series originally aired from September 1966 through June 1969 on NBC. [1] This is the first television series in the Star Trek franchise, and comprises 79 regular episodes over the series' three seasons, along with the series' original pilot episode, "The Cage". The episodes are listed in order by original air date, [2] which match the ...
The first season of Star Trek: The Original Series was produced and filmed from May 1966 to February 1967 by Desilu. It began airing in the fall season on NBC, running new episodes until the spring of 1967, and continuing in repeats until the premiere of TOS Season 2 in the fall of 1967. In the United Kingdom, the season premiered on the ITV network on Sunday, September 6, 1981, and ended on ...
Star Trek is a science fiction franchise comprising twelve television series, thirteen films, four companion series, numerous novels, comics, video games, reference works, podcasts, role playing games, along with thousands of collectibles. Originally, Star Trek was a product of Desilu Studios as created by Gene Roddenberry in a first draft series proposal "Star Trek is...", dated 11 March 1964 ...
Star Trek: Created by Gene Roddenberry. With Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.
There was also Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), The Next Generation (1987-1994), Deep Space, Nine (1993-1999), Voyager (1995-2001), and Enterprise (2001-2005). In Star Trek: TOS (The Original Series is usually shortened to TOS) they had a total of 79 episodes, and three series. You can view all Episodes and Series down below.
The iconic series follows the crew of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise as it completes its missions in space in the 23rd century. Captain James T. Kirk -- along with science officer Spock, ship Dr. "Bones" McCoy, Ensign Pavel Chekov, communications officer Lt. Nyota Uhura, helmsman Lt. Hikaru Sulu, and chief engineer Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery "Scotty ...
The path that leads to Star Trek begins in 2063, when the eccentric scientist known as Zefram Cochrane creates Earth's first warp drive and proves that faster-than-light travel is possible. This ...
The Original Series logo. Star Trek is an American media franchise based on the science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry.The first television series, simply called Star Trek and now referred to as The Original Series, debuted in 1966 and aired for three seasons on NBC.The Star Trek canon includes eight live-action television series, three animated series and one short-form ...
Where to Watch: Paramount+ 20. Star Trek: Prodigy (2383-TBD) Star Trek: Prodigy was the first fully 3D animated Star Trek series ever and told a story that began five years after the U.S.S ...
Memory Beta is a wikipedia-style database for licensed Star Trek works, including novels, comic books, RPG sourcebooks, video games and any other licensed works. Warning: This wiki contains a plethora of spoilers relating to the Star Trek series and novels. Read at your own risk.This wiki was started on April 15, 2005, and we are currently ...
Star Trek is an American science-fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began. The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, circa 2266-2269. The ship and crew are led by Captain James ...
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began. 1Cast. Recurring cast.
Star Trek: The Original Series has been released on VHS in multiple countries since the technology was developed. In early 1980, directly pursuant the premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Paramount Home Entertainment (then known as Paramount Home Video) released ten selected episodes on the new VHS and Betamax home media formats in the United States, in five volumes of two episodes each ...
Star Trek is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that aired on NBC from September 8, 1966, to June 3, 1969. Though the original series was titled Star Trek, it has acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series (ST:TOS or TOS) to distinguish it from the spinoffs that followed, and from the Star Trek universe or franchise that they make up. Set in the 23rd ...
Star Trek: Enterprise, originally titled Enterprise, is a prequel to the original Star Trek series. It aired from September 26, 2001, to May 13, 2005, on UPN . [77] Enterprise is set about a century earlier than The Original Series , early in the fictional history of humanity's space exploration and shortly before the creation of the United ...
Here's how to watch the 13 Star Trek movies in chronological order in a couple of ways. Starring William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, Star Trek: The Original Series' 3 seasons aired on NBC from 1966-1969, but the show exploded in popularity in syndication.After the blockbuster success of Star Wars in 1977, Paramount refashioned a planned TV series revival ...
Features Why Star Trek Uniform Colors Changed From the Original Series to Next Generation. The uniforms on Star Trek have changed over time, but for reasons that make a lot more sense behind the ...
The Star Trek: The Original Series - Seasons 1-3 Remastered DVD collection is a box set containing all three seasons of the remastered Star Trek: The Original Series. Released simultaneously with the last individual, Season 3 DVD set, this collection was in essence nothing more than a simple bundled shrink wrapped repackaging of this and the previous two individual season releases for Region ...
Episodes Pilots (1964-65) Star Trek ' s pilot episode, "The Cage", was completed between November 1964 and January 1965, [18] and starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, Majel Barrett as Number One, and Leonard Nimoy as Spock.The pilot was rejected by NBC as being "too cerebral" among other complaints. [19] Jeffrey Hunter chose to withdraw from the role of Pike [20] when creator ...
The second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek, premiered on NBC on September 15, 1967 and concluded on March 29, 1968. It consisted of twenty-six episodes. It features William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock and DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy .
The Star Trek:The Original Series is all about the Star Trek original series. It consists of characters, actors, episodes, places, and the all-around famous, The U.S.S Enterprise. Memory Alpha/Beta [] If you want information on the entire Star Trek series, you should visit this wiki.
The Original Series films. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first suggested the idea of a Star Trek feature in 1969. When the original television series was cancelled, he lobbied to continue the franchise through a film. The success of the series in syndication convinced the studio to begin work on a feature film in 1975. A series of writers attempted to craft a suitably epic screenplay, but ...
A new "Star Trek" film is in the works at Paramount with "Andor's" Toby Haynes on board to direct and Seth Grahame-Smith penning the script, Variety has confirmed. While plot details are being ...
Star Trek: The Original Series (season 2) Star Trek: The Original Series (season 3) T. Theme from Star Trek; Tribble; U. USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) V. Vasquez Rocks; W. Where No Fan Has Gone Before This page was last edited on 31 October 2023, at 06:06 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative ...