Today Marks The 50th Anniversary of 'Star Trek' (ew.com)

Dave Knott writes: Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first television broadcast of Star Trek. The first episode of the science fiction series was aired on September 8, 1966. From its humble beginnings, Star Trek has gone on to become one of the best-loved and most successful television concepts of all time, an enduring pop culture touchstone that changed science fiction forever and spawned multiple series and movies that continue to this day. What does Star Trek mean to you? Are you a trekkie/trekker? What are your best memories of the series, and how has it affected your life?

Comments

Still believe DS9 to be the best

[ArtemaOne]

The Next Generation was amazing, DS9 is still my favorite, but the original series broke so much ground it is mind boggling. One of my favorite stories is of Ohura and Kirk kissing. The producers didn't want to do it, so Shatner convinced them to film both scenes, the kissing first. He then proceeded to screw up every take without the kiss until they were running low on film, which was quite expensive. The producers were forced to take that step forward in history.

Good plot hooks

[Okian Warrior]

TOS set the technology up with some really good plot hooks. Things like:

You can't beam someone onboard while the shields are up.
You can go to distant planets, but it still takes considerable time.
The transporters are sensitive, finicky things that tend to break.

All of these make great places to hang plot from, such as:

So item #1 makes for a tense situation when you're in a shuttlecraft (or on the planet) while the ship is facing off an enemy.
Item #2 means you might not get there in time (KIRK: Make a challenge. Warn that ship off. UHURA: Trying to, sir. They don't acknowledge.)
Item #3 means you might get stranded on the ship after you've set it to blow up.

Compare with the modern reboot movies, where you can beam from Earth to another planet using a transporter the size of a duffel bag, starships that can hide underwater, and magic serum from Khan's blood that will bring someone back from the dead.

The modern reboot movies think sacrificing the technology makes for good plot, but it's just the opposite: Good plot will be based on the limitations of the technology.

Consider: How can anyone get emotionally involved in someone's death, knowing that they can be brought back to life now using Khan's blood?

(Let's not mention a red liquid that can turn a planet into a black hole, delivered by hand using a big syringe. Or a cold fusion bomb that can't be remote armed, has to be assembled and armed by hand while standing at the place of detonation. Or a bomb the size of a class ring that can take out a building. Or beaming from a planet onto a ship that's been at warp for a couple of hours using a formula that considers the ship and the planet stationary while the space between them moves.)

It was the day science fiction got real

[hyades1]

As a very young boy, I exhausted the children's area of our small-town library in no time. With my parents' permission and a wonderful librarian, I was allowed to start getting books from the Adults' floor. I was a complete science fiction addict. I went through the whole section. I was even allowed to read stories like Farmer's "The Lovers" and Sturgeon's "Venus Plus X", which at the time were considered very definitely not for children.

I was thoroughly familiar with concepts that are now almost trite, but at the time were pretty much limited to the science fiction community: preserving time lines to preserve reality, the implications of faster-than-light spaceships, matter transmission, parallel universes and a lot more. Television science fiction (except Outer Limits and Twilight Zone) bored me to tears, and Lost In Space made me sick. My parents couldn't figure out why I loved SF books so much, but had no time for "Fireball XL-5".

Then, just as summer was winding down, the networks started promoting the new TV shows for the coming season. And there was Star Trek. Even the very limited "trailers" made it clear this was going to be something different. It delivered in spades. All of the stuff I'd been reading about was brought to life, and I got to watch my family and friends catch onto the same things that had held me spellbound for a good part of my short life. And most important, Star Trek made it clear that we'd get through all the evil and ugliness we saw around us...Vietnam, the assassinations, the Cold War. It was looking pretty bleak there, for a while.

And it also did what science fiction was supposed to do: hold up a mirror to problems in our own world we didn't often discuss openly. Plus (huge bonus) some of the seriously imaginative science fiction writers whose work I loved were writing episodes. My mother, who was a tough, capable woman, cried like a baby at the end of "The City at the Edge of Forever", and my dad was very quiet. They'd both lived through WWII (my dad served with the RAF), and they both knew just how close Hitler came to winning.

But it was that first view of the first promo I remember best...when my sister and I were sitting on the living room floor playing a card game and I looked at the TV and just couldn't believe what I was seeing.

All these years later, I know how lucky I was to see it happen through a child's eyes.