Star Trek - Year 57

Tomorrow is September 8^th, also known as Star Trek day.  This year it’s the 56^th anniversary of the first ever airing of the program.  The beginning of year 57.  So can you guess what today’s blog topic is? 

Just Plain Star Trek

When I was growing up, Mom and I used to watch a show called Star Trek.  (Only when Dad wasn’t home, because of his absolute hatred of Star Trek and all things sci-fi.)  It wasn’t yet Classic Star Trek or Star Trek – the Original Series.  Because it wasn’t yet the founder of a franchise.  It was just Star Trek.  

 

These were the voyages of the starship Enterprise.  The stars of the show were Star Trek’s ‘holy trinity’ of Captain James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner), his Vulcan first officer, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and ship’s doctor Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). 

The rest of the main characters included Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), Communications Officer Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Helmsman Hikaru Sulu (George Takai), and Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig).  Those last three characters were fairly groundbreaking for the 60s, being a black woman, an Asian, and a Russian (respectively) in major roles on a television program. 

And, of course, there were several lesser recurring characters in the show, along with a veritable parade of expendable crewmen wearing red shirts. 

Locally, it was on in syndication at least once a week.  (The animated version was usually also on once a week, early Sunday mornings.)  In the summertime, it was usually also on every weekday. 

My favorite episode was “Assignment: Earth”, a time-travel episode which was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series starring the characters of Gary Seven, Isis, and Roberta Lincoln.  Sadly, that series was never produced.  (More recently, “Assignment: Earth” served as backstory for season two of Star Trek – Picard). 

Mom’s favorite episode was “Devil in the Dark”.  (Apparently, it was also the favorite episode of William Shatner.)  It featured a silicon lifeform called the Horta, and was the first episode to use Dr. McCoy’s catchphrase, “I’m a doctor, not a _______” (in this case the blank was filled in with the word ‘bricklayer’. 

The series was cancelled at the end of every season, only to be brought back by overwhelming fan support twice.  But it’s third season was it’s last, and that was cancelled before I was even born. 

When we watched the show, it was all reruns to Mom.  But brand new to me the first time through.  But eventually, I too had seen all 79 episodes.  And while I continued to watch the show, there was nothing new for me to see. 

Until 1979 rolled around, that is. 

Star Trek Movies

In December of 79, the show made the jump from the small screen to the big one with the premiere of Star Trek – the Motion Picture.  Seen today as one of the weaker installments of the Star Trek film franchise, at the time it was awe inspiring to me.  Over two hours of story and with actual Star Wars-level special effects. 

The critics’ opinion of the film was largely, “Meh”, but it made enough money for Paramount to greenlight a sequel. 

Films two through four formed a rough trilogy.  When those movies would come to the Palace Theater for a week in neighboring Silverton, Mom and I usually went to see them nearly every night of their run. 

Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan was a sequel to the television episode “Space Seed”, and the movie which [spoiler warning] killed off the character of Spock. 

Star Trek III = the Search for Spock focused on the character’s resurrection, a plotline which was set up at the end of the previous movie.  But while Spock returned, sadly, [spoiler warning] the starship Enterprise (often seen by fans as the show’s eighth character) was destroyed. 

Star Trek IV – the Voyage Home began (as the title would suggest) with the crew returning to Earth in a commandeered Klingon Bird of Prey.  But a threat to the survival of the planet causes them to time travel back to the 1980s in an effort to bring some whales into a future where whales have gone extinct.  It’s a goofy sounding premise, but the Star Trek fandom ate it up. 

Mom and I saw Star Trek V – the Final Frontier a grand total of once in the theatres, and on our way home asked ourselves, “What the Hell did we just watch?”  The villain of the piece was Spock’s never-before-mentioned half-brother Sybok.  And according to rumor, the only person who was happy with the script was William Shatner, who came up with the premise and directed the film.  It’s the movie that is credited with nearly sinking the film franchise. 

Star Trek VI – the Undiscovered Country, having kept Shatner far away from both the writer’s desk and director’s chair, was a return to glory for the franchise.  It was released on December 6rh, and eight days later (after spending money for tickets, snacks, and even gas – and arranging for Dad to watch my siblings for the night) I treated Mom to a showing at a Wilsonville theater for her birthday. 

The plot surrounded longtime Star Trek bad guys the Klingons trying to make peace with their Federation enemies following the destruction of one of their world’s moons.  It was said to have been based on a Leonard Nimoy suggestion about the equivalent of the Berlin Wall coming down in the Star Trek universe. 

There would be other Star Trek movies, but none featuring the full cast of the original series. 

Off the Screen

I wasn’t limiting my Star Trek consumption to television and movies.  I was also a huge fan of the original novels published by Pocket Books.  During a large chunk of the 80s and 90s I read every one I could get my hands on. 

And while I was a huge Star Trek fan AND a huge comic book fan, for some reason the Star Trek comics never really clicked with me.  They were usually okay… but just okay.  Not great.  Rarely even really all that good.  But okay. 

Star Trek – the Next Generation

In 1987, something extraordinary happened.  These days, if you hear, “We’re getting a new Star Trek series,” your reaction is probably, “Oh.  Nice.”  But back then?  Something like that was completely unprecedented. 

The starship Enterprise was returning to our television screens.  But not the Enterprise we were familiar with.  Nor the crew that we’d grown to know and love.  No, this time we were looking into Star Trek’s future with Star Trek – the Next Generation.  This was not my mother’s Star Trek.  This one was mine. 

Brand new space adventures, week by week.  With brand new characters.  Captain Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), whose style of command was so very different to that of Captain Kirk.  The much more Kirk-like first officer Commander Will Riker (Jonathon Frakes).  The android Data (Brent Spiner).  Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge (Lavar Burton).  The Klingon (yes, a Klingon on the bridge crew!) Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn).  Security Chief Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), who [spoiler warning] despite not actually wearing a red shirt, did not survive the show’s first season.  Half-Betazoid Ship’s Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), who was in a not-quite-over romantic relationship with Riker.  Doctor Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) who appeared in every season but the second, where she was replaced by Doctor Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur).  And, of course, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher (present day nerd ambassador Wil Wheaton), the genius son of Dr. Crusher. 

The show being renewed for it’s fourth season was a milestone that it’s originator never hit.  And early on in fourth season it also beat classic Trek’s total number of episodes.  All told, Star Trek – the Next Generation ran for seven seasons, a total of 178 episodes. 

After the television show wrapped, this cast also moved on to the big screen.  Four movies.  Star Trek Generations was a ‘passing the torch’ movie that included not only the Next Gen cast, but also several members of the original crew, including Captain Kirk. 

Star Trek: First Contact was my favorite of the bunch, and was a time travel adventure which saw Next Gen enemies the Borg travel into Earth’s past in an attempt to keep humanity from their first contact with aliens, thus making sure that the United Federation of Planets never formed. 

Star Trek: Insurrection sees the crew of the Enterprise ignoring orders in order to rescue a temporarily reassigned (and malfunctioning) Data.  In doing so, they discover a fountain-of-youth style planet whose peaceful and quasi-immortal inhabitants are the targets of an insidious plot by several top Federation officers and their alien allies to steal the healing energies for themselves, poisoning the planet in the process. 

Star Trek: Nemesis was just kind of… weird.  The plot revolved around a clone of Picard (from an abandoned Romulan attempt to infiltrate the Federation) who had seized control of the Romulan Empire.  It also included an earlier android prototype of Data.  I’ve only seen it once, and that was months after it’s DVD release.  Not the greatest of the Star Trek movies, although still not as bad as Star Trek V. 

But as I said before, this was my Star Trek.  I was there while it was happening.  I went to several conventions and met several members of the cast.  (And by ‘met’ I mean I briefly stood in front of them and made fanboy small talk while they signed a photo for me.) 

And then there was the script.  I co-authored a script for the show (“Cry Uncle”, which would have seen the return of Data’s evil brother Lore, and picked up the storyline involving Data’s daughter Lal), which my writing partner and I submitted to Paramount, who summarily rejected it. 

Having the completed script in hand and nothing else to do with it, I came very close to starting a Star Trek – the Next Generation fanzine (which would have been titled The Seven Digit Stardate).  But disagreements between myself and my co-author sank this project. 

The Star Trek Franchise

Due to the success of Star Trek – the Next Generation, Star Trek went from being a couple of popular sci-fi shows to a full blown franchise. 

A couple of years before Next Gen finished up it’s television run, Star Trek – Deep Space Nine started up.  And a year after the Next Gen finale, Star Trek – Voyager hit the air.  Then came Enterprise (eventually retitled Star Trek – Enterprise to fit the overall titling pattern).  Still more shows would follow.  And movies.  Not to mention the parade of novels and comics.  Video games.  Role playing games.  Action figures.  Non-LEGO-brand building block toys.  (Why couldn’t LEGO have landed that license?  I’d love some Star Trek LEGO!)  And so much more. 

Looking back at the entire franchise as a whole, both Star Trek and Star Trek – the Next Generation were iconic.  The ships, the characters, (most of) the stories… it was all a sci-fi masterpiece.  Subsequent shows in the franchise?  Decidedly less iconic. 

Oh, there were some iconic characters to be found.  (Including the franchise’s first black Captain.  It’s first female Captain.  It’s first, uh… dog-owning Captain?  Okay, so Captain Archer wasn’t really all that iconic.)  A few really brilliant stories here and there.  And once again (with the exception of a couple of shows), I’ve seen every episode.  Every movie.  I’ve sat there and mostly enjoyed all of it.  I still consider myself a big Star Trek fan. 

But the franchise has never quite reached the heights that it did with the original series and Next Gen. 

The Shows I Had Reasons To Dislike…But Liked Anyway

Star Trek – Deep Space Nine hit syndication airwaves in January of 1993.  A month later, another show (Babylon 5) made its debut with a syndicated two hour pilot movie.  DS9 made it to television screens first, but B5 had been in production for longer than DS9 had. 

And there was a controversy between the two shows, which sci-fi fandom picked up and ran with.  Accusations of plagiarism were leveled at Paramount.  There were lots of rumors and conspiracy theories.  And in the early days, a lot of members of fandom were either a DS9 fan or a B5 fan, but certainly not both.  Whichever side you picked, your show was righteous, the other was the enemy. 

Sifting through all of the available facts, here’s the version of the story that I personally choose to believe.  B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski (a writer who I’d been a fan of since his days working on the New Twilight Zone and the Real Ghostbusters) initially took his project to Paramount.  Executives at Paramount read the script for the pilot movie and the series’ story bible, and then told JMS that they were interested in it. 

They wanted it, but wanted JMS to make some changes to it, most notably having him change all of the aliens to members of established Star Trek races.  And setting the series in the Star Trek universe.  JMS told them ‘thanks, but no thanks’, and that he’d find another home for his project. 

Paramount then decided to craft a new Star Trek series around JMS’ basic idea for B5.  They asked some of their people to develop that new series, and gave them some very specific input for the show.  Starting with the fact that it had to be set on a space station that had a number in its name (which would also be the name of the series).  And that after the show had established itself, it’s storylines would become serialized rather than episodic, a first for Star Trek. 

They pushed the show’s ‘creators’ for speed, putting them in a secret race to get their product on TV before JMS could get his there.  A race which they won by a month.  Then details of this backstory started to leak, and fandom got involved. 

As a JMS fan, I picked B5 as ‘my’ show.  But as a Star Trek fan, I still watched DS9.  B5 was, in my opinion, honestly a better show than DS9.  But they were both entertaining.  I enjoyed them both. 

And even if Paramount did steal the idea for DS9 from the B5 material JMS wrote, so what?  A great many of the writers I idolize have made statements supporting the fact that, “It’s not the idea – it’s what you do with it.”  And both DS9 and B5 ended up doing vastly different things with those ideas. 

As the years went on, both shows tried to smooth things over with their audiences.  Classic Star Trek actors appeared on B5, and one of B5’s cast appeared in a later episode of DS9.  Eventually, most if not all was forgiven.  Or at least forgotten. 

And then came Voyager. 

Star Trek – Voyager did nothing wrong.  The (joking) animosity I hold toward it is undoubtedly due to simple coincidence.  But if you look at my 1990 not-even-small-press novel “Driftwood”, and then look at Voyager, you’ll find plot elements that line up even more tightly that the ones between early DS9 and B5. 

If I remember correctly, when my friend (and zine producer) Ed ‘published’ the publication that “Driftwood” was featured in, he produced a whopping 100 copies of it.  Which he hawked at sci-fi conventions for years.  For all I know, he might still be sitting on a stack of them.  Paramount certainly didn’t rip me off.  Did that keep some of my friends from spinning an elaborate conspiracy theory about the events of the time?  No. 

Apparently, someone bought a copy of my novel at a sci-fi convention, and it made its way into Paramount’s hands.  Upon reading it, they decided to base their next Star Trek show on it.  Then, on May 18^th, 1993, they sent a team of specialists to break into my house while I was sleeping, copy all of the notes off of my computer’s hard drive for the following six novels I planned to write in the series, and then uploaded a virus that destroyed that drive when I tried to boot up the computer the next day. 

That was the story that my friends started to tell about Star Trek – Voyager.  All joking aside, Voyager was once again a quality piece of Star Trek entertainment.  (Right up until the final episode, where the writers made some absolutely God-awful decisions.) 

Enterprise

Then came Enterprise.  The first Star Trek series to not carry the Star Trek name in its title.  (Which lasted for all of two seasons before it conformed to the rest of the franchise.) 

This time around, instead of staying in the future setting of Next Gen, DS9, and Voyager, the show went into the past.  No, not back to the days of the original series.  It went even farther back than that.  Set somewhere between the in-the-past portions of Star Trek: First Contact and the original Star Trek, it focused on the early days of human space exploration. 

I enjoyed it.  I think that your average Star Trek fan enjoyed it.  But the wider audience didn’t give it the attention it needed to last more than four seasons. 

Its cancellation was a setback which kept Star Trek off of our television screens for something like 12 years. 

Revision and Reboot

When Paramount decided to get back into the Star Trek business again, it was with a new series of movies.  The decision was made to recast the crew from the original series with actors who weren’t all old (or in some cases, dead). 

The storyline of this new Star Trek saw classic, elderly, Leonard Nimoy Spock travel into the past, chased by Nero, an insane Romulan (and his crew).  These arrivals in the past change events and create an alternate timeline.  Original Spock ends up helping the Recast Kirk and Spock to defeat Nero to keep him from destroying the Federation. 

The second film in the franchise, Star Trek Into Darkness was [spoiler warning] a thoroughly garbled attempt at retelling Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, with Benedict Cumberbatch starring as the villain made famous by Ricardo Montelban. 

The acting was good, the direction was good, even the writing was good – it’s just that the premise was… deeply flawed.  I still enjoyed it, but there were definitely a couple of ‘what the fuck?!?’ moments in the film. 

A third film (Star Trek Beyond) was decent, but not as good as the first (or weirdly, the second).  A fourth is currently in production. 

Nu-Trek

With the reboot movies a success and streaming television now a thing, CBS All Access premiered a new series Star Trek – Discovery in 2017.  The series was fairly decisive among the fanbase.  It’s either loved or hated depending on who you’re talking to. 

It’s the first Star Trek series to include swearing.  (Which amuses me, rather than offends, like it does for some fans.)  Beyond that, there’s very little I can say about the series that doesn’t involve major spoilers that my hinky little “[spoiler warning]” won’t absolve me of giving away. 

I will say that I’m a huge fan of the show.  I will also say that you need to watch the first two seasons of Discovery before watching Strange New Worlds (which I’ll talk about shortly). 

Star Trek – Discovery (and all of its fellow streaming shows in the franchise) have earned it the derisive nickname ‘Nu Trek’ by those who don’t fully appreciate it. 

We’ve also gotten ten episodes of Star Trek – Short Treks, which are teeny tiny little stories, mostly backstory about characters from Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Picard. 

Speaking of Picard… There have been two seasons of Star Trek – Picard (with a third and final season on its way), and while I’ve enjoyed the show, I cannot in good conscience say that it’s good.  The story involves the elderly Admiral Picard, and it takes some very unique twists and turns for the character.  It’s one that you’ll have to make up your mind about for yourself. 

Undiscovered Countries

Earlier I mentioned having seen every episode with the exception of a couple of series.  Those series are Star Trek – Lower Decks and Star Trek – Prodigy. 

I contemplated sitting down and watching the first episode of each before writing this post, but realized that if it turned out they were really good, I’d continue sitting there until I’d watched them all, and then this post would be late. 

I like the premise of Lower Decks – an animated sitcom set in the Star Trek universe.  I just haven’t made the time to watch it yet.  Third season is currently streaming, so I’ll have a fair chunk of it to watch once I do. 

Prodigy, on the other hand… (deep sigh).  Prodigy I saw a preview for, and thought, “Pass.”  It simply did not appeal to me.  At all.  Will I eventually watch it?  Probably, yeah.  I mean, it is still Star Trek. 

Strange New Worlds

Which brings us to Star Trek – Strange New Worlds.  While Enterprise was set prior to classic Trek, Strange New Worlds is an actual prequel to the show. 

Many of the characters in the series are familiar to old fans.  (Recast, but familiar.)  Instead of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, it’s the original pilot episode’s line-up of Pike, Spock, and Number One.  And right now, with only ten episodes to establish this opinion, it is currently my favorite iteration of Star Trek.  Period. 

With each and every episode I watched, I got just a little bit angrier at the fact that we were only getting ten episode seasons instead of the standard 22 to 26. 

Someone on Twitter tweeted “The only thing wrong with Strange New Worlds is that TOS isn’t a good enough sequel for it.”  And I can’t disagree. 

Year 57 and Beyond

And the franchise isn’t nearly finished yet.  There’s more coming.  More shows and more movies currently in development.  More spin-off media in comics and novels.  Presumably more of everything. 

So… live long, prosper, and stay tuned.