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I’m such a bad friend. I’ve been so busy lately that I forgot to give a shout out to one of my favorite television series of all-time. Star Trek premiered on NBC on September 8, 1966, 49 years ago, and while I hadn’t been born when this this visionary program initially aired, this has been one that I have rediscovered over and over again throughout my life.
As a kid growing up with a love of sci fi, I first discovered Star Trek as a rerun on various networks. I watched every incarnation of the “Next Generation” era of Trek, from Picard and Riker to Sisko and Kira, Janeway and Chakotay, and Archer and T’Pol. But I’ve always been drawn to the Original Series and Kirk and Spock and the rest of the crew.
To this day, I continue to go back to this show. Sometimes, when I am working on my own writing, it’s the structure of these episodes that serve as a refresher, a reminder of the fundamentals of storytelling. At other times, I may be feeling down looking for something simple to cheer me up. There’s an episode for every mood. I laugh every time I watch The Trouble with Tribbles or The Naked Time. Balance of Terror and Day of the Dove give me my action fix. There are even scarier episodes like Catspaw and The Tholian Web when I want to watch something darker.
There is a moral fiber at the core of Star Trek that is incredibly inspirational. A lot of people look back on some of the over-the-top performances of William Shatner and find it trendy to think of Captain Kirk as a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of Captain. But true fans understand this couldn’t be further from the truth. Kirk actually detests violence. Any time he has to give the order to fire phasers, he does so with a disdain, only as a last resort when he is left with no other options.
In Mirror, Mirror, Kirk finds himself pretending to be an evil version of himself in an alternate universe, and is required to give the order to fire upon an innocent civilization. Instead, he tactically maneuvers around this with all the odds against him, the brilliance of this Captain on display without having to fire a single shot.
Star Trek was never afraid to tackle controversial subject matter, and this made it so groundbreaking. Everyone recalls the first interracial kiss aired on national television, between Kirk and Uhura in Plato’s Stepchildren. There was also Patterns of Force, the episode where the crew infiltrates a planet controlled by the Nazis.
One of my personal favorite moments happens in an episode called The Savage Curtain, where an alien race recreates the actual Abraham Lincoln, who makes a particular remark to Uhura when he meets her, and is ashamed by the lack of evolution in his words. Uhura is unfazed, and remarks to the President, “But why should I object to that term, Sir. See, in our century, we’ve learned not to fear words.” Nichelle Nichols delivers the line to perfection. The time period she was living in was hardly evolved, and yet, Star Trek has always delivered on the promise of hope. Her words, so simple in the context of the episode as a whole, and yet, so important historically when we look back.
It was a show that promised to boldly go, and it boldly went. It took us quite literally to edge of the galaxy, beyond the barriers of time and space, into other dimensions. Perhaps more importantly, it asked us to boldly look within our own selves, within our singular humanity. This may be its greatest strength, and this is why, almost half a century later, Star Trek continues to resonate, to this very day.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]