Star Trek is 40!

[Benzadmiral]

They're gonna drum me out of StarFleet Academy for this . . . but I just now realized that "Star Trek", the original series, premiered 40 years ago on September 8, 1966.

Imagine that. A simple TV show that has become part of our lives and our culture in ways Gene Roddenberry could never have envisioned.

When ST premiered, TV science fiction was either "Outer Limits" (heavy on the monster-of-the-week style), "Twilight Zone" (mostly fantasy), or "Lost in Space" (Cthulhu help us all). "Star Trek" changed all that.

It's unfair to laugh at the production values, the sets, the effects, the (supposedly) sexist viewpoints of some of the scripts. We shouldn't compare ST:TOS to modern films. Compare it to what went *before* it, and realize what a leap ahead it was in scripts and characterization and imagination.

Two quotes from the show illustrate as well as anything how well done it was:

"In a month, he'll have as much in common with us as we'd have with a shipful of white mice."
(-- Spock, regarding Gary Mitchell's geometric increase in mental superpowers; what an image!)

and
Spock (rising): I am Spock.
Trelane: Oh! Not quite human, is he?
Spock: My father was from the planet Vulcan.
Trelane: Oh? And are its natives predatory?
Spock: Not generally. But there have been . . . exceptions.
(-- "Squire of Gothos"; what a classy way to say, "Back off, sucker"!)

****

I spent my childhood in the corridors of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters (see my avatar), and my adolescence aboard the Starship Enterprise. That may explain how I turned out . . . but I wouldn't change it for anything.

Any memories of first seeing "Star Trek," great lines, favorite scenes, etc.?
.