Star Trek is 46 today: ‘The Man Trap,’ debuted September 8, 1966 on NBC. We here at CJ have a lot of love for Trek – in fact, being raised by casual sci-fi fans, I hazard to say it was more a part of my childhood than Star Wars was, by virtue of actually being on TV.
Google celebrated the series by debuting an interactive Google Doodle yesterday. Tor.com has an interesting look back at turning points in the franchise’s history, while Hero Complex talks to Michael Dorn about The Next Generation, which turns 25 this month. And, from earlier in the week, io9 has 8 ways judges have cited Trek from the bench.
Looking forward, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto have been dropping hints about the franchise’s next installment, the still-untitled (or is it?) sequel to 2009’s Star Trek.
What’s your favorite Trek memory or moment? I remain partial to the one with the whales, myself.
TNG and DS9 are where it’s at for me. I love those series (well, season 3-7 of TNG, and all of DS9). Favorite TNG is Deja Q. Favorite DS9 is tough. The Visitor and Our Man Bashir are up there.
There was always a lot of Star Trek on TV around my house growing up, too. The franchise, on the whole, has never quite clicked with me the way that it does for a lot of people…but I’ve always admired the optimism and kindness that was at the heart of Rodenberry’s vision of the future.
That said, I’ll go ahead and contradict myself by saying that I love the Original Crew era movies (especially, ESPECIALLY, the one with the whales) and I recently watched Deep Space 9 from beginning to end and found it to be almost always great in some way. It just feels so much more real and lived in than the other incarnations, and the aliens feel more like people and less like caricatures. It makes me a little sad that we never got to see those characters in the films.
Also…Who could bring themselves to not give some love to the franchise that gave us Galaxy Quest?
I enjoy Trek, but yeah… It’s never really been something I got obsessed with, just something I’ll watch when it’s on… I remember watching TNG every week with my parents growing up, but I never really followed DS9 or anything – though I can remember my dad watching it, of course.
Someone once referred to Galaxy Quest as “the best Star Trek movie ever made” and that STILL sticks with me… It’s so, so true. Well, I don’t know if it beats the one with the whales, but… It’s up there. I watched Search for Spock right before CVI and it’s certainly a better movie than that. ;)
My mom says she gave me my late afternoon bottle every day to a rerun of the original series, way back in 1971. My chances of not growing up to be a complete geek were fairly low.
Like Blu, my mother discovered that putting me in front of Star Trek meant an hour of peace when I was a baby.
I’m the only geek in my family. Does it mean I was that way from birth or did watching Star Trek do that to me? :)
What’s so significant about 46 years? Why such a big deal this year?
Beats me, but there was a lot of good stuff to link so I went with it.
Pablo theorized elsewhere that the internet feels guilty about missing the 45th birthday.
I bet Pablo is on to something. Pretty funny.