By BWilliams / 12:01, 25 August 2004 / Reviews - Products

STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
DVD

Price: $85
Pub Date: August 2004

Buy now from TrekWeb

• Beam story to friend
• Join our newsletter
• Syndicate news
• Divine Treasury forum

What hasn't been said about the original STAR TREK series over the last 40 years? Much has been written, explored, studied, and debated about STAR TREK by the media, the fans, and the creators and cast of this series that has been heavily digested and made anew over the years. Since its premiere in 1966 it has garnered so much fan appreciation and heat, as well as ten feature films, five spin-off television series, hundreds of original novels and adaptations, comic books, toys, trading and gaming cards, fan conventions, and more memorabilia than you can shake a tricorder at. Not bad for Gene Roddenberry’s struggling science fiction series that constantly faced as many dangers behind the scenes as it did on the screen.

I’m what you would call a “second generation” TREK fan. While I was not yet born at the time of the series’ premiere -- I was born only a mere two and a half weeks after “The Man Trap” and two days after the telecast of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” -- my love for and association with STAR TREK did not begin until the 1970’s, when the series was in reruns. My first memory of seeing an episode of the Original Series came in the early 70’s, when at my grandmother’s house in Texas I watched a rerun of “The City on the Edge of Forever”. I can still hear my aunt fussing at me for staying up late watching “that silly program”, but watched I did. This would follow sporadically through the 70’s when my parents first got cable TV installed, and I would catch reruns of “Space Seed” and “The Apple” on WGN in Chicago and WTCG in Atlanta (yes, Virginia, there was indeed a station there prior to TBS Superstation) through my youth. But it wasn’t until my college years during the mid 80s that I, like many students at my college, would catch reruns of STAR TREK at night on our local station. It was at that time that I got into the series, against the wishes of my mother who didn’t want me taping the show, and I won. Score another point in favor of TREK fandom!

Of course, we all know the story of how it began, with NBC’s rejection of Roddenberry’s original pilot episode “The Cage” with Jeffrey Hunter, Leonard Nimoy, and Majel Barrett but an interest in the concept, leading to the then-unheard of second chance pilot episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, with William Shatner as Captain Kirk. Back then, even Kirk experienced a glaring misnomer, with his name listed as “James R. Kirk”, but who would have figured continuity would become an important part of the series? Upon approval, the series was cast, DeForest Kelley came aboard as Dr. McCoy, and the five-year mission into the final frontier began on September 8, 1966 with the sixth-filmed episode, “The Man Trap”.

STAR TREK, now referred to as STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES, delved into many serious issues of the 1960’s that other television programs considered taboo, but when masked in the form of science fiction, came across as fascinating adventures. Roddenberry had an active hand in creating and overseeing production on those early episodes of the first season, as heady issues explored on the series included tests amid a first contact situation (“The Corbomite Maneuver”), mind control (“The Return of the Archons”), war and racism (both present in “Balance of Terror” and “Errand of Mercy”), the inner struggle of good versus evil within a man (“The Enemy Within”), genetic engineering (“Space Seed”), revenge (“The Conscience of the King”), substance abuse (“Mudd’s Women”) �" the list goes on and on.

TOS also had its measure of humor sprinkled throughout the episodes -- who can forget the classic banters between Spock and McCoy, or McCoy’s inspired “I’m a doctor, not a..." lines that recurred through the episodes (which would later resurface as part of the holographic Doctor’s character on VOYAGER), or the rascally Harcourt Fenton Mudd (“Mudd’s Women”), or one of Kirk’s hilarious spur-of-the-moment explanations about Spock (“He caught his head in a mechanical... rice-picker”)? Even George Takei’s brightest moment on STAR TREK as a shirtless, swashbuckling Hikaru Sulu, under the influence of a mysterious “sweaty palm” disease in “The Naked Time”, brought smiles and cheers from the fans. Humor and humanity played an equally important part in the development of STAR TREK, as Roddenberry sought to present his cast of explorers as people with relatable and identifiable issues.

Another element that would play an important factor through the development of the series was its references to futuristic devices and concepts. What was thought futuristic in 1966 is now commonplace in 2004 -- communicators resembling modern--day cellular phones, hi--tech diagnostic beds and scanners that today’s hospitals currently utilize, scientific tricorders to measure land, weather, and temperature (which would inspire the Mark I scientific Tricorder of the 1990’s), computer disks resembling modern--day floppy disks, duty roster pads similar to our PDA’s, visual interfacing devices very much like distance-learning teleconferencing or live streaming audio and video telecasts over the Internet, even the development of the laser and phasers similar to what is currently in use in the military and scientific communities �" again, the list goes on and on. Still, we may laugh at some of the more outrageous futuristic devices (Dr. McCoy’s fabled medical scanners that were mere salt shakers, or a heartbeat-monitoring device that was nothing more than a glorified microphone), but back then in 1966, who would have known what our future would hold?

Also mixed into the humor, the strong storytelling, and futuristic concepts were speculations and considerations of space travel and what is out there in our galaxy. Thoughts of the edge of our galaxy (“Where No Man Has Gone Before”), time travel (“The Naked Time” and “Tomorrow is Yesterday”), and alternate timelines (“The City on the Edge of Forever”) permeated the series, giving it a realistic and approachable look into the final frontier. Roddenberry made us believe that whenever we get out to space, these could be the things we may very well encounter.

The first season reads like a who’s who of celebrated science fiction from the 1960’s: Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon, and Robert Bloch, to name a few. Even the legendary Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury praised the series. Gene Roddenberry wanted the best to work on his series, and he got them. But two writers who would make the series sing with familiar terms and characters would be Gene L. Coon, who gave the STAR TREK universe one of its signature races in the Klingons, and D.C. Fontana, who penned many of the most memorable episodes (“Tomorrow is Yesterday” and “This Side of Paradise”, among others). Without them, STAR TREK would never have found its voice. ENTERPRISE could take a page or two from the Original Series, learn from its mistakes, and recruit some of today’s top science fiction writers to push the series forward. Smart, intelligent scriptwriting was what Roddenberry, Coon, and the writing staff excelled in, and the first season immediately sparkled. Too bad that NBC couldn’t see that, as they began the series with a stereotypical science fiction story, “The Man Trap”, and not one of the richer episodes that marked the high quality of the first season.

And the guest stars! STAR TREK was a who’s who of celebrities in Hollywood: Gary Lockwood (who would have a close encounter of a different kind in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), Sally Kellerman (who first immortalized Major “Hot Lips” Houlihan on screen in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H), Ricardo Montalban (“KHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!!!”), the beautiful Jill Ireland (the wife of Charles Bronson who made Spock’s heart race in “This Side of Paradise”), Mark Lenard (who began his television acting career as the Romulan commander in “Balance of Terror” then became even more well known as Spock’s father Sarek in season two’s “Journey to Babel”), John Colicos (the delightfully villainous Kor in “Errand of Mercy”), Ted (“Lurch”) Cassidy (“You rang?”) �" again, the list goes on and on throughout the series.

But none stood out more beautifully, and more tragically, than Joan Collins’ memorable guest appearance in arguably the show's finest hour, “The City on the Edge of Forever”, as Edith Keeler, the owner of a street mission who believed that the future would be worth living for, and one of the only women that James Kirk truly fell in love with. Originally written as a script pronouncing the dangers of drug abuse, Harlan Ellison’s morality play would develop into a classic love story with universe-shattering ramifications across the centuries. The agony racing through Kirk’s mind as Spock presents him the cold hard facts is unbearable for any man, let alone the celebrated Captain Kirk: for them to rescue Dr. McCoy and return to the future, Edith Keeler must die. If she lives, then the Nazis will win World War II, and the future will forever cease to exist as Kirk and Spock know it. The episode’s heartbreaking final moments forever shatter Kirk’s heart, as he has made the only decision he painfully can to save not only his friend but also his world and his future, despite McCoy’s attack on his heart. In one of his rare instances of human sympathy, Spock can do nothing but stand by and quietly support his captain’s decision, despite the loss of a visionary who shared Kirk’s view of the future, again confirming his Vulcan training that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one.

STAR TREK: TOS is a landmark in television, and its first season is without a doubt the best of the series’ three seasons, unparalleled in quality writing and acting.