"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before..."
"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before..."
And so it began. Those words, the opening to Star Trek, along with the rest of the wonderful show, first aired on September 8, 1966. And television still hasn't recovered. The show ran for three seasons, has been made into nine movies, spawned three spin-off TV shows, numerous action figures and countless books and fanzines. Why? Because it's a really, really good show.
Captain James Tiberius Kirk: (I kid you not. Tiberius is his middle name!) Kirk was born in Iowa, and attended Starfleet Academy. He cheated on his final exam and won an award for original thinking for it, and graduated anyway. At the age of thirty-three, he became the youngest person to ever command a Starship. And what a ship!
Jim Kirk is extreamly macho, and a ladies man. Ewwwww. But no matter how icky it is, he still slept with the lovely female guest star in pretty much every episode. (I still think he's icky.) He's devoted to his ship and his crew, and only breaks the Prime Directive when he really feels it's neccecary, again, nearly every episode.
Played by William Shatner. Who needs acting lessons badly.
First Officer Spock: Spock is half-human and half-Vulcan. Vulcans are one of the Trek aliens, spotable by their pointed ears and slanted eyebrows. They are extreamly logical, don't feel emotions, and have green blood. However, Spock is only half Vulcan, and his emotional side often clashes with his logical side, making him an interesting character.
Although Spock seems to be cold and unemotional, once every seven years he gets really horny and is forced to return to Vulcan to mate. (The infamous Pon ffar.) He is loyal to Starfleet, Capt. Kirk, and Capt. Pike, who he worked with for elevan years before working with Kirk. He often bickers (logically, of course,) with Dr. McCoy, but in the episode Amok Time admits he considers the doctor a friend.
Played by the amazing Leonard Nimoy
Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy: Bones is a self-described "simple country doctor," and his emotionalness leads to arguing with Spock a lot. His catch phrases are "He's dead, Jim," and "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a _fill in the blank_!"
Bones is probably the oldest crew member on the Enterprise. He also has the worst love-life, as any time he falls in love or gets in a serious relationship, he is either dumped or she dies. If he is dumped, she returns... But it turns out to be a pesky alien. That's gotta hurt...
His father had an incurable disease, and Bones ended his suffering. However, not long later, a cure was found. Naturally, Bones felt extreamly guilty for years. Poor guy.... Bones is my favorite character, incase you care.
Played by the groovadelic Deforest Kelly
Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott: Scotty is a self-proclaimed miracle worker, who is often heard saying, "Ah cahn't change th' laws o' physics!" in his thick Scottish accent. Scotty is Scottish and his favorite drink is Scotch. Hmmmm.....
He loves the Enterprise. A LOT. Insulting "his" ship near him is health-hazardous, as the Klingons found out in The Trouble With Tribbles. He can fix anything in a quarter of the time he estimates. This is probably because he knows how long it'll really take and multipliess that number by four. He also runs the transporter on the Enterprise, which is where the phrase "Beam me up, Scott," comes from.
Played by the wonderful-but-wide James Doohan, who didn't actually have an accent.
Helmsman Hikaru Sulu: Sulu was Japanese, and had an amazingly deep voice. Really, his voice is DEEP.
He was fanatically loyal to Kirk, and would jeopardize himself and his career for Kirk. His major claim-to-fame is that after the series ended, he became the Captain of the USS Excelcior, a ship that was more advanced than the original Enterprise.
Sulu had numerous hobbies. Among them were bottany and collecting old handguns. As far as I know, he's the only cast member that we've seen fencing down the hall like a swashbuckler.
Played by the gravel-voiced George Takei, who's voice was really quite deep.
Communications Officer Uhura: As far as I know, Uhura is her only name. It means "freedom" in Swahili, which is just cool. Uhura was the first female, black character on a popular TV show, as well as the female-half of the first interracial kiss ever on television. (The other half was, of course, Kirk.)
Although Uhura had huge possibilites and great screne pressence, the dumstupid writers rarely used her. Her major job was to say "Hailing frequencies open, Captain," or "Captain, they're not resonding." A cooler half of her is shown in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock which I can't really describe. But she is quite groovy.
Played by the history-making Nichelle Nichols
Navigations Officer Pavel Chekov: Chekov is Russian and very proud of it. He can often be heard claiming things were invented in Russia, or at least, by Russians. ("It was inwented by a little old lady from Lenningrad.") His accent is a bit strange, however: the word "warp" becomes "varp," but "vessles" becomes "wessles." Umso.
Chekov is the youngest, least experianced member of the Enterprise crew. Infact, it's his first assignment. He, like most crew members, is extremely loyal to Kirk.
Played by Walter Koenig, who was hired as a Davey Jones lookalike and had to wear a woman's wig until his hair grew out.
Nurse Christine Chapel was a minor character, played by Majel Barrett, the wife of Gene Roddenbery- Trek's creator. She appeared several times as Bones' assistant. (Above right.)
Yeoman Janice Rand, played by Grace Lee Whitney, was Kirk's beautiful blond assistant. She was gone after the first season, due to budget cutbacks. After the series, she became the Communications Officer on the Excelcior.
And finally, there's the Enterprise herself. She may not be a speaking character, but the ship has a definate personlity. She's a lady, and if you're mean to her, rabid Trekkers will beam you into the the middle of the Warp Core. That's antimatter, and you'll blow up. So there. :P
Kirk, Uhura and Chekov are kidnapped while beaming down to a strange planet. No one knows where they are, but it turns out they've been whisked away to become gladiators on the planet Triskelion. Kirk's trainer falls in love with him, and Uhura gets to beat a guy up. (I said she's cool!) It shows what happens when a society of super-evolved emotionless rains takes over the world. Bones points out to Spock that being emotionless may not be all it's cracked up to be. Spock raies his eyebrow.
The first episode to feature McCoy, the Enterprise is captured by a race of superbeings, put on trial, and sentanced to be destroyed. Although Spock claims there is no logical sollution, Kirk doesn't let that stop him. He uses the illogical sollution, also used in playing poker. He bluffs.....
A prisoner from a penal colony is aboard the Enterprise, and the crew descover that there's something very wrong at the colony. Like, the guy who runs it is evil and has been using a mind-control machine to hurt people. We see the Vulcan Mind-Meld for the first time.
People on a mining colony are being attacked by a "devil in the dark," and it's up to Kirk and Friends to stop the monster. The moster turns out to be a silicon-based life form, who's eggs the miners have been unknowingly killing. Well, of course it's going to be annoyed! Also, Spock mindmelds with a rock, and we hear Bone's catch phrase for the frist time: "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!"
The Enterprise is sent to see what happened to a planet that a Federation ship visited a century ago. It turns out that they had left behind a book about the gangsters of the twenties, which the planet's society is modeled after. Kirk & Co. have to put the planet back on track, while talking like and dressing like gangsters. Kirk has to drive a stick shift ("What's the matter, Spock, are you afraid of cars?" "No, Captain. It is your driving that alarms me.") Spock has a tommygun! Woohoo!
The Enterprise is accidentally thrown back in time to the 1960's. They meet a few 60's astronaughts, and fear they will be trapped there forever. But NO! Kirk learns how to do the "Kirk Jerk," that is, propelling his ship around the Sun, and using its gravity to fling them fowards in time.
Kirk has gone insane! He orders the ship into Romulan territory, for no apparent reason, and they are surrounded by three Romulan Warbirds, who are ready to fire. Luckily, they get off on the fact that Kirk has completely snapped, and the female Romulan commander thinks Spock is hot. So naturally Kirk has to put on fake Romulan ears and beam over to steal their cloaking device, and then run away very fast. (Romulans look like Vulcans with big shoulder pads.)
Kirk & Crew happen across a late-twentieth-century vessel, the Botany Bay. It turns out that dangerous genetic supermen are on board, and they wake up and take over the Enterprise. (The genetic supermen are lead by Khan, the badguy from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.) Can Kirk get his ship back? Well duh. But what does he do with this genetic freak who's bent on universal domination? And leave it open enough for Khan to get a movie?
Kirk, Uhura, Scotty and McCoy are transported to an alternate universe where everyone is evil. Spock has a gotee, and wow, does that give him a lot of character! Of course, the evil counterparts are transported to our world, but that's only a subplot. Kirk & Co. have only a limited amount of time to get back, and meanwhile Kirk has to break the evil counterpart of Starfleet's orders, and NOT blow up an innocent society. But now they're going to kill him, and he has to ask Spock-With-A-Gotee for help. Another good Uhura episode....
Kirk is forced to go on a stupid mission to defend some grain at a space station. Things get tense when a Klingon vessel arrives, but worse when Uhura is given a Tribble, and it begins multplying. (There's a great scene where techies get to drop over a hundred Tribbles on Kirk's head, and I bet they were trying to nock his wig off. I would have....)
Something is wrong with Spock. He's insane and claims he's going to die if they don't go to Planet Vulcan RIGHT NOW. It turns out he's experiancing the Pon ffar, when Vulcans have to return home to mate or die trying. Like salmon. It happens ever seven years, but no one outside of Vulcan really understands it. Well, one thing leads to another, and Spock kills Kirk!!! Watch how the writers get out of that for yourself....
Where to start?... Well, my first memory of Star Trek is when I was around four years old. I somehow ended up in the living room, while my family was watching. It was an episode about a giant, paper-mache snake thing. It scared the heck out of me!
(Keep in mind I was four. Having since seen the episode again.... Well, what do you want from a four-year-old? It was scary!)
I refused to watch Star Trek or any of the spin off shows or movies again until four or five years ago. At that point, my sister coerced me into watching a few Next Generation episodes. Since we all learned above that Picard is not nearly as imposing as Kirk & crew, and I was no longer four, it didn't scare the dickens out of me. And what's more.... I even kinda liked it.
Thus began the Star Trek addiction. But since then, I've pretty much stopped watching TNG and stuck to TOS. Why? The reason is a little show called Mystery Science Theater 3000.
For those of you who never watched MST3K (and I'm talking the Joel episodes, and the early, pre-Sci-Fi-Channel Mike ones here,) it's the supposedly about a guy who's having brain experiments done in on him in outer space. He... Well... it's hard to explain. To find out, read the opening theme song. But the basic gist of it is, they take old movies and heckle them. I learned to appreciate cheesiness and how to enjoy things that were truely bad.
Star Trek, of course, doesn't fall into the category of "cheesy and truely bad." Trek may appear cheesy at first, especially to a twelve-year-old. But after watching a twelve-hour-marathon, the Tribbles and A Piece of the Action, (see episode list above,) it occured to me that this show is classic, not bad. And yeah, the effects may look cheesy now- but consider the time when the show was originally made.
Not only was Trek considered to be AMAZINGLY high-tech (or so says my mom, who's the real Trekker in the family,) but it was also a ground-breaking show. During the Cold War, there was a Russian character. A black woman was the equal of every man on board. The very first interracial kiss! An alien on the bridge. And, on top of that, the show proposed that mankind would eventually stop having wars and killing itself off, and would fix its problems. And then, it would go explore the universe! This came out during the late 60's, while the nation was going through some hard times. Gene Roddenberry (Trek's creator, the Great Bird of the Galaxy,) offered such a positive view of the future, how could anyone not love it?
The majority of my knowledge of Star Trek comes from one book, titled The Joy of Trek (How to Enhance Your Relationship With a Star Trek fan) by Sam Ramer. Something else you can credit my awesome older sister for- she's the one who bought it for me. I heard this book was recently recalled, but if you can get your hands on a copy, I suggest you do. It's a semi-complete guide to Trek, and it's really really funny. It was the source of most of the information on this page.
Other Trek things I own are, Q Squared and Q-In-Law (books,) Leonard Nimoy's autobiography, I Am Spock, a Trek t-shirt, a current calendar as well as the pictures out of several old ones, a cast photo, Star Trek playing cards (which is where I got the images for this page,) and I have a trivia board game on loan from a certain wonderful closet-Trekker. This same Trekker also gave me six action figures, one of Spock, Kirk, Bones, Sulu, Scotty, Chekov and Evil-Spock-With-a-Gotee. :) I think that's it.
Oh, yeah. I was Spock for Halloween two years ago, wearing my own home-made Starfleet costume.
Aside from dressing up as Spock, I haven't really done anything that fanatical. I'm a fan, but not an obsessed fan. Really. Well, there was one thing. Sort of.
We had to write reports as part of our Earth Science Regents. Fifteen percent of our grade. I don't know how exactally, but I ended up writing an extreamly groovy report about Star Trek and the scientific theories that it operates on. And yes, there IS a scientific basis for almost every machine that's used on regularly on the show. I may put that report up someday, if I get really really bored. But despite the completely RANDOM topic, I still got a perfect score on the report. So HA!
You probably aren't wondering what I think of the various spinoff shows, but I'm going to tell you anyway. It's like this: nothing can ever match the original Trek. It set standards too high for the other shows to follow.
That having been said, I like Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: The Next Generation. But don't even get me started on Deep Space Nine. That show doesn't even deserve to be called Trek. It's SO BORING!!!! Um, anyway.
I like Voyager a little better than TNG. That's mainly because it comes closest to capuring the original show's spirit, even if the characters aren't as well developed and Gene Roddenberry never worked on it. It's about a starship that gets lost in the Delta Quadrant, 75 years worth of full-spead travel from home. They're trying desperately to get back, but it isn't work. Poor people. I don't watch Voyager much because I don't like the new Kess-replacement, 7-of-9. She's ex-Borg (one of the evil Trek aliens,) and just... Annoying. I liked Kess WAAAAY better. But despite 7, I really like Tom Paris (the hot-shot pilot) and Harry Kim, who's "the nice one" and also the one who all the alternate dimention stuff happens to.
As for TNG, I mostly just like Data and Geordi. Picard and the rest of the crew were okay... EXCEPT for two people, who are probably the Most Hated People in the Star Trek Universe. Wesley Crusher (ew, ew, ew! smarmie git!) and Deanna Troi, who we wish would be replaced by mood-rings. Really, they could do her job as ship's councellor fairly well. As for stating the obvious, can't we let some obscure yeoman do it? :)
I'm running out of things to say.... Hmmm... Well, Star Trek is an amazingly wonderful show, and you should watch it. It's on the SciFi channel at 7:30 PM on weeknights, with an introduction by either Leonard Nimoy or William Shatner, as well as insights into the show by cast members, writers, and other such people.
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last updated 3-18-99, I think
