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Star Trek at 45!

Star Trek at 45!

On September 8th 1966 a lttle TV show named Star Trek debuted for the first time on NBC.  It told the tale of the crew of the Starship Enterprise’s journey to explore strange new worlds,  seek out new life and to boldly go where no Man has gone before.  (That is until some Einstein changed it to “where no one has gone before”; which musters about the same emotional impact as Ben Stein muttering “Bueller…Bueller…”

Debuting at a time when black Americans were expected to sit to the rear of a bus and women were largely seen on TV coming out of the kitchen with a casserole in their hand, Star Trek broke convention by featuring a black female senior Communications officer.  Add to the multicultural crew a Russian navigator during the height of the Cold War and an Oriental helmsmen and you see why the debut of Star Trek has always been seen as groundbreaking for network TV. 

For years in the 1970’s and early ’80’s UHF Channel 50 in Detroit would broadcast reruns of  Star Trek every Saturday and Sunday evening.  By the time I was 10 I knew all 79 episodes like the back of my hand.  Later I would close my eyes at the beginning of a show and try to guess which episode it was from Kirk’s opening “Captain’s Log”.  Yep, I was a Star Trek geek and and it only followed that my closest friends would be Star Trek geeks. 

Of course there have been new incarnations of the show but none have ever replaced the iconic characters made famous by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Co.  As much as we may have liked The Next Generation I don’t imagine when JJ Abrams rebooted the series a couple years back there was any discussion whether they would be recasting a young Picard rather than a young Kirk.

But all of that pales to the fact that when Star Trek premiered in that September evening of 1966 I was 4 days old.

Yep, I’m as old as Star Trek. 

Over time as the show celebrated key anniversary years (15, 25, 35) with retrospective reflections and highlight interviews with cast and crew I was always reminded how old I was.  So when I saw promotions for the 45th anniversary I was suddenly like, “Ugh, am I really going to be 45 years old !” 

Somehow the 25th anniversary was much more exciting to me.

Anyhow…Happy Birthday Star Trek!  Won’t be long before we’re both celebrating 50!

2 comments

  • Star Trek seems quite popular TV show.As explained the details of star Trek looks very interesting and full of all ingredients of entertainment.I am going to download Star Trek and watch it then I will share my reviews with you.Happy Birthday Star Trek.

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