{"id":10080,"date":"2006-09-08T08:57:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-08T15:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/09\/08\/the-original-series.html"},"modified":"2013-06-04T22:15:33","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T04:15:33","slug":"the_original_series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/09\/08\/the_original_series.html","title":{"rendered":"The Original Series"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

Okay, it gets poked fun at a bit today — but when Star Trek debuted forty years ago (!) tonight<\/a> … egads.<\/p>\n

SF on TV to that time had been in a couple of forms: kiddy shows (Space Patrol<\/em>), anthologies (Outer Limits, Twlight Zone<\/em> — but both had gone the way of all TV anthologies), and goofy dreck from Irwin Allen (Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea<\/em>). Star Trek was something different — SF that took itself seriously, that pulled in real SF writers, that considered human problems from the perspective of alien situations.<\/p>\n

ST:TOS was hardly the perfect SF series of all time. From the perspective of today, it’s melodramatic, crudely crafted, facile, and a host of other sins. But the same could be true of practically any other TV series from 1966-68. <\/p>\n

There’s a reason it still holds such influence, even today, forty years later. <\/p>\n

I have two memories of ST:TOS during its original run. The first is an image of a huge plasma bolt hurtling toward the viewer’s perspective — probably one of the ones fired by the Romulans in Balance of Terror<\/em>. And I also remember how upset I was one evening that I wasn’t allowed to watch the show (bear in mind I was about Kitten’s age then), and, when sent to bed, I locked the door in the hallway, so that when my parents retired for the evening, they found themselves locked
\nout of the back of the house. (To add insult to injury, their tapping on the window could only wake up my brother, not me, who needed a chair and special coaching to get the door back unlocked.) Yes, I have always been a fanatical geek.<\/p>\n

At any rate, my congratulations and appreciations to the creators and talent of the Original Star Trek. You really did take us someplace where no one had gone before — and we’ve enjoyed the trip ever since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, it gets poked fun at a bit today — but when Star Trek debuted forty years ago (!) tonight … egads. SF on TV to that time had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[360,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-tv-star-trek","category-media-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131455,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/08\/a-golden-anniversary-for-the-show-that-changed-sf.html","url_meta":{"origin":10080,"position":0},"title":"A Golden Anniversary for the show that changed SF","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Sep-16 8:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's hard to believe, but it was 50 years ago today that the first episode of Star Trek aired on NBC television. Presaging airing order weirdness for future SF shows, the first episode was \"The Man-Trap,\" not the (second) pilot that had sold the series.The article below tries to speculate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128344,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/18\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows-kinda-sorta-more-or-less-redux.html","url_meta":{"origin":10080,"position":1},"title":"The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Shows (kinda-sorta more-or-less) (Redux)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 18-Oct-15 11:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"So this is based on an article from a Popular Mechanics (!) article on \"The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi Shows Ever\" [http:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/culture\/movies\/g156\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows]. See here [https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/17\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows-kinda-sorta-more-or-less.html] for caveats and comments on that list. I've decided to do my own force ranking (thanks +Stan Pedzick), working within the same list (to do otherwise\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/TV%2BGuide%2BSF.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":130718,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/21\/hey-maybe-star-trek-beyond-wont-suck-either.html","url_meta":{"origin":10080,"position":2},"title":"Hey, maybe "Star Trek: Beyond" won't suck, either","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 21-May-16 5:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"After the Ghostbusters reboot second trailer came out looking like a possibly-maybe-better movie than the first trailer did, Star Trek: Beyond has something that -- besides spoiling a whole bunch of stuff, it seems -- feels like an action-adventure SF movies that I might actually enjoy watching. View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131466,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/08\/on-star-treks.html","url_meta":{"origin":10080,"position":3},"title":"On Star Treks","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Sep-16 11:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A 50th Anniversary Analysis:I deeply love, with a nostalgia of childhood and a ritualistic familiarity with every episode and massive chunks of dialog[1], Star Trek, the Original Series. Sure, it has its multitudinous flaws, many of them a result of the general state of late 1960s TV (and network shenanigans),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26809,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/03\/trying-to-give-some-animated-perspective-to-my-daughter.html","url_meta":{"origin":10080,"position":4},"title":"Trying to give some animated perspective to my daughter","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 3-Mar-12 4:19am","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm trying to explain to my daughter why the \"Star Trek\" animated series was such an incredibly awesome thing to people who were starved for \"Star Trek\" (or any TV SF taken seriously) in a world before VCRs and DVDs and DVRs and cable and the like.Having only seen\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128343,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/17\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows-kinda-sorta-more-or-less.html","url_meta":{"origin":10080,"position":5},"title":"The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Shows (kinda-sorta more-or-less)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 17-Oct-15 7:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A few caveats on the Popular Mechanics list:1. I suspect this list would look a lot different in, say, five years. We are currently going through a rich time in SF genre TV, and what will turn out to be great and what will turn out to be a flash\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37290,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10080\/revisions\/37290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}