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Star Trek: The Original Series

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Star Trek: The Original Series is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry and aired between September 8, 1966 to September 2, 1969, with a total of 79 episodes produced. Although cancelled after its short run, the program was placed in syndication and spawned a strong fan following. The success of the program was followed by five additional television series and ten theatrical movies. The Guinness Book of Records lists it as having the largest number of spinoffs. As it was released as Star Trek, in order to distinguish this first series from the sequels which followed (all of which comprise the Star Trek universe or franchise), it has acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series (sometimes shortened to ST:TOS or TOS).

Set in a utopian vision of the 23rd century, Star Trek follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and her crew, led by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy portraying his first officer, Mr. Spock. Shatner's voiceover at the beginning of each episode—with the exceptions of both pilots, "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before"—stated the ship's purpose:

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
When Star Trek debuted on NBC in 1966, it was not successful; ratings were low and advertising revenue was lackluster. For the show's second season, it was moved to Friday nights at 8:30 P.M. and the threat of cancellation loomed. The show's devoted fanbase conducted an unprecedented campaign, petitioning NBC to keep the show on the air, succeeding in gaining a third season. This was an early example of television activism. But after the show was moved from 8:30 P.M. to 10 P.M. on Fridays (the 'Death Slot', so named because relatively few people watch television at that time), ratings remained poor. The series was cancelled at the end of its third season.

Contents

Broadcast history

Star Trek originally aired on the NBC television network. All times are Eastern Standard Time.

Creation

The original starship Enterprise
Enlarge
The original starship Enterprise

A longtime fan of science fiction, in 1960 Roddenberry put together a proposal for Star Trek, a science fiction television series set on board a large interstellar space ship dedicated to exploring the galaxy. Some influences Roddenberry noted were A. E. van Vogt's tales of the Space Beagle, Eric Frank Russell's Marathon stories, and the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. Roddenberry also had extensive experience in writing westerns that were particularly popular television fare at the time, and pitched the show to the network as a "Wagon Train to the stars."[link]

In 1964, Roddenberry secured a three-year development deal with leading independent TV production company Desilu (founded by comedy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz). In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was named Captain Robert April of the "S.S. Yorktown". Eventually, this character became Captain Christopher Pike. The first pilot episode, "The Cage", was made in 1964, with actor Jeffrey Hunter in the role of Pike.

Roddenberry envisaged a multi-racial and mixed-gender crew, based on his assumption that racial prejudice and sexism would not exist in the 23rd century at a time when racial segregation was still firmly entrenched in many areas of the United States. He also included recurring characters from alien races, including Spock, who was half human and half Vulcan, united under the banner of the United Federation of Planets.

Other innovative Star Trek features involved solutions to basic production problems. The idea of the faster-than-light warp drive was not new to science fiction, but it allowed narrative device that permitted the Enterprise to quickly traverse space. The matter transporter, where crew members "beamed" from place to place, solved the problem of moving characters quickly from the ship to a planet, a spacecraft landing sequence for each episode being prohibitively expensive.

The Star Trek pilot was first offered to the CBS network, but the channel turned it down for the more mainstream Irwin Allen production, Lost In Space. Star Trek was then offered to NBC (NBC executives would later be quoted as saying that the initial pilot script was 'too cerebral'), and executives were favorably impressed with the concept and made the highly unusual decision to commission a second pilot: "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Only the character of Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy) remained from the original pilot, and only two cast members (Majel Barrett and Leonard Nimoy) carried on to the series. Much of the first pilot's footage was utilized into a later two-part episode, "The Menagerie".

In the second pilot, the main characters, Captain Kirk (William Shatner), chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Scott (James Doohan) and Lieutenant Sulu (George Takei) were introduced. Chief medical officer and the captain's confidante Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) (a Dr. Piper was present on the pilot) , Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and communications officer Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) were introduced later. Roddenberry's inclusion of the Asian Sulu and black Uhura, both of them intelligent, well-spoken professionals, was a bold move when most television characters of the time were white and those who weren't were often presented in a highly stereotypical manner.

Members of Roddenberry's production staff included art director Matt Jefferies. Jefferies designed the Enterprise; his contribution was commemorated in the so-called Jefferies tube, which became a standard part of the (fictional) design of Federation starships. Jefferies' starship concepts arrived at a final saucer-and-cylinders design that became a template for all subsequent Star Trek space vehicles. Jefferies also developed the main set for the Enterprise bridge (based on an original design by Pato Guzman) and used his practical experience as a WWII airman and his knowledge of aircraft design to come up with a sleek, functional, ergonomic bridge layout. Costume designer William Ware Theiss created the striking look of the Enterprise uniforms and the risqué costumes for female guest stars. Artist and sculptor Wah Chang, who had worked for Walt Disney, was hired to design and manufacture props: he created the flip-open communicator, the portable sensing-recording-computing tricorder and the phaser weapons. Later, he would create various memorable aliens, such as the Gorn.

The series introduced viewers to many ideas which have become common in science fiction films: warp drive, teleportation, wireless hand-held communicators and scanners, directed energy weapons, desktop computer terminals, laser surgery, starship cloaking devices, and computer speech synthesis. Although these concepts had numerous antecedents in sci-fi literature and film, they had never before been integrated in one presentation and most of them were certainly new to TV. Even the ship's automatic doors were a novel feature in 1966.

Characterizations

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Star Trek made celebrities of its cast of largely unknown actors. Kelley had appeared in many films and TV shows, but mostly in smaller roles. Shatner and Nimoy also had previous TV and film experience but neither was very well-known (although Shatner had starred as the terrified air traveler in the classic Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"). After the episodes aired, many performers found themselves type-cast due to their roles.

The three main characters were Kirk, Spock and McCoy, with writers often playing the different personalities off each other: Kirk was passionate and often aggressive, Spock was coolly logical, and McCoy was sardonic but always compassionate. In many stories the three clashed, with Kirk forced to make a tough decision while Spock advocated the logical but sometimes callous path and McCoy (or "Bones," as Kirk nicknamed him [short for "sawbones," a traditional pejorative nickname for doctors]) insisted on doing whatever would cause the least harm. McCoy and Spock had a sparring relationship that masked their true affection and respect for each other, and their constant arguments became very popular with viewers. The Spock character was at first rejected by network officials who feared that his vaguely "satanic" appearance (with pointed ears and eyebrows) might prove upsetting to some viewers. The network had even airbrushed out Spock's pointed ears and eyebrows from publicity materials sent to the network affiliates. But Spock went on to become one of the most popular characters on the show as was McCoy's impassioned country-doctor personality. In fact, Spock became a sex symbol of sorts, something nobody connected with the show had expected.

The series was created during a time of cold war politics, and the plots of its episodes occasionally reflected this. The original series shows encounters with other advanced spacefaring civilizations, including the Klingons and the Romulans, both of which were involved in separate "cold wars" with the Federation.

Episodes

See related article
In terms of its writing, Star Trek is notable as one of the earliest science-fiction TV series to utilize the services of leading contemporary science fiction writers, such as Harlan Ellison and Theodore Sturgeon, as well as established TV writers. Series script editor Dorothy C. Fontana (originally Roddenberry's secretary) was also a vital part of the success of Star Trek — she edited most of the series and wrote several episodes.

Several notable themes were tackled throughout the entire series. Arguably, the most important was the exploration of major issues of 1960s America, like sexism, racism, nationalism, and global war. Roddenberry utilized the allegory of a space vessel set many years in the future to explore these issues. Star Trek was the first television show to feature an interracial kiss, Roddenberry getting around the censorship of such displays by depicting it as being compelled by an alien of great mental ability.

Episodes such as "The Apple", "Who Mourns for Adonais?", and "The Return of the Archons" display subtle anti-religious themes. "Bread and Circuses" and "The Omega Glory" have themes that are more overtly pro-religion and patriotic. Network interference, up to and including wholesale censorship of scripts and film footage, was a regular occurrence in the 1960s and Star Trek suffered from its fair share of tampering. Many scripts had to be revised after vetting by the NBC censors and, according to one book about the series, the gaping mouth of the "salt vampire" monster in the episode "The Man Trap" was actually an in-joke which referred to the network censor's persistent habit of cutting love scenes which featured open-mouthed kisses.

The Original Series was also noted for its sense of humor such as Spock and McCoy's pointed, yet friendly, bickering. Episodes like "The Trouble with Tribbles", "I, Mudd" and "A Piece of the Action" are written and staged as comedies. The third season episode "Spock's Brain" is an all-out parody of the show, written by the reportedly disgruntled writer/producer Gene L. Coon. Star Trek's humor is generally much more subdued in the spin-offs and movies, with notable exceptions such as .

Music

Theme song

The show's theme tune was written by Alexander Courage, immediately recognizable by many, and has been featured in a number of Star Trek spin-off episodes and motion pictures. The "lyrics" for the introduction were written by Gene Roddenberry without Courage's knowledge and without intending for them ever to be sung. Roddenberry would nevertheless get a 50% share of the music's performance royalties.

See related article .

Dramatic underscore

For budgetary reasons, this series made significant use of "tracked" music, or music written for other episodes that were re-used in later episodes. Of the 79 episodes that were broadcast, only 31 had complete or partial original dramatic underscores created specifically for them; the remainder of music in any episode was tracked from a different episode. (It was primarily the decision of Robert H. Justman, credited as Associate Producer during the first two seasons, which episodes would have new music).

Screen credits for the composers were given out based on the amount of music he composed for, or composed and was re-used in, the episode. Some of these final credits were, though, occasionally incorrect.

Beyond the short works of "source" music (music whose source is seen or acknowledged onscreen) created for specific episodes, eight composers were contracted to create original dramatic underscore during the series run: Alexander Courage, George Duning, Jerry Fielding, Gerald Fried, Sol Kaplan, Samuel Matlovsky, Joseph Mullendore and Fred Steiner. All conducted their own music. Of these composers, Steiner composed original music for the largest number of episodes (11), and it is his instrumental arrangement of that is heard over many of the end title credits of the series.

The tracked musical underscores were chosen and edited to the episode by music editors, principal of whom were Robert Raff (most of Season One), Jim Henrikson (Season One and Two), and Richard Lapham (Season Three).

(Source: "Music for Star Trek: Scoring a Television Show in the Sixties" by Fred Steiner, from Wonderful Inventions: Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound at the Library of Congress, I. Newsom, ed., published by the Library of Congress, Washington, 1985).

The original recordings of the music of some episodes were released in the United States commercially on the GNP Crescendo label. Music for a number of the episodes were re-recorded by the Varese Sarabande label, with Fred Steiner conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; and on the Label X label, with Tony Bremner conducting the Royal Philharmonic.

Characters

Regular cast

Picture Performer Rank Role Position
50px William Shatner Captain James T. Kirk Captain and commanding officer of the Starship Enterprise.
50px Leonard Nimoy Commander Spock Science officer and second-in-command; sole non-human regular crew member and Kirk's best friend.
50px DeForest Kelley Lt. Commander Leonard McCoy Chief Medical Officer and the captain's closest confidant second only to Spock.
50px James Doohan Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott Chief Engineer and third-in-command (usually called "Scotty" by the captain).
50px Nichelle Nichols Lieutenant Uhura Communications officer and sole female commissioned officer in the regular cast.
50px George Takei Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Helmsman (character was a scientist in the second pilot episode).
50px Grace Lee Whitney Yeoman Janice Rand Captain's yeoman (season 1).
50px Majel Barrett Nurse Christine Chapel Head nurse, assistant to Dr. McCoy.

Sulu and Uhura were not given first names in this series. Sulu's first name, Hikaru, was revealed in .

Majel Barrett also provided the voice of the computer in TOS and . She also played (as a brunette) the part of Captain Pike's First Officer in the pilot episode "The Cage". Barrett married Roddenberry in 1969.

The relatively young, mop-topped Russian navigator Chekov was added in the second season. Studio documentation suggests that the intention was to introduce a character with more appeal to a teenage market, especially the female sector. [link]

Semi-regular

In addition, the series is notorious for repeatedly including characters (usually security personnel wearing red uniforms) that are killed or injured soon after their introduction. So prevalent was this plot device that it inspired the term "redshirt" to denote a stock character whose sole purpose is to die violently in order to demonstrate the dangerous circumstances facing the main characters.

Original Series cameos in later series

The sequel to the original series, , which premiered in 1987, was set approximately 75 years after the events of TOS. As that show and its spin-offs progressed, several TOS characters made appearances:

Besides the above examples, there have been numerous non-canon novels and comic books published over the years in which TOS-era crew are depicted in the TNG era, either through time-travel or other means.

Trivia

See also

References

External links


Star Trek television series and feature films
Television series:
Feature films:


 

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