Where No Post Has Gone Before

(The title of this post refers to the fact that I'm about to discuss Science Fiction on this blog for the very first time.)




I don't care if you've never watched an episode of the show. It doesn't matter if you couldn't tell me the difference between a Romulan and a Vulcan, if you don't know what a Klingon looks like, if you can't tell me the relevance of 'NCC 1707', or if you wouldn't be able to state the number or narcelles the Enterprise had. No matter who you are, there's no way you haven't heard of Star Trek.



Captain Kirk: "Come up and beam me sometime."

Love it, loathe it, or never even think about it, the show turned 40 years old today, and that's a pretty remarkable feat for a 1960s sci-fi series that was cancelled three years into its original five year schedule.

Since then, thanks to re-runs and syndication, the popularity of the series has grown exponentially, spawning four sequel series (one of which was actually a prequel), ten movies (an eleventh is currently in pre-production), an animated series, video games, thousands of books and novels, memorabilia of limitless variations, fan clubs, websites, conventions, dictionaries, reference guides, colloquial words, phrases, sayings and cultures, ... and even an entirely new language (or two). Not to mention that a real, actual, honest-to-goodness NASA space shuttle was named after - and in honour of - the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original series.

When you take a moment to consider all of that, it really is quite astounding.




How many other TV shows have spawned such a following, such a worldwide obsession, such a complete and ongoing universe within and of itself? The X Files didn't do it; Buffy couldn't manage it; and even Doctor Who can't match it. The Star Trek juggernaut really is an entity unto itself, and an amazing force to be reckoned with ... particularly in merchandising and syndication sales. (Considering that each season of these shows -- and there are a total of 28 such seasons -- retails on the DVD market between $150 and $200, you figure someone's gotta be making a lot of money!)

So what is it that makes the show so appealing to so many (geeky male) viewers? Sure, there's the element of space travel and science fiction in general (and the prospect of the sexy space aliens often being women in slinky costumes), but at the heart of the show is the classic tale of three unlikely friends who use their resources, and those of their crewmates, to resolve certain conundrums relating (for the most part) to relationships and the nature of life. The fact that one of their number has pointy ears and green blood actually comes second to the storytelling (which is actually superb, even by today's standards). And the later series have only strengthened this strike-rate, although they have utilised more conventional methods to tell their stories and been rewarded for it with an ever-increasing fanbase.




So today, forty years on, I couldn't miss the opportunity to tip my hat to Gene Roddenberry and the other creators of these exceptional shows. This article sums up rather nicely (and better than I could do it), just how much of a cultural explosion Star Trek has been on our society.

The prospect of a 'United Federation of Planets' (or a united federation of anything, in this day and age) is a positive, feel-good one; one that defines our inherit desire for us all to get along without discrimination or war. And so the future shown to us by the creators and writers of Star Trek is basically one of hope for the future of humanity.




Starfleet, the exploration and defense organisation for which Kirk and crew work, is sort of like a modern day army and government-based science team, all rolled into one. Except that they stress that the warfare side of their operations is strictly used for self-defense. Their main aim is to explore the galaxy and all the various people groups within it.

The fact that one being or other generally had to die in each episode of The Original Series (as the episodes chronicling Kirk's era have come to be known -- in order to tell them apart from its various sequel series set at different points in our far-flung future), and that Kirk invariably ended up kissing a different female (human or alien) in each episode (only to have her MIA by the next week), not to mention the whole 'Red Shirt' phenomenon, ... these points were just part of the mythology of the show.

So, I wish you a very Happy 40th Birthday, Star Trek. I'd give you the traditional salutation, 'Live long and prosper', but as you've already achieved both, I'll simply say:



"Peace out, dude."


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