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Star Trek: The Original Series
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Star Trek is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that aired from September 8, 1966 to September 2, 1969. Though the original series was titled simply Star Trek, it has acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series (ST:TOS or TOS) to distinguish it from the spinoffs that followed, and from the Star Trek universe or franchise they comprise. Set in the 23rd century, the original Star Trek follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew, led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), his First Officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and his Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley).
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Quotations
Warp Speed, Mr. Sulu
You're dead, Jim. - Leonard McCoy.
McCoy had several lines of this sort, but he never said "You're dead" to Kirk. This is often attributed when it appears that Kirk dies, particularly in " Amok Time" and " The Tholian Web".
Encyclopedia
Star Trek is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that aired from September 8, 1966 to September 2, 1969. Though the original series was titled simply Star Trek, it has acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series (ST:TOS or TOS) to distinguish it from the spinoffs that followed, and from the Star Trek universe or franchise they comprise. Set in the 23rd century, the original Star Trek follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew, led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), his First Officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and his Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). William Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose:
When Star Trek premiered on NBC in 1966, it was not an immediate hit; ratings were low and advertising revenue was lackluster. Even prior to the end of the first season of Star Trek, there were already calls in the network for the cancellation of the series due to its low Nielsen ratings. Bay Area Creature Features host John Stanley in his memoir I Was a TV Horror Host relates how Desilu head Lucille Ball at that time "single-handedly kept Star Trek from being dumped from the NBC-TV lineup."
While Roddenberry remained nominally in charge of the series as executive producer, he essentially removed himself from the daily production of the show in its third season. Star Trek was cancelled at the end of this season, producing 79 episodes in total. However, it became extremely popular and gathered a large cult following in TV syndication during the 1970s. The success of the program was followed by five additional television series (one animated) and ten theatrical films with an 11th on the way for May 2009. Guinness World Records lists the original Star Trek as having the largest number of spin-offs among all television shows in history.
Creation, development, and production
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. Parallels have also been drawn with the 1954 TV sci-fi series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, a much less sophisticated space opera that nevertheless included many of the elements -- organization, crew relationships, missions, elements of bridge layout, and even some technology -- that made up Star Trek. Roddenberry also drew heavily from the Horatio Hornblower novels depicting a daring sea captain exercising broad discretionary authority on distant missions of noble purpose; his Kirk character was more or less Hornblower in space. Roddenberry 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."
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 after Roddenberry's first choice, Lloyd Bridges had reportedly turned it down.
At a time when racial segregation was still firmly entrenched in many areas of the United States, 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. 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 a narrative device that permitted the Enterprise to quickly traverse space. The matter transporter, by which 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 famous flip-open communicator was introduced as a plot device to strand the characters in challenging situations by malfunctioning, being lost or stolen, or out of range; absent such a device, the characters could simply beam up at the first sign of trouble. The flip-open communicator has been copied in many popular cell phone designs from the mid-1990s on.
The Star Trek concept 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, who commissioned and then turned down the first pilot (NBC executives would later be quoted as saying that the initial pilot episode was 'too cerebral'). However, the NBC executives were favorably impressed with the concept and made the 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 used in a later two-part episode, "The Menagerie".
An interesting note concerning NBC's interest in Star Trek: as told by Herb Solow, Executive in Charge of Production at Desilu, NBC was looking for series that would take full advantage of the new color TV technology. NBC was owned by RCA, the leader in manufacturing color televisions, and sought to sell more TVs by creating interest through its NBC network.
The second pilot introduced the main characters: Captain Kirk (William Shatner), chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Scott (James Doohan) and Lieutenant Sulu (George Takei). Sulu's title in this episode was Ship's Physicist (changed to Helmsman in subsequent episodes). Paul Fix played Dr. Mark Piper in the second pilot. Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, (DeForest Kelley) joined the cast when principal photography began on the first season, along with Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and communications officer Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols.) Majel Barrett's role of Nurse Christine Chapel would make her debut later in "The Naked Time". Barrett, later Roddenberry's wife, also did the voice for the ship's computer. 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.
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 Federation 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 television viewers to many ideas which later became common in science fiction films: warp drive, teleportation, force fields, 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. In the 2002 book Star Trek: I'm Working On That, William Shatner and co-author Chip Walter explore some of these technologies and how they relate to today's world.
After a few episodes were filmed, but before they had been officially aired, Roddenberry screened one or two of them at Worldcon in Cleveland in August, 1966 and, as he related in a telegram to Desilu production executive Herbert F. Solow, received a standing ovation.
During the show's second season, the threat of cancellation loomed. The show's devoted fanbase conducted an unprecedented letter-writing campaign, petitioning NBC to keep the show on the air. Its fans succeeded in gaining a third season; however, NBC subsequently moved the show to the Friday Night Death Slot at 10 PM. Roddenberry reduced his direct involvement in Star Trek before the start of the final season to protest the changed timeslot, and was replaced by Fred Freiberger. NBC then substantially reduced Star Trek's budget which brought about a marked decline in the quality of many third season episodes. As Nichelle Nichols writes:
- "While NBC paid lip service to expanding Star Trek's audience, it [now] slashed our production budget until it was actually ten percent lower than it had been in our first season....This is why in the third season you saw fewer outdoor location shots, for example. Top writers, top guest stars, top anything you needed was harder to come by. Thus, Star Trek's demise became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I can assure you, that is exactly as it was meant to be."
The series was canceled in its third season, despite the protests of a renewed letter writing campaign. However, the marketing personnel of the network complained to management that the series' cancellation was premature. It turned out that after using new techniques for profiling demographics of the viewing audience, they found the Star Trek audience was highly desirable for advertisers to the point where they considered the series a highly profitable property. Unfortunately, that revelation came too late to resume production of the series.
Cast
| Performer | Role | Position | Rank |
|---|
| William Shatner | James T. Kirk | Commanding officer of the Starship Enterprise. Shatner attracted producers' attention by starring as Alexander the Great in the unsold TV pilot Alexander. | Captain | | Leonard Nimoy | Spock | Science officer and second-in-command; Nimoy attracted producers' attention with a guest role in The Lieutenant, a weekly military drama which Roddenberry created. (The Lieutenant also featured guest appearances by many other future Trek actors, and Lieutenant series regular Gary Lockwood had a featured role in the second Star Trek pilot.) | Lieutenant Commander/Commander | | DeForest Kelley | Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy | Chief medical officer; best known as a character actor who specialized in Westerns, Kelley attracted producers' attention by starring as a police chemist in the unsold TV pilot Police Story. | Lieutenant Commander | | James Doohan | Montgomery "Scotty" Scott | Chief Engineer and third-in-command | Lieutenant Commander | | Nichelle Nichols | Nyota Uhura | Communications officer | Lieutenant | | George Takei | Hikaru Sulu | Helmsman (a physicist in the second pilot episode). | Lieutenant | | Walter Koenig | Pavel Andreievich Chekov | Navigator (seasons 2 and 3) | Ensign | | Grace Lee Whitney | Janice Rand | Captain's yeoman (season 1) | Yeoman | | Majel Barrett | Christine Chapel | Head nurse | Lieutenant |
Sulu and Uhura were not given first names in this series. Sulu's first name, Hikaru, was revealed non-canonically in Vonda McIntyre's Pocket Book novel The Entropy Effect. The name was "officially" put into the canon by George Takei in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Uhura's first name was never mentioned on screen, but the name Nyota was used in fandom, and in Pocket Book novels. Kirk's middle name was never used in the series until the Animated Series episode "Bem". Due to internal disagreements on the status of The Animated Series as official Star Trek canon, Kirk's middle name ('Tiberius') would not become canon until the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. A tombstone in the second pilot intended for Kirk reads "James R. Kirk". However, this is often explained by Gary Mitchell, the person who created the tombstone, not knowing Kirk's actual name.
Majel Barrett also provided the voice of the computer in TOS and many other Star Trek series and movies. 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 Ensign Chekov was added in the second season. There may be some truth to the unofficial story that the Soviet newspaper Pravda complained that there were no Russians among the culturally diverse characters. However, studio documentation suggests that the intention was to introduce a character with more appeal to teenagers, especially girls. Walter Koenig noted in the 40th (2006) anniversary special of Star Trek: The Original Series that he doubted the Pravda rumor since Star Trek was never shown on Soviet television. It's also been claimed that former Monkees member Davy Jones may have served as a model for the character.
In addition, the series frequently included characters (usually security personnel wearing red uniforms) who 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.
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. Nimoy also had previous TV and film experience but was also not well-known. Shatner had played Cyrano on Broadway, was well-known in the trade, and had even turned down the part of Dr. Kildare. However, when roles became sparse he took the regular job after Jeffrey Hunter's contract wasn't renewed. After the episodes aired, many performers found themselves typecast 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, but with a sly sense of humor; 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, slightly pejorative nickname for a surgeon) 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 character Spock was at first rejected by network officials who feared 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 network affiliates. Spock however went on to become one of the most popular characters on the show, as did McCoy's impassioned country-doctor personality. Spock, in fact, became a sex symbol of sorts to many young girls--something no one connected with the show had expected. Leonard Nimoy notes that the question of Spock's extraordinary sex appeal emerged "almost any time I talked to someone in the press...I never give it a thought....to try to deal with the question of Mr. Spock as a sex symbol is silly."
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, used as symbolic references to the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, respectively.
Original Series cameo roles in later series
The sequel to the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, which premiered in 1987, was set approximately 80 years after the events of TOS. As that show and its spin-offs progressed, several TOS characters made appearances:
- Spock, now a Vulcan ambassador, goes underground in the Romulan Empire in hopes of fostering peaceful coexistence with the Federation and reunification with Vulcan society ("Unification, Parts I and II").
- Leonard "Bones" McCoy, now a 137-year-old admiral, inspects the Enterprise-D during its maiden flight in "Encounter at Farpoint".
- Scotty, now chronologically 147 years old but still only physically 72 years old due to spending 75 years trapped in suspended animation (inside a transporter buffer and not aging as a result), was rescued by the Enterprise-D crew and resuming his life in "Relics". Working along with Laforge, Scotty uses some creative engineering to save the Enterprise. A grateful Captain Picard indefinitely loans him a shuttlecraft, and Scott decides that he might have some more traveling left to do after all.
- Walter Koenig returned to the role of Pavel Chekov in Star Trek New Voyages Episode 2, "To serve all my days", an episode written by D.C. Fontana. Pavel saves Scott from a plasma eruption in engineering and this effects a dormant virus contracted in the "The Way to Eden" TOS Episode - which causes him to age considerably faster. Chekov actually dies in the closing minutes of this episode, but this was Walter Koenigs "on screen" death of him portraying the character.
- Sarek (portrayed by Mark Lenard), Spock's father, continued to be an ambassador for the next century, finally retiring to Vulcan where he passed away during the events of "Unification". Mark Lenard also appeared as Sarek in several of the movies, as well as playing the Romulan commander in the ST:TOS episode "Balance of Terror", and as a Klingon in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
- Arne Darvin, the Klingon disguised as a human in "The Trouble with Tribbles," appears in "Trials and Tribble-ations" with the intent to return to Deep Space Station K7 in 2267 and assassinate Kirk, whom Darvin blamed for his disgrace within the Klingon Empire.
- James Kirk disappears in 2293 during the maiden voyage of the Enterprise-B but 78 years later Kirk is recovered from The Nexus, an alternate plane of existence, by Enterprise-D Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Kirk's time in the 24th century is short however, when he is killed by Dr. Soran in Star Trek Generations.
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. In addition, many actors who appeared on TOS later made guest appearances as different characters in later series, most notably Majel Barrett, who not only provided the voice for most Starfleet computers in episodes of every spin-off series (including a single appearance on Enterprise, where the computers normally did not speak at all), but also had the recurring role of Lwaxana Troi in TNG and DS9.
Episodes
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 Robert Bloch, Norman Spinrad, 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' scripts and wrote several episodes. Her credits read D.C. Fontana at the suggestion of Gene Roddenberry since he felt that a woman might not be taken seriously because almost all science fiction writers were men.
Several notable themes were tackled throughout the entire series which involved the exploration of major issues of 1960s USA, including sexism, racism, nationalism, and global war. Roddenberry utilized the allegory of a space vessel set many years in the future to explore these issues. Although Sammy Davis, Jr. and Nancy Sinatra had openly kissed on the December 1967 musical-variety special Movin' With Nancy, Star Trek was the first American television show to feature an interracial kiss between fictional characters (in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren") although the kiss was only mimed and depicted as involuntary.
Episodes such as "The Apple", "Who Mourns for Adonais?", and "The Return of the Archons" display subtle anti-religious (owing mainly to Roddenberry's own secular humanism) and anti-establishment 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.
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," however, were all written and staged as comedies. Star Trek's humor is generally much more subdued in the spin-offs and movies, with notable exceptions such as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Several episodes used the concept of duplicate Earths, allowing re-use of stock props and sets. "Bread and Circuses," "Miri" and "The Omega Glory" depict such worlds, and three episodes, "A Piece Of The Action," "Patterns Of Force," and "Plato's Stepchildren" are based on alien planets that have adopted period Earth cultures (Prohibition-era Chicago, Nazi Germany, and ancient Greece, respectively). However, "A Piece Of The Action" and "Patterns Of Force" show this as having resulted from contaminations of the native cultures of those planets, either before the imposition of the Prime Directive, as in "A Piece Of The Action," or in violation of it, as in "Patterns Of Force."
All 79 episodes of the series have been digitally remastered by CBS Home Entertainment and have since been released on DVD. (Note: this is not to be confused with the Star Trek Remastered project, discussed below.) As of 2008 there has been no announcement as to whether the original versions of the episodes will be made available in the high definition video formats, as CBS/Paramount is presently only releasing Star Trek Remastered in that format.
Best episodes
According to Entertainment Weekly, the following are the ten best episodes of Star Trek:
- "The City on the Edge of Forever"
- "Space Seed"
- "Mirror, Mirror"
- "The Doomsday Machine"
- "Amok Time"
- "The Devil in the Dark"
- "The Trouble with Tribbles"
- "This Side of Paradise"
- "The Enterprise Incident"
- "Journey to Babel"
"Star Trek Memories"
In 1983, Leonard Nimoy hosted a one-hour special as a promotional tie-in with the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, in which he recounted his memories of working on The Original Series and explained the origins of things such as the Vulcan nerve pinch and the Vulcan salute. This special continues to be widely seen in some areas; it was included in the syndication package for The Original Series, in order to bump up the episode count to 80.
Music
Theme song
The show's theme tune, immediately recognizable by many, was written by Alexander Courage, 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 with no intention that they would ever be sung. Roddenberry nevertheless obtained a 50% share of the music's performance royalties - motivating Courage to leave the series. Later episodes used stock recordings from Courage's earlier work. Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson recorded a jazz fusion version of the tune with his big band during the late 1970s, and Nichelle Nichols performed the song live complete with lyrics.
Dramatic underscore
For budgetary reasons, this series made significant use of "tracked" music, or music written for other episodes that was 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 the music in any episode was tracked from a different episode. Which episodes would have new music was mostly the decision of Robert H. Justman, the Associate Producer during the first two seasons.
Screen credits for the composers were given based on the amount of music composed for, or composed and re-used in, the episode. Some of these final music credits were 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. The composers conducted their own music. Of these composers, Steiner composed the original music for thirteen episodes and it is his instrumental arrangement of Alexander Courage's main theme 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 the music editors, principal of whom were Robert Raff (most of Season One), Jim Henrikson (Season One and Two), and Richard Lapham (Season Three).
The original recordings of the music of some episodes were released in the United States commercially on the GNP Crescendo Record Co. label. Music for a number of the episodes was 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.
Awards
Although this series never won any Emmys, Star Trek was nominated for the following Emmy awards:
- Outstanding Dramatic Series (Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon), 1967
- Outstanding Dramatic Series (Gene Roddenberry), 1968
- Outstanding Supporting Actor (Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock), 1967, 1968, 1969
- Outstanding Guest Appearance (Frank Gorshin as Commissioner Bele), 1969
- Individual Achievement in Art Direction and Allied Crafts (Jim Rugg), 1967
- Individual Achievement in Cinematography (Darrell Anderson, Linwood G. Dunn, and Joseph Westheimer), 1967
- Individual Achievement in Film and Sound Editing (Douglas Grindstaff), 1967
- Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing (Donald R. Rode), 1968
- Special Classification of Individual Achievement for Photographic Effects (The Westheimer Company), 1968
- Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction and Scenic Design (John Dwyer and Walter M. Jeffries), 1969
- Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing (Donald R. Rode), 1969
- Special Classification Achievements for Photographic Effects (The Howard A. Anderson Company, The Westheimer Company, Van der Veer Photo Effects, Cinema Research), 1969.
Eight of its episodes were nominated for one of science-fiction’s top awards, the Hugo Award, in the category "Best Dramatic Presentation". In 1967 the nominated episodes were "The Naked Time", "The Corbomite Maneuver", and "The Menagerie". In 1968 all nominees were Star Trek episodes: "Amok Time", "Mirror, Mirror", "The Doomsday Machine", "The Trouble with Tribbles", and "The City on the Edge of Forever". Star Trek won both years for the episodes "The Menagerie" and "The City on the Edge of Forever", respectively.
In 1968, Star Trek's most critically acclaimed episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever," written by Harlan Ellison, won the prestigious Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Teleplay, although this was for Ellison's original draft script, and not for the screenplay of the episode as it aired.
Home video release
Episodes of the Original Series were among the first television series to be released on the VHS and laserdisc formats in North America in the 1980s, with all episodes eventually being released to VHS. With the advent of DVD in the late 1990s, single DVDs featuring two episodes each in production order were released. In the early 2000s, Paramount Home Video reissued the series to DVD in a series of three deluxe season boxes with added featurettes and documentaries. In February 2009 Paramount announced that they will release Original Series on Blu-Ray on April 27th, 2009. Blu-Ray release will contain both Original and Remastered episodes via seamless-branching.
The Remastered Series
In September 2006, CBS Paramount Domestic Television (now known as CBS Television Distribution, now the rights holders for the Star Trek television franchises) began syndication of an enhanced version of Star Trek: The Original Series in high definition with new CGI visual effects. These are being done under the supervision of Mike Okuda, technical consultant to several of the later series. The restoring and updating of the visual effects was performed by CBS Digital. All live-action footage was scanned in high definition from its first generation 35 mm film elements, while visual effects shots have been digitally reproduced. As noted in the "making of" DVD feature, first generation "original camera negatives" were used for all live-action footage but not for external shots of the ship and planets, etc. Notable changes include new space shots with a CGI Enterprise, and other new models (for example, a Gorn ship is shown in Arena), redone matte background shots, and other minor touches such as tidying up viewscreens. A small number of scenes have also been recomposed, and in some cases new actors have been placed into the background of some shots. In addition, the opening theme music has been re-recorded in digital stereo.
The first episode to be released to syndication was "Balance of Terror" on the weekend of September 16, 2006. Episodes are being released at the rate of about one a week and broadcast in a 4:3 aspect ratio. Star Trek Remastered is also being broadcast in Japan, but the Japanese version is presented in a 16:9 aspect ratio rather than in a 4:3 ratio.
While the CGI shots have already been mastered in a 16:9 aspect ratio for future applications, they are currently broadcast in the US - along with the live-action footage in the original 4:3 aspect ratio TV format to respect the show's original composition. If the producers choose to reformat the entire show for the 16:9 ratio, live-action footage would have to be recropped, widening the frame to the full width of the 35 mm negatives while trimming its height by nearly 30%. Although this would add a marginal amount of imagery on the sides, much more would need to be eliminated from the tops and bottoms of the frames to fit. This is what has been done for the Japanese version of the show.
On July 26, 2007, CBS Home Entertainment announced that the remastered episodes of TOS would be released on a HD DVD/DVD hybrid format. Season 1 was released on November 20, 2007. Season 2 had been scheduled for release in the summer of 2008, but it was cancelled when Toshiba (which had been helping finance the remastering of the show) pulled out of the HD-DVD business. On August 5, 2008, the remastered Season 2 was released on DVD only. For this release, CBS and Paramount used discs without any disc art, making them look like the "Season 1 Remastered" HD DVD/DVD combo discs, despite having content only on one side. Season 3 was released on DVD only on November 18, 2008. On February 17th, 2009- Paramount announced the Season 1 of TOS on Blu Ray for a May release to coincide with the new feature film coming from Paramount. It was rumoured that with the Remastered versions on this release, the original versions will also be included. It's suspected Seasons 2 and 3 will follow.
In region 2, all three of the remastered original series will be avilable for DVD in the slimline edition on 27th April 2009 as well as the first series in Blu-Ray.
With the release of the "Alternate Realities" box set, remastered Original Series episodes were included in a multi-series compilation for the first time. It is unknown if future compilation releases will exclusively use the remastered episodes or not.
Star Trek 2.0 on G4
On April 10, 2006, an interactive version of TOS, known as "Star Trek 2.0," began broadcast on the television channel G4 where members can use the online chat and "Spock Market." Messages from the online chat may be shown during the broadcast along with "Trek Stats" and "Trek Facts." The feature debuted on the cable network G4 when began playing episodes of Star Trek along with showing interactive menus. Sometime in 2007, they stopped airing the show in its 2.0 format. The show aired though on the network every Monday in a marathon until it was cancelled.
- As a promotion of Star Trek 2.0, advertising agency 72andSunny created four 30-second stop-motion commercials using detailed Mego action figures of the crew, which became enormously popular on video site YouTube as well as G4TV.com's "Streaming Pile" video site. One of the characters in the commercials was voiced by Charlie Murphy(brother of Eddie Murphy). They also released a minute-long "Director's Cut" of the "Cribs" clip.
On January 15, 2007, G4 launched Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0 at 9:00pm Monday through Friday. A press release for the show indicated it features TNG Facts and Stats along with 32 (up from 24) new stocks for the Spock Market game. Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0 was later removed from Monday nights.
An "urgent subspace message" on the Star Trek 2.0 Hailing Frequencies e-newsletter stated that Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0 was scheduled for a "refit". It no longer featured live chat, stats, or facts on screen. The Spock Market game continued running as usual until it was shut down.
Fan material and downloads
Star Trek has inspired fan-made and -produced series for free internet distribution, including Star Trek: Phase II. Walter Koenig, D. C. Fontana and other Star Trek actors and production personnel have participated in producing various episodes.
The cancellation of the series was remembered in a famous Saturday Night Live comedy sketch called "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise", written by Michael O'Donoghue, which aired on NBC-TV on May 29, 1976, which became an instant classic among Star Trek fans.
CBS Interactive is presenting all 3 seasons of the series online via Adobe Flash streaming media. They are full-length episodes available free of charge, but with ads embedded into the stream of each episode. They are viewable at http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek..
In January 2007, the first season of Star Trek became available for download from Apple's iTunes Store. Although consumer reviews indicate that some of the episodes on iTunes are the newly "remastered" editions, iTunes editors had not indicated such, and if so, which are which. All first season episodes that had been remastered and aired were available from iTunes, except "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which remains in its original form. On March 20, 2007, the first season was again added to the iTunes Store, with separate downloads for the original and remastered versions of the show, though according to the customer reviews, the original version contains minor revisions such as special effect enhancements. CBS also uploaded all 3 Seasons of the show on their Veoh account.
See also
External links
Official
- at StarTrek.com
- at CBS.com (watch full episodes streaming - not available outside U.S.)
Other
- on TVLand.com - cannot be viewed in some countries
- at Fancast
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