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Today Marks The 50th Anniversary of 'Star Trek' (ew.com) 204

Posted by BeauHD from the happy-birthday dept.
Dave Knott writes: Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first television broadcast of Star Trek. The first episode of the science fiction series was aired on September 8, 1966. From its humble beginnings, Star Trek has gone on to become one of the best-loved and most successful television concepts of all time, an enduring pop culture touchstone that changed science fiction forever and spawned multiple series and movies that continue to this day. What does Star Trek mean to you? Are you a trekkie/trekker? What are your best memories of the series, and how has it affected your life?
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Today Marks The 50th Anniversary of 'Star Trek' More

Today Marks The 50th Anniversary of 'Star Trek'

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  • Before the reboot (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_Bionic_lemming ( 446569 ) on Thursday September 08, 2016 @10:35PM (#52852421)

    Before the reboot it was awesome.

    I even have books that most trekkers don't know about like "Spock Must Die".

    After the reboot, having kirk and spock looking longingly at each other and Uhura emerging as a the true power in the ship just makes me hope that trek passes away.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Before the reboot (Score:4, Interesting)

      by irrational_design ( 1895848 ) on Friday September 09, 2016 @12:18AM (#52852763)

      I'm the opposite. I watched some episodes from each of the Star Trek TV series and I think I saw most of the movies, but it never really caught my fancy. But I've _really_ enjoyed the rebooted Star Trek movies. Speaking to other I've found that most Trekkies really don't like the Star Trek reboot, while those who were not Trekkies before like the rebooted movies. Maybe that indicates the rebooted movies aren't "real" Star Trek. I don't really know since I've never been a Trekkie ;-)

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Reality is 'Jar Jar A' pretty much killed Star Trek with the crap he produced (not dumbed down by the way, simply as smart as he is capable of producing, strictly second set work). As can be seen by the last entry that pretty much every just ignored, why bother, more of the same crap, Star Trek is dead, we need a new anniversary for it's funeral. Jar Jar is now killing off Star Wars, nepotism, pays for more PR=B$ in main stream media, than anything else, trying to make incompetent spawn look great. How man

        • Reality is 'Jar Jar A' pretty much killed Star Trek

          Yes, especially when he regenerated into the Doctor and crashed the Delorean into the side of the Star Gate whilst fleeing Serenity.

        • I don't think it was Jar Jar Abrams who killed the franchise, all the next gen movies before these ones were terrible and did more harm to the franchise than this. They were equally stupid, violent and poorly written as any of Abram's turds, except with the original, 70-something cast.

      • Re:Before the reboot (Score:5, Informative)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Friday September 09, 2016 @01:57AM (#52853001)

        Maybe that indicates the rebooted movies aren't "real" Star Trek. I don't really know since I've never been a Trekkie ;-)

        Hey, you figured it out. It's not that you like the new Star Trek and don't really care for the old Star Trek -- it's that you just don't like Star Trek. But you like action sci-fi movies, and these just happen to have characters and settings that were borrowed from Star Trek.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Fans of the two are very different. The new movies are just action flicks set in space. The originals are dramas with big ideas and an interesting model of the future.

        For example, the original shows are post-race, post-feminist, there is no money or personal wealth for most people, Star Fleet is a meritocracy with a nominally military structure but that's as far as it goes. The new movies don't really have any of that, and in fact Uhura has been relegated to the nagging girlfriend.

        You can't really compare t

        • People keep saying there was no money. Harry Mudd sold stuff for money all the time.

          Also, the first airing was on September 6th, in Canada, nor September 8th in the US. If US ratings had matched Canadian ratings over the 3 year run, the Enterprise would have completed its 5 year mission. The show had cheesy special effects but it didn't need CGI to distract viewers from lousy (or nonexistent) storylines, or the too-earnest political correctness infusing everything that made me avoid the next generation aft

          • No he traded commodities, in TOS he traded his slave girls for lithium crystals, not money.
            • Cyrano Jones, in "The Trouble with Tribbles", after giving Uhuru a tribble, says that "A tribble is the only love money can buy." Money is still used in the Star Trek universe.
        • Agree, agree, agree...except for sp of Darmok. ST:TNG before s3 is indeed very tough to watch. Troi in her cheerleader outfit, but even the lighting on the set looks more like Match Game or something. Luckily BBC America still has plenty of re-runs.

        • For example, the original shows are post-race, post-feminist, ...

          Were they? I don't remember any female starship captains, except the sexy Romulan babe in "The Enterprise Incident."

      • Re:Before the reboot (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Friday September 09, 2016 @07:07AM (#52853785)

        Star Trek: Usually explores morality at it's core. Plot built around a moral conundrum. May be fleshed out with action and explosions at times, but really, the show is about exploring humanity more than it is exploring space.

        Reboot Star Trek: Just string a bunch of action sequences together and add a bunch of computer generated graphics. Plot optional.

        I don't have a problem with action movies. Look at how popular the super-hero movies are. Star Trek was never about action and explosions; it was a more thoughtful show. This may have made it rather niche (TNG was criticized as being a show about people sitting in meetings making decisions) and sometimes Star Trek blows chunks (like anytime they try and do romance)- but JJ's Star Trek was simply not Star Trek- it was spiderman in space..

        • To me, two of the best hours ever shown on television are "City on the Edge of Forever" from the original series and "The Inner Light" from the Next Generation. I can forgive a lot of the other drek that aired in TOS and NG for those two episodes alone.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sconeu ( 64226 )

            Throw in "In the Pale Moonlight" from DS9.

    • Spock Must Die! was a brilliant novel (disclaimer: James Blish fan here). Too bad it could never have been canon, due to locking up the Klingons at the end.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )

      After the reboot, having kirk and spock looking longingly at each other and Uhura emerging as a the true power in the ship

      Weird and a waste of time on every level IMHO. In the original Uhura, Scotty and so on were all awesome at what they did which is enough for everyone who doesn't want to put their "mark" on the story by adding an unlikely twist.
      To me it seems like stuff that would have been hounded out of fanfiction ended up in the recent movies.

      • The reboot feels a lot like a bunch of crappy Mary-Sue [wikipedia.org] fanfic characters thrown together.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Star Trek isn't really suited to movies. There is an ensemble cast and not enough screen time to give most of them any real development or insight. The new ones have the added hindrance of needing to stop for massive action sequences and making it hard to see the actor's faces with bad lighting and fast editing.

          • Well, Star Trek works maybe better in terms of character development as a series. I mean, look at TNG and how the characters evolved over time. Riker especially. Sure, a lot of it was the actors settling in and getting a "feel" for the character, but it's nice to see that they do develop and get their edges and quirks, and we maybe get to explore their flaws a little and how they might overcome them. That is of course easier done in a weekly 45minute show than in 2 hour movies once in a while.

            But I'm sorry,

      • After the reboot, having kirk and spock looking longingly at each other and Uhura emerging as a the true power in the ship

        Weird and a waste of time on every level IMHO. In the original Uhura, Scotty and so on were all awesome at what they did which is enough for everyone who doesn't want to put their "mark" on the story by adding an unlikely twist. To me it seems like stuff that would have been hounded out of fanfiction ended up in the recent movies.

        Are you complaining that it's crappy or are you complaining that the reboot isn't exactly like the original down to the dialog, set designs 1960s special effects and the grainy texture of mid to late 20th century recording technology? I certainly have some issues with the reboot, such as a Cadet Kirk being promoted to captain of one of Star Fleet's capital ships but the reboot still isn't that bad. The original series had some gaping plot holes and various plot defects as well.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )

          Are you complaining that it's crappy or are you complaining that the reboot isn't exactly like the original

          Both really.
          Crappy plus a totally different setting where starships can park underwater, belts can teleport you across the galaxy and Klingons are weaklings to beat up on. A vast way from "exactly" - why stay in orbit in hundreds of episodes when you can just land in a lake?
          The reboots are not self-consistent even within the span of an hour or two.

          The reboot depends both on fan memory and then brings

          • ... why stay in orbit in hundreds of episodes when you can just land in a lake?

            Or, more specifically, if you're trying to hide from an indigenous species w/o optical technology, like telescopes, why hide in the ocean right next to their town when you can hide in orbit (with less power and potential ship damage) to boot? Other than way-cool special-effects being more important in a JJ Abrams film than, well, anything else.

        • The reboot is ageist as hell. Everyone's about the same age.

          To be fair, the real ages of most of the principals on TOS were fairly close, but the portrayed ages varied, from the aging Doctor and mature Senior Engineer, to the Captain who's young for his rank and reputation, down to seasoned junior officers and bottoming out with a junior Ensign and Yeoman. And then there's the Vulcan, who's likely on par with Scotty in terms of chronological age, experience and wisdom but presumed biologically pubescent. Al

        • Take a look at the remastered versions of TOS before you call their recording technology grainy texture. TNG however was shot on video so there the source material is lacking in quality but not for TOS which was shot on film.

        • Are you complaining that it's crappy or are you complaining that the reboot isn't exactly like the original down to the dialog,

          Naw, they're totally Trek-like. That second one really got exactly what I always loved about Spock just perfect: the way he'd fly into a rage and then hold his enemies down and punch them in the face over and over again, almost killing them with his bare hands.

          The original series had some gaping plot holes and various plot defects as well.

          The second reboot movie (Into Darkness) is by far the worst, as there's more hole than plot. But really the new movies are just...bad (the new one, Beyond, is the least bad though). And I mean that just from a Screenwriting 101, story point of view. F

    • With the actor for Chekhov in the reboots dead, and declining revenue and angry fans, the best thing they could do would be to patch up the alternate timeline with a time travel finale to their television show. Then they could go back to the real timeline. Or even the mirror universe would be cool.

      • Or even the mirror universe would be cool.

        Not in this incarnation anyway.
        Too confusing for "mainstream audiences" while being completely outside of what said audience knows about Star Trek and feels comfortable with based on the cultural osmosis alone.
        While watching Star Trek characters jumping around on dirt bikes like Evel Knievel as "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys blares out of the speakers.
        You know... Star Trek.

        Similarly, patching up of the time line will never happen.
        For the same reason that Robert Duncan McNeill plays the same character on TNG and

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

      After the reboot, having kirk and spock looking longingly at each other and Uhura emerging as a the true power in the ship just makes me hope that trek passes away.

      Trek was very transgressive for its day. It doesn't seem like it now, because a lot of their pie-in-the-sky stuff, like women and minorities completely accepted in the workforce, a commitment to diversity as a positive good, respect for other cultures rather than insisting on transforming them into clones of ours, became standard societal orthodoxy in the last 50 years. But back in the 1960's these were really radical ideas. The same year Trek started, freaking George Wallace won 5 states running on a platf

  • Some of my earliest and fondest television memories were watching TOS re-runs. Spock was my 1st TV hero.

    • Good plot hooks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday September 08, 2016 @10:57PM (#52852501) Homepage Journal

      TOS set the technology up with some really good plot hooks. Things like:

      You can't beam someone onboard while the shields are up.
      You can go to distant planets, but it still takes considerable time.
      The transporters are sensitive, finicky things that tend to break.

      All of these make great places to hang plot from, such as:

      So item #1 makes for a tense situation when you're in a shuttlecraft (or on the planet) while the ship is facing off an enemy.
      Item #2 means you might not get there in time (KIRK: Make a challenge. Warn that ship off. UHURA: Trying to, sir. They don't acknowledge.)
      Item #3 means you might get stranded on the ship after you've set it to blow up.

      Compare with the modern reboot movies, where you can beam from Earth to another planet using a transporter the size of a duffel bag, starships that can hide underwater, and magic serum from Khan's blood that will bring someone back from the dead.

      The modern reboot movies think sacrificing the technology makes for good plot, but it's just the opposite: Good plot will be based on the limitations of the technology.

      Consider: How can anyone get emotionally involved in someone's death, knowing that they can be brought back to life now using Khan's blood?

      (Let's not mention a red liquid that can turn a planet into a black hole, delivered by hand using a big syringe. Or a cold fusion bomb that can't be remote armed, has to be assembled and armed by hand while standing at the place of detonation. Or a bomb the size of a class ring that can take out a building. Or beaming from a planet onto a ship that's been at warp for a couple of hours using a formula that considers the ship and the planet stationary while the space between them moves.)

      • I don't know about that... It seems to me that in the pre-reboot series they could overcome any technical limitation simply by reversing the polarity.

        • And if everything failed, send a reverse tachyon impulse through subspace.

          Let's be honest, like it or not, but 99% of all problems were solved by technobabble.

      • The absolutely stupidest and most implausible technology was the "Genesis Project" that instantaneously caused 4 billion years of evolution by launching one projectile. Oh, and it was created by one person working alone.

        • IIRC Genesis was more akin to nano-engineering on a planetary scale, taking the target apart and reassembling it into preprogrammed forms, including life-forms. Not all that implausible in context... except of course the glaring deus ex machina that is the "Genesis energy", used to imbue life, and miraculously bringing Spock back from the dead.

      • Consider: How can anyone get emotionally involved in someone's death, knowing that they can be brought back to life now using Khan's blood?

        They explored resurrection in a couple of episodes of Voyager.

        In one episode (Mortal Coil) Neelix is killed on an away mission. Seven performs some Borg magic and he's back again but haunted by the afterlife.

        In another (Ashes 2 Ashes), Harry's girlfriend returns a couple of years after dying, having been reincarnated as an alien and having to choose.

  • KKKHHHHHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

    Okay, for the benefit of Slashdot's ironically named lameness filte - you have to understand that some things just require yelling.

    • Re:Gotta say it (Score:5, Funny)

      by quenda ( 644621 ) on Thursday September 08, 2016 @11:08PM (#52852541)

      Or as William Shattner just had to say:

      I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!

      I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?
      You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl?

      I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Still believe DS9 to be the best (Score:5, Informative)

    by ArtemaOne ( 1300025 ) on Thursday September 08, 2016 @10:44PM (#52852453)
    The Next Generation was amazing, DS9 is still my favorite, but the original series broke so much ground it is mind boggling. One of my favorite stories is of Ohura and Kirk kissing. The producers didn't want to do it, so Shatner convinced them to film both scenes, the kissing first. He then proceeded to screw up every take without the kiss until they were running low on film, which was quite expensive. The producers were forced to take that step forward in history.
    • DS9 discussion [arstechnica.com] recently on Ars Technica.
      • Unfortunately Ars is blocked and work and I can get to slashdot. Quite the downgrade, but that's just the way things are for now.

  • Bad opinion theater (Score:4, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday September 08, 2016 @10:55PM (#52852489) Journal

    Kate Mulgrew was the best Kirk.

    COME AT ME

    • Kate Mulgrew was the best Kirk.

      COME AT ME

      I know you're joking, but it really is a shame Voyager did such a bad job in the casting. Without all the awful actors Voyager would have been a good show. The doctor was the only good actor on that show. (I had a fondness for 7 of 9, but it might not have been because of her acting ability).

      Compare the actors from TNG to Voyager- there is a huge gulf in acting ability. Voyager probably had better writers but the poor acting made it go flat.

      • The actors were, by and large, fine; they just had utter shit to work with. You be trippin, son.

        • Really?

          Kate Mulgrew an equal to Patrick Stewart?
          Robert Duncan McNeill *shudder* an equal to Brent Spiner?
          Tim Russ anywhere near as good as Michael Dorn?
          Robert Beltran *ugh* as good as Jonathan Frakes (ok he wasn't the best either)

          The actors chosen for Voyager were absolutely terrible. I actually quite liked voyager (after first few seasons) but that is DESPITE the acting. The acting was wooden and amateurish.

  • Back when the iTunes Store first started selling TV shows, you could get each entire season from TOS for about $12 each. At the time, they weren't on Netflix or anywhere else I could locate; so even though money was tight right then - I bought all three (and immediately stripped out the DRM).

    The price jumped dramatically just a Week or two later... but I'm still amazed the seasons were ever that cheap.

  • Barely mentioned anywhere... (Score:3)

    by lord_mike ( 567148 ) on Friday September 09, 2016 @12:14AM (#52852751)

    The news essentially ignored it. There is nothing on TV, no show marathons or special programs. Google didn't even do a doodle for it. What a bummer... I didn't even find out about it until I saw a buried story about the 50th anniversary. I guess Trek really has fallen off the face of the earth, and its influence has truly waned. That is a real shame.

  • It was in re-runs (I'm not *that* old) and The Changling came on. That's the "I am Nomad" episode if you're like me and had to google it. I was a kid though. I just saw the first part. I think it took a while for Star Trek to "click" since I was a kid and some things went over my head. The thing that makes this episode stand out is not even the episode itself. I only saw the first part that evening. There was this *thing* on the transporter pad and... we had to go out to dinner. I didn't want to go

  • "live long and propser". Star Trek forever even if its newer ones suck.

  • ...followed by this thought: "Has it really been 50 years? Have I become this old?"

    It has, and I have.

    I first saw Star Trek TOS in black and white, in Caracas, dubbed into Spanish. This must've been around 1973 or 74. Later on I got to see most of TOS in color and in English. Read a lot of the novels, watched all the films, saw all of Next Generation.. and then I lost interest.

    What Trek taught me? IDIC, which I have to remind myself of -- I am prone to dislike diversity, then I remember IDIC. That li

  • What Star Trek should be (Score:3)

    by Archfeld ( 6757 ) <treboreel@live.com> on Friday September 09, 2016 @02:19AM (#52853057) Journal

    http://startrekcontinues.com/ [startrekcontinues.com]

    JJ and the reboot of 'Star Trek' make mediocre action films, but they aren't Star Trek anymore.

  • It was the day science fiction got real (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Friday September 09, 2016 @03:06AM (#52853203)

    As a very young boy, I exhausted the children's area of our small-town library in no time. With my parents' permission and a wonderful librarian, I was allowed to start getting books from the Adults' floor. I was a complete science fiction addict. I went through the whole section. I was even allowed to read stories like Farmer's "The Lovers" and Sturgeon's "Venus Plus X", which at the time were considered very definitely not for children.

    I was thoroughly familiar with concepts that are now almost trite, but at the time were pretty much limited to the science fiction community: preserving time lines to preserve reality, the implications of faster-than-light spaceships, matter transmission, parallel universes and a lot more. Television science fiction (except Outer Limits and Twilight Zone) bored me to tears, and Lost In Space made me sick. My parents couldn't figure out why I loved SF books so much, but had no time for "Fireball XL-5".

    Then, just as summer was winding down, the networks started promoting the new TV shows for the coming season. And there was Star Trek. Even the very limited "trailers" made it clear this was going to be something different. It delivered in spades. All of the stuff I'd been reading about was brought to life, and I got to watch my family and friends catch onto the same things that had held me spellbound for a good part of my short life. And most important, Star Trek made it clear that we'd get through all the evil and ugliness we saw around us...Vietnam, the assassinations, the Cold War. It was looking pretty bleak there, for a while.

    And it also did what science fiction was supposed to do: hold up a mirror to problems in our own world we didn't often discuss openly. Plus (huge bonus) some of the seriously imaginative science fiction writers whose work I loved were writing episodes. My mother, who was a tough, capable woman, cried like a baby at the end of "The City at the Edge of Forever", and my dad was very quiet. They'd both lived through WWII (my dad served with the RAF), and they both knew just how close Hitler came to winning.

    But it was that first view of the first promo I remember best...when my sister and I were sitting on the living room floor playing a card game and I looked at the TV and just couldn't believe what I was seeing.

    All these years later, I know how lucky I was to see it happen through a child's eyes.

  • What was once uncool, becomes cool. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Friday September 09, 2016 @06:51AM (#52853723) Journal

    I'm very close to 40.
    When I was a kid I watched reruns of ToS on TV and some of my dads VHS tapes he got suckered into buying at $30 a pop from some subscription, with only 3 eps per tape. I loved it and I enjoyed sporadically watching TnG as it aired.
    Eventually I became a dumb angsty later teen and thought Star Wars was what's cool and Trek was dumb / lame.

    As I've gotten older (well 20 years later) and every god damned movie and TV show has taken on a "dark edgey tone" and I've finally started to not give a shit if someone calls me a dork! or nerd! I can accept Star Trek as god damn cool, because it was so out there, it's camp, it's silly, it's great. The humour can be fantastic and the nerdiness I don't need to feel ashamed about. When Star Trek is funny I laugh with it, when it's bad I laugh with it "oh that silly old Star Trek!"

    At the core of Star Trek though is that Roddenberry philosophy of an almost utopian future. I can respect that, more and more as I age. As I see the world around me slip in to eventual chaos, the environment becoming a disgrace, capitalism, greed and globalization becoming more intense, the world is becoming a very very dark place and I think it's not going to end well, Star Trek is a welcome, fantasy relief of what would happen if almost all humans all did the right thing, for humanity and the universe not just for themselves.

    Heck when I see a 1966 show talk in metres and kilometres and not have smoking on the show despite the lost potential revenue from product placement because that's how it would be in the utopian future, I can see why Gene is so lauded as a visionary.
    A great show that I'm finally proud to say I'm a big fan of.

  • Say what you will about The Search for Spock as a whole; that sequence in which Kirk steals the Enterprise and escapes spacedock is one of the most engaging I can think of in all of cinema. Everything from "Don't call me Tiny" to "The doors Mr. Scott!" "Right sir! I'm working on it!", "Oh, I'll have Mr. Adventure eating out of my hand." all the way up to "Kirk, you do this, you'll never sit in the captain's chair again." It's an incredibly emotionally charged scene that is simultaneously tense, funny, and

    • Also the fact that the entire original series, and the movies leading up to 3, were about Kirk wanting nothing more than his career and ship, but he throws it all away, without a second thought, for Spock. No debate, no waffling, doesn't even think about it.

      And on the other hand, no hamming it up, no chewing the scenery, no 'Dammit, I LOVE this ship, but SPOCK...NEEDS....ME.'

  • When I discovered that my girlfriend liked Star Trek, I bought a small color TV so I could entice her to come to my apartment to watch the original series. We both cheered when NBC announced that there would be a third season.

    We were married in 1968 and had two children. We raised them in a very technology-friendly household. They played with my Apple II when I was at work. Today they both have Computer Science degrees and good jobs in the industry.

    When my son got married I ended the customary father-of

  • There are a lot of stories looking back Trek TOS floating around because of the 50th anniverseray. My favorites are:

    Lucile Ball was the first trekkie [blastr.com]. Yes, Lucile Ball, your new geek overlord.

    MLK said he was a Trekkie. Wouldn't let Michelle Nickhols leave the show. [npr.org] MLK, blerd before it was cool.

    • Re:My favorite stories (Score:5, Informative)

      by T.E.D. ( 34228 ) on Friday September 09, 2016 @10:20AM (#52855113)
      I'm sorry, I forgot where I was for a minute. Let me summarize those links nobody will click on..

      Lucile Ball was the first trekkie [blastr.com]. Yes, Lucile Ball, your new geek overlord.

      Basic gist here is that it was her production company that initially got it produced and sold, and the one person at that company that was sold on the vision of the show was in fact Lucile Ball herself. At one point her whole board voted to can the show, because they were a small company and already had 3 shows on their plate. There would have been no Trek. She vetoed them.

      MLK said he was a Trekkie. Wouldn't let Michelle Nickhols leave the show. [npr.org] MLK, blerd before it was cool.

      Ms. NICHOLS: I went in to tell Gene Roddenberry that I was leaving after the first season, and he was very upset about it. And he said, take the weekend and think about what I am trying to achieve here in this show. You're an integral part and very important to it. And so I said, yes, I would. And that - on Saturday night, I went to an NAACP fundraiser, I believe it was, in Beverly Hills. And one of the promoters came over to me and said, Ms. Nichols, there's someone who would like to meet you. He says he is your greatest fan.

      And I'm thinking a Trekker, you know. And I turn, and before I could get up, I looked across the way and there was the face of Dr. Martin Luther King smiling at me and walking toward me. And he started laughing. By the time he reached me, he said, yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan. I am that Trekkie.

      (Soundbite of laughter)

      Ms. NICHOLS: And I was speechless. He complimented me on the manner in which I'd created the character. I thanked him, and I think I said something like, Dr. King, I wish I could be out there marching with you. He said, no, no, no. No, you don't understand. We don't need you on the - to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for. So, I said to him, thank you so much. And I'm going to miss my co-stars.

      And his face got very, very serious. And he said, what are you talking about? And I said, well, I told Gene just yesterday that I'm going to leave the show after the first year because I've been offered - and he stopped me and said: You cannot do that. And I was stunned. He said, don't you understand what this man has achieved? For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen. He says, do you understand that this is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch. I was speechless.

      Yes, MLK was a (self-identified!) Trekkie.

  • TNG, DS9, others never did much for me. Maybe it's because female crew of TOS had the sexy shirts, go-go boots, big hair, thick mascara.

  • that the 50th anniversary of Star Trek generates so few comments on Slashdot...

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