Nostalgia question: what year did you see your first TOS episode?

[Poltargyst]

Did we grow up in the same neighborhood? WPIX was my home for Star Trek as well. Then we got a rotor for our antenna and picked up WTNH in New Haven. They ran it weekdays as well -- uncut with the previews for the next show attached. What a treat that was.

Probably not. I grew up in Central PA. For some reason we got WPIX on cable. WPIX used to always do this Yule log for Christmas Eve I remember. I think I remember watching the Odd Couple on there too.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

This might be a narrow-interest question, but if you started out with a b&w TV, what was the first episode you saw in color?

My first look was the back cover of The Making of Star Trek, with eight color frames, seven of them flipped over:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/256125643179
When all you knew was b&w, that picture of Spock on the bridge was dazzling.

Then I saw "Operation: Annihilate!" at the neighbor boy's house. It was a big deal to me. I would have come over every day for Star Trek after that, but his mother wasn't having it.

The second one I saw in color, some time later, was "The Squire of Gothos" at my grandmother's house. She had cable TV, and the picture blew away what our rabbit ears were pulling in at home. I was impressed. In those days, cable was just your local broadcast stations, and you could get HBO, extra.

The next big step was my Dad finally breaking down and buying a color set, plus a huge roof antenna with a rotor. Truly an inflection point in history.

 

[Redfern]

Imagine how ecstatic we were come 1975 when AMT released its "Exploration Set", a model kit of the phaser, tricorder and communicator with opening and pivoting elements, "kid scaled", and (in theory) robust enough for roleplay! We felt like we had finally reached the "major leagues"!

 

[Victoria]

This might be a narrow-interest question, but if you started out with a b&w TV, what was the first episode you saw in color?

I didn't see any TOS in colour until I bought 5 DVDs with the first season episodes 1 to 15. I watched those in order so my first colour episode was "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - the same as my first episode overall.

When I first saw my favourite episode (Devil in the Dark) in colour, I was really taken aback by the red lava strips on the Horta. I think I prefer that episode in b&w.

 

[mb22]

I think the first episode in color I saw (part of) was "Conscience of the King" in 1975 on my uncle's color TV (my family didn't get a color one until 1984!).

My first look was the back cover of The Making of Star Trek, with eight color frames, seven of them flipped over: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256125643179
When all you knew was b&w, that picture of Spock on the bridge was dazzling.

Those tiny images were nice, but even better was the 1976 calendar with its much larger pictures, along with the poster magazines.

 

[M'Sharak]

This might be a narrow-interest question, but if you started out with a b&w TV, what was the first episode you saw in color?

I'm not entirely sure anymore which was the first episode I saw -- might have been "Devil in the Dark", though I wouldn't swear to it. We had B&W only until 1965 or early '66, I think, so all of the Trek episodes would have been in color.

Spoiler: There was a much later instance...

... where I was taping a [non-Trek] program on the recorder connected to the main TV, so I watched the first airing of "Yesterday's Enterprise" on the small B&W set in the other room. Many shows filmed in color don't translate well to B&W, but this one worked.

 

[Warp Core Breach]

Maybe I'm a weirdo (and I clearly am) but sometimes I like going back to TOS, especially season one, and just shutting the color off and watching it in monochrome. The framing and lighting is striking that way, and it also reminds me a lot of The Twilight Zone sometimes.

Try it with "The Man Trap", for example.

 

[Warped9]

When I started watching TOS it was in b&w, but in 1971 we got our first colour console television.

 

[Poltargyst]

Imagine how ecstatic we were come 1975 when AMT released its "Exploration Set", a model kit of the phaser, tricorder and communicator with opening and pivoting elements, "kid scaled", and (in theory) robust enough for roleplay! We felt like we had finally reached the "major leagues"!

I had that very set. I explored the nearby woods with it.

 

[Poltargyst]

I think the first episode in color I saw (part of) was "Conscience of the King" in 1975 on my uncle's color TV (my family didn't get a color one until 1984!).

My first look was the back cover of The Making of Star Trek, with eight color frames, seven of them flipped over: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256125643179
When all you knew was b&w, that picture of Spock on the bridge was dazzling.

Those tiny images were nice, but even better was the 1976 calendar with its much larger pictures, along with the poster magazines.

OMG! I had that calendar!

 

[Esteban]

I was 8 years old. I'd wandered down to the family room where my very old parents (32?) were watching TV Thursday about 8:30 EST. Just past my bedtime.

I saw the "Court Martial" Starbase 11 background matte and I was hooked.

 

[Tango]

I think the first episode in color I saw (part of) was "Conscience of the King" in 1975 on my uncle's color TV (my family didn't get a color one until 1984!).

My first look was the back cover of The Making of Star Trek, with eight color frames, seven of them flipped over: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256125643179
When all you knew was b&w, that picture of Spock on the bridge was dazzling.

Those tiny images were nice, but even better was the 1976 calendar with its much larger pictures, along with the poster magazines.

I had that poster magazine. Long gone now - thanks for that childhood memory!

 

[Jedi Marso]

I was too young to remember seeing my first episode- TOS was 'always there' as far back as I can remember anything on TV, although I know it didn't start in syndication until the 70's. Kind of like Cheerios cereal- I've never known a world without it. At some point in high school I realized I had seen them ALL so many times that I could usually name the episode within the first few seconds or bars of music that it began.

TOS will always be my Trek.

 

[Noname Given]

1969 on NBC. TOS S3 Elaan Of Troyius

 

[Sci]

1995, summer I was nine years old. I would stay up late every weeknight to watch TOS reruns at 11:00 PM on WUAB out of Cleveland. My first episode was "All Our Yesterdays."

 

[JesterFace]

I wish I remembered exactly but I don't.
However, I do have nice memories from beautiful summer evenings and nights from year 2000 or so onwards when local channel was showing the series.

 

[Tallguy]

The first thing I remember seeing was Mirror Mirror. But somehow I knew who Scotty was. (I can't for the life of me tell you why I knew that. But I remember the mirror crew going after the "good guys" - which to be honest was something I knew as a trope even at that age.) I was five or six. 1974 / 1975.

I got much more into Star Trek when I was a little older (7?). We took a trip to Grandma's house and Mom bought me the Star Trek Colorforms set. And on that trip we started watching Trek reruns at whatever hour of the day they were airing. I remember seeing What Are Little Girls Made Of (can't imagine what Grandma thought of Andrea, if she was paying that much attention) and The Menagerie. I think when we got home from that trip we got Mego figures of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

Somewhere in there I got the View-Masters of Yesteryear and Omega Glory. Also the Mego Tricorder. And some fanzine that had an episode guide. It kind of blew my mind that there was some kind of list of what would come on the TV as it did.

In summer of 1978 we took a trip to New York City and because of one of the fanzines I had we went to The Federation Trading Post. (Doug Drexler's shop. No idea if he was there or not.) I remember my parents were rather annoyed that while they had some rather specialized Trek merch, my brother and I bought the AMT kits of the Enterprise and the Exploration set that we could have bought at Two Guys down the street from our house.

So that's kind of the beginnings of my Star Trek origin story.

 

[publiusr]

The first episode I can clearly recall when and where I saw it is The Doomsday Machine, on Friday, April 19, 1968, at my sister’s house, after having returned from the theater with my father and brother-in-law to see 2001: A Space Odyssey. That was quite an evening for a nine-year old, and the association of the two events, plus the fact my sister had a color TV, probably accounts for why it so stands out in my mind.

I can only barely remember the first time I saw 2001…but on TV.

 

[Qonundrum]

~1980, in reruns on the bubetube. The one with the big glowing balls, which could otherwise describe ~60% of the episodes so it's "Return to Tomorrow" with Sargon. I yummed it up at the time. But, as a kid, it was shiny flashy things. As an adult, it's the plotting and philosophical fun stuff.

 

[Tango]

For me, don't remember the exact year but must have been in syndication in the early 1970s. No idea which episode it might have been.