Post your Original TOS Impressions

[Dave Scarpa]

I started watching Trek in Syndication I was born in 63 so i might have caught an odd original run episode, but my memories are strictly from watching it weekday afternoons growing up.

For those that were old enough to remember the original Run I'd like some impressions on what it was like seeing this show in 1966. There was never a show like Trek on the air I'm watching The Corbomite Menuver and i'd have to think viewers watching it originally never saw anything quite like it. The concepts, effects and ultimate resolution of the episode had to be surprising to tv audiences of the era.

Speak a little on your thoughts if you can remember them

 

[Maurice]

I think I may have seen it once on NBC Friday night at 10 when I was a mere tot who couldn't sleep (I was 5), but I don't have any impressions of it other than encountering it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I was seven. Monsters, ray guns and spaceships. Cool.

 

[johnnybear]

I first saw Trek in 1970 and wasn't that impressed! I'd heard about it from other kids at school and I wasn't allowed to stay up and see it! But one night when I was naughty it was on and I sort of fiddled my way to remain in the room and it was the episode Court Martial! So there were no monsters or space battles or any weird looking aliens at all that I could see..
JB

 

[ZapBrannigan]

My first look: I saw "The Lights of Zetar" on NBC when I was almost seven. It would have been 1/31/69. During an fx shot, my older brother pointed to the saucer section and said, "That's where the people ride."

I wasn't really getting into it for some reason, and then came The Scene, and it was too scary. I said something along the lines of "I don't think I like this show." And I didn't go back until it was on in the afternoon, as was Lost in Space, and I was then just old enough to make all the difference in how I saw it. That's when the stage was set for Star Trek obsession.

 

[johnnybear]

I've always thought that that lady (Libby Erwin) was really Margaret Armen from pictures that I have seen of her!
JB

 

[Warped9]

I was born in 1959, but didn’t get into Star Trek until 1970. I might have glimpsed it earlier, but it didn’t yet register. I can’t recall the exact first episode I watched in entirety, but “Balance Of Terror” and “Charlie X” seem to register as earliest episodes I recall watching.

I was enthralled from the start. It was like nothing else I had ever seen, and I’ve felt that way fior a very, very long time.

But perspective makes a difference. I wonder what I might have thought had I been older when I started watching it. In recent years I’ve watched the original The Outer Limits and Have Gun Will Travel, and presently I am watching the entire original The Twilight Zone. In terms of storytelling style and subject matter there are a lot of similarities with those earlier shows and Star Trek. Consciously or unconsciously TOS had to have been influenced by those earlier works even though Star Trek was packaged differently and was more fleshed out.

Albeit with different spins those earlier shows are quite TOS like in how they were written and how they told their stories. Yet more accurately TOS took that earlier style and approach and repackaged it in a truly dynamic way of its own.

 

[Phaser Two]

My first look: I saw "The Lights of Zetar" on NBC when I was almost seven. It would have been 1/31/69. During an fx shot, my older brother pointed to the saucer section and said, "That's where the people ride."

I wasn't really getting into it for some reason, and then came The Scene, and it was too scary. I said something along the lines of "I don't think I like this show." And I didn't go back until it was on in the afternoon, as was Lost in Space, and I was then just old enough to make all the difference in how I saw it. That's when the stage was set for Star Trek obsession.

That scene and the Salt Vampire scared me for years as a kid.

 

[Masao]

I was born in spring 1960. The first episode I probably watched was "Amok Time" (1967), because I remember seeing Kirk and Spock fight and then imitating them. My parents, who clearly wanted me to gain another obsession in something, soon bought me an early AMT Enterprise model kit (with lighting and crappy attachments for the nacelles) and The Making of Star Trek, which I read completely several times. I also remember drawing a big picture of the Enterprise on a poster board and writing below it and connecting it with multiple arrows It's About Time, which is the name of a 1966-67 TV show about astronauts traveling to the stone age; it was probably my favorite show at the time.

 

[T'Bonz]

Ha ha, I got the "It's About Time" DVD set to see what it's like. I remember my parents liking it at the time and I watched it; but all I could remember was the catchy tune.

 

[Pauln6]

I recall that I watched them occasionally on the black and white portable TV in the kitchen after school when I was maybe 6 or 7. I can't recall which ones I saw first as I think the bbc had their own running order. The monster episodes like Charlie X, the Man Trap, the Children Shall Lead (Uhura getting old) and the Gamesters of Triskellion are the ones I remember most.

I enjoyed them. We had an old gramaphone in the garage which we converted into a computer / comms station when we played Trek.

Blake's 7, Star Wars, and Buck Rogers were on TV so I remember being puzzled why Uhura didn't get off the ship to fight the monsters more often.

It was all the merchandise for TMP that really fired my imagination though. I got the Weetabix cards and the Mego action figures and built a ship out of a shoe box. I would have loved a TMP era Trek show. Still would!

 

[Nyotarules]

I was born in 1968 so watched TOS in the 1970's , I remember being scared of the decoy Balok face, I used to close my eyes when it showed in the end credits. However what drew me to the show was Uhura and Sulu, unless you are a racial/ethnic minority in the land of your birth, you have no idea the impact that show had on nonwhite folks, just ask Whoopi Goldberg.
( I watched Blake's 7 for the same reason - actor Josette Simons who was only a teenager at the time and she still looks great today!)

 

[jaime]

I was bron in 1968 so watched TOS in the 1970's , I remember being scared of the decoy Balok face, I used to close my eyes when it showed in the end credits. However what drew me to the show was Uhura and Sulu, unless you are a racial/ethnic minority in the land of your birth, you have no idea the impact that show had on nonwhite folks, just ask Whoopi Goldberg.
( I watched Blake's 7 for the same reason - actor Josette Simons who was only a teenager at the time and she still looks great today!)

I am a bit younger, and my first impressions come from finding a James Blish adaptation on my uncles shelf...but my first exposure to TOS (as opposed to the films for example.) actually also comes from being scared of decoy Balok face. Specifically sneaking my dads copy of The Making Of Star Trek off the shelf to look at it. I only got to see TOS on eighties reruns through the hinge of the door, standing in the hallway, my uncle would watch it and I was waiting for my mum to finish talking to my nan before going home after she picked me up from there. I didn’t actually get to watch TOS proper till the nineties, so TNG was my first televised Trek really. To this day there are some I haven’t seen but only read, because frankly, I enjoy it more that way. I do t think I have ever sat through Spocks Brain or the Gamesters of Triskelion for example. It just just looks so...old...to me.
The movies are a different story, and they are in some ways my first Trek, even if they were watched on VHS and taped off the TV. (Though again, I don’t get to see TMP till I am in my teens, when I get the extended edition as part of the TOS videotape collection.)

 

[Masao]

Ha ha, I got the "It's About Time" DVD set to see what it's like. I remember my parents liking it at the time and I watched it; but all I could remember was the catchy tune.

I haven't watched this show in more than 50 years, but I remember the theme song and used to sing it ("It's about time, it's about space, about two men in the strangest place."). After watching a bit of episode 1 on YouTube (

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), I'm thinking that Star Trek should have used a laugh track.

 

[Masao]

PS: Gerald Fried, the guy who wrote the theme song for It's About Time, also wrote the fight music for "Amok Time"! I now understand my life.

 

[Pauln6]

I was born in 1968 so watched TOS in the 1970's , I remember being scared of the decoy Balok face, I used to close my eyes when it showed in the end credits. However what drew me to the show was Uhura and Sulu, unless you are a racial/ethnic minority in the land of your birth, you have no idea the impact that show had on nonwhite folks, just ask Whoopi Goldberg.
( I watched Blake's 7 for the same reason - actor Josette Simons who was only a teenager at the time and she still looks great today!)

Josette Simon and Keanu Reeves need to produce beautiful immortal children.

 

[Commishsleer]

I remember going over to our neighbours to watch it on their colour TV as we only had black and white,
I was a big fan before then though.
I wonder if I became such a big fan because I saw it in the 70s as a child and wasn't a cynical adult when viewing it for the first time.
There was a gap in the 80s/90s when I hadn't seen TOS for years, I reread Blish, Foster and the novels again and again but hadn't probably seen an episode in a decade. I began to think I had remember it being better than it was as with "Lost in Space", "Giligan's Island". However when seeing it again on cable and DVDs I loved it more than ever.
I remember watching "Time Tunnel", "Land of the Giants", "Lost in Space", original BSG, UFO, Dr Who, Monkey, Space 1999, Planet of the Apes, Blakes 7. Star Trek has always seemed so special to me. My favourite by far.
I love Blakes 7 and Land of the Giants and of course Lost in Space.
Looking back at say Lost in Space (the original) as an adult parent I wonder why Will's parents ever let him near Dr Smith after the guy tried to kill them, sell them out, sacrifice Will on numerous occasions. Still I like a lot about Lost in Space even now - the chariot, the cool flying back pack, the robot., the characters. Star Trek TOS has survived the test of time better IMO. Although I wonder if I am looking at TOS through rose coloured glasses.

 

[Pauln6]

I remember going over to our neighbours to watch it on their colour TV as we only had black and white,
I was a big fan before then though.
I wonder if I became such a big fan because I saw it in the 70s as a child and wasn't a cynical adult when viewing it for the first time.
There was a gap in the 80s/90s when I hadn't seen TOS for years, I reread Blish, Foster and the novels again and again but hadn't probably seen an episode in a decade. I began to think I had remember it being better than it was as with "Lost in Space", "Giligan's Island". However when seeing it again on cable and DVDs I loved it more than ever.
I remember watching "Time Tunnel", "Land of the Giants", "Lost in Space", original BSG, UFO, Dr Who, Monkey, Space 1999, Planet of the Apes, Blakes 7. Star Trek has always seemed so special to me. My favourite by far.
I love Blakes 7 and Land of the Giants and of course Lost in Space.
Looking back at say Lost in Space (the original) as an adult parent I wonder why Will's parents ever let him near Dr Smith after the guy tried to kill them, sell them out, sacrifice Will on numerous occasions. Still I like a lot about Lost in Space even now - the chariot, the cool flying back pack, the robot., the characters. Star Trek TOS has survived the test of time better IMO. Although I wonder if I am looking at TOS through rose coloured glasses.

There is a lot of modern Sci fi in Trek plus stories about the human condition never grow old. The best episodes definitely stand the test of time. The Cage is really impressive. You can also admire its progressive message with a multi racial crew that is just as relevant today although it was even more avant garde back then. Let's not forget Chekov.

Sure there are some hokey elements and it is deplorably sexist but there is a lot to love.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Ha ha, I got the "It's About Time" DVD set to see what it's like. I remember my parents liking it at the time and I watched it; but all I could remember was the catchy tune.

In the schoolyard we used to sing "it's about time, it's about space. It's about time I slapped your face!" Might have involved actual face slapping.

 

[J.T.B.]

I remember colorful scenes of TAS from about age 4, and toy commercials and promos for TOS reruns sometime in there, but it's fairly vague. But all the kids I knew, myself included, called it "Star Track."