Hello fellow TOS fans! This seems like as good a topic as any for me to set up shop here with. I was only eleven when the 'sneak peak' Star Trek episode "The Man Trap" first exploded across our T.V. screens in 1966. Sitting cross-legged in front of the Magnavox black and white console television in my parents book-lined 'family room', I was instantly entranced with the ship, the bridge, the characters, the story and--yes--even the shape-shifting salt monster.
Sure, it wasn't a brand new concept; I had seen space explorers in a nifty ship making 'house calls' to far flung planetary outposts as early as 1956's "Forbidden Planet"--and THAT one even had a cool robot (and Anne Francis)! But Star Trek seemed to click for me in a way that no other movie, T.V. show or book ever quite had...or ever has since, for that matter. Now to the question of 'Why'?
The biggest reason? Spock, duh. This was the first and best character I had encountered in my short life that I could personally relate to: alone in a crowd, the smartest guy in ANY room, restrained, CONstrained and struggling mightily to fit in. I saw reflected in him the little blind boy who rode the 'queer bus' to a special school for 'retards' every day; who's own parents detested his 'differentness'; who was the universal target of all of his 'peers' verbal and physical assaults from the time he got up in the morning to the time he went to bed at night--EXCEPT for the one hour a week when he was watching Star Trek. Spock became my walking, talking 'How To Get Through This' manual, and he's never let me down in the ensuing forty-five years.
Next? These people on this magnificent ship of theirs all got along! Different as night and day, the lot of them, but they all liked and respected each other and could each be counted upon by the others in any crisis. Never saw THAT anywhere before, and quite frankly, I've never seen it anywhere since. As humans, we are all genetically coded to aspire to be more than we are...and the Star Trek blueprint for the future has simply never been equaled in the popular fiction of any age. Honor, decency, honesty, tolerance and true team work? Sign me right up for a bit of THAT!
What about the writing? The TOS guys routinely took sometimes fairly heavy-handed little morality tales and submerged them in high adventure. It turns out that I've made nearly all of my life decisions about the kind of person I want to be by watching Kirk and Company do their thing each week. These heroes (again, especially Spock) influenced everything I became from my choice of career(s) to the way I conduct myself in relationships. Just ask my wife if Vulcans are really so distant and cold!
Gotta mention the ship; COOLEST starship EVER...PERIOD!!! The original bridge? I WANT ONE!!! Only thing missing? Maybe a 'Robby' or of 'B-9 Environmental robot', but HEY, who am I to quibble over perfection?
Retired clinical psychologist and university professor, happily married, untimate Spock fan
Sure, it wasn't a brand new concept; I had seen space explorers in a nifty ship making 'house calls' to far flung planetary outposts as early as 1956's "Forbidden Planet"--and THAT one even had a cool robot (and Anne Francis)! But Star Trek seemed to click for me in a way that no other movie, T.V. show or book ever quite had...or ever has since, for that matter. Now to the question of 'Why'?
The biggest reason? Spock, duh. This was the first and best character I had encountered in my short life that I could personally relate to: alone in a crowd, the smartest guy in ANY room, restrained, CONstrained and struggling mightily to fit in. I saw reflected in him the little blind boy who rode the 'queer bus' to a special school for 'retards' every day; who's own parents detested his 'differentness'; who was the universal target of all of his 'peers' verbal and physical assaults from the time he got up in the morning to the time he went to bed at night--EXCEPT for the one hour a week when he was watching Star Trek. Spock became my walking, talking 'How To Get Through This' manual, and he's never let me down in the ensuing forty-five years.
Next? These people on this magnificent ship of theirs all got along! Different as night and day, the lot of them, but they all liked and respected each other and could each be counted upon by the others in any crisis. Never saw THAT anywhere before, and quite frankly, I've never seen it anywhere since. As humans, we are all genetically coded to aspire to be more than we are...and the Star Trek blueprint for the future has simply never been equaled in the popular fiction of any age. Honor, decency, honesty, tolerance and true team work? Sign me right up for a bit of THAT!
What about the writing? The TOS guys routinely took sometimes fairly heavy-handed little morality tales and submerged them in high adventure. It turns out that I've made nearly all of my life decisions about the kind of person I want to be by watching Kirk and Company do their thing each week. These heroes (again, especially Spock) influenced everything I became from my choice of career(s) to the way I conduct myself in relationships. Just ask my wife if Vulcans are really so distant and cold!
Gotta mention the ship; COOLEST starship EVER...PERIOD!!! The original bridge? I WANT ONE!!! Only thing missing? Maybe a 'Robby' or of 'B-9 Environmental robot', but HEY, who am I to quibble over perfection?
Retired clinical psychologist and university professor, happily married, untimate Spock fan
) - was not only allowed on the show, he was the coolest character on the show.
