What was your first episode of Trek?

[Lonemagpie]

Honestly, I've no idea what my first specific episode was - I've been watching it since I was a baby (in the UK, Trek premiered about six months after I did!). So it could be any of the TOS episodes other than Miri, The Empath, Plato's Stepchildren, or Whom Gods Destroy, as those episodes never aired until the 1990s.

 

[Therin of Andor]

My grandmother owned the TV in the 60s, and Trek would have come on at 8.30pm or later - and we were already in bed. Colour TV came to Australia in late 1975 and about ten random episodes of TOS were selected to show off its capabilities. De Forest Kelley's eyes were so blue! I wish I could recall which eps they aired, and which ones I saw first. I know one was "The Devil in the Dark" because I somehow remembered the "No Kill I" message before reading the Blish adaptation in 1980. Another was "Spectre of the Gun". The most memorable was "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", with Kirk being spun on the android duplicator device. I think "The Corbomite Maneuver" was there, too, because we recognised the voice of Lurch and, of course, Ted Cassidy turned up in WALGMO as well.

I had seen first-run eps of TAS before, in b/w on Saturday mornings. Again, only random eps.; definitely "Yesteryear", "Bem", "More Tribbles, More Troubles", "The Counter-clock Incident" and "Albatross". When TAS shifted to weekday mornings, during the colour TV launch, my brothers and I looked forward to seeing the Auroral Plague turn the crew different colours. A friend remembers that every time "The Pirates of Orion" played on Australian TV, Acts 2 and 3 were mistakenly reversed. This was finally corrected in the 1990s reruns.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I cannot remember: I was just a hospitalized kid with three weeks to kill. The earliest episode title I can remember having a title is "Spectre of the Gun", which sticks out given its western look.

 

[zarkon]

The Doomsday Machine sticks out as something memorable, but I've no idea if it was the first one I saw. Definitely something TOS though, around 1990ish.

 

[Cap'n Crunch]

A rerun of TNG: Genesis (where the crew de-evolve) about 10-12 years ago, when I was in junior high. I was staying up late (10 o'clock) one night and it came on the WB. After that, I was hooked. At the time I didn't realize the show had been off the air for 5+ years, so I thought it was a new episode.

 

[USS Intrepid]

The first I can remember watching is The Counter Clock episode of TAS.

 

[ronny]

I saw the cartoons on Saturday morning. Read all the Blish and Foster books that were out at the time. A while later the local station was going to start showing reruns in the afternoon. I was so excited. First episode was "I, Mudd". I thought I had made a mistake. But the episodes got better.

 

[ICW]

Probably The Best of Both Worlds on VHS.

 

[Trek Survivor]

"Encounter At Farpoint" in early 1990 - rented from the video store as that was the only way to see them at the time in the UK!!

 

[bbailey861]

I cannot remember that far back - but I do remember loving it enough that I recorded each episode (audio only with cassette tapes way back then) by taping a tiny microphone up on a pile of Collier's encyclopedias about a foot away from the TV speaker so I could listen to them over and over again. I would use 120 min cassette tapes so I wouldn't need to flip them over mid episode. I started out doing the whole thing an hour at a time, then wised up and paused the machine during the commercials. Good times.

 

[Methos]

not a clue honestly...

it was more than likely a TNG episode in my school years... or possible one of the movies in the early 80s...

M

 

[Brikar99]

I cannot remember that far back - but I do remember loving it enough that I recorded each episode (audio only with cassette tapes way back then) by taping a tiny microphone up on a pile of Collier's encyclopedias about a foot away from the TV speaker so I could listen to them over and over again. I would use 120 min cassette tapes so I wouldn't need to flip them over mid episode. I started out doing the whole thing an hour at a time, then wised up and paused the machine during the commercials. Good times.

I remember I felt like such a badass when I learned how to pause recording on my VCR...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I cannot remember that far back - but I do remember loving it enough that I recorded each episode (audio only with cassette tapes way back then) by taping a tiny microphone up on a pile of Collier's encyclopedias about a foot away from the TV speaker so I could listen to them over and over again. I would use 120 min cassette tapes so I wouldn't need to flip them over mid episode. I started out doing the whole thing an hour at a time, then wised up and paused the machine during the commercials. Good times.

I made audio tapes too.

 

[ToddCam]

I remember at the age of 6 I saw part of an episode of TOS ("Charlie X") and the crew woman whose face disappeared gave me nightmares.

My first episode was actually "Symbiosis" in its first run when I was 10. Not sure why I liked it.

One of my favorite early viewer stories is how, sometime after I saw the episode TNG "Sarek" I saw the TOS episode "Balance of Terror." When the viewscreen revealed the Romulan, I was shocked 'cause it was Sarek! And I assumed everybody's shock was that Spock's father was a Romulan officer. I wondered why nothing ever followed up on that.

 

[Christopher]

Same reason nobody followed up on Nurse Chapel looking like Number One, Philana looking like Mea 3, Koloth looking like Trelane, Dr. Atoz looking like Septimus, Kryton of Gideon looking like Ben Childress, etc.

 

[JD]

Didn't one of the books with Iliana Ghemor give some kind of a brief explanation for how people from different alien races look alike?

 

[Starbreaker]

Where Silence Has Lease in '99 or so.

 

[Killandra]

My first episode I was four and watching the rerun of TOS' "Balance of Terror" with my dad. From then on, I thought Spock was the best thing since sliced bread and became a Trek geek for life.

 

[OverlordSpock]

I cannot remember that far back - but I do remember loving it enough that I recorded each episode (audio only with cassette tapes way back then)

I made audio tapes too.

I made an audio tape of Star Trek III. I listened to that movie over and over and over and over and over and...well, you get the idea. I almost literally had that entire movie memorized and could recite large portions of it verbatim.

I remember back in the late 70s or early 80s watching TOS with my dad, but had no idea what was going on and can't remember any specific episode. I do know that I thought the doors that opened by themselves were funny.

The first Trek that absolutely remember watching was Star Trek II at my uncles apartment with the rest of my family. This was sometime around '84 I think. I really didn't follow what was going on, but I thought the explosions were really cool and I thought the Enterprise was the coolest spaceship I had ever seen. I distinctly remember, when the Enterprise blew off the Reliant's nacelle, my uncle making the comment "right up the tail-pipe".

My love for Trek really began when my Dad brought home Star Trek III on VHS sometime in '85 or '86 for our weekly family movie night. I was hooked. I lived in Berlin at the time (my Dad was USAF) and I remember that the morning after we watched that movie, AFN began running TOS in the original airing order. I begged my mom to let me watch "The Man Trap" (she didn't me watching too much TV) and she did.

I never looked back.

 

[Draculasaurus]

My first clear memory of Star Trek is seeing the poster for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
I was 6 years old, but I was already familiar with the main characters and concept of Star Trek, though I don't remember any specific episode viewings.
I've just kind of always been aware of Star Trek.