What was your first episode of Trek?

[RandyS]

Well, I was born in 1970, and my mom claims that I watched the TOS reruns with her from the time I was a baby. It's possible, but I can't say I remember that. She took particular delight in telling friends and family about 1973, when both the TOS reruns and TAS first run were airing at the same time, that I would ask her why it was that Spock was sometimes a real person, and other times, a drawing.

Hey, I was three.

My own personal first time memory was seeing TMP in theaters when it was new. I was nine, and NOT impressed, and wrote it off as the latest Star Wars knock-off (there were ALOT of those in that era). Shortly afterward, what is now our local FOX station began rerunning TOS (something they did to capitalize on the release of a new TOS film if they weren't already showing it. In that case they weren't.), and I said "Good god, they made a series out of that stupid movie?", at which point, my mom told me, no, it was the other way around, and convinced me to watch the show with her. She then also told me about what I used to say about TOS/TAS when I was three, and the bedtime stories she used to make up using the TOS characters, neither of which I remembered.

That's a really long-winded way of saying that the first episode/movie I remember seeing was TMP. I don't recall what it actually was.

 

[Christopher]

This makes me wonder which actor landed the most roles on Star Trek?

I know the guy who played Dukat on DS9 (Marc Alaimo?) played quite a few roles on TNG...

There were several others but who played the most between ENT/TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY?

If you count voice roles, probably Doohan and Barrett, who played dozens of characters each in the animated series.

In live action, Vaughn Armstrong is the record-holder, with 13 different roles (3 Klingons, 2 Cardassians, a Romulan, a Hirogen, a Borg drone, a Vidiian, a Kreetassan, Admiral Maxwell Forrest, and his Mirror counterpart Captain Maximilian Forrest). Jeffrey Combs has twelve roles if you count Mirror Brunt and all the various Weyoun clones, seven if you only count Brunt and Weyoun once each. J. G. Hertzler has eight roles if you count both Martok and Changeling Martok. And Randy Oglesby and Thomas Kopache have seven roles each. Marc Alaimo has six roles in all.


RandyS, I also realize in retrospect that I discovered TOS and TAS pretty close together. As I said above, I first saw TOS in January 1974, when I was five, and while TAS was airing on Saturday mornings. I recall (though I'm not sure how much I trust this memory) being in the backyard one Saturday morning when my mother came out and told me that Star Trek was on, and that's when I learned it was a cartoon as well as a live-action show. I think I just took it stride that it was both, perhaps because I was already used to seeing Fat Albert cut between live-action and animated sequences, and because there were cartoon versions of The Brady Bunch and Lassie on around the same time.

 

[ToddCam]

And I agreed that such ideas were silly, and I underlined the point by demonstrating that it was a routine practice to cast the same actor in multiple roles. That's just my way -- to think of things in terms of the underlying patterns or relationships that define them, to show how isolated facts fit into the greater whole and can thereby be explained and understood. I think in patterns and analogies and associations, and so I tend to ramble from one example to the next to the next.

Well, there you go. I apologize.

 

[Christopher]

^Thanks.

 

[TenLubak]

The movie All Good Things on a Saturday night in early summer back in 94. Now i'd seen the one where LaForge had recreated the shadow man on the holdeck, but AGT was the first ep i watched and HOLY SHIT i was hooked from there! Star trek became an addiction and still is

 

[Therin of Andor]

he is known for his know-it-all way of responding

I have an in-box of PMs accusing me of the same "hidden agenda". Whatever that means. Some fans can't stand a "know-it-all", I guess.

 

[dtoliaferro]

Can't remember, but I'm sure it was TNG.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Can't remember, but I'm sure it was TNG.

A friend made me feel really ancient one day when he said his mother fell pregnant with him during the first year of TNG, and Dr Bev Crusher, role model of a working single mother in the future, made her decide to keep the baby.

Sigh. Seems like only a few days ago that we all sat down to watch "Encounter at Farpoint" for the first time. And my friend wasn't even a fetus yet.

Not to mention the other friend who kept asking if it was okay to bring his Dad to a meeting, because his father was almost as much of a fan as he was, but had never seen TAS (which we'd just secured on DVD). Of course, it turned out I was several years older than his Dad.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I have vague memories of watching "The Man Trap" on a black & white TV in the first house I ever lived in, which we moved from in 1968, so it must have been the premiere airing in 1966 or perhaps a repeat in 1967. So I was either 6 or 7 when I saw it, something like 45 years ago. I didn't become a fan until the re-run days in the early '70's, when I'd hurry home from school to catch Dark Shadows, Wild, Wild West and Star Trek before dinner. Those were good times.

At this point I've told this story so many times that I have memories of once having had memories, rather than actually still having clear memories of the event.

 

[nickyboy]

The Cloudminders is the first episode I remember watching, My older brother used to watch it on BBC 2

 

[nickyboy]

he is known for his know-it-all way of responding

I have an in-box of PMs accusing me of the same "hidden agenda". Whatever that means. Some fans can't stand a "know-it-all", I guess.

Hahaha

if had a dollar every time you get called a know-it-all.

Someone needs to put you in your place - go blow up his park that will show him..... Oh wait! - nooooooo!!!! someone has already done that!!

 

[stonester1]

Where No Man Has Gone before. Gary Mitchell's eyes haunted me. I tuned in where they were beaming up that buoy from the Valiant onto the T-pad, and it starts beeping. The ominous music starts.

I ask my mother, "What's this?" She says, "Star Trek". This was the early 70s and I was a wee lad.

I was hooked ever since.

 

[Greg Cox]

he is known for his know-it-all way of responding

I have an in-box of PMs accusing me of the same "hidden agenda". Whatever that means. Some fans can't stand a "know-it-all", I guess.

For some of us, I suspect, it's simply hard to turn off the "editorial" parts of our brain that have been trained to proofread prose, correct factual errors, note spelling errors, etc. It's second nature at this point . . . even if it's not always appropriate and/or appreciated!

(Trust me, it's not just messageboards. My girlfriend will testify that I'm forever pointing out typos and errors in billboards, restaurant menus, newspaper articles, etc. What can I say. I'm an editor by nature and profession.)

 

[NurseChapel39]

I remember tuning into the TOS episode The Apple late one night when I was 15. I've been hooked ever since. That was in 1985.

 

[Brikar99]

(Trust me, it's not just messageboards. My girlfriend will testify that I'm forever pointing out typos and errors in billboards, restaurant menus, newspaper articles, etc. What can I say. I'm an editor by nature and profession.)

I recently pointed out to mine that someone had left what looked like an open HTML bracket on a printed sign prominently displayed in their coffee shop. She looked at me like I had three heads...

 

[Edit_XYZ]

The first star trek episode I watched:
'Encounter at Farpoint' - during the '90.

I quite liked it.
TNG was helped by the relative lack of competition back then; it was the best SF series on-air.

 

[DimesDan]

TNG was helped by the relative lack of competition back then; it was the best SF series on-air.

Although I agree with you that it didn't have much competition (and it later seasons it was very good), to say that it was the best SF series on air without much competition isn't exactly good.

 

[Caesar753]

Encounter at Farpoint was my first episode, back when it premiered.

 

[Therin of Andor]

TNG was helped by the relative lack of competition back then; it was the best SF series on-air.

It arrived on TV not too long after more schlocky stuff like "V: The Series", which - although I never missed an episode - became more like "What critter will Diana swallow this week?"

From the UK, there was also the steady rise of the comedic "Red Dwarf". That show had become staple fare of the video room at "Star Trek" conventions.

Someone needs to put you in your place - go blow up his park that will show him..... Oh wait! - nooooooo!!!! someone has already done that!!

 

[Edit_XYZ]

TNG was helped by the relative lack of competition back then; it was the best SF series on-air.

Although I agree with you that it didn't have much competition (and it later seasons it was very good), to say that it was the best SF series on air without much competition isn't exactly good.

TNG was helped by the relative lack of competition back then; it was the best SF series on-air.

It arrived on TV not too long after more schlocky stuff like "V: The Series", which - although I never missed an episode - became more like "What critter will Diana swallow this week?"

From the UK, there was also the steady rise of the comedic "Red Dwarf". That show had become staple fare of the video room at "Star Trek" conventions.

Let me reformulate:
Star Trek was the best SF series among the ones that were received where I lived during the '90.