Why isn't Star Trek's anniversary celebrated in ---4 rather than ---6?

[Danlav05]

I get that we go by the broadcast debut (and I know even then all the episodes were made out of order!), but The Cage, although not seen until 1988, was made in 1964, is considered canon and features the debut of Mr Spock and the Enterprise.

So why isn't the anniversary marked by that?

 

[Orac]

For reasons more cerebral than you can possibly imagine.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Star Trek was first released to the public on September 8th, 1966. So, naturally, the anniversary is of that release (regardless of the fact that it was the fifth episode produced, "The Man Trap", that was released first). It's not an anniversary of The Cage or Where No Man Has Gone Before, or even The Man Trap, it's the anniversary of all Star Trek.

I don't celebrate the day I was conceived (eww...), I celebrate the day I was born. Star Trek as a television series pitch of Gene Roddenberry goes at least back to 1963, but it wasn't a fully formulated idea (even including seven fully produced television episodes) until other, real people got to see it on their TV screens that Thursday in September.

 

[The Wormhole]

Same reason why everyone always marks a TV show's premiere date, or a movie's release date rather than the date they began filming. September 1966 is when Star Trek premiered, that's when the general public became aware of it, that's why it gets remembered.

This is sort of like asking why does everyone recognize years that end in 7 as the anniversary for Star Wars even though it began filming in 1976.

 

[Tenacity]

Star Trek was first released to the public on September 8th, 1966.

Actually the first release was on September 6, 1966 in Canada.

 

[Shawnster]

I get that we go by the broadcast debut (and I know even then all the episodes were made out of order!), but The Cage, although not seen until 1988, was made in 1964, is considered canon and features the debut of Mr Spock and the Enterprise.

So why isn't the anniversary marked by that?

You answered your own question. Since we go by broadcast debut, we start counting from 1966. The Cage was not broadcast in 1964.

We count from broadcast year, not production year.

 

[STR]

Actually the first release was on September 6, 1966 in Canada.

9/6/66?

I like that number.

 

[The Old Mixer]

FWIW, the unaired pilot version of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was screened at a convention on Sept. 3, 1966, followed by an unscheduled screening of "The Cage" sometime that weekend...but that's still September 1966.

 

[Samuel]

I get that we go by the broadcast debut (and I know even then all the episodes were made out of order!), but The Cage, although not seen until 1988, was made in 1964, is considered canon and features the debut of Mr Spock and the Enterprise.

So why isn't the anniversary marked by that?

Because without the broadcast of the original series beginning in 1966 we would've never seen the broadcast of "The Cage" in 1988.

Unless it popped up on YouTube among the "TV pilots that were never picked up".

 

[cultcross]

Unless it popped up on YouTube among the "TV pilots that were never picked up".

cultcross comments: lol this is too cerebral. thumbs down. glad they never made this.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Birthdays are celebrated on anniversaries of birth, not conception.

 

[Greg Cox]

And if we start working backwards into the development of pilot episodes, how far do you go? Completion of principal photography? Commencement of shooting? Casting? The green-light to shoot the pilot? The writing of the script? The initial pitch to the studio? The original brainstorm?

STAR TREK, the television series, debuted in 1966. Everything before that was a gradual process of development and preparation.

 

[1001001]

And if we start working backwards into the development of pilot episodes, how far do you go? Completion of principal photography? Commencement of shooting? Casting? The green-light to shoot the pilot? The writing of the script? The initial pitch to the studio? The original brainstorm?

STAR TREK, the television series, debuted in 1966. Everything before that was a gradual process of development and preparation.

Correct.

The premiere was its birth. Everything prior was conception and gestation.

 

[Tenacity]

STAR TREK, the television series, debuted in 1966. Everything before that was a gradual process of development and preparation.

Maybe the anniversity should be based upon when Gene Roddenberry first saw the movie Forbidden Planet?