Your maiden voyage

I saw "Where No Man Has Gone Before" when a local station began running repeats in syndication (production order) in the late 70's prior to the release of TMP. I was very young...but still remember it.

 

The Menagerie. The creepy Talosians left a lasting impression.

 

I was born in late1963, so I have no memory at all of TOS on TV until 1970 or a year or two later when it was shown as re-runs. Can't possibly remember which episode I saw first, but I loved so many of them. I have to say The Lights of Zetar was my favorite among favorites because I've always been such a big fan of my man Scotty and thought this was a perfect love story for him. I can remember when this episode was only 1-2 years old, and now it's about 48. Good heavens, how time flies.....

As much as I love the TOS crew and series, I wasn't quite as fond of most of their movies with the exception of TMP and The Voyage Home. And unlike most other Trekkers, I never got into TNG or the other series of Trek spinoffs. They're not bad, but they just don't hold my interest. Too much technobabble for my taste, I suppose.

Saintpat, like you, I very much remember the time of 4 TV channels (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS) and later a couple of VHS channels in the 80s IIRC. Probably the earliest programs I remember were Room 222, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, That Girl and The Mod Squad among many others....including Hee Haw (I recall my parents watching this). Ah well, fond memories!

 

I think you mean UHF channels. I remember when our town got a decent independent UHF station, and that was the place for a lot of great reruns.

 

I started watching TOS when I was around 6 years old. I think I was not even able to read the subtitles yet. I mostly remember being impressed by the futuristic technology and Kirk's charming way with women.

 

My first..The Man Trap , Sept.1966 as an impressionable 5 year old..
I have dim memories of watching The Outer Limits with my mom..
(she loved the Twilight Zone and was looking for the same types of shows) AND
she sat me down and let me watch Star Trek with her..
Scared the crap outta me, (the Salt Vampire reminded me of those Outer Limits "bears")
and I've been hooked ever since!

 

Yes, thank you for the UHF correction. It has been so long I can't remember the terminology any more!

 

I've watched the other Trek series. They are interesting at times but not enough to sway me from watching TOS.

 

Amen to that!

 

I was eight years old and the date was February 4th, 1977 when Swedish state TV (we only had two state channels back then) decided to air nine episodes, and the first one was WNMHGB. Already a big space and scifi geek, having previously seen and enjoyed Space:1999, I was immediately hooked.

 

Possibly "Mantrap" on NBC, although I couldn't swear to it. I know I watched the original series on NBC as a child, and I remember being scared by the Salt Vampire, although I can't be sure that was the very first episode I saw. That was a long time ago.

 

This. Exactly this.

 

I know that I watched Star Trek when I was very young since my parents used to have a tape of me reciting "Space, the final frontier..." when I was about 4. The earliest episode that I remember watching was City on the Edge of Forever. I remember it because at the time we had an old console tv and something was wrong with it so a tv repair man was at the house. I remember laughing along with the repair man when Kirk was telling the police officer about Spock's unfortunate brush with a mechanical rice picker. Good times.

 

Awwww.... I remember being freaked out by the aliens who turned people into white cubes and crushed them. I was very upset by the random cruelness of it al.

 

I know exactly: "Spock's Brain," the third-season premiere, September 1968. I was 11; we'd had our RCA color TV console for about a year and a half. (I'd already seen a few episodes of Lost in Space and knew there had to be something better.) Eventually I saw about half the third season on NBC, then all the other episodes in weekday reruns.

This means that there were some episodes I first got to know through the (sometimes rather different) James Blish short-story adaptations in the first three paperbacks. In some cases, years passed before I finally saw the TV version.

 

What boggled my mind were the syndication cuts. Specifically, that local stations were doing their own syndication cuts. Over the years I've watched Star Trek on numerous stations via syndication. There was a stretch during the 80s where, on Sundays, I could (and did) watch 3 episodes of Star Trek in 4 hours. I didn't know about syndication cuts then but, later on, I finally noticed there were scenes missing or cut that I could have sworn were there. I remembered them.

 

One of my absolute earliest memories, and probably the earliest I have of words that I understand, is of the introduction to what I later discovered to be Journey to Babel, which also is my favorite TOS episode. I couldn't have been older than two or three, and I clearly to recall the sequence of Shrek and Amanda coming on the Enterprise and then being revealed as Spock's parents.

 

That which survives and "the blink of an eye"

 

My dad had some episodes on VHS which I watched with him around the age of nine. The first episode I ever saw was "That which Survives" and then I saw "Wink of an Eye". The whole idea fascinated me, but I never got opportunity to see any Trek until quite recently when I just felt I needed to revisit it all. I now watch rather a lot of TNG and DS9 and VOY along with TOS.

 

I can remember my school friends going on about Trek when I was a kid back in 1970, I hadn't seen it at the time for some reason that I cannot remember but the first one I did see was Court Martial and I wasn't impressed to be honest! Nothing much happened and me being a kid I guess this was probably the worst one to start me off on! I've no real idea what the next one would have been either!
JB