Your maiden voyage

[Saintpat]

What's the first TOS episode you saw, as best you can recall, and what about it hooked you into becoming a fan?

I was born in 1964, so I missed the original run (or at least don't remember it).

Sometime when I was young, preteen, I caught the reruns for the first time.

Where I lived, in the time slot on Sundays at whatever year this was in the 1970s, we had on the four channels of the time:

Hee Haw

60 Minutes

Lawrence Welk (on PBS)

And Star Trek

So three of the four could be considered surreal (Hee Haw, Welk and, to a lesser degree, ST).

My parents, of course, wanted to watch 60 Minutes. I believe 60M began airing on Sundays in January of 1972, so it must have been sometime in the early '70s. And maybe that's when we got a second TV and I was able to watch something other than what they wanted to see. It's possible I watched ST before this, but my first clear memory is of ...

The Devil in the Dark

I remember liking the colorful uniforms and the entire premise of a space ship roaming the galaxy, and of course the phasers (in my early years of viewing, any episode that had phaser or photon fire was immediately awesome) ... but what I really liked was the idea of this alien creature who was really ALIEN -- a completely different composition in non-humanoid form.

And I remember really loving the twist at the end that the 'monster' was really a sympathetic creature fighting to survive and protect.

So I was hooked.

The next episode I had a clear memory of watching/liking was The Corbomite Maneuver, which of course had the great bluff/head fake to win the day and then the horror not of the Balok model but my first exposure to the creepy teeth of Clint Howard, which continue to haunt me in their many incarnations to this day.

So what's your earliest TOS memory, whether that be from ancient future history like mine or much more recent exposure?

 

[Spock's Barber]

I'm not exactly sure, but I believe I saw a television preview for 'next week's episode' of 'Shore Leave'. I was instantly hooked on TOS before I even saw my first episode.

 

[Tesophius]

I did not see TOS until 2013, binge watched it from the pilot to end on a big 140 inch projector screen and became a big fan. As years go by I begin to realize that TOS might be the best Trek ever. I was born in 1986 and didn't get into Trek until after ENT was cancelled. So my first TOS episode was the pilot with Captain Pike. I've recently been watching TOS every day before work, it's just such a good show with some terrific ideas that are more relevant now than at least 50% of all "modern" Trek.

 

[Drusilla's valet]

Believe it or not.....Spock's Brain.....on a Sunday afternoon.....in 1970. Of course, the show kept on getting better and better for me.....but Spock's Brain grabbed me.

 

[Albertese]

My dad was a Star Trek fan since 1966. I wasn't born til the end of the Carter administration. Trek was always there. I have no memory of a time before having seen it so I have no memory of which episode I saw first. Certain images stand higher in my toddler-era memory, things like the surface of M-113 in "The Man Trap," the half-finished facades in "Specter of the Gun," the Balok dummy in "The Corbomite Maneuver," the disappearing effect of Lasira in "That Which Survives." Things like that.

Also collected with those memories are some scenes from Buck Rogers with Wilma Deering and Twiki, as well as Vipers flying around from Battlestar Galactica. And random moments from Star Wars like the dianoga's eye popping out of the water in the trash compactor. I guess I was probably hooked by the fantasy visual element. Weird looking stuff hooked me as a little boy. The older I got the more I could follow the stories and now that I'm in my later 30s I can really dig down into it as art and philosophy.

But I've watched every other series' pilots as they aired.

--Alex

 

[geotrek]

The earliest recollection I have is around '81... very young (6), but think it was "Charlie X." Like Albertese, I just remember my uncle always watching it on cable (ultra cool), and I was enthralled by the ship and the space scenes.

 

[Kinggodzillak]

Where No Man Has Gone Before. Sunday, October 29th, 1995, BBC2. 11.40am.

 

[Vorpal_Blade]

The Menagerie. I remember watching it with my dad while I played with my Legos. I remember watching the ship and thinking how big it was. I also remember Mr. Spock and how my dad explained to me he was a Vulcan. I was hooked from then on and watched Star Trek every week with my dad. Those are some good memories.

 

[Kor]

TOS has always been there, for as long as I can remember. When I was a toddler I watched the bright colors and fascinating spaceships and aliens in wide-eyed wonder.

I have no idea what episode was my first. I just know that TOS... completes me.

Kor

 

[ZapBrannigan]

"The Lights of Zetar" when I was seven. This was either the first run on NBC or the first network re-run. The technician's death was too scary and I didn't like that first exposure to the series. But the show took me over completely when it went into afternoon syndication. Batman and Lost in Space were important, but Star Trek quickly became crucial, essential, part of my identity.

 

[Poltargyst]

I couldn't possibly remember the first episode I saw as people in my family were watching it from before I can remember. It feels like TOS has always been there.

 

[rcjames]

I'd seen all the six films when I was a kid on vhs in the early to mid 90s, then found a vhs of Shore Leave at a $2 shop. It was a pretty ordinary copy, but from that point I was reeled in. Not long after that the series was rerun on late night tv.

 

[retroenzo]

As mentioned elsewhere, I didn't really like TOS at first. My grandmother liked it though and I remember her watching it when I came home from school. However, I was a little kid and much preferred Knight Rider. Trek seemed slow compared to that. Yes, I know I was wrong now. But I was seven and stupid.

However by the time I saw Encounter at Farpoint when it came out on rental, I know I must have seen Star Trek IV. That's what hooked me. I only went back to watch the original series when BBC2 showed Best of Both Worlds for the first time. That's when I really appreciated TOS more. The first episode of TOS I properly watched was The Cage, but I suppose it was Star Trek IV that got me hooked.

 

[somebuddyX]

Star Trek IV. I'm a huge fan of the TOS films but not so much the series.

 

[CrazyMatt]

Would you care to venture a guess?

https://www.trekbbs.com/posts/11847594/

 

[Hippocrates Noah]

I was born in '80 so I missed the original run and though I was there for the TNG run I didn't watch it. When I was really young, like 5 or 6, one of my friends on my street had a mom who was a big Trek fan and would always watch the TV show. I think I saw one or two episodes but I didn't really pay much attention. I wasn't into it. I didn't get into Trek at all until I was 11 and saw ST:VI in the theater, and only then because my mom and her friend were going to see a movie I didn't want to see and it was the only other movie starting around the same time. I loved it and it turned me into a fan of the films, which I saw countless times as a kid but I didn't actually watch the series until I was in my 20's, like 15 years ago maybe. And it was probably 7 or 8 more years before I watched TNG and DS9. But I just started at the beginning, so the first episode I remember watching is The Man Trap.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Man Trap. 1966

 

[Shawnster]

I don't know. I don't remember my first episode. The earliest episode I remember was a rerun of "I, Mudd" but I know I had already been a fan at that point.

It's like asking when I first started eating solid food. Star Trek has always been there.

 

[alensatemybuick1]

Best I can recollect is watching "Mark of Gideon" for the first time, around the age of 8 (~1974); I can distinctly remember telling my skeptical father that it was a "new" episode I had never seen before. My earliest Trek watching (that I can recall) was on the black and white Setchell-Carlson TV in my room, broadcast on WPIX sometime between when I got home from school and dinnertime.

 

[Vger23]

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.