Why Is The Original Star Trek So Popular?
Creative And Cultural Elements In The Success Of The Classic Series.
Jun 12, 2009
Star Trek began its original run on September 8th, 1966 and only managed to limp along for three seasons before cancellation. However, that brief span gave birth to a dedicated worldwide fan base, and the series would inspire eleven feature films, five more television series, and a plethora of toys, books, and games. Regardless of its humble roots, Star Trek's extraordinary long-term popularity is not surprising when the series is examined in its historical context.
TV In 1966
In 1966, science fiction was not a common sight on television. The innovative Twilight Zone had come and gone. Lost In Space was starting its second season, but has already started down the road to increasingly juvenile episodes, and The Time Tunnel, an unfortunate pastiche of historical inaccuracy and movie filler shots, began its first season. Bewitched and Batman were only marginally within the science fiction genre, and the vampire romance Dark Shadows was aimed at the soap opera demographic rather than the fantasy market.
Concepts And Characters
Full credit has to go to Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, for the breadth of his vision of the 23rd century. An unsuspecting audience was suddenly exposed to a startling array of marvels: fast-than-light warp drive, the transporter, phasers and photon torpedoes, replicators, tractor beams, antimatter, force fields, time travel, parallel universes, alien races, planet killers, androids, galactic empires, and so on. Star Trek introduced an entire catalogue of futuristic wonders which are now considered standard.
The main characters are somewhat one-dimensional, but the real value of the combination of Spock, Kirk and McCoy is that they represent the elements of Logic, Will and Emotion that are constantly in conflict in everyone's character, externalized and given life. Similarly, at their best the plots of the original Star Trek deal with topics on an almost Shakespearean level, the constants of love, hate, laughter and fear that are the mainstays of life. Not all of the episodes are successful, but even at its worst Star Trek has a feeling of elemental appeal, of addressing fundamental issues and questions.
Cultural Context
However, Star Trek may have occupied a more important cultural position than a creative one. In 1966, the Cold War was a constant, looming threat. Four years earlier, the Cuban Missile Crisis had poised the world on the brink of nuclear war, and the hands of the Doomsday Clock stood at seven minutes to midnight. Angry crowds barraged Martin Luther King with stones and bricks in Chicago, Malcolm X had been dead for just over a year, and the racially-motivated Watts Riots in Los Angeles were still a recent memory.
Star Trek presented a future in which humanity, as a species, had survived - not a perfect future, but a hopeful one, and the word "hope" is the one most often used in discussions about the significance of the original Star Trek. The multi-racial bridge crew represented one aspect of that hope: it's difficult to realize how astonishing the character of Lieutenant Uhura was in 1966, where the concept of a woman of colour occupying a position of authority would still have been extraordinary and inspirational.
"Inspirational" may be the key element of Star Trek's lasting success. If, as is the dream of every science fiction fan, Mankind eventually makes its way to the stars, some small credit for that leap should lie with Star Trek, simply for suggesting that it may be possible.
