The single most important television of my youth

Given that I've recently blogged about Starsky and Hutch and The Bionic Woman, it seems only natural to continue the TV theme. They were both programmes I predominantly watched in the late 70s, as were other blog subjects Paddington, Happy Days and The Two Ronnies. I've also waxed lyrical in the past about The Prisoner, a 60s programme but new to me in the 80s when the nascent Channel 4 screened it. Over the twelve (!) years of this blog, I've written about television quite a lot... all of which makes it even more surprising that I have never written about the most important programme of all to the young me. For whilst I once blogged about a spin-off film, I've never written about the original television series of Star Trek.

Just three series. 79 episodes. A cast of regulars and a whole host of red-shirted security guys. Occasionally hammy acting and special effects that, whilst state of the art for 60s television, were, in a post-Star Wars world, pretty basic to behold. Leading men who looked like they couldn't believe their luck. Leading women who were always in soft-focus for close shots. A science fiction show that played fast and loose with physics (when asked "How does the Heisenberg compensator work?" ST technical adviser Michael Okuda famously replied "Very well, thank you."). And storylines, in the third series, that often didn't measure up.

So what was the appeal? Beyond the science-fiction of transporters, warp speed, phasers and photon torpedoes. Beyond the catchphrases ("Beam me up," "Illogical", "He's dead, Jim", "She cannae take the strain, Cap'n", and so on). Beyond the mostly bipedal aliens, all of whom could be understood by the miracle of the universal translator (no doubt something else that worked very well, thank you), and beyond the interplanetary women, who all wore revealing costumes and fell for James Tiberius Kirk. Beyond an emotionless first officer from another planet who could render you unconscious by pinching your neck and perform mind-melds just by holding your head. And beyond an impossibly glamorous communications officer who had a bluetooth earpiece 40+ years before such things were invented (and the shortest mini-skirt of the lot).

So quite a lot going for it then. But genuinely beyond all that were the stories. The space setting was, to a degree, secondary to the premise that a band of friends would roam around in altruistic exploration, encountering strangers and having scrapes, resolving them in a positive way. It could have been set in the old West, or ancient Rome, or anywhere in-between. The sci-fi accoutrements of the 23rd Century added some excitement, made it new and even more colourful, and maybe enabled fantastical elements to enter some of the stories but, when you boil it down, the series survived (and later, in syndication and repeats, thrived) because of the stories and the interplay between the principal characters. That's the reason people are still buying merchandise, attending conferences, reading books, watching movies and TV spin-offs, and, most of all, revering the source material. And that's how it's entered the pop-cultural lexicon: everyone knows what warp speed is, everyone has had a "beam me up" moment. And it's why, in an episode of The Simpsons when Bart prepares to shock his classmates, he puns, "Crew, set your faces to stunned."

I had a hard time choosing a clip to illustrate these virtues of story-telling and crew camaraderie. I considered The Devil In The Dark, Amok Time, The Trouble With Tribbles, The Day Of The Dove, Assignment: Earth, A Piece Of The Action, Charlie X, The Galileo Seven and Arena before settling on a clip from perhaps my favourite episode of all, The City On The Edge Of Forever. If you're not familiar with the plot, all you need to know here is that Kirk and Spock have gone back to 1930s New York to retrieve a similarly displaced McCoy. Whilst there, Kirk falls for Edith Keeler, a pacificist. Long story short, he has to let her die, otherwise her campaigning will delay the US entering the Second World War long enough for Germany to win, thereby changing the future irrevocably (and Kirk et al's past). This, for me, is great stuff. I appreciate your mileage may vary.

And because lots of you that come here are music bloggers, or readers thereof, there's this, from Amok Time. Kirk agrees to fight his best friend, for that friend's sake, not realising it is to be a fight to the death. And it's of interest to fans of music trivia because...? It's where 80s power-poptarts T'Pau got their name...

Growing up, I always wanted to be Spock most of all. Sure, Kirk had the swagger and got the girl and McCoy was funny, but Spock was cool, logical, detached, intelligent, and always knew what to do. Plus, you know, the tricorder, neck-pinches, mind-melds and "fascinating"... Or maybe I just fancied myself as a bit different, who knows. I certainly hold dear his view that "there are always alternatives", and I can raise quite an arched eye-brow. And whilst I don't have pointy ears, I do sometimes wonder whether the Starfleet ideals of altruism, positivity and peaceful exploration might, in part, explain why I have spent the majority of my working life in public-sector or non-profit roles. Just how influenced was I?

Whatever, the bottom line is this: whilst I like Star Wars I love, and will always love, Star Trek. You could do a lot worse than immerse yourself in the original series and, to a lesser extent, the (even numbered) films starring the classic cast. Enjoy... and live long and prosper! (Not you, Ensign Ricky)