What would the world be without Star Trek? Without a doubt the world would be quite a different place if it hadn’t been for Star Trek. The popular vernacular would be absent phrases such as “Beam me up, Scotty”, Warp speed”, and “He’s dead, Jim”. The geek community around the world would be quite a bit smaller and the science fiction universe would most likely be a lot less fun. Star Trek has definitely made an impression on the world in all it’s incarnations.
The original Star Trek series is considered by most to be the best and even manages to appeal to those people who were not die hard fans of the franchise. Billed as a “Wagon train to the stars” by the series creator Gene Roddenberry it was everything that was expected from 1960’s television fair. It was fun, it was campy, and it managed to avoid falling into the pit of being outrightly comical as other shows of the same era like Batman and Lost in Space. Star Trek managed to do some serious storytelling without taking itself to seriously and still allowed Captain Kirk to beat up the bad guys and get the girl. Star Trek was a definite improvement over some of the earlier attempts at science fiction on television and even though it was canceled after three seasons it gathered quite a fan base while in syndication.
Star Trek managed a brief reprieve with a short lived Saturday morning animated cartoon. This incarnation of Star Trek featured the voices of most of the original cast and many prominent science fiction writers from the original show but it was geared toward children so it did not retain it’s entire fan base. Some of the stories were quite imaginative and the show did not have the budgetary constraints of live action filming so it was able to feature much more alien-like aliens and spaceships. Despite the talent involved with the making of the Star Trek cartoon and the fact that it was only half an hour long it was somewhat lacking and the older fans wanted something more.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, another creation of Gene Roddenberry, arose because of the fans hunger for more Star Trek and Roddenberry’s feeling that the original show did not have the chance to reach it’s full potential because the network retained to much creative control. The Next Generation was a syndicated series featuring a different cast and Roddenberry’s attempt to take Star Trek to the next level. Despite a rough first season the The Next Generation managed to last seven years in syndication
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