I WANT MY OLD STAR TREK BACK
Last weekend, the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan hosted Star Trek: Mission New York, a 50th- anniversary celebration of the world’s most inescapable pop-culture phenomenon (the show debuted in the United States 50 years ago last night). There were panels, screenings, exhibits, a costume competition, vendors and dozens of featured guests — including Capt. Kirk himself, William Shatner.
It was a supernova of an event, and I sat it out.
Understand: I’ve been a Trekker (or Trekkie, if you must) for 40 years. I have 14 communicators, a framed Vulcan harp and more than half a dozen Starfleet uniforms. I’ve assimilated gigabytes of dialogue (“No one can guarantee the actions of another,” said Mr. Spock in the episode Day of the Dove) and useless factoids ( there were 207,809 androids in I, Mudd).
But this golden anniversary is leaving me ambivalent. The scrappy, ennobling cult show I once knew is now all too often a specialeffects- choked, bottom- line behemoth.
In my youthful day, Star Trek was an underdog. A black hole of ink has been spilled about how Gene Roddenberry, armed with a wrinkled 16- page outline, sold his brainchild to NBC, which kept it on for three seasons despite a minuscule budget, a crushing schedule and mediocre ratings.
Legendary, too, is the Star Trek vision. By the 23rd century, Roddenberry posited, imperfect humankind would somehow unite to conquer war, pestilence, intolerance and other ills to spread its enlightened vision into the final frontier of space.
That spirit fuelled Star Trek following its cancellation in 1969. Unfazed groupies gorged on choppedup, black- and- white reruns. They argued arcane esoterica, e. g., why the phaser blasts in Balance of Terror resembled photon torpedoes, until they were blue as an Andorian in the face.
And they unleashed huge homegrown conventions. One of them, in 1974, drew 15,000 carbon-based life- forms and turned away an- other 6,000. Our dweebish zeal paid off with an animated Saturday- morning series that began in 1973 and, ultimately, Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Though bloated and boring, the latter yielded the wonderful Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982 and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock two years later.
Something else began happening, too. As Star Trek went mainstream, its geeky universe grew less freaky and fun. This struck me especially during the 1986 release of the crowd- pleasing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and the hoopla over 1987’s Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series. Yes, we kooks were growing up. But things also became more commercial and less personal.
The change was palpable. At conventions, raucous trivia contests and showings of bootleg blooper reels evaporated. Unlicensed tribbles and tricorders, once sold openly, were now vended on the sly. No longer were you likely to snare a free signature from or impromptu snapshot with one of the stars. At last weekend’s Mission New York, the organizers announced, Shatner would command an “$ 80 Autograph Fee, $ 80 Solo Photo Op Fee.”
The fan base itself was hijacked by “official,” studio- backed organizations. In 1975, the authors of the book Star Trek Lives! estimated there were “hundreds — possibly even thousands — of fan clubs, small and large.” Did the fans really need the imprimatur of an Official ‘ Star Trek’ Fan Club, run by Paramount Pictures?
In June, CBS and Paramount Pictures unveiled an extensive list of guidelines for anyone making an amateur Star Trek film. These included a $ 50,000 fund- raising cap, a time limit of 15 minutes on a “single self- contained story” ( or two segments totalling 30 minutes) and no “depictions of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or any harmful or illegal activity.”
Make no mistake: Star Trek continues to amaze and enlighten. After a poor start, The Next Generation won a devoted audience and critical acclaim. So did Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager and other spinoffs. Star Trek Discovery will debut in January on CBS.
Still, my inner 12- year- old worries that this unique creation has lost much of its wide- eyed charm. Executed on a shoestring, begun amid major social tumult, Star Trek triumphed in large part because it tackled such essential and eternal themes as prejudice, war, learning and love. Shortly before the series began, the associate producer Robert H. Justman pleaded for “shows where the story is the thing and the gimmicks are unnecessary.”
Forty- seven years later, I gaped when USS Enterprise emerged, preposterously, from under water in the reported $ 190- million onslaught that was Star Trek Into Darkness, the second of three recent films.
Recently, the original series’ casting director, Joseph D’Agosta, told me that he hated this summer’s Star Trek Beyond. "There was no heart or soul that Gene brought to the original series,” he said, “in story or character development.”
So last night, exactly 50 years after America first tuned into Star Trek, I popped in my DVD of Season 1’s first episode, The Man Trap, a taut (total production cost: $185,401) thriller about a salt-sucking alien, mistaken identity and long-lost passion.
I poured a dram from my Saurian brandy bottle into my Saurian brandy glass. I recited all the lines I could remember. And I fondly recalled a time when the cathode-ray tube dreams of a certain group of 20th- century nerds soared skyward.