IT’S CAMPY NOW, BUT IT WAS REVOLUTIONARY THEN
It’s message of peace, diversity came at right time
It might have been a simpler time, but it certainly wasn’t a better one.
Viewed from a 50-year distance through the CGI lens of modern sci-fi blockbusters, NBC’s original Star Trek TV series, which premiered on Sept. 8, 1966, can look adorably quaint. The oh-soobviously plastic models visiting planets that are clearly back lots and sound stages. The by-nowstandard multinational, multiethnic crew: a Russian, an Asian, an African American and an intellectually advanced alien among them. And that peaceful mission, to explore but not to interfere, and never — heaven forbid — to conquer.
It’s all so cute. Except there was nothing cute about it at the time — and nothing cute about the times. Star Trek began in 1966 and ended in 1969 — a three-year span that was one of the most tumultuous and divisive in our nation’s history. The 1965 Watts riots warned of the simmering racial tensions that would explode over the next few summers, setting many of our inner cities ablaze. The war in Vietnam raged every night on our TV newscasts, leading to riots at the 1968 Demo- cratic convention and widespread fears that the conflict might engulf all of Asia. There was war in the Middle East; the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. at home; and a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that seemed to bring us all one step closer to nuclear annihilation.
That’s not just a quick history lesson — it’s the context through which Star Trek must be viewed. In the midst of international strife, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry preached a message of peaceful coexistence. In the face of racial and ethnic divides, his show offered an unprecedented view of a diverse workplace where everyone was competent, everyone was relied upon, and everyone was treated with friendship and respect.
We’re used to such TV ensembles today. But at the time it was revolutionary — so much so, that NBC initially balked at showing a kiss between Trek’s Caucasian captain and AfricanAmerican communications officer. The mere fact that she was an officer, by the way, and not the ship’s cook or cleaning woman was a welcome change all by itself.
Nor was Roddenberry shy about hammering home his message. Another famous episode centered on two aliens — halfblack and half-white, but with the colors on opposite sides of their faces — locked in a ceaseless, pointless racial war. Seen now, the episode may seem heavy- handed and obvious; then, in a nation that often seemed to be on the verge of collapse, it was a scream for help.
As time passed, the show has come to be appreciated as entertainment alone — and for creating as indelible a set of characters as any TV series has ever produced. Is there a sci-fi fan alive who doesn’t know Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov? Those are the names that have launched a thousand spinoffs and imitators, all trying to find stories that resonate as well as The Trouble With
Tribbles or villains who can stand up to Khan Noonien Singh.
Even at the time, of course, no one mistook Star Trek for Shakespeare. Viewers were aware of the sacrificial nature of the redshirts, and the show’s over-reliance on alternate-history universes. Many of us noted that William Shatner’s performance, like Captain Kirk’s costumes, seemed to expand as the seasons wore on.
It hardly mattered then, and it matters less now. This is a show that, in very difficult times, tried to be good and do good — and succeeded at both.
And that makes it a show for our times, as well as its own.