Star Trek Day: 58 Years in the Making
Captain’s Blog: September 8, 2024…
Thursday, September 8, 1966 started just like any other day. The Vietnam War was on-going, as was the civil rights movement. In Syria, Government Officials were taken hostage by Colonel Salim Hatum during a failed coup d'etat to overthrow the government. At the end of the day, however, at 8:30p.m. EDT, the world as everyone knew it changed.
​
The beautiful multicolor peacock of the National Broadcast Company, more commonly known as NBC, animated onto the screens of many Americans, even though many televisions at the time were showing the animation in black and white, preparing viewers for the start of a 5-year mission that would boldly go (off and on) now nearly sixty years!
​
That first episode was The Man Trap, where Doctor Leonard McCoy is reunited with an old love of his. But the woman he once knew wasn’t the woman who was with him on the planet below the magnificent Starship Enterprise. The Man Trap became the first of 79 episodes to tell the tales of Captain Kirk and his crew aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 over three seasons. The show was very well received in its initial run, and it’s well publicized that after an attempt by network executives to cancel the show, a large letter writing campaign ensued, and Star Trek was saved only to be canceled after its third season.
​
Star Trek died in 1969 with the episode Turnabout Intruder. The Enterprise was put in television’s version of the mothball fleet. The last two years of the 5-year mission went nowhere… until Star Trek was picked up into syndication.
​​
All this is well documented that it was the reruns of The Original Series that captured the attention of younger fans, who would watch after school each day. It’s also well documented that Paramount executives decided to resurrect Star Trek for the big screen after the success of Star Wars. It was because of those young fans and the popularity of science fiction in the 1970s that conventions started to unite the fans with the stars; a tradition that continues to today.
​
So many actors have said that Star Trek fans are unlike any other. I would agree! I am one of those nerds they love to talk about on podcasts that will say, “No that didn’t happen in this episode! It happened in that episode!” Or maybe point out that trilithium resin was a waste byproduct given off after dilithium is exposed to antimatter. For that matter (pun intended), I also know that the intermix ratio for matter and antimatter question on the Starfleet Entrance Exam is a trick question: it’s always 1-to-1!
Star Trek continues to attract viewers and fans now 58 years later. While they are still coming up with new stories and new series and new movies to keep the fanbase alive, the morals of the 1960s series still resonate with its viewers. When Gene Roddenberry sold this as “a wagon train to the stars” and delivered it as a cerebral piece of allegory with its hand on the pulse of society, it turned off the original backers. Somehow Star Trek has found a way to come back, however, better and stronger than before. As much as I enjoy the stories of the original Enterprise, I grew up during the TNG era. As a child, I loved watching what came next for Captain Picard and his crew. I still laugh to this day when I see Worf dressed as one of Robin Hood’s merry men in the episode, Q-pid. I choose “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot” when I go to a restaurant for brunch. As I’ve gotten older, I have learned to appreciate Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which I will confess is my favorite of the franchises. (That’s not to knock any of the other series, as they are all amazing! It’s simply that, just as each parent has their favorite child, I have one in DS9.) This blog will end up being a full day’s read if I were to explain why I enjoy DS9 as much as I do, so I will leave it as it's a masterpiece that continues to sell that same-old cerebral piece of allegory that Roddenberry peddled all those years before.
And I know I’m not the biggest fan out there. I respect those who have chosen careers after seeing Star Trek, or those who have rebuilt portions of sets so that fans like me can actually walk the decks of a Starship. I applaud you all. Star Trek is no longer a tv show for me. It’s a way of life. It’s a moral code. It’s respect. It’s friendship and giving back to the world around me.
Characters on many of the different series have said that in the future, there is no hunger or disease or want. In DS9, Quark tells his nephew, Nog, that that is nothing more than a facade. Take away their creature comforts and the barbarians return. I wake up every morning and start my day like any other day: I put my best foot forward, and try to do something that makes this world a better place. Sometimes I don’t succeed, but it’s not from lack of trying. Sometimes I simply don’t feel like being a good person, but then I watch episodes like The First Duty, and I reaffirm that I have an obligation to the truth and making sure that we as a society are one step closer to a utopian future; a future that Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek will be proud of.
​​
​​
The Captain’s Blog is an Op-Ed style blog written by the captain of the U.S.S. Charter Oak, Ryan O’Connor. The U.S.S. Charter Oak is an independent Star Trek Fan Association located in Connecticut, but is open to anyone from anywhere on this beautiful blue and green marble. Please follow the U.S.S. Charter Oak on Facebook, Instagram, and X and check back regularly for more from The Captain’s Blog…