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"Space- the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
The Idea
The sixties were strongly influenced by the constant conflict between the two supremacies of the world, the United States and the Soviet Union. The most overt and least hostile was the "Space Race" to the moon. It is hard to imagine how the concept of space travel seized the imagination of the public, but reaching the planetoid would uphold the belief in supremacy, either Western or Eastern. Gene Roddenberry recognised in this concept the potential for plot and inspirational characters for a television series.
The original concept for Star Trek was then triggered by the long-running western series Wagon Train. Roddenberry conceived in 1964 the idea for a science fiction series set 300 years in the future, which he first nicknamed "Wagon Train to the Stars". Many of the elements of Roddenberry's creation were already in place in the popular western: the group, with its strong leader; the quest; the unknown environment and the hidden enemy. Apart from the obvious difference between the two shows - one is set in the 19th century American West and the other in 23rd century space - the most significant departure from conventional American television was the decision to have a multi - ethnical crew. Roddenberry was already well-known as an able scriptwriter due to his first TV series "The Lieutenant", and so it was easy for him to find people interested in his ideas for a new TV series.
The First Pilot
In 1965, he convinced the staff of Desilu studios to produce Star Trek. NBC ordered the series although it first seemed to be impossible to be produced on a weekly basis. Rumours said that NBC was interested in snatching away the famous and long-running "Lucy Show" (also produced by Desilu) from CBS, the scheduling of Star Trek would have been the initial step to do so. Anyway, NBC was interested in having a Desilu show on their network because they never had a development deal with this studio, and the Lucy Show convinced Program Presidents of its capabilities. As standard network procedure, NBC invested in pilot movies in order to "test" the show. If it had not been televised as series, it could have still be run as TV special in order to recoup the invested money.
The first pilot introduced the starship enterprise with its crew under command of Captain Christopher Pike. One of the most famous TV aliens was also introduced with the first pilot: The "Vulcan" Mr. Spock.
The Second Chance
NBC was very impressed what the production staff of Desilu had achieved. It was very interested in the concept, but found it "too cerebral". After the first pilot, Star Trek was given a second chance: a new, shorter, less creatively fulfilling second pilot with major changes in cast and crew finally convinced the heads of NBC one year later to televise the new series. Every crew member was substituted by another actor, except Leonard Nimoy as Spock, although NBC first was afraid of his negative influence on children due to his satanic appearance. New Captain "Kirk" became Will Shatner, who impressed Roddenberry in a guest appearance in the "Twilight Zone" TV series. Like Nimoy, DeForrest Kelley and Walter Koenig were already well-known to Roddenberry because of their appearance in his first series, The Lieutenant. In order to complete the racial mix of the crew, oriental George Takei and black Nichelle Nichols were hired as crew members.
As the show got increasingly famous, so did the stars. Any episode was usually over the 200.000 $ budget, but when the stars demanded more and more money, the studio came into serious troubles and finally cancelled the show because it was never too popular. Overall, the series ran for three seasons, from September 1966 to June 1969. The last show went to air a few weeks before Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.
Space travel had simultaneously achieved the ultimate heroic glamour and lost a little of its mystery.
Reborn in Reruns
The series was never very popular while on air in the US, but it soon became a cult hit when repeated endlessly on local stations across the US and around the world soon after the moon landing in the beginning of the seventies. It gained more exposure than it ever had before - the cult grew exponentially, and the first Star Trek convention, held in New York in 1972, attracted already over 3,000 visitors.
Star Trek Lives!
Following their late success, Star Trek was resurrected as a Saturday morning animated show in 1973, with 22 half-hour episodes produced. A completely new Roddenberry TV series called the "Questor Tapes", planned to anchor a new Paramount TV network Desilu studios were merged into in the late 70ies, was abandoned when Paramount failed to go through with their network plan (eventually, a series by Roddenberry did- Star Trek: Voyager anchors the new United Paramount Network, launched in 1995).
Instead, Paramount decided to make a movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was a blockbuster cinematic smash in 1979, but was widely derided as being slow and boring. This failed to deter Paramount and the increasingly geriatric original stars, as they donned wigs and false teeth to make five more movies into the early 1990s. Star Trek: Generations was the first movie with the cast of The Next Generation, but included Captain Kirk, Chekov, and Scotty.
The success of the movies convinced Paramount a new Star Trek TV series could be popular, and so Star Trek: The Next Generation was born in 1987. In 1993 and 1995, two more series called "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager" followed.
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