The Lonesome Road

Here’s one more fan story - I seem to be doing a lot of them these days. Happens, I suppose. I’m pretty sure the trekkies who read this page have already realized the show I am talking about. For all the non-trekkies out there, I am refering to the multi-versioned serial Star Trek.

According to a story on Digg, it seems that the homepage of the Star Trek series will be shut down from Dec 31st. Coupled with the cancellation of the latest series of Star Trek: Enterprise, it almost sounds like a death knell for the venerable series.

The first Star Trek I saw was then called Star Trek (big surprise there). Now, will all the spin-offs, it’s called Star Trek : The Orginial Series, TOS for short. I was very young then and was hooked to the series. Used to stay awake till 11PM on tuesday (if I remember correctly) to catch a new episode. For a serial made in those times, the special effects were great. But to a larger extent, the show depended more on the actors - as any good show should.

I loved the opening sequence of “Space, the final frontier…” voiced by the captian James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Other major cast members were Mr.Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr.Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Scotty (James Doohan). The other main players who complemented these gentlemen were Lt.Uhura, Sulu and Chekov (season 2) and of course - the canon fodder. My choice of character was Mr.Spock - he of the catchphrase “fascinating” and of the pointed years. Oh - canon fodder? Those were the members of the Enterprise crew who were fated to die in myriad ways on missions (or even on the ship!).

I managed to catch a few episodes of TOS the other day. Now that I am older - and used to good special effects, the painted backgrounds and the scenes of the ship flying in space seem primitive. The characters also seem slightly cheesy. In spite of all this, I am still hooked to the show - the magic is still there . I suppose it’s true to say that what you see initially does affect the way you see the rest of the series. I don’t enjoy Star Trek : TNG. When I first saw it, my reaction was - who is this dude who keeps making his “Number One” do all the running around. Things just went downhill from there.

Yet, there is hope for me. I’ve been seeing Star Trek: Voyager and it has proved to be a pleasant surprise. Interesting and intelligent (though with a *lot* of emphasis on time travel), it’s brought the fun back (for me) into Star Trek once more.

I leave you with the original introduction by William Shatner (which was later modified for political correctness)

“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Live long and prosper.