DID IT FIRST
FREE-THINKER
writes about
Star Trek: The Original Series
The template for almost everything.
Probably the earliest Sci Fi I was exposed to, (born 1968 a year after it aired), but I only really recognised it's brilliance when BBC2 showed it again in the early 80s.
For all those clever dicks who want to diss star trek, (and I speak as a non uniform owning, happy to accept there is more to life than Star Trek kind of person), I would have to point out that if you view this series in context to the time it was made it is totally revolutionary.
Compare it with any other Sci Fi on TV at the time and you will find nothing comes close.
For the era it was well thought out, with clever plots, and challenging ideas, and you know what... the special effects were'nt that bad either!
Yeah yeah you can look back all smug now and snigger at it if you want, but look at the stories in comparison with what other sci fi TV was being done at the time and nothing else matches it.
Concepts that might now seem cliche'd, old hat and done to death by sci fi WERE DONE FIRST WITH ORIGINALITY ON STAR TREK.
While other series were plodding along with cheap scares and 2D characterisation, Star Trek covered things such as alternate reality, time and causality, race, religion, prejudice, all in a thought out way, intermixed with characters who were better rounded than any other TV character of that era and technology ideas that seemed believable.
The design of the Enterprise changed the way future sci fi space ships were thought about, the transporter was a creative plot device which itself gave rise to original story ideas, and all in all, in a world just coming to terms with space travel took science fiction away from the realms of the fantastical into that which might become possible. Love it or loath it Star trek influenced more than one generation more than any Sci Series ever has.
FORBIDDEN PLANET
if anything comes close to being the forerunner to Star Trek it's gotta be this film. The forerunner of which was Shakespears 'The Tempest', so maybe that explains the natural progression of well thought out storytelling?
STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION
Though Star Trek gave rise to a lot of Sci Fi in the 70s, (yeah ok that Star Wars thing did too), most of it was fairly appaling. When TNG eventually turned up it was one of only a few series of the interveaning time that went back to a more thoughtfull considered approach. I think it's aged faster than the original did, but still welcomed it at the time and felt it developed and improved with each new series.
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