I was just two years old when the show premiered, but I remember seeing it quite a bit in syndication when I was a kid. The first episode I can remember seeing was… “Spock’s Brain.” :eek: Fortunately, I didn’t stop there…
So much of TOS seems corny, low-budget and quaint now, but for its day it was fresh and innovative. We probably wouldn’t see as much SF on TV or in the movies now, or of as high quality, were it not for the trailblazing work of TOS.
So congratulations and Godspeed, Star Trek, on your 40th anniversary! Although in a fallow period right at the moment, I hope you’ll come back before too long, better than ever.
Not only was I a huge fan of ST in it’s first major run of syndication ( early 1970’s ), but it did help to guide my life. My childhood pal N and I used to sit around, making up our own plots, designing shots and action scenes. I used to build props from the show using whatever was around the house. I once build a flip-open communicator by cannibalizing and mutilating ( with great care ) a cigar box. Stuffed it full of kleenex to pad up the touchpad, too.
N and I spent so much time fantasizing about making our own episodes. For the last 20 years or so, he’s been in Hollywood, working in the camera department of one huge feature after another, and I’ve been a cameraman for the last 27 years. Must admit that I owe some of this, a large part of the imaginative technical fantasy stuff, to Star Trek. One learns an awful lot about how a television show is filmed by reading Stephen Whitfield’s " The Making of Star Trek", and David Gerrold’s “The Trouble With Tribbles”.
The guards in the cloaks were a bit creepy for my liking and I wasn’t sure why Kirk and co. were in those suits when I saw what they wore on board the ship, but I liked it
What’s more incredible is that as soon as E. Thorp saw that first syndicated episode, he/she started talking like Yoda a full YEAR before Star Wars premiered !!
