To boldly go... again

Hard to believe I know, but there is actually something out of this world and popular with nerds that is older than me - just.

Star Trek hits 50 next year and will be beaming back onto the big screen and TV.

Apart from the building excitement about me arriving, 1966 had another major event that resonates through to today and still gets talked about in pubs, with its devotees reminiscing about the good old days and comparing their favourite moments and heroes. Yes, the first episode of Science Fiction TV show Star Trek aired (There was some footbally-thing too, I believe).

Only moderately successful first time around, the adventures of Kirk, Spock, Bones and the rest of the Starship Enterprise’s crew were the creation of Gene Roddenberry, who marketed his multi-cultural story of humans, aliens, and their peaceful, humanitarian, exploits amongst the stars as a kind of Western set in deep space.

The original three series reflected the moral, cultural and political themes of the 1960s, with added laser beams, a tendency to proclaim peaceful intent before getting into a scrap, and plenty of flashing lights, miniskirts, people in red shirts getting zapped and notable over-acting.

Cancelled after poor ratings, subsequent reruns in the late sixties and through the seventies saw the devoted fan-base of ‘Trekkies’ develop, with the show’s optimistic vision of what the future could be like providing a harmonious alternative to the heavy political posturing of the era on our home planet.

The love of the show, and the success of movies Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, was sufficient to convince producers Paramount to get the cast back together for ‘79’s first movie outing, leading eventually to four new Star Trek TV series featuring new casts and adventures, plus a further 11 films, including two recent big-budget outings featuring the original characters played by new actors, with a convenient plot twist featuring an alternative timeline freeing the franchise from it’s by-now highly complicated back-story.

The next film, due for release in the summer next year, coincides with the 50th anniversary and is shrouded (or should that be ‘cloaked’?) in secrecy, with the rumour-mill suggesting and hoping that it will feature one of the Enterprise crew’s oldest foes, the crinkly-foreheaded, permanently angry, Klingons.

News this week has also set the thrill factor to ten for fans, with the announcement of a new TV series for 2017; the first small-screen version of the show since Star Trek: Enterprise’s demise in 2005 ended an 18 year run of back to back and overlapping variants of the space soap opera.

Like fellow Sci-Fi veteran Doctor Who, the new version will undoubtedly look entirely alien to someone beaming in from the sixties and only familiar with the original series. But in the same way that the Timelord in the blue box continues the story started five decades ago, the new Star Trekkers with doubtless feel unknown, but comfortably familiar, too.

Here’s hoping the latest show lives long and prospers.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on Stardate 061115, where it was retitled as "Show is set to boldly go again". You can view the edited version used by the paper on their website here It did receive few minor trims, but nothing fatal. K'plah!

Genuinely excited at the thought of a new TV series - living in rural Cumbria, I suspect the likelihood of it ever making my TV screen is slim at most, unless I fork out for a satellite dish, subscribe to someone expensive, or wind up binge-watching it on a download service in 5 years' time. Still - you never know; I might be Trekking away before you know it, and at least there's the film next year.

(Musical accompaniment tonight: The Bullet Blue Band - Sweet Home Chicago.)

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