Fifty years ago tonight, “The Man Trap” hit TV screens across America.
It was America’s first look at Star Trek, which had been in development for around two years at this point. The first handful of regular episodes had been shot and network executives chose the story of a lonely creature driven to kill over the two other episodes that had gone through the post-production process and were ready for broadcast. The network understandably thought a straightforward bit of space horror would be a good introduction to the series, especially compared to the space prostitution storyline of the “Mudd’s Women” and the exposition-heavy, slightly clumsy second pilot “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”
“The Man Trap” got good ratings, placing first in its timeslot with around 45% of televisions tuned in, but that was the best that the series would ever see. Over its three-year run, Star Trek struggled with the Nielsen system and network disdain in equal measure.
(Some have said that if modern demographics had existed in the late 1960s, we’d be looking at a very different version of the series’ history. Even when its ratings were at their worst, it performed abnormally well with people who had disposable income and the spare time with which to enjoy it.)
Despite valiant efforts from fans and two victories in the war against cancellation, the show was axed after three seasons. Gene Roddenberry pushed hard and got it replaced a few years later with a terrible-looking cartoon that ended after two seasons. A movie called Planet of the Titans became a TV series titled Star Trek: Phase II became Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a very expensive theatrical release that audiences and critics alike thought looked fantastic but was boring as hell.
That should have been it, but somehow, Star Trek kept going. Somehow, it continued to draw in audiences.
There was (after some serious shuffling of the proverbial deckchairs and some stern lectures about budgeting) a second movie, then a third and a fourth, and then a spinoff and two more movies and, well, you know the rest.
So, what made Star Trek succeed? It was told repeatedly through sheer math that it didn’t matter. Why did people keep clamoring for more and why did Paramount care?
The simple answer is there in the 79 episodes that were broadcast on NBC before becoming a staple of UHF stations over the subsequent decades.
Star Trek shows us that we can make it.
It shows us that there is a future, and it’s fantastic.
Over the years, there’s been a lot of talk about how warp drive, the ship’s computer, the communicators and the tricorder inspired scientific advances and brought people to STEM and the space program. That’s great, it really is, but that’s not what defines the show’s future in my mind.
Tools are the beginning. Science is the beginning. It’s what people do with it that makes the real difference. After all, Lost in Space featured faster-than-light travel and a heck of a robot, and look at how that show’s viewed now. It lacked intent and intelligence, two things that have set Star Trek apart from the very beginning.
Star Trek shows that green-blooded aliens and cocky white men and black women and loud-mouthed southerners and even horny Russians can just drop their differences and unite in their desire for a better future.
Star Trek tells us that there are solutions besides force.
It teaches us that it’s usually better to listen than to speak.
It reminds us that racism is pretty stupid, and that lust for money or power leads to suffering.
It lets us know that there are things we may never understand and that’s a good thing, because curiosity drives us.
At its best, Star Trek is a deeply human look at what we can be. At its worst, it still reminds us that we can and will make it to the twenty-third century, as long as we get over ourselves and start thinking about the big picture.
That’s why Star Trek matters.
Thank you, Gene Roddenberry, for your initial vision and subsequent dedication. Thank you, Herb Solow and Robert Justman for guiding the show through treacherous waters and getting it on the air. Thank you, Gene Coon and DC Fontana for helping set and maintain a tone that helped the show connect with so many.
Thank you, William Shatner. Even at your scene-stealingest, your commitment to craft and passion helped define a captain that I would follow anywhere.
Thank you, Leonard Nimoy, for creating a character that freaks, outcasts, and weirdos everywhere could cling to and admire; we really appreciate it.
Thank you, DeForest Kelley, for Leonard McCoy, my favorite character in fiction. People that follow this blog might have noticed that I’ve never written very much about Bones; that’s because I’ve found it impossible to talk about him with any kind of objectivity. Kirk and Spock are people I look up to; Dr. McCoy is the kind of person I want to be, and a lot of that is because of Dee Kelley’s performance.
Thank you, James Doohan, for taking control of a character and making the idea of an engineer that can do anything a cornerstone of the genre.
Thank you, George Takei and Walter Koenig, for dealing with line-counting and budgetary adversity and diminished roles and sticking with Star Trek. The ship wouldn’t feel right without you one of you at the helm.
Thank you, Nichelle Nichols, for listening to others and claiming your place as an icon of civil rights, telling generations of black women that they matter and that they can and should stand right beside the white men of the world and do the same jobs.
Thank you, Majel Barrett and Grace Lee Whitney. Your roles may have been minor in the grand scheme of things, but your performances helped make the show that much more human.
Thank you, George Clayton Johnson, Samuel A. Peepless, John D.F. Black, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Adrian Spies, S. Bar-David, Jerry Sohl, Barry Trivers, Paul Schneider, Theodore Sturgeon, Oliver Crawford, Don Mankiewicz, Steven W. Carabatsos, Boris Sobelman, Carey Wilber, Robert Hamner, Nathan Butler, Don Ingalls, Harlan Ellison, Gilbert Ralston, Jerome Bixby, Max Ehrlich, David P. Harmon, Art Wallace, Margaret Armen, Robert Sabaroff, Jud Crucis, John Kingsbridge , Laurence N. Wofe, Art Wallace, Edward J. Lasko, Jean Lisette Aroeste, Rik Vollaerts, Judy Burns, Chet Richards, Arthur Heinemann, Joyce Muskat, Lee Erwin, George F. Slavin, Stanley Adams, Michael Richards, Jeremy Tarcher, Shari Lewis, and Arthur Singer for conceiving and writing episodes that still thrill me to this day (and having to deal with Gene Roddenberry and Fred Freiberger’s subsequent, occasionally devastating, rewrites.)
There’s a name missing from that litany. That’s because I want to offer a very special “thank you”to David Gerrold for “The Trouble With Tribbles,” the thing that made me want to start writing in the first place.
Special thanks to Joseph Pevney and Marc Daniels for helming so many episodes and Joseph Sargent for creating the visual and narrative guidelines that others learned so much from. Thank you, Robert Butler and James Goldstone, for directing “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Thanks to Lawrence Dobkin, Leon Penn, Harvey Hart, Vincent McEveety, Robert Butler, Gerd Oswald, Robert Sparr, Robert Gist, Don McDougall, Michael O’Herlihy, Ralph Senesky, John Newland, Herschel Daugherty, Gene Nelson, James Komack, Marvin Chomsky, Tony Leader, Herb Wallerstein, David Alexander, Jud Taylor, John Herman, Murray Golden, and David Alexander for following in their footsteps.
Thank you Matt Jeffries, for the Enterprise. As anyone who knows me can attest, I speak of that ship with reverent tones. She’s a beautiful lady, and we love her.
Thank you, Gerald Finnerman for showing us what the future would look like through inventive camerawork and creative lighting. Thank you, William Ware Theiss, for doing so much with so little and no, I’m not just saying that because the costumes for Andrea and Marlena helped a boy in the 80s figure out he liked women.
Thank you to the dozens of writers that took the franchise into prose and comics, especially Diane Duane, Margaret Wander Bonanno, John M. Ford, Peter David, Vonda N. McIntyre, and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
Finally, thank you to fandom. You kept Star Trek’s heart beating when a network had jettisoned it and pop culture was laughing at it. You made people like me feel like we weren’t alone Yes, you get pretty damn weird sometimes, but that’s what makes it interesting.
