Happy 59th STAR TREK!
I don't remember the exact episode of STAR TREK that first caught my attention. The show has always been part of my life. My mom says I would hear those first few strings of Alexander Courage's famous fanfare and bolt into the living room, demanding my parents not touch that dial.
The comic book splashes of reds, blues, and golds in the uniforms. The kitschy space adventures. Space monsters and rubber suits. The mid-century futurism. The pointy-ears. And the captain's famous diction.
All of it captivated me. Snatched me from my 20th-century existence and transported me into a sojourn across the great starry divide. I couldn't get enough.
STAR WARS may have been more popular with my generation, but STAR TREK was my everything. While the other kids played with lightsabers, I donned a gold shirt and charged into the unknown with a phaser I made out of LEGOs.
Original NBC promo for STAR TREK's premiere, which was originally Sept. 15 and pushed up a week to Sept. 8, 1966.
Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and the rest have stayed with me throughout my entire life. I've journeyed with them from one corner of the galaxy to the next, as stated in the trailer for their final adventure together, STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.
Through them, I learned how to be a better person. Seems silly to get your morality and ethics from a 196os TV show, but I did. Trek and Superman shaped me just as much as my parents. Maybe even more so.
TREK even saved my life literally, as I wrote for the official STAR TREK website in 2018. The friends formed from my fandom pulled me out of the grips of meth addiction, and continue to do so through the occasional relapse. Sometimes I carry a Starfleet Flying-A or Delta to remind me of who I am at my core — an empathetic and kind human being.
I've made no secret of my desire to staff on a STAR TREK show. It's my ultimate dream job. I've entered the quadrant, just parsecs from my goal in recent years. My STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS spec script, "Have Phaser — Will Travel!", was an Austin Film Festival Finalist in 2023. Also, that year, Gates McFadden, Dr. Crusher herself, challenged me to write a pilot based on her character, which I did. Most recently, THE STUNT LIST republished STAR TREK: OATH as one of their most viral stunt scripts.
Now, I'm on a STAR TREK of my own... as I warp forward with my own sci-fi universe, DISTANT WORLDS. Currently, I'm pounding the keyboard on the novel version. All because of a little sci-fi show from the imagination of Gene Roddenberry.
Thanks, Gene.
I'm grateful for what you created all those decades ago.
See y'all out there.
NEXT WEEK: STAR TREK INTO SPIRK...