Where No Man, Rover, Nor Impactor Has Gone Before Options

[MiniTES]

How many of you here are Star Trek fans? I've loved watching the original for as long as I can remember.

[dilo]

How many of you here are Star Trek fans? I've loved watching the original for as long as I can remember?

I bet many of us. I loved even more other series (UFO and Space1999) simply because they had a stronger "imprinting" in my child mind... In fact, here in Italy, Star Trek first TV season episodes arrived incredibly late (in the 80's), after the first ST movie!

[MizarKey]

I became a fan of Star Trek at 15. I remember catching a couple of episodes of the original series during its inital run, when I was 5 or 6. I've followed all its incarnations. I think my overall favorite series is DS9, though STNG has some of the best individual episodes. I'm currently starting the 5th season of Voyager with my 15 year old daughter. We watched all of STNG and DS9 on DVD. It's nice to have something positive to share with my kids.

It has been a positive thing in my life, piqued my interest in science and space and computers.

Eric P / MizarKey

[edstrick]

My brother saw the Star Trek pilot "The Cage", presented by Gene Roddenberry at the Tricon World Science Fiction Convention in (I think, Cleveland) about 3 weeks before the series first aired. The fans, mostly literary SF fans, because this was before media fandom, gave Roddenberry a 10 minute standing ovation.

Star Trek, Original and subesequent series have all had major problems as being good Science Fiction. "Captain! The Gobbldygook Generator is a-busted! I dinna know if I can fix it afore the end of the episode!"....

But we tend to forget just how horrible the "Scifi" and "Skiffy" TV that passed for Science Fiction was and largely continued to be long past ST-TOS. Twilight Zone had class, but it was "Fantasy and Science Fiction", not at all hard science fiction. The Outer Limits presented some of the all time classic science fiction ideas on TV for the first time done well, but the series degenerated into the Monster or the Mad Scientist of the week. Otherwise, we had mostly Irwin Allen's hollywood-lame dumbass SciFi series: "Lost in Space", "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" "Land of the Giants", "Time Tunnel", and others. They all had good episodes, all had some redeaming qualities, especialy Time Tunnel <which looks forwards in some ways to Stargate>, but they really were drek.

Granted, they were better than Gerry Anderson's "Space 1899" <sic!> 1899 was the level of astronomical and scientific knowledge of the creators and writers. The idea of the series was wonderful, but the execution produced transcendentally lame Skiffy. They had utterly no idea of the difference between a solar system and a galaxy, etc.

Star Trek has had many problems, it is after all, not "hard science fiction", but Space Opera, and written science fiction has always been decades in advance of the best hollywood has made <and hollywood's product almost completely dominates all mass media discussions of Sf>, but Star Trek was indeed a great leap forwards for media Science Fiction.

[Bob Shaw]

Although much TV SF was very poor (apart from Fireball XL5, a show without peer!) it's worth remembering the very fine radio material which was made in the 1950s (and later). Dimension X, X-Minus One and so on in the US featured sophisticated stories with excellent visuals (inside your head) and this tradition was perhaps exemplified in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where Marvin was much more depressed-looking on the wireless than in the TV series or the recent movie!

I recently bought a bundle of old-time SF radio shows in MP3 format via eBay and have to say that I'm delighted with the purchase.

[Phil Stooke]

Hey Bob, I saw Fireball XL5 too... yes, it was fun!

Phil

[edstrick]

Since radio SF depended on words, not visuals, it was nearly as immune to hollywood's "IF IT LOOKS KEWL, DO IT" mentality, which ultimately results in such farces as Bruce Willis in "Armagodawful"

"Mission to Mars" was lame, bad, corny SciFi, but "Armagodawful" was far worse: it was "Skiffy".

That said, it had 3 things <sort of> going for it.

1.) The plot made sense. Sort of. In a testosterone overdosed 13 year old kid's level. I've seen movies that made a LOT less sense.

2.) No matter how meaningless they were, the special effects never looked cheap and cheesy.

3.) The impact on Paris was actually done *RIGHT*... with a view of the ejecta curtain rushing toward the observer on a cathedral's roof <I think> as was the aerial view of the crater superimposed on a blasted cityscape.

[dvandorn]

I grew up as a science fiction fan -- the town library in Normal, IL had a "young people's" section, and I had devoured its science fiction shelves by the time I was eight. I got an adult library card at age 10 and had read Welles and Verne, as well as Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke, by the time I was 11. I had read and enjoyed everything from space opera to cutting-edge speculative fiction by such writers as Ellison and Dick.

I had watched all of the awful sci-fi on TV (and some of the better stuff available at the movies) since I was a small child. I remember Fireball XL-5 (although I was a bigger fan of "Supercar"). My favorite science fiction TV show when I was little was a syndicated piece called "Men Into Space." It was hard sf, following the adventures of one Colonel McCauley as he spearheaded America's first forays into space. I believe it was produced in the late 1950s.

And then, when I was a month and a half short of my 11th birthday, Star Trek premiered. I remember watching the very first episode aired, "The Man Trap," and thinking that this show had some real potential. It was good, entertaining space opera from the get-go, and it had a structure that allowed for the exploration of some fairly intelligent science fiction themes. I was hopeful.

While there were some really poorly-written episodes, there were also some real gems, and I looked forward to seeing Star Trek every week as I grew up. Even the third season, when Roddenberry had abandoned the project and it sank to some new lows, it was still a fun and entertaining show.

And then, just a couple of months after the final original episode of Star Trek was aired, men first walked on the Moon. It seemed appropriate -- we had graduated from the fantasy of space exploration to the reality of men exploring other planets.

We didn't need Star Trek any more -- from now on, we'd be doing it for real.

Yeah, right.

Pardon me while I hunt through my 377 channels for an old Star Trek re-run... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

[edstrick]

I recently picked up a used boxed DVD set of the complete original series. I've watched the first 5 or so shows <up to "Mudd's Women"> Image quality and presentation are excellent. Some shows I've never seen, since I wasn't an obsessive trekkie, and most I never saw in color, not having color TV till Apollo 8. Wheee!... Corny, but they stand up remarkably well. I can even forgive the plastic-foam granite boulders.

[Bob Shaw]

I think we're all demonstrating the old adage that the Golden Age of Science-Fiction is...

...twelve!

For my sins, I have been and remain a card-carrying SF Fan, and will be attending WorldCon in Glasgow in August (as I live in Glasgow, it's not exactly hard work getting there, though I confess that I loathe the venue with a passion!). Is anyone else from this august assemblage liable to attend, and - if so - fancy a bheer?

Oh, and before anyone asks, I'm *not* the much-loved SF author of the same name, but am merely the Evil Fake Bob Shaw (don't ask).

My e-mail address is: shaw_bob@hotmail.com

[MiniTES]

I recently picked up a used boxed DVD set of the complete original series. 

Why you............................. if you had a clue of how much I envy you.... ;)

[edstrick]

Bob Shaw said: I think we're all demonstrating the old adage that the Golden Age of Science-Fiction is... ...twelve!

I believe it was Damon Knight, critic, teacher and author <of "To Serve Man", among others> who made that utterly correct pronouncement.

My first worldcon was St. Louiscon in 69. I won't be making Glasgow, not enough $ and family is in the way, but next year in LA...

and MiniTES said: Why you............................. if you had a clue of how much I envy you....

Unfortunately, it was only like 30% off regular <Best Buy> etc retail price. It'll be random luck if I get the other two TOS boxes used.

[tedstryk]

I must admit that I have never been able to stomach star trek. Watching it for me is like listening to finger nails on a chalk board.

[Bob Shaw]

I must admit that I have never been able to stomach star trek.  Watching it for me is like listening to finger nails on a chalk board.

Nice, fresh Trekkies, though - delicious in sandwiches!

(grin)

[ilbasso]

I started off with Fireball XL-5, too. I have a beautiful mahogany model of the XL-5 on my desk at the moment (courtesy of Pacific Aircraft). I had a Fireball XL-5/Space City playset that was my favorite toy...just saw one for sale on eBay a few weeks ago for $1200. Yeesh!!

I used to watch "Lost in Space" when I lived in Okinawa in 1965-67 - it was dubbed in Japanese, and we had to tune in to the Armed Forces Radio Network to hear the English simulcast. I was introduced to Star Trek when I came back to the States in 1967 - the first episode I saw was "I, Mudd" - and I was hooked.

"2001" was my favorite movie, though. I saw it 31 times in the theatres, 15 of those in Cinerama. Ahh, the good old days before VCRs...

I was disappointed when the final episodes of both Star Trek and Star Wars came out within 10 days of each other in May!