Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship and its crew. It acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began.
The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, 2266–2269. The ship and crew are led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), First Officer and Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Chief Medical Officer Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Each episode starts with the "Where no man has gone before" speech.
Norway Productions and Desilu Productions produced the series from September 1966 to December 1967. Paramount Television produced the show from January 1968 to June 1969. Star Trek aired on NBC from September 8, 1966, to June 3, 1969. It was first broadcast on September 6, 1966, on Canada's CTV network. While on NBC, Star Treks Nielsen ratings were low and the network canceled it after three seasons and 79 episodes. In the United Kingdom, the series was not broadcast until July 12, 1969, when it was shown on the BBC One television network, coinciding with the Apollo 11 mission to land the first humans on the Moon. (See also listing at the BBC Genome Project ). Through broadcast syndication, it became an international success in the 1970s, achieving cult classic status and a developing influence on popular culture. Star Trek eventually spawned a media franchise consisting of 13 television series, 14 feature films, and numerous books, games, and toys, and is now widely considered one of the most popular and influential television series of all time.
Creation On March 11, 1964, Gene Roddenberry, a long-time fan of science fiction, drafted a short treatment for a science-fiction television series that he called Star Trek.Roddenberry, Gene (March 11, 1964). Star Trek Pitch , first draft. Accessed at LeeThomson.myzen.co.uk. This was to be set on board a large starship named S.S. Yorktown in the 23rd century bearing a crew dedicated to exploring the Milky Way galaxy.
Roddenberry noted a number of influences on his idea, some of which include A. E. van Vogt's tales of the spaceship Space Beagle, Eric Frank Russell's Marathon series of stories, and the film Forbidden Planet (1956). Some have also drawn parallels with the television series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954), a space opera that included many of the elements integral to Star Trek—the organization, crew relationships, missions, part of the bridge layout, and some technology. Roddenberry also drew heavily from C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels that depict a daring sea captain who exercises broad discretionary authority on distant sea missions of noble purpose. He often humorously referred to Captain Kirk as "Horatio Hornblower in Space".
Roddenberry had extensive experience in writing for series about the Old West that had been popular television fare in the 1950s and 1960s. Armed with this background, he characterized the new show in his first draft as "Wagon Train to the stars". Like the familiar Wagon Train, each episode was to be a self-contained adventure story, set within the structure of a continuing voyage through space.
In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was Captain Robert April of the starship S.S. Yorktown. This character was developed into Captain Christopher Pike, first portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter. April is listed in the Star Trek Chronology, The Star Trek Encyclopedia, and at startrek.com as the Enterprises first commanding officer, preceding Captain Pike. The character's only television/movie appearance was in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Counter-Clock Incident", until Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, where he is portrayed by Adrian Holmes.
Lloyd Bridges was offered a starring role on what became Star Trek.Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman (2016). The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years. Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN 1250065844 Bridges declined, saying he got along well with Roddenberry on a personal level but had no desire to work in science fiction.
Development In April 1964, Roddenberry presented the Star Trek draft to Desilu Productions, a leading independent television production company. He met with Herbert F. Solow, Desilu's director of production. Solow saw promise in the idea and signed a three-year program-development contract with Roddenberry. Lucille Ball, head of Desilu, was not familiar with the nature of the project, but she was instrumental in getting the pilot produced.
The concept was extensively revised and fleshed out during this time—"The Cage" pilot filmed in late 1964 differs in many respects from the March 1964 treatment. Solow, for example, added the "stardate" concept. Desilu Productions had a first-look deal with CBS. Oscar Katz, Desilu's Vice President of Production, went with Roddenberry to pitch the series to the network. They refused to purchase the show, as they already had a similar program in development, the 1965 Irwin Allen series Lost in Space.
In May 1964, Solow, who had previously worked at NBC, met with Grant Tinker, then head of the network's West Coast programming department. Tinker commissioned the first pilot—which became "The Cage". NBC turned down the resulting pilot, stating that it was "too cerebral". However, the NBC executives were still impressed with the concept, and they understood that its perceived faults had been partly due to the script that they had selected themselves.
NBC made the unusual decision to pay for a second pilot, using the script called "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Only the character of Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, was retained from the first pilot, and only two cast members, Majel Barrett and Nimoy, were carried forward into the series. This second pilot proved to be satisfactory to NBC, and the network selected Star Trek to be in its upcoming television schedule for the fall of 1966.
The second pilot introduced most of the other main characters: Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Chief Engineer Lt. Commander Scott (James Doohan) and Lt. Sulu (George Takei), who served as a physicist on the ship in the second pilot, but subsequently became a helmsman throughout the rest of the series. Paul Fix played Dr. Mark Piper in the second pilot; ship's doctor Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) joined the cast when filming began for the first season, and he remained for the rest of the series, achieving billing as the third star of the series. Also joining the ship's permanent crew during the first season were the communications officer, Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), the first African-American woman to hold such an important role in an American television series; the captain's yeoman, Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), who departed midway through the first season; and Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett), the ship's nurse and assistant to McCoy. Walter Koenig joined the cast as Ensign Pavel Chekov in the series' second season. Majel Barrett is also Gene Roddenberry's wife. She was the voice of the computer in Star Trek: The Next Generation, amogst other series. She also played Lwaxana Troi, mother of Next Gen's Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis).
In February 1966, before the first episode was aired, Star Trek was nearly canceled by Desilu Productions. Desilu had gone from making just one half-hour show (The Lucy Show) to deficit-financing a portion of two expensive hour-long shows, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek."How Lucille Ball Made Star Trek Happen" (September 8, 2013). BadAssDigest.com (Birth.Movies.Death). Solow was able to convince Lucille Ball that both shows should continue.
Production
Once the series had been picked up by NBC, the production moved to what was then Desilu Productions' Gower Street location. It had previously been the main studio complex used by RKO Pictures and is now part of the Paramount Pictures lot. The series used what are now stages 31 and 32. The show's production staff included art director Matt Jefferies, who designed the starship Enterprise and most of its interiors. His contributions to the series were honored in the name of the "Jefferies tube", an equipment shaft depicted in various Star Trek series. In addition to working with his brother, John Jefferies, to create the hand-held phaser weapons of Star Trek, Jefferies also developed the set design for the bridge of the Enterprise (which was based on an earlier design by Pato Guzman). Jefferies used his practical experience as an airman during World War II and his knowledge of aircraft design to devise a functional and ergonomic bridge layout.
The costume designer for Star Trek, Bill Theiss, created the look of the Starfleet uniforms for the Enterprise crew as well as the costumes for female guest stars and for various aliens, including the Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans, Tellarites, Andorians, and Gideonites.
Artist and sculptor Wah Chang, who had worked for Walt Disney Productions, was hired to design and manufacture props: he created the flip-open communicator, often credited as having influenced the configuration of the portable version of the cellular telephone. Chang also designed the portable sensing-recording-computing "tricorder" device, and various fictitious devices for the starship's engineering crew and its sick bay. As the series progressed, he helped to create various memorable aliens, such as the Gorn and the Horta.
Season 1 (1966–1967)
NBC ordered 16 episodes of Star Trek, besides "Where No Man Has Gone Before". The first regular episode of Star Trek, "The Man Trap", aired on Thursday, September 8, 1966, from 8:30 to 9:30 as part of an NBC "sneak preview" block. Reviews were mixed; while The Philadelphia Inquirer and San Francisco Chronicle liked the new show, The New York Times and The Boston Globe were less favorable, and Variety predicted that it "won't work", calling it "an incredible and dreary mess of confusion and complexities". Debuting against mostly reruns, Star Trek easily won its time slot with a 40.6 share."The numbers game, part one". Broadcasting. September 19, 1966: 58–60. The following week against new programming, however, the show fell to second (29.4 share) behind CBS. It ranked 33rd (out of 94 programs) over the next two weeks, then the following two episodes ranked 51st in the ratings.Gowran, Clay. "Nielsen Ratings Are Dim on New Shows". Chicago Tribune. October 11, 1966: B10.Gould, Jack. "How Does Your Favorite Rate? Maybe Higher Than You Think". The New York Times. October 16, 1966: 129.