Star Trek: The Original Series and Commentary by Annika Noel

Star Trek is a very famous franchise that has been around since 1966. The Original Series which had 3 seasons and 6 additional movies started the franchise off. It originally didn’t have a very big following. It was a low budget and low expectation show that had a small but dedicated following. As its popularity grew, even after it was canceled, the 6 movies were made. Later on, in 1987, Star Trek the Next Generation came out and that was extremely popular during its 7 season run time. There have been 6 other star trek series in addition to the original series and the next generation but as amazing as sci-fi and aliens are, Star Trek isn’t just famous for its storylines and dedicated fan base, it's famous for its cultural impact. 

Star Trek is definitely very nerdy and there is a lot of it to keep track of. Additionally, as much as I will praise it and watch it, it has definitely had its bad moments. But aside from that Star Trek has been revolutionary in its content and message for a very long time- since the 60s even. Because of The Original Series’s low attention and low viewership at the time, the show could go where most other shows at the time couldn't- around the censors and around the producers enough to get really progressive (for the time) things on TV. 

Possibly the biggest and most influential moment I can name from this series is from the episode “Plato’s Children'' from 1968. In the episode, William Shatner (Captain Kirk) and Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Nyota Uhura) had the first interracial kiss ever shown on television. There is even a story surrounding the filming of this episode that they filmed two versions: one with the kiss and one without in case it was too controversial but Shatner intentionally messed up the non-kiss scene in order to get the first interracial kiss on a television screen. 

The show’s actors were surprisingly diverse for the time period as well. Not only was there an Asian actor, George Takei, who later went on to be a famous civil rights activist for the LGBT+ community, but Nichelle Nichols was a black actress who was also a main character on the show. Not only were they on the show in the first place but they also played very positive roles with almost no stereotyping. Whoopi Goldberg famously wanted to be on the next Star Trek series, The Next Generation, because she was inspired by Nichelle Nichols in the original series. The two main actors of the show, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were also Jewish and in an antisemitic environment like Hollywood, they, especially, Nimoy faced antisemitism. Nimoy went on to fight antisemitism after the Original Series and faced controversy for some of the things he did. 

The show might have been overall progressive for the time but it was still deeply flawed. The representation of women on Star Trek: The Original Series was often very sexualized and heavily relied on stereotypes about women for the episodes. Most female actresses on the show had to wear revealing clothes either in their uniforms or other clothes. The show did do a good job showing very competent women working in scientific and medical fields, and showed women being experts in whatever field they were in, in a way most shows at the time didn’t; still, women on the Orignal Series often faced diminishing stereotypes and representations. 

The plots of the episodes also contained progressive and controversial opinions and metaphors. Some allusions were so obvious that it's cringe-worthy like the episode where the crew members try to mediate a fight between an alien species in which one half of the population hates the other because of their skin color, but even then the show was still trying its best to get a good message out there. There were anti-war episodes in the time of the Cold War and Vietnam war. Some episodes were just plain weird but for the most part, it was full of messages on how to treat others, peace, and inclusivity. 

The series after it like the Next Generation or Deep Space Nine have also covered some very controversial topics like sexuality, gender, education, religion, and war. Though the other series have done an awe-inspiring job of putting new ideas and viewpoints out in front of an audience, Star Trek the original series came first and paved the way for a more progressive future, both in real life and in sci-fi. It was by no means perfect, but still the original series was amazing for its time period.