Star Trek: The Original Series

Template:Realworld{| class="wiki-sidebar" |- ! colspan="2" | Star Trek: The Original Series |- | class="sb-both" colspan="2" | |- | class="sb-left" | Abbr.: | class="sb-right" | TOS |- | class="sb-left" | Created by: | class="sb-right" | Gene Roddenberry |- | class="sb-left" | Studio: | class="sb-right" | Desilu |- | class="sb-left" | Original network: | class="sb-right" | NBC |- | class="sb-left" | Production dates: | class="sb-right" | 1966–1969 |- | class="sb-left" | Original run: | class="sb-right" | 8 September 1966–3 June 1969 |- | class="sb-left" | Episodes: | class="sb-right" | 79 (3 seasons), 1 unaired pilot |- | class="sb-left" | Timespan: | class="sb-right" | 2265-2269 |- | class="sb-both" colspan="2" | The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) |- | class="sb-both" colspan="2" | The crew during the five-year mission. |}

Star Trek: The Original Series (formally called Star Trek) is the first Star Trek series. The first episode of the show aired on 8 September 1966 on NBC. The show was created by Gene Roddenberry as a Wagon Train to the Stars. Star Trek was set in the 23rd century and featured the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Star Trek was later informally dubbed The Original Series, or TOS, after several spinoffs. The show lasted three seasons until canceled in 1969.

Ten years later, Star Trek: The Motion Picture reunited the cast, aboard a refurbished USS Enterprise, on the big screen. They would appear in five subsequent films, ending with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in 1991, during production of spinoff series Star Trek: The Next Generation and shortly before Gene Roddenberry's death.

• Main Title Theme ^file info (composed by Alexander Courage)

Summary

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Main Cast

Starring

• William Shatner (as Captain Kirk)

Jeffrey Hunter, who portrayed Captain Pike, was the only star listed in the original pilot's opening credits.

Also Starring

• Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock
• and DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy (1967-1969; co-star 1966-1967)

In addition, the following regulars were only listed in the end credits as co-stars:

• James Doohan as Scott
• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
• George Takei as Sulu
• Walter Koenig as Chekov (1967-1969)
• Majel Barrett as Chapel

Production crew

• Gene Roddenberry - Creator, Writer, Producer, Executive Producer
• Gene L. Coon - Writer/Producer
• Walter "Matt" Jefferies - Production Designer, Art Director
• Robert Justman - Producer, Associate Producer, Co-Producer
• D.C. Fontana - Writer, Script Consultant
• John D.F. Black - Associate Producer, writer, Story Editor
• John Meredyth Lucas - Writer/Producer, Director
• Fred Freiberger - Producer
• Claude Binyon, Jr. - Assistant Director (third season)

Episodes

• List of TOS episodes by airdate

First pilot

Template:TOS-Season0

Season 1

TOS Season 1, 29 episodes: Template:TOS-Season1

Season 2

TOS Season 2, 26 episodes: Template:TOS-Season2

Season 3

TOS Season 3, 24 episodes: Template:TOS-Season3

Behind the Scenes

Concept

Star Trek was created by Gene Roddenberry, whose interest in science fiction dated back to the 1940s when he came into contact with Astounding Stories. Roddenberry's first produced science fiction story was The Secret Weapon of 117, which aired in 1956 on the Chevron Theatre anthology show. By 1963 Roddenberry was producing his first television series, The Lieutenant, at MGM.

In 1963, MGM was of the opinion that 'true-to-life' television dramas were becoming less popular and an action-adventure show would be more profitable (this prediction turned out to be right, and led to series as The Man from U.N.C.L.E). Roddenberry had already been working on a science fiction concept called Star Trek since 1960, and when he told MGM about his ideas, they were willing to take a look at them. As the production of The Lieutenant came to an end, Roddenberry delivered his first Star Trek draft to MGM. The studio was, however, not enthusiastic about the concept, and a series was never produced.

Roddenberry tried to sell his "wagon train to the stars" format to several production studios afterwards, but to no avail. In 1964, it was rumored that Desilu was interested in buying a new television series. Desilu was a much smaller company than MGM, but Roddenberry took his chances. This lead to a three-year deal with Desilu in April 1964.

The first attempt to sell the Star Trek format to broadcasting network CBS failed. But in May 1964, NBC's Vice-President of Programming Mort Werner agreed to give Roddenberry the chance to write three story outlines, of which NBC would pick one to turn into a pilot.

One of the submitted storylines, dated 29 June 1964, was an outline for "The Cage", and this was the story picked up by NBC. Now the daunting task that faced Roddenberry and his crew was to develop the Star Trek universe from scratch. Roddenberry recruited many people around him to help in thinking up his version of the future. The RAND Corporation's Harvey P. Lynn acted as a scientific consultant, Pato Guzman was hired as art director, with Matt Jefferies as an assisting production designer. This phase of creativity and brainstorming lasted throughout the summer, until in the last week of September 1964 the final draft of the "The Cage" script was delivered to NBC, after which shooting of the pilot was approved.

The first pilot

In early October, preparations for shooting "The Cage" began. A few changes in the production crew were made: Roddenberry hired Morris Chapnick, who had worked with him on The Lieutenant, as his assistant. Pato Guzman left to return to Chile and was replaced by Franz Bachelin. Matt Jefferies finalized the design for the Enterprise and various props and interiors. By November 1964, the sets were ready to be constructed on stages 14, 15 and 16. Roddenberry was not happy with the stages, since they had uneven floors and were not soundproofed. Eventually, in 1966, the rest of the series was shot on stages 9 and 10, which were in better shape.

Casting of the characters was not a problem, apart from the lead role of Captain Pike (still known as "Captain April" at this point) which Roddenberry convinced Jeffrey Hunter to play. Leonard Nimoy (Spock) had worked with Roddenberry on The Lieutenant. The extras were cast from a diversity of ethnic groups, which was significant because integration was not a usual occurrence in 1960s television, and segregation was still a reality in the United States.

To produce the pilot episode, Bob Justman was hired as assistant director; he had worked on The Outer Limits shortly before. Jerry Finnerman was hired as camera operator, but eventually became director of photography later in the series. Makeup artist Fred Phillips was brought in as well, whose first job it was to create Spock's ears. On 27 November 1964, the first scenes of "The Cage" (or "The Menagerie," as it was briefly known), were shot. Shooting the pilot took twelve days.

But there were still a lot of visual effects to be made. An eleven-foot filming model of the USS Enterprise, designed by Matt Jefferies, was built by Richard Datin, Mel Keys and Vernon Sion in Volmer Jensen's model shop, and was delivered to the Howard Anderson Company on 29 December 1964.

In February 1965, the final version of "The Cage" was delivered at NBC and screened in New York City. NBC officials liked the first pilot. Desilu's Herb Solow says that NBC was surprised by how realistic it looked, and that it was "the most fantastic thing we've ever seen." The reason the pilot was rejected was because it was believed that it would attract only a small audience, and they wanted more action and adventure. They also had problems with the "satanic" Spock. However, NBC was convinced that Star Trek could be made into a television series, and that NBC itself had been at fault for choosing the "The Cage" script from the original three stories pitched. NBC then made the unprecedented move to order a second pilot.

Background

• Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics for the "Theme from Star Trek" in order to secure a partial writer's credit for the song. These lyrics were never recorded as part of the original theme song, and thus were never aired.

• Due to the overall length of the episodes of the original series, several minutes of each episode are usually cut during the show's re-runs, notably on the Sci-Fi Channel. Starting in April 2006, the G4 network began airing the full length episodes in "Uncut Marathons" on Saturdays. G4 stopped airing these full-length versions in November 2006, and has discontinued its run of Star Trek 2.0, which was a trivia-oriented and interactive version of the show for the viewers. G4 currently runs episodes on Mondays from 9 am to 4 pm (ET), possibly uncut. The TV Land cable channel in the United States began nightly airings of The Original Series on November 20, 2006, beginning with "The Man Trap". Episodes are now scheduled to be run Mondays through Fridays; at 6 am (ET), but are occasionally pre-empted.
• Star Trek inadvertently created a split infinitive in its opening tagline: "To boldly go where no man/one has gone before." This fact was memorably highlighted by Cambridge-educated sci-fi writer and satirist Douglas Adams who wrote in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that, "all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldy split infinitives that no man had split before, and thus was the Empire forged." The pilot episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, "Broken Bow", has Zefram Cochrane delivering that line in a recorded speech with the split infinitive now corrected to "to go boldly." The English rule forbidding split infinitives is imported from Latin grammar (it is quite impossible to split the infinitive form of a verb in Latin with an adverb, since it is a single word), and its legitimacy is questioned by many modern writers.
• The Original Series has been nominated for and won a number of awards over the years. Some of the awards include:
  • The series was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards during its run, but did not win any.
  • It was nominated eight times for the "Best Dramatic Presentation" Hugo Award, sweeping the nominees in 1968. It won twice, and Roddenberry won a special award in 1968.
  • The 2003 "Pop Culture Award" in the TV Land Awards.
  • The 2005 Saturn Award for "Best DVD Retro Television Release."

Remastered

A shot from the revamped intro

Comparison of effect shots. Up: original, down: remastered

On 31 August 2006, CBS Paramount Television announced that, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, the show would be returning to broadcast syndication for the first time in sixteen years. Beginning with "Balance of Terror", each of the series' 79 episodes will be digitally remastered with all new visual effects and music. The refurbished episodes have been converted from the original film to a high-definition format similar to that used on Star Trek: Enterprise. The opening theme has been re-recorded in digital stereo with new vocals by Elin Carlson, and William Shatner's opening monologue has been remastered from the original elements. Most notably, though, many of the special effects have been recreated using computer-generated imagery by CBS Digital. The opening credits sequence has been revamped, several matte paintings have received a CGI face-lift, and spaceship exteriors including the Romulan Bird-of-Prey and the Klingon battle cruiser have been recreated using state-of-the-art digital effects. The new computer-generated Enterprise is based on the exact measurements of the original model, which is now on display in the gift shop of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

In Template:Brokenlink, project supervisor Michael Okuda said, "We're taking great pains to respect the integrity and style of the original... Our goal is to always ask ourselves: What would Roddenberry have done with today's technology?" Denise Okuda and Dave Rossi have also been involved with this relaunch of the original series; Niel Wray is the visual effects supervisor. A Q & A with the production staff was posted by StarTrek.com on 6 September 2006. A video preview and interviews with people involved in the project can be viewed by clicking the link to the left of the page.

The "new" Star Trek debuted 16 September 2006. See side-by-side comparisons of the new visual effects from the first episode broadcast, "Balance of Terror".

The first few episodes were rushed, as CBS only gave its team "one month to deliver the first two episodes with over 120 new effects shots." Starting with "The Trouble with Tribbles", a new, improved Enterprise model was used. Members of the effects team have commented that they may go back to the earlier episodes and re-render the ship scenes with the new model. [1] [2]

When TOS cast member Leonard Nimoy heard about these changes in special effects, Nimoy simply responded "Shame on them" for changing the effects, saying that it was "out-of-bounds" for them to do that. However, after viewing a remastered episode, reportedly he was quoted saying, "I'm amazed." [3]

The seasons were to be released in an HD-DVD/DVD combination set, with season one released in November 2007. The release of seasons two and three were cancelled in February 2008 due to the decline of HD-DVD's in comparison to rival format Blu-Ray. However, the second season will be released on regular DVD on 5 August 2008. [4] Select episodes are also available through Apple's iTunes Store and Microsoft's XBox 360 Video Marketplace.

CBS Digital wrapped up their visual effects work on TOS Remastered just before midnight on 21 April 2008. The last episode they worked on was the show's first pilot, "The Cage". The last shot rendered was of the Enterprise "sailing off into the unknown at the end of the episode." [5]

Related topics

• TOS performers
• TOS recurring characters
• Main character crossover appearances
• Composers
• TOS directors
• Desilu Stage 9
• Desilu Stage 10

Media

• Star Trek: The Original Series on VHS
• Star Trek: The Original Series on DVD
• Star Trek: The Original Series soundtracks

External links

• Star Trek: The Original Series at Wikipedia
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• Template:IMDb-link