Star Trek was a pop culture phenomenon, and folks either hated it or loved it. I find myself amongst the latter population. I really like Gene Roddenberry's vision for our future.
From the original pilot episode, with Jeffery Hunter as Captain Pike, to the last installment of Enterprise, not to mention the motion pictures, there was something special about Star Trek. It mostly boils down to the creative brilliance of Roddenberry, but there were other factors as well. Please follow after the fold to go where no Kossack has gone before.
The first pilot, "The Cage", was shot in 1964 and was revolutionary. First of all, it was in color. (The original was in color, but many parts were lost. The black and white version is the only extant complete version of it, but it has been colorized). Desilu Studios shot it, and they were already in trouble because of the imminent divorce of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. If you watch the credits closely, you can see them just before the Paramount credit. Paramount bought out Desilu in, as I recall, 1968.
What made "The Cage" revolutionary consisted of several things. In my opinion, the most important was that the crew of the Enterprise were multiracial and multicultural, pretty much never before seen on the TeeVee. They even had an alien species in a command position. Of course, that alien was Mr. Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, and he was only half alien, as the story played out later.
That was fine, it was science fiction. What stuck in the craw of NBC was that the second in command was (GASP) a woman! "Number One", incidentally a term not used again until Star Trek: the Next Generation for the second command, was played by Majel Barrett, who later became Mrs. Gene Roddenberry. There was never a reference to her name in the pilot other than Number One.
One has to remember, and many of you are much too young to do so, that this was all taking place during times when marches were being done by the disenfranchised. Folks were literally being killed in the streets for supporting equal rights for minorities (at the time, mostly black folks). This show was subversive. The pilot never aired in its original form. In the second season of Star Trek, the color prints were used in the episode "The Menagerie", the only two part story of the original series.
Now to the morality part of it, and this is important. In "The Cage", amplified in "The Menagerie", it was shown that it was merit on the Enterprise, not sex nor race, that distinguished people. The aliens from Talos IV were not monsters, but just a few remaining beings desperate to continue existence. And, learning from their experiences, they showed mercy, even though it would be the end of their people. This is important.
In "The Cage", they allowed Vena to return and keep the illusion that she was young and beautiful, and even created the illusion of Pike to be with her. In fact, on that storyline, she was very old, disfigured, and dying. But the Talosians showed mercy. In "The Menagerie", they took Pike, disabled and disfigured from radiation burns, and gave him the illusion that he was young and fit. So both Vena and Pike, as the story goes, lived out their days in comfort, at least in their own minds. Sort of like dope, I think.
The morality is that no one did any harm, at least after they had learned about each other. This is the genius of Roddenberry. As I remember, there is a phrase attributed to him that says essentially: "in infinite diversity there is uniform harmony". Well, no, I wrote that one myself, but I think that it is in keeping with his philosophy.
If there is enough interest, I will post about my take of the wonderful vision of Star Trek from time to time. Always remember, every time you flip open your cell phone, the phrase, "Beam me up!". Many scientists retiring now were stimulated by Star Trek, and let us hope they watch reruns for a new generation.
Warmest regards,
Doc