Star Trek: The Original Series and Its Bold Impact

For fans of science fiction and TV series, I would like to start a collection of the biggest TV series in this genre over the years. Being a fan of this genre myself, I have my own preferences of course, and I hope not to be influenced by this, because every successful series, and there are many, has something unique about it that has affected the audience in different ways.

Star Trek, the classic series, I think is the first great science fiction TV series, and watching episodes today that go back more than 50 years, certainly the special effects are not what we are used to watching today's TV series, but they were certainly pioneering and they were able to influence not only the public but also scientific research, with technological objects that have become commonplace today such as mobile phones, space shuttles and satellites.

The opening sentence of each episode is beautiful: ‘Space, the final frontier. Here are the voyages of the starship Enterprise on its five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, in search of other life forms and new civilisations, to go where no man has gone before'.

The series has been described by its creator, Gene Roddenberry, as a caravan to the stars, is set in the 23rd century and narrates the space adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew in a hypothetical future in which the inhabitants of Earth have united in the United Earth World Government and come into contact with other sentient life forms, eventually forming with them the United Federation of Planets.

In this series, as in all those belonging to the Star Trek saga, humans achieved a better existence based on the cooperation of all human beings, without distinction of sex or race, without war or money, which was abolished by reverting to barter.

Without famine as the replicators provide all that is needed and without disease as medical science has made incredible progress. So the only enemies come from space, and then, alien races, unknown planets and rescue missions are the challenges faced by the mythical Captain Kirk and his crew.

A little history of this series. The first Star Trek episode had Captain Pike as its captain, but the episode was considered to be unadventurous and Captain Pike very melancholic, so a second version of the pilot episode was filmed with Captain Kirk proving to be up to the task.

His character is impulsive, but brave and just, not backing down in the face of danger and ready to sacrifice himself for his own ideals and those of the Federation. Captain Kirk considers the members of his crew his family and Spock, McCoy and Scott his best friends.

Spock is the most unique character in the series. Vulcan by birth, but the son of a Vulcan and an Earthling, and as such he took from his father the perfect command of emotions, but from his mother his emotional side.

He is also remembered for his unique way of greeting, dividing his fingers to form a V and the beautiful wish: ‘long life and prosperity’, and for his pointed ears, typical of Vulcans. On the Enterprise he is the science officer, a valuable aid to the captain especially at times when logic and rationality become essential to the success of the mission.

During this series an interracial kiss was televised for the first time, that between Captain Kirk and the beautiful Uhura, the communications officer. A kiss that risked being censored, but was instead a message of love and equality whispered on the tip of the lips that made a lot of headlines in those very different years for race relations.

But Star Trek contained many innovative elements and explosive messages, just think that apart from Spock who was even from another planet, the crew included a Scotsman, a Japanese, a Russian and a black woman.

It was also the forerunner of technologies that have been taken up by many other films and television series such as teleportation and time travel. The strength of the Star Trek characters in my opinion is their humanity, they are not superheroes, they are normal people who may make mistakes, but give it their all, people with whom we can identify, but from whom we can draw examples of honesty, friendship and fraternity.