40 years ago tonight…

If you were sitting at home on the evening of Thursday, September 8 1966, what might you be doing? Well, if you were watching TV, you might be watching Daniel Boone on NBC, then in its third season. Daniel Boone was a successful show which ran until 1970.

But if you stayed on NBC after your show was over, you’d be viewing a brand new show. It starred a Canadian – a former Shakespearean actor from Montreal. The episode was The Man Trap, an adventure with a love story from an unusual sci-fi point of view. A doctor was visiting his old love, accompanied by friends from his star ship – the Enterprise. That’s right – 40 years ago today, Star Trek made its debut.

Star Trek was not to be as successful as Daniel Boone. It was almost cancelled after two seasons, due to poor ratings. In the end, it only ran for three seasons, being cancelled in 1969. The network then watched in horror as it became one of the most popular shows of all time.

The next series, Star Trek The Next Generation (1987-1994), soon became the number one syndicated show on TV. Today, now owned by Paramount, Star Trek is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s still being watched all over the world, with two series showing regularly on Mexican TV. Six TV series, 10 feature films, hundreds of novels and computer games later, the franchise has impacted culture in numerous ways.

NASA’s Enterprise, named after Star Trek’s ship

Star Trek has had its good sides and bad sides. Its creator, Gene Roddenberry, believed that religion was a superstition that was holding back the human race. And so Star Trek began the impossible task of creating a universe without God. Of course, many of the ethics were common to the Christian worldview – the equality of humankind, kindness, and loyalty. But humans were really the gods, with no sinful nature that couldn’t be overcome without science, education and technology.

On the upside, Star Trek made society take a look at itself from a different angle. It’s allowed philosophies of all kinds to question themselves in positive ways. Christianity, the clash between religion and science, the pros and cons of emotion, the value of diversity – these and many other issues were explored.

In addition, the famous technology in Trek has been the inspiration for many modern devices. Even today, new devices are being developed, such as tricorder type devices (multi-use scanning devices), and even transporters (no, you can’t call Scotty to beam you up yet, but in recent years there’s been new hope that such a device would be possible).

Today, an 11th Star Trek movie is being planned. Who knows where the franchise will go from here? No doubt where no man … er … no one has gone before…

For more, check the article 40 years later, Star Trek lives long and prospers.