Star Trek: The Original Series

 

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before!

Been watching the Star Trek-series on Netflix to catch up on my gaps in the Sci-Fi pantheon. Only watched one of the original series episodes before when it was on TV as a kid, and it was the episode Who Cries for Adonis? about a manifestation of the ancient greek gods that apparently are aliens. I watched Stargate SG1 when I was at university so I'm not new to that idea. So now I've seen the whole original series... and it hasn't aged that well. Interesting concept, but just the start up jingle of the Star Trek theme makes me wonder what this is. And I can't argue that there is some interesting things like Kirk and Spock dressing up as Nazi after a Federation observer gone rouge and turned a whole world into Nazi-Germany. Now, it was the 60's so it's a bit naive, but I wonder why an historian from earth gotta emulate the third reich in all its regalia? Now, also, it's not the Nazi's that made the early success of Germany in the second world war possible, but the structure of the German Wehrmacht.

I found that the humancentric episodes are a bit similar with gangster and roman legions or time traveling to the 1920's that they blend together in my mind. And then we have the technology. It might have been looking like the future in the 60's but it doesn't hold up with push-buttons all over. Also, hardly any emotional punch in any episode. Maybe the one where Kirk is left behind with amnesia and is seen as a god by the natives and is married with one for 2-3 months before she is killed by the natives as he seemed unable to stop a storm that was caused by an asteroid that the Enterprise had to stop. Maybe.

In truth, there is hardly anything worth watching here. The Khan episode so you get the build up to Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan as an exception, but even then I watched the movies during a Star Trek marathon as a kid and I got by fine. And that also screwed me over since I couldn't tell who was who since the colours of the uniforms don't match the Next Generation making Kirk's choice of a... is it green or yellow, look like an engineer.. Well, Spock looks like Spock in any uniform he wears. Then we have Scotty who is clean shaven while in the movies clearly has a mustasch so I can distinguish him from all the others in the movies. So in conclusion, watch the movies instead. Klingons look like Klingons, the uniforms looks better (no mini skirt as I recall) and clearly better stories with emotional punches... in some of them.