Star Trek

     Theatrical poster . . .  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by the late Eugene Wesley “Gene” Roddenberry and currently under the ownership of CBS, a television broadcasting company.

The franchise began in 1966 with the television series Star Trek later referred to as Star Trek: The Original Series. This series and its spin-off shows: Star Trek: The Animated Series; Star Trek: The Next Generation; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Star Trek: Voyager; and Star Trek: Enterprise, as well as several full length feature films make up the franchise’s multiple programing events.

In 1964, Roddenberry proposed the original Star Trek TV series, to Desilu Studios as being “like Wagon Train, a Wagon Train to the stars.”   The network rejected the show’s first pilot program titled, “The Cage”, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike; however, NBC executives, were captivated with the general concept, and made the uncommon decision to commission a second pilot; titled “Where No Man Has Gone Before”.

Two years after Roddenberry made his Star Trek proposal, the first regular episode aired on Thursday evening on September 8, 1966. The show initially enjoyed high ratings, but the average rating of the show by the end of its first season dropped to 52^nd out of the 94 programs it was being pitted against.

Disappointed with the show’s ratings, NBC threatened to cancel the show during its second season, however the show’s fan base, led by Betty Jo “Bjo” Trimble (a well-known science fiction enthusiast), lead / orchestrated an unparalleled letter-writing movement, begging the network to keep the show on the air.  NBC caved and renewed the show, but to the disappointment of many, elected to move it from Thursday night primetime to the “Friday night death slot” which is perceived as a graveyard slot in American television, referring to the idea that a television program in the U S scheduled on Friday evenings is destined for certain death.  To made matters worse the programs budget was reduced significantly.   Despite the protests from a renewed letter-writing campaign, NBC canceled the series after production of the 3^rd season.

Following Star Trek’s cancellation, Paramount Studios (currently owned / controlled by CBS), the company that had acquired Desilu in 1967, sold the Star Trek syndication rights to help recoup the original series’ production losses.  Reruns began in the fall of 1969 and as a result, by the late 1970’s the series was being aired in a little over 150 domestic markets and at least 60 international markets. This was a big help in developing a Star Trek cult following that ultimately gave rise a greater following than the series had experienced during its original run. This newborn success was instrumental in leading to rumors of reviving the TV series.

Filmation Associates (a production company noted for producing animation) and Paramount Television produced the first post original series TV show, it was called: Star Trek; The Animated Series. It ran on NBC for 22, thirty minute episodes, for two seasons on Saturday mornings: 1973 & 1974.

Paramount Pictures and Roddenberry began development of a new series: Star Trek: Phase II, you might say, in May of 1975; this being in response to the franchise’s newfound popularity. In any event, work on the series ended when the proposed Paramount Television Service failed.

Following the success of the science fiction movies Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the studio at Paramount adapted the planned pilot episode of Phase II into the feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film opened in North America on December 7, 1979, with mixed reviews from critics. The film only earned $139 million worldwide, somewhat lower than expectations, but enough for Paramount to create a sequel.

The production and success of the critically acclaimed sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan would reverse the fortunes of the fledging franchise. Although the sequel grossed less than the first movie, The Wrath of Khan had lower production costs which in turn made it net more money. Due to this happy turn of events, Paramount produced six Star Trek feature films between 1979 and 1991.  The popularity of Star Trek’s feature films prompted the franchise to return to television with Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) in 1987.

The success and role as “the bread winner” for the studio when other projects failed placed Star Trek into “the franchise” category at Paramount.  The Next Generation series TV had the highest ratings of all other Star Trek series and became first among syndicated programing during the latter years of its original run of 7 seasons. In response to The Next Generation’s success, Paramount released a spin-off series Deep Space Nine (DS-9) in 1993. Although never as popular as The Next Generation (TNG), the ratings for DS-9 were good enough for it to last 7 seasons.

In January 1995, a few months after TNG ended, Paramount released a fourth TV series it titled Voyager; it also ran for seven (7) seasons until 2001.  Following the Voyager series there was Enterprise, a TV prequel to the original show.   However, Enterprise didn’t experience the high ratings of its predecessors; when cancellation was threatened after the series’ 3^rd season, just as you’d expect, fans quickly launched a campaign reminiscent of the one that saved the third season of the Original Series back in the 1960 era. Although Paramount renewed Enterprise for a fourth season; it was moved to the Friday night death slot and like the original Star Trek series,  the ratings dropped during this time slot, so Enterprise was canceled at the end of its fourth season.

Six television productions make up the bulk of the Star Trek programing series; including the Original Star Trek, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise . . . Totaling 716 various Star Trek episodes, spread across 30 TV seasons.

Paramount has produced / released eleven (11) Star Trek feature films; the most recent was released in May 2009.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released on      December 7, 1979 and the next five films continue the adventures of the cast of The Original TV Series; the seventh film, titled Star Trek: Generations was designed as a transition from the first cast to that of The Next Generation television series; the next 3 films, 8, 9, and 10, focused entirely on the cast of Next Generation. The eleventh film will be titled Star Trek, it’s a prequel / reboot of the original series set in an alternate timeline before James T. Kirk’s graduation from the Starfleet Academy and prior to his promotion to the rank of Captain; it’s currently scheduled to be released in early May of 2013. A twelfth film, Star Trek into Darkness, is currently in post-production and is targeted for release in Mid-May of 2013.

As you would expect, weapons are a large part of the Star Trek fictional universe.  Most science enthusiasts are not surprised that as in most science fiction franchises, the writers focus on energy and projectile armaments to heighten the concept of futuristic technology. The energy arena includes (but is not limited to) such futuristic weapons as Disrupters, Phasers (both of the hand held & Star Ship variety), lasers, and one of my favorites the Ferengi Energy Whip, as seen in the “The Last Outpost” episode of TNG; it looks and handles like your typical Earth bullwhip but it discharges a powerful energy pulse when properly implemented  . . .  A few of the best known Projectile Weapons include Photon Torpedoes, Isokinetic Cannons, and a lesser known weapon: theTR-116 Projectile Rifle.

If you are one of the few that consider such weaponry as absolute folly, you should be aware that for several years now, the U.S. military has explored a new kind of firepower that is instantaneous, precise and virtually inexhaustible. Such research & development is now ongoing with beams of electromagnetic energy or “Directed-energy” pulses. Such technology can be regulated up or down depending on the situation, much like the Phasers we’ve seen on “Star Trek” for nearly 50 years; the biggest benefit: the ability to set the weapon to kill or merely to stun.

Believe it or not, such weapons are now nearing maturity.  However logistical / tactical issues have delayed their introduction to the battlefield; even while soldiers in places like war torn Afghanistan encounter hostile urban situations in which such nonlethal capabilities of directed energy could be used.

On a somewhat milder front, remember when Star Trek first aired in 1966, do you realize that automatic doors that were commonplace on the series were far from being the norm?  You probably don’t know the first automatic door had been installed just six years before in 1960.

In those early days of Star Trek, most of the tech appeared to be pure fantasy or at least impossible to achieve. None the less, many of the concepts exist in some form today, some of which may surprise the average person.

For example Food Synthesizers or Replicators are common in the 23rd Century; food synthesizers instantly replicate food or drinks when a programmed card is entered into the system. While it is still not possible in the 21^st century for a computer program to fabricate a medium well T-Bone, just yet; it is possible to design and fabricate designer food using a 3D printer and edible substances.

The Star Trek “tricorder” analyzes data, records data, and performs sensor scans on the humanoid species rather handily. In short, a medical tricorder is basically used for complete diagnostics in the world of Star Trek.  To date (Jan. 2013) there is no general purpose device that provides the broad capabilities of a Star Trek tricorder, but today’s smartphones are beginning to provide some basic health monitoring actions, such as blood sugar levels and your heart rate.

The last example offered here of many such futuristic devices that are commonplace in Star Trek TV episodes and movies is the ability of the ship’s crew members to interact with computers by using voice commands.

Computerized speech recognition started gaining momentum here on Earth in the late 20^th century (1970’s); that breakthrough was followed by voice recognition which identifies the speaker. Today, speech and voice recognition capabilities are commonplace for smartphones, in automobiles, in the well-equipped ‘smart home’ and of recent date there is now available in the marketplace a voice activated software program that’s capable of replacing the keyboard that most of us use  for typing various documents.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek                                                                                 http://tviv.org/Desilu_Productions                                                                                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_II:_The_Wrath_of_Khan https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Weapons_of_Star_Trek.html                                      http://www.livescience.com/309-military-mulls-star-trek-weapons.html   http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/Star-Trek-Tech-that-Exists-Today/ba-p/7124

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