Updated: May 16, 2024

The original Trek series established, within it's brief 3-year span, the panorama of an ever-expanding Federation of planets & civilizations, of which Earth was, in the 23rd century, a founding member ( tho the audience never saw Earth during this run, except in time travel stories back to our 20th century ). This series also presented mankind as, first & foremost, explorers, embodied by the trio of dynamic captain James T. Kirk ( Shatner ), his number two, science officer Spock ( Nimoy ) and irascible but kindly Dr.McCoy ( Kelley ) - but Spock was, of course, an alien ( a Vulcan ), an example of the alliances Earth held with many extraterrestrial races. They operated from a magnificent starship, Enterprise ( one of several such ships in Starfleet ), with a crew of about 400. Creator Roddenberry used the series as a platform to address many social & political concerns of the time. The general consensus of most familiar with the show is that the 1st & 2nd years were superior; the 3rd suffered in the writing & budget dept's.

The best episodes: "City on the Edge of Forever"-Kirk almost sacrifices Earth's history for the love of a woman. Almost, and he might I've done so had he known her a little longer; "Mirror, Mirror" 4 members of the crew switch places with their counterparts in a parallel universe, where the Federation is a hostile Empire; "Space Seed" the crew awaken Khan, an old-time conqueror boosted by eugenics, who returned in the 2nd Trek film ( "The Wrath of Khan" ); "Arena" Kirk battles a lizardian captain of an unfriendly race on a desolate asteroid; "The Naked Time" the crew lose their inhibitions, back when this was original; "This Side of Paradise" another one with everyone affected emotionally and forgetting their mission; "The Trouble With Tribbles" hugely entertaining romp on a space station; "Shore Leave" another romp on a weird planet; "Journey to Babel"-Enterprise hosts ambassadors, Spock's parents included, dealing with intrigue & politics; "Where No Man Has Gone Before" the 2nd pilot which green-lit the series and the 1st with normal humans acquiring godlike powers; "The Enemy Within" examines duality of human nature; "The Doomsday Machine" space epic about a huge alien weapon destroying planets; "Amok Time" detailed look into Vulcan customs; "Balance of Terror" warships testing each other in space, introducing the aggressive Romulan race; "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" answering all questions on androids; and "The Devil in the Dark" which shows you cannot judge monsters by appearance.

As the list above demonstrates, all the concepts we have come to know in later films and series ( Next Generation,Deep Space 9,Voyager ) were laid out just fine in the late '60s by some inventive writing (the first film to follow this, for example, merely reworked the episode "The Changeling" with a $50 million budget ). The 2nd season also ended with a pilot for an unrealized spin-off "Assignment:Earth" which would have focused on human agent of aliens 'Gary-7' in the present day. It was back then, also, that omnipotent beings, such as "The Squire of Gothos" and the Organians ( "Errand of Mercy"-which introduced Klingons ) popped up to work miracles. The final 3rd season show ended things on a hysterical note as Kirk's body was taken over by an unbalanced woman - quite unPC these days but nonetheless intriguing & entertaining. The series was followed 4 years later by an animated version, which took place during the same mission. Finally, I'm still struck, or starstruck, by how, after all this time, it was this show that convinced me we really were on a huge ship traveling in space - more so than the later sophisticated shows ( TNG ) or the movies. Yes, the original is still the best, and it's easy to see why.