Finally finished them all in chronological order for the first time in my life.
A few observations:
1) In my opinion, the only reason this show became the after-cancellation phenomenon it did was because of how the characters developed over time. The writing, the plots, the production all take a back seat to dialogue between the main characters.
In its infancy, that development began to take shape almost immediately - but not immediately. As it went on, the details of those interactions became magical. In any other context, those actors working together might not have worked as well. But in the context of this show, they were able to create brilliance.
I agree that the actors had some of the best chemistry ever and that was in spite of practically all of them really disliking Shatner as a person. That little bit of reality was a central plot point for the Star Trek parody movie, "Galaxy Quest" where all of the characters despised the one portrayed by Tim Allen.
However, I will have to take issue with the writing. The dialogue between the characters did come from the screenplays and not a few of those screenplays were penned by some very good sci-fi writers. And I do mean very good as in award-winning and best selling sci-fi writers.
2) Plot/storyline inconsistencies just weren't as big a deal back then as they are now. Spock started out as "Vulcanian" and later became Vulcan. He started out having "an ancestor" that was human, which eventually became his mother. Little things like that cropped up pretty regularly, particularly between seasons 1 and 2.
This is not unusual for shows of that era****. For a show to have consistency it is required to have a "bible" which should then be adhered to strictly. A lot of the shows for this era didn't have a bible (or instead they had a pamphlet that might have been used to pitch the show to the network)...the writers just winged it** and that is where the inconsistencies flourish.
Another thing to consider is that Roddenberry poured everything he had into the pilot. He didn't pen any scripts for what happened after the first episode so when the show finally got green lighted he had to scramble to come up with the scripts.
3) Season one was a "feeling out" season. By the end of it, the characters were becoming developed, and the show hit its stride. Season two was the "hello, we now have a budget" season, marked by improvement is set quality, writing, special effects, and guest-star talent. Season three continued along the same trajectory as season two, but there were several episodes that seemed pretty "phoned in" by everyone involved besides the actors. The writing suffered, the plots suffered, and throwaway episodes began to appear.
4) Chekov and Sulu as a duo did not exist in season one, was most consistent in season two, and was intermittent in season three. The "lore" would have us believe that the dynamic tan-shirt duo was a fixture in the series, but that is hardly so.
5) James Doohan aged dramatically in the three years the show was in production. He looked like a boy when it started, and looked like late 30s when it ended.
Yep, plus take a look at the pilot. The only
character* that made it from the pilot*** to the series was Nimoy. Jeffrey Hunter was the original captain of the Enterprise but declined to continue the part when it got green lighted. Also note in the pilot how emotional Spock was...very un-Vulcanlike, indeed. Another bit of trivia...they got Kirk's middle initial wrong on the
second pilot...I'm thinking it was inscribed as James R. Kirk on a tombstone.[/quote]
6) I never realized before just how ridiculously heavily the show relied on the "unexplainable Earth culture parallel" until I watched the show in sequence and rapid succession. From Nazi Germany, to Roman Empire, to East/West proxy wars, to 1920's gangland, the show incessantly expects us to believe that somehow human culture was transplanted onto alien worlds. While it allowed for sci-fi exploration of parallels to the real world, it comes across as pure laziness and lack of original thought when viewed in succession. And aside from that, humans seem to populate every corner of the galaxy. At least TNG, DS9, and other subsequent Star Trek series/movies bothered to add prosthetics to indicate alien life forms. I realize that those production values didn't exist - but then again, they were able to create the Horta; the Rock Monster; the Companion; the Gorn; the Talosians, and MANY other cool looking aliens. Again, it seems like reliance on finding human beings everywhere was just laziness, or perhaps budget-driven.
I remember once seeing an interview with Nichelle Nichols where she said that halfway through the first season she claimed to have gotten Roddenberry to admit, privately, that pretty much all of the episodes were nothing more than morality plays in a futuristic setting. That, if true, explains the sometimes goofy plots.
7) The music was brilliant, and essential to the success of the show. End of story.
In summation, say what you want about Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, and some of the rest. That trio of actors worked together perfectly, and created an entire subculture. The world could no more be unchanged by the phenomenon of Star Trek than it could be unchanged by Rock-n-Roll music.
Star Trek most definitely made a huge pop cultural impact on our media and in a lot of other places, as well. I still like the original series the best.
*Roddenberry's wife played the first officer in the pilot but moved into McCoy's head nurse position for the series.
**You will have to take my word for it on some of this stuff. I heard Roddenberry talk about this stuff when he gave a keynote address at a mini Trek meeting I once went to. My memory might not be accurate about exactly what he said but this is how I remember it.
All color copies of the pilot were destroyed in a fire or something. At the mini Trek meeting that I attended they had a black and white version that they ran in its entirety before Roddenberry came out to talk. You can still see the color version, though, as flashbacks in the episode entitled "The Menagerie."
BTW...ever see the movie, "Forbidden Planet" with Leslie Nielsen in the lead position? Roddenberry got a lot of ideas from that film. I also thought that the Klingons were a very unsubtle metaphor for the Soviets.
****See practically every sci-fi episode ever created by Irwin Allen (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants). Only after Star Trek aired did writers become more serious about series' bibles, consistency, etc. due to the advent of Trek conventions and Trekkies "knowing" everything (again, see Galaxy Quest for the parody) about the details of the ship, weapons, etc.
