Star Trek
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Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The franchise began in 1966 with the television series Star Trek later referred to as Star Trek: The Original Series. This series, 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 the film series make up the core of the franchise's mythos. |
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| This series debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons on NBC. These adventures continued in the short-lived Star Trek: The Animated Series and six feature films. Four spin-off television series were eventually produced; Star Trek: The Next Generation, followed the crew of a new Starship Enterprise set a century after the original series; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, set contemporaneously with The Next Generation; and Star Trek: Enterprise, set before the original series, in the early days of human interstellar travel. Four additional The Next Generation feature films were produced. In 2009, the franchise rebooted in the film Star Trek featuring a new cast portraying the crew of the original Enterprise. |
| A sequel of the this film, Star Trek into Darkness, is scheduled for the summer of 2013.The franchise has a wide range of spin-offs including games, novels, toy lines and replicas. Star Trek had a themed attraction in Las Vegas which opened in 1998 and closed in September 2008. At least two museum exhibits of props travel the world. The series has been a cult phenomenon since its beginning. The series has its own full-fledged constructed language, Klingon. Star Trek has permeated pop culture with many references. Several Star Trek parodies and fan productions have been produced. Fans of the franchise are called Trekkies or Trekkers.The original Star Trek series began production under Desilu Productions. With the merger of Desilu into Paramount Pictures, that studio assumed outright ownership of the Star Trek franchise. In 2006, rights transferred to CBS when it took Paramount's TV division as part of its split from Paramount owner Viacom. However, certain aspects such as feature film and DVD distribution rights still remain under the control of Paramount. |
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In 1964, Roddenberry proposed the original Star Trek TV series, to Desilu Studios as "like Wagon Train, a Wagon Train to the stars." The network rejected the show's first pilot, "The Cage", starring Jeffrey Hunter as Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike; however, NBC executives, still impressed with the concept, made the unusual decision to commission a second pilot: |
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After Star Trek's cancellation, Paramount Studios, the company that bought Desilu, sold the syndication rights to Star Trek to help recoup the original series' production losses. Reruns began in the fall of 1969 and by the late 1970s the series aired in over 150 domestic and 60 international markets. |
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| Although short lived, typical for animated productions in that timeslot during that period, the series garnered the franchise's only "Best Series" Emmy Award as opposed to the franchise's later technical ones. Paramount Pictures and Roddenberry began developing a new series, Star Trek: Phase II, in May 1975 in response to the franchise's newfound popularity. However, work on the series ended when the proposed Paramount Television Service folded.Following the success of the science fiction movies Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 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 earned $139 million worldwide, below expectations but enough for Paramount to create a sequel. The studio forced Roddenberry to relinquish creative control of future sequels. |
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The success of the critically acclaimed sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, reversed the fortunes of the franchise. While the sequel grossed less than the first movie, The Wrath of Khan's lower production costs made it net more profit. Paramount produced six Star Trek feature films between 1979 and 1991. In response to the popularity of Star Trek's feature films, the franchise returned to television with Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) in 1987. Paramount chose to distribute it as a first-run syndication show rather than a network show |
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Six television series make up the bulk of the Star Trek mythos: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. All the different versions in total amount to 726 Star Trek episodes across the 30 seasons of the TV series. |
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Star Trek, also known as "TOS" or The Original Series, debuted in the United States on NBC on September 8, 1966.The show tells the tale of the crew of the starship Enterprise and its five-year mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before. |
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| The original 1966–1969 television series featured William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James Doohan as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, and Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov. During the series' original run, it earned several nominations for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and won twice: for the two-parter "The Menagerie" and the Harlan Ellison-written episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". The show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, was not involved in the show during its third and final year of production due to a dispute with NBC, with the exception of having co-authored two episodes produced that year. |
| After three seasons, NBC canceled the show, and the last original episode aired on June 3, 1969, However, the petition near the end of the second season to save the show signed by many Caltech students and its multiple Hugo nominations would indicate that despite low Nielsen ratings, it was highly popular with science fiction fans and engineering students. |
| The series later became popular in reruns and found a cult following.Originally presented under the title Star Trek, it has in recent years become known as Star Trek: The Original Series or as "Classic Star Trek",retronyms that distinguish it from its sequels and the franchise as a whole. |
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Star Trek: The Animated Series, produced by Filmation, ran for two seasons from 1973 to 1974. Most of the original cast performed the voices of their characters from The Original Series, and many of the original series' writers, such as D. C. Fontana, David Gerrold and Paul Schneider, wrote for the series. |
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| While the animated format allowed the producers to create more exotic alien landscapes and life forms, animation errors and liberal reuse of shots and musical cues have tarnished the series' reputation. Although originally sanctioned by Paramount, which owned the Star Trek franchise following its acquisition of Desilu in 1967, Gene Roddenberry often spoke of TAS as non canon.Star Trek writers have used elements of the animated series in later live-action series and movies, and as of June 2007, the Animated Series has references in the library section of the official Startrek.com web site. |
| TAS won Star Trek's first Emmy Award on May 15, 1975. Star Trek TAS briefly returned to television in the mid-1980s on the children's cable network Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon's Evan McGuire greatly admired the show and used its various creative components as inspiration for his short series called Piggly Wiggly Hears A Sound which never aired. Nickelodeon parent Viacom would purchase Paramount in 1994. |
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In the early 1990s, the Sci-Fi Channel also began rerunning TAS. The complete TAS was also released on Laserdisc format during the 1980s. The complete series was first released in the USA on eleven volumes of VHS tapes in 1989. All 22 episodes were released on DVD in 2006. |
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Star Trek: The Next Generation, also known as "TNG", takes place about a century after The Original Series (2364–2370). It features a new starship, the Enterprise-D, and a new crew led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes). |
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| The series introduced alien races new to the Federation as crewmembers, including Deanna Troi, a half-Betazoid counselor played by Marina Sirtis and Worf as the first Klingon officer in Starfleet, played by Michael Dorn. It also featured Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, LeVar Burton as chief engineer Geordi La Forge, the android Data portrayed by Brent Spiner, and Dr. Crusher's son Wesley Crusher played by Wil Wheaton. |
| The show premiered on September 28, 1987, and ran for seven seasons, ending on May 23, 1994.It had the highest ratings of any of the Star Trek series and became the ,1 syndicated show during the last few years of its original run, allowing it to act as a springboard for ideas in other series. Many relationships and races introduced in TNG became the basis of episodes in Deep Space 9 and Voyager. It earned an Emmy nomination for Best Dramatic Series during its final season. It also received a Peabody Award for Outstanding Television Programming for the episode "The Big Goodbye". |
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The first two seasons were largely produced by the original creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry. Beginning in Season 3, the primary overseer of the show was Rick Berman who also largely responsible for the remaining Trek television series as well as the films involving the cast of The Next Generation. |
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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as "DS9", takes place during the last years and the immediate post-years of The Next Generation (2369–2375) and aired for seven seasons, debuting the week of January 3, 1993. Like Star Trek: The Next Generation, it aired in syndication in the United States and Canada. Unlike the other Star Trek series, DS9 takes place primarily on a space station rather than aboard a starship. |
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| The show begins after the brutal Cardassian occupation of the planet Bajor. The liberated Bajoran people ask the United Federation of Planets to help run a Cardassian built space station, Deep Space Nine, outside of Bajor. After the Federation takes control of the station, the protagonists of the show discover a uniquely stable wormhole that provides immediate access to the distant Gamma Quadrant making Bajor and the station one of the most strategically important locations in the galaxy. |
| The show chronicles the events of the station's crew, led by Commander ,later Captain Benjamin Sisko, played by Avery Brooks, and Major ,later Colonel Kira Nerys, played by Nana Visitor. . |
| Recurring plot elements include the repercussions of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, Sisko's spiritual role for the Bajorans as the Emissary of the Prophets, and in later seasons a war with the Dominion |
| Star Trek: Voyager ran for seven seasons, airing from January 16, 1995, to May 23, 2001, launching a new Paramount-owned television network UPN. It features Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway, the first female commanding officer in a leading role of a Star Trek series, and Commander Chakotay, played by Robert Beltran. Voyager takes place at about the same time period as Deep Space Nine and the years following that show's end (2371–2378). |
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The premiere episode has the USS Voyager and its crew pursue a Maquis Federation rebels ship. Both ships become stranded in the Delta Quadrant about 70,000 light years from Earth. Faced with a 75-year voyage to Earth, the crew must learn to work together to overcome challenges on their long and perilous journey home while also seeking ways to shorten the voyage.
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| Like Deep Space Nine, early seasons of Voyager feature more conflict between its crewmembers than seen in later episodes. Such conflict often arises from friction between "by-the-book" Starfleet crew and rebellious Maquis fugitives forced by circumstance to work together on the same ship. Eventually, though, they settle their differences, after which the overall tone becomes more reminiscent of The Original Series. |
| The starship Voyager, isolated from its home, faces new cultures and dilemmas not possible in shows based in the Alpha Quadrant. Later seasons, however, brought an influx of characters and cultures from prior shows, such as the Borg, Q, the Ferengi, Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians and cast members of The Next Generation. |
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Star Trek: Enterprise, originally titled Enterprise, is a prequel to the original Star Trek series. It aired from September 26, 2001 to May 13, 2005. Enterprise takes place in the 2150s, some 90 years after the events of Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight and about a decade before the founding of the Federation. The show centers on the voyages of Earth's first warp-five capable starship, the Enterprise, commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer (played by Scott Bakula), and the Vulcan Sub-Commander T'Pol, played by Jolene Blalock. |
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| During the show's first two seasons, Enterprise had an episodic structure, like The Original Series, The Next Generation and Voyager. The third season consisted of one arc, "Xindi mission", which had the darker tone and serialized nature of Deep Space 9. Season 4 consisted of several two to three episode mini-arcs. The final season showed the origins of elements seen in earlier series, and it rectified and resolved some core continuity problems between the various Star Trek series. Ratings for Enterprise started strong but declined rapidly. Although critics received the fourth season very well, both fans and the cast reviled the series finale, partly because of the episode's focus on the guest appearance of members of The Next Generation cast.The cancellation of Enterprise ended an 18-year run of back-to-back new Star Trek shows beginning with The Next Generation in 1987. |
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Feature films
Star Trek (film series)
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Paramount Pictures has produced eleven Star Trek feature films, the most recent released in May 2009 with a twelfth in development, scheduled to be released in 2013. The first six films continue the adventures of the cast of The Original Series; the seventh film, Generations was designed as a transition from that cast to The Next Generation television series; the next three films, 8–10, focused completely on the Next Generation cast. |
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