"Star Trek": 50 years ago today

[Doctor Strange]

FYI, folks with access to the BBC America cable channel should note that they are currently marathoning the first two seasons. It started at 8:30 ET Thursday night - Trek's original timeslot! - and at this writing is 10 episodes in. Plenty of great ones ahead!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I believe, they did still OK on ST9 and killed the franchise finally on ST10. When "First Contact" was great Hard-Rock and "Insurrection" was still OK-Pop-Rock, "Nemesis" was stupid plastic-Pop and that was the story...

ST8 got the great music, the great acting (James Cromwell, woohoo!! ), the great horror-atmosphere of "Alien", the philosophy-thing of TNG and the real pissy BORG-a......s!

We showed "First Contact" for a special Trek-a-palooza Night screening in 2006, with Jonathan Frakes on hand in person to meet, greet, and answer questions after the show. He had a few drinks before taking the stage after the film, and when someone who won't be named asked him if he thought Picard was nothing but a tea-sipping imperialist, he couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the night. Good good times.

 

[Worf]

I had moved on to Doctor Who by the time Next Generation came on, and was never all that big a fan of Picard & Co., with the exception of the "Q" episodes, which I thought were consistently hilarious. But when DS9 came along I became a militant fan -- the Bajoran religious-politics stuff was unlike anything I'd ever seen on television before, and the whole "you say terrorist, I say freedom fighter" tone of that aspect of the program was something you absolutely could not do on TV today, which is probably why it never had a substantial life in reruns. And the character depth not just for the main cast but also for supporting figures like Garak, Winn, and Dukat, was some of the best work done in '90s television. DS9 remains, to me, the best thing I've ever seen American television do in any genre

I feel absolutely the same. I loved TOS, I built the AMT Model of the "Enterprise" (someone destroyed it). I watched the series as it aired in prime time. TOS was so "different", particularly from the Irwin Allen junk of the period that I never lost a fondness for it. I liked STNG but only watched primarily because it was all we had at the time. I actually dug "Babylon 5" more for a while. STNG "grew" on me, particularly as the expanded on the Klingons and their role in the universe. It was Deep Space Nine however that made me begin calling myself a "Trekker". Finally a ST show that showed the ragged edges of the Federation. You found out that Federation officers could, lie, cheat, betray, steal, ignore the prime directive... hell even QUESTION the prime directive when faced with real dilemma's and dangers. I'm currently in my 4th or 5th run through of the show.... I still am moved to tears by some episodes. In DS9 we finally saw the Federation at WAR and could see the cost in blood, sweat and tears. And this war lasted for, as they generally do, years and years. One throwaway line stays with me. We'd seen Laxwana Troi drift in and out of the ST universe for years... I remember how I felt when someone mentioned that the Dominion had invaded Betazed. I immediately wondered, "what happened to Laxwana, the Sacred Chalice, and all those beautiful people on that peaceful planet?" Real life can do that to you.

Worf

 

[Trenchfriend]

TNG = Early Leonard Cohen
DS9 = Later Leonard Cohen

 

[Doctor Strange]

I just watched "The City on the Edge of Forever" on BBC America with my morning coffee - probably for the hundredth time. And I still got totally ferklempt at the end!

As it happens, I was visiting an old friend in Seattle last week and we checked out this outstanding exhibit:

http://www.cnet.com/pictures/star-t...n-a-voyage-around-the-iconic-sci-fi-universe/

http://www.empmuseum.org/at-the-museum/current-exhibits/star-trek-exploring-new-worlds/

Highly recommended if you're near Seattle, and I believe it will tour other cities next year.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ My Google search revealed that my first and second guess - Klingon or Romulan - was wrong and "ferklempt" is Yiddish - good word, "feels" like what it means.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's typically transliterated starting with V... but it has never sounded that way to me. Like a lot of Jewish folks my age, I picked up a smattering of Yiddish from my parents and grandparents a long time ago, and I now find myself using it more than when I was young. It's a very expressive language, with an awful lot of that feels-like-what-it-means.

You're a longtime New Yorker, no doubt you use some yourself: Yiddish is baked into NYC vernacular. And it's made inroads everywhere:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_words_used_in_English

Getting back to Trek, here's another 50th anniversary item of interest. The original 11-foot Enterprise filming model - which was consigned to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's basement gift shop for a long time - has been moved to the main hall, and more importantly, given a stunning refit, complete with beautiful interior lighting!

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=132

So much better than the CGI model in the remastered TOS episodes!

 

[Fading Fast]

It's typically transliterated starting with V... but it has never sounded that way to me. Like a lot of Jewish folks my age, I picked up a smattering of Yiddish from my parents and grandparents a long time ago, and I now find myself using it more than when I was young. It's a very expressive language, with an awful lot of that feels-like-what-it-means.

You're a longtime New Yorker, no doubt you use some yourself: Yiddish is baked into NYC vernacular. And it's made inroads everywhere:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_words_used_in_English

Getting back to Trek, here's another 50th anniversary item of interest. The original 11-foot Enterprise filming model - which was consigned to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's basement gift shop for a long time - has been moved to the main hall, and more importantly, given a stunning refit, complete with beautiful interior lighting!

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=132

So much better than the CGI model in the remastered TOS episodes!

You have to be our age or older to appreciate how insanely cool that ship was at the time.

In one my early jobs on a trading desk on Wall Street, I sat next to a Jewish man who taught me several Yiddish expressions as he just sprinkled them in amongst his conversation. A couple of funny things about him / that. At the time, we were working for a Swiss Bank that was very "proper" compared to the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-just-get-it-done culture of most American Wall Street firm and, certainly, the one I had started at.

I'm pretty good at acclimating myself to the whatever culture, so I spoke in reserved, hushed tones, used "Mr." and "Mrs." for managers, presented ideas / problems / everything in a calm, matter of fact way as it was clear that was how "the Swiss do it." Not my new friend, he was an old-style Wall Street guy and wasn't changing. Hence, he would shout out answers, ideas, questions, call the bosses by their first names, throw all sorts of Yiddish words into his speech and, in general, rattled around quite loudly inside this very reserved investment bank. I loved watching the reaction of the Swiss managers as they didn't know what to do. No surprise, he only lasted a little over a year there.

The other funny thing is he was very Jewish in a NY way - meaning he wasn't particularly religious, but was into the culture - going to temple on the holidays, having his kids get a bar mitzvah, frequenting the few remaining Jewish restaurants, etc., - but he also loved bacon and other not-Kosher foods and, and this created no end of merriment - married a Catholic women.

Rather than compromise on how to raise the kids, they raised them in both religions. The kids went to church, temple, had instruction in both religions, celebrated all the holidays, etc., and it appeared to all work is some crazy American way. I've stayed in touch with him to this day (twenty five years later) and he is completely unchanged - full of life, full of Jewishness, full of enjoying everyone else's culture, full of being a nice, loud, have fun, don't care what you think guy. He was and is unforced diversity versus the stuff Corporate America tried / tries to shove down our throats.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Getting back to Trek, here's another 50th anniversary item of interest. The original 11-foot Enterprise filming model - which was consigned to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's basement gift shop for a long time - has been moved to the main hall, and more importantly, given a stunning refit, complete with beautiful interior lighting!

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=132

So much better than the CGI model in the remastered TOS episodes!

When I visited the Smithsonian Air & Space several years ago, I looked all over the place for the Enterprise -- I figured it would have a prominent display, only to stumble onto it entirely by accident in the gift shop. I was struck by (1) how shopworn it looked and (2) how meticulously crafted it was, especially since the designer and builders expected it was only ever to be seen on blurry 525-line television and could easily have cut corners on the detail work.

It was also a lot bigger than I expected it to be, having envisioned it in terms of the plastic model kit.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Yes, when I took my kids to DC in 2003, I made a pilgrimage to see the model, and as thrilling as it was to be next to it, it was clearly in lousy condition:

It looks vastly better now!

And FF, I'm pretty much that kind of Jew too. I've never been a congregation member as an adult, my kids didn't go to religious school or have bar/bat mizvahs (and both have grown up to be atheists, a step further from my own agnostic POV)... but I retain a tremendous fascination with the history/traditions/ethics, and have a very strong (secular) Jewish identification. Nu?

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ what is the model actually made of?

 

[Doctor Strange]

Wood and vacu-formed plastic. See the links I put into #7 on this thread - there's way more detail about the model there than you could ever need.

 

[PeterGunnLives]

I love the original Star Trek. It's the only one that fits with vintage living!

 

[Trenchfriend]

In Germany, TNG-episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" would be unter the top 5, if you would ask the people. It got that TNG-unsual darker, spookier atmosphere and the mysterious Guinan-part. To me, it feels more like a good cinema-thriller with heavy elements (Cpt. Garrets dead, Riker's dead!, the depressive war-atmosphere. hero-picard at the battle!).
I remember, that this episode was one of the first episodes of TNG AND Star Trek, I ever saw, when I was circa eight years old. The whole episode was "woohoo" to me and of course, I didn't comprehend, what's going on. It was somehow heavy.

 

[Stearmen]

In Germany, TNG-episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" would be unter the top 5, if you would ask the people. It got that TNG-unsual darker, spookier atmosphere and the mysterious Guinan-part. To me, it feels more like a good cinema-thriller with heavy elements (Cpt. Garrets dead, Riker's dead!, the depressive war-atmosphere. hero-picard at the battle!).
I remember, that this episode was one of the first episodes of TNG AND Star Trek, I ever saw, when I was circa eight years old. The whole episode was "woohoo" to me and of course, I didn't comprehend, what's going on. It was somehow heavy.

The episode where we discover Frasier was once Captain of the Enterprise and prune juice is a warriors drink!

 

[Trenchfriend]

I don't know why, but in german tone, they switched to currant-juice.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Uh... no, Stearman. In "Yesterday's Enterprise" the Ent-C is commanded by Captain Rachel Garrett (who at the time was the first female starship captain appearing in Trek). You're thinking of a different TNG time-travel story, "Cause and Effect", where Kelsey Grammer plays the captain of the USS Bozeman, trapped in a time loop for eighty years.

It's easy to confuse these two episodes: both are time-travel stories where the Ent-D is destroyed. And both are top-ten TNG episodes.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/tng.htm

 

[Stearmen]

Uh... no, Stearman. In "Yesterday's Enterprise" the Ent-C is commanded by Captain Rachel Garrett (who at the time was the first female starship captain appearing in Trek). You're thinking of a different TNG time-travel story, "Cause and Effect", where Kelsey Grammer plays the captain of the USS Bozeman, trapped in a time loop for eighty years.

It's easy to confuse these two episodes: both are time-travel stories where the Ent-D is destroyed. And both are top-ten TNG episodes.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/tng.htm

I am most certainly not going to challenge you, since my knowledge of Star Trek can fit on a match box! I just always liked the pun juice comment.