OOn Sept. 8, 1966, Star Trek debuted on the NBC network in living color. The first episode that aired, “The Mantrap”, was the fifth shot. While the story, about a salt vampire, is rarely cited as one of the better episodes, I find it to be quite engaging. I wouldn’t get to watch Star Trek until early 1967 when accidentally stumbling upon “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (the second pilot, which sold the series), airing on the CBC station located in St. Johns, New Brunswick, Canada.
During my youth, local TV station WAGM, in Presque Isle, Maine, had the unique distinction of being three network affiliates: ABC, CBS, and NBC. WAGM was the only American broadcast TV station serving Maine’s largest, but sparsely populated, county, Aroostook, which spans about one-fifth of the state. WAGM didn’t air Star Trek; the program director chose a show from another network.
But that’s okay. While my personal anniversary is months away, I celebrate with everyone else today. Star Trek TOS (the original series) remains my favorite, by far, of all the TV series in the franchise. Some episodes are hokey, but the storytelling is consistently compelling, and the staging is something to study.
Pay attention to how the camera frames the characters, particularly on the bridge, or how each person stands within any particular shot. Additionally, the series consistently jumps from person to person showing his or her reaction to what’s happening on the bridge. While commonplace today, the technique was novel in the late 1960s, and Star Trek’s execution is a distinctive directing trait.
Among the other series in the franchise, I tolerated Voyager and disliked the rest. I found Deep Space Nine to be boring and Next Generation to be too preachy, while flaunting too many characters to make any of them meaningfully interesting. Gene Roddenberry’s original, pitched concept was “Wagon Train to the Stars”. Subsequent series were soap operas, essentially sci-fi versions of the Guiding Light or Peyton Place.
People complain about William Shatner’s cheesy acting as Captain James T. Kirk, but he portrayed a manly man who took charge and took risks. Take, for example, TOS episodes “The Corbomite Maneuver”, which was first shot but strangely tenth broadcast, or “A Taste of Armageddon”, among many others.
By contrast, in Next Generation, Jean-Luc Picard captained a ship where problems seemingly solved themselves by using some engineering trick. (“Captain, we could jettison the warp core and reverse thrust.”; “We could use the ram-scoop to grab their discarded dirty laundry, blast it all over the bridge view screen, blind their sensor arrays, and reverse thrust.)
Don’t get me going about how terrible is Star Trek Discovery. I had high hopes for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds but the last season and current one are too gimmicky and cliché, while substituting tropes for storytelling.
The Star Trek that debuted 60 years ago today had many flaws, particularly in the third season. But scripts were tight, directing tighter, storytelling succinct, solutions sensible (and believable), and characters’ interactions interesting.
So, let’s talk about the Featured Image. The boxed set released today as a 60th anniversary Amazon exclusive. I preordered a few days after my birthday several months ago knowing the Blu-ray set would be a belated present for myself. The product shot comes from Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. Vitals: f/1.9, ISO 160, 1/60 sec, 23mm; 5:21 p.m. PDT.
Surely, you wonder about the companion creations—all AI-constructed using a real photo of a cat—and their captions. The shorthair is Mango, one of the “Cats of University Heights“. Sometime ago, I started sharing Mango makeovers with a neighbor who is friendly with this neighborhood roamer. I created all four photo fakes on my smartphone while attending Day One and Day Four of San Diego Comic-Con 2026 in July.