The death of Leonard Nimoy yesterday reminded me of what I liked when I first saw Star Trek. As a tribute, I thought I would try and say how important the series was to me when I was younger.
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Some memories stay with you for all of your life, and they can be random. I remember watching Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds at the age of four, whilst sat in my dining chair – it was the episode with Alan Tracy stranded on a bridge in the sun. (Later I found out it was called “Move – and you’re dead!”) I remember what I was eating for my tea too.
But one of my strongest memories was when I was five.
It was summer. Television in the UK in those days was limited – no real daytime TV to speak of, with programmes usually only beginning in the late afternoon. Saturday was usually given over to sport in the afternoon, with ‘proper’ programmes after 5.00 pm or thereabouts. One of my favourites was Doctor Who, usually at about 5.15. But we didn’t get much SF on TV.
However, on Saturday 12 July 1969, we saw something new. (And yes, it was three years later than the US.) My Dad, who was a science fiction fan, sat me down with him to watch a new American TV programme on BBC 1, in the usual Doctor Who slot. (That had finished a couple of weeks before with Patrick Troughtons’ The War Games.)
It was Star Trek.
I’m not sure I got it all. It probably didn’t help that I was watching it in black and white, I seem to remember – colour TV for most UK households was a few years away yet – and it was 50 minutes long – about the same length as Thunderbirds (one hour, with adverts), and about twice as long as Doctor Who (25 minutes). As it was on BBC1, there were no advert breaks, which meant that I had to sit still and watch for quite a length of time.
But I got the main idea – a spaceship, stretching the boundaries of human exploration and with an unusually diverse crew. The Captain was a typical Captain type – in command, and like a teacher, everyone did what they said. The doctor (different after the first episode) seemed nice, if a little grumpy. However, it was the strange aliens that really got my attention – especially the one with pointed ears who was clearly the deputy leader.
As the series progressed, so did my interest in the characters – Kirk was clearly typical of what I thought science fiction should be at the time, but that Spock – well, he was cool when everyone else was panicking, he clearly thought about things a lot and he was clever, using science to investigate and solve problems. He was also the Captain’s friend.
Repeated showings in the 1970’s, led to me watching them again, this time seeing them in colour. Being a bit older, I now realised actually how clever the TV series was. It was deliberately a multinational and multicultural space crew (as it should be, my young head reasoned) – Russians! Asians! Scottish people! – who met lots of strange aliens in the big ol’ universe.
As much as I loved the spaceships and the strange worlds, it was the characters I got to appreciate. And I identified with Spock. He was ‘the best mate’, the loyal wingman without whom the Captain would find his job so much more difficult. I liked that – personally I was too shy to be the one in the spotlight, but I could see myself as the support network.
Admittedly there were episodes that were more silly than others. The BBC did not show the episodes in their original running order, mixing up the seasons. Some episodes were not shown at all. There were episodes that seemed to be based on books I’d read – that episode “Operation – Annihilate!” was, I gasped, Robert Heinlein’s Puppet Masters, ‘ripped off’. (Yes, I was very judgemental.)
But most of all, to my young mind, it was grown-up SF. It wasn’t like Doctor Who or Thunderbirds, which were children’s programmes – it was proper SF. And from that I went to other things and ultimately where I am today.
Star Trek was one of my gateways into SF. It wasn’t my first, but it was one of my first obsessions.
These days it hasn’t quite held up to my memories, but then you could say that about many programmes. And I would eventually get to watch other 60’s programmes that I love – The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone – but Star Trek, for all its faults, was the first. For me it generated an interest in science and a love of strange places, it created that sense of wonder that I then went looking for in SF books. My base line for a long time in my formative years was – was it as good as Star Trek?
And I am truly, honestly grateful. Where would I be now if I hadn’t seen it?
RIP, Leonard Nimoy.
Mark Yon, February 2015.
