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My family raised me WELL, so of course, Star Trek: The Original Series is my favorite science fiction show!
Of course, Star Trek: TOS was in reruns and even some of the movies were in TV reruns by the time I was old enough to remember anything … Star Trek: TNG was on its first run, and I grew up loving that crew and also Star Trek: DS9.
But still, I can remember myself and my sister asking, “Can we watch Kirks and Spocks? We want Kirks and Spocks!”
My dad videotaped all of the original episodes, so at any time, we as a family could head off to the final frontier – talk about warp speed, no matter what stations did or did not have sense enough to have “Kirks and Spocks” on!
In mature womanhood, I can look back on “Kirks and Spocks” and recognize the appeal: our parents were familiar and comfortable enough with the story lines and the messaging to be very comfortable with us even at young ages watching them, so, we got to grow up thinking through the same societal issues of the 1960s that the original series helped them think through in a non-threatening way. Given that we are still not clear in the United States on even the civil rights issues that we thought were settled in the 1960s, Star Trek: TOS remains shockingly current.
The older I get, the more I appreciate the mind of Gene Roddenberry – he handled the deepest social and philosophical and even religious issues of his time, and honored them in their place. Questions of life, death, time, space, eternity, race, choice, love, hate, war, and peace – ecology, cultural respect, cultural appropriation, forms and systems of government – it was all there, in just 2.5 years of episodes.
Star Trek: TOS is quietly a crash course in the streams of all modern Western thought, but not postmodern – that is, although the boundaries are definitely much bigger and the questions much harder than we often think, you can always count on Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock to do the right thing once they figure it all out, and there are some ABSOLUTES that are simply never questioned. This is also why my parents felt the show was a culturally safe refuge in an age in which murder and mayhem and those who practice it were becoming glorified in our community.
In my second decade, my mother gave me her novelizations of all the Star Trek: TOS episodes – The Star Trek Reader, Volumes 1-4 by James Blish – and also The Making of Star Trek, by Gene Roddenberry and Stephen E. Whitfield. This began for me a lifelong deeper exploration, through reading, about not only the issues handled in the series, but how the characters and stories were created – and, how long episodic story lines are built up, period.
My parents educated me well, indeed – here on Hive, if you track my history, you will see that I am a mistress of the long, episodic story. I have characters that you meet every day, sometimes twice a day, and some of them have been around for TWO YEARS. I learned all of this from watching all those long Star Trek series, without even knowing that was what I was doing – but when I got to read HOW such things were made, and how they were WELL-WRITTEN, that helped mold me into the daily writer I am today.
(At another time, for another prompt, I will give Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle and Mr. Sherlock Holmes their credit for that as well – short-form mystery writing makes one focus on the logic of a good story.)
Finally, at age 39, I discovered that I was a fractal artist … welcome to my rendering of a star cluster that came out such that I have named it "The Womb of the Night."
… and so, because I am a storyteller, I did my greatest homage to Star Trek: TOS right here on Hive. Captain James T. Kirk has a kid cousin from Ohio here on Hive, and he launched in May of 2020! The M.A. Kirk Universe runs parallel to the Star Trek: TOS universe, exploring 21st century questions, meeting new life forms and civilizations, and making new connections! Cousin J.T. does make cameo appearances from time to time (although of course he SCRUPULOUSLY honors his trademark obligations to Paramount in doing so)!
The early years of the still-expanding M.A. Kirk Art and Story Universe are in “re-runs” in collections on PeakD – catch volume 3 of “The Early Years” here. The most current story is from just this Sunday, here! And of course, "The Womb of the Night" has its own story, and there you will meet Captain M.A. Kirk in the midst of his wife and their children (a quiet homage to my own family, all on the final frontier together)!
All this started from being that little kid asking with my little sister “Can we watch Kirks and Spocks? We want Kirks and Spocks!” … part of a beloved personal family legacy so important that I went back and extended the Kirk family legacy two more generations! There are many science fiction series that I enjoy inside and beyond Star Trek itself … but first place will always be held by Star Trek: The Original Series.
(A special thanks to @thisismylife and ListNerds -- that's how I found out the contest was going on!)