Star Trek

A 1960's science fiction action adventure series set in the twenty-third century based around the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, representing the United Federation of Planets (including Earth) on a five-year mission in outer space to explore new worlds, seek new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before. The Enterprise is commanded by handsome and brash Captain James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk (William Shatner). Kirk's two best friends are Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy) (last name unpronounceable to humans) the ship's half-human/half-Vulcan Science Officer and First/Executive Officer (i.e. second-in-command) from the planet Vulcan, and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley). They, along with a crew of approximately four hundred and thirty, including helmsman Lieutenant Hikaru Kato Sulu (George Takei), navigator Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov (Walter Koenig), communications officer Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan). The series follows them as they confront strange alien races, friendly and hostile alike, as they explore unknown worlds. We see the Enterprise and her crew battle aliens, megalomaniac computers, time paradoxes, psychotic murderers, and even Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban). The series is known for looking at then (1960's) hot topics such as sex, war, God, religion, politics, and racism and other things that make up the human condition through a lens of the future. The 79 (eighty if including The Cage (1966)) episode television series, which was produced from 1966 to 1969, has now cult characters and has fans all over the world. —Marty McKee <mmckee@wkio.com>