Star Trek: The Original Series

Our Review

Where it all began: 1966-1969, three seasons, and cultural DNA so deep that sixty years later we’re still remixing it. Roddenberry’s wagon-train to the stars — Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the Enterprise’s 430 souls — was the first show that took sci-fi seriously as allegory: Balance of Terror (submarine warfare with Romulans), A Taste of Armageddon (war as computer simulation), The City on the Edge of Forever (Harlan Ellison’s time-travel tragedy — the best episode of the series), Space Seed (Khan’s debut), Mirror, Mirror, The Trouble with Tribbles, Amok Time.

Yes, the effects are cardboard-and-velour; yes, the third season collapsed; yes, Shatner. But you’re watching television learn what it could be — and the first interracial kiss on American TV happened on this show. Everything since is a descendant.

Verdict: Watch it — for history, for the chemistry, for the bones of everything.