I’ve discovered a real benefit of having a child is it can afford you the chance to catch up on some older stuff you wished you had checked out in your adolescence, never did, feel you probably still should and yet still never will… that is, until you realize you can show it to your kiddo as a sharing kinda movie night thing. Star Trek, the original series (or ST:TOS as the cool kids call it) was just such an example.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was satisfying to see how well developed and complex the relationships are right out of the gate between the core triumvirate that carries the show – Captain James T. Kirk (even though it was initially a middle name starting with an ‘R’ in the first televised episode), First Officer Spock and Chief Medical Officer Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy. As the show goes along through the season, I was also really excitedly impressed on how the episodes continued to explore, often even getting deeper into, real philosophical sci-fi-based concepts; in ways, in fact, that most of the later big budgeted studio “Star Trek” movies really don’t. I shouldn’t really have been surprised about that either, though, with noted mind-expanding pulp sci-fi writers of the day like Theodore Sturgeon providing the scripts.

All within the trappings of its low budget, with similar rock-formation planets and rubbery monsters, and its episodic TV nature, it still managed to pull out some episodes that gave me an understanding (along with that aforementioned iconic male troika) of why the show has stuck around so long. There is ‘A Taste of Armageddon’ which presents the fascinating conceit in which the leaderships of two conflicted planets have decided that simulated attacks and calculated mass executions is the agreed system to avoid conventional war. ‘This Side of Paradise’ has the unemotional half-Vulcan Spock granted sudden emotions by exposure to planetary spores, finds that the emotion of happiness is not one that is part of who he is, sheds it and ends with his response to Kirk’s questioning on the brilliant, tragic, fascinating line “I’ve little to say about it, Captain … except that for the first time in my life, I was happy”. And that’s the ending! In which Spock LOSES happiness! Great stuff. And the Khan episode, dealing as it does, with issues of leadership and megalomania, while making consistent comparisons between Kirk and Khan throughout.

An early episode, nicely executed in its simplicity, has the transporter malfunctioning and Kirk ending up separating into two Kirks — with one containing his darker, more aggressive and destructive nature and the other being more nice and courteous. It was great discussing this with my daughter — how the darker side wasn’t revealed as ultimately ‘bad’; no, not at all. That aggressive side is a necessary part of being an entire person and needs to be incorporated and dealt with in one’s self…

I’m sure I’m one of the last who didn’t know all this about the show (and how different the show is from the “Star Trek” movies). The show (well, at least Season One) may not be as laden with impressive effects, but it’s still better, more philosophical and thoughtful (excluding, of course, the great and epic “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, which is the “2001: A Space Odyssey” of the entire filmic franchise). By the end, there was one thing my daughter was quite clear on, explaining to me in a very assured tone… Kirk should give up flirting with every pretty female (human, or of a humanoid species) that crosses his path and marry his obvious true love. You know. Spock, of course. Seems logical to me.

Buck A Review