Star Trek (1966-1988)

Saw the rebroadcasts on TV for the first time in the early eighties. As a kid I thought it was a cool series. Meanwhile, the entire Star Trek is arguably the most iconic franchise ever, at least the longest-lasting. However, I never watched the later series, because I thought Spock and co were irreplaceable.
Some forty years later, the coolness of Star Trek - the first series - remains intact as far as I'm concerned. Albeit that it also has a camp factor of course, which I was not aware of as a child. It is a pleasant reunion with the crew of Enterprise, who find themselves in the most bizarre situations. With William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy in roles chiseled for eternity (we're not looking at a light year more or less). The version I looked at is a restored version (the original version is therefore still difficult to obtain). The colors have been upgraded, the music has been re-recorded and even some modest CGI has been added here and there and replaced the craziest effects of the original recordings. There is, of course, a debate about necessity and ethics about the latter. As far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't have. I always go for the original but on the other hand they have done it with respect and not exaggerated. If you don't know, you probably wouldn't even notice. And somehow I also understand that they want to present the series as well as possible for future generations who are used to a few things in terms of audio and video.

So a nice reunion. The tempo sometimes seemed a bit slow to me, but never that it became annoying. There are always enough starting points that keep it interesting. Visually or in the interaction between characters.

My favorite episode is "The City on the Edge of Forever" - with Joan Collins as guest star - the finale of which even gave me goosebumps. This episode has won several awards in that time.

Translated from Dutch · View original

I was very surprised by how good the stories of this series were. As a fan of TNG, DS9 and Enterprise I finally decided to watch the original series when I saw the beautifully remastered scenes. Where a model airplane used to dangle on a string, you now see full-fledged cgi with a beautiful space background with planets. Of course I had seen a number of episodes in the past and also many feature films.

It was also striking to me how many stories were reused in later series. For example, we already see a predecessor of Q. Clearly, there is a hobby horse present with Gene Roddenberry: god-like creatures with superpowers. His (then very graceful) wife was also in this series as a character and did the voice of the Enterprise's computer. Also striking is the mini fashion. It is still a stylish, colorful, varied and surprising series with beautiful studio sets and more humor than you expect. Often it comes from the Spock, McCoy, and Kirk triangle. Unfortunately Scotty and Uhura are less explored. Sulu is already a full crew member, but Chekov is still missing.

For anyone who has doubts or is afraid of old stuff or too high a "boring faai" technical content: get over it and go look. In many ways, the old Star Trek is still superior for the power of the interesting stories. And people are always central to this, not technology. The remastering is the icing on an already very tasty cake.

Translated from Dutch · View original