59 years ago today, a strange new world, new lives, and new civilizations, all broke onto America's television screens. On this day in 1966, was the premiere of Gene Roddenberry's masterpiece: The original Star Trek. I was very young indeed on that day (five, in fact), but I quickly developed a fascination for the show, and later, the movies.
In that I've lots of company - millions of people, around the world, who are all Star Trek fans.
The year of 2026 marks a historic chapter for Star Trek as the legendary franchise will celebrate its 60th anniversary on next year's Star Trek Day (Sept. 8, 2026).
Today, in celebration of this year's Star Trek Day, it was announced that the 60th celebrations will officially begin in January 2026, featuring notable partnerships, new launches and memorable moments throughout the year.
Star Trek has, over the years, broken new boundaries on woke nincompoopery, but the original remains as it was: Some pretty cutting-edge television programming. It made science fiction mainstream, and while it borrowed elements from such disparate sources as Edward Elmer "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" series and C. S. Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" novels, it cut a lot of new sod in its own right.
The franchise hasn't been without its ups and downs. I never went too much past the original series and the original cast, as the newer shows didn't seem to have the same punch. There just hasn't been another James Tiberius Kirk to compare to William Shatner's performance. I'm fairly certain that if you dropped Shatner's Kirk into, say, the Star Wars universe, that Captain James T. Kirk would stage a one-man invasion of the Death Star, drop-kick Darth Vader into an airlock and blow it, shoot the evil Emperor Palpatine in the face with a phaser set to "Reduce to Subatomic Particles," tell Luke Skywalker to stop whining and man up, thumb his nose at Han Solo, and whisk Princess Leia off to a tête-à-tête at the nearest space motel.
But after that performance, the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) Kirk? Meh.
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The original cast movies were pretty good, too, made so in part by amazing supporting actors; the best was almost certainly Ricardo Montalbán's "Khan," returning to the character from the television show in "Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan."
"Star Trek," in fact, inspired me to venture into my own science-fiction writing career. I've dabbled in Star-Trekkian space opera with the first two books in a trilogy (working on a third), those being "The Crider Chronicles" and "Sky of Diamonds," and I've even tried my hand at alternative history, with "Nova Roma: De Itinere in Occasum" and "Nova Roma: Quaestu pro Nova Terra." I'm no Isaac Asimov (but then, nobody is), but I've had fun, and I have "Star Trek" to thank for at least part of it.
So, if you're a Star Trek fan, this is your day. Pour yourself a Romulan ale and spend some time watching some of the exploits of Captain James T. Kirk and his intrepid band. Today really is a good day to binge! Ni kal-tor etek seshaya abru wuh ku-san, heh mon wuh toast tor wak hal-tor k', heh eifa wi tor sarlah!
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