50th anniversary of the original Star Trek

[strangerep]

Marj Dusay just passed. She uttered the immortal line "Brain and brain...what is brain?"

I googled her, but failed to recognize her (young or old). Was she really only in 1 episode?

 

[dlgoff]

I googled her, but failed to recognize her (young or old). Was she really only in 1 episode?

Funny. I just watched that episode a few days ago, Spock's Brain, on TV.

image from above link

 

[Vanadium 50]

Was she really only in 1 episode?

That's what IMDB says. But it was a real humdinger, that one was.

 

[hutchphd]

And you know that Harlan Ellison wrote "City on the edge of Forever" I presume.

 

[Vanadium 50]

And you know that Harlan Ellison wrote "City on the edge of Forever" I presume.

Well, sort of. Gene Coon reworked it extensively. I got a chance to talk to Ellison about the original story. He was quite bitter about it. He may be right that his version was the better story, but I would argue the version that aired was better Star Trek.

 

[Whipley Snidelash]

On September 8, 1966 the first episode of the original Star Trek series was broadcast. I saw it when I was in junior high school (middle school).

Me too. But I’ve watched every episode so many times I can’t watch it anymore or at least it’ll be a while. When I was in the Air Force at technical school in 71 we were in a 1000 man dorm in Denver. We had a huge rec room with the TV. Every time a Star Trek rerun came on the room was filled.

 

[Janus]

Me too. But I’ve watched every episode so many times I can’t watch it anymore or at least it’ll be a while. When I was in the Air Force at technical school in 71 we were in a 1000 man dorm in Denver. We had a huge rec room with the TV. Every time a Star Trek rerun came on the room was filled.

That reminds me of a story. In college, our dorm also had a TV down in the main lobby. A couple of friends and I would always watch the Star Trek reruns they aired. We generally would show up early, just because we liked to sit up front.
One time, Just a bit after we had settled in, a few guys showed up. When they saw us, one of them asked "So, you're here to see the fight too? ( apparently some boxing match was being aired also that evening).
We told, them that we were there to watch Star Trek. We finally agreed to wait until the time came and then put it up to a vote for everyone that showed up.
As the time neared, we began looking around behind us to see how many people were there, and it was quite a full house. We got this sinking feeling that we were not going to come out on top with the vote.
The time came, and one of the guys stood up, faced the group, and confidently asked, " How many of you are here to watch the fight?"
He was greeted with resounding cries of "No, we want to watch Star Trek!" The look on his face was priceless.

 

[Vanadium 50]

That reminds me of a story.

Which episode? I hope not Spock's Brain!

 

[Whipley Snidelash]

Nice story Janus. It’s funny because I remember that day in 66, the next day in school most of us weren’t very impressed with that first episode. It obviously grew on us all. It was the Mantrap. The one with the salt eating creature that sucked people dry.

 

[Janus]

Nice story Janus. It’s funny because I remember that day in 66, the next day in school most of us weren’t very impressed with that first episode. It obviously grew on us all. It was the Mantrap. The one with the salt eating creature that sucked people dry.

I read that Roddenberry was not happy that the network chose to air that episode first. If you don't count the original Pilot ( The Cage), "The Man Trap" was the 5th episode produced. They could have used either the second pilot, "The Enemy Within", or "The Corbomite Maneuver" ( "Mud's Women" would have been an option also, but probably not the best choice).
But leave it to the suits to go with the one that had the "Classic science fiction monster".

I was 8 when it first aired, and it wasn't a show watched much in our home. Most of the time I saw it was when it was on at someone else's house while we were visiting.
By the time the show was in reruns, we had moved out to the boonies, and got just a couple of TV stations, neither of which carried the reruns. My first real introduction to it was when I found the James Blish adaptations in paperback. I had read almost all the episode as short stories before I ever saw the majority of them on TV.

Something similar happened with "2001: A space Odyssey"
I read the book, a good number of A.C. Clarke's work, including "The Sentinel", "The Lost worlds of 2001" (chronicling the writing of the book, including alternate beginnings and endings), and "The Making of Kubrick's 2001", all before I ever saw the movie itself.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On September 8, 1966 the first episode of the original Star Trek series was broadcast. I saw it when I was in junior high school (middle school). Tonight I'll pull out my DVD set and watch it again. It's been several years since I last did it. Maybe I'll make it a regular Thursday thing and do the entire series.

A few years ago I was having lunch with a retiring engineer I had known for a number of years, named Bob. He started telling me about his father and his career as a cop. Then he mentioned that his dad had been friends with Gene Roddenberry. They became friend through the LAPD. Eventually he produced photographs of his father and a very young Gene Roddenberry goofing around on the beach.

Bob continued to tell me that when he was a boy, every Saturday morning his father would take him out for some kind of surprise adventure or experience. One Saturday his father took him to see Gene Roddenberry, who was working on a pilot for a show called Police Story . It gave Bob a chance to see a TV program being filmed. He said that was all very interesting. But in one of the editing rooms he noticed scraps of film lying all over the floor. He looked at some and asked Gene what they were for. Gene said that was for something else he was working on called The Cage...

Bob said he could have stuffed his pockets with all of the scraps on the floor. It was all being thrown away. Of course he had no idea of the significance of those scraps of film.

 

[BillTre]

Something similar happened with "2001: A space Odyssey"
I read the book, a good number of A.C. Clarke's work, including "The Sentinel", "The Lost worlds of 2001" (chronicling the writing of the book, including alternate beginnings and endings), and "The Making of Kubrick's 2001", all before I ever saw the movie itself.

I saw 2001 when it came out (I was in high school), in 1968.
After after I got to university, I saw it many, many times, for cheap.
Campus film clubs seemed to show 2001 more than annually for a while.

I feel many viewings lead to better understanding.
A read a related Clarke book on it afterwards. It helped too.

The only things I have read before seeing them as movies are: The Ring Trilogy, Dune, The Thing (from Who Goes There?), The Foundation (if ever made), and any original Sherlock story.