Review: 'Star Trek: The Original Voyages'

This year is the sixtieth anniversary of the Star Trek phenomenon, and I've reviewed two very good books published to mark this momentous occasion. However, neither provided a total plunge in the thing 2026 is really the sixtieth anniversary of: the original series. Sure the chunk The Star Trek Archive: 100 Objects and Stories from the Final Frontier focused on Roddenberry's original TV show was nothing to sneeze your nose at, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home-The Making of the Film afforded more time with the original cast, but what I really wanted was a great big lovely book devoted to the hippie-era adventures of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, and the rest of the gang. 

Review: 'The Star Trek Archive: 100 Objects and Stories from the Final Frontier'

Star Trek has been granted longevity that few franchises could ever dream of because it was smart, well-written, had a specific point of view, and was full of memorable, lovable characters. But, like all enduring sci-fi works, it was also full of stuff. Just as Star Wars had its lightsabers and landspeeders, Star Trek had its phasers, tricorders, Enterprises, tribbles, and pointy ears. 

Review: 'Star Trek-The Illustrated Oral History: The Original Cast'

Star Trek-The Illustrated Oral History: The Original Cast is not the first oral history of that boldly going sci-fi archetype, but it's unique in that all of its quotes were pulled from a single source—Titan's long-running Star Trek Magazine— and that "illustrated" bit. This is a beautiful little book, illustrated with color photos of what could be TV's most splendidly vivid series. 

Review: 'Star Trek: Year Five: The Wine-Dark Deep'

One of the great pleasures of the first three issues of Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly’s Star Trek: Year Five is the comic series’ faithfulness to Gene Roddenberry’s original TV show. Artists and writers alike rendered characters with perfect fidelity to Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Bones, and the rest. The stories could have been adapted to actual episodes of the original TV series due to a simplicity and clarity in line with what could be brought to the small screen in the late sixties.

Review: 'The First Star Trek Movie: Bringing the Franchise to the Big Screen, 1969-1980'

Star Trek had barely been cancelled when its obsessive fans began obsessing about where the Enterprise might head next. Even as Gene Roddenberry dangled the possibility of a new live-action series, and forced fans to settle for a cartoon, there was talk of a feature film for years. Events began to snowball by the mid-seventies, and Trekkers (never call them Trekkies!) got their big screen treat when Star Trek—The Motion Picture zoomed into cinemas in 1979. Well, maybe “zoomed” is not the right verb. Perhaps “floated in slow-mo” is more appropriate for Robert Wise’s notoriously inert epic. Disappointment followed.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 324

The Date: August 19

The Movie: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

What Is It?: The second Star Trek movie is often sited as the first good one, but it’s really the only one worth a damn. While the first one tried to be 2001, the second strives more for Star Wars and succeeds incredibly well by continuing the original series’ “Space Seed” episode in which Ricardo Montalban’s Khan last appeared. And, yes, those are Ricardo’s real muscles. The finale must have been a real shocker for long-time Trekkies.

Why Today?: On this day in 1921, Gene Rodenberry is born.

Review: 'The Impossible Has Happened: The Life and Work of Gene Roddenberry'

One of the interesting things about Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek was that there were often several things going on at once. It could be a bit campy and a bit intellectual, a bit solemn and a bit adventurous, a bit profound and a bit overly simplistic, a bit progressive and a bit stuck in outdated ideas about gender. Lance Parkin’s The Impossible Has Happened: The Life and Work of Gene Roddenberry has several things going on at once too. It’s a bit of a biography of the series’ creator, a bit of a history of the show, a bit of a making-of account, and a bit of a cultural analysis of the series’ themes and point of view.