Star Trek Marathon
Overall Star Trek:
After my first two marathons, I wondered what I’d do next. Towards the end of my original one (Doctor Who), my daughter suggested Star Trek. When I said which one (as there’s about a dozen different series now), she said “all of them”. I considered that, but after 880+ episodes of Doctor Who I wanted a break. Then I started thinking about it, I thought “Why not?” I’ve liked Star Trek far longer than Doctor Who – and goes back to me being one year old.
So on 6 May 2024 I will embark on a marathon viewing of Star Trek. I’ll be doing all of the series, but not in a row. I’ll put other smaller things in-between for a palate cleanser, but I do intend on doing all the Star Trek series over time – God willing.
Star Trek: The Original Series:
The first episode of Star Trek aired 8 Sep 1966, and I was about 1.5 years old at that point. Family legend has me watching original Star Trek when it aired the first time. The story goes that Star Trek night was the night my mom would go out with her girlfriends and Dad would stick me in the playpen and watch Star Trek & Wild Wild West. I of course have no memory of this, but I’ve heard the story so many times over the years, I don’t want to know if it was a lie. Besides, my father is no longer with us, and he’d be the only one who would REALLY know anyway.
I of course watched the hell out of this in reruns in the 70’s, as it was on ALL THE TIME. It was the only Star Trek there was (unless you count the next iteration – the animated series). There are only 79 episodes, so you could plow through them all pretty quickly on reruns when it was on every night. My brother and I would audio record episodes off TV, as this was way before the era of the VCR, so we’d “listen to them” over and over in addition to watching the reruns. We did that so much that back when TOS was the only Trek out there, I could watch the start of an episode, and tell you what it was with in the first 10 seconds, even if that was nothing more than a group of stars. I knew original Star Trek. A LOT. Far too much, I think. My brother wasn’t as obsessed as I was over the decades, but he watched it with me, so has a strong draw to it too. Perhaps this family connection is part of what makes it work for me in some regard.
I mean look at this picture – it’s my brother and I from some date in the 70’s “playing Star Trek” in the back yard.
Over the years, I’ve owned original Star Trek on a ton of various formats. Multiple VHS releases in the day, on to DVD, Blu-Ray, digital, and of course the season DVD sets, and then eventually the remastered Blu-Ray stuff. In 2006 Paramount commissioned a full remastering of the original episodes, with updated HD video, and new special effects. All the episodes were rebuilt from the ground up. Now I know the originals like the back of my hand, but for this project, I’ll be using the remastered stuff, because honestly – it’s a lot better in most places. There’s very few places where this falls down, and I’ll probably reference the original stuff in places, but I’ve grown to prefer the new stuff, despite growing up with the original effects.
As I’ve done with the other marathons, I’ll be doing an episode a day, and tweeting about them, collating the stuff into an individual page for each episode. Those will be indexed here.
Season 1
Season one of Star Trek (later called Star Trek: TOS, for “The Original Series”) comprised 29 episodes, running from 8 Sep 1966 through 13 Apr 1967. Most fans tend to consider the original series the best, but like every series, there’s great and bad in all of them – but this does have some spectacular episodes.
- The Menagerie (5/18/2024) - (17 - 24 Nov 1966) – Season 1 Episodes 11-12 (Serial 1.16)
- The Corbomite Maneuver (5/16/2024) - (10 Nov 1966) – Season 1 Episode 10 (Serial 1.3)
- Dagger of the Mind (5/15/2024) - (3 Nov 1966) – Season 1 Episode 9 (Serial 1.11)
- Miri (5/14/2024) - (27 Oct 1966) – Season 1 Episode 8 (Serial 1.12)
- What Are Little Girls Made Of? (5/13/2024) - (20 Oct 1966) – Season 1 Episode 7 (Serial 1.4)
- Mudd’s Women (5/12/2024) - (13 Oct 1966) – Season 1 Episode 6 (Serial 1.4)
- The Enemy Within (5/11/2024) - (6 Oct 1966) – Season 1 Episode 5 (Serial 1.5)
- The Naked Time (5/10/2024) - (29 Sep 1966) – Season 1 Episode 4 (Serial 1.7)
- Where No Man Has Gone Before (5/9/2024) - (22 Sep 1966) – Season 1 Episode 3 (Serial 1.2)
- Charlie X (5/8/2024) - (15 Sep 1966) – Season 1 Episode 2 (Serial 1.8)
- The Man Trap (5/7/2024) - (8 Sep 1966) – Season 1 Episode 1 (Serial 1.6)
- The Cage (5/6/2024) - (4 Oct 1988) – Original Pilot (Serial 1.1)