Category Archives: Star Trek

In January 1967 – only four months after the show debuted on NBC – Bantam published STAR TREK, by James Blish, a noted science fiction writer since the early 1950s and winner of a Hugo Award for the novel A … Continue reading →

In April 2017 I sat down, having planned for many years to do so, to systematically rewatch Star Trek, the original series, that ran from 1966 to 1969. I was 11 years old when the series debuted, and I saw … Continue reading →

James Blish’s second book of episode adaptations was published in February 1968, just past the half-way point in the production of the show’s second season, even as all the scripts in this book are, as in the first book, from … Continue reading →

The essence of Star Trek’s music was that it was composed of many themes that recurred across many episodes throughout the series, sometimes in variation, sometimes not, in ways that made the series’ music a sort of extended symphony-cycle of … Continue reading →

The Enterprise visits a planet where a time portal enables a deranged McCoy to inadvertently change Earth’s history, forcing Kirk and Spock to travel to 1930s Earth, where Kirk falls in love. This justly celebrated episode is not without its … Continue reading →

The Enterprise attempts to claim the peaceful yet strategic planet Organia from the rival Klingon Empire, only to find a curious indifference by the natives to any kind of threat.   This is the episode that introduced the Klingons, a … Continue reading →

The Enterprise comes to the aid of a colony planet – where Kirk’s brother lives with his family – that has been invaded by alien neural parasites that cause mass insanity. The last episode of the 1st season, both in … Continue reading →

The Enterprise comes to the aid of an underground mining colony where miners are being killed, and machinery destroyed, by an unseen monster that moves through solid rock. This is a justly famous episode that challenges our assumptions and overturns … Continue reading →

The Enterprise visits a planet run by a computer in the guise of religious belief to the all-seeing “Landru”, a computer Kirk defeats through a battle of logic. This is a fascinating episode because it encapsulates, as well as any … Continue reading →