Gratuitous Lists: The Star Trek TV Series Ranked

The philosophy of the Gratuitous Lists feature was to have lists of stuff that are unranked, because frankly if you're talking about the 12th best thing of all time or the 9th best thing of all time, the differences are going to be pretty minor. In the case of the Star Trek lists, however, that's kind of pointless because there's way too few things to put on the list. So for these ones I'm ranking them and people can argue away to their heart's content. So let us proceed:

The cast of Voyager: Lt. Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), Seven-of-Nine (Jeri Ryan), the Doctor (Robert Picardo), Neelix (Ethan Phillips), Captain Katherine Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran), Lt. B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) and Lt. Commander Tuvok (Tim Russ)

6. Star Trek: Voyager

Created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor • Produced by Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller and Brannon Braga • Aired 16 January 1995-23 May 2001 • 7 seasons • 172 episodes

Timeframe: AD 2371-2377

Premise: The Intrepid-class USS Voyager is dispatched on a mission to apprehend a vessel belonging to the Maquis, a terrorist group. Both ships are inadvertently transported 70,000 light-years to the remote Delta Quadrant of the galaxy. Captain Janeway is forced into an uneasy alliance with the Maquis commander, Chakotay, so that both crews can return home to Federation space.

Assessment: When Voyager started in 1995, it had a lot of promise to it. Fans had been criticising The Next Generation (and, to a lesser extent, the original series) because it spent an awful lot of time flying between starbases rather than genuinely going "where no one had gone before". By dumping a Federation starship on the far side of the galaxy with no Federation, no Starfleet, no Klingons and no Romulans, the hope was to create a completely new set of heroes and villains, with the incredibly isolated ship in genuine danger.

None of that really happened. Voyager remained in pristine condition despite not being able to resupply or get repaired. Continuity was minimal, with the reset button being hit at the end of every episode. Its new, original races were cheesy stock races which didn't vary from the Star Trek standard, and it wasn't long before the show was (rather desperately) trying to shoehorn in Klingons, Romulans and the Ferengi. The most prevalent new enemy race, the Kazon, were soon thrown out for being dire and the show settled on The Next Generation's most memorable foe, the Borg, as their main enemy, as well as reintroducing staple TNG villain Q.

The show moderately improved in the fourth season, with the introduction of Jeri Ryan as "saved" Borg drone Seven of Nine. Seven provided an able foil for Captain Janeway, with their on-screen antagonism giving way to mutual respect fuelled by the actresses' off-screen antipathy to one another. Rapidly improving CG effects technology also resulted in some visually impressive episodes late in the show's run. However, a largely indifferent and unchallenged cast, some awful writing and a lot of pulled punches made Star Trek: Voyager excruciating most of the time and just plain dull the rest.

The show wasn't a complete wash, however, with Robert Picardo's excellent performance as the ship's holographic doctor gradually attaining sentience providing a lot of humour and, surprisingly, pathos as the show continued. However, the show's greatest success may have been annoying long-term Trek writer Ronald D. Moore so much with its unfulfilled promise that he later went off and put most of his ideas into practice on the far superior Battlestar Galactica (2003-09) reboot instead.

Check Out: Scorpion (Parts 1 & 2), Year of Hell, Message in a Bottle.

Avoid at All Costs: Threshold, Fair Haven, Endgame and, to be frank, any episode that doesn't revolve around the Doctor or Seven-of-Nine.

The cast of Enterprise: Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley), Chief Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker (Connor Trinneer), Ensign Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery), Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) and Lt. Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating.

5. Star Trek: Enterprise

Created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga • Produced by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Manny Coto • Aired 26 September 2001-13 May 2005 • 4 seasons • 98 episodes

Timeframe: 16 April 2151-55 (the final episode takes place in 2161)

Premise: In 2151 Earth launches its first Warp 5-capable ship, the NX-01 Enterprise, under the command of Jonathan Archer and the watchful eye of the Vulcan "advisor" T'Pol. Earth faces rising tensions between neighbouring worlds like Tellar, Vulcan and Andora, not to mention navigating the dangerous first contact with the Klingon Empire. But the Enterprise's adventures will eventually set the scene for the birth of the United Federation of Planets itself.

Assessment: When Paramount demanded that Star Trek uber-producer Rick Berman create a new series to follow up Voyager, he was dubious. He felt that the series was suffering from "franchise fatigue" after shooting twenty-one seasons in fourteen years and recommended resting the show for a while. But Paramount wanted the new series to start immediately. Reluctantly, Berman and co-writer Brannon Braga complied.

And they did try to be original. They decided to make the new show a prequel, set a century before the original series. Their aim was to gradually build to the founding of the Federation. The decision to have a ship called Enterprise which had never been mentioned before was cheesy, but they did at least attempt to justify it. They also made clever use of ever-more-impressive effects technology and the casting was much better than Voyager's, with the actors feeling more engaged and excited by the project. But too often in the first two seasons the writers fell back on stock Star Trek ideas and situations rather than doing the premise justice.

In Season 3 they abruptly course-corrected. They brought in a talented and imaginative new writer, Manny Coto, and began engaging in more serialisation. They also dropped the ill-advised "temporal cold war" story of the first two seasons (a pointless attempt to keep touching base with the post-Voyager timeline) and focused more on interstellar politics and tensions, laying the seeds for the foundation of the Federation. This culminated in the Coto-helmed fourth season which saw a dramatic upswing in quality. Unfortunately, when the series was cancelled they decided to go out on a truly diabolical note. These Are the Voyages... is the worst Star Trek finale and one of the worst episodes in the franchise's history, and soured both fans and cast on the show. Still, there are some great episodes to be found and if Enterprise was one series too far, at least it tried to be original and ambitious.

Check Out: Demons, Terra Prime, The Forge, Babel One, The Andorian Incident.

Avoid at All Costs: These Are the Voyages..., A Night in Sickbay, Two Days and Two Nights.

The cast of The Animated Series: Lt. Nyota Uhuru (Nichelle Nichols), Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Commander Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), Lt. Arex (James Doohan), Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Lt. M'Ress (Majel Barrett), Lt. Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett)

4. Star Trek: The Animated Series

Created by Gene Roddenberry • Produced by Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana • Aired 8 September 1973-12 October 1974 • 2 seasons • 22 episodes

Timeframe: approx. 2269-70

Premise: Continuing the five-year mission of the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk. Only in two dimensions.

Assessment: Given The Animated Series's relative obscurity (until its recent re-release) and the fact it's animated on a low budget, it's actually surprisingly decent. The writers (many returning from the live-action series) clearly revel in the fact that they can depict truly alien beings and planets and the TV show actors all return to voice their characters, which adds a lot of credibility to the show. The show has also been surprisingly well-suited to modern social media, with both Swear Trek and Starcher Trek generating a lot of laughs based on it.

Check Out: Yesteryear, The Time Trap, More Tribbles, More Troubles, The Lorelei Signal.

Avoid at All Costs: Mudd's Passion

The cast of the original series: Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett), Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Lt. Nyota Uhuru (Nichelle Nichols), Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Lt. Hikaru Sulu (George Takei)

3. Star Trek: The Original Series

Created by Gene Roddenberry • Produced by Gene Roddenberry, Gene L. Coon and Fred Freiberger • Aired 8 September 1966-3 June 1969 • 3 seasons • 79 episodes

Timeframe: approx. 2265-68 (the pilot episode takes place circa 2255)

Premise: In the mid-23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk commands the Constitution-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilisations and to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Assessment: For a show made in the 1960s, the original Star Trek has withstood the test of time far better than you'd expect. The regular actors are on top form throughout and some of the episodes remain genuinely inventive, powerful and surprisingly topical. Other episodes are poor, particularly most of the third season when the network replaced Gene Roddenberry with hack writer Fred Freiberger, but the seeds of Star Trek and the reason the franchise has lasted fifty years are clearly in place.

The original show probably has the strongest set of characters in terms of archetypes, but it's actually startling how little most of the characters bar Spock, McCoy and Kirk get to do. Given there's 79 episodes, you'd expect Chekov, Sulu, Uhura and Scotty to have at least a few dedicated episodes apiece but nope. They'd have to wait until the films and the reboot movies to get a bigger slice of the action.

Still, the original series still packs an impressive emotional wallop in episodes like The City on the Edge of Forever and Amok Time, whilst episodes like Space Seed and Balance of Terror are effective, tense action stories and The Trouble with Tribbles is a splendid comedy piece. This is where it all started, and it (mostly) still holds up well.

Check Out: The City on the Edge of Forever, Space Seed, Amok Time, Balance of Terror, Mirror, Mirror, The Trouble with Tribbles.

Avoid at All Costs: Spock's Brain, The Way to Eden, Turnabout Intruder.

The cast of The Next Generation: Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Counsellor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton), Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn)

2. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Created by Gene Roddenberry • Produced by Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor • Aired 28 September 1987-23 May 1994 • 7 seasons • 178 episodes

Timeframe: AD 2364-71


Premise: Almost a century after Kirk's time, Captain Jean-Luc Picard commands the Galaxy-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) as it defends the Federation, explores new planets and undertakes cutting-edge scientific research.

Assessment: Bringing back Star Trek was an obvious move, but employing a whole new cast and set of characters and putting them on a new (and, at the time, rather weird-looking) Enterprise a hundred years further in the future? Paramount made a massive gamble with Star Trek: The Next Generation and one that at first didn't look like it had paid off. Although ratings were strong, most of the show's first two seasons were torn apart by critics. It wasn't until deep in the second season that classic episodes started appearing.

It took Gene Roddenberry's retirement and the bringing-in of hungry new writer-producer Michael Piller to really let things take off. In particular, the writers Piller brought in like Ronald D. Moore and Naren Shanker soon really began making the show work by writing to the strengths of the characters. New enemies like the Borg were introduced, old races like the Klingons and Romulans were explored in greater depth and, most importantly of all, the show employed the formidable skills of some extremely talented actors like Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner.

The Next Generation is easily the most popular incarnation of Star Trek, its ratings dwarfing that of the rest, but it's also the most important. It showed that Star Trek can still work when you move away from the Kirk-Spock dynamic and that the universe can have numerous different kinds of story in it.

However, it's not the best. TNG is somewhat inconsistent in tone, with almost half the run of the show being blighted by weak episodes. At its best with episodes like The Best of Both Worlds, TNG is absolutely untouchable, but its worst episodes are horribly-written, badly-conceived and even outright racist (Code of Honour put off future Trek writer Brannon Braga from even watching the show). In addition, although TNG does pay more attention to continuity than the original show (or even Voyager), it still hits the reset button and avoids exploring the consequences of major character moments too easily.

Check Out: The Measure of a Man, Q Who?, Sins of the Father, Yesterday's Enterprise, Deja Q, The Best of Both Worlds (Parts 1 and 2), Family, The Inner Light, Tapestry, All Good Things, most of Seasons 3-6.
 
Avoid at All Costs: Code of Honour, Justice, Up the Long Ladder, Genesis, Sub Rosa, most of Seasons 1, 2 and 7.

The cast of Deep Space Nine: Lt. Commander Worf (Michael Dorn), Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney), Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig), Quark (Armin Shimmerman), Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), Security Chief Odo (Rene Auberjonois), Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) and Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton).

1. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller • Produced by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr • Aired 3 January 1993-2 June 1999 • 7 seasons • 176 episodes

Timeframe: AD 2369-75

Premise: After forty years of brutal occupation, the Cardassian Union has withdrawn from the planet Bajor, leaving it exhausted and devastated. The Federation agrees to provide assistance, directing relief efforts from an abandoned Cardassian space station, Terok Nor, which they rename Deep Space Nine. When a stable wormhole linking Bajor to the remote Gamma Quadrant of the galaxy is discovered, Bajor and Deep Space Nine become the most important locations in Federation space. When a hostile alien government in the Gamma Quadrant, the Dominion, stages an invasion of Federation space, it also becomes the flashpoint for the most devastating war in the Federation's history.

Assessment: When Deep Space Nine started in 1993 it was seen as The Next Generation's slightly crazy spin-off. That hasn't entirely changed in the quarter-century since then. It's the only Star Trek series not predominantly set on a starship, it doesn't feature too much boldly going where no-one has gone before and the cast is the most eclectic, oddball collection of characters ever assembled for a Trek series. It also had a perceived rivalry with another space station-set SF show, the conceptually bolder Babylon 5, which at the time it was felt that DS9 had lost.

History, on the other hand, has been much kinder to Deep Space Nine. The fact it's set on a space station is something it turns to its advantage, gradually accumulating a very large cast of secondary and recurring characters that really makes its corner of the Federation feel like a real, lived-in place. It explores the themes and ideas of the Star Trek universe in exacting - even uncomfortable - depth. It even has a cast of recurring, brilliantly-realised villains in the last couple of seasons. It takes a long look at the ideals of Star Trek, tests them, but often finds that they are still valid. Deep Space Nine is, indeed, the "darkest" incarnation of Star Trek but it is still full of hope and optimism, even at the bloodiest heights of the Dominion War in Seasons 6 and 7.

This is also the most mature and progressive installment of Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry liked to talk up a good fight, how he was going to be more inclusive and show gay people and stronger female characters in the Star Trek universe, but he always retreated from doing it. Deep Space Nine faced an uphill battle to even include two women kissing briefly, but at least it made the attempt. It also tackled issues like racism and social inequality head-on, never more powerfully in stories like Far Beyond the Stars.

No other Star Trek series matches DS9 for its organic, beautifully-played character growth across the series. There was also the attitude it took to entire races. It explored the spirituality and religion of Bajor, it made the Klingons a little scarier and more alien again and it rehabilitiated the Ferengi, whose sexism and misogyny had been played a little too much for laughs on TNG even when it got uncomfortable.

But for a show that could be the most serious Trek series it is also the most hilarious. Trials and Tribbleations (in which Forrest Gump-style technology is used to integrate the DS9 crew into footage from the original series) is hands-down the funniest episode of the entire franchise, with scenes including Worf's deadpan description of the genocidal war launched by the Klingon Empire against the tribbles, Bashir urgently trying to convince O'Brien he should sleep with a woman in case she's his own great-grandmother and he needs to ensure his own existence, and Dax throwing tribbles out of a storage compartment to hit Captain Kirk on the head. In the Cards is a more subtle episode which gently takes the mickey out of the Federation's hippy ideology ("We work to better ourselves, and all of humanity," "What does that mean, exactly?" "It means we haven't got any money!"). Little Green Men posits Quark as being the Roswell alien and somehow makes it work. Our Man Bashir has Dr. Bashir posing as a James Bond-style spy in a holosuite adventure that goes badly wrong.

Finally, Deep Space Nine has the finest space battles, some of the finest lines and some of the greatest moments in the history of Star Trek. It needed The Original Series and The Next Generation to lead the way and blaze the trail, of course, but for now Deep Space Nine remains the crowning achievement of the Star Trek franchise on screen.

Check Out: Duet, The Jem'Hadar, The Way of the Warrior, The Visitor, Little Green Men, Our Man Bashir, Trials and Tribbleations, In Purgatory's Shadow, By Inferno's Light, In the Cards, Call to Arms, Sacrifice of Angels, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight, The Siege of AR-558, What You Leave Behind and most of the entire show (but especially Seasons 3-7).

Avoid at All Costs: Profit and Lace, Let He Who Is Without Sin.


The question now, of course, is where the new TV series, Star Trek: Discovery, will fit into the list.

All of STAR TREK now available on Netflix UK

The Star Trek franchise recently disappeared from the US version of Amazon Prime, along with many of the movies from Netflix, as it is all moving over to CBS's inhouse on-demand service, CBS All Access. It is likely that the remaining TV series and movies will follow suit from other streaming services as their contracts expire. CBS All Access will also be the home of the new, still-unnamed Star Trek series which will debut at the end of January. However, the UK (and Irish) version of Netflix has picked up the slack.

As of yesterday, all 30 seasons and 725 episodes of Star Trek across all of its different incarnations are available. For the count, that's:

• All 79 episodes of the original series.
• All 22 episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series.
• All 178 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• All 176 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
• All 172 episodes of Star Trek: Voyager.
• All 98 episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise.

In addition, all of the original series, The Next Generation and Enterprise are available in HD as well as standard definition. I strongly recommend watching the HD version of ST:TNG, as they job they've done on it is absolutely phenomenal. DS9 and Voyager have not had the remastering treatment (yet, and possibly ever), but The Animated Series has also been transferred to HD. It's unclear if that version will also be available after it's released on Blu-Ray in the next few weeks.

In addition, Netflix UK is negotiating with CBS to bring the new Star Trek series to the on-demand service at the same time it launches (or, at most, a day later) in the US.

Star Trek at 50: The Original Series

In early 1966 NBC and Desilu Productions signed an agreement formally committing to producing a full season of television based on Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. To get to that point Roddenberry had had to create two pilots, hire a cast and build elaborate sets over a period of eighteen months, and still nothing had actually made it to the screen. The formal greenlight allowed him, his writers and his actors to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Just a few weeks later, Desilu almost killed the series. Although the production company was influential and capable, it was not the largest in Hollywood and it could not afford to mount a number of large projects simultaneously. Bruce Geller had proposed a new, expensive spy drama series to Desilu that had gotten a number of networks very excited, more excited than they were over Star Trek. Desilu agreed to proceed with this series, but it put the future of the Star Trek deal in doubt, as it financially overextended the company. Herb Solow, the Desilu director of programming who was Star Trek's champion, had to meet the head of Desilu, the formidable actress and producer Lucille Ball, and convince her to back both shows simultaneously. Ball agreed and work resumed on both Trek and the spy show, which became known as Mission: Impossible, making this one of the more notably successful such gambles in the history of Hollywood.

For the series itself a number of additional castmembers were added. The second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, saw William Shatner cast as Captain Kirk, Leonard Nimoy retained as Mr. Spock and them both joined by James Dooham as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott and George Takei as Mr. Sulu. Sulu was initially characterised as a scientist but for the show itself became the helmsman of the Enterprise. Paul Fix played Dr. Piper in the second pilot but for the series he was replaced by DeForest Kelley at Dr. Leonard McCoy. Gene Roddenberry was interested in diversifying the cast with female roles, so retained Majel Barrett from the original pilot, The Cage, in the new role of Nurse Christine Chapel and cast Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand, the captain's yeoman. However, Roddenberry wanted a female character front and centre on the bridge, so cast the young African-American actress Nichelle Nichols as communications officer Lt. Uhura. This was an unusual move in the racially sensitive period of the 1960s, but Roddenberry felt it was essential to show an aspirational future free of the petty prejudices of the day.

Filming commenced in the summer of 1966 and the first episode, The Man Trap, was aired on 8 September 1966. The show initially had favourable ratings, but a mixed critical reception. The show's ratings also dipped as the season continued. However, NBC had started studying the demographics of viewership rather than just the raw numbers and concluded that Star Trek's audience, although small, was committed and also young. Using these figures, it was able to still sell advertising space at a favourable rate which kept the show on the air for the rest of the first season.

The Hugo Award-winning City on the Edge of Forever is widely (but not unanimously) regarded as the best episode of The Original Series. It was written by Harlan Ellison, with rewrites by a team including D.C. Fontana, Gene Roddenberry and Gene Coon.

The first season of the original Star Trek is often regarded as the best, featuring episodes such as The Galileo Seven, Balance of Terror and, most memorably, Space Seed and The City on the Edge of Forever. Space Seed saw Ricardo Montalban cast as Khan, a genetically-engineered super-criminal who nearly seizes control of the ship with the help of a Starfleet traitor. Kirk exiles Khan to the planet Ceti Alpha V at the end of the episode and them promptly forgets about him. City on the Edge of Forever, written by popular SF novelist and short story writer Harlan Ellison, was unusual for Star Trek in that it mixed in time travel with a love story, featuring William Shatner's Kirk falling in love with a political activist played by Joan Collins. The script would be partially rewritten by D.C. Fontana and Roddenberry himself, amongst others, to bring it in on time and budget. The episode won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and became something of a pop culture phenomenon even outside Star Trek's own fanbase: the 1990s British sitcom Men Behaving Badly set an entire episode around the characters watching this episode on a rerun.

Star Trek's first season also saw NBC receive a large amount of praise for the show. It received 30,000 pieces of mail about the series, including letters from scientists, doctors and engineers praising the show. The Smithsonian Institution requested a copy of the series to be stored in its archives as it was of scientific and cultural interest. NBC was taken aback and this support helped it make the decision to renew the series, even though the ratings had already been good enough to ensure that anyway.

The second season saw only a few cosmetic changes to the formula from the first. The most notable was the addition of Walter Koenig to the cast as Ensign Pavel Chekov. Roddenberry had decided that adding a Russian character was a good idea to show that in the future the United States and Russia would have put aside their differences and reconciled, which he thought was a healthier message than other shows which were using the Cold War as a source for action and conflict.

More subtle, although irritating to some of the cast, was the fact that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy had emerged as the stars of the show and were now given the lion's share of the action. DeForest Kelley's Dr. McCoy became an excellent foil to the two so the show became centred on the three leads (although McCoy had relatively few episodes about him specifically, compared to Kirk and Spock), with the other characters becoming supporting roles. Nichelle Nichols considered leaving the show at this point and to use her newfound fame to get work on Broadway. However, at a charity fundraiser she met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose civil rights movement was at its height. He told Nichols that she was an inspirational role model for both women and people of colour across the United States and asked her to stay. She agreed.

The second season saw additional memorable and classic episodes, including Amok Time, The Changeling, The Doomsday Machine, Journey to Babel (which introduced Spock's parents) and The Trouble with Tribbles. The show continued to gain fans but the ratings remained less than what NBC would have preferred. However, Star Trek was outperforming the opposition and the demographics continued to show that affluent and professional people were watching the series. A change in transmission date meant that some of the younger viewers from the first season were no longer watching, which have led to some brief discussions at NBC and the rumour that they were considering cancelling the series. This does not appear to have been seriously on the cards, but Gene Roddenberry fanned the flames of the rumour at a series of SF conventions. 116,000 pieces of fan mail flooded the NBC letter room begging them to keep the show on the air. NBC made the unusual step of announcing the renewal live on air, just to let the fans know the show would definitely be coming back.

Things looked rosy for Star Trek but then a problem emerged: internal network politics. The plan had been to move Star Trek to a Monday night, which was considered prime airing real estate. However, the producer of the comedy show it would have replaced angrily objected and, due to contractual agreements, that show could not be moved. Trek had to be dropped back to Friday nights. This was considered the kiss of death as Trek's target audience frequently went out on a Friday evening, but there was no other slot available. The advertising revenue for this slot was also lower than Trek's old slot, so this resulted in a 10% budget cut compared even to Season 1.

Shatner and Nimoy were "unimpressed" with the quality of scripts for the show's third and final season, but particularly despised Spock's Brain, possibly the nadir of the entire Star Trek franchise.

Roddenberry was utterly furious and spent months locking horns with NBC to get them to change their minds, to no avail. He was so annoyed that he withdrew from day-to-day production duties on the show. Roddenberry's previous co-producer had been Gene L. Coon (aka "The Forgotten Gene"), who had joined halfway through Season 1 and won the respect of the cast and the writers as a skilled, even-handed showrunner with a fine eye for quality scripts. Unfortunately, Coon had been offered an excellent deal at Universal and left towards the end of Season 2 (to the later woe of the cast and crew alike), although he continued to contribute scripts under a pseudonym. NBC appointed Fred Freiberger to take charge of the production instead. Freiberger was less interested in serious SF stories and instead mandated more action and monster stories, to the consternation of the cast, writers and fans. The third season was critically mauled compared to the first two, especially the mind-bogglingly awful episode Spock's Brain which opened the season. Nimoy and Shatner were both embarrassed and annoyed by the script, and Nimoy considered the episode the most appalling thing he'd ever worked on. Freiberger's influence on the show was regarded as highly detrimental, replacing the more serious SF of the first two seasons with shlock and cheap sensationalism. A decade later, he would do the same thing when he took over the running of Space: 1999 for its second season and likewise sent the quality of the show right off the edge of a cliff.

Later episodes were better, however, with The Enterprise Incident, The Tholian Web and Day of the Dove considered to be quite strong pieces. The season also managed to score two notable points for political commentary: Plato's Stepchildren featured a kiss between a mind-controlled Kirk and Uhura. Although not quite the first interracial kiss on American television (Sammy Davis, Jr. and Nancy Sinatra had kissed on a TV show a year earlier), it was still considered provocative and daring, and attracted complaints from NBC affiliates in the South. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield was an allegorical episode, featuring the Enterprise crew stumbling on a planet with an overclass who consider themselves racially superior to the underclass, yet both are identical: black on one side of the face and white on the other. The crew are baffled when they realise that the sides of the colours are inverted between the two sides, a completely arbitrary distinction. The racial allegory was unsubtle but somewhat effective.

Ratings for the third season, as expected, tanked and this time no amount of letter-writing could save the show. Turnabout Intruder, the final episode of Star Trek, aired on 3 June 1969. The sets were struck and the actors moved onto other projects. Leonard Nimoy, in fact, only moved across the lot to join the cast of Mission: Impossible. Star Trek, it appeared, was done.

Or maybe not. One month after the final episode aired in the States, the show aired in the United Kingdom for the first time, on the BBC. Glossy and in full colour, Star Trek showed up the BBC's own Doctor Who as looking a bit tired and antiquated, helping inspire a full, dramatic revamp of that show (less episodes, higher budgets and a move to full colour). The show also started airing in many other countries, where it quickly became popular. Star Trek also finished airing just a few weeks short of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Suddenly science fiction was a hot property, and everywhere. NBC's cancellation of Star Trek after just 79 episodes fell short of the normal number required for syndication (roughly 104, allowing stations to show two episodes a week year-round), but they found a lot of interest anyway and sold the entire series to local networks to air as and when they pleased.

The result was an explosion of popularity. Suddenly Star Trek was in constant reruns all over the United States and many other countries. Books started appearing, and in December 1972 a Star Trek-specific convention was organised in New York City, attended by Gene Roddenberry. Soon Trek conventions became an annual event, attracting thousands of attendees with castmembers regularly showing up.

Star Trek: The Animated Series ran for two seasons in 1973 and 1974. It reunited most of the original cast for a new series of adventures, mostly scripted by writers from the original series. Gene Roddenberry was not a fan of animation and later "decanonised" the series. However, it was restored to official status in the 1990s.

This belated success caused Roddenberry and NBC to consider a revival of the show. The actors and writers had other commitments which made this difficult, but in 1973 the cast did regroup to make Star Trek: The Animated Series. This ran for two seasons on NBC and was a moderate success, particularly for the way it allowed much more alien creatures and worlds to be used, but the fans were keen for new live-action adventures.

What followed was story of conflicting interests, with Paramount keen to use the name appeal of the show to launch a feature film series and Roddenberry and the fans generally more inclined to want another TV series which would allow them to see more of the characters. Other factors came into this, such as Leonard Nimoy's reluctance to reprise the role of Spock for long periods (his first 1975 autobiography, I Am Not Spock, saw him engaging in this debate publicly) out of fear of typecasting. This series of battles and corporate conflicts was finally settled in May 1977: the release and massive success of Star Wars led - somewhat bafflingly - to Paramount concluding that no-one would go and see two science fiction movies so close together, so they formally greenlit Star Trek: Phase II, a new TV series reuniting the original cast but adding new characters and featuring Spock only as an occasionally recurring role.

Star Trek was on its way back to the screen.

New remastered version of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN due in June

Paramount Pictures have confirmed that they will be releasing a brand new, remastered version of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in June as part of the celebrations of Star Trek's 50th anniversary.

This a new, 4K scan of the original film negative. The movie will be presented in both its original theatrical version and the director's cut, which is generally considered definitive.

The Wrath of Khan is easily the best of the twelve Star Trek movies released to date (and certainly wipes the floor with its hideous semi-remake, Star Trek Into Darkness) and a remastered re-release is certainly way past time (although the previous blu-ray release was already quite decent). However, surprisingly, Paramount have confirmed that they are not planning any further remasterings for the other Star Trek movies, where the picture quality is highly variable. There are some suggestions that Paramount may consider further remasterings if Star Trek II sells well.

In terms of further HD remasterings for the remaining Star Trek series, CBS are releasing Star Trek: The Animated Series on blu-ray later this year. They are also, very late in the day, finally issuing a one-volume complete series box set of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray in June. Next Generation blu-ray sales in the States were considered to be disappointing, which led to plans for a HD remastering of Deep Space Nine to be put on hold. However, anecdotally at least, almost every American Star Trek fan I know has been saying they were holding out for the complete series box set because the individual sets were released at a very high price point. It may be that once the complete TNG set has been out for a while we may see improved sales and a move to remaster DS9 and, if that's successful, Voyager later on.

Considering that September marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, it appears that CBS and Paramount have been more than slightly lacking in celebrating the fact. The new Star Trek movie, Beyond, is released in July but has had bafflingly little pre-release hype or build-up. There's the new TV series, of course, but that won't launch until January. Whilst various TV specials and documentaries have been mentioned, there's not much too hard info on what is being done for the anniversary. Compared to the celebrations for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary in 2013, it all feels a bit lacking for one of the biggest science fiction franchises in history.