indefinite articles

Around the same time I was beginning to gain consciousness of the world around me, America was just starting to regain its consciousness of where no man has gone before. By my fourth birthday in 1987, four Star Trek motion pictures had seen release and box-office success, and the franchise was on the brink of a full-length television revival in the form of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Shortly after TNG made its triumphant bow on the boob-tube, one of my friends-of-the-moment on the preschool playground decided that it was trivia time. “Who is the captain of the Enterprise?” he asked. Having very recently seen the iconic Captain Jean-Luc Picard standing at the bridge of the Enterprise-D from my living-room television, the only answer I could give him was “That … bald-headed guy?”

“WRONG! ” he yelled. “Captain Kirk! ”

As they’ve ebbed and flowed over the years, my knowledge and fandom of all things Trek have been firmly rooted in the world established with The Next Generation and expanded in Deep Space Nine . Two of the full-length films based on the original series – the action-packed Wrath of Khan and the entertaining Cold War allegory The Undiscovered Country – rank among my favorite comfort movies, but the classic saga of Kirk and Spock has never played a large role in my Trek experience.

But I’ve decided that keeping my knowledge restricted to the newer iterations of the franchise is like professing an expertise in biblical studies but only having knowledge of the New Testament. The original Trek will always be the core essence of the series as a concept, establishing ground rules that the later versions couldn’t help but imitate.

For that reason, I’ve tasked myself with filling the gap and tackling the 80 episodes of Star Trek in order. I’m familiar with a handful of classic episodes including “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “The City on the Edge of Forever,” commonly considered the series’ peak – but for the most part, I’m about to enter a no man’s land, bereft of replicators and the Prime Directive, when the Klingons were fierce foes rather than honorable allies. Contact had not yet been made with Cardassia or Ferengi, and red was an indicator of death rather than a symbol of command.

What will follow in the weeks to come will not be an episode-by-episode summary of the original Star Trek , but rather a serialized recounting of what it feels like to tackle the entire series. It’s a long haul, but it’s a necessary one for someone who has convinced himself that it’s necessary to seek nerd credibility. Onward!