On September 8, 1966, Star Trek was first aired to the world. 40 years, 704 episodes and 10 movies later, TwitchGuru intends to celebrate with a raft of Trekkie (or Trekker?) articles to pay homage to our favorite sci-fi creation of all time.

I think you mean "aired to America". But we all start small.
And also...
Doctor Who is 43 years old, 730 (or 723) episodes, only 2 movies, and heaps of original novels and radio/audio episodes.
...
Alright, alright, the episodes were mostly only half an hour, but an initial run of 701 (or 695) episodes over 26 years isn't bad.

Have fun with Star Trek. Check out Doctor Who when you need a stretch.
Happy Bewthday! or Broadcast Anniversary 8) May you find the Star Woman's Love!

Star Trek has been one of the greatest forms of entertainment and academia I have experienced in my life and every day for over a year I've been an outspoken voice in the Star Trek 'gaming' community in an attempt to help contribute to the ideas for the coming of next-generation Star Trek gaming.

Your coverage of Trek and Trek games is greatly appreciated and the Tom's Hardware 'Star Trek:Legacy' video is a community favorite.

So hearing you were going to do articles on Star Trek gaming has me cheering!

I know if anyone has the potential to 'get the skinny' on coming Star Trek games like: Tactical Assault, Encounters and Legacy and ESPECIALLY Star Treknline, it will be Tom's Hardware and the Twitch Guru.

I'm really hoping you can get deep into Perpetual Entertainment.

Star Treknline is the hottest story in town and everyone wants it.

One things folks want to know: With the coming of all North American television going digital in 2009, and with new regulations that allow a first run show to be broadcast worldwide via the internet, will CBS and Perpetual Entertainment do a TV show/MMO tie-in?

Folks working on developing Television/MMO tie-in technologies believe subscribers could participate in major televised events (after they air), season ending cliffhangers AND could directly affect the outcome of some events through their online participation.

simple example: A season-ending Romulan incursion will require a large number of online players to resolve the outcome with their best Starfleet training. Once resolved (for better or worse) the producers and writers work the resolution into the next season's shows. Sweeter still is that once televised...its 'canon' and finally, the Trek fan has a way to directly help shape Star Trek.

There are also wild rumors that NASA, SETI, IBM, SONY, Toshiba and the Space and Science community could also be lending their technology, talents and content to the project to see it become a 'quad-A' MMO with a hollywood budget.

That for the NEXT forty years, Star Treknline will be the online extension and new flagship for the franchise.

Rock on, Twitch Guru. Ask the hard questions.

--Kinneas (Tony Tuthill)
-Co-Host: Hailing Frequency Podcast (Star Trek Gaming).
-Co-Host: The Argus Array Podcast (Star Trek Gaming).
-Artist. Rookie Illustrator for Platinum Studios.
-Creator of STned (A Star Treknline community cartoon)
-Creator of Fleet Radio & the Fleet Radio 'Slideshows' on YouTube.
-Creator of 'Kinneas' (the archetype for Irvine Kinneas in Final Fantasy 8)

good old star trek. how many episodes have i watched through the years.

i'm not much of a reader of trek novels and didn't know there was so much. still nice to know that it lives on and will keep living on as it was such a forward thinking concept and it allows ideas to be explored in a setting that extends beyond the limitations of earth and the human way thinking if you get what i mean.

I just read the article on fiction back on friday, and read the intro article this forum is in response to this morning.

I grew up on Star Trek reruns from the time i was probably about 4 years old. I would watch TOS and TNG all by myself and sometimes with my family (none of my family has ever been into it as much as I have), and I have been hooked ever since. I have always had a large imagination and interest in technology, aliens, etc. and I loved watching the effects and getting interested in the action as a youngin'. As the article said, it was TOS that got me hooked at a young age, and I've appreciated each show, movie (sort of) and book that I've been able to get my hands on.

I have lifelong friends that we bonded through having star trek adventures in our backyards fighting off Borg and Klingons, never getting in on the cowboy thing. I've learned valuable life lessons from various aspects of Trek, such as the logic of Spock used to solve problems, figure out how things work (came in very handy for school assignments), and make things work better! I also captured a bit of Klingon fierceness as a hyperactive child, which helped me grow out of my timid stage. From the age of 8 or 9 I started reading the "adult" novels and would read them all night long, often only getting a few hours rest before the next day. Star Trek in that sense also helped my adult vocabulary, which now annoys my wife everytime i use strange words she isn't familar with !

I hope Trek goes for another 40 years, and I hope I can share Trek with my children and grandchildren and see the same excitement in their faces, watching the new adventures on TV or however we're receiving our new doses in the future!

There is so much that is half dealt with. TNG, DS9 and vogager are contemporaneous so... What happened to Admiral Janeway before she went back in time? How did 7 of 9 fit in to the fedaration? Could Riker take over DS9? Torres and LaForge in the same engineering section?

And that's before alternate events. Why did Praxis explode? Did they ever fix the Defiant?

what about Q, the series?

There is so much that I'd like to express here about my true love of Star Trek but honestly, I don't have the inclination of getting writing (or typing) cramp.

But there is one thing that I feel I must express. I, like many of you, have seen everything "Trek" on TV and the movies at least 5 times over and I have to say that I've equally loved all of the different incarnations, renditions, etc, etc, whatever you want to call them. From TOS all the way to Enterprise.

Yes, I know that sometimes "too much" license was taken with some episodes or specific series' for that matter. I also know that the writing for the later shows and some movies could have been better blah, blah, blah. But all in all, each one of series and movies in my humble opinion were great! I am a Star Trek fan that isn't "conditional". I believe that the ideals of Gene Roddenberry in one way shape or form have come through in every one of the over 700 showings of our beloved institution. When Enterprise was cancelled It was like losing an old friend... and it hurt bad.

Berman and Braga are definitely not perfect but gee, what a novel concept... they actually human . I beleve that they and Moore, Echevaria, Coto, Behr, and all the others involved in all the shows in general did a magnificent job. And it shows in the longevity of the franchise.

Bottom line, I believe that the show was ultimately cancelled not only because of the "change of command" as it were at Paramount, but more because many so-called "fans" out there were too "picky" and as mentioned above were conditional. I don't mean to offend, but that does not sound like a true and complete fan of Star Trek as a whole to me.

A true fan, once again IMHO, fully believes in IDIC. And every single differnet Trek in the movies and on TV totally realized that very idiom: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. I accepted them all and they all taught me how to be hopefull, a little bit better of a person.

And now to tone things down a bit, I would like to end by saying...

Peace, and long life

Actually I think part of the problem was the lack of "IDIC" in recent Trek shows. With some notable exeptions the previous Trek leadership wrote about:

1) Time Travel
2) Spatial Anomalies
3) Intelligent Holograms/AI
4) Episodes where the Trek crew land on a planet and are weirdly transformed into something or other. Their DNA must be more unstable than a lima bean.
5) The Borg, when all else failed to create excitement
6) Any combination of the above.

The more succesful Trek stories used the sci-fi elements (including the above) to say or teach something about the human condition - that was their most endearing aspect. They were almost morality plays.

From Kirk fighting an alien and refusing to kill him, proving humanity can rise above its base instincts to Picard struggling to deal with the feeling of being damaged goods after a diminishing experience (being turned into a borg), to Sisko strugling to reconcile the principles of the civilised federation with the need to win an impossible war, Trek was about what it means to be human.

I got bored when it started being about the pseudo-science babble of the week. Enterprise almost pulled out of the dive in the last two seasons. Despite the ridiculous abundance of time travel stories and Alien Nazis, it did stay with the basic themes, but sadly it was too late.

I hope the next leadershp, JJAbrams or whoever will try to capture the original essence of the series. I would hate to see an empty blockbuster with the starfleet logo on the poster.

The first point... yes, but you mistake why. The greatest problem is that everyone who has been helming the Star Trek franchise has been someone who wanted to make Star Trek 'different'.

Star Trek was never intended to be 'different', it was intended to be 'better', which is different in and of itself, but not just for the sake of being different.

Ever sit down and really just watch the extra features on the TNG disks? They explain the reasoning behind some of the best episodes. You have scores of stories told by people who 'had this meeting with Gene Rodenberry', and came out understanding what he intended Star Trek to be. Star Trek was supposed to be a portrayal of the best of humanity. What can be achieved if we set everything else that is holding us back aside.

For years now, recent Star Trek has been escapism to the holodeck, as you even alluded to. Well, at one time they were going to make an episode about a kid in the future using the holodeck to recreate his lost mother so he wouldn't have to mourn her. The chief writer goes in to talk to Gene and Gene tells him why the script was rejected... "In the future, children wouldn't mourn the passing of their parents as death would be considered a part of life."

It was a way of thinking that they just didn't grasp until they talked to him, and it is apparent that they don't grasp it now.

And now for point 3… because YOU don’t get it either. More mature, more graphic. Know what? That’s just like every other sci-fi series out there, and that is not what Star Trek was ever supposed to be. No, instead that is what they tried to do (to some degree) with the last bit of Voyager and with Enterprise in their efforts to make Star Trek ‘different’. And what ended up happening?

Star Trek was supposed to be the best of humanity, and was enjoyed in large part as a show that was good for families to get together and watch. You do that and I know a ton of families that are hardcore Star Trek fans who will turn the series off. In fact, that is why I never bothered with Enterprise, because they seemed to dwell on trying to introduce mature content. Every other episode was advertised based on some sexual angle. It was as if the writers just couldn’t think of anything other than how sex would work in space. Sure this type of situation was handled in the first two series, but it wasn’t dwelt upon.

It should be noted that some of the finest television shows may be found on cable stations, but aren’t some of the finest because of their content but instead despite it, simply because they have good writers. No, if they go that route, like you said, they cut their audience in a huge way and that just doesn’t make sense to do.

But that brings us to the other point… yes, good talent is needed. But not yet another person who wants to make Star Trek ‘different’ or ‘edgy’, but someone who understands what Star Trek was supposed to be, someone who wants to depict the best of humanity. Someone who understands that we are better than that, better than having to resort to ‘different’ and ‘edgy’ for the sole purpose of appealing to our baser natures.

Then again maybe too many viewers are too interested in appealing to hedonism for us to have TV like that anymore.

Oh, and yes, DS9 was excellent... but it wasn't really Star Trek, it was Babylon 5. Yes, they started releasing their episodes earlier, but after Michael Straczynski had shopped the Babylon 5 'bible' to Paramount, hoping that they would pick up the series several years beforehand. Unfortunately that happened just before Paramount needed something to fill the gap after TNG, so when they started kicking around ideas for the next Star Trek, they just put together what they remembered of the Babylon 5 idea that was shopped to them, adapted it for the Star Trek universe, and started filming.

I have to 110% agree with this article. Gene's vision was at it's zenith during TNG and DS9. While on the DS9 kick, such a wonderfull foundation of integrating many current issues into the whole Fed, Dominon, Romulan, Cardi thing. Paramount missed the boat that Battlestar Galatica (and even Babylon 5) picked up on.

Personally, I agree that ST needs to leave syndication and go to cable. I'm not sure if HBO would be a good place for it. The reason is that while we as adults who grew up on TOS, the movies, TNG and so forth. We were kids and for the most part, the content was safe enough for our parents to allow us to watch. I now have a 5yr old son and another on the way. I'd love for my kids to enjoy a fresh series and allow me to share the history through the DVD's of TV episodes and movies. But I don't want my V-Chip to be goin' crazy and I'm shielding my kids eyes and ears 'cause while the scene makes perfect sense to me, it'll be too much for them.

Rather, try doing a more adult themed one for the after 10pm crowd. And do an animated one for the 9yr old's for Cartoon Network's Toonami block. With the success of the Clone Wars shorts, I think Viacom would do well if it gave it a try with good writing and acting talent. Hell, ST animated shorts...I like that alot.... Don't need big money to start and and keep up on but it allows room to create more demand 'cause people wanna see what happens next. Let the demand grow, to the point where a network wants to make a full kids series.

And a DS9 movie with as much of the series cast??? YESSSSSSS!!!!!!
Bring Sisko back as a Prophet-Human hybrid wrestling with his love for friends and family and his need allow humanity to finds it's way without overt superbeing influence. Hmmm....I smell a clash with Q coming on....
Hmmm...Kira worships the Prophets...Ben comes back as the Emissary Reborn...She now is torn between seeing him as a friend or as a god. I'm geekin' out about this movie already and I'm writing it!!! (Don't worry, I won't be upset if some of you think this is lame, I'm just ranting...)

And of course the token cameo's from other series characters is always a crowd pleaser.

ST has life. It just needs to go back to what Gene started. Talk about today's issues in a futureistic setting. ST has an invaluable history with plenty of content to create wonderfull stories. The TV execs need to do what they do best. Enable the project to get the best talent and allow the thing to grow. Stop being so obsessed with quick returns, it never works. Allow for fresh ideas and stop resorting to gratutious T-n-A when your show ratings drop. Stay out of the writing and director chairs. That's not what you execs do.

YOU ARE SO RIGHT!!!

What a concept, Family tv. Why must everything EVERYTHING have to be about sex and have to be mature or edgy. By the way, what is exactly mature about people who have less control humping others than animals? I must be missing something there...

I mean really you see movies Rated R for "Mature" language, what exactly is mature about speaking like a ninnyhammer? Hmm something to ponder...

Anyway, I hope to see more "MATURE" tv the kind that supports the FAMILY Element. To me the real test of "Maturity" is how good you can be at being a Mother or Father!

It is quite odd that, when talking about 'entertainment', the word mature means the exact opposite that it means when used otherwise.

But yes, if I can't sit and watch it with my family, then I won't own it or sit and watch it myself.

I just read 'five ways to cure Star Trek's midlife crisis’, and here's what I think:

First of all, I started watching StarTrek with Voyager, then DS9 and now I'm in the middle of TNG. I like have the story mixed up; makes you think while watching, big fan of Tarantino's films with the end as the beginning and so on. Anyways, having all I knew of StarTrek being the new high-tech Voyager, and the ship-gets-into-trouble-ship-gets-out-of-trouble-with-a-happy-go-lucky ending. At the time I thought it was the greatest. It didn’t occur to me how shallow the story was until I started DS9.

DS9 was great, the cast, story, and writing was superb. The biggest part about it that made it my favorite ST show, was how the episodes didn’t have a ‘Happy-go-lucky’ ending, and that some episodes ended with great hardship and loss. Thus allowed the story to develop into series that won’t soon be forgotten. With, as I recall, the longest episode being split into 7-8 parts, that’s 4+hrs continuing with the development, getting you ready for the conclusion. How many other shows do you know that can pull that off? And then there was the Vulcan Vrs. DS9’s crew, baseball game

Now for Next Gen. As with most TV shows, the first season was a little difficult to get through. The cast hadn’t found their nook, or special flare that makes their characters unique and lets the show rise to a different level. To further this point I didn’t want to make it seem that Voyager was a bad show, in fact it was a great show, it was just not for me. When Voyager first started out, the cast really didn’t have a feel for their characters nor were they made their own. During the first season the cast found their characters and started making them their own. All seasons after that got better and better. The same thing happened with DS9 and TNG, and many more great TV shows. After I got through the first season, the rest got better. I still had the in-trouble out-of-trouble with a happy-go-lucky ending but the flare of TNG is so different from any show prior listed.

Now in my opinion, I think that StarTrek was killed with the end of Voyager. Voyager back in the Alpha-Quadrant with new technology and knowledge far superior to that of the federation, Klingons, Romulens, Kardasians, and even the Dominion. The galaxy’s nemesis, The Borg, crippled, perhaps destroyed. What would another StarTrek series be baised on? I think it’s all been done. I wouldn’t mind seeing another DS9 typed show but with the new technology that the future Janeway introduced, lasting peace is possible through-out the alpha-quadrant, and with no challenge, there's no story and no plot. Going back in time has already been tried and failed horribly with StarTrek: Enterprise. The only way that I see to create a story that would last today would be to have it take place 20, 30, 40, even 100 years in the future, but then it wouldn’t be the same as StarTrek. It wouldn’t have the same feel. By creating another series in the future you’d be changing what the name ‘StarTrek’ meant. Five to ten years from now, if another show is created I’d be like StarWars, where the first three shows were awesome, but then episode 1 2 and 3 came out and they gave StarWars a bad name. Now the name Starwars name is synonymous with children’s movies, gold mine, and rip-off. Is this what you want to become of Startrek?

Found this...

Shatner and Nimoy insist the series endures because its visual effects were secondary to transcendent themes dealing with social justice, race relations and even Cold War tensions.

"Shows about explosions and special effects, go away," Nimoy said in a recent interview. "We didn't have a lot of production values. It all had to get into your head somehow and resonate somewhere. And I think that's why it survives."

Shatner, who jokes he doesn't watch "Star Trek" reruns anymore because "the aging process is so painful," added that fans saw past the "cheesy costumes, and the bad sets and the ill-gotten special effects" because of the show's substance. "It's almost like theater of the mind."

Now that is absolutely correct. If they want to make Star Trek again, they have to make it about SOMETHING, with each episode, otherwise you end up with Enterprise, which was never really about anything.