STAR TREK only ran three seasons, from 1966 to 1969. In my hometown, we only got one channel, and it did not carry Star Trek, so I never saw it when it originally aired. But a few years later, the show was in syndication, and I was a law student in Austin.

The year was 1974, and I had just begun law school at University of Texas. One of the local UHF stations carried Star Trek in syndication every evening. I would allow myself no more than two hours of television a day, which was all intended to refresh my otherwise weary mind. That’s what Star Trek did for me. Over the three years of law school, I must have seen every episode of the original Star Trek at least three times.

For the true Trekkie, Star Trek is many things. It’s the music, including the intensely dramatic chords commonly used any time Captain Kirk was battling some alien. It’s the lusty encounters Captain Kirk always had with strange, exotic females across the galaxy. It’s Spock’s Vulcan mind meld, or his ability to grab someone’s shoulder and put them to sleep. It’s the engineer, Scotty, saying “Cap’n, she can’t take much more of this!” It’s Dr. McCoy saying “I’m a doctor, not a rocket scientist, Jim!” It’s Spock giving the Vulcan salute with his hand and saying “live long and prosper.”

STAR TREK was science fiction which challenged us to consider the permanency of the human condition, showing us that the native ambitions and needs of humans do not change so much over time, even as technology changes. Ego, and its imperatives, is always a factor in human interactions. Fear, anger, hurt, ambition, selfishness are all seen in the future as they exist in our world.

During the mid 1970s, the actor who played Mr. Spock, Leonard Nimoy, attended an art school in Austin, one I passed all the time. I really did want to stop by there and just say hello sometime, but I resisted the urge. I had read he loathed the attention he continued to get from Star Trek, and felt it hobbled his acting career. Consequently, it was clear he did not want to be approached about Star Trek, and I did not want to be the guy who did so with him.

Star Trek was a wonderful mix of drama and humor. Some episodes were clearly more humor than anything, as in “The Trouble With Tribbles,” a cute little parody of drug addiction, using furry little animals that the crew members addictively petted. They simply could not resist picking up the furry little balls and the serene experience of petting them.

SOME PEOPLE consider Star Trek frivolous, but I feel it did a nice job of speaking to our better selves, of looking to the future with an eye that suggested we would improve our ability to get along with other humans.

The introductory music of the original Star Trek is a classic. I enjoy it always, and still will occasionally watch an episode showing on the cable channel TV Land. I love hearing that standard voice over in the intro: “To seek out new life, and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.”

“These are voyages of the Starship Enterprise.”

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