The Star Trek franchise does a celebratory 11-episode documentary series on itself. As with this type of shows, one has to be weary about personal slants of its creators. Of course, Gene is long gone and nobody has to tip-toe around his drug use. Nobody is deliberately trashing the man, ok except for one guy. They do walk that line of celebrating the show while not hiding its warts. This is very much for its fans. There is some fun information. Quite frankly, I remember the Desilu logo but I didn't know about Lucy fighting for the show. I do have a question or two which the show fails to answer. That's fair enough. This has good info and has some fun.
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SnoopyStyle9 March 2022
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I was born in the late 60s, my dad liked Star Trek TOS when I was a youngster in the 70s and so mum was ok with me watching it too. I really enjoyed the animated series at the time but quickly forgot it as when I was 11 The Motion Picture turned up. Since then there have been a succession of films and series and there's been something new in terms of Star Trek for most of my life.
Having watched now the first 5 episodes it has been wonderful to revisit the beginning, the talented and creative people and real world things that happened. Disputes, tight deadlines and plan B, C or D situations that still somehow came together to create something that has always been really special in my life and that if so many others.
It's been so interesting to see archive footage of some of the team who aren't with us anymore and also learn so many things already (only half way through) that I didn't know before. -
maxedwell-9568527 January 2024With all of the thousands of actors over the years, it's difficult to get interviews and comments from everyone who is involved. It was quite the coup to get Leonard Nimoy to talk. But Why they didn't interview William Shatner, who is still alive, is beyond me. Maybe he wouldn't do it? Gates McFadden was a good choice as a narrator - I've always liked her character and her as a person. Not interviewing Avery Brooks was kind of odd because Deep Space 9 was such a different groundbreaking part of the Star Trek universe. However, one character is conspicuously absent from any mentions, and you only catch a glimpse of her face once or twice. And that is Gene Roddenberry's one time Wife: Majel Barrett , WHY? She was nurse Chapel in the original Star Trek, and Counselor, Troy's mother in Star Trek next generation. And the fact that she was the voice of the computer in many of the series, and a few movies gives her more exposure than anyone, other than perhaps, Michael Dorn . Jealousy because she was once the wife of the creator? I guess we'll never know. Otherwise, even with that slight, it was enjoyable to see. Reviewed by a true Trekker.
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adrian-m-miller21 November 2021Just when you thought you knew everything, and i was born in 1971 and only just missed the first run, theres this.... a revisit thats manages to unleash new facts you hadnt heard before.
That its wonderfully narrated by Gates McFadden is a bonus
Trek is everything. My childhood was watching Star Trek at midday Saturdays, every week. No binge watching, so you had a sense of anticipation from week to week thats now missing with binge watching...people now will never appreciate tv like we did....
Learning new facts about Trek is more better! -
zhombu24 November 2021I can't say that I'm happy with my assessment and I'm sure most others won't be as well, but the pace and editing of this first episode are so bad that I'm having trouble finishing it and may not watch the other three I've recorded.
In Philadelphia, there is the Franklin Institute, a center for science, scientific history, science demonstrations, and industrial scientific testing. It's quite a place and I've gone there since I was very young. It's been a while since I visited, but the last time I was there, drinking in the exhibits around me, I watched as schoolchildren too immature to understand what they were seeing absolutely raced from exhibit to exhibit trying to find the button to push to make the display do something. They would rush up to it, frantically hammer away at whatever initiated the demo, and hunted to see what would happen. If it moved, lit up, make a sound or whatever, they watched for five seconds. If pushing the button didn't result in an INSTANT payoff...two seconds, then on to the next exhibit. Nobody stopped to look, wonder, read, or try to understand what was happening.
I am sure that the editor of this series was one of those kids.
Hyper-fast cuts, contributors flashed on the screen for so short a time that you can see what they look like, what their name is, or what they are saying, pick any two, cut-ins of scenes from shows that might well be funny but go by so quickly that they are blips...this bears all the hallmarks of someone too young to know how to edit for an audience who is seeing the material for the first time, not someone who has been spending hours with each scene. It's an absolute mess. No attention span whatsoever. No depth of examination. No desire to discover, just to get to the next bullet point.
I'm going to boldly go back to the TV now. I think there may be 15 painful minutes left of the fist episode. There are other "history of Star Trek" films and videos that are not frenetic and juvenile that tell the same story.
Harlan Ellison; story of how unhappy he was with the rewrite of, "City on the Edge of Forever" is mentioned. I can only imagine how irate he' d be if he was around to see this mess. -
silverwoodchuck4720 February 2022It's obvious that the interviewees spoke at some length, but the editors appear to think that the audience has no attention span. So their responses and recollections are clipped to show clips from the various shows. Much is left on the virtual cutting room floor.
Gates McFadden is a great narrator, though.
Star Trek deserves a Ken Burns style documentary, not this. -
ktboundary9 December 2021Here's a novel idea, how about one of you network geniuses consult an actual Star Trek fan for their input prior to launching your product? Who is the target demographic? 55 Years of ST, has all the tone and pacing of someone on Adderall watching Good Morning America.
A bunch of actors whining about how awful their job was, what in the name of the Kobayashi Maru does this have anything to do with remembering what Star Trek meant to its fans? Exploration of space? Dedication to science? Progressive social commentary? I take no joy in being critical of yet another comically disappointing Star Trek series. Honestly, I'm appreciative of the effort, but all someone had to do is ask us for our perspective. -
Seriously, what even is this. I struggled to make it through all 10 episodes (subscribing to History Vault just for this series). What I was presented was 10+ hours of actors, writers and "experts" whining and moaning about everything they DIDN'T like. Everyone sounds bitter & ungrateful to the franchise that made them famous. From the insufferable, sanctimonious Wil Wheaton to the extremely bitter Nana Visitor who would be a complete nobody if not for DS9. This program was clearly made for the Twitter mobs who seek to find fault and offense in everything. I wouldn't be surprised if this was fully sanctioned by CBS as a way to crap on classic Trek so they can push their new agenda driven tripe, like Discovery.
Besides all that, the editing is a disaster, frequently & abruptly shifting from subject to subject. This series is a disaster. -
Whenever I ever i hear this modern fad for very loud constant background noise I immediately think the producers have a lack of confidence in their product and so do this to distract from a lack of interesting content. But that isn't the case here, the content is great but this noise forced me to turn off before the end of the first episode, which I really didn't want to do.
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This is a well constructed and presented series in the style of the tous that made us and so it is a good watch.
However like all documentaries it is very one sided in it's view. The best example of this is them talking about the Plagiarism of Babylon 5. Fair play addressing this but they dismissed it as the only similarity was they were on space stations when this was legally proven to be a rip off and knowing both series the stolen material is hard to miss.
Good watch, just don't take it by it's word. -
degrimstead-128 November 2021TV Guide included a promo for this show in this week's edition, plus it was in the listings for 10 PM on Fri on the History Channel. But it wasn't on! I wrote to the History channel to complain but they gave me a vague answer. Boy would I love to see all eps in this series, but it appears you have to subscribe to some streaming channel to get it - ?
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jkoseattle25 January 2024When watching this series, take a moment to listen. Almost the entire thing is scored like a Tom & Jerry cartoon. It's distracting and insulting. It sounds as if they didn't think we were capable to paying attention otherwise. Someone says something like "I was told they might not renew my contract", and the music makes a big dun-dun-DUHNNNN. Or "So, again, we went back to Gene for his advice" - cue cartoon whipping sound and quick zoom to shot of Gene Roddenberry. Crap like that. What are we, six years old? As I said, insulting.
The shows jump around from one trivial detail to the next, with no sense of narrative or point. It seems like they told their interviewees to just start talking about anything Star Trek related and whatever came out they'd use. So, for example, in the segment about The Wrath of Khan, they covered the mechanism of the slug crawling into Chekov's ear for several minutes (spoiler: they pulled it with a STRING! Ooh, fascinating...) and yet topics like introducing KIRK HAVING A SON in the same movie was never mentioned. Presumably because none of the subjects happened to talk about it.
Seeing shows like this makes me want to call up the filmmakers and yell at them. The most frustrating thing is that we just have to sit still and take it. Thus this review. -
There's a great documentary about the history of Star Trek to be made but this ain't it. There are some good interviewees -- writers, producers, cast members, and others actually involved with the show -- but there's just as much or more useless stuff from people who just sound like superfans reciting history which should have instead been in the narration. If these people actually do have real expertise/in-depth knowledge, it's not made plain by their onscreen identifications. One is billed as "professor of sociology". So what? Does he teach a Trek class? Has he written a book? Why is he being interviewed instead of some other professor? If you want me to care what he has to say, how about telling me his actual credentials on the subject matter? Another is said to be a "writer and producer". Writer of what? Producer of what? Those who actually worked on Trek shows are identified as such, so who is this guy and why should I care about his opinions?
As for the actual narration, instead of an informative voice we get Gates McFadden doing her best to sound like she's saying interesting things--and regularly being forced to repeat herself because this is designed with ad breaks in mind--often in an inappropriately silly/jokey way. Her disembodied voice sometimes literally "interacts" with the interviewees, which I found to be a distractingly awful stylistic choice.
Worst of all is what's onscreen when it's not interviews or snippets from the shows/movies themselves. Every time D. C. Fontana is mentioned, they trot out the exact same picture -- a weird glamour shot from when she was very young. Roddenberry is represented by three, maybe four, repeatedly recycled photos. They endlessly reuse two photos of Robert Wise but only one of him actually on set of The Motion Picture. At some point, it becomes embarrassing how little effort the producers of this spent researching archival materials. And there's also absolutely moronic cutaway inserts of things like film being placed into a can, pointless stock footage and, in one particularly cringeworthy moment somebody's disembodied hands pounding on a table because an interviewee is telling a story which ends that way. Much of these--particularly the stock footgae--get repeated many times as well. These are the choices of people who have no business making documentaries and/or greedy Paramount executives who want to promote the cash-cow they've been milking for gazillions of dollars in the cheapest way possible, with no actual respect for the people who produced it for them.