Bonus! Song o' Star Trek Day

Dennis McCarthy, "Overture" from Star Trek Generations (Disgruntled Trekkie Mike Papa Whiskey)

Commentary: William Shatner took to Twitter to complain that his character, Captain James T. Kirk, been left off of the above promotional image for Star Trek Day, & he was right to do so.

Operation AXIOM | Hollywoodland
Fifty-four years ago to the day, 8 September 1966, the first episode of Star Trek, "The Man Trap," was aired on American television. In the years & eventually decades to follow, Star Trek (eventually differentiated as "The Original Series" [T.O.S.]) garnered a devoted fan base & spawned numerous television & feature film sequels & prequels. My father is a Trekkie, discovering it in reruns in the 1970s since he was in high school in Belgium during most of the show's original 1966-1969 run. I've been a Trekkie for the vast majority of my life, since approximately 1990. Throughout the Golden Age of the '90s, watching new episode of Star Trek (Star Trek: The Next Generation [T.N.G.], Star Trek: Deep Space Nine [D.S.9], & even Star Trek: Voyager [VGR]) was a central bonding experience in my house, between my father, my brother, & me. Star Trek is profoundly important to me, far more than simple entertainment.

These are dark, bitter days for Star Trek. This ought to be a time of great excitement, even rejoicing, as there are a plethora of new Star Trek series streaming online, but the creators behind those series have an active disdain for not only Star Trek but especially for longtime Trekkies, such as myself & my kin. The response of their disdain is apathy; right now, we are in the midst of "twenty-three weeks of Star Trek," ten episodes of the new animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks followed by thirteen episodes of Star Trek: Discovery [DSC], season three. I'm not watching, nor do I have any plans to watch any of the new Star Trek being produced. This is not a knee jerk rejection. I watched every single episode the first two seasons of Discovery & the first season of Star Trek: Picard. I've been more than fair.

There was no new Star Trek on television for twelve years, between the premature end of Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT) in 2005 & the misbegotten debut of Discovery in 2017. Those were hard years, uncertain years, because we didn't know if, much less when, there would ever be new Star Trek on television. For those Trekkies like me who came up in the Golden Age (1987-2005), during which there was always at least one new episode of Star Trek per week, this was a new & unpleasant experience. We'd been spoiled; for the seven seasons of Deep Space Nine, there were two episodes per week, as D.S.9 overlapped with the last two seasons of The Next Generation & the first five season of Voyager. Yet as bad as the desert years 'twixt Enterprise & Discovery were, at least then we had hope; today, all were have are memories, & bitterness. The original Star Trek series debuted, 8 September 1966, fifty-four year ago today.