Obscurity: The Final Frontier

Yes sir, it's the 40th aniversary of the original "Star Trek" series.

The show premiered on September 8, 1966 on NBC. As has been famously noted, the show got crappy ratings for much of its run, and hovered near the cancellation mark for nearly all of its three year existence, giving nerds a persecution complex that has lasted to this day (See: "Firefly," "Wonderfalls," "Joan of Arcadia," "Dark Angel," etc. etc.).

One would think that the show's four decade-long legacy still remains strong, but lately I haven't been so sure. The other day I overheard co-workers talking about a wire article that was being run about the aforementioned 40th anniversary, and how they couldn't identify who was in the image that came with the piece. Thinking that perhaps there were some obscure characters in the picture, maybe someone from the spinoffs, I said I'd take a look and see if I couldn't help out. I was expecting a Romulan or maybe a Ferengi, you know, something that laymen wouldn't recognize.

What did I find? Kirk, Spock, Bones and Uhura.

I simply couldn't accept that people didn't know these icons of American pop culture - and it's not an age thing, both of these people are older than me. I guess, outside of the nerd bubble, the voyages of the starship Enterprise just aren't as important as one might hope. The news hit me like a ton of bricks; call it a loss of innocence.

There's four episodes on TV Land tonight - including those darn Tribbles pictured above. They're also running "Plato's Stepchildren," which has gotten a lot of press (and talk at last month's Comedy Central William Shatner roast) as having the first ever interracial kiss on TV. Apologies to those two dudes on the Discovery Channel, but it's time for some mythbustin'.

Not only did Kirk and Uhura's lips never touch on scren, in accordance to what NBC reportedly demanded, the two characters were under mind control! It was against their will! As much as I love "Star Trek" and great moments in Civil Rights, this really isn't one. Of course, it's been said that the producers really wanted to do an interracial kiss and this was the only way they could get away with it, but it's still what it is, sadly. But give the show props for having, as that Wikipedia article points out, several interracial kisses involving Asians and Latino actors that no one really cared about. I don't know what that says about mid-60s American society, but it's probably not too positive.