Boldly Going for 45 Years

It's the 45th anniversary of Star Trek. The show aired on the US network NBC on September 8th, 1966.

The show was set on the USS Enterprise, a starship traveling interstellar space, and introduced us to concepts such as faster than light travel, technology which included the transporter and tricorders, and alien species the Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans, to name but a few.

Star Trek was rumoured  to be canceled after it's second season, however a letter writing campaign by fans persuaded NBC to bring the show back for a third season. The final episode of The Original Series (as it was later to be known) aired on June 3rd, 1969, a month before mankind took their first steps on the Moon.

Syndication helped the show maintain it's popularity. The Original Series was followed by an animated series. Another live action TV series, Phase II, was planned but never underwent production.

After the success of Star Wars, it was decided to bring back Star Trek, but this time for the big screen, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture was made, recycling the scripts from Phase II.

More movies featuring the original crew were produced (The Wrath of Kahn, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country). Star Trek also returned to its home on television with Star Trek: The Next Generation, later followed by Deep Space 9, Voyager, and the prequel series Enterprise.

After The Next Generation finished it's run on television, it too transitioned to the big screen with Star Trek: Generations, where the baton was passed from the original crew to the Next Generation crew. Three more TNG movies were made: First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis.

After Nemesis opened to poor reviews, and Enterprise was canceled after four seasons it looked like Star Trek's long journey was coming to an end. The franchise was revived with the eleventh movie in the series.

Simply titled Star Trek, it was set in an alternative timeline and attempted to appeal to a wider audience by rebooting the story of the original crew from the '60's television show. It became the highest grossing movie of the franchise to date. A sequel is planned for release in 2012 or 2013.