tar Trek is the darling of the television industry. Despite its dismal start in the '60s, Star Trek is the longest-running and most successful franchise in TV history. We're talking five television series, nine feature films and millions of books.
American Loves ... Star Trek reveals how this franchise came to be. It begins with the original Star Trek, which premiered in 1966. Why was it created? How did Gene Roddenberry come into the picture? What was the pilot episode like—why did NBC reject it, and what changes did they demand?
It isn't just the stars and creators of the Star Trek series who are interviewed—it's the fans as well, for the documentary includes the story of fandom's involvement in creating demand for Star Trek. After its first two seasons, NBC canceled Star Trek. In response, its fans engaged in a rabid letter-writing campaign to save the series. It worked. NBC kept Star Trek on the air for a third season. They also moved it to a sure-death timeslot. But that third and final season brought the number of episodes up to 79—the minimum number required to make it eligible for syndication. If fans hadn't written those letters, Star Trek never could have been syndicated. And, once syndicated, Star Trek gained a wider audience that wanted to see more.
Once the documentary establishes the roots of the Star Trek phenomenon, it explores the far-reaching effects that it's had on society and culture. Throughout, it keeps poking at the question of why Star Trek is so wellloved.
The story of a true space rescue
Just uttering the word "documentary" can be enough to put most people to sleep. It conjures up the kind of feelings that induce clock-watching or channel-surfing. Not so with America Loves ... Star Trek. It's fast-paced, packed with a ton of interesting facts and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. For one thing, it's honest. From the beginning, it points out that the special effects were "cheesy" in the first Star Trek, and that it was often overacted.
But what makes this documentary so rich and interesting are the depths to which it explores the question: "Why do people love Star Trek so much?"
One answer is that Roddenberry's goal was to create a series with an emphasis on optimism, hope and tolerance during a period of time when those elements were sadly lacking, both in everyday life and in the way science fiction was presented on television. In the documentary, William Shatner comments about the mindset of the time, "If it's foreign, kill it, which was also anything that wasn't European and blonde—kill it, as well."
The only downside for some viewers might be the documentary's focus on the original series. The Next Generation and other series are touched upon briefly, but the major emphasis is on the first Star Trek. And die-hard Trekkies may already be familiar with much of the ground that's covered.
And yet this program is so well-paced and so diverse that there's something here for everyone. A huge number of actors from various Star Trek series offer up comments. Others, such as former NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, have pithy insights on everything from the costumes to how Star Trek has influenced current technology. And for the die-hards, the documentary is peppered with fun tidbits. (Do you know what the winning bid was for Spock's ears at a 1998 Sotheby's auction?)
