40 Years Later

Since I discovered that the complete 60's Star Trek is available for free on YouTube, I've been watching them in order from the first season. I used to watch them in reruns at various times in my life and assumed I had seen them all. I discovered that around 17 (I didn't go back and do an exact count) of the 29 episodes of the first season were ones I had never seen before. By the way, for a real laugh at the strange psychedelic flavor that was available, see "The Alternative Factor." It was pure mindless psychedelic 60's.

Watching these old episodes has been a lot of fun, not just because of the campiness of the acting or the poor quality of some of the sets and special effects, but the interesting concept of what life would be like in the future from the standpoint of the 60's proves to be a reflection of what the 60's were like.

I was thinking about that time, which was after the birth control pill was introduced and before AIDS struck. This was a brief period when sexuality could be expressed without the consequences of unwanted pregnancy or incurable disease. Star Trek kind of reflects that, at least the hemlines and some of the sexual innuendo does. They expected that people of the future would have been more sexually active with less fuss about it. It's also strange that women and all races and cultures are fully integrated into the rank structure of the Federation, but they still show women only in lower ranks, mostly subservient to men.

Then this week, there was all the media coverage and reminiscences over the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing. I was 6 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and I watched it live on TV. I didn't realize that the work up to the moon missions were the societal backdrop when Star Trek was being shown on the air.

It makes perfect sense now. If you look at Star Trek, it captures the hope and drive that Kennedy expressed setting us on the path to the moon. If you look at some of the episodes, there is plenty of commentary on the cold war and our Russian adversaries.

It seems so recent and at the same time so long ago.