原创 Unexpected treat: Star Trek new episodes

Well, you could knock me over with a feather because I recently heard the most amazing news with regard to Star Trek. The first series, now referred to as The Original Series debuted in 1966 when I was only nine years old. I can't tell you how much of an impression this program made on me; suffice it to say that I was riveted to the screen. I used to love the opening voice-over saying: "These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise on its five year voyage behind the beyond, behind which few men have gone behind, beyond, before" (or something like that).

Actually, considering they were going where no man (or woman) had gone before, it was amazing how often they ran into people out there, but let's not quibble over details. (And don’t even think about getting me started talking about the technical errors in Space 1999.)

As an aside, do you remember Episode 22 of Series 3 of The Big Bang Theory? This is the one called The Staircase Implementation in which we travel back in time to when Sheldon is interviewing Leonard to see whether they will become roommates (check out this site to see transcripts of all the episodes):

Sheldon: All right, next question. Kirk or Picard?

Leonard: Oh, uh, well, that's tricky. Um, well, uh, Original Series over Next Generation, but Picard over Kirk.

Sheldon: Correct. You've passed the first barrier to roommate-hood.

Now, even though I really did enjoy Star Trek TNG, I must admit that I'm with Leonard and Sheldon on this one. Do you miss the original series? Would you like to see some more episodes? If so, this is your lucky day, because my chum Rick Curl and his wife just sent me the following message:

Hi Max, I don't know if you're a fan of the original Star Trek series, but we are. Yesterday, we discovered this site: StarTrekContinues.com, which is a continuation of the original series by a bunch of Star Trek fans. They've only got three full episodes out so far, but I'm very impressed. They absolutely nailed the sets down to the tiniest detail. The guy who plays Kirk has Shatner's swagger down to a tee; Sulu is played by Grant Imahara, originally from the Mythbusters series and more recently a spokesman for Mouser Electronics; and Scotty is played by Chris Doohan, who is the son of James Doohan. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

Well, of course I immediately bounced over to this site, and Rick is absolutely right -- they have totally nailed the sets and costumes, right down to the strange 1960's shiny fabrics and the green alien makeup.

This is such an unexpected treat. It had simply never struck me that anyone would do something like this. Now I'm thinking of some of the other TV series I used to love in those days of yore. It would be so cool to see an equivalent treatment of some of my other favorite programs. But it isn’t all about me (it should be, but it isn't) -- if you had a choice, which program(s) would you like to see augmented in this way?