A 58-Year Trek Into The Stars

On November 4, 1995, my mother went into labor in between a Chicago Bulls game and the airing of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's 77th episode, "Starship Down." Just a standard Trek adventure — the U.S.S. Defiant gets attacked by a Jem'Hadar ship and all the characters go through a variety of turmoils to try to survive. Solid enough premise, but if I had arrived just seven days earlier, I could've been born during the absolutely iconic "Rejoined." Now, that would've been one hell of a way to enter the world.

Throughout my life, Star Trek has followed me every step of the way. I'd stumble into random episodes with my Trekkie father if I flopped down on the couch with him after school. Or, I'd rummage around my parents' closet and end up playing with a figurine Data in an interactive Enterprise shuttle — just like Polly Pockets, but with lasers. Even when I wasn't yet a Trekkie myself, Star Trek has always been there. But, Trek finally wormed its way into my heart when I was 13. On a boring summer day, I ended up in the basement looking for something to do.

Normally I went for the bookshelves — that's where my mother hid her scandalous romance novels. But for some reason, be it the sun and moon sharing the sky that day or how I'd recently reorganized my room for maximum window-side stargazing, I found myself drawn to my father's ceiling-high collection of every single Star Trek: The Next Generation episode on VHS. Looking at the silver gloss on the box, decorated with stars and a cast of characters in cheesy '80s costume uniforms, I whimsically decided I was going to watch every single one.

First, I did the math. If I watched two episodes a day, I could finish the whole collection before school started. As a chronic overachiever, I found it very normal to think, why not have a several-months-long summer project? And so, that evening I began my Trek journey with "Encounter at Farpoint."

For 89 days, I watched two episodes every 24 hours — entertainment during lazy lunches, as background noise for writing afternoons, or the impetus for the perfect late night ice cream sesh. And when it was rainy, I committed to my crew and my full day with the TNG cast, cuddled in my favorite blanket. A pre-streaming binge, one might say. And when there were no VHS tapes left to watch, I even snuck into my parents' room, took my dad's special DVD Borg collection — the first Star Trek: Fan Collective from 2006 — and enjoyed all 14 episodes across Enterprise, TNG, and Voyager.

But I didn't stop there. I watched DS9 and VOY as a teen. Caught myself up on The Original Series and ENT in college. Then, when I was an adult with adult money, I got myself a Paramount+ account and delighted in Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds every week they aired. Trek has become an integral part of my life. And I'm not the only one. Not even close.

For the past 58 years, the Star Trek franchise has become an unimaginable influence and inspiration across media and fandom culture. From The Animated Series to the Kelvinverse, fanfiction to cosplay, Star Trek has spent decades sneaking itself into people's consciousness in the strangest and most sentimental ways. While the show hasn't always been on the air, Star Trek and its fans have made their mark.

In 1966, Star Trek started as one man's hopeful vision of science fiction and adventure. A hard sell of a show that required multiple pilots to get off the ground, Star Trek wasn't a network darling. In fact, the only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of the extreme dedication from the fans. They even, when fearing its cancellation in 1967, wrote and sent NBC over 100,000 letters about the show. Despite Star Trek not being the most popular program during its original release, those early Trekkies were — and are — persistent crowdfunding kickstarters and dedicated convention goers and fanfiction writers. They are iconic, culturally significant, and have spent decades supporting their favorite franchise.

Let's talk about the modern era of Trek. While Trekkies can argue to their heart's content whether the Abrams films or Enterprise or Discovery were "good Trek," every single one of those movies and series helped bring Star Trek into the new millennia. Grew the fandom to be bigger and better than it already was. There are tens of thousands of new, young Trekkies who started with Into Darkness or Lower Decks and then went back to watch all the other series. Teens are on Tumblr talking about Spirk right now, just like the original fans were writing zines about "The Premise" in the 60s. Star Trek has managed to be a staple of the 60s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and the 2020s, capturing the hearts of both new and old fans on such a massive, multi-generational scale unlike most any other franchise before it.

And it's not just newbies, either. The spread of Star Trek shows throughout the decade — and especially the mass boom of Trek media this millennia — has sparked a Trek renaissance which has inspired older fans to return to the fandom of their youth. Sometimes it's a 60-year old superfan watching the latest episodes of Prodigy. Other times, all these new cockamamie shows send old Trekkies climbing down into their basements to grab their old tapes and watch their favorites from "the golden days." Whether you love it or hate it, modern Trek has been an inspiration to all.

Fittingly, just as science and technology define the Star Trek franchise, the evolution of the internet has grown the Star Trek community exponentially. Once, Trekkies had to stumble upon one another. Write letters to each other across the country. Coordinate for months to meet each other at Bjo Trimble's WorldCon Futuristic Fashion Show. Now, fans connect on Tumblr, Tiktok, Twitter, Reddit. There's Federation fanfiction writing groups on AO3 and Discord servers for gay Trekkies. This multi-generational saga of Trek has led to so many podcasts, video essays, fan sites, and communities all inspired by each person's unique Star Trek journey.

Alex Kurtzman, the creative lead and executive producer for all modern Star Trek series, has his own franchise-changing story with Trek. While he wasn't a Trekkie to begin with, working on 2009's Star Trek led him to doing tons of research on the franchise and becoming an avid fan. His work on the film franchise spurred him to work with Paramount to create six completely new Star Trek shows in eight years — doubling the amount Trek series that fans got for the first 40 years of the franchise's existence. And while he's had such a lasting impact on Trek, he's not the only big name who counts himself among Trekkies. Rihanna watched Trek with her dad. Tom Hanks ran home from school to watch new episodes of TOS. Robin Williams visited Star Trek sets (TOS and VOY) whenever he could and told Neelix actor Ethan Phillips that he was his favorite character. Nicholas Cage is an avid Final Frontier fan and refuses to contemplate starring in Star Wars because "I'm on the Enterprise. That's where I roll." No matter which Trek is your favorite, no matter how you express your love for the franchise, every piece of Trek media is somebody’s beginning to their Star Trek journey. But that journey isn't what brings us together. It's the fact we all ended up in the same place, loving this universe that Gene Roddenberry created.

Star Trek having generations of shows for generations of fans — 13 series and 950 episodes over nearly six decades — has created a fantastic franchise with a Trek for every Trekkie. Picard for the broody drama crowd, Prodigy for the kids, Nemesis for the masochists and the Tom Hardy fans. I myself have found great joy and acceptance in episodes like "The Measure of a Man" and "Rejoined" and "I, Borg" — the exact right stories for a bisexual little kid who felt like an alien. Some people have newly created Strange New Worlds watch parties or religiously turn on the TOS movies every holiday with their families. There's a million ways to be a Star Trek fan and a million ways to find fans just like you. That's the real magic.

Star Trek has become a cultural touchstone. It's one of the longest running franchises. The Enterprise became the namesake for the first American space shuttle orbiter. It featured one of the first interracial on-screen kisses. It gave birth to fanfiction. But Star Trek's willingness to feature vastly different characters and even very different tones of stories is what has created such a rich and expansive community around it. And with the upcoming, more teen-focused Starfleet Academy, the continuation of the nostalgic Strange New Worlds, and the grand finale of the comedic and beloved Lower Decks, there's so more opportunities than ever for Star Trek journeys to begin.