Watching the original Star Trek now is a lot to process for me. The first time I saw any of these episodes was on a standard definition television not much bigger than some of the laptops I’ve had. And not in order. Not the whole thing. With commercials and static and interruptions from family, I occasionally saw these fuzzy images where the matte paintings were blurs, the music was is a muted mono, and the colors were barely more than black and white.
With all of these handicaps, with all of this working against me, never knowing how certain stories worked out, having to piece together all the things that didn’t make sense, with bedtime and school cutting into viewing time, with everything working against my ability to see this show from just before I was born, I still fell in love with it.
My primary TV in High School was a six inch black and white, and the most interaction I had with the show was through that screen. It’s where I also became familiar with a lot of TV from those days, but for all the Newheart and Simpsons I digested, it’s Spock I still think about.
So to watch it now, in such pristine digital form, to see any episode, to catch details and nuance on a big screen – to see it for the first time, in some cases – feels like something I’ve been dreaming about my whole life.
Austin Rich 