Happy 60th, Star Trek!
Posted on Wed Sep 9th, 2026 @ 3:12am by Captain Maho Takahashi
Happy 60th Star Trek!
September 8, 1966. Two days after airing in Canada, a new television show airs in the United States. Nobody back then could have predicted that 60 years later, it was still being watched, loved, and would spark the beginning of a franchise that would become legendary.
All those years ago, a man named Gene Roddenberry had a vision of the future: A future where Humanity has set aside its petty differences and taken to the stars as an enlightened people. A future where we built beautiful starships and explored the galaxy together, meeting extraterrestrials and folding them into the family.
We started with the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk and his crew that we all know and love. In the era of Jim Crow segregation and the Civil Rights movement, Star Trek was the first TV show to place a black woman in a position of power and give her a weekly appearance in every episode. So important was this endeavor that Martin Luther King Jr. himself convinced Nichelle Nichols to remain on the show!
Though The Original Series was cancelled in 1969, the show experienced a resurgence in popularity through reruns and syndication, gaining a cult following that would propel the franchise into a new age. Originally planning for a follow-up series called Star Trek: Phase II, much of the planned pilot was reworked for the franchise's first foray onto the Big Screen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture- the Starship Enterprise's triumphant return after a decade.
Despite The Motion Picture's commercial success, it would be almost another decade before Star Trek finally returned to the Small Screen in the form of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which introduced the USS Enterprise D under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (my personal favorite Star Trek film) had introduced the Enterprise A the previous year, which meant the D was a further three generations of Enterprise. Not surprising, with TNG being set 100 years after The Original Series.
With the airing of TNG, the era that fans including myself refer to as the "Golden Age of Star Trek" was ushered in. For the next eighteen consecutive years, Star Trek would be on television or in theaters in one form or another.
In 1991, we said goodbye to James Kirk and the original cast with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. During this film's theatrical run, two young Star Trek fans living in the Chicagoland area would meet over their shared love of the franchise. One of likely countless love stories in the fandom, within two years they would be married. After enjoying married life for a few years, they would expand their family- first in 1997, and again in 2000. That second child is none other than yours truly.
Three years after The Undiscovered Country, The Next Generation would wind down its run in 1994. Unlike The Original Series in 1969, however, another Star Trek show had already launched the year prior to take over the reigns as the current airing Star Trek series, and that show is none other than my personal favorite; Star Trek: Deep Space 9. The show introduced us to the first black Captain that we, the audience, would follow every week in Captain Benjamin Sisko. Deep Space 9 was a much darker take on Trek than anything that had come before it, serving as something of a reality check on Roddenberry's vision, even going as far as to include a seasons-long war.
Two years into Deep Space 9's run, a third Star Trek series would hit the airwaves in the form of Star Trek: Voyager. Unlike Deep Space 9, Voyager was intended as something of a return to form for the franchise, albeit shaking up the formula by taking a Starfleet ship and stranding it on the opposite side of the galaxy. Voyager also introduced us to the first female captain in Captain Kathryn Janeway, who happened to write down the unlimited shuttles and unlimited photon torpedoes cheat codes before being flung into the Delta Quadrant! In all seriousness, though, Captain Janeway was very much a trailblazer in making the female starship captain into a franchise staple.
In September of 2001, just two and a half weeks after the September 11th terror attacks, a new Star Trek series would air, and to say that this one was the franchise's black sheep at the time is an understatement! While TNG, DS9, And Voyager before it had served to move the franchise forward, this series- which, for its first two seasons lacked even the Star Trek branding, only known simply as "Enterprise"- was instead set 100 years before The Original Series. And I must say, I'm quite impressed with what this show managed to pull off- with a look and feel that bridged the gap between things like the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, and the Original Series. Though it didn't receive the best reception at the time, popular opinions on this show have definitely changed with the advent of newer entries in the franchise, though some sour holdouts definitely still remain.
Following the cancellation of the rebranded Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005, the franchise went dormant for over a decade, with only two flashy forays onto the Big Screen helmed by J.J. Abrams (yes, that J.J. Abrams...) being all we would see of the franchise until 2017, when Star Trek made its triumphant, yet polarizing return with Star Trek: Discovery. And fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), Discovery was just the tip of the iceberg for what co-creator and executive produce Alex Kurtzman had in store for the franchise!
In 2020, we were graced with Star Trek: Picard; either a proper sendoff to a legendary character, or a grimdark fanfic character assassination, depending on who you ask. The same year, we received Star Trek: Lower Decks- a funny, somewhat meta animated parody show that's one of the few near universally beloved entries in the so-called "NuTrek" era- a term I personally despise, as it grants the perfect "them" label in the "us vs. them" argument.
The following year, in 2021, we received something quite different from Star Trek: An attempt by the franchise to literally bring in younger viewers with Star Trek: Prodigy- a show aimed primarily at children. Though initially cancelled after its first season, Prodigy already held a dedicated fanbase that got it picked up for a second season.
Then, in 2022, following the popularity of the appearance of legacy characters such as Christopher Pike and Spock in the second season of Discovery, we were treated to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, catching up with the original USS Enterprise once again, but this time under Pike's captainship. Though Strange New Worlds kept Discovery's visual reboot of the Enterprise- one of my strongest sticking points with it to this day- the show succeeds in capturing the silliness of The Original Series, showing us that not everything modern Star Trek puts out has to be dark and grim.
Most recently, this year in 2026, we were finally treated to a Star Trek series set at Starfleet Academy... Though, like with Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy is also a Discovery spinoff, and the show is thus set in the far future depicted in Discovery's later seasons.
Which brings us to the present:
For the past 5 years, 5 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days, the USS Myogi has existed, and I have loved every minute of it! With each word we write, and each new post we publish, we pay our own tribute to Star Trek and its continued franchise. We are all here today because Star Trek exists. Without Gene Roddenberry's vision for an evolved humanity back in 1966, not only would the Myogi not exist, but the world as we know it would look completely different.
So, next time you watch an episode or film, write a tag, or watch a video about Star Trek, remember that it's more than just a hippy dippy TV show from 1966. It has become not only a franchise, but an idea. An idea that we can become better than who we are today, and put aside our differences in our pursuit of knowledge.
Thank you, Gene. From the bottom of my and every Trekkie's hearts, thank you for the gift that you gave us in 1966, and I hope to be around to write something similar in 40 years' time. Maybe even sooner- on April 5, 2063: First Contact Day.
"Live Long, and Prosper."
Captain Maho Takahashi
Category: General News
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