Hour One out of Fifteen Hundred -- "The Man Trap"

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So, I did a little math today.

There are 79 episodes of the original Star Trek series. I haven't kept track, but I don't think it would exaggerate to say I've seen all of those, on average, six times each. If I channel surf into some episodes, like "Spock's Brain," I am very likely to continue surfing until I find something more intelligent, like maybe "Saved By The Bell." But if I happen on to "The Ultimate Computer" or "The Doomsday Machine," the seat cushions are guaranteed to stay warm for the remainder of the hour.

First part of the math equation: six views times 79 episodes = 474 hours of my life spent watching the original Star Trek.

Now let's consider the later incarnations of the series. I make it 617 episodes of "Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine," "Voyager," and "Enterprise." I simply don't have the reps in on these shows. I gave up on about the last two seasons of Voyager, so score a big fat zero for those. I generally liked Deep Space Nine, but for most of those episodes, once was enough. I used to have a lot of Next Generation on VHS, so I have some reps in on those. My work and life schedule interfered with my seeing Enterprise as much as I would have liked, but I've caught most of them at least once. My ballpark guess is I've averaged 1.5 views of all these episodes, or 925 hours.


474 hours of the original plus 925 for the others, and throw in, say 80 hours or so with the animated series when I was a kid . . . let's just round it out to about 1500 hours of my life in dim rooms with the glint of "Star Trek" reflected in my eyeballs.

Out of those 1500 hours, let's today recognize hour number one. It's pretty hard for most of us to remember what it was like to discover "Star Trek" for the first time. But everyone who was tuned in to their local NBC channel on September 8, 1966, that's 45 years ago today, did just that. They were boldly going where no viewer had gone before.

The episode was "The Man Trap," written by George Clayton Johnson, who had penned a few episodes of "The Twilight Zone," many short stories, and would go on to co-author the novel "Logan's Run." One of my favorite old "Star Trek" books is "The Star Trek Compendium" by Allan Asherman (1981). I have a first edition copy of this book which, unlike later editions, lists the approximate shooting dates of each episode. Episode 12, "Miri" is shown as being filmed in "Late August 1966." It probably could have been through post-production by the September 8 original air date of "The Man Trap."

This gives us an idea of the episodes available for selection as the premier, which would be these:

"The Cage"

"Where No Man Has Gone Before"

"The Corbomite Maneuver"

"Mudd's Women"

"The Enemy Within"

"The Man Trap"

"The Naked Time"

"Charlie X"

"Balance of Terror"

"What are Little Girls Made Of?"

"Dagger of the Mind"

"Miri"

Was there a better choice than "The Man Trap?" Presumably the first two were not considered for the premier since they were "pilot" episodes and had different casting and a different look from the rest. Given the seemingly simpleminded nature of network executives, especially when dealing with the Sci Fi genre, my guess would be "The Man Trap" got the nod because it had a monster in it.

I think all 12 of these early episodes are good, but were I choosing a premier episode, I'd have narrowed it down to "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Man Trap," and "The Naked Time." And I probably would have selected "The Naked Time." It has an ice planet, suspense, action (thanks in part to Sulu and his fencing foil) and is a story designed to give a good look into the nature of the main characters.

Which one would you have chosen?

Discuss . . .