What are all the ways you watched the Original Series? If you're old enough, it might be more ways than you think.
1) Original NBC broadcasts. This was the real OG. Cigarette commercials and all. You might still be watching on a b&w set. You have to give up Bewitched and That Girl for Star Trek— and you do it somehow. I saw one episode this way, "The Lights of Zetar," but I was so little, it scared the hell out of me.
2) 1970s syndication on 16mm film. Whole scenes were cut for time, and the by the late 70s, the prints were looking dull and grimy, even ragged in places. But I loved every minute of it. I didn't know about the vaulted 35mm negatives, and thought the show was going to disappear altogether at some point. It was scary. The idea of not watching it seemed insane.
3) Your off-the-air audio tapes. Made 'em, played 'em, memorized 'em. Watched it in my head. I especially went after the best music scores, which is still a passion.
4) Public showing of a 16mm film print. The grand daddy of this experience would be that time Gene Roddenberry took The Cage and WNMHGB to a general sci-fi convention to introduce the show's existence. He also took along two models, namely the 33-inch Enterprise and a young lady looking hot in the women's uniform. He wasn't stupid.
5) Your own copy of a 16mm film print. This was out of my league.
6) Pre-recorded Betamax tapes. I never had a Betamax machine.
7a) Pre-recorded VHS, 1 episode per tape. I bought at least five of them from local stores for about $12 apiece. Today their best legacy is the box art, scanned to my digital archive. The key art for The Cage is especially gorgeous.
-- 7b) You could also buy single-episode VHS tapes through the ad in Starlog magazine, for $14.95 each plus shipping, so $17.50. I'm looking at the December 1985 issue. That would be $50 in today's money, for a single episode. It was steep.
-- 7c) Pre-recorded VHS, 2 episodes per tape. Columbia House had a mail-order plan. I have a pamphlet dated 1991: about every month, you'd pay $19.95 for a cassette sent to your house. That would be like $46 in today's money. So, adjusted for inflation, the complete series ($798 in 1991) would be equivalent to $1859 now. No wonder I didn't sign up.
8) The 1985 syndication package, re-mastered and distributed to TV stations on video tape. This run was newly bright, sharp, and clean, but each episode was beset with seemingly a hundred tiny cuts for time. It was so good, and yet so bad. I was watching on a Canadian station at that point. Any port in a storm.
9) Your homemade video tapes from TV broadcasts. I taped everything at the slow speed, to get six episodes per cassette, and boy did they blur out over time. VHS at the six hour speed was not a good format for the long haul. Some kind of magnetic entropy diffuses the recording. You think you're building an archive, but you're building it on sand. When new, they were at least watchable, by the standards of the time.
10) "The Cage" color-b&w hybrid edition hosted by Gene Roddenberry. I saw this on cable pay-per-view for $4.50 on October 18, 1986. It's in my VHS log because I taped it that night. It was stunning to see scenes I didn't have memorized. My mother even watched it with me, and she was not interested in Star Trek.
11) Other network broadcasts of the original fx. The English might have watched it on BBC. I saw The Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition on cable, with Shatner and Nimoy hosting, plus little interview snippets. It was uncut and excellent, save for the 90-minute time slot kind of over-extending an episode.
12) CED analog video disc. This was a doomed format, and RCA took a beating on it.
13) Laser Disc. Probably the last analog format. I never bought these, but I understand you got a picture quality that fell between VHS and DVD. Your local store or a Columbia House subscription by mail is how you got them.
14a) DVD with original fx, two episodes per disc. This brings us to 2001. Money was tight and I only bought Volume 38, The Way to Eden and Requiem for Methuselah. That gave me a sample of the experience, and also I wanted the music from both episodes.
-- 14b) DVD with original fx, repackaged into season sets. Probably still the best way to see the original fx. I'm sure this was a better deal, but I missed these entirely when they came out. I wasn't shopping much at the time. Just haunting a really cheap used bookstore.
15) 2006 syndication of TOS-R (CGI fx). I was very excited to see these. It was one episode a week on my 19-inch CRT set, and of course I wasn't yet Internet-versed in the shortcomings of CBS Digital. I just thought it was all-around fantastic.
16) A network run of TOS-R in HD. An example would be MeTV. By this point the novelty of CGI had dimmed a bit, and the cuts for time were there. But MeTV airs the whole end credits without voice-over promos, and that's a good thing.
17) Theatrical showing of a remastered episode. This would be done with a digital projector. I'll bet it looked good, too.
18) DVD with CGI fx. I bought all three season sets. The extras are significant and go way beyond previous releases. But it's TOS-R only.
19) HD DVD. This only existed from 2006 to 2008. I missed it.
20) Blu-ray. I bought the complete series box set. (The other BD series boxes I bought were Lost in Space and The Twilight Zone.) In the case of Star Trek, you have to accept that this version differs from night of broadcast, but it's still a heck of a package. I've heard some machines might have issues with branching if you select the original fx.
21) A streaming service, like Amazon, Netflix, CBS All Access, Paramount+. I've never done it. I like the control you get with physical media.
Okay, so I clock in at: 1, 2, 3, 7a, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14a, 15, 16, 18, and 20. Truly a life well spent.
1) Original NBC broadcasts. This was the real OG. Cigarette commercials and all. You might still be watching on a b&w set. You have to give up Bewitched and That Girl for Star Trek— and you do it somehow. I saw one episode this way, "The Lights of Zetar," but I was so little, it scared the hell out of me.
2) 1970s syndication on 16mm film. Whole scenes were cut for time, and the by the late 70s, the prints were looking dull and grimy, even ragged in places. But I loved every minute of it. I didn't know about the vaulted 35mm negatives, and thought the show was going to disappear altogether at some point. It was scary. The idea of not watching it seemed insane.
3) Your off-the-air audio tapes. Made 'em, played 'em, memorized 'em. Watched it in my head. I especially went after the best music scores, which is still a passion.
4) Public showing of a 16mm film print. The grand daddy of this experience would be that time Gene Roddenberry took The Cage and WNMHGB to a general sci-fi convention to introduce the show's existence. He also took along two models, namely the 33-inch Enterprise and a young lady looking hot in the women's uniform. He wasn't stupid.
5) Your own copy of a 16mm film print. This was out of my league.
6) Pre-recorded Betamax tapes. I never had a Betamax machine.
7a) Pre-recorded VHS, 1 episode per tape. I bought at least five of them from local stores for about $12 apiece. Today their best legacy is the box art, scanned to my digital archive. The key art for The Cage is especially gorgeous.
-- 7b) You could also buy single-episode VHS tapes through the ad in Starlog magazine, for $14.95 each plus shipping, so $17.50. I'm looking at the December 1985 issue. That would be $50 in today's money, for a single episode. It was steep.
-- 7c) Pre-recorded VHS, 2 episodes per tape. Columbia House had a mail-order plan. I have a pamphlet dated 1991: about every month, you'd pay $19.95 for a cassette sent to your house. That would be like $46 in today's money. So, adjusted for inflation, the complete series ($798 in 1991) would be equivalent to $1859 now. No wonder I didn't sign up.
8) The 1985 syndication package, re-mastered and distributed to TV stations on video tape. This run was newly bright, sharp, and clean, but each episode was beset with seemingly a hundred tiny cuts for time. It was so good, and yet so bad. I was watching on a Canadian station at that point. Any port in a storm.
9) Your homemade video tapes from TV broadcasts. I taped everything at the slow speed, to get six episodes per cassette, and boy did they blur out over time. VHS at the six hour speed was not a good format for the long haul. Some kind of magnetic entropy diffuses the recording. You think you're building an archive, but you're building it on sand. When new, they were at least watchable, by the standards of the time.
10) "The Cage" color-b&w hybrid edition hosted by Gene Roddenberry. I saw this on cable pay-per-view for $4.50 on October 18, 1986. It's in my VHS log because I taped it that night. It was stunning to see scenes I didn't have memorized. My mother even watched it with me, and she was not interested in Star Trek.
11) Other network broadcasts of the original fx. The English might have watched it on BBC. I saw The Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition on cable, with Shatner and Nimoy hosting, plus little interview snippets. It was uncut and excellent, save for the 90-minute time slot kind of over-extending an episode.
12) CED analog video disc. This was a doomed format, and RCA took a beating on it.
13) Laser Disc. Probably the last analog format. I never bought these, but I understand you got a picture quality that fell between VHS and DVD. Your local store or a Columbia House subscription by mail is how you got them.
14a) DVD with original fx, two episodes per disc. This brings us to 2001. Money was tight and I only bought Volume 38, The Way to Eden and Requiem for Methuselah. That gave me a sample of the experience, and also I wanted the music from both episodes.
-- 14b) DVD with original fx, repackaged into season sets. Probably still the best way to see the original fx. I'm sure this was a better deal, but I missed these entirely when they came out. I wasn't shopping much at the time. Just haunting a really cheap used bookstore.
15) 2006 syndication of TOS-R (CGI fx). I was very excited to see these. It was one episode a week on my 19-inch CRT set, and of course I wasn't yet Internet-versed in the shortcomings of CBS Digital. I just thought it was all-around fantastic.
16) A network run of TOS-R in HD. An example would be MeTV. By this point the novelty of CGI had dimmed a bit, and the cuts for time were there. But MeTV airs the whole end credits without voice-over promos, and that's a good thing.
17) Theatrical showing of a remastered episode. This would be done with a digital projector. I'll bet it looked good, too.
18) DVD with CGI fx. I bought all three season sets. The extras are significant and go way beyond previous releases. But it's TOS-R only.
19) HD DVD. This only existed from 2006 to 2008. I missed it.
20) Blu-ray. I bought the complete series box set. (The other BD series boxes I bought were Lost in Space and The Twilight Zone.) In the case of Star Trek, you have to accept that this version differs from night of broadcast, but it's still a heck of a package. I've heard some machines might have issues with branching if you select the original fx.
21) A streaming service, like Amazon, Netflix, CBS All Access, Paramount+. I've never done it. I like the control you get with physical media.
Okay, so I clock in at: 1, 2, 3, 7a, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14a, 15, 16, 18, and 20. Truly a life well spent.
Or the show without commercials. That has to be unusual around here.
