CHAPTER I


INTRODUCTION


A television series in the 1960s was written about a starship called Enterprise, which was on a five-year mission to explore the galaxy. The different episodes consisted of stories about the 430 crew members and their adventures among the stars. The captain of the ship was James T. Kirk, "the youngest man ever to be assigned a starship command, and a brilliant, irresistibly attractive and hard-driving leader who pushed himself and his crew beyond human limits."* His first officer, Mr. Spock, was half Vulcan (and half human), which meant that he was very logical and rarely showed his emotions. The rest of the crew was very diverse in ethnic background and showed great loyalty to their captain. This series, created by Gene Roddenberry, was called Star Trek.


Ever since the first episode of Star Trek was broadcast, on September 8, 1966, its presence in the American culture has been growing. That original series lasted three seasons and consisted of 78 episodes. The third season was originally canceled, but due to a tremendous amount of fan mail it was saved. Although new episodes were not being produced, Star Trek was still being watched. Syndication had taken over and reruns of the original episodes continued to be broadcast. In 1973, another resurrection occurred when 22 cartoon episodes were created for Saturday morning programming.**


For a series that existed only in reruns the number of fans and their continued dedication to the show was unprecedented. Fan clubs, Star Trek conventions, books, and magazines were all evidence in support of an uncommon occurrence. A Star Trek letter writing campaign instigated by two fans, Bjo and John Trimble, succeeded in getting over 500,000 letters written to President Gerald Ford, who in turn changed the name of the first space shuttle to Enterprise.** The legacy continued on with further Star Trek sagas being told through nine motion pictures and four additional television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation (7 seasons), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (7 seasons), Star Trek: Voyager (7 seasons), and Star Trek: Enterprise. Something about these shows continues to attract countless fans - even in re-run form.


The motivations behind fans' devotion to watch Star Trek will be one area of focus of this study. These motivations will be examined through a uses and gratifications process. Uses and Gratifications is used to examine the effects that television has on its viewers and also attempts to determine what motivates people to watch. The differences between viewers' desires to watch Star Trek and their desires to watch other programs will be the second area of focus. A determination will be made as to whether Star Trek has a different value to people that watch it than general television does.



(The next portion of the book deals with some of the background research into Star Trek. Research into general television viewing and the Star Trek discoveries come later on.)



Star Trek Appeal

Star Trek has a certain appeal to many people, as evidenced by the continued amount of positive attention it continues to receive. Several papers have been written in attempt to describe reasons for its widespread appeal, but no single reason seems to be able to account for its appeal. The complexity of trying to explain the Star Trek phenomenon is considerable. That fact should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied the effects that television has on its viewers. The two subjects (viewing Star Trek specifically and viewing television in general) are closely related and therefore deal with some of the same complex issues.


Tyrrell*** builds on Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's initial description of the show as "a wagon train to the stars"**** by comparing the show's plots to those of western cowboy-type movies. The Enterprise and its crew are said to fit the same role as white settlers moving west in early America. The role of Native Americans is in turn filled by Klingons and Romulans. This infers that Star Trek, being written in a similar style to other well-liked material, is also well liked. In other words, the writing style motivates the viewers to watch it.
(continues)




* Jewett, R., & Lawrence, J. S. (1977). Star Trek and the bubble-gum fallacy. Television Quarterly, 14(1), 6.


** Stine, G. H. (1988). State of the art: Star Trek revisited. Analog Science Fiction Science Fact, 58(11), 158-166.


*** Tyrrell, W. B. (1977). Star Trek as myth and television as mythmaker. Journal of Popular Culture, 10(4), 711-719.

**** Roddenberry, G. (Producer). (1967). Star Trek. Paramount Pictures Corporation.