40 years of Star Trek

40 years ago today, Star Trek, the original series debuted on TV. While it only ran for three seasons, it's impact can still be felt today. Not only did it result in four spin-off series, ten movies and countless collectibles, it changed pop culture forever. If you've been alive for any significant portion of time and have interacted with other human beings, you will eventually hear words like "Live long and prosper", "Tribbles" and "Trekkies". And occasionally you may be the victim of a bad Klingon joke.

So what exactly was going on 40 years ago that produced this show? Well, it was the 60s... (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more). It was basically a time full of political conflict and racial tensions, some examples being Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement.

What Gene Rodenberry did was address these issues on a sci-fi tv series that didn't seem to take itself too seriously. And there was that whole thing with the Klingons looking like humans wearing evil dictator goatees.

But what he did changed the face of sci-fi forever and for that I will always be grateful. Even in tv today I feel like sci-fi series get the short end of the stick but I'm sure that if you count them, they are more of them on now then ever before. And part of the reason for this, was Gene Rodenberry and the universe he created.