The Night Star Trek Beamed In

On the evening of September 8, 1966, Americans flipping through their handful of channels landed on something odd: a starship, a pointy-eared alien, and a monster that drained the salt from people's bodies. Most critics shrugged. They had no idea they were watching the birth of one of the most influential shows in television history.

The episode was "The Man Trap," and it was the first broadcast of Star Trek, airing on NBC from 8:30 to 9:30 as part of a "sneak preview" block. It was actually the sixth episode filmed — the studio picked it to lead because its horror-movie plot, about a shape-shifting "salt vampire" menacing an archaeological outpost, seemed like a safe crowd-pleaser. It was written by George Clayton Johnson, a veteran of The Twilight Zone, and directed by Marc Daniels.

The show's road to that night had been rocky. Its creator, Gene Roddenberry, envisioned adventure stories with a hopeful view of humanity's future. NBC passed on his first pilot, "The Cage," but liked the concept enough to do something almost unheard of: order a second pilot. The retooled version, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," introduced William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the half-Vulcan Mr. Spock, along with the rest of the crew of the starship USS Enterprise. It would eventually air as the season's third episode.

The little independent studio Desilu — run by I Love Lucy star Lucille Ball — gambled on producing the expensive series. The gamble looked shaky at first: reviews of the premiere were mixed. The New York Times and The Boston Globe were unimpressed, and Variety dismissed the show as "an incredible and dreary mess of confusion and complexities." But the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle liked it — and audiences showed up. "The Man Trap" won its time slot.

What made Star Trek different was hiding in plain sight. Beneath the rubber monsters was Roddenberry's optimistic vision: a future where humanity had outgrown war and prejudice, explored by a crew that included a Black communications officer, a Russian navigator, and an Asian helmsman — radical casting for 1966 America.

NBC canceled the show after three seasons. By every conventional measure, Star Trek was a failure. But then came reruns. A generation of kids who missed the premiere discovered the Enterprise in afternoon syndication, and the "failed" show grew into a cultural phenomenon — spawning films, spin-off series, conventions, and fans who learned to speak Klingon.

All of it traces back to that Thursday night in September 1966, when a salt vampire walked onto NBC and television quietly changed course.

Photo: Paulch, CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons).