Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
The other week I was at a graduation party for one of my
younger in-laws and found out something sobering. None of the college-agers and
teeny-boppers there knew the name "Gene Roddenberry" and what it
meant.
I hope I don't have to recapitulate for all you
twentysomethings (all of whom are likely to get handed entertainment-reporting jobs over
me; no matter that they've never heard of D.W. Griffith, Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, David
Lean or Jean-Luc Godard either) that Gene Roddenberry was a WW2 veteran and
southern California police officer who made a career transition into
writing/producing TV shows. He did cop dramas, militaria and westerns before
capturing the zeitgeist by being one of the originators, in 1966, of the
groundbreaking science-fiction hour Star Trek.
The rest was history, albeit of an up-and-down variety,
as Star Trek got canceled, inspired a then-unprecedented upswell of fan
reaction that brought the show back, got cancelled again, and then endured in
syndication and cosplay-filled Holiday Inn fan conventions. Star Trek is now a
world-renown culture-cum-industry of fans, video games, books, theme-park
rides, and, lately, a relaunch as blockbuster JJ Abrams movies for Paramount
(though I didn't see last year's entry STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS, and I've had
hints I really didn't miss much).
