Frankly, Illogical...

Why Star Trek isn't sixty...

Okay, I’ll admit it: Star Trek is sixty. It's all a question of relativity, ie. where in the universe you happen to be. The iconic SF series debuted back in the fall of 1966. I say ‘fall’ as opposed to ‘autumn’ with good reason: Star Trek may be celebrating its sixtieth anniversary stateside, but here in the UK it is a youngster of just 57 summers. Viewers in Britain were first beamed on board in July of 1969, just in time for the real life space adventure of mankind’s first moon landing.

Why is any of this even worth mentioning? Because the Royal Mint (and it’s hard to think of a more quintessentially British institution) has just issued a commemorative 50p piece (what, another?) celebrating Star Trek’s anniversary. Every time I see it promoted online (and it’s being promoted a lot on social media), I feel like jumping on the thread and giving them this whole spiel. Celebrate Star Trek’s sixtieth anniversary, by all means. Strike a commemorative coin if you must… but surely it should be an American coin. Because to me, the idea of celebrating an American anniversary in British coinage is, well… illogical.

The trouble with this is twofold: for a start, I’m sure the Royal Mint don’t care a tinker’s damn about Star Trek. Commemorative coins like this are produced to lure collectors and persuade them to part with their hard earned Altarian dollars. How much do the coins cost? Here’s a rundown: the ‘Brilliant Uncirculated’ editions cost £19.95 each (I’m certain that absolutely none of this edition will enter general circulation). There are two different designs, and the two-coin set sells for £29.95 to £39.90. The limited edition ‘Silver Proof’ coin sells for ‘around’ £99.50, while for those with conspicuously greater amounts of cash than common sense, there is a deluxe gold edition which can be yours for two thousand, four hundred and ninety five of your Earth pounds.

Collectors… they’ve seen you coming. And it’s not just coins (or commemorative plates, or vintage cars or any of the myriad other collectable editions available from the Danbury Mint et al). This kind of madness has become rife in the guitar market, where a ‘Custom Shop’ edition of something like a Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul can sell for four, five, even ten times the price of an ‘ordinary’ edition. What makes them different? Artificial ageing, and the name of a noted house luthier to name but two. Do people pay these prices? They must do, because the ‘Custom Shop’ editions just keep on coming. Who is actually buying them? In the case of guitars, the demographic is generally older men, mostly white (don’t ask me why), either in retirement and with a huge pension fund to play with, or else coming to the end of some high end job that provides them with sufficient disposable income to justify blowing twenty grand on a single guitar (and yes, some of them are that expensive… and the rest).

Compared to a Custom Shop Les Paul, even the most expensive of the Star Trek coins is a snip. It’s hard to know which is the better investment – the coin is a lot less risky, but a lot of them will be sold, many of them to older collectors whose families will end up selling them off within the next five or ten years, which will drive down the resale value. If I had to choose, I’d go for the coin, but that’s only because I know that the market for guitars is tanking, and it’s almost impossible to see a return on instruments bought as investments, unless you’re prepared to hang onto them for an uncomfortably long time.

The other problem with the Royal Mint’s Star Trek coin is subtler but perhaps slightly more worrying for anybody who cares about historical accuracy. I’ve seen some of the social media threads promoting this release, and nobody that I’ve seen has raised the whole thorny problem of chronology that I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. Me, I’m a stickler for pop culture timelines and facts, but the internet isn’t bothered. The Royal Mint’s issue gives the false impression that Star Trek is sixty years old not only in America, but here in Britain as well. I’m certain that a lot of those drooling over the coins on social media couldn’t care less, or could even tell the difference between 1966 and 1969. It’s only three years, and it was the 1960s, so, frankly, who cares? Most of them probably weren’t even born.

The Royal Mint isn’t exactly guilty of fake news here, although I’d say that this could certainly be called a fake anniversary. Does it matter? It’s only Star Trek, after all. But even slight distortions like this can, if repeated, cause factual inaccuracies to take hold. One day, there won’t be anyone left alive who can even remember seeing Star Trek the first time around, and its British debut will have become conflated with its 1966 premiere in the USA. And while none of this really matters, if you apply the same principle to an important subject, like, say the rise of the Nazi party or the outcome of the Second World War, you can see where fake history can be potentially dangerous. Not knowing when Star Trek started in Britain is only the tip of an iceberg of general ignorance.

Let’s beam back in time for a second to Britain in 1966. Is anybody in the pubs talking about a great new series called Star Trek? No. Has anybody even heard of Star Trek? No. The same situation holds good right through 1967 and most of 1968. By the time we get to the end of 1968, a handful of people in Britain have heard of Star Trek… the BBC’s international programme buyers have purchased the series, intending to start broadcasting it early in the new year (in the event, Star Trek will be held back until the summer). Also, the editorial team at City Magazines, who are preparing a brand new comic – Joe 90 – have heard of Star Trek, even if they most likely haven’t seen a single episode, because they’re going to include it as a comic strip in their new publication. But right up until early July 1969, most of the general public in Britain still haven’t heard of Star Trek. Finally, on 12 July 1969 – and, by extension, for a few days before, allowing for the listing in that week’s Radio Times – Star Trek begins to percolate the collective consciousness of the British public (I blame that Vulcan mind-meld myself…)

And there you have it: Star Trek, utterly obscure, unknown and unloved by the great British viewing public in 1966, and equally obscure and unremarked for another three years. Ironically, by the time Star Trek made its BBC1 debut in the summer of 1969, it had already been cancelled by NBC. Which perhaps makes the British sixtieth anniversary, in 2029, less of a cause for celebration...

For me, Star Trek arrived at the perfect time. I’m sure I’d have watched it if we’d had it back in 1966, but aged five I’d have got less out of it. Even at the age of eight, I was still a bit too young to understand the sophistication of the writing, but I could better appreciate some of the classic episodes we got to see in the first BBC season. Between July and December, it quickly established itself as a new favourite, and a series not to be missed. And when it ended, it was replaced by a brand new series of Doctor Who, which I hadn’t watched up to that point in time. The trail shown after Star Trek’s last episode, The Galileo Seven, on 27 December, convinced me to be tuned in next Saturday for the first episode of Spearhead from Space… but that’s an anniversary for another occasion.

Next time: how we played at Star Trek back in the day...