Star Trek Boldly Goes Back to TV…Kind Of

Cell phones. Tablets. Interracial kissing. Commonplace today, but prior to 1966 there wasn’t anywhere on T.V. you could have found such novelties. Not until the enterprising Gene Roddenberry sent his crew into living rooms across the country to boldly blow the minds of viewers young and old. Now the show that’s inspired generation is returning to T.V….kind of. See, in 2017 CBS launches a new series created specifically for U.S. audiences, but only the first episode will air on television. After that, the series will air through their on-demand platform CBS All Access. Roddenberry may have imagined a money-less future but CBS is very much part of our capitalist present. All Access means 7,500 episodes from the current television season at your fingertips…for six bucks a month. Compared to other ODP’s it’s not much, but considering the network is accessible using rabbit ears, this feels like a ploy to expand the platform by not airing the full run on traditional broadcast T.V. In the three short years that the original series ran much of the public’s exposure to possible future tech and progressive ideals came through Star Trek, which came through freely accessible network T.V. Roddenberry created a technologically advanced society that explored the stars, seeking out new and different cultures to learn from. In doing so, the crew of the Starship Enterprise managed to teach and inspire millions, including innovators who would go on to produce everything from Krazers to iPad…