Celebrating 60 Years of Star Trek
As we head into September, Cereal Creatures celebrates 60 years of Star Trek by spotlighting the specials, documentaries, comics and fan events that are showcasing the legacy of sci-fi's greatest franchise.
We’re not sure that Paramount is putting a lot of effort into celebrating Star Trek’s 60th anniversary this year. The currently airing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds hasn’t announced any kind of celebratory episode like we got for the 30th anniversary with both Voyager (“Flashback”) and Deep Space Nine (“Trials and Tribulations”). There’s no official magazine, and the official novels have left a lot to be desired. The comic books from IDW are doing a special, but again they pale in comparison to those from DC and Marvel three decades ago.
So, is there anything to look forward to as September 8 approaches? Yes, absolutely! We won’t cover everything here—just the things we’re excited about. Plus, even Cereal Creatures is getting into the Trek spirit! Read on…
Who doesn’t love MeTV? The nostalgia network is getting into the Trek spirit with the release of some crazy Trek content every Saturday night in September. And the wildest is this Saturday, Sept. 5, from 10 p.m. Central until the early hours of Sunday, with the airing of five different Star Trek specials:
11P | 10C: Leonard Nimoy's Star Trek Memories (1984) 12A | 11C: Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier (2007) 2A | 1C: Star Trek 25th Anniversary Special (1991) 4A | 3C: Ultimate Star Trek's Greatest Moments (1999) 5A | 4C: Star Trek: A Captain's Log (1994)
As lifelong Trek fans since the ’90s, there are some in that bunch even we have never seen! And tip: if you can’t stay up that late or don’t have a MeTV station, grab the Frndly app. It’s $10 a month and includes MeTV and MeTV Toons, among others. If this app had local and national news, it could replace several others that we pay much more for.
Tuesday, Sept. 8 has William Shatner on Toon In With Me at 6 a.m. Central time. We believe these will all be animated Star Trek episodes, but have not been able to confirm that.
On Saturday, Sept. 12, we get something never seen on MeTV: crossover Trek episodes including The Next Generation’s “Unification” two-parter, DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-ations,” and DS9’s “Crossover.” Kind of surprised we don’t get TNG’s “Sarek,” “Relics,” or Discovery’s Talos IV episode “If Memory Serves.”
11A | 10C: Star Trek TOS: Journey to Babel 12A | 11C: Star Trek TNG: Unification Part 1 1A | 12C: Star Trek TNG: Unification Part 2 2A | 1C: Star Trek TOS: The Trouble with Tribbles 3A | 2C: Star Trek DS9: Trials & Tribble-ations 4A | 3C: Star Trek TOS: Mirror, Mirror 5A | 4C: Star Trek DS9: Crossover
The next week, Sept. 19, we get key episodes of the original series featuring the main cast.
11A | 10C: William Shatner: Devil in the Dark 12A | 11C: Leonard Nimoy: This Side of Paradise 1A | 12C: DeForest Kelley: The Empath 2A | 1C: James Doohan: Wolf in the Fold 3A | 2C: Nichelle Nichols: Charlie X 4A | 3C: George Takei: The Naked Time 5A | 4C: Walter Koenig: Spectre of the Gun
And finally, on Sept. 26 we get fan-favorite episodes:
11A | 10C: City on the Edge of Forever 12A | 11C: Balance of Terror 1A | 12C: Amok Time 2A | 1C: Space Seed 3A | 2C: Doomsday Machine 4A | 3C: Arena 5A | 4C: The Enterprise Incident
Fans of those older documentaries are going to love when The Center Seat II: 60 Years of Trek hits streaming services on Sept. 8. The sequel to the 2021 series, TNG’s Gates McFadden will return to assume hosting duties. The Center Seat is produced by The Nacelle Company and is said to feature the TNG-era movies and the Kelvin timeline. Interviews include Leonard Nimoy, Malcolm McDowell, Alice Krige, Walter Koenig, and many more.
Another documentary, The Sixty-Year Mission: How Star Trek Changed Television and the World, produced by William Shatner, will show in Regal Cinemas in October. No word on when or where it will be available for those of us without a Regal Cinema anywhere close. Though there’s not a lot of ground to cover that hasn’t been in one of the numerous other Trek docs over the years, this one is especially interesting as it comes from Mark A. Altman, who was also responsible for the movie Free Enterprise (also with a Shatner appearance) in the late ’90s. We enjoyed reading (and sometimes disagreeing with) his reviews of recent Trek seasons and numerous articles in the late, great magazine Sci-Fi Universe.
While we’re not big fans of some of the more recent IDW comics, we’re looking forward to the anthology covering the breadth of the Trek universe, appropriately called Star Trek: 60th Anniversary Special. Clocking in at over 60 pages and hitting stands Sept. 9, this book features a smorgasbord of Trek and comic industry heavyweights including Brian Michael Bendis, David Gerrold (a TOS writer and creator of those wacky Tribbles), Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan, Ryan North, and a couple of our favorites, Mike and Laura Allred.
Pluto TV is getting into the Trek fun with seven Trek channels—one for each Trek series, one for the movies, and a Spanish version. The only problem is deciding which one to watch!
And finally, we here at Cereal Creatures are hosting our own little celebration with a series of Trek-themed posts, new artwork, and a special classic Trek comic—all for free!
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