Word: treks
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Despite his best work, however, the ratings were mediocre, and Star Trek was canceled after three years. The Trekkie phenomenon did not begin until the series went into syndication, and almost a decade later it shows no signs of abating. A Star Trek directory lists 19 pages of fan clubs, including some whose only members are grandmothers and others that concern themselves with the show's most minor characters, such as Mr. Spock's bride, who has had all of five lines. More than 50 books, not counting graduate theses, have been written, and a Detroit station...
...earlier life Star Trek was produced for $186,000 per show. Stars were holes punched in black paper, the crew was beamed in and out of the ship with simple light tricks, and the instrument boards were plywood. Whole shows were done on one set to save money. "I'd have blown my whole budget landing that big mother of a ship each week," Roddenberry says. These days he has a problem of affluence: how to update and add the newest wrinkles in special effects without losing "the elements that really count...
...gone through all the aches and pains of being in a hit series without being compensated for it." Where is all the TV syndication money going? Don't ask Roddenberry, who nearly went broke. "As of my last statement," he says, "I'm told that Star Trek has yet to make a profit...
Ironically, the series' most visible characters, Shatner and Nimoy, have succeeded at maintaining parallel careers. Shatner stays active in summer stock and makes $5,000 plus for an appearance at a Star Trek convention. Leonard Nimoy, who can currently be seen as the sinister psychologist in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, will soon take to the road with Vincent, a one-man show based on the life of Van Gogh. Both actors are puzzled by the Star Trek phenomenon. "Frankly, I can't get a grip on what has happened," says Shatner...
...will be treated at the box office next Christmas is also a puzzling question. Despite the immense success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, science-fiction movies are often a fragile film commodity whose only sure audiences are cult enthusiasts. To make a profit, Star Trek must reach out far beyond them. Monsters aside, that may be the most difficult enterprise confronting the creators of the starship Enterprise...