Star Trek: A Celebration

Following on from the successful Voyager: A Celebration, HeroCollector has gone back to the beginning.

So what can we learn about The Original Series that hasn't been written? Hasn't been said?  More than you might expect.

Taking us right back to the very beginning of the franchise, A Celebration chooses wisely to sprinkle over the origins of the show and heads into much more focused territory. Instead of endless pages narrating that same history over and over we have interviews with key figures from the early days of the show plus retrospectives on some of the less well publicised individuals involved.

For example, several of the Enterprise crew from The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before get their share of the limelight for once and provide new and unexpected accounts of their brief time as part of the galactic franchise.

It's a big indication from the very start that this is not going to try and re-tread already well walked paths but try a new approach and one which is much more personable than we have seen for a good while. The Compendium  is a good book blocked out with episodes and trivia; Roddenberry's The Making of Star Trek with Stephen E Whitfield is incredibly detailed when it comes to production yet here we have something different that slots nicely into the library.

This is about the people who made it happen both on and off the screen whether it's the once-seen and much publicised phaser rifle or Grace Lee Whitney's story in her own words, it's a quality read to absorb.

The variety within this TOS entry is a big factor in its draw. The further in, the further it takes the reader through the three seasons of the show and also into the background of the series. The resources available for this are considerable and looking at the bibliography and thanks, there has been an extensive level of work from Robinson and Spelling to cover TOS from multiple angles. 

So who was responsible for the miniskirt? What about THAT kiss? Who was Gary Seven's cat? Yes, all of these and more are answered to a degree and even now this book highlights just how much has been forgotten, become myth, urban legend or elevated even higher. Does it manage to separate the fact from the science fiction? Maybe.

It is difficult to do something different with such a property as notes but this production does attempt to do just that. It’s not a case of no stone unturned and more of picking that stone up in a different manner and reassessing at another landmark year in its legacy. There's no doubting the work that has gone into A Celebration and even though this is a fresh approach, you do at times still know that history is repeating itself. There are stories you've heard before but somehow in one or two occasions there is a new perspective on the moment.

This is a book though more about how real people made Star Trek work behind the scenes. It does dispense with some of the gripes and negativity that existed around the third season particularly and chooses to focus more on the positives and what each of the "lesser known" personalities brought to the show. We even get to spotlight model work, production, costumes and writers. Maybe all of these could have done with more page space but if you want a real deep dive refer to the books noted above.

A Celebration does, consequently celebrate everything good about those three significant seasons in TV history and some of the ripples that came off it. If not offering 100% new material, Spelling and Robinson have tweaked and polished for something that feels different and would be ever so accessible for new viewers of The Original Series.

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