On September 8, 1966, Star Trek made its American television debut. But just days earlier, Gene Roddenberry was in Cleveland trying to convince some science fictionfans that his new television series deserved to be taken seriously.

On this special 60th anniversary edition of The Trek Files, Glen E. Swanson, author of Inspired Enterprise, returns to examine Roddenberry's appearance at Tricon, the 24th World Science Fiction Convention, over Labor Day weekend in 1966. Our document of the week is the March 8 invitation from Tricon chairman Ben Jason asking Roddenberry to attend the convention, speak to the fans, and bring along both Star Trek pilots. The original Tricon program provides another remarkable artifact: a "sneak preview" of two episodes of a new science-fiction television series called Star Trek.

Television science fiction still had a credibility problem, particularly among fans and writers who had seen Hollywood turn sophisticated ideas into bug-eyed monsters and juvenile adventure. Roddenberry arrived with something to prove: that Star Trek intended to treat science fiction with respect. Glen and Larry explore the expectations surrounding the convention, Roddenberry's deliberate courtship of the science-fiction community, and why taking time away from a frantic production schedule to spend Labor Day weekend in Cleveland may have been one of the smartest promotional decisions he could make.

And that's only half the story. Next week, Glen returns for Part Two, as we examine what actually happened when the lights went down, the Star Trek pilots went up on the screen, and the legend of Tricon began.

Related Documents

Letter from Ben Jason to Gene Roddenberry — March 8, 1966

Tricon Program Book — 24th World Science Fiction Convention, Cleveland, Ohio, 1966

• Glen E. Swanson – official website
• Glen E. Swanson at the Internet Movie Database
• Inspired Enterprise
• "Mission Impossible: How Star Trek Used the Aerospace Community to Try and Win an Emmy" — Glen E. Swanson, The Space Review

Recorded live at STLV, filmmaker and author Jeffrey Morris returns to The Trek Files with a 1989 research report on the landmark Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Who Watches the Watchers." The production notes scrutinize everything from radiation exposure and memory modification to the logic of sending Riker and Troi undercover, and even question whether Picard telling a Mintakan to "shoot me" feels a little too much like a Kirk move.

Morris calls "Who Watches the Watchers" not his favorite or even the best episode of Star Trek, but the most important: a story about a society struggling out of superstition and fear, and Picard's determination not to push it backward. Drawing from his book "A Future Askew," Morris and Larry Nemecek consider whether our own civilization is approaching a similar crossroads, retreating from science, diplomacy and accumulated knowledge at precisely the moment we need them most.

From the Prime Directive to fandom activism to the responsibilities of ordinary people, the discussion comes back to a simple idea: Star Trek was never really promising us better gadgets. It was imagining what might happen if humanity finally chose to grow up.

Document of the week:

• David Paige Research Report — "Who Watches the Watchers," Second Draft Outline — June 19, 1989

Additional references:

• Jeffrey Morris — A Future Askew: Urgent Essays Inspired by the 60th Anniversary of Star Trek
• "Who Watches the Watchers"
• Michael Okuda
• The Making of Star Trek

Norman Spinrad's original March 1967 story outline for "The Planet Eater" introduced Star Trek to an unstoppable machine roaming the galaxy, consuming planets for fuel and leaving destruction in its wake. By the time it reached television, the story had a new title, "The Doomsday Machine," and became one of the most celebrated episodes of the original series.

Author and filmmaker Jeffrey Morris joins Larry Nemecek at Star Trek Las Vegas to revisit that original outline and consider its warning through a distinctly 21st-century lens. Drawing from his new book, A Future Askew, Jeffrey explores artificial intelligence, social media, technological disruption, and the increasingly complicated distance between the optimistic future Star Trek imagined and the one we're actually building.

Could today's rapidly developing technology become our own version of the Planet Eater: enormously powerful, increasingly autonomous, and ultimately beyond the understanding of its creators? Sixty years after Star Trek began imagining the future, an old-fashioned doomsday machine provides a surprisingly timely place to ask where we're headed next. Document of the week:

• "The Planet Eater" by Norman Spinrad — Story Outline, March 6, 1967

Additional references:

• Jeffrey Morris — A Future Askew: Urgent Essays Inspired by the 60th Anniversary of Star Trek
• "The Doomsday Machine"
• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All - by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares
• Center for Humane Technology
• The Social Dilemma
• Borg
• V'Ger

What did Star Trek fans have to say in 1976?

John Champion returns to The Trek Files for a look through Gene Roddenberry's fan correspondence. This season's selection captures a moment in Star Trek history, ten years after the original series debuted, but before the arrival of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

A Cincinnati attorney credits Spock's logic for helping persuade a jury. An artist shares his hand-painted "Mr. Spock" portrait… on an egg. A teacher explains how she's bringing Star Trek into the classroom, while another fan gently reminds Gene that he still owes her friend for a videotape.

• Fan corresponsence with Gene Roddemberry - 1976
• Letters to Star Trek by Susan Sackett
• Gene Roddenberry's Inside Star Trek album
• NASA's Space Shuttle Enterprise

Authors John and Maria Jose Tenuto return to The Trek Files to share a seemingly ordinary filming notice distributed to guests at the Monterey Bay Aquarium during production of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. But for John, it's much more than a production handout, it's a family keepsake.

In April 1986, John's parents unknowingly visited the aquarium on a day when Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, and the Star Trek IV cast were filming. They saved the notice, recorded the production on a home VHS camcorder, and brought home an extraordinary piece of behind-the-scenes history. Decades later, that footage and flyer helped document one of the franchise's most beloved films.

Larry, John, and Mary Jo explore the logistics of filming at a working public aquarium, Leonard Nimoy's commitment to the film's environmental message, and how a family vacation unexpectedly became part of Star Trek history.

• Monterey Bay Aquarium visitor filming notice for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (April 1986)

• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Leonard Nimoy
• William Shatner
• John Tenuto
• Maria Jose Tenuto
• The Making of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by John and Maria Jose Tenuto (Titan Books)
• Previous The Trek Files appearance by John and Maria Jose Tenuto discussing Star Trek II, Star Trek III, and Star Trek IV production history.

Following last week's look at the earliest concepts for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Larry Nemecek welcomes back author and historian Ben Robinson to examine Gene Roddenberry's handwritten response and the surprising conversation it sparked.

Revisiting documents first explored in earlier seasons of The Trek Files, Larry and Ben trace the pivotal weeks of September 1986, when Gene challenged early ideas for a Starfleet Academy-centered series, questioned the show's heavy emphasis on Klingons, and argued that Star Trek's true strength had never been its characters alone but the stories it told.

Some of Gene's observations proved remarkably prescient. Others reveal how his own thinking had evolved since the 1960s. Together, they paint a portrait of a franchise at a crossroads, just weeks before The Next Generation officially became the series we know today.

• Gene Roddenberry's response to the early Star Trek: The Next Generation series proposal (September 19, 1986)

• Early Star Trek: The Next Generation series proposal by Greg Strangis (September 1986) (revisited from Season 1, Episode 4)
• Gene Roddenberry
• Greg Strangis
• Rick Berman
• Ben Robinson
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Related Trek Files episodes:
  • Season 1, Episode 4 — Early The Next Generation series proposal
  • Season 13, Episode 2 — Gene Roddenberry's response to Paramount's proposal
  • Season 15, Episode 11 — Greg Strangis' earliest notes for The Next Generation

Before Captain Picard. Before the Enterprise-D. Before Gene Roddenberry stepped back into the captain's chair of his own creation...

This week on The Trek Files, Larry Nemecek is joined by author and Star Trek historian Ben Robinson to examine one of the earliest surviving documents in the development of Star Trek: The Next Generation: a September 1986 memo from writer Greg Strangis to producer Rick Berman outlining the first concepts for a new Star Trek television series.

The document reveals some fascinating ideas: a Starfleet Academy setting, a young captain, a Klingon observer serving aboard a Federation starship, familiar themes of friendship, diplomacy, and the Prime Directive, but viewed through the lens of Cold War politics and 1980s television.

Together, Larry and Ben explore why some of these ideas disappeared, why others evolved into the Next Generation we know today, and how the process of reinventing Star Trek began long before Gene Roddenberry ultimately reshaped the concept himself.

• Greg Strangis to Rick Berman — Early Notes on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (September 4, 1986)

• Greg Strangis
• Rick Berman
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Gene Roddenberry
• Ben Robinson
• Related Trek Files episodes:
  • Season 1, Episode 4 — Early Star Trek: The Next Generation series treatment
  • Season 13, Episode 2 — Gene Roddenberry's response to the early Next Generation proposal

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is regarded as one of the finest entries in the franchise, but even classics continue to evolve right up until release.

This week on The Trek Files, Larry Nemecek welcomes authors and historians John and Maria Jose Tenuto to examine a fascinating production document: a March 23, 1982 retake script created just weeks before the film premiered. The pages reveal subtle but important changes to some of the movie's most memorable moments, from Kirk's first encounter with David Marcus to the famous "Remember" scene between Spock and McCoy.

How much did Kirk originally know about his son? Who actually performed the mind-meld hand seen in the reshoot? And how did a handful of pickup shots help shape what would become one of Star Trek's greatest films?

Along the way, John and Maria Jose pull back the curtain on Nicholas Meyer's production, Harve Bennett's stewardship of the franchise, and the extraordinary efficiency that turned a modestly-budgeted sequel into a science-fiction masterpiece.

• Star Trek II Retakes Script Pages — March 23, 1982

• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: The Making of the Classic Film
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Nicholas Meyer
• Harve Bennett
• ⁠Titan Books author page for Maria Jose Tenuto

What if Star Trek's most iconic technology was really just a clever budget solution?

This week on The Trek Files, Larry Nemecek welcomes back actor, writer, and Does It Fly? co-host Tamara Krinsky to explore one of the foundational documents of Star Trek: an excerpt from Gene Roddenberry's August 1966 Writer-Director Information guide. Among its many insights is an early explanation of the transporter, the device that would become one of the franchise's most recognizable inventions.

What began as a practical solution to avoid expensive weekly landing sequences quickly evolved into a storytelling engine unlike anything else in science fiction. Together, Larry and Tamara examine how the transporter shaped Star Trek's pacing and opened the door to some of the franchise's most memorable stories.

Drawing on Tamara's work analyzing science fiction concepts on Does It Fly?, the conversation ventures into questions of physics and philosophy. Is transporting matter actually possible? What happens to consciousness during transport? And how did a production shortcut become one of the most enduring ideas in popular culture?

From Gene Roddenberry's original vision to modern discussions of science and storytelling, this episode beams directly into what makes Star Trek work.

• Star Trek Writer-Director Information (Revised August 30, 1966) – transporter section and production notes
• Gene Roddenberry
• Transporter
• Tamara Krinsky
• Does It Fly? podcast⁠
• Does It Fly? – Is Star Trek's Transporter Really Possible?

Before Star Trek or The Lieutenant Gene Roddenberry explored his role as a television creator by developing a series for one of Hollywood's biggest stars: Joan Crawford.

This week, Larry welcomes Roddenberry Podcasts Technical Director and Gene-ology co-host Earl Green to examine a 1961 memo in which Gene proposes major revisions to The Joan Crawford Show, a legal drama pilot titled A Man's World. The project never made it to series, but the document reveals a writer already demonstrating the storytelling instincts, character focus, and production savvy that would later define his career.

Along the way, Earl and Larry explore Crawford's complicated transition from film to television, the realities of early TV development, Gene's final months at Screen Gems, and the behind-the-scenes negotiations that surrounded the project. They also discuss why the pilot script itself—examined in depth on Gene-ology—may rank among Gene Roddenberry's strongest pre-Star Trek works.

What begins as a rewrite memo becomes a look into Hollywood in transition and Gene Roddenberry honing his craft years before the Enterprise ever left spacedock.

• Joan Crawford rewrite memo (April 28, 1961)
• Gene Roddenberry
• Joan Crawford on IMDb
• The Lieutenant on IMDb
• DeForest Kelley
• Gene-ology: A Man's World episode⁠