Earlier this week, CBS announced, to the delight of Trekkies everywhere, that it is planning a Star Trek reboot to come in January 2017.

The classic franchise has seen several iterations over the past 50 years, on both film and TV, to varying degrees of success. But before CBS launches its newest version, take a look back at the many captains, crews and space missions through the years:

The Original Series (1966–1969): Meet Captain James T. Kirk, first officer/science officer Spock, and chief medical officer Leonard McCoy in the original Star Trek TV series.

Kirk (William Shatner) famously narrated the famous opening lines:

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

While the original series ultimately saw its characters cemented as icons, it did not start out that way. Star Trek aired for just three short seasons and only became truly popular later.

The Animated Series (1973–1974): The Enterprise returned in the ‘70s with a short-lived animated version of the show, including the voices from several of the series’ main actors.

The Next Generation (1987–1994): The ‘80s version of the series takes place aboard the Enterprise but 100 years after The Original Series, introducing Captain Picard, played by Patrick Stewart who voices the new, slightly altered opening lines:

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

While by this time the original Star Trek had morphed into a cult hit, it took the arrival of Next Generation, and Picard, to really launch the show and its world into the pop-culture stratosphere.

Deep Space Nine (1993–1999): The ‘90s version takes place on a space station, rather than aboard the Enterprise or another ship.

Voyager (1995–2001): The USS Voyager was led by Star Trek’s first female captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew, now starring as Red on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black).

Enterprise (2001–2005): The latest iteration of Star Trek ran for four seasons on UPN, starring Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer.

Since then, Star Trek has been rebooted by J.J. Abrams and team as a popular movie franchise, starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban as young Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy, respectively.

Tags:


  Save as PDF