Transporters, Tribbles, And the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek It's hard to imagine what our lives would be like had the Enterprise never boldly gone where no man and no television show had gone before. 40 years after Star Trek: The Original Series premiered, the show still looms large in our cultural imagination, shaping our image of the television past and our view of the real-world future. Here, Star Trek writers and the generations of writers and scientists they inspired remember the show and its influence on our society and our lives with a mix of nostalgia, humour, analysis and delight.