Table of Contents
Author's Note xiii
Prologue 1
Chapter 1 Spock Stole His Own Brain
The creation of Star Trek: The Original Series 9
Chapter 2 Space Cowboys
The writing of The Original Series 33
Chapter 3 Infinite Diversity, Finite Genes
The progressive politics and diversity of Star Trek in the '60s 57
Chapter 4 The Trouble with Trekkies
The death of The Original Series and the birth of Star Trek fandom 81
Chapter 5 An Almost Totally New Enterprise
The Animated Series and the fusion of Star Trek and NASA 103
Chapter 6 Killing Spock
The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, and the mainstreaming of Trek 123
Chapter 7 Colorful Metaphors
The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, and Star Trek of the 1980s 151
Chapter 8 Undiscovered Generations
The saga of the three Saaviks and the desperate need for The Next Generation 167
Chapter 3 You Will Be Assimilated
The Next Generation assumes command 185
Chapter 10 The Dreamer and the Dream
Deep Space Nine finally delivers on the promise of The Original Series 209
Chapter 11 There's Coffee in That Nebula!
Voyager tears down the Starfleet boys' club 225
Chapter 12 Magic Carpet Rides
Star Trek's obsession with time travel, First Contact, and Star Trek's first prequel-Enterprise 243
Chapter 13 It's Sabotage!
The Star Trek reboot films and the redefining of twenty-first-century blockbusters 259
Chapter 14 Disco Inferno
Star Trek: Discovery and the twenty-first-century renaissance of Trek on TV 269
Chapter 15 The Pride of Starfleet
Trek's long road to LGBTQ+ representation 287
Chapter 16 Choose to Live
Picard and Lower Decks flip the script on Star Trek's definition of success 305
Chapter 17 The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning
Strange New Worlds, Prodigy, and the imperfect secret to Star Trek's immortality 319
Acknowledgments 337
Source Notes 343
Which Star Trek is Which? A Brief guide to all the Treks, Ever 355
Index 371