The time we live in now seemed like a million years in the future
back then. I can well remember when saying the Year 2000 was
symbolic of everything that would happen in the future.

And the original Star Trek had a pretty good budget for the time,
better than most contemporary series. And they had to make do
without all our fancy computer graphics FX which quite frankly have
killed a lot of the magic for me when it comes to visual entertainment
these days. Nothing seems impossible any more and you no longer
wonder How Did They Do That? because now you know it's a
team of geeks tapping away on their keyboards.

Is the original ST corny and cheesy looking? Yeah, I freely admit
that. Just this morning I was watching the episode "Catspaw" on
TV Land (6 to 7 a.m. ET). The natives of Capella IV are supposed
to be big these big tough warriors - but holy crap, they are wearing
these fur wraparounds in bright colors! It was more than a little
difficult to take them seriously. Maybe the fact that I used to
watch ST on a black and white TV had something to do with the
current shock.

But dammit, I grew up with ST and it was a great series that
commented on real current issues before All in the Family Came
along. And I think Star Wars killed serious science fiction cinema
that had been started by 2001 and others, but that is another
story.