Sure traces of dialogue grow to be so well-known they nearly cease belonging to the flicks and TV exhibits that produced them. “Might the Drive be with you.” “I’ll be again.” “You are gonna want an even bigger boat.” You need not know the context. The phrases have lengthy since transcended their unique context.
Star Trek: The Unique Sequence has loads of these. Spock’s want that everybody to “reside lengthy and prosper” is arguably the franchise’s signature phrase. He additionally turned the straightforward phrase “fascinating” right into a catchphrase just by elevating one eyebrow earlier than saying it. Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) spent three seasons reminding everybody, “I am a physician, not a…” and, a minimum of in our collective reminiscence declaring, “He is lifeless, Jim” whereas standing over the most recent redshirt who wandered a bit too removed from the touchdown social gathering.
But when I may solely choose one line to characterize the whole lot Star Trek stands for, it will be 4 easy phrases spoken by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) midway by way of “Return to Tomorrow,” the twentieth episode of season 2:
“Threat is our enterprise.”
On the floor, it does not look like an apparent selection. It is not printed on T-shirts practically as usually as “reside lengthy and prosper.” It is not endlessly quoted by individuals who have by no means watched an episode of Star Trek. And in contrast to “beam me up, Scotty,” it by no means turned a part of the broader popular culture vocabulary. However that is precisely why it is the perfect quote. It does not simply seize Kirk. It captures your complete philosophy of Star Trek.
First broadcast on Feb. 9, 1968, the episode “Return to Tomorrow” finds the Enterprise answering a mysterious misery name from a lifeless planet. There, Kirk and his crew uncover Sargon, certainly one of three survivors of an historic civilization that has existed as beings of pure vitality for half one million years. Sargon asks Kirk, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. Ann Mulhall (Diana Muldaur) to quickly give up their our bodies so he, his spouse Thalassa, and the formidable Henoch can construct android our bodies and start life once more. Dr. McCoy believes the aliens are manipulating them. Kirk believes the prospect to study from a civilization lots of of 1000’s of years extra superior than humanity is definitely worth the hazard.
The episode additionally marks the primary of three Star Trek appearances by Diana Muldaur. She performs Dr. Ann Mulhall right here earlier than returning as Miranda Jones within the third season episode “Is There in Reality No Magnificence?” Years later, she’d grow to be a sequence common on Star Trek: The Subsequent Era as Dr. Katherine Pulaski. “Return to Tomorrow” can also be a enjoyable piece of Trek trivia as a result of it is one of many occasions Spock describes Sargon as “pure vitality,” a phrase longtime followers instantly acknowledge.
Confronted with permitting unimaginably highly effective aliens to occupy the our bodies of his crew, Kirk does not subject an order. He makes an argument and reminds his crew that each leap ahead in human historical past required somebody prepared to embrace uncertainty.
“They used to say if man may fly, he’d have wings,” Kirk says. “However he did fly. He found he needed to.” He likens Sargon’s provide to humanity’s personal journey from the Moon to Mars and ultimately the celebrities, arguing that the potential for data outweighs the hazard. Solely then does he arrive on the 4 phrases that outline each the captain and the franchise. These 4 phrases clarify Kirk higher than a long time of pop-culture impressions ever may.
The true Kirk
For years, popular culture has diminished Kirk to an oversimplified caricature: the swaggering captain who punches first, flirts with each alien girl he meets, and by some means loses his shirt throughout each different away mission. The true Kirk is way extra considerate than that. He takes dangers, actually, however not as a result of he enjoys playing. He takes them as a result of he believes some alternatives are too essential to disregard.
There is a world of distinction between being reckless and accepting threat in pursuit of discovery. Kirk is not arguing that hazard is thrilling. He is arguing that progress is inconceivable with out it.
Extra importantly, he is explaining what separates Starfleet from nearly each different group. Loads of fictional explorers journey as a result of they’re ordered to. Others do it for conquest, revenue, or survival. Starfleet goes as a result of data itself is price pursuing.
That is why I feel this quote is much more significant than the well-known opening narration about boldly going the place nobody has gone earlier than. The opening tells us what the Enterprise does. This one explains why.
The ability of optimism
The timing of the episode makes the speech much more exceptional. “Return to Tomorrow” aired in early 1968, roughly 17 months earlier than Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. America was nonetheless attempting to show people may efficiently attain one other world, and Star Trek was already imagining the following step past that. Kirk’s speech locations the Enterprise in the identical lineage as each explorer who got here earlier than it, suggesting humanity’s future will not be constructed by enjoying it protected.
That concept has grow to be the beating coronary heart of Star Trek. Optimism, within the Star Trek universe, has by no means meant believing the whole lot will work out. It means believing the unknown is price going through anyway.
There are extra well-known quotes in The Unique Sequence. There are funnier ones. There are actually extra quotable ones. However no different line distills what Star Trek has all the time been attempting to say higher than 4 phrases Kirk spoke practically 60 years in the past: “Threat is our enterprise.”