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  Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant/Lieutenant Commander Nyota Uhura

   Majel Barrett Roddenberry as Nurse (Lieutenant)/Doctor (Commander) Christine Chapel

  Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman/Lieutenant Commander Janice Rand

   Diana Muldaur as Lieutenant (Doctor) Ann Mulhall

   Diana Muldaur asd Doctor Miranda Jones

Star Trek was set in the mid twenty-third century.  The pilot, The Cage, was rejected by NBC and a second, unprecedented, pilot was commissioned.   The second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, sold the series.   The Cage was shelved for a while and resurrected as the only two-part episode, The Menagerie, filled in with an additional back-story.  The original pilot starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, with Majel Barrett as the first officer, "Number One".  Jeffrey Hunter was not available for the second pilot, so William Shatner was cast as Captain James T. Kirk, and Majel Barrett's "Number One" was dropped.   NBC refused to cast a woman as the second in command of a starship.   Leonard Nimoy's "Mr. Spock" was promoted to First Officer.  NBC did, however, keep  Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, at a time when black women on television were generally limited to roles of servants.  Roddenberry envisioned a "race blind" future, when no one had any prejudices at all; George Takei (Lieutenant, later Captain Hikaru Sulu) is a Japanese-American who spent World War II with his parents in interment camps "Relocation Centers"  in Rohwer, Arkansas, in the southeastern corner of the state, and Tule Lake, California, near the Oregon border.  Nichelle Nichols is African-American and female.  Both characters are officers in the command crew.  DeForest Kelley as Doctor (Lieutenant Commander) Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy, Chief Medical Officer; James Doohan as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Chief Engineer; and Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Andreavich Chekov, Navigator; completed the regular crew.  Majel Barrett as Nurse (Lieutenant) Christine Chapel and Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Janice Rand were recurring roles.  Yeoman Rand left the USS Enterprise during the first season, after thirteen episodes when Grace Lee Whitney was fired under questionable circumstances.  Ensign Chekov joined the crew in the second season in an attempt to boost ratings; he was supposed to appeal to the younger crowd.

Star Trek lasted for three seasons on television.  Despite the fact that NBC never really liked the show and tried to cancel it after the first season, Star Trek attracted some famous (or soon to be famous) guest stars; Barbara Bouchet, France Nuyen, and Sally Kellerman, among others.  Joan Collins, who played Edith Keeler in The City on the Edge of Forever, was probably the most famous female guest on the original Star Trek series.  Bjo Trimble was a dedicated fan who lead a successful campaign by fans to save Star Trek.  But NBC cut the budget for the second and third seasons, and gave it the "Kiss of Death" by moving it to 10:00 PM on Friday night for the third season.  The series ended in June 1969, but it would have stayed on the air indefinitely if the current method of television ratings had been in effect at that time.  Star Trek would not die.  The first Star Trek convention was held in New York in 1972.  By 1979, ten years after the series was cancelled, Star Trek conventions had become a regular occurrence in many major cities each year.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture received mixed reviews (even many fans didn't like it) and enjoyed limited success.  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, were more successful and together they told a single story.  Theses films were followed by two more featuring the original crew; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  Star Trek VII: Generations was the last film to feature the original crew.  It was in fact a transition, since it also featured the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew.

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