Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series is a revised title for the series Star Trek, which originally aired as a TV series on NBC from 1966 to 1969. The series began the Star Trek franchise and has gone on to have stories in multiple formats; novels, comics, short stories and video games.

The sub-title The Original Series is used to distinguish it from its sequel series, and from the larger Star Trek franchise. The sub-title is used on some products, such as DVDs, however novels and comics continue to title TOS publications simply as Star Trek.

Overview
Star Trek the TV series, and many of the subsequent stories, chronicled the voyages of the starship Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk on its Five-year mission of exploration through the Alpha and Beta Quadrants in the late 2260s. The series later spawned a movie-series, which, along with fiction in other formats, continued the adventures of Kirk and his crew through to the end of the 23rd century and onto a new ship; the Enterprise-A.

Many TOS stories focus on the three figure heads of the Enterprise; Captain James T. Kirk, first officer and science officer Spock and chief medical officer Leonard McCoy. These are commonly accompanied by chief engineer Montgomery Scott, communications officer Nyota Uhura, helmsman Hikaru Sulu and navigator Pavel Chekov. Other prominent Enterprise crewpersons include nurse Christine Chapel and yeoman Janice Rand.

While the majority of TOS stories are based on the voyages of the Enterprise, the series also encompasses the careers of the primary and supporting characters before, after and away from the Enterprise as well as the larger interstellar politics of the era. Other prominent settings for the series include the USS Excelsior (NCC-2000), under the command of former Enterprise crewman Hikaru Sulu, and stories set well into the 24th century with the various adventures of the TOS characters in later periods of Star Trek history. Additionally TOS stories encompass the voyages of the Enterprise preceding Kirk's command, under captains Robert April and Christopher Pike.

Episodes and movies
In its original run, seventy-nine episodes of The Original Series were produced before the series was cancelled at the end of its third season. The live-action episodes were followed by a twenty-two episode animated series, also called Star Trek, though commonly referred to as Star Trek: The Animated Series. In 2006 the original live-action episodes began to receive a digital face-lift, with the original footage being carefully restored, and the original special effects being replaced with new high definition CGI effects.

Following from the TV series the original cast returned for a series of six feature films set in a period after the original episodes. A seventh TOS movie, the eleventh Star Trek film in total, is currently in production for a release in 2009. The new film will see the original characters recast and a return to the era of the original TV series, before the setting of any of the earlier films.

Prose
Off the screen the first original Star Trek story was Mission to Horatius published by Whitman Publishing. Though that novel was actually preceded by Bantam Books' first novelization, Star Trek 1, by James Blish. Bantam took on the Star Trek license, producing a series of novelizations of the original episodes by Blish and a series of original novels by a variety of authors, starting with Spock Must Die!, also by James Blish. Bantam produced a total of eleven volumes of novelizations, thirteen original novels and two short story anthologies.

Meanwhile in the 1970s a separate license was awarded to Ballantine Books to produce novelizations of the episodes of The Animated Series, all were written by Alan Dean Foster. In 1979, coinciding with the release of the first Star Trek movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Pocket Books took over as the publisher of Star Trek prose. Pocket kicked off their line with a novelization of the movie, which was also number one in their line of numbered novels. Pocket produced novelzations of subsequent movies and continued their numbered novel line on until 2002 with In the Name of Honor at number ninety-seven.

In addition to their regular numbered series Pocket produced occasional unnumbered novels, starting in 1986 with Enterprise: The First Adventure. By the time Pocket wound down its numbered series they had begun to concentrate on stand alone novels, miniseries and shorter prose works published collectively in anthologies.

Pocket have also published a series of books by William Shatner, the actor who played James T. Kirk, which bring Kirk back to life in the 24th century, and otherwise explore the life of Kirk. These novels are generally considered to be a separate continuity, informally known as the Shatnerverse, which is not referenced by other novels to avoid confusion.

In 2005 Pocket launched a spin-off series of The Original Series, Star Trek: Vanguard, which chronicles the adventures of the crew of Starbase Vanguard, paralleling the events of The Original Series episodes to expand on history and setting of that era.

In 2006 Pocket celebrated the 40th Anniversary of The Original Series with a wide range of publications, including the reprinting of several classic TOS novels, and TOS's first eBook miniseries; Mere Anarchy.

Comics
Like prose publications The Original Series comics also began to be published shortly after the series’ debut and have been published by almost every company to obtain the Star Trek comics license since. The first Star Trek comic was The Planet of No Return, published by Gold Key Comics in 1967, Gold Key continued to publish Star Trek comics until 1979, producing sixty-one issues in total.

In the United Kingdom a separate series of Star Trek comics was produced between 1969-1973, presented as a weekly comic strip in the genre magazines Joe 90: Top Secret, TV21, and Valiant. A total of thirty-seven story arcs were released over two-hundred-and-fifty-six issues. An additional eleven one-off stories were published in issues of the Joe 90 annual, Radio Times, TV21 annual, Valiant Super Special, and the Mighty TV Comic Annual.

From 1975 to 1979, Peter Pan Records released a series of Star Trek stories on LPs. Six of these stories were also presented as comic books which accompanied some releases of the records.

In 1980, following the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Marvel Comics launched a new line of comics. Their series ran for eighteen issues over two years.

Also following from the release of The Motion Picture was a series of comic strips published in US newspapers. Over four years the series of over one-thousand-four-hundred separate strips completed twenty different story arcs.

In 1984 the comics license moved again, this time to DC Comics. DC began with an ongoing series which ran for fifty-six issues, three annuals, a special two part Who's Who in Star Trek? publication and adaptations of the latest movies, until 1988.

Following a brief pause, DC began a new regular series, which ran eighty issues, six annuals, three specials and several miniseries and one-shot issues until DC finally finished with Star Trek comics in 1995. In 1996 Marvel Comics returned to the Star Trek license. On their second run Marvel produced several distinct series, the first TOS series being Star Trek: Early Voyages, which over seventeen issues chronicled the voyages of the Enterprise under Captain Pike. A five-part miniseries Star Trek: Untold Voyages depicted the voyages of the Enterprise between the films Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and TOS stories also appeared in most issues of the Star Trek: Unlimited series and two one-shots; Fragile Glass and Star TreX.

In 1999 WildStorm Comics took on the Star Trek license. They produced relatively few TOS comics, just two one-shots; All of Me and Enter the Wolves, and a selection of short comics in the anthology Star Trek: Special.

In 2006 TokyoPop published their first book of Star Trek manga. Their first three books made up the Star Trek: The Manga series, which told fourteen stories from the five-year mission era.

In 2007 IDW Publishing picked up the Star Trek license. To date they have chosen to concentrate on TOS and TNG comics and as such have produced a number of TOS issues. IDW's first TOS miniseries was Klingons: Blood Will Tell which retold several episodes of TV series from the Klingons point-of-view. They have gone on to produce several TOS miniseries, exploring both the standard TOS setting in series such as Year Four and more obscure angles on the series in series such as .

Media lists

 * TOS episodes
 * TOS movies
 * TOS prose
 * By Bantam Books
 * By Pocket Books
 * TOS eBooks
 * TOS short stories
 * TOS comics
 * TOS games