Star Trek: The Original Series finally gets the ending Kirk’s Enterprise deserved

Star Trek: The Original Series unceremoniously ended with the twenty fourth episode off its third season back in 1969. The Star Trek episode titled Turnabout Intruder wasn't among the best episodes on the show, and certainly didn't merit being labelled as a fitting conclusion to the wildly popular space opera show centered around Captain Kirk's Enterprise.

Twenty two years later, as fate would have it, the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country finally made amends and provided a fitting conclusion to the erstwhile show. While the fame of Star Trek: The Original Series was huge enough to warrant a proper conclusion, the franchise somehow languished when it came to the question of concluding the original cast run till the year 1991, when Star Trek VI was released.

Here's everything that you need to know.

Star Trek: The Original Series remained without a proper conclusion for almost 22 years

During the heyday of Star Trek on television, space operas were not geared for binge-watching and were not written with the idea of building up to a finale in mind. By the time Turnabout Intruder aired in 1963, it was already apparent that the show was nearing the end of it's run and might be called off the air anytime soon. Regardless, it did come as a disappointment to many when the network declared that the rather lacklustre episode shall be the last that the audience will know of Captain Kirk and the other crew members of the Enterprise.

As the story of the said episode went, Dr. Janet Lester was at the centre of the conflict. Dr. Lester was previously introduced as Captain Kirk's former lover and she ended up swapping bodies with the Captain in a bizarre turn of events. She then sought to assume the command of the Starship Enterprise by using Kirk's body. This happened to be the last original episode of Star Trek that was produced to air on television and it's fair to say that this wasn't among the great episodes of the show.

The franchise then went on the backburner and wasn't revived until the massive success of Star Wars in 1977. As a result of the renewed interest in space operas, Paramount Studios decided to renew the Star Trek franchise once again to mark the occasion of its twenty fifth anniversary. The powers-that-be decided to roll out a film franchise this time, building upon the momentum created by the past success of the TV show. The first film i.e. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979.

There are several reasons that make Undiscovered Country a fitting final act to the Original Series. For starters, the film's narrative played out in a grand scale and the crux of the story involved Captain Kirk and his crew getting involved in the quest to defeat a conspiracy that was threatening to disturb the proposed peace between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. The story was remarkably epic and mounted on a grand scale, as a result of which all of the characters were portrayed in a favourable light and were also given satisfying arcs of their own which doesn't leave much to be desired.

The impact of Kirk's intervention and his efforts to secure the peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire results in a wide-spread impact all across the galaxy. By bringing about a state of piece, Kirk effectively determined the state of affairs for The Next Generation that came later on. In terms of the ensemble cast, all of them were at the top of their form. Although Captain Kirk, Dr. Leonard McCoy, Spock and the others were understandably aged by the time the film was released, they were nevertheless caught content in their own element.

The cast once again brought to the fore the indelibe chemistry and camaraderie for which they had been recognized in the first place. As the film marked their farewell from the franchise that had sustained them for so many years, the cast members signed off by writing their names on the screen.

The film also brought about the end of an era as this was the last time the familiar faces from the original show were seen in a film. It would then be up to The Next Generation and the J.J. Abrams reboot film that would continue to bear the torch for the beloved franchise.

Nicholas Meyer opens up about Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Meyer was responsible for writing and directing the film that concluded the original show's narrative journey. While speaking in an exclusive interview with TrekMovie.com, Meyer reflected back on the era. When asked if there was anything about his movie that we would have liked to change in retrospect, Meyer noted:

"Well, I’m not sure how to answer that question, or perhaps I’ve already answered it. In Hillary Clinton’s famous formulation, “knowing then what I know now,” I guess I wouldn’t have done the mind meld the way I did it. I would have tried to find another solution to that. I should insert here somewhere along the way that the artist, in this case me, is not the answer to a book of math equations at the back. I am merely another person speculating, and I have no authority. I have no definitive rights."

He further added:

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"The author loses all proprietary control over his work when it’s finished and out there. And so whatever I say now has to be understood as being just one other opinion, and maybe not the right one or the only one. I think when I look at the movie, and I listen to Kirk say “people can be very frightened of change,” I think there is, for my money, a kind of implicit smugness about those sentiments. We were so sure that it was all going to be a bed of roses. And looking back, the film is an interesting artifact of the time and circumstances surrounding its creation."

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country is available for streaming on Paramount+.

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