Hello and thank you for downloading Witness from the BBC World Service with me Ashley Byrne.

Today we're going back to September 1966 and the birth of a science fiction TV show that became a cultural phenomenon.

September 8, 1966 and viewers across America were getting their first glimpse of a new science

fiction series, Star Trek.

For the next three seasons, the audience would be thrilled by the now legendary voyages of the Starship Enterprise and her crew as they warped between planets, discovered new life forms and new civilizations and boldly went when no one had gone before.

At its central core, the characters of Star Trek explored friendship, love, loss, and what

it meant to be human in the 20th and 23rd centuries.

It was comparable to producing a science fiction movie every seven days. It became so difficult the man in charge of a post-production

died of a heart attack. Herb Solo was a program director at Desilous Studios in

the 1960s which was owned by Desé Arnaz and Lucille Ball, stars of the hit comedy

show I Love Lucy. Herb remembers being tasked with finding new shows and in the process meeting a writer called Gene

Rodenbury. He was a very nervous, bumbling person who was very insecure. He

explained a bit about the show and that's the first time I heard the word

Star Trek. And that Star Trek concept really sparked Herb's imagination.

I just felt that a television series dealing with outer space and adventure would be very good and

after he explained a bit about what he had in mind we went ahead and we made a deal with Jean to develop the series.

Herb and Jean then set about creating the Star Trek world.

Along the way though, they had to make a few changes.

The character of Mr. Spock was totally red, had the pointed ears, and also had a pointed tail.

And I told Roddenberry, believe me, no one is going to sponsor a

television series where one of the stars is the devil.

And Herb says the costs involved in producing a weekly science fiction

...