Wagon Train To The Stars
When he launched “Star Trek” in 1966, its high concept (no one called it that) was “Wagon Train to the Stars”: a Western in space. Roddenberry’s model, though, was “Gulliver’s Travels”: social, political, even philosophical commentary disguised as adventure. Yet instead of Swift’s savage indignation, Roddenberry had an unsentimental optimism. His earthling of the future were the same old unstable compounds of good and evil, but they hadn’t destroyed themselves, and darned if they’d let ornery aliens push them or anybody else around....