Star Trek, also known as "TOS" or The Original Series, debuted in the United States on NBC on September 8, 1966. The show tells the tale of the crew of the starship Enterprise and its five-year mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before."
The original 1966–69 television series featured William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James Doohan as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, and Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov.
During its original run, it was nominated several times for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and won twice: for the two-parter "The Menagerie" and the Harlan Ellison-written episode "The City on the Edge of Forever".
After three seasons the show was cancelled and the last original episode aired on June 3, 1969. It was, however, highly popular with science-fiction fans and engineering students, in spite of generally low Nieslen ratings. The series subsequently became popular in reruns and a cult following developed, complete with fan conventions
. Originally presented under the title Star Trek, it has in recent years become known asStar Trek: The Original Series or as "Classic Star Trek" — retronyms that distinguish it from its sequels and the franchise as a whole.
