“Where No Man Has Gone Before… ”

Abstract

American television first blasted off into the spaceways in 1950 with Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, Captain Video, and Space Patrol, initiating a so- called Golden Age of science fiction television.1 Yes, even the Gothic imagination has a sense of whimsy! Primarily appealing to young and adolescent viewers, Corbett, Captain Video, and Buzz Corey, respectively, like so many modern-day Peter Pans, flew into the windows, as it were, of the nation’s homes and living rooms, carrying away to Never Land the imaginations of children around the world. These adventures were pint-sized versions of the Gothic-inflected space operas of “Doc” Smith’s “Lensman,” Jack Williamson’s “Legion of Space,” and Poul Anderson’s “Time Patrol” series. We may regard them as variants of fairy tales, particularly those celebrating the Eternal Child. Older viewers, however, sensed a darker, more Gothic paranoia regarding the rampant technology and “forbidden” atomic sciences of the Cold War. “[These] early science fiction adventures,” explains media historian Wheeler Winston Dixon, “tapped into America’s fear and wonder at the power of the atomic bomb, as well as [other] rapid technological developments…. Often produced on shoestring budgets, these series nevertheless excited the imagination of cold war viewers, who were increasingly uncertain about their future both at home and abroad.”2KeywordsScience FictionTelevision SeriesStar TrekAmerican TelevisionTelevision EpisodeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.