Star Trek: The Original Series 365 [Hardcover]

If you are looking for a book about the original Sixties series of Star Trek, then go no further - because Star Trek: The Original Series 365 is the book to have. You will have, with my apologies, no tribble at all in thoroughly enjoying this volume. The hardback edition of the book itself is physically rather weighty*, and contains 371 pages, half of which are comprised of an intelligently chosen and presented, amusing and entertaining assortment of diagrams, illustrations, stock footage and photographs - some of which have seldom been published elsewhere. Where else for example, would you find an image of George Kirk's son in a replica Starfleet Captains uniform, sitting in the Big Chair with his uncle, James Kirk looking on?

The other half of the book is comprised of an entertaining and insightful episode by episode guide to the original series, intermixed with production and pre-production technical facts, behind the scenes snippets and clearly presented commentaries about the series original actors, locations, sets, design considerations and plot points and a concise index. More than just yet another episode guide - the book is a powerhouse of information and I well recommend it.

* If you are planning on purchasing from Amazon, and it is possible, I strongly advise you purchase said item with the Super Saver package offer or you may incur expensive mailing costs.

J. Bluestone

A great little reference guide for the casual Star Trek fan and for younger viewers new to the Original Series. And although die-hard trekkies/trekkers would probably enjoy reading this book, there is little new in here that they won't know already.

The book is a hardback without dust jacket, printed on quality glossy paper. It is printed throughout in full colour and is packed with hundreds of photos which mostly relate to each episode. Some of the photos are new and some more familiar. There are even some effects shots from the remastered DVDs which was nice and unexpected. There are other photos as well, relating to advertising, collectibles, publicity etc. But little in the way of behind the scenes photos. At the end there is a nice photo and section about the original eleven foot long USS Enterprise model and how it is now displayed at the Smithsonian Museum.

When you open the book, the page to the left contains the all the text relating to a particular episode. The righthand side is a full page photo of a scene or character from that episode. Each episode has at least eight or more pages devoted to it. The text is a basic synopsis of each episode along with some character quotes and brief background information relating to the making of the show, the characters and history of the Original Series. Missing here though, is any guest cast list, director and writer credits or original air date for each episode. Although these can be found in other books, it would have been a nice touch to have them here as well. So that the book could have been a more complete episode guide.

Although much of the information in this book will be familiar to most readers over the age of 35, there are still some annedotes that are probably not as well known. For instance, did you know that the part of Commodore Matt Decker in the episode The Doomsday Machine was originally written for the actor Robert Ryan.

The book has been published in landscape format in that it only measures 16.5cm in height and 24cm in length. This means that you get a very short, (in height), fat book. Now some people may like this style of design. Personally I don't. I much prefer the standard coffee table portrait style book. My second gripe is with the page numbering system. I have no problems with actual design of the cut-off numbers. Which incidentally is a design feature and not a printing error as some people seem to think. Its just that the page numbers are far too big for the page itself. This means that the text has been reduced in size in order to fit in between the numbers. Also on some of the text pages there is a lot of empty white space, which could have been filled by either additional text or a small inset photo. I'm sure that there must have been lots of additional photos at the author's disposal that weren't used which could have filled any empty spaces.

To sum up. This is a lovely book with lots of useful information and great colour photos. However it is not the complete reference guide it could and should have been. For the die-hard Star Trek fan there are other books with far more detailed information. But for the casual fan or newbie this book is a great starting off point. However the book is marred by unnecessary publishing design gimmicks such as the book's landscape design and page numbering system. Its a pity that the publishers didn't have enough faith in the original source material without having to resort to these gimmicks. However that said, the book is an entertaining easy read which deserves to be on the bookshelf of even the most casual fan of the Original Series. It is a perfect, (though incomplete in some ways), episode reference guide to keep alongside your Original Series DVDs. If you view the book in that way then you won't be disappointed. And at £10 including shipping, Star Trek 365 is a bargain that won't hang around for long.

Overall I would give the book four stars out of five for text and photo contents. But loses one star because of the unnecessary gimmicky nature of the book design.

I'm only a casual Star Trek fan and don't really own any other merchandise, so I found this book to be a great read. For me it was both informative and entertaining with an easy-on-the-eye layout.