On September 8, 1966, NBC launched Star Trek: The Original Series, introducing a crew, a starship, and a future that would eventually spread around the world.
In 2026, Star Trek will celebrate its 60th anniversary with a full year of “Space for Everybody” festivities. As the franchise reaches that milestone, it is a good time to look back at the first batch of episodes from 1966 to see which ones still hold up, and what they still have to say to us.
With that in mind, the following are the Star Trek episodes which all celebrate their 60th anniversary in 2026.
1. 'The Man Trap'
On September 8, 1966, Star Trek debuted on NBC with "The Man Trap." The USS Enterprise is presented as a working starship, and the show’s pulp horror, speculative science fiction, and character-driven drama are slowly introduced.
Six decades later, the monster-of-the-week “salt vampire” idea seems passe, but the episode’s message of loneliness, extinction, and mercy makes it unexpectedly melancholy.
“The Man Trap” is worth revisiting because it quickly humanizes the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate. The creature design, M-113 location work, and the complexity of the "monster vs. crew" storyline all suggest more complex stories to come.
It's not the flashiest of TOS openings, but this 60-year-old "first impression" is an interesting remnant of the franchise's brazen weirdness from the get-go.
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