Exploring the future in original Star Trek

Everyone I know has already been or is about to go see the new Star Trek movie, but I can't help thinking about the original television series from the 1960s and how it showed us the way forward with its multi-racial, multi-national crew. It's easy to remember the bad fight scenes (Capt. Kirk throwing rocks at the lizard monster comes to mind) and the often silly dialogue, but I like to remember how in 1966, the show improbably cast a black woman as an officer (Lt. Uhura), an Asian as the pilot of the spacecraft (Mr. Sulu), a Scotsman as the engineer (Scotty), a cranky white guy as the doctor (McCoy), a Russian as a navigator and tactical officer (Chekov), and a suspiciously emotionless alien as the second-in-command (Spock). The show created a different time and place, then covertly commented on the folly of war, the injustice of discrimination, and other social issues of its time. Thank you Star Trek for showing us a glimpse of the future, even if we didn't arrive here at warp speed.