Space, the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's five year mission; to explore strange worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before! These are the original television adventures of Captain Kirk, Science Officer Spock, and Doctor McCoy.
Created by Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek was originally not very popular at all when it was on the air and was ultimately cancelled after three seasons due to its lackluster ratings. However, it gained a massive resurgence in popularity due to reruns and quickly became a part of pop culture and a cult phenomenon which created a hugely popular and immensely successful media franchise that has lasted for decades. Star Trek has been spoofed and lampooned by various other series including The Muppet Show; Saturday Night Live; and In Living Colorover the ensuing decades as well.
In addition, there have also been numerous spin-offs TV series, movies, and film series that it spawned. There has been a cartoon sequel series, Star Trek: The Animated Series and six movies directly based on the original series and characters. A seventh film, Star Trek: Generationsserved as a bridge between the original series and the sequel film series that focuses on a future crew approximately 100 years following the events of the original series.
For this reason, Star Trek is retroactively referred to as Star Trek: The Original Series or Star Trek: TOS to differentiate between the original television series and the numerous other series and films that was inspired by it.
Due to the commercial and critical failures of the last few Star Trek films and television series, the decision was made to reboot the entire franchise. The result was a new feature film in 2009, Star Trek which is based upon the original series which followed up with two sequels films which have ensured that the voyages of Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy will continue.