It’s the summer of 1989, and a friend of the family and fellow Trekkie calls to tell me that a UHF channel is airing a 24-hour marathon of the original Star Trek series. I map out my strategy for the day, buy a pack of blank VHS tapes, and record a treasure trove of 24 episodes in a row. In an era long before streaming and box DVD sets of entire series, this was the closest we could ever get to capturing a good chunk of a TV show — and after a marathon taping session, I won my prize.

At some point during the latter half of the ’80s, I latched on to Star Trek TOS (the original series) in a big way. It was probably catching the syndicated episodes that aired in the afternoons, followed by a constant devouring of the first four (and then five, and then six) Star Trek films.

Keep in mind that that before 1987, Kirk and company were the one and only “Star Trek” there was. While I delighted in expanding my fandom to include The Next Generation and subsequent series, I’ve always preferred the original series for its characters, stories, and sense of danger and the unknown.

It wasn’t merely the three seasons and movies that I got into. Oh no, I was all-in as a Trekkie. I had every Star Trek TOS novel there was. I had the technical manual, the “Star Trek Logs” books of the animated series. I had posters in my room. There were Trek comics on my bookshelf. I think there was even a set of trading cards. I played the old NetTrek game as well as the excellent Star Trek adventure games (25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites) in the ’90s.

Through all of this, I fell in love with the adventures of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in the 23rd century. I knew the whole crew so well that in my lonely teenage head, they were my very real friends. I admired Kirk’s tenacity and clever thinking, Spock’s strength, McCoy’s snark, Uhura’s grace, Scotty’s ingenuity, Chekov’s brashness, and Sulu’s cool thinking under fire.

Again, I loved TNG and that whole ’90s era of Trek. It was a glorious time to be a fan, really. But the one thing that never stopped annoying me was how the tide shifted against “old Trek.” It became fashionable to look down on the TOS crew, make Kirk into a punchline, and push them off to the side — especially after the sixth film and DeForest Kelly’s passing.

That felt like a pop culture betrayal. It’s always easy to reduce characters to simple quirks that could be lampooned, but that’s not all these characters were. That’s not all this Trek was. If you go back to watch TOS, you’ll notice that it’s a dark series full of horror, the unknown, death, and an unpredictable galaxy. They weren’t always technobabbling their way to victory; usually, the solution came from ingenious thinking and taking opportunities as they presented themselves.

What really made me love the ’60s series is that the bridge crew was a tight family that really knew each other and bounced off each other well. The Kirk/Spock/McCoy trinity hasn’t been topped by any subsequent Trek series, and for good reason. It was id, logic, and stubborn Southern sarcasm shoring up each other’s weaknesses. These men weren’t perfect, but they were men, they were officers, and they were Starfleet.

And what a joy it was to have diversity run through the rest of the crew. I’m not talking about modern, check-all-the-PC-boxes diversity, but a real diversity of character and perspective. Nobody approached problems like Scotty. Nobody had the soul that Uhura demonstrated. Nobody embodied the emotional ensign as Chekov. Nobody had hidden talents like Sulu.

I haven’t watched TOS or read the books in a long time. I did go through the movies with my kids, but that was years ago. Really, the most recent thing I’ve done in Star Trek is visit the original series set tour in upstate New York, where all of the sets were lovingly recreated as a soundstage. I finally got to sit in the captain’s chair and explore these rooms that occupied my imagination as a young teen. It was special, at least to me.

Maybe one day I’ll crack open that DVD set that I got for Christmas a while back and revisit all of these older episodes to rekindle that love. Maybe it’ll stay in the past forever.