Hello fellow TOS fans! This seems like as good a topic as any for me to set up shop here with. I was only eleven when the 'sneak peak' Star Trek episode "The Man Trap" first exploded across our T.V. screens in 1966. Sitting cross-legged in front of the Magnavox black and white console television in my parents book-lined 'family room', I was instantly entranced with the ship, the bridge, the characters, the story and--yes--even the shape-shifting salt monster.

Sure, it wasn't a brand new concept; I had seen space explorers in a nifty ship making 'house calls' to far flung planetary outposts as...