TODAY IS THE 40th anniversary of the first Star Trek episode broadcast on American television. And while we Trekkies will dutifully be honouring the birthday of this often hammy, frequently absurd but nonetheless compelling show, it is also an occasion for lamentation, a time to reflect on the baleful effect the programme has had on the American mindset — namely Star Trek’s message of liberal imperialism, a philosophy that uncannily has since been realised in real life.

Thanks to a process of osmosis from perennial reruns, Star Trek has propagated the belief that it is proper to interfere in other societies, that it is America’s duty to assume the role of (inter-)world policeman, and to correct the errant ways of other cultures — for their own good. And Spock was to Kirk what Blair is to Bush, a lackey willing to assist his master in his curious mission that seemingly has no specific objective.

Some may contend that this is unfair, in that Star Trek promoted gender equality and that the crew of the Enterprise was multi-ethnic.

True, but it was an American alpha-male who was at the helm of the ship, with a Brit (Scottie), a Russian-Ukrainian (Chekov) a Japanese man (Sulu) and an African- American woman (Uhuru — or should we say Condi Rice) remaining decidedly subservient. Tellingly, having dabbled with employing a female as ship’s captain in the unsuccessful 1990s incarnation Star Trek: Voyager, the most recent manifestation, Star Trek: Enterprise, reverted to type, with a white American male back in the saddle, his principal underling now an Englishman.

Then what of the show’s celebrated “prime directive”, that the explorers should never interfere in alien civilisations? The problem here is that the prime directive is blatantly and persistently violated. Not an episode concludes without one of Captain Kirk’s sermons, his incessant moralising to troubled alien civilisations that they should follow his lead and cherish life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Star Trek represented not the ethos of mutual, egalitarian co-operation, but of multinational interference firmly under the leadership of Americans. Rather than having succumbed to the urge to boldly go and meddle with strange new worlds he didn’t understand, Captain Kirk should have stayed at home and sorted out his own people’s problems.