The first series, now referred to as The Original Series, debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons on NBC. It followed the galactic adventures of James T. Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise, an exploration vessel of a 23rd-century interstellar “United Federation of Planets”. In creating the first Star Trek, Roddenberry was inspired by Westerns such as Wagon Train, the Horatio Hornblower novels and Gulliver’s Travels. In fact, the original series was originally described as Wagon Train to the Stars. These adventures continued in the short-lived Star Trek: The Animated Series and six feature films.