Nichelle Nichols was at one point thinking of quitting the show but stayed because MLK Jr. himself told her how important her character was.
And without Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek, she wouldn’t have been hired by NASA and then we wouldn’t have had Sally Ride, so she is a legitimate space hero.
She thought about leaving because she didn’t feel like her character got to do enough - a common sentiment of supporting actors.
It was TNG that really established an ensemble cast formula; TOS was Kirk-Spock-McCoy and the rest. It took TNG a couple seasons before they got the idea of a true ensemble cast where everyone gets to star in some episodes. TOS wouldn’t have had more than one episode starring Reginald Barcklay with Geordi and Dianna in supporting roles, but TNG had at least two.
They didn’t have everything figured out back then. For one, they bullied Spock for what we could only describe today as his neurodiversity.
There will never come a time in which we have everything figured out.
Yes but that doesn’t mean we should never look back and see how far we’ve come, just as we look forward and see how far we have to go.
And new people who haven’t figured out yet are born all the time!
excuse me, i have a degree in bullshit. We have figured out everything. 1+1=2. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
The message I got from McCoy was that humans got along because they found new people to be racist against instead of each other
It helps when every other planet is a severely flawed monocolutre.
I think that’s the real message of Star Trek in general!
And TOS/ENT in particular
ENT gets bonus points for shran calling humans “pink skins” when Travis is right fucking there on the bridge
McCoy called Spock “green-blooded” on multiple occasions - and once a “hobgoblin”. And I would call the Vulcan penchant for logic a cultural trait, not neurodiversity.
And there will be things that are being created today that’s considered progressive that in 20 years, will be considered as missing the mark.
You should see the episode when a woman body swapped with Kirk, and how the Enterprise crew suspected something was wrong
Kind of yeah, but Gene Roddenberry used allegories like the half black and half white dudes who hated each other - which took more effort than having characters just walk around in the present saying, “Wow, look at all the social injustice.”
Because that’s what you had to do to get past the executives and the censors in the 1960s.
Just like how “Last Train to Clarksville” is about Vietnam.
Just like how “Last Train to Clarksville” is about Vietnam.
TIL. That is a really subtle reference (at least from the perspective of somebody born a couple of decades after the fact, anyway).
Yeah, but the executives were terrified of any and all conflict. That’s why so many shows of that era are incredibly bland.
That was an allegory??? (/s)
I get not liking Discovery, but do people really think Lower Decks, SNW, Picard are “Woke?”
Also, obviously, sci-fi is at its best when tackling politics… Isn’t that kinda the point?
It’s woke because they’re so unhinged that basic human decency is woke now.
SNW has like 90% female crew members. Also the pilot lady has short hair. Therefore woke.
Probably.
“Woke” has long since lost its original meaning.
Used to mean something positive and progressive. Then it meant something that tried writing itself off as something progressive, but was simply stupid and entitled (i.e. That Batwoman series), now it’s anything a right winger hates, even if it isn’t trying to be progressive in any way.
Truth is, with NuTrek, it doesn’t have a single progressive bone in its body, and the writers don’t have the skill to pull off any sort of commentary.
Truth is, with NuTrek, it doesn’t have a single progressive bone in its body, and the writers don’t have the skill to pull off any sort of commentary.
It’s not that bad, though I don’t totally disagree.
Also… I’d argue a problem is having their hands tied. Ironically, anything that would hit really hard couldn’t be aired in this day and age. The whole franchise would probably be mothballed if they pushed the envelope as hard as TOS.
Except they’re pretending they’re hitting even harder than older Trek.
That’s honestly the worst part for me; NuTrek is nothing but generic sci-fi action slop, with a bit of unfunny dank humour sprinkled in from Lower Decks, but it’s being paraded about as if the writers are breaking epic milestones never before dared in Star Trek.
OP what do you think of Discovery?
I ask this because 9/10 times someone talks about how Star Trek was “always woke”, they are usually just salty people don’t like Discovery and trying to pretend that most people who criticized it were bigots.
The other 1/10 times it’s someone who doesn’t even watch Star Trek trying to hijack the sub to push a bunch of performative culture war nonsense. However that usually involves a Tumblr post implying the Klingons were socially progressive because of how Kor treated Jadzia Dax.
