The recent loss of Leonard Nimoy got me thinking about the Star Trek phenomenon, and why it meant so much to me and a whole lot of other people. Gene Roddenberry's creation offered an optimistic view of the future, filled with discoveries and endless wonder, where humanity's best qualities emerged triumphant.
Growing up, I used to play Star Trek with my brother and other kids. My brother liked to play Scotty (not coincidentally, my brother's now an engineer). But I always had to be Spock. My cousin once tried to argue that I had to be Uhura, since she was the only girl, but he was overruled. It's not that I'm particularly logical like Spock, but he was the alien, the one who got to be different from everybody else. The Spock factor is a large part of Star Trek's enduring appeal for self-identified nerds: even when he was right (which was often), he was still an outsider. This trope carried over through the various Star Trek incarnations.
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The assorted Star Treks weren't afraid to tackle the social issues of their day. Often you could see the push-and-pull as they tried to boldly go where the network wasn't ready to be.
Star Trek: The Original Series
It's not surprising that Spock is the one character from the pilot who was kept in the series. He had an interesting premise: a character based on logic, but still struggling with his human emotions. My favorite Spock moment is in Amok Time, when Spock joyfully discovers he hadn't killed Kirk after all, then tries to insist his response was logical.
Of course, Spock's outsider status also had everything to do with the importance of race and racism as it aired in the 1960's. In Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, the crew encountered a species with black on one side of their bodies and white on the other - but those with white on the left side were deemed superior (or was it the other way around?). Plato's Stepchildren had the famous forced kiss between Kirk and Uhura. There's some dispute as to whether it was really-really-really the first interracial kiss on TV, but at any rate it was among the first, at a time when such things were controversial - never mind that Kirk was fooling around with women from other planets! And anyone who's seen Nichelle Nichols at a convention has heard the story of her chance meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. and how he encouraged her to stay on the show, because it made a difference for people to see an African-American woman being treated as an equal by the other officers. It's a nice story, though I suspect she might be sick of telling it over & over for 50 years.
When it came to gender, sometimes imaginations were limited. Roddenberry wanted the crew to be 50% female, but was told that he could only have 20%. The female first officer was out, women in acceptable roles were in: Nurse Chapel and Communications Officer Uhura. The final episode, Turnabout Intruder, featured a woman using an alien device to put her brain into Kirk's body and vice versa - because women were not allowed to be Captains. (And, naturally, the woman who would want such a thing had to be mentally ill.)
But for me, even at my young age, the WTF moment was in The Gamesters of Triskelion, where Kirk, Chekhov and Uhura were abducted by aliens who forced their slaves to do gladiatorial combat for their amusement. Kirk argued to their captors that it wasn't ok to treat people as property. Finally he got them to gamble on a fight with his crew's freedom as the stakes. In order to tempt them, he said that his own people gambled for everything, including money and women. (Um, Captain? Women are actually people, so you kinda killed your own argument there.)
Oh wow, I've filled up the page, and I have tons more to say about the other Trek series. Guess this will have to be a series instead of a single diary.
Getting back to Spock, I remain convinced that he was the reason Star Trek became a permanent part of the culture while other science fiction shows were mere footnotes. Not only because of Spock's alien-ness, but because he was able to bridge that and form a friendship with Kirk that, as Spock said in the movie, "will define them both." If a being who thrives on logic can connect with someone like James T. Kirk, surely there's hope for the rest of humanity to understand each other.
On to Top Comments!
From Mopshell:
When hyperbole is not acceptable: In Thomas C's diary With Regard to Netanyahu's speech, Nancy Pelosi said it all, this timely comment by grover reminds us all that we need to think before we type if we are to live up to the high standard we set ourselves of being a fact-based community.
From
ontheleftcoast:
TomP had something to say but a typo turned it into a perfect description of the racist Ferguson PD in this comment.
From your humble (if antisocial) diarist:
In David Nir's Highlights and lowlights from today's Supreme Court oral arguments on Obamacare, start with sweatyb's question, then proceed to konving's answer, which was flagged by orlbucfan, Chamonix, DarkSyde, Mr MadAsHell, and WI Lurker. (Next time, somebody actually SEND IT IN to Top Comments so we don't have to go looking, OK? This was too good to miss.)
In xaxnar's diary ICYMI: Inhofe's snowball rebutted, Albanius flagged a comment in which JeffW makes a helpful distinction.
Top mojo, courtesy of mik:
1) Living while black. by Leftleaner — 184
2) Nancy is good. Glad she said that. by TomP — 165
3) Owning a home while black. Having a party while by denig — 151
4) It feels demoralizing how predictable this is by Tausendberg — 131
5) Somewhere on the internets by mojo11 — 129
6) He wants war. He would prefer Americans die by TomP — 123
7) Do they train police at all any more? by Bloke — 117
8) Oh, I think we all KNOW what happened: by Youffraita — 111
9) They're such a great ally they're sticking a by a2nite — 102
10) Crows and Jays are the smartest birds... by Cpqemp — 101
11) What??? by oklacoma dem — 97
12) No American blood for Netanyahu's by TomP — 94
13) Not the department's first rodeo by Catte Nappe — 94
14) Don't underestimate them. Ravens are impressive. by Eileen B — 94
15) Is Bartlett That Much of a Moran? by Gooserock — 93
16) Existing while black by 420 forever — 89
17) Yes of course by delphine — 88
18) My goodness fladem! by brooklynbadboy — 85
19) Perhaps the unkindest cut of all by blue aardvark — 84
20) If they show up at my funeral, by inclusiveheart — 83
21) Yup... by RichM — 83
22) I must point out... by Scan — 82
23) omg the best by pam — 81
24) very cool by RumsfeldResign — 81
25) When this site by fladem — 80
26) Last night I was taken in by Armando — 79
27) No matter who is sitting in the Oval Office by officebss — 78
28) We Democrats need to . . . by Old Redneck — 78
29) He's now the leading GOP contender for 2016. by Bob Johnson — 77
30) what an ungrateful jerk by Karl Rover — 77
Picture quilt, courtesy of jotter: