LadyGeek wrote:
Fascinating, as I never considered that aspect. I am in full agreement. As Commander Data? Perhaps not. Tasha Yar? Most definitely.* I'd say 7 of 9 also fits. Captain Janeway, somewhat.
Data is a created human, a Pinnochio character struggling to be a real boy. Spock, Data, Odo, 7 of Nine, there's always one of those in the ST cast, it's a strength of the series's, because it allows them to visit the question of 'what is a human?' and also 'how do we treat our creations?' (remember when Data goes on trial?).
Friday is also a created person. Racism towards same is a central part of the novel. Plus her discovery of what it is to be human. She's emotionally naive even though superhuman in capabilities. That reminds me of Data.
Whereas Tasha Yar is a strong female character but she's definitely human. Her past is one of trauma (rape gangs during a breakdown of law and order on her home planet- TNG got off its 'nicey nicey' track for once). Starfleet is her family because she has no other. And then she dies, tragically and with no warning. Which is how people die in the real world.
I wasn't aware of the network influence to demot Majel Barratt to Nurse Chapel.
I don't know if the original episode '
The Cage' is available anywhere. But it is fascinating, much closer to the movie '
Forbidden Planet' than to the
ST: The Original Series, that we all saw. It became the 2 parter '
the Menagerie' when the show was pulled after the pilot and rewritten. One reason for the rewrite was to make the science fiction more futuristic seeming: eg phasers instead of lasers (the producers thought lasers had become old hat). Transporters I don't think were in the original either (not sure). And so the first episode became
'Where No Man Has Gone Before', itself a powerful episode (I could be wrong, but I think the only one to show the Phaser Rifle, ie a throwback to the laser rifles of the original concept).
But somewhere the network felt a female First Officer was too much for the audience. So they promoted the Science Officer to First Officer-- a character move which never made sense in my view, Spock was never a command authority. And whereas in the pilot, Majel Barratt has an unrequitted crush on Kirk (which the telepaths reveal) in
ST: TOS they switch that to nurse Chapel and Spock-- more interesting but never properly developed.
Rodenberry may have traded that off against having a black woman on the Bridge- an important breakthrough in TV casting. There had been other black main characters (the actor in
Mission Impossible, the tech expert) but it was a double whammy. I think though by the late 60s the Network was sensitive to the cries of the black power movement etc. so maybe it's just the time was right.
(we now know Rodenberry was having an affair with Nichelle Nichols/ Lieut. Uhura (not sure when he married Majel Barratt). Majel Barratt went on to be the voice of the computer in successive ST series and like Mark Leonard (Sarek of Vulcan, Spock's Father) an enduring actor for the successive series'.
Perhaps what is depressing is that black actresses haven't had more major roles since. Zoe Saldana is proving to be an interesting 'new' Lieut. Uhura (with a sub plot about Kirk's jealousy over her relationship with Spock) and catch her in
Guardians of the Galaxy. But I can't think of major network TV series with a black actress a central character (arguably Uhura wasn't that central, and SIgourney Weaver does a brilliant sendup of her in
Galaxy Quest, but still). Pam Grier had a run of 'blackxploitation' flicks, and then was rehabbed into
'Jackie Brown' (a fantastic film in my view) but one just doesn't, I don't think, see strong black female characters in network TV?
For all the problems with
Star Trek The Original Series, plot holes, overacting, characterization etc, and its sequels, there is still something so fundamentally American, optimistic, forward looking about that title sequence, when Kirk's voice intones
'Space the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise...'
It still sends a chill down my spine, that and the title music.
You spoiled my next post, as the Witches of Karres will indeed be my next book. I have been keeping track of your posts...
For which apologies.
* I remember the episode of her death - A reminder that a simple slip in the most routine unsuspecting event can get you killed.
I have personal reasons to know that.