January 26, 2023 • 44 mins
After just three seasons, the original run of Star Trek reached syndication -- which would become key to everything that happened afterward. In the second part of this series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the fundamental cultural shifts triggered by Star Trek, and how the depiction of a more equal society (however fictional that depiction might be) genuinely changed the world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:26):
welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning, and this is part two
of our continuing mission to explore how Star Trek almost
didn't become a thing. With big special thanks are super
producer and research associate for this series, Mr Max Williams.
(00:48):
Here here on Earth they called me Ben, they call
you Noel and Noel. Before we got into a lot
of this research, I knew Star Trek had some dodgy
times and it's earlier day, but I personally did not
know how close it came to being canceled just so often. Yeah,
because it's just, you know, it's just something that we've
(01:08):
always known ever since we were a kid, whether it
was the thing that we you know, really got our
gears turning as far as particular sci fi properties or not.
It's just ubiquitous, you know. And a big part of
that I think had maybe more to do with the
movies than the series itself, because, like you mentioned in
the top of episode one here, Star Wars began its
(01:31):
life as in the cinema, you know, and became a
cultural phenomenon the areas we got our we got another
costume change going on with Vader here, who never actually
said Luke, I am your father. He said, uh, something similar.
Also just like Ricky, that's right. And also Lucy, Ricky
never famously never actually said Lucy, you got some splaining
(01:53):
to do. He said some iteration of that. That was Lucy,
I am your father. Yeah, that's that's the And another one,
uh Kirk never said, never said not once. Uh So
we've got we've got this strange tale about something that
has become bedrock foundation of pop culture. And we introduced
(02:17):
you to be Joe Betty Tremble, Betty Joe Tremble, who
is known as the woman who saved Star Trek by
leading a letter writing campaign that got it to a
third season. We ended on. We ended at a crossroads
because NBC had baked in a poison pill to their
third season. They dramatically cut the budget, the quality of
(02:40):
the show suffered, and it looked like the third season
was going to be the last hurrah. But we had
a bit of a silver lining because three seasons means
a show can get into syndication. When a show gets
into syndication, that means the reruns can go anywhere, everywhere,
(03:01):
any time a network has a free slot, whether four
pm or whether eleven am. Right, because in those days, um,
it certainly wasn't the kind of mega, big dollar syndication
deals that we know of today, like with things like
Seinfeld and all of that, and all the different licensing
deals that go into having shows appear on streaming services
(03:23):
and all that. This was just more of kind of
like a way of filling time. Even if a show
wasn't a hit. They owned the intellectual property, the studios
and the networks owned the show, so they it was
fair game for them to fill out their schedules. Uh,
at a time where it was very important to have
something on the air during that broadcast day. Yeah, because
you'll still have some costs associated with airing reruns. Right,
(03:47):
people get checks every time a show is back on
the air, but it's still much much less expensive than
making something new out of whole cloth and hoping that works.
So this indication, it turns out to be the reason
that you know about Star Trek today. We want to
shout Devin Maloney who wrote boldly going where no man
(04:11):
or woman had gone before over at Rookie mag dot com.
So let's paint the picture for you. You're in the
nineties seventies, you own a television, You're you're watching TV.
UHF stations all over the United States would buy the
rights to re air part of all of those three
(04:32):
seasons of Star Trek, and so this show began to
hit airwaves on a daily basis, which meant that people
would missed it the first time around were much more
likely to see it this time. And kids and young
adults loved it. This was perfect for them. The war
in Vietnam had closed, people were walking on the moon,
(04:55):
and there are a lot of folks who found Star
Trek at the right time in their lives. A brighter
future seemed ahead now that we knew real life astronauts
could go to the move. It didn't seem two out
of bounds to think future humans could explore the stars. Yeah,
more Zeitgeist the stuff. It was already kind of within
(05:16):
the realm of possibility and Star Trek you know from
this well, I mean, and I know there's the whole
like you know, kirk Um having dalliances with green women
and fighting kind of bad rubber monsters like in you know,
in the desert or what are in these desert planet
kind of situations but orn. But the basis of Star
(05:36):
Trek was a somewhat believable future wherein we we did,
we are able to you know, populate the stars and
live in the sort of idyllic kind of you know utopia,
you know, in space. So it really was something that
kind of captured people's imaginations in a very big way. Look,
(05:58):
there's also a role that Star Wars played in this.
Just holding on my Darth Vader mask again, because these
reruns of a show that had been canceled were becoming
incredibly popular, and the Star Wars universe was a blockbuster
film event. Paramount had acquired the rights to Star Trek
(06:21):
from Lucille's Lucille Balls Studio Desilou, and they said, you
know what, there's a lot of interest here. People like
space movies. Let's take this crew to the big screen.
And that's when the first Star Trek film comes out.
Nine nine. Star Trek called in a burst of creativity
(06:41):
the motion picture, which you know, felt like a four
thirty on a Friday decision, But it was okay, it
was all right, I want a barn store picture. Yes, Max,
you have this in the notes. Yeah, but they did
have a sequel just a few years later, Star Trek
to the Wrath of Con much better title and super
(07:06):
interesting story. If you saw the original episode that inspired it,
that's right, And and it had a bona fide movie
star in it as well, with Ricardo Monta bomb Um
playing this villain or reprising his role as the the
titular con and and then you know, portraying his wrath
in Star Trek two. I gotta I gotta interjected, are
(07:29):
we are we gonna do some con screams? Yeah, I
was gonna say, can we play the clip the con clip?
Or basically if if legal won't let us get away
with it? It's this you have to shake your face
(07:49):
in a very uncontrollable red really read real scenery chewing.
It's it's sort of the equivalent of the space equivalent
of like the part in them in any you know
kind of B movie where it actor drops to his
knees and just shakes roof, you know, to show you
(08:12):
the full extent of the uncarried universe. Look, the Wrath
of Cod slaps. It is a good film, and uh,
the original series for two decades, for twenty years, it
gets all these excellent ratings anytime it's in syndication and
be broadcast, and the other films do well at the
(08:33):
box office, especially wrath of con by. Paramounts starts calling
this once derided universe it's crown jewel of programming, and
they get Gene back on the scene and they say,
all right, let's make a new Star Trek series. What
what one for the kids? And that when ultimately gets
(08:57):
bogged down in production limbo right production all they call it.
Sometimes their concerns about the budget, legal concerns about usage
rights and so on, but Paramount and Gene still agree
that they want a new iteration of Star Trek. Eventually,
what they developed becomes called Star Trek the Next Generation
(09:17):
or st tn G for the the for the fans.
But still, you know, it's weird to me is despite
the fact that this was now recognized as a license
to print money, a lot of networks still weren't willing
to green light the next generation. NBC and ABC said
we'll do a pilot, no further, CBS and Fox, which
(09:41):
was a thing by then, said they came with these
weird kind of half measure offers like let's do it
as a as a limited mini series, you know, a
made for TV kind of long film. So Paramount and
Gene say, you know what, We're gonna skip the networks entirely.
We're not gonna us with the big three ABC, CBS, NBC.
(10:03):
We're going to go straight to smaller TV stations around
the country. I want to do a quick uh Noel
Brown famous walk back. Marcrdo. Montalban wasn't exactly a list
movie star at the time. He was much more known
for television roles, um and I think he was probably
a bigger star uh in Latin America than he was
(10:23):
in in the United States. And I think he got
a lot of acting um experience playing kind of a
foreign villain, you know, like which was very much a
trope of the time. You know, anybody with an accent
and he looked a little bit different would often be
cast as a villain. And of course that's where he
was cast as here. But if you look at his IMDb,
(10:44):
a lot of TV work. He was also on Fantasy
Island and and things like that, like I think Hawaii
five Oh a little later, but um so he was
kind of still in this middle ground of of of icon,
you know, and he really I think it's probably eight
too many known most for his portrayal of of con
(11:05):
That's how I know him. Back to the setup of
the of something unprecedented and very smart the Paramount and
Gene Roddenberry do. It's kind of similar to how when
Ellen Musk gluvemar hate him uh got Tesla to a
(11:27):
point where you didn't have to go to a dealership.
You could buy Tesla cars directly from the manufacturer. These
guys were selling their products Star Trek directly to individual
network affiliates and independent stations, and this made them able
to circumvent so much bureaucracy and red tape and studio politics.
(11:49):
They were selling the Next Generation directly to the TV
stations that would air it, and eventually Gene and Paramount
start distributing the shows directly to fans, and they circumvent
major broadcast outfits all together. They're getting past the fat cats.
The Next Generation comes out in seven and it's on
(12:11):
a hundred and thirty seven local stations across the country.
At the end of its run, it was and remains
the most successful Star Trek series of all times. Seven seasons,
great ratings, throughout all seven of those seasons, even after
the man himself, Jeane Roddenberry, sadly passes away in nineteen one.
(12:37):
And there's a there's a line that you pulled, Max,
that really really stood out to me, and I think
to all of us talking about how Star Trek almost died.
This is that Entertainment Weekly article. This is from June four.
We may have mentioned this in part one. The thing is,
(12:57):
this is an epic comeback, and we'll just give you
the quote here. In the years since Star Trek has
exploded into an entertainment phenomenon of galactic proportions, reruns of
the original series are still broadcast hundreds of times a
day and have been translated into forty seven languages. Among
his stellar offspring or six feature films, which have earned
(13:17):
more than four dred and seventy million dollars, two sequel series,
Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space
nine currently TVs top rated syndicated dramas. Here's Max's favorite line.
Not even Spock could have calculated the odds on a
comeback like that. Spot. What what's the other spot? Quote?
The needs of the many needs a few long and
(13:41):
prosper had a lot of great quotes. You can argue
here was the true star of the original series, to
William Shatner's chagrin, Oh yeah, and uh, you know, it's
no secret now that there were a lot of rough
patches for the original cast in terms of stardom, in
(14:03):
terms of things as small as like who gets to
say the h an amount of lines in an episode?
But you know, fame is never a dent uh angel
fart said and trumpets, there's always it's always something it
comes along with it. But they made history and it
looked like Star Trek was finally here to stay, or
(14:27):
was it. Yeah, it kind of had a bit of
a period of I guess, let's just say, not greatness.
It sort of fell into kind of a bit of
a dul drum kind of period, wouldn't you say, Max,
How would you describe this as a as a fan? Yeah,
I think adult rum is a good way to describe it.
(14:49):
I mean, it just feels like at one point it
was just too much Star Trek. It was constant and
it had been on the air for so long, and
some of the series were less creative. I'm tak a
shot D S nine that's obviously my favorite series. That
was great, but it just kind of was like Star
Treks on, like it always on, Right, Yeah, there was
(15:11):
you could also call this a threshold of diminishing returns. Right.
You could see Star Trek the original series on all
the time, but you had probably seen all of the episodes,
you know, and the Yeah, there's there's kind of a
low point, not quite a Nader, but there's definitely kind
of a slump in the story here. So Star Trek
(15:34):
six The Undiscovered Country comes out, and after it, the
cast of the original Star Trek the they're not doing
a lot of stuff in that universe. You'll see them
make cameo appearances, you will see them show up at
um maybe conventions or publicity runs. The next generation also
(15:55):
concludes in the main cast is again they're very six fessible.
So they go on to make four movies themselves, some
of which I thought were pretty good, and the Trek franchise,
the Enterprise, you could say, continues to push on. That's
where you get three more series, Deep Space nine, Voyager, Enterprise,
(16:17):
and I don't know, yeah, let's talk about this. Yes,
there's too much Star Trek, but I thought I thought
Deep Space nine had something really interesting involved because they're
not traveling out their ship is well, for the most part,
their ship is by this mysterious wormhole, right, and a
(16:39):
lot of things are traveling to them or they're sending
people out. Is that correct, space station kind of situation. Yeah. Yeah,
so DS nine is that it's an d snige is
a very different series than all the other Star Trek series.
That's what it stands out to it. I actually two
weekends ago went back and watched the DS nine documentary
make sure I was like up to data on that one.
(16:59):
But yeah, so it's it's a very different one because
they're there. It's all about you know, galaxy politics and
stuff like that. And it's also broke from the mold
of T O S and t G where it wasn't
Monster of the Week. It was had some serial like elements.
I mean they have at one point the show ends
(17:20):
on a ten episode arc and stuff like that. Yeah,
and also they do some they used some really interesting
off the map kind of things, right with the Gamma
quadrant and this other analog to the Federation called the Dominion.
But anyhow, yeah, so there's still being experimental, but to
the audience. A lot of this seems like, okay, more
(17:41):
of the same, you know, like, oh, yes, I like fajitas,
but I don't eat fahitas every day, so stop trying
to sell them to me. As a result, we see
the casual audience falling off and Star Trek decides to
take a four year break. There were no new episodes
of any Star Trek stuff from about two thousand five
(18:03):
to seventeen. There were movies. That's the lost connection we're
talking about. In part one. J J Abrams runs point on.
They go kind of multiverse. It's like a reboot, same characters,
but they have different actors, younger actors, and there are
still some cameos. We don't want to spoil it for you,
but in in the universe you can consider this kind
(18:26):
of an alternate timeline. And those were all financial successes.
They did the Con story again, right, what was that
into Darkness? Yep, Yeah, Bennet commer best to play Con
and Bennet comes as an amazing actor. I mean, it's
not his fault. Movie was poorly written. I thought the
first one was pretty cool first at first J J
(18:47):
Abrams one. It was fun. It was a little more
obviously Star Warzy than Star Trek e because it was,
you know, had to be like a big blockbuster kind
of action vibe, which really isn't for what Star Trek
was even in the movies. It was a little more
dialogue based than it was like big action set piece based. Yeah,
(19:08):
and I I enjoyed it. I think it. It pulled
the nostalgia strings, especially the first one, in the way
it was calculated to do. But all right, now we're
getting closer to the present day. In the present day,
Star Trek has become depend on whom you ask, bigger
than it had ever been before, Like Palpatine, it rose
(19:30):
stronger and more powerful when it was struck down. Uh.
So there's a new series that comes out, Discovery, and
Discovery is successful, so CBS all acts Paramount Plus there's
a lot of studio politics with us basically Paramount. They
they put out the new these new iterations, and one
(19:54):
of them follows Picard so much so that it's called Picard.
He's the titular character and it's all about his life
after the events of Star Trek. The next generation kind
of panned Max. What's your thoughts Your thoughts on Piccard
picard Um the second season. Piccard was much better in
(20:18):
the first season. The first season was kind of I'm
really excited for the third season, which I mean comes
out in like three weeks. Yeah, I I watched. I
watched as well, and there were a lot of interesting
threads they introduced there, but not all of them came
to fruition. You still you don't. I love have Jerry
Ryan back. Jerry Ryan is amazing and yeah, and there's
(20:39):
some great stuff going on with the board. No spoilers,
but I love the board is villains. So there's now
they're they're franchise down this card, similar to what the
Big Mouse has been doing with Star Wars. They say,
let's take this universe and put it in other genres.
That's where you get stuff like Lower Decks, which is
(21:00):
an animated series that has meant to be comedic instead
of by a guy named Mike McMahon who used to
be the showrunner for Rick and morty uh. And then
they have another thing that I'm not as familiar with.
Maybe you guys can help me out here, Prodigy, which
is a collaboration with Nickelodeon. That's right, and it is
trying to you know, kind of introduce I mean, with
(21:22):
all of this legacy material out there, uh, certainly um
an attempt to reinvigorate some of that intellectual property and
introduce younger people to the series. UM, because I'll tell
you as a father of a of a fourteen year
old nerd, they're out there. UM. And it may not
be something. Star Trek isn't really something quite front and center,
(21:43):
you know, for that audience. So to have kind of
a clever cartoon version of it is a good way
to bring new younger folks into that world. Yeah. And
there's more stuff that's happening as well. Strange New Worlds,
which has been nominated for an Emmy, UH, tells the
story of Captain Pike and the Enterprise back from that
first pilot the Cage, which we mentioned in part one,
(22:06):
and I've really enjoyed watching that. UH have also maybe
as we get towards the end of this series of
explorations of Star Trek, we talk a little bit about
its role in the greater real life Earthbound culture. I
mean we mentioned this not just in part one of
this series, but in multiple conversations on Ridiculous History. This
(22:28):
show comes out in the sixties, it's multicultural, multi racial. Uh.
The cast itself is a statement that not everybody wants
to acknowledge right in in the world and which was
created and uh, Roddenberry made these great points and he said,
you know, this is the twenty three century. Do you
(22:48):
think people are still gonna be as intolerant as they
are in the nineteen sixties? I hope not. Uh. And
the uh this was a big enough deal that Soviet Russia,
a state run paper, complained that there wasn't a Soviet
Union representative on there. And that's why in season two
you got check off on the scene because they said,
(23:10):
oh no, no, yeah, good point. Okay, no, it's it's
a very good point. And it shows that he was
able to put his money where his mouth was in
terms of leaning into that multicultural perspective. So you know,
again there there is some pretty cerebral, kind of allegorical
type of storytelling in this show, if somewhat veiled social
(23:32):
commentaries that it was kind of a little bit bombastic
for the time to address some of the issues that
the show did. For example, in the episode let That
Be Your Last Battlefield, Um, the the Enterprise has a
run in with the planet where the the inhabitants of
that planet are black on one side and white on
(23:53):
the other side, and there is a burning racial resentment
between those who are black on the right half and
those who are black on the left. And it's just
a very interesting way of handling that type of of
of attitude that was very you know, pre prevalent in America,
but also clever in a way because it wasn't right
(24:15):
out in your face to the point where people could,
you know, protested exactly if they weren't smart enough to
kind of read what they were actually trying to do.
You also had kind of lampooning of some of the
Cold War paranoia and sentiments of the time, and episodes
like a Private Little War. Yeah, Yeah, And this is
(24:36):
something powerful. And we we see a similar phenomenon in
The Twilight Zone, which is by far one of my
favorite UH programs ever committed to television. In in these Things,
you will see that there its law and order. SVU
actually does a lot of this. You will see recent
(24:57):
news stories that get U that get used as the
creative fuel for a story in Star Trek. The the
idea of Private Little War. I don't want you to
think I was ignoring your Pointnal. The idea of private
little war is about a move to about a problem.
(25:19):
Should we help a primitive people in a Garia war?
Because there's this planet where the Clanns are waging war, right,
the waging a proxy war, and the Clanons, who are
often a stand in for the USSR, honestly have given
arms to one side of the war, and the Federation
(25:39):
has to decide whether they're going to violate the prime
directive and give the other side of the war weapons. Right,
So we see that the Cold War idea of fighting
via proxies in a third country is very much on
the mind of the Star Trek writers. And you're able
to talk about these conundrums in way that you couldn't
(26:01):
in a non fiction show. You can always just say, hey,
these are aliens, this is art. If you see something
in it, brother, that's on you. Uh. And you can
also see like, yeah, a lot of geopolitical stuff is
echoed in these shows, and they had to because it
was taboo to talk about politics openly. That's right. And also,
just just to backtrack a little bit to something that
(26:22):
you said that maybe folks might not fully be aware of,
the idea of the Prime Directive we've kind of hinted at.
It really is the guiding philosophy of the crew of
the of the starship Enterprise. It's sort of like a
leave no trace kind of situation where they're exploring and learning,
but they're not out to influence, you know, uh, geopolitics.
(26:43):
They sometimes get caught up in the middle of it
and are left with some tough choices. Uh. And again
you said it. At times they've had to somewhat go
against the prime directive for the greater good, But in
general their goal is to be as neutral as possible
and seek out new life and and then expl lore,
you know, the deepest reaches of space, but not it's
(27:03):
not a conquering force and when and they and they
portray conquering forces like the Klingons as villainous to some degree,
but then they're also there's a complexity there, and so
it's not black or white. They definitely are handling a
lot of these things with a lot of care and
a lot of thought. And if you want to watch
it strictly as a science fiction situation and just have
(27:26):
a good time and go on a little romp, you
can do that or you can look at the deeper
levels and really enjoy, you know, the care with which
they approach these are very complex geopolitical ideas. Yeah. Yeah,
and this again, this is something that Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry
is acutely aware of, to the point where he says,
(27:47):
I don't consider myself a science fiction writer. I'm interested
in what's happening on this planet and what may happen
in our society. We're treating man less and less like
an individual and more like a social organism. And I
think that's one of the really inspiring points of Star Trek. Now,
Trickys will be the first to tell you that Star
Trek doesn't get everything right all the time. But also,
(28:11):
you know, when you think about the message the idea
here that you could do your best to be a
benevolent force in the universe without being an imperialistic force,
then you see a hard lesson that a lot of historical,
real world superpowers should probably pay more attention to in
(28:33):
the modern day. Looking at you, Henry Kissinger, let me
check and see if he's still alive. Right. Diplomacy, you know,
that's a huge part of of of what makes uh,
you know, John Luke Picard in particular of a very
compelling figure because he's always weighing, you know, this kind
of rhetoric and how to properly uh you know, approach
(28:54):
that prime directive, and so diplomacy becomes a big part
of it. It's probably also a reason that some people
maybe are more Star Wars people than Star Trek people,
because they find some of that stuff to be a
little dull, you know, or a little two mired in
the in the political side of things. Um, So it's
like become this almost like Stones versus the Beatles kind
of divide where it's like, are you Star Trek or
(29:15):
Star Wars. I think it's kind of a false equivalency.
They're both very different and interesting in their own rights,
sort of like apples and oranges. You know, yeah, well
they're all they're all uh science fiction, you know, they're
just very very different, like those stones and beetles or music,
and listening to one doesn't mean you're not gonna be
able to enjoy the other. I would say they're not
(29:35):
mutually exclusive. No, there's certainly not, but there is, like
it says something about you kind of as a listener
and as a fan which one you like better. Like
some people like the Stones because they're more rock and
roll and like you know, rebel and kind of low
fi um and a little bit just more kind of
hard edge, whereas the Beatles are a little more you know,
that psychedelic kind of high production value, you know, studio
(30:00):
and banned. But then if you look at their careers
and their cannons, both have examples of both, you know
what I mean. There are pieces of each of those
styles within the catalog of both of those bands, as
are their pieces of the diplomacy and the you know, um,
the action side of things in Star Wars versus Star
Trek definitely space operas. And I want to, uh, I
(30:22):
want to present another installment of Ben's continuing obsession with
Henry Kissinger. Just confirmed Henry is alive still he is
ninety nine and for reminder for everybody playing this game
at home, if he makes it to ma of this year,
he will be one hundred years old. He is. He
(30:43):
is really pissed some people off, But then again, so
some episodes of Star Trek expert expertly done. Ben, It's
true and and and for good reason. We're going to
devote a little bit of this section to episodes of
(31:04):
Star Trek that either hit the mark too hard and
pissed people off, or that absolutely deserved to be seen
as bad examples of the show. Max, I think you
should leave the chart of this one in a lot
of ways, because, as you mentioned off air, a lot
of folks at certain points sort of accused it of
being too woke or to like social justice warrior e
(31:29):
and that this is like sort of like a new thing,
but that's not really the case. It was sort of
that from the start. Yeah. I mean there's even quotes
from Ronbart early on where he's like he had pitched
a show before the original series and it got shot
down for being like too controversial stuff. So he basically
in some ways built original series around that other show
(31:50):
he had made, just to kind of like, you know,
put a guys under it. But I mean, yeah, every
single series of Star Trek has episodes that are you know,
it could be viewed as by some people's preachy or
pushing morals, but are just you know, social commentary. I mean,
I think the best one of them all is probably
Far Beyond the Stars, which is from Star Trek Beef
Space nine, which is where Captain Cisco Avery Brooks is
(32:13):
transported from modern times where they are so twenty four
century back to the nineteen fifties and as a black
man him experiencing all the racial injustice of the time.
And it's also directed by every Brooks and it's just
one of the most beautiful episodes of Star Trek ever made.
And you also mentioned Max in the research material for
(32:34):
this that one of the new series, Strange New Worlds
already kind of hit it off with a bang in
terms of, you know, in this culture that we're living
in now, people accusing it of tarnishing the legacy of
Star Trek by being to quote Woker, you know, s
j W. But again to your point, and the whole
point you're talking about this whole time is that sort
(32:54):
of rodan Berry's you know goal from the start again.
Will is the term that's been maligned and sort of
twisted and become this term of abuse or of being
like overly PC or whatever it might be. But it's
just interesting how people that make those arguments probably have
never even seen the show often or have maybe read,
(33:15):
uh just just read a heated comment that they agreed
with in a forum without having the full context. I
want to talk about one of the I think most
meaningful episodes, Plato's step Children. Yes, yeah, the kiss heard
around the world when Ahura and Captain Kirk kind of
(33:36):
trauma bond and endure some terrible things that result in
the actors kissing each other. This is an interracial kiss
in nine. Michelle Nichols, who plays Ahura, and William Shatter,
who plays Kirk, are definitely like, they're definitely on air kissing.
(33:56):
There's not a cut away, there's not somebody mentioning it later. Uh.
NBC was terrified. Uh. They they were so worried about
this that they wanted to have two different versions of
the episode, one for the majority of the United States
and then one for the Southern States where, uh, they
would go through this terrible experience and at the end
(34:19):
they would come in for the kiss and then they
would hug. They actually had takes of this, and according
to the story not confirmed, but credit credit to William
if this is true, apparently he purposely sabotaged the hugging
take so that they would have to have to use
the kiss everywhere they aired it, or they would have
(34:40):
to blow a lot of money to reshoot it, uh,
and this is this is crazy. There was complaints, but
NBC was surprised and impressed maybe by the United States
because there wasn't a huge backlash, not near as much
as they feared. And uh, people were jen would leave
positive in their reactions to this, and I mean it
(35:03):
genuinely earned the show historical goodwill and another kind of
notch in the belt of Star Trek as being progressive
during a time where maybe that wasn't always the easiest
choice to make. Again, when we look at the backstory
of it, the executives were always kind of twitchy, you know,
from the start, uh, you know, even back to the
(35:23):
Lucy days. But whatever led to the end result, the
end result was what it was and is a very
important historical moment because I believe it maybe wasn't the
very first interracial kiss that took place on a large
broadcast format like that, but it was one of them,
to be sure, and it was a very popular one
(35:44):
on a very popular show, and it made a lot
of noise. You know. At the top of this segment,
we kind of tease the some of these episodes pissed
people off just because they were not very good, Uh,
you know, you make a lot of shows back in
the day. You know, a lot of these series had many, many,
many episodes. They're not gonna all be hits. I think
over eight hundred episodes of the series Next Generation UM
(36:06):
and Max I has thought to wrap up today, we
could just go through a couple of of pretty significant
misses just in terms of like the quality of the show. Okay,
you guys, you guys are ready for this, because I'm
gonna just give you a very general description of these episodes.
I want to see what y'all's reaction is. I think
I'm gonna start with let He who Is Without Sin
(36:29):
from Star Trek Deep Space nine. So premise of the
episode is Jazz Adax and Warf have started dating and
Dax is like fun, loving and free. She's happy, and
WARF's all stoic and strong. She's like, we need to
go on vacation. That's what Dax is like. So they
go on vacation to this planet called Risea. If you
don't know what Rises, it's like the horniest planet in
(36:51):
the universe, super horny. It's like the galactic Abiza basically. Yeah,
So they get there and Dax is having fun and
all this stuff when Warf hates it. So Warf And
here's an important thing, Worf is in. Warf is a
full time main cast member in eleven seasons of Star Trek.
There's no character who has more about them than Warf, basically,
(37:14):
and he's this honorable guy. And so he's like there
and he's like, I'm not having fun. I'm gonna join
this group of eco terrorists and start tormenting and threatening
these lives of all these people on this planet. Yeah, cat,
catch them by their horny, I guess right, right, right exactly.
And then at the end of the episode, nothing happens
and they go skiing dipping and it's all fine. And
throughout the entire episode in the background corks running around
(37:36):
having orgies, and then there's there speaking if things are
weird with characters. There's also spots brain right, that was
that one's where they just they tell you that, oh guys,
sorry this didn't come up earlier, but for a while,
vulcans will live without their brains. But you mean the
(38:00):
brainiest species portrayed on the show can live without their brain.
Is this sort of like a chicken with their head
cut off kind of situation basically. Yes, yeah, the idea
is that uh, Spock can spot can be operated by
a remote control since he does have higher order or
cognitive functions until they get his brain back, so they're
(38:23):
on a brain heist and uh, Max, you described this
as one of the few anti bangers of the original series,
and this is this is held up often as an
example to the class of the decline in quality in
the third season. Yeah, no, it is. It is remarkably bad.
It is just so especially there's this remote that Dr
(38:46):
McCoy is walking around with with a couple of buttons
and a control Spock. It's just so bad, damnit, Jim.
I'm a doctor, not a remote controlled operator or a
brain surgeon. That's popular, but apparently it's where there's focus
in the Trek community that consider an episode of Voyager
called Threshold kind of the spos brain of that series.
(39:08):
H and Max, I believe you felt this episode was
in fact the worst of all time within the entire
Star Trek universe. Yes. So side note, I've been born
and raised Treky. Both my parents are big Trek. He's
my mom will not watch the series Forager because of
this episode. You saw it when it came on, came out,
and she's like, that is just the worst thing I've
(39:28):
ever seen. And what really makes it so terrible is
it kind of feels like a real episode of Star Trek.
A lot of these really bad episodes. You can tell
from the get go, oh, this is gonna be bad.
It feels like it's gonna be a real episode at first,
but it really kind of goes off the rails and
just keeps going more and more off the rails. So
it's like she said, it goes warp ten off the rails. Mix. Yeah,
So let's first and foremost start with this concept of
(39:50):
warp ten Star Trek. Very nerdy concept. Warp ten is
basically written as something impossible. Warp ten means infinite speed,
and so Forager, it takes place in the Delta quadrant,
limited resources, and all of a sudden one day they
wake up and food we can get our like, you know,
our little shuttlecraft. Going warped ten for some reason makes
(40:11):
no sense. But then the guy Tom Paris goes warped
ten and he which means he can be anywhere in
the galaxy at any moment. It's all great woo who
then he turns into a salamander because of some weird
advanced uh evolutionary thing that causes by you going infinite
velocity that is yet that has not really been laid
(40:31):
out in the in the lore of the show up
to this point. Yeah, no, it doesn't make any sense.
But it gets worse, it gets way worse. So then
he decides he gets all like you know, hot and heavy,
and he abducts Captain Janeway, throws her in the shuttlecraft,
takes her warp ten, turns her to a salamander. They
go to find some planet. They get freaky on the planet,
make more salamanders. Then everybody shows up who's not a salamander,
(40:55):
and then they kind of just like pick up the salamanders.
They carry them back to the ship, just the justin
Jane way in Paris salamander by the way, and then
it's a quick cut and all sudden their back human again.
Never explained, they're just humans again. And then they're like, yeah,
we're not gonna talk about and then left the children there,
left the children there, no alimony, classic salamander. This is
some anti salamander propaganda when you know, salamander children left
(41:18):
behind except Unfortunately they were totally left by I have
to say that really quick before you wrap this up.
Uh this as as a non trekky who really doesn't
have much skin in the game, this sounds like it
can't be delight. I'm interested in this as a standalone
bonkers piece of television and I'm gonna seek it out.
But please, Oh yeah, this is one. There's some star
(41:38):
trek that it's like you jump into, you'll you'll not
really fully get this. You can just jump into cold
and watch. It is episode fifteen of season two, and
it's great because the person who was in Church of
the teleplay very involved this episode is Brandon Braga, who
is like one of the big wigs. He's like important,
like a lot of the ten G movies. He executive
(42:00):
producer and forgure and this this episode is so infamous
that it's now getting parodied in the new shows, like
an episode of Lord Dex where they have a salamander
around there is. They even get Kate mulgrew, who's represent
the character of Catherine Janeway in Prodigy, to joke that
I was once turned into a salamander. I've seen weirder
(42:21):
things than this. Happened. It reminds me of that that
producer who famously like always wanted the Holloway producer who
used to be Barbara Streistand's hairdresser. He was kind of
portrayed in um Licorice Pizza by Bradley Cooper, but I'm
forgetting the guy's name, But he famously always really wanted
to have a movie with a giant spider in it,
and finally got his way with Wild Wild West. But
(42:44):
this sounds kind of like that too. They gave you know,
they let the big wig, right is weird Salamander script
because he just you know, he commanded that much uh
you know, prominence and and uh and and fear that
they just let's go ahead let him write one. And
with this we have to say we have many more
things to explore about Star Trek, the role of unsung
(43:06):
heroes behind the screen, behind the page, the dark side
of this massive pop cultural phenomenon. We can't wait for
you to join us on that continuing journey in the
meantime special thanks to super producer and research associate Mr
Max Williams. Also now our resident Vulcan Cause player, Big
(43:26):
Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed this track, which
I would put up against the Star Trek theme. Also
thanks to Chris Frostiotis Eaves, Jeff Coat and Jonathan Strickland.
And to you Ben, thank you for for your companionship
and and and bravery on this ridiculous voyage to the stars.
We'll see you next time. Books. For more podcasts for
(43:55):
my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:26):
welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning, and this is part two
of our continuing mission to explore how Star Trek almost
didn't become a thing. With big special thanks are super
producer and research associate for this series, Mr Max Williams.
(00:48):
Here here on Earth they called me Ben, they call
you Noel and Noel. Before we got into a lot
of this research, I knew Star Trek had some dodgy
times and it's earlier day, but I personally did not
know how close it came to being canceled just so often. Yeah,
because it's just, you know, it's just something that we've
(01:08):
always known ever since we were a kid, whether it
was the thing that we you know, really got our
gears turning as far as particular sci fi properties or not.
It's just ubiquitous, you know. And a big part of
that I think had maybe more to do with the
movies than the series itself, because, like you mentioned in
the top of episode one here, Star Wars began its
(01:31):
life as in the cinema, you know, and became a
cultural phenomenon the areas we got our we got another
costume change going on with Vader here, who never actually
said Luke, I am your father. He said, uh, something similar.
Also just like Ricky, that's right. And also Lucy, Ricky
never famously never actually said Lucy, you got some splaining
(01:53):
to do. He said some iteration of that. That was Lucy,
I am your father. Yeah, that's that's the And another one,
uh Kirk never said, never said not once. Uh So
we've got we've got this strange tale about something that
has become bedrock foundation of pop culture. And we introduced
(02:17):
you to be Joe Betty Tremble, Betty Joe Tremble, who
is known as the woman who saved Star Trek by
leading a letter writing campaign that got it to a
third season. We ended on. We ended at a crossroads
because NBC had baked in a poison pill to their
third season. They dramatically cut the budget, the quality of
(02:40):
the show suffered, and it looked like the third season
was going to be the last hurrah. But we had
a bit of a silver lining because three seasons means
a show can get into syndication. When a show gets
into syndication, that means the reruns can go anywhere, everywhere,
(03:01):
any time a network has a free slot, whether four
pm or whether eleven am. Right, because in those days, um,
it certainly wasn't the kind of mega, big dollar syndication
deals that we know of today, like with things like
Seinfeld and all of that, and all the different licensing
deals that go into having shows appear on streaming services
(03:23):
and all that. This was just more of kind of
like a way of filling time. Even if a show
wasn't a hit. They owned the intellectual property, the studios
and the networks owned the show, so they it was
fair game for them to fill out their schedules. Uh,
at a time where it was very important to have
something on the air during that broadcast day. Yeah, because
you'll still have some costs associated with airing reruns. Right,
(03:47):
people get checks every time a show is back on
the air, but it's still much much less expensive than
making something new out of whole cloth and hoping that works.
So this indication, it turns out to be the reason
that you know about Star Trek today. We want to
shout Devin Maloney who wrote boldly going where no man
(04:11):
or woman had gone before over at Rookie mag dot com.
So let's paint the picture for you. You're in the
nineties seventies, you own a television, You're you're watching TV.
UHF stations all over the United States would buy the
rights to re air part of all of those three
(04:32):
seasons of Star Trek, and so this show began to
hit airwaves on a daily basis, which meant that people
would missed it the first time around were much more
likely to see it this time. And kids and young
adults loved it. This was perfect for them. The war
in Vietnam had closed, people were walking on the moon,
(04:55):
and there are a lot of folks who found Star
Trek at the right time in their lives. A brighter
future seemed ahead now that we knew real life astronauts
could go to the move. It didn't seem two out
of bounds to think future humans could explore the stars. Yeah,
more Zeitgeist the stuff. It was already kind of within
(05:16):
the realm of possibility and Star Trek you know from
this well, I mean, and I know there's the whole
like you know, kirk Um having dalliances with green women
and fighting kind of bad rubber monsters like in you know,
in the desert or what are in these desert planet
kind of situations but orn. But the basis of Star
(05:36):
Trek was a somewhat believable future wherein we we did,
we are able to you know, populate the stars and
live in the sort of idyllic kind of you know utopia,
you know, in space. So it really was something that
kind of captured people's imaginations in a very big way. Look,
(05:58):
there's also a role that Star Wars played in this.
Just holding on my Darth Vader mask again, because these
reruns of a show that had been canceled were becoming
incredibly popular, and the Star Wars universe was a blockbuster
film event. Paramount had acquired the rights to Star Trek
(06:21):
from Lucille's Lucille Balls Studio Desilou, and they said, you
know what, there's a lot of interest here. People like
space movies. Let's take this crew to the big screen.
And that's when the first Star Trek film comes out.
Nine nine. Star Trek called in a burst of creativity
(06:41):
the motion picture, which you know, felt like a four
thirty on a Friday decision, But it was okay, it
was all right, I want a barn store picture. Yes, Max,
you have this in the notes. Yeah, but they did
have a sequel just a few years later, Star Trek
to the Wrath of Con much better title and super
(07:06):
interesting story. If you saw the original episode that inspired it,
that's right, And and it had a bona fide movie
star in it as well, with Ricardo Monta bomb Um
playing this villain or reprising his role as the the
titular con and and then you know, portraying his wrath
in Star Trek two. I gotta I gotta interjected, are
(07:29):
we are we gonna do some con screams? Yeah, I
was gonna say, can we play the clip the con clip?
Or basically if if legal won't let us get away
with it? It's this you have to shake your face
(07:49):
in a very uncontrollable red really read real scenery chewing.
It's it's sort of the equivalent of the space equivalent
of like the part in them in any you know
kind of B movie where it actor drops to his
knees and just shakes roof, you know, to show you
(08:12):
the full extent of the uncarried universe. Look, the Wrath
of Cod slaps. It is a good film, and uh,
the original series for two decades, for twenty years, it
gets all these excellent ratings anytime it's in syndication and
be broadcast, and the other films do well at the
(08:33):
box office, especially wrath of con by. Paramounts starts calling
this once derided universe it's crown jewel of programming, and
they get Gene back on the scene and they say,
all right, let's make a new Star Trek series. What
what one for the kids? And that when ultimately gets
(08:57):
bogged down in production limbo right production all they call it.
Sometimes their concerns about the budget, legal concerns about usage
rights and so on, but Paramount and Gene still agree
that they want a new iteration of Star Trek. Eventually,
what they developed becomes called Star Trek the Next Generation
(09:17):
or st tn G for the the for the fans.
But still, you know, it's weird to me is despite
the fact that this was now recognized as a license
to print money, a lot of networks still weren't willing
to green light the next generation. NBC and ABC said
we'll do a pilot, no further, CBS and Fox, which
(09:41):
was a thing by then, said they came with these
weird kind of half measure offers like let's do it
as a as a limited mini series, you know, a
made for TV kind of long film. So Paramount and
Gene say, you know what, We're gonna skip the networks entirely.
We're not gonna us with the big three ABC, CBS, NBC.
(10:03):
We're going to go straight to smaller TV stations around
the country. I want to do a quick uh Noel
Brown famous walk back. Marcrdo. Montalban wasn't exactly a list
movie star at the time. He was much more known
for television roles, um and I think he was probably
a bigger star uh in Latin America than he was
(10:23):
in in the United States. And I think he got
a lot of acting um experience playing kind of a
foreign villain, you know, like which was very much a
trope of the time. You know, anybody with an accent
and he looked a little bit different would often be
cast as a villain. And of course that's where he
was cast as here. But if you look at his IMDb,
(10:44):
a lot of TV work. He was also on Fantasy
Island and and things like that, like I think Hawaii
five Oh a little later, but um so he was
kind of still in this middle ground of of of icon,
you know, and he really I think it's probably eight
too many known most for his portrayal of of con
(11:05):
That's how I know him. Back to the setup of
the of something unprecedented and very smart the Paramount and
Gene Roddenberry do. It's kind of similar to how when
Ellen Musk gluvemar hate him uh got Tesla to a
(11:27):
point where you didn't have to go to a dealership.
You could buy Tesla cars directly from the manufacturer. These
guys were selling their products Star Trek directly to individual
network affiliates and independent stations, and this made them able
to circumvent so much bureaucracy and red tape and studio politics.
(11:49):
They were selling the Next Generation directly to the TV
stations that would air it, and eventually Gene and Paramount
start distributing the shows directly to fans, and they circumvent
major broadcast outfits all together. They're getting past the fat cats.
The Next Generation comes out in seven and it's on
(12:11):
a hundred and thirty seven local stations across the country.
At the end of its run, it was and remains
the most successful Star Trek series of all times. Seven seasons,
great ratings, throughout all seven of those seasons, even after
the man himself, Jeane Roddenberry, sadly passes away in nineteen one.
(12:37):
And there's a there's a line that you pulled, Max,
that really really stood out to me, and I think
to all of us talking about how Star Trek almost died.
This is that Entertainment Weekly article. This is from June four.
We may have mentioned this in part one. The thing is,
(12:57):
this is an epic comeback, and we'll just give you
the quote here. In the years since Star Trek has
exploded into an entertainment phenomenon of galactic proportions, reruns of
the original series are still broadcast hundreds of times a
day and have been translated into forty seven languages. Among
his stellar offspring or six feature films, which have earned
(13:17):
more than four dred and seventy million dollars, two sequel series,
Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space
nine currently TVs top rated syndicated dramas. Here's Max's favorite line.
Not even Spock could have calculated the odds on a
comeback like that. Spot. What what's the other spot? Quote?
The needs of the many needs a few long and
(13:41):
prosper had a lot of great quotes. You can argue
here was the true star of the original series, to
William Shatner's chagrin, Oh yeah, and uh, you know, it's
no secret now that there were a lot of rough
patches for the original cast in terms of stardom, in
(14:03):
terms of things as small as like who gets to
say the h an amount of lines in an episode?
But you know, fame is never a dent uh angel
fart said and trumpets, there's always it's always something it
comes along with it. But they made history and it
looked like Star Trek was finally here to stay, or
(14:27):
was it. Yeah, it kind of had a bit of
a period of I guess, let's just say, not greatness.
It sort of fell into kind of a bit of
a dul drum kind of period, wouldn't you say, Max,
How would you describe this as a as a fan? Yeah,
I think adult rum is a good way to describe it.
(14:49):
I mean, it just feels like at one point it
was just too much Star Trek. It was constant and
it had been on the air for so long, and
some of the series were less creative. I'm tak a
shot D S nine that's obviously my favorite series. That
was great, but it just kind of was like Star
Treks on, like it always on, Right, Yeah, there was
(15:11):
you could also call this a threshold of diminishing returns. Right.
You could see Star Trek the original series on all
the time, but you had probably seen all of the episodes,
you know, and the Yeah, there's there's kind of a
low point, not quite a Nader, but there's definitely kind
of a slump in the story here. So Star Trek
(15:34):
six The Undiscovered Country comes out, and after it, the
cast of the original Star Trek the they're not doing
a lot of stuff in that universe. You'll see them
make cameo appearances, you will see them show up at
um maybe conventions or publicity runs. The next generation also
(15:55):
concludes in the main cast is again they're very six fessible.
So they go on to make four movies themselves, some
of which I thought were pretty good, and the Trek franchise,
the Enterprise, you could say, continues to push on. That's
where you get three more series, Deep Space nine, Voyager, Enterprise,
(16:17):
and I don't know, yeah, let's talk about this. Yes,
there's too much Star Trek, but I thought I thought
Deep Space nine had something really interesting involved because they're
not traveling out their ship is well, for the most part,
their ship is by this mysterious wormhole, right, and a
(16:39):
lot of things are traveling to them or they're sending
people out. Is that correct, space station kind of situation. Yeah. Yeah,
so DS nine is that it's an d snige is
a very different series than all the other Star Trek series.
That's what it stands out to it. I actually two
weekends ago went back and watched the DS nine documentary
make sure I was like up to data on that one.
(16:59):
But yeah, so it's it's a very different one because
they're there. It's all about you know, galaxy politics and
stuff like that. And it's also broke from the mold
of T O S and t G where it wasn't
Monster of the Week. It was had some serial like elements.
I mean they have at one point the show ends
(17:20):
on a ten episode arc and stuff like that. Yeah,
and also they do some they used some really interesting
off the map kind of things, right with the Gamma
quadrant and this other analog to the Federation called the Dominion.
But anyhow, yeah, so there's still being experimental, but to
the audience. A lot of this seems like, okay, more
(17:41):
of the same, you know, like, oh, yes, I like fajitas,
but I don't eat fahitas every day, so stop trying
to sell them to me. As a result, we see
the casual audience falling off and Star Trek decides to
take a four year break. There were no new episodes
of any Star Trek stuff from about two thousand five
(18:03):
to seventeen. There were movies. That's the lost connection we're
talking about. In part one. J J Abrams runs point on.
They go kind of multiverse. It's like a reboot, same characters,
but they have different actors, younger actors, and there are
still some cameos. We don't want to spoil it for you,
but in in the universe you can consider this kind
(18:26):
of an alternate timeline. And those were all financial successes.
They did the Con story again, right, what was that
into Darkness? Yep, Yeah, Bennet commer best to play Con
and Bennet comes as an amazing actor. I mean, it's
not his fault. Movie was poorly written. I thought the
first one was pretty cool first at first J J
(18:47):
Abrams one. It was fun. It was a little more
obviously Star Warzy than Star Trek e because it was,
you know, had to be like a big blockbuster kind
of action vibe, which really isn't for what Star Trek
was even in the movies. It was a little more
dialogue based than it was like big action set piece based. Yeah,
(19:08):
and I I enjoyed it. I think it. It pulled
the nostalgia strings, especially the first one, in the way
it was calculated to do. But all right, now we're
getting closer to the present day. In the present day,
Star Trek has become depend on whom you ask, bigger
than it had ever been before, Like Palpatine, it rose
(19:30):
stronger and more powerful when it was struck down. Uh.
So there's a new series that comes out, Discovery, and
Discovery is successful, so CBS all acts Paramount Plus there's
a lot of studio politics with us basically Paramount. They
they put out the new these new iterations, and one
(19:54):
of them follows Picard so much so that it's called Picard.
He's the titular character and it's all about his life
after the events of Star Trek. The next generation kind
of panned Max. What's your thoughts Your thoughts on Piccard
picard Um the second season. Piccard was much better in
(20:18):
the first season. The first season was kind of I'm
really excited for the third season, which I mean comes
out in like three weeks. Yeah, I I watched. I
watched as well, and there were a lot of interesting
threads they introduced there, but not all of them came
to fruition. You still you don't. I love have Jerry
Ryan back. Jerry Ryan is amazing and yeah, and there's
(20:39):
some great stuff going on with the board. No spoilers,
but I love the board is villains. So there's now
they're they're franchise down this card, similar to what the
Big Mouse has been doing with Star Wars. They say,
let's take this universe and put it in other genres.
That's where you get stuff like Lower Decks, which is
(21:00):
an animated series that has meant to be comedic instead
of by a guy named Mike McMahon who used to
be the showrunner for Rick and morty uh. And then
they have another thing that I'm not as familiar with.
Maybe you guys can help me out here, Prodigy, which
is a collaboration with Nickelodeon. That's right, and it is
trying to you know, kind of introduce I mean, with
(21:22):
all of this legacy material out there, uh, certainly um
an attempt to reinvigorate some of that intellectual property and
introduce younger people to the series. UM, because I'll tell
you as a father of a of a fourteen year
old nerd, they're out there. UM. And it may not
be something. Star Trek isn't really something quite front and center,
(21:43):
you know, for that audience. So to have kind of
a clever cartoon version of it is a good way
to bring new younger folks into that world. Yeah. And
there's more stuff that's happening as well. Strange New Worlds,
which has been nominated for an Emmy, UH, tells the
story of Captain Pike and the Enterprise back from that
first pilot the Cage, which we mentioned in part one,
(22:06):
and I've really enjoyed watching that. UH have also maybe
as we get towards the end of this series of
explorations of Star Trek, we talk a little bit about
its role in the greater real life Earthbound culture. I
mean we mentioned this not just in part one of
this series, but in multiple conversations on Ridiculous History. This
(22:28):
show comes out in the sixties, it's multicultural, multi racial. Uh.
The cast itself is a statement that not everybody wants
to acknowledge right in in the world and which was
created and uh, Roddenberry made these great points and he said,
you know, this is the twenty three century. Do you
(22:48):
think people are still gonna be as intolerant as they
are in the nineteen sixties? I hope not. Uh. And
the uh this was a big enough deal that Soviet Russia,
a state run paper, complained that there wasn't a Soviet
Union representative on there. And that's why in season two
you got check off on the scene because they said,
(23:10):
oh no, no, yeah, good point. Okay, no, it's it's
a very good point. And it shows that he was
able to put his money where his mouth was in
terms of leaning into that multicultural perspective. So you know,
again there there is some pretty cerebral, kind of allegorical
type of storytelling in this show, if somewhat veiled social
(23:32):
commentaries that it was kind of a little bit bombastic
for the time to address some of the issues that
the show did. For example, in the episode let That
Be Your Last Battlefield, Um, the the Enterprise has a
run in with the planet where the the inhabitants of
that planet are black on one side and white on
(23:53):
the other side, and there is a burning racial resentment
between those who are black on the right half and
those who are black on the left. And it's just
a very interesting way of handling that type of of
of attitude that was very you know, pre prevalent in America,
but also clever in a way because it wasn't right
(24:15):
out in your face to the point where people could,
you know, protested exactly if they weren't smart enough to
kind of read what they were actually trying to do.
You also had kind of lampooning of some of the
Cold War paranoia and sentiments of the time, and episodes
like a Private Little War. Yeah, Yeah, And this is
(24:36):
something powerful. And we we see a similar phenomenon in
The Twilight Zone, which is by far one of my
favorite UH programs ever committed to television. In in these Things,
you will see that there its law and order. SVU
actually does a lot of this. You will see recent
(24:57):
news stories that get U that get used as the
creative fuel for a story in Star Trek. The the
idea of Private Little War. I don't want you to
think I was ignoring your Pointnal. The idea of private
little war is about a move to about a problem.
(25:19):
Should we help a primitive people in a Garia war?
Because there's this planet where the Clanns are waging war, right,
the waging a proxy war, and the Clanons, who are
often a stand in for the USSR, honestly have given
arms to one side of the war, and the Federation
(25:39):
has to decide whether they're going to violate the prime
directive and give the other side of the war weapons. Right,
So we see that the Cold War idea of fighting
via proxies in a third country is very much on
the mind of the Star Trek writers. And you're able
to talk about these conundrums in way that you couldn't
(26:01):
in a non fiction show. You can always just say, hey,
these are aliens, this is art. If you see something
in it, brother, that's on you. Uh. And you can
also see like, yeah, a lot of geopolitical stuff is
echoed in these shows, and they had to because it
was taboo to talk about politics openly. That's right. And also,
just just to backtrack a little bit to something that
(26:22):
you said that maybe folks might not fully be aware of,
the idea of the Prime Directive we've kind of hinted at.
It really is the guiding philosophy of the crew of
the of the starship Enterprise. It's sort of like a
leave no trace kind of situation where they're exploring and learning,
but they're not out to influence, you know, uh, geopolitics.
(26:43):
They sometimes get caught up in the middle of it
and are left with some tough choices. Uh. And again
you said it. At times they've had to somewhat go
against the prime directive for the greater good, But in
general their goal is to be as neutral as possible
and seek out new life and and then expl lore,
you know, the deepest reaches of space, but not it's
(27:03):
not a conquering force and when and they and they
portray conquering forces like the Klingons as villainous to some degree,
but then they're also there's a complexity there, and so
it's not black or white. They definitely are handling a
lot of these things with a lot of care and
a lot of thought. And if you want to watch
it strictly as a science fiction situation and just have
(27:26):
a good time and go on a little romp, you
can do that or you can look at the deeper
levels and really enjoy, you know, the care with which
they approach these are very complex geopolitical ideas. Yeah. Yeah,
and this again, this is something that Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry
is acutely aware of, to the point where he says,
(27:47):
I don't consider myself a science fiction writer. I'm interested
in what's happening on this planet and what may happen
in our society. We're treating man less and less like
an individual and more like a social organism. And I
think that's one of the really inspiring points of Star Trek. Now,
Trickys will be the first to tell you that Star
Trek doesn't get everything right all the time. But also,
(28:11):
you know, when you think about the message the idea
here that you could do your best to be a
benevolent force in the universe without being an imperialistic force,
then you see a hard lesson that a lot of historical,
real world superpowers should probably pay more attention to in
(28:33):
the modern day. Looking at you, Henry Kissinger, let me
check and see if he's still alive. Right. Diplomacy, you know,
that's a huge part of of of what makes uh,
you know, John Luke Picard in particular of a very
compelling figure because he's always weighing, you know, this kind
of rhetoric and how to properly uh you know, approach
(28:54):
that prime directive, and so diplomacy becomes a big part
of it. It's probably also a reason that some people
maybe are more Star Wars people than Star Trek people,
because they find some of that stuff to be a
little dull, you know, or a little two mired in
the in the political side of things. Um, So it's
like become this almost like Stones versus the Beatles kind
of divide where it's like, are you Star Trek or
(29:15):
Star Wars. I think it's kind of a false equivalency.
They're both very different and interesting in their own rights,
sort of like apples and oranges. You know, yeah, well
they're all they're all uh science fiction, you know, they're
just very very different, like those stones and beetles or music,
and listening to one doesn't mean you're not gonna be
able to enjoy the other. I would say they're not
(29:35):
mutually exclusive. No, there's certainly not, but there is, like
it says something about you kind of as a listener
and as a fan which one you like better. Like
some people like the Stones because they're more rock and
roll and like you know, rebel and kind of low
fi um and a little bit just more kind of
hard edge, whereas the Beatles are a little more you know,
that psychedelic kind of high production value, you know, studio
(30:00):
and banned. But then if you look at their careers
and their cannons, both have examples of both, you know
what I mean. There are pieces of each of those
styles within the catalog of both of those bands, as
are their pieces of the diplomacy and the you know, um,
the action side of things in Star Wars versus Star
Trek definitely space operas. And I want to, uh, I
(30:22):
want to present another installment of Ben's continuing obsession with
Henry Kissinger. Just confirmed Henry is alive still he is
ninety nine and for reminder for everybody playing this game
at home, if he makes it to ma of this year,
he will be one hundred years old. He is. He
(30:43):
is really pissed some people off, But then again, so
some episodes of Star Trek expert expertly done. Ben, It's
true and and and for good reason. We're going to
devote a little bit of this section to episodes of
(31:04):
Star Trek that either hit the mark too hard and
pissed people off, or that absolutely deserved to be seen
as bad examples of the show. Max, I think you
should leave the chart of this one in a lot
of ways, because, as you mentioned off air, a lot
of folks at certain points sort of accused it of
being too woke or to like social justice warrior e
(31:29):
and that this is like sort of like a new thing,
but that's not really the case. It was sort of
that from the start. Yeah. I mean there's even quotes
from Ronbart early on where he's like he had pitched
a show before the original series and it got shot
down for being like too controversial stuff. So he basically
in some ways built original series around that other show
(31:50):
he had made, just to kind of like, you know,
put a guys under it. But I mean, yeah, every
single series of Star Trek has episodes that are you know,
it could be viewed as by some people's preachy or
pushing morals, but are just you know, social commentary. I mean,
I think the best one of them all is probably
Far Beyond the Stars, which is from Star Trek Beef
Space nine, which is where Captain Cisco Avery Brooks is
(32:13):
transported from modern times where they are so twenty four
century back to the nineteen fifties and as a black
man him experiencing all the racial injustice of the time.
And it's also directed by every Brooks and it's just
one of the most beautiful episodes of Star Trek ever made.
And you also mentioned Max in the research material for
(32:34):
this that one of the new series, Strange New Worlds
already kind of hit it off with a bang in
terms of, you know, in this culture that we're living
in now, people accusing it of tarnishing the legacy of
Star Trek by being to quote Woker, you know, s
j W. But again to your point, and the whole
point you're talking about this whole time is that sort
(32:54):
of rodan Berry's you know goal from the start again.
Will is the term that's been maligned and sort of
twisted and become this term of abuse or of being
like overly PC or whatever it might be. But it's
just interesting how people that make those arguments probably have
never even seen the show often or have maybe read,
(33:15):
uh just just read a heated comment that they agreed
with in a forum without having the full context. I
want to talk about one of the I think most
meaningful episodes, Plato's step Children. Yes, yeah, the kiss heard
around the world when Ahura and Captain Kirk kind of
(33:36):
trauma bond and endure some terrible things that result in
the actors kissing each other. This is an interracial kiss
in nine. Michelle Nichols, who plays Ahura, and William Shatter,
who plays Kirk, are definitely like, they're definitely on air kissing.
(33:56):
There's not a cut away, there's not somebody mentioning it later. Uh.
NBC was terrified. Uh. They they were so worried about
this that they wanted to have two different versions of
the episode, one for the majority of the United States
and then one for the Southern States where, uh, they
would go through this terrible experience and at the end
(34:19):
they would come in for the kiss and then they
would hug. They actually had takes of this, and according
to the story not confirmed, but credit credit to William
if this is true, apparently he purposely sabotaged the hugging
take so that they would have to have to use
the kiss everywhere they aired it, or they would have
(34:40):
to blow a lot of money to reshoot it, uh,
and this is this is crazy. There was complaints, but
NBC was surprised and impressed maybe by the United States
because there wasn't a huge backlash, not near as much
as they feared. And uh, people were jen would leave
positive in their reactions to this, and I mean it
(35:03):
genuinely earned the show historical goodwill and another kind of
notch in the belt of Star Trek as being progressive
during a time where maybe that wasn't always the easiest
choice to make. Again, when we look at the backstory
of it, the executives were always kind of twitchy, you know,
from the start, uh, you know, even back to the
(35:23):
Lucy days. But whatever led to the end result, the
end result was what it was and is a very
important historical moment because I believe it maybe wasn't the
very first interracial kiss that took place on a large
broadcast format like that, but it was one of them,
to be sure, and it was a very popular one
(35:44):
on a very popular show, and it made a lot
of noise. You know. At the top of this segment,
we kind of tease the some of these episodes pissed
people off just because they were not very good, Uh,
you know, you make a lot of shows back in
the day. You know, a lot of these series had many, many,
many episodes. They're not gonna all be hits. I think
over eight hundred episodes of the series Next Generation UM
(36:06):
and Max I has thought to wrap up today, we
could just go through a couple of of pretty significant
misses just in terms of like the quality of the show. Okay,
you guys, you guys are ready for this, because I'm
gonna just give you a very general description of these episodes.
I want to see what y'all's reaction is. I think
I'm gonna start with let He who Is Without Sin
(36:29):
from Star Trek Deep Space nine. So premise of the
episode is Jazz Adax and Warf have started dating and
Dax is like fun, loving and free. She's happy, and
WARF's all stoic and strong. She's like, we need to
go on vacation. That's what Dax is like. So they
go on vacation to this planet called Risea. If you
don't know what Rises, it's like the horniest planet in
(36:51):
the universe, super horny. It's like the galactic Abiza basically. Yeah,
So they get there and Dax is having fun and
all this stuff when Warf hates it. So Warf And
here's an important thing, Worf is in. Warf is a
full time main cast member in eleven seasons of Star Trek.
There's no character who has more about them than Warf, basically,
(37:14):
and he's this honorable guy. And so he's like there
and he's like, I'm not having fun. I'm gonna join
this group of eco terrorists and start tormenting and threatening
these lives of all these people on this planet. Yeah, cat,
catch them by their horny, I guess right, right, right exactly.
And then at the end of the episode, nothing happens
and they go skiing dipping and it's all fine. And
throughout the entire episode in the background corks running around
(37:36):
having orgies, and then there's there speaking if things are
weird with characters. There's also spots brain right, that was
that one's where they just they tell you that, oh guys,
sorry this didn't come up earlier, but for a while,
vulcans will live without their brains. But you mean the
(38:00):
brainiest species portrayed on the show can live without their brain.
Is this sort of like a chicken with their head
cut off kind of situation basically. Yes, yeah, the idea
is that uh, Spock can spot can be operated by
a remote control since he does have higher order or
cognitive functions until they get his brain back, so they're
(38:23):
on a brain heist and uh, Max, you described this
as one of the few anti bangers of the original series,
and this is this is held up often as an
example to the class of the decline in quality in
the third season. Yeah, no, it is. It is remarkably bad.
It is just so especially there's this remote that Dr
(38:46):
McCoy is walking around with with a couple of buttons
and a control Spock. It's just so bad, damnit, Jim.
I'm a doctor, not a remote controlled operator or a
brain surgeon. That's popular, but apparently it's where there's focus
in the Trek community that consider an episode of Voyager
called Threshold kind of the spos brain of that series.
(39:08):
H and Max, I believe you felt this episode was
in fact the worst of all time within the entire
Star Trek universe. Yes. So side note, I've been born
and raised Treky. Both my parents are big Trek. He's
my mom will not watch the series Forager because of
this episode. You saw it when it came on, came out,
and she's like, that is just the worst thing I've
(39:28):
ever seen. And what really makes it so terrible is
it kind of feels like a real episode of Star Trek.
A lot of these really bad episodes. You can tell
from the get go, oh, this is gonna be bad.
It feels like it's gonna be a real episode at first,
but it really kind of goes off the rails and
just keeps going more and more off the rails. So
it's like she said, it goes warp ten off the rails. Mix. Yeah,
So let's first and foremost start with this concept of
(39:50):
warp ten Star Trek. Very nerdy concept. Warp ten is
basically written as something impossible. Warp ten means infinite speed,
and so Forager, it takes place in the Delta quadrant,
limited resources, and all of a sudden one day they
wake up and food we can get our like, you know,
our little shuttlecraft. Going warped ten for some reason makes
(40:11):
no sense. But then the guy Tom Paris goes warped
ten and he which means he can be anywhere in
the galaxy at any moment. It's all great woo who
then he turns into a salamander because of some weird
advanced uh evolutionary thing that causes by you going infinite
velocity that is yet that has not really been laid
(40:31):
out in the in the lore of the show up
to this point. Yeah, no, it doesn't make any sense.
But it gets worse, it gets way worse. So then
he decides he gets all like you know, hot and heavy,
and he abducts Captain Janeway, throws her in the shuttlecraft,
takes her warp ten, turns her to a salamander. They
go to find some planet. They get freaky on the planet,
make more salamanders. Then everybody shows up who's not a salamander,
(40:55):
and then they kind of just like pick up the salamanders.
They carry them back to the ship, just the justin
Jane way in Paris salamander by the way, and then
it's a quick cut and all sudden their back human again.
Never explained, they're just humans again. And then they're like, yeah,
we're not gonna talk about and then left the children there,
left the children there, no alimony, classic salamander. This is
some anti salamander propaganda when you know, salamander children left
(41:18):
behind except Unfortunately they were totally left by I have
to say that really quick before you wrap this up.
Uh this as as a non trekky who really doesn't
have much skin in the game, this sounds like it
can't be delight. I'm interested in this as a standalone
bonkers piece of television and I'm gonna seek it out.
But please, Oh yeah, this is one. There's some star
(41:38):
trek that it's like you jump into, you'll you'll not
really fully get this. You can just jump into cold
and watch. It is episode fifteen of season two, and
it's great because the person who was in Church of
the teleplay very involved this episode is Brandon Braga, who
is like one of the big wigs. He's like important,
like a lot of the ten G movies. He executive
(42:00):
producer and forgure and this this episode is so infamous
that it's now getting parodied in the new shows, like
an episode of Lord Dex where they have a salamander
around there is. They even get Kate mulgrew, who's represent
the character of Catherine Janeway in Prodigy, to joke that
I was once turned into a salamander. I've seen weirder
(42:21):
things than this. Happened. It reminds me of that that
producer who famously like always wanted the Holloway producer who
used to be Barbara Streistand's hairdresser. He was kind of
portrayed in um Licorice Pizza by Bradley Cooper, but I'm
forgetting the guy's name, But he famously always really wanted
to have a movie with a giant spider in it,
and finally got his way with Wild Wild West. But
(42:44):
this sounds kind of like that too. They gave you know,
they let the big wig, right is weird Salamander script
because he just you know, he commanded that much uh
you know, prominence and and uh and and fear that
they just let's go ahead let him write one. And
with this we have to say we have many more
things to explore about Star Trek, the role of unsung
(43:06):
heroes behind the screen, behind the page, the dark side
of this massive pop cultural phenomenon. We can't wait for
you to join us on that continuing journey in the
meantime special thanks to super producer and research associate Mr
Max Williams. Also now our resident Vulcan Cause player, Big
(43:26):
Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed this track, which
I would put up against the Star Trek theme. Also
thanks to Chris Frostiotis Eaves, Jeff Coat and Jonathan Strickland.
And to you Ben, thank you for for your companionship
and and and bravery on this ridiculous voyage to the stars.
We'll see you next time. Books. For more podcasts for
(43:55):
my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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