How Boldly Did They Go?
3/5
Spoilers
As mentioned in a previous blog, Mrs. C. and I have a TV watching agreement. In return for watching a programme of her choice on our 'TV evenings', we get to watch all of Star Trek. I know, right? Excellently played on my part. Whilst I have enjoyed my introductions to Jane the Virgin, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Schitt's Creek, she has endured Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, and now Star Trek: The Original Series. There is a clear winner in this arrangement.
Surprisingly for some, although less surprisingly for me, she has fairly enjoyed her first forays into Trek to a greater or lesser extent. I was keen to share something that I've always loved and am glad to find that Mrs. C. can see more of why I like Star Trek than she did before. When people who aren't 'trekkies' look in on the world of trekking, they see cosplay, they see obsessives, they see aliens with silly prosthetics, they see wobbly sets, and they see Shatner. As someone on the inside, it is much more than that. As far as sci-fi goes, it is, in many ways, the gold standard.
I had one apprehension when we began our journey of discovery (no pun intended) and that was exploring the part of Star Trek I had mostly managed to avoid. Being a 90s kid meant I was au fait with the core of Trek-dom; I had grown up with Picard's Enterprise, Sisko's fight in the Dominion War, and Janeway's quest to get home. I even had experienced the start of Archer's first steps out in into the universe, although it would a long time getting from there to here before I concluded that. The Star Trek silver age was my Star Trek. But there was an element I had seen little of and continued to avoid: the Original Series.
For many, it is this world of campy nonsense that people quote when undermining the value of Star Trek. The films featuring Kirk, Spock, et. al. are good fun, but the series has become the stuff of dubious legend. I tried a couple of episodes a few years ago and fell at an early hurdle, limping on to re-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation instead. As a fan, this had always meant I felt I was missing something core in my contexts. How could I understand and spot references to Kirk and Spock if I hadn't seen the reference point? With this agreement to watching all 800 Treks from Mrs. C., maybe now was the time to try again? At least it would be a laugh...
So, here we are four months later; was it as I had feared? Was it some papier-mâché set, cliché fest? No, no it wasn't. In all honesty, it was mostly quite good. Surprisingly good at times. I will caveat this whole review with a reminder that, for better or worse, this is a product of the 60s so, by comparison with this new age of TV wonder we are currently basked in, a TV show from fifty-five years ago will pale by comparison. But for what it is, it is good. I now know, three series later, how it went from cancellation to conventions, to blockbuster pictures, and to eight spin-off series. It had a solid start.
TV in the 60s, from what I have seen, was fairly uninspired and repetitive to a modern audience. Sitcoms, although amusing, ran the same formula week-in, week-out. Westerns dominated the U.S. Saturday evening slots, replete with shoot-outs and simple good vs. bad equations. Soaps were just springing to life in their most rudimentary form. And sci-fi was little more than Lost in Space, with its comedic dialogue and simplistic plots. Yet here was a story of a large exploratory spaceship, part of an evolved human civilisation that had learnt to do away with war, plague, and famine. A civilisation that longed to explore and make new friends. Alongside this, a show whose stories explored facets of human nature, moral quandaries, and held a mirror to our own society.
Take for instance the episode I fondly remember as 'Shatner vs. Gangsters'. A silly looking episode on the tin, with Kirk and Spock ending up on a planet that runs like 1920s Chicago. Clearly, filming had paused on some Al Capone thriller in the next lot and the Star Trek crew, like mice in the night, had run on to borrow the costumes and set before being chased off. In fact, that episode's set-up dealt with cultural contamination. A previous expedition to this planet, pre-gangsters, had left a history book on Chicago's mafia there by mistake and the planet's inhabitants saw it as a guide book. Rather than hokey nonsense, we got a colourful presentation on the dangers inherent in interfering in other cultures. This, in its various guises, is a theme popular in Star Trek. Chicago gangsters giving us an anti-imperialist message.
The well known Arena episode ('Shatner vs. the Gorn', or 'Shatner vs. the small Godzilla' for those not up on their Star Trek species) is known for a silly fight between Kirk and a man in a lizard suit in a desert. Woven into this plot is a 'monster species' actually protecting itself through fear of a Federation invasion, a higher life form causing the fight for sport who Kirk outwits, and Kirk's final act of allowing the Gorn to live, proving that remaining true to one's ideals is better than winning the fight. Band of Brothers it isn't, but the plot complexities lie deeper than the surface's pop art colours.
In a period of TV writing where we expect, possibly crave, character development, this is series can be hard going. Characters are drawn up and remain the same throughout, just popped into different scenarios. Setting this lack of development aside, we come to the core cast themselves. I worried that they would not live up to their pop culture status but their bright, big personalities do shine out and keep you rooting for them. McCoy might be a miserable sod of a doctor, but we looked to forward to his "He's dead, Jim!" when they cropped up. And little was more fun that Scottie in a kilt, swigging whiskey with an alien by means of saving the day.
Spock is every inch the logical paragon that society remembers him as. With his knowing smirks, impeccably calm demeanour, and a few too many mind melds (see 'Shatner vs. the molten rock' or 'Shatner vs. the sentient space probe' for maximum mind melds) Nimoy's half-Vulcan science officer is crucial to Star Trek's success. But too often one man is over looked; William Shatner. On occasions, his acting goes awry (mostly when his body is taken over by some form of mind-control aliens) but on the whole he is an incredibly solid leading man. Although his 'singing' may have left most audiences with the idea that he delivers everything in a broken patter, this is not the case in Star Trek. Frequently, Kirk is a subtle character, little nods here, slight changes in tone there, and always firmly in control. I would strongly stick my neck out to say that Shatner's Kirk is as equally important as Nimoy's Spock. Culturally, he was always vital.
This leads me nicely to a key aspect of Star Trek's importance: race. Putting aside 'the kiss' from 'Shatner vs. the Greek gods pt. five', which I know has its critics, I want you to put yourself into 60s America. The Civil Rights movement is gathering further momentum, but is still often considered to be run by violent radicals in the press. If this year's Oscar contenders have taught us anything, it is that the F.B.I. was quite happily executing various African-American leaders, if white supremacists weren't getting there first. The issues we see on the news today, reported with an air of disdain, were often celebrated in the southern states. Now, in the midst of this, and the midst of the Cold War, imagine a prime time show with an African-American comms officer, Asian-American and Russian pilots, and a mixed-race (half Vulcan / half human) science officer. In fact, although there are mostly white faces on the Enterprise, there are more crew members from diverse backgrounds who crop up from time to time, most notably Dr M'Benga who is second to McCoy on Starfleet's flag ship.
Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, is quoted as having planned to leave the show following the first series, unhappy with a lack of lines and hoping to work with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights movement. It was only following a conversation with Dr. King himself, where he made it clear that her position as an officer on the Enterprise was doing more good work than her leading a march would, she decided to stay. Whoopi Goldberg, who would later frequent The Next Generation, holds Star Trek: The Original Series up as the moment she saw the potential for a black woman in the entertainment industry - Lt. Uhura was an officer not a servant or slave; she was intelligent and represented the Federation, not a simple caricature kept out of sight. Gene Roddenberry's casting is bold and promotes a universe that must have seemed so out of reach. George Takei as Lt. Sulu, who as a child had been held in an American internment camp during WWII, was occasionally seen in the Captain's chair. What a change in society Star Trek promised the future could hold.
Although it led the way with its portrayals of race, I have to admit that the portrayals of women become more and more jarring as the series played out. Unfortunately, the show never escapes its time period here. Women do hold positions in Starfleet, but never captain. In the final episode ('Shatner vs. the very silly lady') it is made clear that women desire power but have no capabilities to exercise it- all rather embarrassing to watch in 2021. It would take The Mary Tyler Moore Show to really begin to correct this fault in American television and most of the 90s for Star Trek to get it right with Janeway.
With seventy-nine episodes to discuss, I could continue further, but there would be little need. Star Trek: The Original Series is not perfect. In many ways, it can be seen as a product of its time. With its sometimes hammy acting (especially from guest stars), depleting budget, and views on anything from women to hippies, there are lots ways in which this wouldn't pass muster in 2021. Yet, in context, you can see a more interestingly considered programme, trying to push boundaries, trying to share a vision of hope and a new social order. Maybe, in attempting to show a world of greater equality, freed from the shackles of war, poverty, and strife, it truly did boldly go where no one had gone before.
Star Trek: The Original Series
Created by: Gene Roddenberry
Directors: Marc Daniels, Joseph Pevney, et al...
Writers: Gene Roddenberry, D. C. Fontana, Gene L. Coon, et al...
Composer: Alexander Courage
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Majel Barrett
Currently available to stream on Netflix
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