Alcoholics in space?

What is the deal with the crew of the USS Enterprise loving booze so much?

I am reading the comics from IDW and the crew are always saying things like "If we get out of here alive, I'll get you a fine scotch!" or something similar.

I see the same thing on DS9 where they are always bargaining Barrels of Blood wine or Kannar.

I imagine that flying a starship under the influence could result in something much worse than a DUI. I remember seeing Jadzia with a hang over. They haven't invented something to cure it yet?

What about other drugs in the future besides alcohol? No marijuana type substances? I am sure it will be legalized here some time in the near future, is it banned again in the future?

Just wanted to discuss this but if this is not the correct forum, feel free to move it.

 

Scotty does occasionally drink in a way that would be recognized now as abusive and dangerous. He's almost responsible, by negligence, for the conquest of the human race in "By Any Other Name" and gets a wee bit too wrapped up in the potential of nerve gas derivatives as mixers during a life-or-death crisis in "The Tholian Web."

Portrayals of comic drunks were common currency on American television in the 1950s and 1960s, though. Styles in entertainment change.

 

Synthehol doesn't really make you drunk unless you have access to the real stuff like Scotty use to. I think the first time you showed up drunk would be your last time ever on a ship probably a zero tolerance thing.
Roddenberry believed humans would be a bit more evolved and self controlled in the future. As in the military they probably have strict laws as when you can drink and when you can't.

 

People in the retro-future aren't so uptight and know how to have a good time.

 

Hmm... When did Scotty or any other TOS hero drink on the job? It's not as if the offer for strong drinks would have to mean "I'll slip you a bottle the next time we go to warp nine and you supervise"... What they do on their free time shouldn't be anybody's business, as long as they remember to take their anti-hangover pills before reporting for duty.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Scotty implies that he is going to get drunk in "The Tholian Web", just before the Enterprise is shortly about to face a crisis situation with the Tholians and an attempted rescue of Captain Kirk. In "Spectre of the Gun", with the landing party in an alien scenario (the recreation of Tombstone, Arizona) in which their lives may be imperiled, Scotty orders "half a gallon" of scotch. And in "By Any Other Name", Scotty succeeds in getting the Kelvan officer drunk, as per his goal, but his own inability to handle his liquor causes him to pass out before he can deliver the Kelvan's device to Kirk.

 

Well, because booze is fantastic? Actually, I would have preferred if they made Picard drink some serious French wines sometimes, not that perfidious albionesque Earl Grey tea!

 

Gene Roddenberry planned to depict Scott sliding into alcoholism after his return to Earth in The God Thing:

"Generally, the situation is that the five year mission is over and that it has been for some time. Most of the regular crew have been promoted and, for the most part, are pretty unhappy with shuffling papers and other administrative jobs. Scotty has become an alcoholic, and McCoy has given up treating human patients to become a veterinarian, loudly proclaiming animals as the only sensible patients he has ever had. It gives us kind of a fun look at these people's strengths and weaknesses. In the story, there is a story that brings them all together again."

TGT

 

Dude, it was the 60s. Everybody was drunk.

 

^Hell, drinking is still somewhat en vogue on television and film; after all, it gives the actors something to do with their hands in a scene.

 

We're lucky, I suppose, that we didn't see Kirk and company enjoying the cool, fresh taste of Pall Mall cigarettes after arriving back from a mission.

Joe, long and in the way, baby

 

That's not a problem in porn movies.

 

Wow ... never knew this stuff! That whole pre-TMP is so odd, I love it. But, Scotty as an alcoholic? I'd be curious to know why he would go that way. Who knows? Maybe he was a functioning one for the movies, hitting his head in Trek V, etc.

 

"By Any Other Name" and, by implication, "The Tholian Web."

The "By Any Other Name" incident is indisputable and particularly egregious. It's really nice to be able to defend it by saying "well, he had to in order to trick the Kelvin" - but there was absolutely no point to tricking the Kelvin at the cost of becoming so inebriated that Scotty was unable to carry out the rest of his assignment.

If the fate of the Federation had depended in that instance on Scott either being sober on the job or being able to hold his liquor then the folks in Picard's day would have been ruled by critters from Andromeda.

Oh, and BTW - the definition of whether someone is self-destructively "alcoholic" or not has nothing to do with their drinking on the job. Many acute alcoholics don't, right up until near the end.

 

IIRC, GR had to fight the studio to keep that from happening.

 

That would be the network, and that's according to Gene Roddenberry.

For a more balanced and realistic view of the relationship between DesiLu and NBC than Roddenberry was willing or capable of describing, see "Inside Star Trek" by Solow and Justman.

 

Seriously, how often did this supposed drinking take place? And in the Tholian Web Scotty doesn't say he's off to get drunk, just will let McCoy if the drug makes a good mix with Scotch.

I swear, people overinflate these things...

And, seriously, did you see people lighting up in Lost in Space? It's not like every show out there had people smoking all the time. By 1966 all those health claims about cigs were off the air, and unless Star Trek's sponsors were cigarette companies, then likely there'd have been zero pressure to put them in the show.

 

Doesn't really matter.

There's no way around the "By Any Other Name" thing, except to acknowledge that the tone of the episode was light in the second half (what with Kirk having lines like "I'm stimulating him!" in the middle of a fist fight) and drunkeness was a common comedic fallback in those days.

 

Oh, yeah!

 

Try watching 10 minutes of 1970's UFO. You'll se more drinking and smoking than a Vegas casino. But UFO was British afterall...