I was not comparing either Chapel or Chekov to Bones.
Why did Majel stop playing Chapel in the movies?
- Thread starter Terok Nor
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I was not comparing either Chapel or Chekov to Bones.
I remember Hyde talking about "tuning in, turning on, and dropping out" in the late 60s in one of those Star Trek specials that Entertainment Weekly or TV Guide put out in the mid-90s. They tracked down a few of the TOS guest-stars who'd fallen out of the public eye, like Hyde and Emily Banks, and gave them sidebar interviews talking about what they were up to now.
Rand probably fits the bill in Charlie X though.
You missed my point. I was noting how their parts were just as non-viewpoint as Scotty's, ergo none of them was ever actually viewpoint character. They were all reactive secondary characters. Bones was an example of what I meant by a viewpoint character.
Again, not so much, for reasons cited above: she's reactive not active and her POV is not a major one.
All I'll say here is that I'd already agreed that Chapel and Chekov weren't viewpoint characters in the first place. "Got closer to being" means, among other things, "weren't."
Where was this implied? I guess it went over my head.
Was something said in "What Little Girls Are Made Of?"
STID when Kirk meets Carol.
True-ish but the episode was showcased as a story written for Whitney so I think the intent should bump it into a higher category. She's not pro-active because pretty much none of the TOS women were pro-active as opposed to reactive. Even the officers. Maybe Janice Lester and Lenore Karidian fit the bill but they were antagonists. I'm struggling to think of any pro-active Starfleet Officers beyond Kirk, Spock, and Scott but Sulu has more moments than most (although Sulu never had a POV moment).
McCoy also had maybe two POV episodes and a couple, like the Man Trap where he's part of a bigger ensemble so he's not far in front of Rand in that regard.
Meh. Something I read once... or more than once i.e. that the story was deliberately intended to showcase Rand more than she had been in previous episodes. Don't forget she was intended to be the female lead at this point.
Well that explains my ignorance. My Star Trek universe is the TOS series run. It keeps my life simpler.
If that's the case, it doesn't invalidate the entirety of my comment, does it? I think I saliently referenced both in and out of universe elements relevant to the contention.
Maurice can of course speak regarding what his own intent was.
My take is that matters of historical fact are just that: fact. If one's intent is to discuss history in the context of the available facts, then it doesn't do to put any sort of spin on it. My reading of what I've underlined in your post is that, with the idea in context of giving "short shrift" to cultural and in-universe concerns, you are saying that factual matters hold lesser priority than other possibly political concerns. My reading is that that would be attempting to put a spin on history and to rewrite it, and I don't believe that it has any place in the real-world discussion.
It also doesn't impact the in-universe concept of diversity. In-universe, we know those characters served on the starship, and that they were not discriminated against because of their skin color or ancestry.
The fact that the actors who played them didn't have star or costar status during the original series has nothing to do with that. It has more to do with getting work in show business. How show business dealt with television cast members who weren't leads, including those who were minorities, both in general and in relation to Star Trek, is its own subject.
First. if Maurice can speak for himself, let him do so in response to my rejoinder (which he did do subsequently and with rather less imperiousness) unless you're his spokesperson. More significantly, I never used the word ensemble in my brief comment nor did I have that in mind while composing it (unless you also claim the capacity to know my intent as well as Maurice's). If your circumlocutions about spin, revisionism, and not accepting facts as they are was based on that being my contention, I only have to say that you're reading of what I wrote is a misinterpretation. I didn't maintain anywhere in those lines that the characters these actors portrayed were any more significant in the show than was the case. The portion of the sentence that I quote here, "culturally if not as actors" should give a hint of that.
As I wrote it, I don't see where anyone can plausibly say I'm giving a greater priority to one verity than the other. Their roles were what they were and the significance of their presence culturally was what it was, however incongruous it might have seemed to the show's vision if there weren't minority characters featured in some capacity. I don't see the spin and revisionism you're claiming in what I meant and believe is a straightforward and pedestrian statement. If you stand by that, so be it, I'll concede your either working at an intellectual level far beyond my ken or just displaying some baggage of your own.
If the former, and you have any further care that I actually perceive your meaning, you'll need to restate it as if I were a five year old. If the latter, well, I hope you enjoyed making the case.
I'll say again that I didn't say that I considered the characters as part, insignificant or otherwise, of an ensemble or that my conception of how the show is constituted as regards the primacy of just a few characters differs from what you state above. My response was to a point that Maurice was making about that same issue, but that doesn't mean, as a matter of course, that I was refuting his contention or doing anything other than addressing it obliquely. I did use the word importance as a qualifier, but neither explicitly or implicitly to go down a road that again, you seem to gather as giving some foundation to the remark supporting an ensemble theory. Also, I don't use the phrase short shrift to refer to something I believe is fallacious and certainly not sinister.
I may have been better served if I followed that by saying "some of the other players" instead, as I was only referring to Uhura and Sulu. I really don't care that they weren't developed further, as they served the roles intended for them. I would make the same statement about any of the other feature players on the show. So, part of my statement was obvious in the diversity they brought to the cast and the other was accurate in the sense of the time that they and Trek went on the air. I have no argument that the examples you provided did give those characters a greater stake in the proceedings (though Collier was simply a specialist who got more air time than his Trek counterparts and was no more developed as an actual person due to MI's format, probably less in fact than the other two). I would point out though, despite their disproportionate relevance, only two of the shows you mentioned, debuted prior to or during the same season as Trek. A difference of a year or two might seem insignificant, but I would argue that any such advantage was important given the widespread cultural ferment occurring at the time and that any program's relevance, however tepidly received at the time, had an exaggerated status as being good enough to at least get its shot on one of the networks, which probably carried as large an imprimatur then as during any period of TV's history.
My take on it is it didn't start out as an ensemble show. It gives the appearance of one, but that's mostly due to actors working to make their characters memorable. Some succeeded, though more didn't.
Once Chekov is aboard, the core group of actors are established. But it's a show with three leads and the rest in support. They don't get equal development or screen time as an ensemble cast is used today. Star Trek doesn't really attempt it until TNG and the later spin-offs.
The problem with nine billed stars is, nine actors want to appear in every episode somehow, so it's less time for any guests, and the writers have to work the billed stars into the plot and hopefully some character building scenes.
The TOS cast doesn't really get anything close to ensemble work until the films, but even that's erratic in terms of story focus and character development. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are still the main linchpins. The rest get small vignettes, if they're lucky.
Once Chekov is aboard, the core group of actors are established. But it's a show with three leads and the rest in support. They don't get equal development or screen time as an ensemble cast is used today. Star Trek doesn't really attempt it until TNG and the later spin-offs.
The problem with nine billed stars is, nine actors want to appear in every episode somehow, so it's less time for any guests, and the writers have to work the billed stars into the plot and hopefully some character building scenes.
The TOS cast doesn't really get anything close to ensemble work until the films, but even that's erratic in terms of story focus and character development. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are still the main linchpins. The rest get small vignettes, if they're lucky.
That speaks to the larger, missed point--the long-in-the-tooth point or complaint about the use of minority characters on TOS, which even a basic understanding of the very nature of 1960s TV leads to only one motive/conclusion: productions used a hierarchy that reduced all except the featured leads in a subordinate position.
Some--under the dreamy "spell" of Star Trek being some glorious, fireworks-in-the-sky rallying cry for all things equality have convinced themselves (along with self-serving statements from supporting players) that some "wrong" had been committed (the BS aimed at Shatner), or that they were not as developed as they should have been, since in their minds, the series was some level playing field for the "Enterprise family."
The move to add minority characters as prominent players was in motion as either bought scripts or in production before Star Trek aired, or even a season old. For example, the Ironside pilot was in production in 1966, with a March 1967 airdate; Irwin Allen was developing Land of the Giants two years before its 1968 debut. The Mod Squad creator Bud Ruskin wrote the pilot for that series in 1960, though it would be another six years before it sold, etc.
The point being that behind the scenes, writers & producers were already in the process of thinking about or actually adding significant minority characters that were the true breakthrough examples, given the character's intended status, far beyond the limits (seemingly self imposed) by Star Trek. That's illuminating, since Roddenberry--for all of his "fight for equality" speeches used to sell himself as the TV messiah--could have fought to elevate at least one racial minority character to the featured lead position, instead of being locked in the inherently limited supporting player role.
Again, other producers were already doing that (or were in the production stages of doing so) the same year TOS premiered. What stopped Roddenberry--the Great Crusader of All Things Equal (or so he spent the last 2 1/2 decades of his life telling us) from say, breaking the "country doctor" archetype, and make that featured lead in the form of Dr. McCoy African American, or Japanese?
Or was it just that Spelling, Allen, and others were more forward thinking than Roddenberry?
That isn't how I took it. I took it as Chapel warning Carol about Kirk being a known ladies' man. That doesn't mean that Chapel had sex with him.
For what it is worth, here is where I am coming from when I refer to the TOS cast as an ensemble:
ensemble
1. all the parts of a thing taken together, so that each part is considered only in relation to the whole.
2. the entire costume of an individual, especially when all the parts are in harmony:
She was wearing a beautiful ensemble by one of the French designers.
3 had to do with furniture
4. the united performance of an entire group of singers, musicians, etc. the group so performing: a string ensemble.
5. a group of supporting entertainers, as actors, dancers, and singers, in a theatrical production.
I agree most with this definition, as ensemble is just a fancy sounding word for 'the cast', and sometimes appears in playbills or plays themselves. Wiki says ensemble is currently used similar to a film with an 'all-star cast'. Not sure I agree with that as sometimes, as with TNG, there might be one or two 'name' actors, the rest a bunch of relative unknowns.
Then please explain why no more than three of the TOS cast was ever listed in the opening credits, with the names of the actors playing Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov all squished together in the end credits. How much more evidence do you need that the TOS cast wasn't an ensemble?
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