It might have been "Redemption"
I recall one of his last magazine interviews, he was saying how he was so proud of some of the episodes in STNG and how they'd be very controversial if they had aired on a network show.
RAMA
What was Roddenberry's state of mind in TNG S3?
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I recall one of his last magazine interviews, he was saying how he was so proud of some of the episodes in STNG and how they'd be very controversial if they had aired on a network show.
RAMA
I am always perplexed at how backward America is about everything sexual.
Which episode, exactly?
Shows like The Bold Ones, All in the Family, Maude, Lou Grant, and Hill Street Blues took more chances (politically and in terms of narrative innovation) than Star Trek: The Next Generation ever did, and they all did it on network television before TNG was even on the air.
I'm with the Great Bird on this one. Picard should have gotten laid more.
Roddenberry was always interested in pushing the envelope when it came to sexual content. As Dennis alluded to, the very first STAR TREK episode, "The Cage," is all about voyeuristic aliens trying to get a healthy male specimen to mate in captivity and contains lots of dialogue about Orion animal women, secret fantasies, Adam-and-Eve, and "strong female drives."
And need I mention PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW? Roddenberry's black comedy about the sexual revolution, which he wrote and produced after TOS? Or SPECTRE from 1977, which also had sex on the brain?
In short, his "state of mind" regarding such matters didn't change drastically around the time of Season Three . . . .
And need I mention PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW? Roddenberry's black comedy about the sexual revolution, which he wrote and produced after TOS? Or SPECTRE from 1977, which also had sex on the brain?
In short, his "state of mind" regarding such matters didn't change drastically around the time of Season Three . . . .
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This. I have a tough time finding five "controversial" episodes across the entire 1987-2005 run.
I don't think we can go into detail in the main forum, but we have to remember that Gene's context was a much longer time span. There were no popularly controversial eps of TNG, but the same forces that hated Uhura on the bridge were still kickin' in the 80's, and still manifesting today. I do think that the vision of TNG, and of Star Trek in general, still remains somewhat controversial. That being, the concept that to harness enough energy to become interstellar, poverty and even the use of money as we know it, will no longer exist.
From just the first 4 years of TNG, "The High Ground," "Up the Long Ladder," "Who Watches the Watchers," "The Enemy" and "Suddenly Human," to a lesser degree "Reunion," "The Wounded" and "Too Short a Season".
Edit: Also "The Host".
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I don't see any of these episodes being "very controversial" on network television, sorry.
True, far too many show in the previous decades were tackling tough issues for a show made in the late 80's and early 90's to claim they were breaking barriers.
TNG was syndicated, which meant that it aired in the afternoons in many, many markets. Kids would be watching, so yeah, they generally tried to keep it family-friendly (of course, Roddenberry had a weird definition of "family-friendly.").
... Say what now?^^ This. If you wanted cutting-edge, adult-oriented entertainment in the late 80s or early 90s, TNG was not the place to go. If it were, they would have found a way to produce David Gerrold's "Blood and Fire."
Not being completely groundbreaking or cutting-edge is far from not being controversial, let alone being bland or safe. Dealing with terrorism or cross-group adoption or something like Iran-Contra or belief in false gods or having one of the main characters refuse to give a medical donation due to ethnic animosity seems pretty rare and even risky for the time period let alone a big budget and syndicated series even if there had been some direct or similar precedents earlier.
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I tend to agree, STNG could have been more dangerous, and it didn't really have the censors that NBC did. There were quite a few topical episodes, though rarely to the point that they were controversial(slavery is bad, social underclasses are persecuted, etc). I do feel there would have been more that had that reaction if it weren't scifi and on syndication.
There were a few episodes that I recall people mentioned even at the time where they were surprised at the lack of media attention.
Gene Roddenberry pointed out "Who Watches the Watchers" as one of the ones he was most proud of. I also recalled wondering why there wasn't more protest over this episode.
"The Wounded" was also an episode that surprisingly didn't get a lot of reaction because it aired around the time of the 1st Gulf War...one of the most popular wars in American history, and the episode was an anti-Gulf War episode.
Arsenal of Freedom was a clear Oliver North commentary that masked itself as a cold war parable. Encounter at Farpoint also chose the Q US Marine dress uniform for this reason.
There were also episodes about terrorism in TNG which was a touchy subject back then and even more so now. Gene's viewpoint that made it into certain episodes was that there were 2 sides to the story, and more killing and weapons created more terrorists..just as we have seen with George W's nonsense in the 2000s that has created more terrorism and ISIS. One of these episodes was banned for a time in England.
Gene's direct view made it into "Symbiosis", even though the episode was not as effective it could have been. Far from being a "just say no" episode Gene felt abused substances were a crutch people used, and there was something much deeper into why people took them(including himself). Hence the storyline where Crusher discovers they don't actually need the "medicine" anymore..a twist that reveals parallels with the hidden reasons people use drugs. The episode itself is controversial with Trekkies, but not outside of ST.
These are just off the top of my head.
These were generally topics that were broader and not easily commented on in something like Maude or Archie Bunker. As a whole, STNG was probably the most liberal show (or at least drama) ever aired in the US. Even throwaway lines and such established this point of view even if the episodes weren't based on it.
RAMA
There were a few episodes that I recall people mentioned even at the time where they were surprised at the lack of media attention.
Gene Roddenberry pointed out "Who Watches the Watchers" as one of the ones he was most proud of. I also recalled wondering why there wasn't more protest over this episode.
"The Wounded" was also an episode that surprisingly didn't get a lot of reaction because it aired around the time of the 1st Gulf War...one of the most popular wars in American history, and the episode was an anti-Gulf War episode.
Arsenal of Freedom was a clear Oliver North commentary that masked itself as a cold war parable. Encounter at Farpoint also chose the Q US Marine dress uniform for this reason.
There were also episodes about terrorism in TNG which was a touchy subject back then and even more so now. Gene's viewpoint that made it into certain episodes was that there were 2 sides to the story, and more killing and weapons created more terrorists..just as we have seen with George W's nonsense in the 2000s that has created more terrorism and ISIS. One of these episodes was banned for a time in England.
Gene's direct view made it into "Symbiosis", even though the episode was not as effective it could have been. Far from being a "just say no" episode Gene felt abused substances were a crutch people used, and there was something much deeper into why people took them(including himself). Hence the storyline where Crusher discovers they don't actually need the "medicine" anymore..a twist that reveals parallels with the hidden reasons people use drugs. The episode itself is controversial with Trekkies, but not outside of ST.
These are just off the top of my head.
These were generally topics that were broader and not easily commented on in something like Maude or Archie Bunker. As a whole, STNG was probably the most liberal show (or at least drama) ever aired in the US. Even throwaway lines and such established this point of view even if the episodes weren't based on it.
RAMA
MASH makes TNG (and all of Trek) look pretty light-weight in the liberal department. Also, in the controversial department.
This is an absurd, myopic view of television history in the United States. Even if you arbitrarily exclude comedy programming from the discussion (like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, a show that was actually cancelled because of its left-wing political views), TNG was hardly a shining beacon of light when it came to progressive programming
You're absolutely right.
I am not ruling that out but I am a bit skeptical though.
Not being radical doesn't make a show not progressive, let alone not challenging. For that matter more challenging shows are as or more often those that explore multiple sides of an issue rather than stridently advocate for one point of view.
It wasn't doing them, though, at the time of a war as popular as the Gulf War was.
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