If You Could Rewrite "The Original Series" . . .
- Thread starter LJones41
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I've brought this up before, but if I could change one thing after the pilot episodes were done, I would cast a woman as the ship's doctor. Nothing against Kelley, but the cast already had plenty of men.
The ideal performer instead of Kelley would have been Marianna Hill as Dr. Helen Noel. She could have supplied every necessary thing McCoy brought in, and added whole dimensions that he could not.
The ideal performer instead of Kelley would have been Marianna Hill as Dr. Helen Noel. She could have supplied every necessary thing McCoy brought in, and added whole dimensions that he could not.
She would also have been very...distracting...
Is it possible to get an overload of her?
Is it possible to get an overload of her?
I don't understand. I'm just saying that, for all its greatness, TOS had a very unbalanced cast. This came about because the producers did not see women even as potential equals, despite Roddenberry continually flattering himself as the Great Enlightened One.
The worst moment in the series, arising out of this mindset and the casting imbalance, was the tag of "The Immunity Syndrome." Kirk jokes that he'd rather be "on some lovely... planet" and the men are heartily amused, because (they think) the female present is such a little airhead that she doesn't know she's being demeaned. Or at worst, she gets it, but who cares how she feels because she is 28 rungs below us on the ladder. And if you look at her face, you can see the actress did get it and didn't find it funny:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x18hd/theimmunitysyndromehd1278.jpg
If the respected doctor, a member of the cast's top triad, had been Helen instead of Bones, the writing might have been better.
Interesting question!
For the third season, I suppose the big thing I'd do is back a big dump truck full of money out in front of Gene Coon's house to get him to come back to the show. And I'd bring Robert Justman in as the producer instead of Fred Freiberger.
I'd try to keep "Spock's Brain" and "The Enterprise Incident" closer to Gene Coon's and D.C. Fontana's original concepts, as a lighthearted comedy along the lines of "Tribbles" or "I, Mudd" and more of a spy thriller, respectively.
I think it'd be interesting to bring McCoy's daughter Joanna in as a guest in some fashion. I'd probably nix the space hippie idea. And it'd be neat to see the idea that DeForest Kelly and Nichelle Nichols wanted to do, and visit a planet where white people were subservient to black people.
I'd let David Gerrold write another, more serious Trek story. Perhaps his "The Protracted Man" idea.
Wasn't there supposed to be a third Harry Mudd episode, as well?
Oh, and I'd bring back Emily Banks as Yeoman Tonia Barrows. She needed to come back.
For the third season, I suppose the big thing I'd do is back a big dump truck full of money out in front of Gene Coon's house to get him to come back to the show. And I'd bring Robert Justman in as the producer instead of Fred Freiberger.
I'd try to keep "Spock's Brain" and "The Enterprise Incident" closer to Gene Coon's and D.C. Fontana's original concepts, as a lighthearted comedy along the lines of "Tribbles" or "I, Mudd" and more of a spy thriller, respectively.
I think it'd be interesting to bring McCoy's daughter Joanna in as a guest in some fashion. I'd probably nix the space hippie idea. And it'd be neat to see the idea that DeForest Kelly and Nichelle Nichols wanted to do, and visit a planet where white people were subservient to black people.
I'd let David Gerrold write another, more serious Trek story. Perhaps his "The Protracted Man" idea.
Wasn't there supposed to be a third Harry Mudd episode, as well?
Oh, and I'd bring back Emily Banks as Yeoman Tonia Barrows. She needed to come back.
Looks like a neutral expression to me. I think you're reading into it.
TOS without Kelley. Never.
Try a woman security chief. Have Uhura take command/save the day once in a while.
In TNG having a female doctor didn't change the balance of power because she was always subservient to Picard. McCoy was never subservient to Kirk while you had Crusher "crushing" on Picard. Troi crushing on Riker. Just women being there is enough - although it helps.
I'd hate having Noel infatuated with Kirk in every episode.
Saying that I though the dynamic in Space 1999 was good.
Anyway the only thing I'd change about Season 3 would be Kirk's last line.
Otherwise a Season 4 with women/alien captains/commanders in Starfleet.
But it didn't have to be that way on TNG or on TOS. Look at The Big Valley, a show made during the TOS era. Barbara Stanwyk played the family matriarch on that show. She was the boss and nobody dared treat her in a condescending manner. Star Trek clearly suffered from a view that (Terran) women could not command much respect. Even DS9 had "alien" women in the respected roles. It wasn't until Voyager that this got straightened out.
I know I might sound like a politically motivated, virtue-signaling male feminist, but I'm not like that. I'm pretty sure I'm in the middle, and ST had a noticeable problem with this for its first two series. And I love those series, TOS and TNG.
I agree that TOS or TNG would have had to make significant changes to gender roles if they were made today.
'Big Valley' was the exception to the rule. I'm not accepting that TOS was 'bad' in regards to sexism in its day compared to most other series. Did you see original BSG?
Having read the earliest story descriptions for "Spock's Brain," the subsequent story outlines, and the various script pages that survive, I can safely dismiss the idea that Coon conceived the episode as a comedy as one of those persistent Trek myths.
'Big Valley' was the exception to the rule. I'm not accepting that TOS was 'bad' in regards to sexism in its day compared to most other series. Did you see original BSG?
Galactica, a decade removed from Trek, is not a great comparison. Still, its women (Athena, Cassiopeia, Sheba, Serina) were given stronger, more active storylines than Uhura ever got (and there were obviously more female regulars than Trek managed), even if Galactica most often used the characters primarily as male love interests.
Contemporaneous to Trek, Mission: Impossible gave Barbara Bain an active, important role each week, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. had a female action adventure lead, and there were a few others that do not immediately come to mind.
Still, admitting that Trek was, at best, in the middle of the pack when it came to female roles in 1960s television runs rather contrary to the popular myth that Roddenberry and Paramount would end up cultivating later.
I agree that TOS or TNG would have had to make significant changes to gender roles if they were made today.
'Big Valley' was the exception to the rule. I'm not accepting that TOS was 'bad' in regards to sexism in its day compared to most other series. Did you see original BSG?
See it? I ate it up with a spoon! And I still love BSG, more than many of its lesser episodes would deserve. But no show can dislodge ST:TOS from the pinnacle of my TV affections.
If rewriting from the very beginning I'd amalgamate the crews:
- Captain Pike would be in command
- Number One (now played by Nichelle Nichols) as XO/Navigator
- Lieutenant Spock remains at Science
- Sulu as Helmsman
- Colt as Communications Officer
- Doctor McCoy would be down in sickbay
- Scotty in Engineering
- Yeoman Rand by Pike's side
- Nurse Chapel as Head Nurse
- new addition: Lieutenant Thelin as Chief of Security
Original BSG was one of the most sexist TV series I've watched. The women were mainly prostitutes, wives, mothers, daughters of the admirals. Their strong storylines were their fighting for the men's affections. I don't regard that as better than anything Uhura got.
I mean if they had an episode of "The Brady Bunch' discussing Carole's entry for the bale sale I'd hardly consider that a big step forward for women's rights.
By the time the male pilots got sick and they had to settle for women the damage was already done. Other than that it had some fun episodes especially when Dr Smith appeared.
TOS started off with some pretty strong women characters in the two pilots. Women who were 2nd in command or ship's doctors. It went a bit downhill maybe in tandem to GRs marriage conflict. I'm looking at a list of 60s shows in front of me and aside from the spy shows there's nothing that has women occupying technical positions. The vast majority have the women as wives, secretaries, mothers, daughters, girlfriends with no particular jobs. And that would be because they were reflecting society as it was.then. Star Trek should of course had higher ideals. It certainly started off like that and I think it was well ahead of the pack.
Women in spy shows were allowed to be femme fatale but they weren't head of spy agencies or have any real power.
As to Galactica, the show was supposed to be some TV movies, not a series, and as such some of the characters weren't supposed to be regulars, including Serena and Cassiopeia, both of whom weren't supposed to survive the first movie (albeit Serena bit it in the subsequent one). Athena was supposed to be the female lead, but they never figured out what to do with her other than to have a rivalry with Cassiopeia, and Maren Jensen was quietly removed from the show. Once they made Cassiopeia a regular they immediately ditched the "socialator" profession and she was henceforth a no-nonsense medtech who even got into the action when she forced her way onto the ground attack team in "The Living Legend". Never saw Chapel do that. Sheba was a much stronger character and an equal to the boys in most regards, which, again, you can't say about any of the regular female characters of TOS. Yes, the whole "girl pilots' thing in the second movie was beyond dumb, but no dumber than Bones going on about how women will settle down and leave the service. Yes, they fell into the old trap of having the women in love with the male leads, but then so did Chapel. So I'm not arguing that BSG was progressive, but it wasn't as dire in female character portrayal as all that.
"The black woman was answering the phone, people! Look at how progressive I am!!!"
Miniskirts were actually seen as a sign of women's liberation rather than male oppression in the mid 60s. In fact, Grace Lee Whitney and Nichelle Nichols were the big advocates for changing the women's uniforms from pants to a miniskirt. They were women, and they wanted to look like them.
Thanks for the correction, Harvey!
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