Drug dealer, singular. And that was a throwaway device to show how evil the character was. The drugs didn't factor into the story after the teaser.
Harlan Ellison: Star Trek Was Just "A Cop Show"
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Star Trek is a procedural to a degree, and that's what Ellison was pointing out. At its best, it transcends that, but a lot of the 90s-00s Treks were techno-babble procedurals.
Speaking of COTEOF, I love both the aired version and Ellison's original draft teleplay. It's my favorite episode of all Trek. And I'd like to think there's some perfect version of COTEOF that's somewhere between the aired and Ellison's draft.
Speaking of COTEOF, I love both the aired version and Ellison's original draft teleplay. It's my favorite episode of all Trek. And I'd like to think there's some perfect version of COTEOF that's somewhere between the aired and Ellison's draft.
As Ellison said, basically, he yearned for science fiction that wasn't mediocre. He thought that Star Trek was too often formulaic and, to paraphrase, aiming for the lowest common denominator all too typical of what was aired.
It's true, Star Trek was very often like a cop show, with the Enterprise going through space straightening things out, as he put it.
I think Koenig was also essentially right that Star Trek (TOS) set an important bar for episodic science fiction on TV. Not every sci-fi show has managed to clear that bar, but some series have. I think Person of Interest and Orphan Black exceeded it. nuBSG equaled it. The Prisoner cleared and exceeded the bar during the original run of TOS, so I guess you could say it set a higher bar (and originated in a different market).
It's true, Star Trek was very often like a cop show, with the Enterprise going through space straightening things out, as he put it.
I think Koenig was also essentially right that Star Trek (TOS) set an important bar for episodic science fiction on TV. Not every sci-fi show has managed to clear that bar, but some series have. I think Person of Interest and Orphan Black exceeded it. nuBSG equaled it. The Prisoner cleared and exceeded the bar during the original run of TOS, so I guess you could say it set a higher bar (and originated in a different market).
Ellison always had a love-hate relationship with Trek. In some respects it gave him his greatest international recognition thanks to the one episode of the franchise he wrote back in the late '60s but it was such a tiny part of his overall tapestry of work that I can see why he'd have mixed if not sometimes hostile feelings about it.
NBC and Desilu did rewrite his script which, yes, does happen so he should have just accepted that and not allowed the sausage-making of a weekly one-hour TV drama get between him and Gene Roddenberry and their relationship with one another, but on a visceral level I get why he was upset and ceased to have anything to do with the series after his episode was produced. He was an extremely temperamental individual who was a fighter for what he believed, and to that extent I can't blame him one bit. He had the guts to fight the network heads and censors who told him his work wasn't good enough or took a steaming crap on it and when I watch videos of his old interviews I kinda envy the man. He was a warrior for creative expression and against vapid bullshit in the entertainment industry and called them as he saw them.
He was a divisive artist but he was right more often than he was wrong.
NBC and Desilu did rewrite his script which, yes, does happen so he should have just accepted that and not allowed the sausage-making of a weekly one-hour TV drama get between him and Gene Roddenberry and their relationship with one another, but on a visceral level I get why he was upset and ceased to have anything to do with the series after his episode was produced. He was an extremely temperamental individual who was a fighter for what he believed, and to that extent I can't blame him one bit. He had the guts to fight the network heads and censors who told him his work wasn't good enough or took a steaming crap on it and when I watch videos of his old interviews I kinda envy the man. He was a warrior for creative expression and against vapid bullshit in the entertainment industry and called them as he saw them.
He was a divisive artist but he was right more often than he was wrong.
Ok, It's not a cop show
Whether Star Trek had weighty moral tales is a matter of what you're comparing it to. The other TV at the time? Absolutely. High literature and cinema? Absolutely not. It was cerebral in a way that's accessible to people with shorter attention spans, and it's unique in that way.
I'd classify it more as adventure than a cop show, maybe a Western if anything.
I love those 'high art' movies, but if you're only writing for intellectuals who already think in those terms, if your moral tale really that weighty?
I'd classify it more as adventure than a cop show, maybe a Western if anything.
I love those 'high art' movies, but if you're only writing for intellectuals who already think in those terms, if your moral tale really that weighty?
I forget the exact words, but David Gerrold (I believe it was in his Starlog column of so many decades ago) once declared that Harlan Ellison writes what he writes.
And I also remember, some years before that, attending my first Star Trek convention (SpaceCon 4, at the Los Angeles Convention Center), and sitting through an Ellison lecture. One in which he basically insulted everybody and everything, and read the audience some piece of his own writing. I remember not being particularly impressed.
And I also remember, some years before that, attending my first Star Trek convention (SpaceCon 4, at the Los Angeles Convention Center), and sitting through an Ellison lecture. One in which he basically insulted everybody and everything, and read the audience some piece of his own writing. I remember not being particularly impressed.
I loved their train HQ! I tried to sketch out the trains floorpans. Maybe the Enterprise needs to install some trick devices and secret passages. The Klingons put extra surveillance in their quarters (in Errand of Mercy). Anon did it, too with a secret button (in Taste of A). I bet the Mirror Kirk probably had more tricks in his quarters than just the Tantalus Field.The Wild Wild West was both.Secret Service agents enforcing the law and fighting criminal activity and villainous plots out on the 19th century frontier.
"Cop show" is a metaphor.
And Harlan Ellison was still a dick.
No, but his father was.
Once I had a very long discussion with a friend of mine. He argued that Star Trek and the series Little House on the Prairie have same attitude: one openly Christ the other one not religious but at the same degree moralist and in the same manner proselytizing. So it is not surprising Star Trek can be named a kind of substitute religion.
People can argue in the same methodology to prove Star Trek is a cop show / Western show / tabloid daily talk show in another TV-format, etc.
What should I say? Ad hominem is a very useful tool.
People can argue in the same methodology to prove Star Trek is a cop show / Western show / tabloid daily talk show in another TV-format, etc.
What should I say? Ad hominem is a very useful tool.
In the Federation justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups...Starfleet, which investigates interstellar crimes, and Samuel T. Cogley, who prosecutes the offenders. These are their stories.
DOINK-DOINK!
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I like this metaphor, but Cogley would be the defense lawyer. The prosecutor would be Areel Shaw.
