Was TNG less progressive than TOS?
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I got the impression that men wearing skants was only so they could have the females wear them without seeming sexist.
Didn't the TNG writers want to put gay couples in the background and get overruled?
Didn't the TNG writers want to put gay couples in the background and get overruled?
According to David Gerrold he had written an entire episode about a gay couple, I believe called "Blood and Fire" that would feature a gay couple. Gene was initially supportive and then shut it down. If I recall correctly Gerrold thought it was Gene's lawyer who axed the idea.
90s Trek is weird is that it's progressive in some ways and not others. Like "Progressively conservative". It pushed a specific heteronormative lifestyle, but said that people of all races, species, genders and creeds should have equal access to it.
But that's also kind of where mainstream liberals were in the 90s.
But that's also kind of where mainstream liberals were in the 90s.
I have a 1992 Cinefantastique that interviewed Gerrold in detail on this whole story. I think you have it mostly right, except that there was something about the lawyer being asked by Roddenberry to lie to Gerrold on his behalf. I could dig that magazine up and confirm. I appreciate contemporary accounts of incidents much more than retrospective ones. People change their stories over time.
Thank you. I had read his recollection in his "Star Wolf" leading up the story he had rewritten for his own series.
That's good. I still have my TOS action figures, both from the TV show and from TMP. As you say, they're very different.
McCoy didn't run around crying that he sensed pain or any other emotion. That was Spock's department (ie. when he did the mind-meld with the Horta).
And Guinan was a hell of a lot better as a counselor than Deanna ever was.
It's... weird to think of any "American" accent as being exotic, though I'll admit to some feeling of weirdness the first time I heard a Southern accent; my grandparents and I were at a tourist place in British Columbia, there was a tour group from the U.S., and one of the men asked me to pass him some cutlery in the dining room (it was self-serve). At first I had trouble figuring out what he was even saying.
Of course that was over 40 years ago and my city is a lot more cosmopolitan than it used to be. We hear accents from many places every day now.
Yes, you should have. It's a proper noun, which are supposed to be capitalized.
This was made into a fan film, and it's one of the better ones from that particular outfit.
Found it. I got myself curious - I cleaned up my old magazines last weekend and knew exactly where it was. It's long - 3 pages. It was published October of 1992 and is all based upon a Mark Altman interview with David Gerrold. It's framed in terms of a discussion of the episode, "The Outcast". Main summary - no lawyer involved, it was another writer as you'll see.
Summary:
1987 -TNG is announced. At a convention, gay fans ask Roddenberry if there could be a gay character. He says yes. Gerrold witnesses this. At this time he was still on staff, developing the series bible.
Gerrold writes "Blood and Fire" - said to be an AIDS metaphor.
Robert Justman resists.
Mike Minor of Trek II dies of AIDS, couldn't join show as art director. Gerrold wants to honor him.
Story gets developed anyway to mixed reaction among staff. Some are concerned about ratings and audience blowback, others like it and want to go for it. Lots of memos circulate.
Gerrold rewrites sans gay characters as a straight sci-fi piece as Roddenberry was no longer sticking up for them.
Justman still doesn't like script, says it's not a gay issue, says gay characters should be put back in.
Script still not working and other issues too [later claims to have been financially screwed by Roddenberry, but not mentioned in this arcticle], Gerrold leaves show to work on "Trackers" for Columbia, but visits.
Finds Herb Wright now doing re-write on script, says he'd be happy to take it over if it's possibly on again. Gene okays it, if it's okay with Herb.
Gerrold checks with Herb, who tells him that Roddenberry had just called and asked him to say it was not. Quote attributed to Herb Wright: "I don't lie for any man."
Summary:
1987 -TNG is announced. At a convention, gay fans ask Roddenberry if there could be a gay character. He says yes. Gerrold witnesses this. At this time he was still on staff, developing the series bible.
Gerrold writes "Blood and Fire" - said to be an AIDS metaphor.
Robert Justman resists.
Mike Minor of Trek II dies of AIDS, couldn't join show as art director. Gerrold wants to honor him.
Story gets developed anyway to mixed reaction among staff. Some are concerned about ratings and audience blowback, others like it and want to go for it. Lots of memos circulate.
Gerrold rewrites sans gay characters as a straight sci-fi piece as Roddenberry was no longer sticking up for them.
Justman still doesn't like script, says it's not a gay issue, says gay characters should be put back in.
Script still not working and other issues too [later claims to have been financially screwed by Roddenberry, but not mentioned in this arcticle], Gerrold leaves show to work on "Trackers" for Columbia, but visits.
Finds Herb Wright now doing re-write on script, says he'd be happy to take it over if it's possibly on again. Gene okays it, if it's okay with Herb.
Gerrold checks with Herb, who tells him that Roddenberry had just called and asked him to say it was not. Quote attributed to Herb Wright: "I don't lie for any man."
I don't know how Trekkie, Star Trek a story about a couple would be. Wouldn't a story about something like their ship crashing on a harsh or lush unpopulated or populated planet, or about a scientific discovery of a techno-space bubble time space etc.
Or a story about de-pollution of the water supply on an over populated planet or really just about almost anything spacey be better that a story about a couple?
One of the worst episodes I can think of is a Deep space Nine episode where Vic, The Hologram Space Lounge Singer is trying to get Odo and Kira together. Yeech,
Let's see some space the final frontier stuff.
That wasn't the only part of the story, as I believe it was to be an AIDs metaphor as well. Look up "Star Wolf: Blood and Fire" to see Gerrold's story.
Also, @Marlonius posted right above you describing it too.
I thought I had heard about it. I'll have to look it up.
So it's a Star Trek story where instead of Mark going back to his quarters where he lives with Lori, it's Mark goes back to his quarters where he lives with Larry.
Trek generally sucks at relationships, painfully bad, poor, mismatched, no chemistry. It's most likely best that they skipped it.
Might TNG have been as progressive as it could be at the time it was made?
EDIT - what about TOS, same question?
EDIT - what about TOS, same question?
Maybe but it definitely would have been a step towards the progress Trek always boasted about.
That script was turned into a fan film and it was pretty bad. The gay guys make out for 5 minutes, then one of them joins an away team, gets space aids and after the crew deliberating if they should preemptively murder the entire away team gay guy #1 dies and gay guy #2 is devastated and leaves the ship ...
The series should have featured gay characters but that script was not the way to do it.
Maybe they wanted to make a gay episode but there just wasn't a story good enough. The idea of a gay episode wasn't rejected because it had gay people in it but because there wasn't a story good enough to film.
Then you rework the idea or the script. Happened all the time in TOS and TNG, with the "Bonding" being a prime example.
Again, from Gerrold's reporting, there was interest in the idea and then it cooled and Roddenberry not lingered championed it.
Now, this is just my personal supposition, but I think if they had wanted to happen it would have happened.
Thank you.
It would be very interesting to read the contemporary memos and see what was being said at the time. Was even the germ of the idea, gay angle notwithstanding, considered not good enough or unworkable? If so, I'd expect a memo to say something like, "how about a different gay story?". Maybe it's a little of each. Maybe the story wasn't good enough to risk the backlash. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the gay angle at all- perhaps Gerrold's personal struggles with GR over money for the creative work on TNG were more relevant to it all than anyone is now admitting. I don't know that we'll ever know the truth of it all. Even a circa 1987 memo would carry with it any hidden agenda the writer of it had at the time.
Things eventually did happen, i.e. "The Outcast". Mind you, that was 5 years later and not under the auspices of GR and without Gerrold along. I think though that the biggest change was that by that time, the show was a certified hit and the perceived risk of damage due to backlash lower.
Things eventually did happen, i.e. "The Outcast". Mind you, that was 5 years later and not under the auspices of GR and without Gerrold along. I think though that the biggest change was that by that time, the show was a certified hit and the perceived risk of damage due to backlash lower.
MI in the same period had a female operative doing dangerous work on the field and a black tech whiz. TOS had a black receptionist who rarely leaved her station.
I don't think your anecdote about your theater, however large or small it may be, is comparable to Hollywood which has a talent pool the size of the entire world at its disposal.
I don't disagree with these two examples. And I say as much in this list I made a while back (which doesn't currently have a home so I'm drop boxing it) about all the weird, sexist stuff in each episode of TOS. Take a look at it if you have the time. It's a slog. The bad far outweighs the good.
That's an interesting and well made list.
That episode was so badly done and so clueless that it was worse than nothing. I'm tempted to call it just as clueless as Angel One.
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