You're quite right. That's why early rating systems specifically mentioned "adult situations".
Was TNG considered a "family tv show" at the time? And anyway, what does "family tv show" mean?
- Thread starter Skipper
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These are the ratings around the world for TNG.
Some ratings are not "suggestions" for the presence of an adult like the American equivalent. They are warnings not to show that material under that age. (Well, warnings so to speak, no one can physically control what you show your children inside the walls of your home. However in some countries they theoretically cannot sell physical media to buyers under the indicated age).
EDIT: look at the Thailand and Turkey ratings. I'm imagining rebellious 16-year-olds secretly watching "Masks" or "Sub-Rosa" in defiance of the authorities
GO YOUNG TREKKIES GO!!!
Some ratings are not "suggestions" for the presence of an adult like the American equivalent. They are warnings not to show that material under that age. (Well, warnings so to speak, no one can physically control what you show your children inside the walls of your home. However in some countries they theoretically cannot sell physical media to buyers under the indicated age).
EDIT: look at the Thailand and Turkey ratings. I'm imagining rebellious 16-year-olds secretly watching "Masks" or "Sub-Rosa" in defiance of the authorities
GO YOUNG TREKKIES GO!!!
Reminds me of when I briefly worked for GameStop, years ago. The managers repeatedly told me and the other reps, not to sell M-rated games to kids. I know I personally followed that order, but I would not be surprised if my fellow workers chose otherwise.
There might be some episodes I wouldn't show a small kid. I don't think I would show Violations or any such 'mind rape' episode, or Schisms, for example.
I bet a lot of us watched something distressing when we were a kid that was rated for kids and we still "fondly" look back on how horrified we were at the time. It was part of growing up. I wouldn't have had it any other way.
I still think about Artax sinking into the Swamp of Sadness t̶h̶r̶e̶e FOUR decades later (Holy crap!). The Dark Crystal scared me. Return to Oz scared me. In my opinion it's not unhealthy to be exposed to a mild level of "scary" situations.
And later on, sneaking the TV on late at night to watch a horror movie that the parents thought I shouldn't see.
I'm not saying anyone else should agree with this approach.
I still think about Artax sinking into the Swamp of Sadness t̶h̶r̶e̶e FOUR decades later (Holy crap!). The Dark Crystal scared me. Return to Oz scared me. In my opinion it's not unhealthy to be exposed to a mild level of "scary" situations.
And later on, sneaking the TV on late at night to watch a horror movie that the parents thought I shouldn't see.
I'm not saying anyone else should agree with this approach.
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Someone on the TNG staff told me in the early 90s that the studio heads considered TNG "a kid's show." He was probably overstating out of frustration that it wasn't taken as seriously as some of the staff would have liked. But it was definitely highly valued by Paramount as a "four quadrant show," watched by whole families together, with a great advertising profile.
That may be part of why Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all have blocked AO games for their consoles... they know that they can't control who plays them, once they're allowed to exist.
I remember watching a 5-year-old watching that movie. When Atreyu was talking to Gmork, I could see him shaking with fear. Poor little guy.
Well, the one character that truly terrified me as a young kid, was Darth Vader in the first "Star Wars". I was 5 years old at the time, so I don't really remember why I was so scared. Maybe it was just his overall prescene, with the mask, robes, and that truly haunting breathing sound. Even with all I know now about the franchise, when I see Vader on-screen, it still takes me back in time to that moment.
The other big scare I had regarding film, was when I first saw the original "Halloween". I was 15, and on the surface you wouldn't think there was much to worry about, regarding Michael in the initial story. But just the idea of a guy dressed only in coveralls and a strange mask, who never speaks a word, but continually chases people down and seemingly can't be killed...when you're a teenager who hasn't seen this kind of thing, it definitely leaves an impression. Carpenter's now-revered classic depicted his creation taking a coat hanger to the eye, six pistol shots from his own psychiatrist, and a fall from a balcony. But almost like a demon from hell itself, Michael survived, and every installment that followed (except for the third, which I did not see) depicted him as the main adversary. I stopped watching after "Resurrection", because the writers just made him far too powerful.
Commander Sonak melting in the transporter in the Rated-G Star Trek: The Motion Picture, here.
i don't understand why that, of all things in Final Frontier, is criticized. God wouldn't need a starship
I remember reading a letter to the editor in some magazine when Worf was about to join DS9. Some guy was complaining about DS9 being a filthy and family unfriendly show that he won't let his kids watch -- don't remember what all he cited but the lesbian kiss was among them -- and how they were going to ruin a great and noble character like Worf.
That must've been after Worf joined the show, because "Rejoined" aired four weeks after "The Way of the Warrior."
I'll try to summarize what has been said so far and answer the main question.
First of all, what is meant by "family show"? Ask 10 different people and you will get 10 different answers. Let's say it's something you can watch with your kids without jumping out of your seat and calling the TV station being pissed.
On a practical level, what did this entail? Basically don't show overly graphic depictions of sex and violence or overdo the language. Let's say that even the limits imposed by the FCC (at least in the 80s) did not allow much room for maneuver.
When TNG was conceived it was aimed at the more adult part of the public. Just look at how much the characters liked to talk about sex in the beginning. Think in "Justice" when it is emphasized how much the inhabitants of the planet like to have sex. I would have a hard time imagining a scene like that even in a modern Star Trek series. Or the "that" scene, bordering on gore, in "Contagion".
Bu there were some problems. Science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular was considered "kid stuff." Even the rating at the time (since changed) was a fairly harmless "TV-PG".
Here comes Berman who takes care of "smoothing out" some of the excesses of the Roddenberry period. So the characters talk less about sex, the violence is less explicit.
However, when it comes to age, the target remains the more adult one. No one ever said that the seasons of Star Trek after the first two were more "kid-ish." If it is necessary to make it clear that a character has had sex, it is made clear, even if in a less explicit way. People keep dying. Topics usually considered "sensitive" such as religion are addressed.
So, more than a family show, a show where parents don't have to worry too much about whether or not to watch it with their children. If the topic covered is complicated for a child to understand there is no problem, as long as there is a spaceship that goes "Fwwwwuuuuusshhhhhhhhhhh".
This brings us to LGBTQIA+ representation, or rather the lack of it. If in the late 80s/early 90s it might have made sense from a cynical business point of view, after that much less so, especially for a show like Star Trek which prided itself on being at the cutting edge in dealing with even uncomfortable topics. Then in 2005, when they aired The L Word and on the same network as Enterprise there was Buffy, where there was a lesbian couple, it was completely incomprehensible.
Why was this happening? We don't have a precise answer and probably never will. Berman simply didn't want it, even though fans were asking for it, actors were asking for it, and writers were pitching stories with LBGT themes. When asked specifically why, he responded with a confusing word salad.
Did I summarize correctly?
First of all, what is meant by "family show"? Ask 10 different people and you will get 10 different answers. Let's say it's something you can watch with your kids without jumping out of your seat and calling the TV station being pissed.
On a practical level, what did this entail? Basically don't show overly graphic depictions of sex and violence or overdo the language. Let's say that even the limits imposed by the FCC (at least in the 80s) did not allow much room for maneuver.
When TNG was conceived it was aimed at the more adult part of the public. Just look at how much the characters liked to talk about sex in the beginning. Think in "Justice" when it is emphasized how much the inhabitants of the planet like to have sex. I would have a hard time imagining a scene like that even in a modern Star Trek series. Or the "that" scene, bordering on gore, in "Contagion".
Bu there were some problems. Science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular was considered "kid stuff." Even the rating at the time (since changed) was a fairly harmless "TV-PG".
Here comes Berman who takes care of "smoothing out" some of the excesses of the Roddenberry period. So the characters talk less about sex, the violence is less explicit.
However, when it comes to age, the target remains the more adult one. No one ever said that the seasons of Star Trek after the first two were more "kid-ish." If it is necessary to make it clear that a character has had sex, it is made clear, even if in a less explicit way. People keep dying. Topics usually considered "sensitive" such as religion are addressed.
So, more than a family show, a show where parents don't have to worry too much about whether or not to watch it with their children. If the topic covered is complicated for a child to understand there is no problem, as long as there is a spaceship that goes "Fwwwwuuuuusshhhhhhhhhhh".
This brings us to LGBTQIA+ representation, or rather the lack of it. If in the late 80s/early 90s it might have made sense from a cynical business point of view, after that much less so, especially for a show like Star Trek which prided itself on being at the cutting edge in dealing with even uncomfortable topics. Then in 2005, when they aired The L Word and on the same network as Enterprise there was Buffy, where there was a lesbian couple, it was completely incomprehensible.
Why was this happening? We don't have a precise answer and probably never will. Berman simply didn't want it, even though fans were asking for it, actors were asking for it, and writers were pitching stories with LBGT themes. When asked specifically why, he responded with a confusing word salad.
Did I summarize correctly?
I think the relevant question is how the term was understood by network programmers and censors, since they were the ones who had actual influence over the content and scheduling. The term was not strictly a matter of opinion, but a matter of policy. As I mentioned before, there was a brief period in the mid-'70s when Congress actually required that early prime time be set aside for family-friendly programming, and though that was soon revoked after a free-speech lawsuit, it remained standard network practice through at least the '80s to schedule family-friendly fare at 8 PM and save the more adult stuff for 10 PM when the younger kids had gone to bed.
That's part of it, yes. Also, family shows tended to tell lightweight, purely entertaining adventure stories without a lot of depth (e.g. Knight Rider), or they told wholesome, sentimental stories with positive messages (e.g. Starman).
That system wasn't instituted until January 1, 1997, so there was no such rating for ST:TNG "at the time," only retroactively.
That's fair, though I'm not sure kid-friendliness was as much of a consideration as you suggest. I think Berman and Piller just weren't as invested in pushing the sexy stuff as much as Roddenberry wanted to. I could be stretching here, but I think the shows and movies at the time that did play up sexual content were often seen as trashy, and the "Jiggle Era" of 1970s TV (exemplified by shows like Charlie's Angels and Three's Company) was still in relatively recent memory. So maybe taking a more sedate approach to sexuality was more about being respectable and classy than about being kid-friendly.
Pretty much, yeah. But you left out the part where Roddenberry overtly promised fans before TNG premiered that it would have gay representation, and then the show reneged on that promise. So the argument that it's an issue that only came up later is simply wrong. It was on the fans' minds from the beginning, and it was explicitly promised from the beginning. Part of the reason TNG's uncredited co-creator David Gerrold left the show so early was because his attempt to write an AIDS-allegory episode with a gay character was shot down by Roddenberry's homophobic lawyer and others. So this isn't just an issue that came up later in the '90s or '00s. It's a pledge that was made and broken right at the start.
I left that part out for a simple reason: on the other thread there had been a never-ending argument that 1987 was simply too early, promises or no, and that Roddenberry wasn't, well, very lucid anymore to make sensible decisions in this field. And others have doubted Gerrold's reliability in reporting the story.
I think it happened exactly as you say, but I just didn't want to start arguing again about what was proven fact and what was hearsay.
Pretty well, considering the length of the topic.
Still, it shouldn't have been as variable as it was. One would assume that the TV rating system had some objective standards (permitted vs. prohibited words, types of violence, amounts of nudity, etc.)
Isn't that what family entertainment should be?
If an entertainment franchise chooses to be inclusive in that regard, they have to accept that they will lose some viewership. Whether we like it or not, that's even the case today: Disney's released two LGBTQ-inclusive films recently, and lost nine figures on both. And that's in the 2020's.
Some people are taught from the beginning to be tolerant. Some learn to do so. But some do neither. And, we can get laws repealed, or enacted, but we can't force people to tune in when they don't like something.
Yeah, the re-rating (it war re-rated TV-14) was pretty bizzarre.
Maybe the rating person saw "Conspiracy" and figured it was all like that.
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