Revisiting Star Trek Continues...

[Warped9]

I did not raise it again. I replied to this post linked here, that quoted me: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/revisiting-star-trek-continues.319370/post-15195170

Now you're misrepresenting history, both about what's transpired in this thread, and in the thread that originally reviewed "Embracing the Wind."

I've offered to take this conversation to a thread that's more appropriate, and that offer still stands, but I've really nothing more to say to you about it in here.

Of course, if someone else elects to quote me in the future, I will make a decision to respond to them at that time, just as I did today.

Firstly my apologies and I have since corrected my post. Indeed you did not raise this issue again. It was brought up again by someone else who quoted you.

That said I am not misrepresenting the original material. I take issue with the interpretation of the original source material. Yes, sexism existed in the 1960s. Hell, it still exists today. But the simple fact is there is nothing throughout TOS that explicitly states women cannot command while there is evidence that they most certainly can.

I also stand against the stupidly ham-fisted way "Embracing The Winds" was written. Instead of validating the underlying subtext of TOS and its message of inclusiveness they went out of their way to rationalize a poorly written original episode.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

So again... appropriate thread? If not, we're done.

 

[FredH]

You don't know that. And there is nothing throughout the series that explicitly states that either.

I don’t know that (and would love to discover otherwise; I certainly don’t want it to be true), but it certainly seems likely, given the production era.

And of course, you don’t know otherwise, either.

 

[Warped9]

I don’t know that (and would love to discover otherwise; I certainly don’t want it to be true), but it certainly seems likely, given the production era.

And of course, you don’t know otherwise, either.

And as such all we can do is go by what is in the series. "The Cage" argues women can command, and nothing thought the rest of the series explicitly contradicts that even if they didn't actually show a woman in command after "The Cage."

Note, though, they did show a woman in command in "The Enterprise Incident." The wrinkle is she was an alien in command of a Romulan squadron.

 

[David cgc]

Number One flat out proves that they can, and through that one point sets the interpretation for this episode, way back at the beginning, IMO.

You don't put someone in the position where she literally is taking command if the Captain dies, if she's not allowed to be the Captain.

On the other hand, "The Cage" opens by showing us that the Enterprise literally has a glass ceiling.

 

[FredH]

And as such all we can do is go by what is in the series. "The Cage" argues women can command, and nothing thought the rest of the series explicitly contradicts that even if they didn't actually show a woman in command after "The Cage."

Note, though, they did show a woman in command in "The Enterprise Incident." The wrinkle is she was an alien in command of a Romulan squadron.

Yes. What’s in the series — very unfortunately — is a complete lack of actual onscreen female Captains in Starfleet, Number One’s presence being weird to Pike, and — as you point out — the only female starship commander we ever see or even hear referred to is Romulan.

I don’t like this, and am very glad that later series have retconned it away. But as you say, all we can go by is what’s in the series, right there onscreen. Or rather, unfortunately not on it.

At any rate, I’m happy to stand with the retcon.

 

[Warped9]

Lack of evidence is not evidence. As such there is more in TOS supporting women can command than than supporting they can't.

 

[FredH]

Lack of evidence is not evidence. As such there is more in TOS supporting women can command than than supporting they can't.

There is plenty in TOS indicating that women are capable of command, and absolutely zero that they actually do so within Starfleet.

You do understand, right, that we are disagreeing only on what the producers of the time intended with Lester’s line. We are clearly in complete agreement about how we, now, should choose to take that line. (Ie yes, obviously, women command starships! Why wouldn’t they? But that probably wasn’t true in the heads of the producers at the time. Which is now irrelevant to our reading of the 2260s.)

 

[Phoenix219]

There is plenty in TOS indicating that women are capable of command, and absolutely zero that they actually do so within Starfleet.

You do understand, right, that we are disagreeing only on what the producers of the time intended with Lester’s line. We are clearly in complete agreement about how we, now, should choose to take that line. (Ie yes, obviously, women command starships! Why wouldn’t they? But that probably wasn’t true in the heads of the producers at the time. Which is now irrelevant to our reading of the 2260s.)

The network was fine with Number One as the, well, number one, and anything to the contrary has been proven to be falsifications by Roddenberry. The times WERE changing, and its most likely the producers and execs were aware of that.

 

[Warped9]

There is plenty in TOS indicating that women are capable of command, and absolutely zero that they actually do so within Starfleet.

Incorrect. We have Number One in "The Menagerie." and no one aboard the Enterprise in the Pike era or in the TOS present is reacting to the sight of a woman commanding the ship. It's accepted as a matter of course. So unless Number One died sometime later there is no reason to believe she did not or could not be promoted to her own commend.

I cannot recall the exact dialogue, but in "The Conscience Of The King" Kirk tells Lenore Karidian something along the lines of there being no difference between men or women aboard the Enterprise, and thus in extent within the Starfleet service.

 

[David cgc]

You do understand, right, that we are disagreeing only on what the producers of the time intended with Lester’s line.

Even then, I doubt there was this much discussion on it. It's entirely possible that if we squandered an opportunity to go back and time on asking while the episode was being filmed, Roddenberry, Singer, Freiberger and anyone else whose hands touched the script would've taken different sides on the "Kirk is married to his job" versus "women are forbidden from being captains" interpretation of the line.

 

[Akiraprise]

We're getting pretty far off into the weeds with this line of discussion in this thread topic. It's certainly an appropriate subject for it's own thread in TOS. From what I gather that discussion has already occurred though.

 

[Warped9]

We're getting pretty far off into the weeds with this line of discussion in this thread topic. It's certainly an appropriate subject for it's own thread in TOS. From what I gather that discussion has already occurred though.

Yes we've already touched on it. And it really isn't off in the weeds because "Embracing The Winds" opens the door to the subject because it ties back directly to "Turnabout Intruder."

 

[FredH]

Incorrect. We have Number One in "The Menagerie." and no one aboard the Enterprise in the Pike era or in the TOS present is reacting to the sight of a woman commanding the ship. It's accepted as a matter of course. So unless Number One died sometime later there is no reason to believe she did not or could not be promoted to her own commend.

As you noted earlier, lack of evidence is not evidence; therefore, having no reason to believe she didn’t achieve the actual rank and position of Starship Captain is not evidence that, in the producer’s intent, she did.

In my preference and headcanon, and presumably yours, she did, of course. But we don’t see it,

At any rate, I don’t think there’s reward in a continuing debate about the producer’s intent, since the now-established canon quite properly differs from it anyway. But I should point out that our differing positions here are opinions, not facts, as neither of us is in the then-producer’s heads; there’s no “correct/incorrect” involved here.

EDIT: Sorry, Akiraprise, didn’t see the post till now. OK, shutting down.

 

[Maurice]

The network was fine with Number One as the, well, number one, and anything to the contrary has been proven to be falsifications by Roddenberry.

According to Herb Solow. It's not proven that either man's account of NBC's reaction to the character and casting of Number One is entirely accurate. No documents have turned up to prove either.

Back to the question… I dug through the folders on "Turnabout Intruder" and, in skimming various drafts of Roddenberry's story outlines for the episode, I see no mention of a prohibition against women being allowed to serve as starship captains. How this line ended up in the script is unclear, but I'm seeing nothing that suggests any such intent at the start. Indeed, the outlines (which are pretty sexist, admittedly) imply that the unspecified problem between Kirk and Lester (originally Lisette) may have been that he spurned her romantic advances, and she sees this alien technology as a way to claim power and prestige that her career as an archaeologist could never lead to.

Outlines are not definitive, obviously, but in light of that, the "your world of starship captains" line seems more about Kirk not allowing her into his life than some military prohibition against women captains.

 

[Warped9]

^^ So it seems we’re dealing with sloppy writing and sloppy editing.

 

[Pauln6]

Embracing the Winds made me uncomfortable because it was so explicit. Trek was all about allegory. It would have been better if she had PTSD or some other additional trait that meant she had to fight to get a plumb job.

Let's also be clear, when Pike was captured, Number one WAS in command of the ship. Let's also distinguish starships from other commands. Even on the most generous interpretation, Lester only mentions starship captains.

Personally, I don't think women were expressly banned from commanding starships. I don't think they were expressly banned from being starship captains. I think it was a mistake to lean so heavily into it.

Conversely, the gay character in Phase II was cool. I just think that at 15, Peter Kirk was a bit young to marry...

 

[Warped9]

Starting to watch the next STC episode “What Ships Are For.”

Nice title, but…*Sigh*…so TNG like. Only a few minutes in and they’re now leaning really heavily into fan service…

 

[Warped9]

"What Ships Are For" - 3/5

Stardate 6892.3 - Starfleet dispatches the Enterprise to respond to a remote isolated asteroid calling for help.

Let's look at the good stuff first. Cool episode title. And this is a good and interesting story. This is something TOS could have done back in the day if they had thought of it given it deals with forms of prejudice. TOS has dealt with prejudice before, but not in this novel a way and they could have.

In some respects this is a more clever way of addressing prejudice then "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." And while this episode was made several years ago like so many TOS episodes it's remains relevant today and even more so.

Using black-and-white or monochrome imagery as a gimmick to highlight the prejudice of this alien race could have been done in 1969, if they had thought of it. Today it's a clever device because colour television and film is pretty much universal and everywhere. But in 1969 and into the 1970s many people still had b&w televisions and so this story would be a harder sell for those who didn't have colour TVs. The reactions of the aliens upon first seeing their world in colour then their shock when they realize aliens have been among them all along is nicely done. It really underscores the shallow morality and deep set hypocrisy of the aliens claiming to have achieved a highly evolved society.

Kirk gets to deliver one of his trademark speeches and it's not bad although Shatner still rules when it comes to this sort of thing.

Now the not-so-good stuff.

The character of McKennah has effectively sidelined McCoy almost all together. Hell they even make a point of it by having McCoy pouting that McKennah is standing in his spot on the bridge. Having McKennah prominently on the bridge while Kirk is talking to Starfleet Command was so TNG like. Pretty much everything she says or does here would have come from McCoy in TOS. And while McCoy could be crusty there are times the things they wrote for him here don't ring true for me. I also don't think they get Chekov right here either. Yes, Chekov was young, but he stove to be professional and he didn't exhibit the awkwardness displayed here.

Kirk had his dalliances with women, but here it comes off really creepy and story wise it was totally unnecessary. I found this more creepy than Kirk being nice to Miri way back when.

Spock deferring to McKennah so openly comes across as him being rather taken with her. All of this just feels so forced and certainly un-Spock like.

And then there is the fan service. We actually see a Starfleet officer wearing a TMP era outfit. More references to other starships experiencing system malfunctions, continuing the contemporary practice of carrying plot threads from previous episodes. None of this would have been seen during TOS. And more terminology and patterns of speech we wouldn't have heard fifty years ago.

The heart of this episode is a worthy one and I would be tempted to rate it higher. But the abandonment of all pretence that they're trying to make it feel like it's 1969 is a massive disappointment. Some smart editing and rethinking of creative choices and they could have really nailed this as an authentic TOS episode. Sadly this true of a lot of STC.

 

[Bixby]

IIRC there isn't one action sequence in this entire episode that involved Kirk, which really wasn't a norm back then. The only sorta action bit was a ship's confrontation with hostile alien vessels.

As I've mentioned a few pages back, Kirk's face as soon as Sekara appears made him look like a creepy frat boy, also Delancie and Ann Lockhart exchanging that weird "mah dear!" was just awful.

You're correct about McKennah being on the bridge in the opener. Just why IS a psychologist spending time on a military bridge at all? Is Kirk going to invite the ship's cook to attend weapons drills next? Back in the day, the story editor would have slapped a big ol' "why is she there?" in red ink on any writer's script that put her there...

so what did happen with the plotpoint that Sekara was going to die before she had a chance to finish studying to be a doctor?