Agency of Female Characters

The beginning of season two has some decent female characters. Carolyn Palamis always frustrated me (not in that way) because she was so unprofessional. I hate her question to McCoy as to why she should be part of the landing party. She's an anthropologist and archaeologist - surely she should be on landing party duty every other episode - never mind the yeomen. I can see that it was clumsy exposition to explain her background but there must have been a way to introduce her that made her look less stupid. Chekov often suffers as the character who asks dumb questions to allow the smart characters to explain things to the audience but when it's not him the writers use either the women or mono-syllabic security guards. McCoy doesn't seem stupid when he is used this way so I'm not sure if the credit lies with DeForest Kelly or the fact that the writers were more confident with his dialogue.

Mirror Mirror is definitely Uhura's best episode and Kirk lets Marlena take the lead in order to gain intel, which is refreshing. George and Walter have a ball playing their evil twins. Part of me thinks this would have been a good episode to guest Grace Lee Whitney. Evil Rand could have been great!

It is interesting that both Palamis and Moreau play pivotal roles in saving the day. Much like Helen Noel and Marla McGivers, they behave foolishly but then pull it back in the final act. Marlena in particular was great. What a cool addition to the crew she would have made if she'd been allowed to beam back with them!

I have noticed that the writers rarely bothered to put in a female crewman at all unless there was a man to go gaga over, excluding Uhura, whose ethnicity made her somewhat unavailable and whose role gave her some straightforward dialogue. Apart from the other comms officers used in the same way, I can only think of Masterson, Mears, Tamura, Zahra, and Thompson who don't have a male character as an appendage and of them, only Masterson, another black woman, had any notable personality. Rand's feelings for Kirk featured in more than half her appearances and the main one that didn't featured a teenage stalker instead. Chapel's crush on Spock dominates most of her most prominent episodes apart from the one where she's in love with Korby.

This might go some way to explain why so few women featured in seasons two and three; they defaulted to male extras unless there was some reason in the plot to feature a woman. Landon probably would not have featured at all if the plot had not required the introduction of snoo snoo to the natives in the Apple.

 

I enjoyed the Apple more than I remembered. There is actually some intelligent debate about the rights and wrongs of interfering in the development of the natives.

I love the dressing down Kirk gives Chekov and Landon for canoodling while on duty - much better than allowing NuSpock and NuUhura to snog all over the place.

One of the first things that sprang to mind was why Carolyn Palamis wasn't on the landing party. It seemed odd to have so many redshirts when a botanist or geologist might have helped avoid some of the many disasters. This does hark back to what I was saying about women only being cast if there was a reason to have a female. This is one of things that dates the show the most for me.

It's nice that Landon is armed and allowed to get some licks in - she takes out not one but two natives - but she does nothing to drive the plot forward. I'm not sure why she had to be labelled as a yeoman instead of just one of the security guards. She wasn't even needed to record stuff this time, since Spock, McCoy, and Chekov are all using tricroders already.

 

I don't think 'The Apple' was a particularly bad episode for women (there are way worse). I think Landon (along with Chekov) did have some agency -canoodling on duty. They thought of that together. It showed the natives the forbidden touches etc. Paved the way for rebellion in the natives. It was more agency than any of the dead redshirts had in this episode.

And Kirk had his share of canoodling on duty. But not in the middle of a crisis I suppose.

By Season 3 I don't think anyone on board had any agency but the Big 3 - maybe Scotty at times.

 

The interaction between Kirk and Scotty was pretty cool in this one and it's nice to see Kyle in a more prominent role for the second time this season. They appeared in quite a few episodes; I'm not sure why Kyle and Leslie barely register as recurring characters for me. I suppose it's because they were ciphers, only ever serving the needs of the plot.

 

Also comic relief, each delivered a funny line on at least one occasion.

"KYLE: You didn't have to shove me, Mister Spock. I'd have gotten round to it."

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/36.htm

"KIRK: This is mutiny, mister.
CREWMAN: Yes, sir. It is."

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/25.htm

 

Just watched the Doomsday Machine. It's a bit of a sausage fest apart from Palmer. It's a shame they didn't have female engineers.

What struck me more was that Kirk and Spock make sensible tactical decisions unlike NuKirk and NuSpock in Trek 2009 where NuKirk's plan was essentially Decker's plan while NuSpock didn't even think that warning Starfleet Command was a good idea. I really wish JJ Abrams had watched this episode first. The movie plot would not have been such an embarrassment.

 

One or more female engineers in the damage control party would have been cool. Washburn could have been a female, for instance.

 

Secretaries, or Data Collection Specialists?

 

It is strange that TMP went to pains to put women in pretty much every role except security guards (there were women assigned to the security department, just never any in guard uniforms). TOS was pretty rubbish at that. I suppose we have one female physicist and two command ensigns and that's about it (and even then, what does Martine actually do that relates to her job role?). It's a mystery why the writers almost willfully assumed that women were so useless in anything but administrative roles, medical roles, and answering the phone.

Edit: Ok, I suppose Astrobiology is a pretty hard science, but Mulhall spend most of her time possessed by a housewife.

 

Is it any different from any other shows from the 60's?

 

I hate her vapid, simpering voice. This whole "what-am-I-doing-here" makes me wonder who's impersonating the real officer. Between Palamas and McGivers, they give archaeology/anthropology a bad name.

They would have had two Marlenas, then, unless you retcon the end of that episode so it's Sisko in that scene (the one at the end of Trials and Tribble-ations where they use the Mirror Mirror scene to allow Sisko to meet Kirk).

 

Well, the Cage for starters. Even if they were unhappy with Number One, did they have to backslide so far?

Mission Impossible had a number of female agents. Hell, even the Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials had Dale, Aura, and Wilma. Admittedly, Dale in the first Flash serial was even more useless than the average Yeoman but she did improve and developed some moxy in later serials.

 

For the era, in which it was written, no.

 

Despite her uniform color, Lt Masters was pretty clearly an engineer, and in a supervisory position as mentioned upthread. Lt Rahda seemed to know her stuff at helm. But yeah, the examples are pretty thin.

 

Well, I mean they tried quite hard. TMP probably has the best ratio of male and female characters of any Trek show or movie ever, although Beyond certainly tried, and Discovery might top them. Obviously, the hierarchy was very top heavy with men, with Uhura being sixth in the chain of command at best. If Decker had been a woman, that would have evened it out nicely.

It's also worth noting that Tasha Yar was the only female security guard in TNG until season 4 and I'm not sure we had any female guards in any subsequent TOS outings so TMP wasn't alone.

 

You don't have to look past "Encounter at Farpoint," to the first appearance of guards besides Yar, to see that that's untrue.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x01/farpoint_hd_097.jpg

If we'll allow TAS, "The Survivor" prominently featured a female security officer, Anne Nored (voiced by Nichelle Nichols), who had difficulty defending the ship against the Vendorian who was disguised as her lost love.

 

Awesome. I missed her! Are there any others?

I remember Ann Nored vaguely. Was it another woman at the mercy of her conflicting mass of emotions? I did like the few guest crew they had on TAS though.

Got half way through Catspaw today. Will finish it tomorrow. It is conspicuous in sending Kirk, Spock and McCoy alone on the main landing party for no good reason. The only female crewman featured is at communications again. Sylvia is fun, even if her wig is as bad as Chekov's. The non Federation women are usually worthwhile guest stars. It is the absence of female crewmen that keeps winding me up. I miss Janice!

This episode is infamous for denying Uhura the centre seat of course.

 

Besides, Kellogg, who started in season 4 (who you might have been referring to)? I don't know.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Kellogg

'Fraid so.

Several female security guards were seen in "The Lorelei Signal."

 

Fair play to Kellogg . I certainly don't recall any others but then I didn't remember her.

As far as the Lorelei Signal goes, are you referring to all the yeomen in that story? :-P This goes back to what I was saying before. If there is a reason to use women (usually because of their relationship to a man), then they will use them but if there isn't then they default to male. How many of the women in that episode appeared again?

It would have been better if TAS could have afforded Walter Koenig and a male and female voice artist to mix up the guests a bit more. There were only so many voices Nichelle and Majel could manage.

 

Watched Metamorphosis. The fact that Kirk, Spock and McCoy are on planet duty again is somewhat balanced by Scotty, Uhura, and Sulu getting some decent moments on the bridge. When other characters, especially the Yeomen, ask for dumb questions to be explained for the benefit of the audience, they sound dumb. When Uhura asks, she sounds like she already knows the answer and she's just challenging Scotty to explain why she isn't right. That's very refreshing.

Even so, I would have quite liked to see a yeoman or Chapel in the shuttle to balance out a more female perspective.

I was never a major fan of Headford. For a diplomat, she seemed rather undiplomatic - a victim of the notion that a woman can only be a success in a man's job if she's a total bitch. She can't have a lover and a career either. I realise that they were just setting her up so that the amalgam later on is more of a rounded person capable of fulfilling both their desires but she has never felt like a very real character to me.