Episodes still relevant....

[Christopher Miles]

Can you give an example of Kirk being holier-than-thou?

His disgust at the Organians for not violently resisting the Klingons, the stagnation in "This Side of Paradise" and collectivism in "A Taste of Armageddon".

I would hardly call that holier-than-thou.

I loves me some Kirk (However, as I get older, I lean toward L.H. McCoy (hence my H.L. Mencken quote line))

BUT

Ok, so in Return to Tomorrow, Kirk tries to teach Sargon... Paraphrase- (... Earth moved past its atomic war(s) and so forth) I'm thinkin' that comes across as more than a little patronizing to a proven-powerful non-corporeal that influenced Kirk's ship operations from a gazillion miles out.

Sargon delivers unto Kirk a much deserved beat down:
Again, paraphrasing in lieu of watching Netflix TOS-

"...And so we passed our own primitive nuclear age my children..."

From my perspective, some of Kirk's speechifyin' was at times both ham handed and necessary, some of it at times, un-necessary or redundant. Some of our "big three"(Kirk/Spock McCoy) speeches were delivered with a deft touch- others- not so much. Additionally, I wish some of the final messaging could have been delivered by other members of the crew. In an ep I didn't like (Bread and Circuses)... but it gave her a moment... Uhura's observation-"...it's not the sun, it's the Son of God!"

And as for current relevance- Totally it's "Private Little War".
Fall 2015-
Russians are arming and backing Assad.
We... are/were? backing the rebels.

An even better Trek/parable link can be found in our assistance to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in Mid 80's and the End of the Soviet Union in '91. Each a real world pairing with the allegories of Private Little War and Star Trek VI.

 

[BigJake]

Kirk's speeches were motivational, not insulting.

Kirk instructing the Yangs on how to read their own sacred book in "The Omega Glory" certainly qualifies in spades, I'd say. (The "humans are special" trope isn't unique to Picard either, though his high-flown Shakespearean speeches about it were obviously more of a signature.) But Kirk's far more frequent sin was coming across as almost ridiculously flip after sh-- went down and he'd just completely transformed somebody's planet.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Kirk's speeches were motivational, not insulting.

Kirk instructing the Yangs on how to read their own sacred book in "The Omega Glory" certainly qualifies in spades, I'd say.

Kirk instructing the Yangs on how to read their own sacred book qualifies as which, motivational or insulting?!?

 

[BigJake]

The latter mostly, though I'm sure it's intended as the former.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's insulting to the Yangs only if they value their ignorance above the knowledge of what their worship words really mean.

 

[BigJake]

Or in other words if they value the culture they actually know and created themselves above the opinion of a random space alien.

 

[Mudd]

It's insulting to the Yangs only if they value their ignorance above the knowledge of what their worship words really mean.

Let's keep the NRA out of this.

 

[BillJ]

^ +1

I would say that Picard talking down to various species-of-the-week was, by extension, talking down to the audience.

Kirk's speeches were motivational, not insulting.

Kor

It's funny. Many times we see Kirk learn a valuable lesson and that humanity isn't all that (Kirk came across as being wrong quite a bit), then we have Picard who seems like a missionary out to spread how great humanity is and that everyone should be like us.

I know which character I preferred.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Or in other words if they value the culture they actually know and created themselves above the opinion of a random space alien.

They didn't create their culture. Their ancestors did, before they were all but overrun by Communists. Being busy dealing with all that, they became illiterate. Kirk is doing his part to keep the Red Menace in check all across the galaxy!

Seriously, although I love to hear Shatner/Kirk speak the Preamble, it's an awful episode. Kirk just isn't holier-than-thou is all I'm really saying. The Yang Constitution is the same as the one in his history, so he's really reaching out and sharing something with them.

 

[BigJake]

It's insulting to the Yangs only if they value their ignorance above the knowledge of what their worship words really mean.

Let's keep the NRA out of this.

Seriously, although I love to hear Shatner/Kirk speak the Preamble, it's an awful episode.

True dat.

Kirk just isn't holier-than-thou is all I'm really saying. The Yang Constitution is the same as the one in his history, so he's really reaching out and sharing something with them.

Well kinda? Except he starts out:

Spoiler: Stop! Spoiler-but-not-really time!

"I did not recognise those words, you said them so badly. Without meaning." Which if we're looking for non-sanctimonious sharing that's not quite the tack I would take. And goes on: "Hear me! Hear this! Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no words have said this thing of importance in quite this way." Which there again... not even just sanctimonious toward the Yangs or to non-humans.

Of course the whole premise of this exact Constitution spontaneously developing on different planets, while totally stupid in itself -- and that's what's supposed to have happened, this isn't some lost American colony -- would also negate the possibility of Kirk's Constitution being even relevant to the Yangs'. If one really wanted to dig into it.

Least that's how I interpret it.

Any-hoo to come round to the earlier mentions of TNG -- I think TNG "lacking human conflict" is sort of an oversold thing in retrospect, much like "Kirk the interstellar ladies' man" with TOS. Yes there was much talking-a-good-game about the utopian-ness of the Federation but in practice many of the show's best episodes revolved around human conflict, cf. for example "Drumhead" or "The Wounded" or "The Pegasus."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Any-hoo to come round to the earlier mentions of TNG -- I think TNG "lacking human conflict" is sort of an oversold thing in retrospect, much like "Kirk the interstellar ladies' man" with TOS. Yes there was much talking-a-good-game about the utopian-ness of the Federation but in practice many of the show's best episodes revolved around human conflict, cf. for example "Drumhead" or "The Wounded" or "The Pegasus."

Notice first of all that the episodes you cited there are all from after Roddenberry was put out to pasture.

But more importantly, none of them involve conflict among the flagship crew. That's really what the "no conflict" observation is referring to.

Part of the interplay of the TOS crew was the bickering between McCoy and Spock. You don't get bickering in the TNG crew; they're too perfect for that. There's just one notable exception, Pulaski's interaction with Data, the earlier in season two being at the more extreme end, I think. Greg Cox nicely analyzed the reason that misfired and came across as if Pulaski were kicking a puppy, because (paraphrasing), unlike Spock, Data lacked the emotional and social awareness necessary to give back as good as he got.

I guess you could also count the attitude Picard had against Wesley early on in season one as conflict, though, couldn't you? Once he got over his "prejudice" against the boy wonder, it was smooth sailing, though. That "conflict" existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating how wonderful it was to have a Wesley Sue aboard, and so it was really quite artificial.

 

[BigJake]

Any-hoo to come round to the earlier mentions of TNG -- I think TNG "lacking human conflict" is sort of an oversold thing in retrospect, much like "Kirk the interstellar ladies' man" with TOS. Yes there was much talking-a-good-game about the utopian-ness of the Federation but in practice many of the show's best episodes revolved around human conflict, cf. for example "Drumhead" or "The Wounded" or "The Pegasus."

Notice first of all that the episodes you cited there are all from after Roddenberry was put out to pasture.

I didn't say anything about Roddenberry.

But more importantly, none of them involve conflict among the flagship crew.

"The Pegasus" does, in fact. Rather famously. It's the one where Picard threatens to revoke Riker's status as XO.

The "no conflict among the crew" dictum also went rather by the wayside over the years -- not just Pulaski (and agreed there), but also Ensign Ro, Reg Barclay, Picard vs. Wesley at the Academy, Worf vs. Data during a stint by Data in command, and so on -- with variable results. There was never a stable "X is assigned to constantly bicker with Y" dynamic, obviously (and frankly that's to the good), and major conflict among the core cast stayed rare... but their being "perfect" insofar as it was ever a thing really wasn't a thing by third season.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I didn't say anything about Roddenberry.

The no-conflict dictum had come from Roddenberry. Maybe someone can cite what it was he said exactly, because I don't have a reference handy at the moment. It was something to the effect of "our crew gets along" in order to nix emotion-driven interpersonal drama as too petty.

But more importantly, none of them involve conflict among the flagship crew.

"The Pegasus" does, in fact. Rather famously. It's the one where Picard threatens to revoke Riker's status as XO.

Oh right, my bad. You're right. This was a nice exception. However, note that this involves Riker's loyalty being divided, by having been influenced by a past officer who does not serve on the flagship. That other captain is the bad guy who corrupted Riker. Loyalty is a virtue in Riker that the other captain had taken advantage of to serve his own personal ambition and evil ends.

The "no conflict among the crew" dictum also went rather by the wayside over the years -- not just Pulaski (and agreed there), but also Ensign Ro, Reg Barclay, Picard vs. Wesley at the Academy, Worf vs. Data during a stint by Data in command, and so on -- with variable results. There was never a stable "X is assigned to constantly bicker with Y" dynamic, obviously (and frankly that's to the good), and major conflict among the core cast stayed rare... but their being "perfect" insofar as it was ever a thing really wasn't a thing by third season.

The only one there between two regulars is Worf/Data, and neither is even human. That example can't contradict the idea that humanity is superior/has a superiority complex in the future, if it's a dynamic between an artificial person and a member of an aggressive warrior race.

Ro isn't human either, come to think of it. The issues she's struggling with, human though they may be, are shoved off onto an alien race who had been beaten down by another aggressor. She has to bring the flagship crew emotionally to see her side of the Bajoran situation, and ultimately she is unable to bring them all the way to her position. TNG-era Trek's effort to show a crew with divided loyalty on the Maquis issue (VOY) was basically a miserable failure, because overall that conflict was wrapped up pretty quickly.

"The First Duty" was an episode where it was a welcome thing to see Wesley getting in trouble, but again he was no longer a regular by then and he had fallen under a bad influence. Again that's rather like the Riker example with the bad influence trope. The bad influence isn't aboard the Enterprise.

Which is fine, you don't want bad influences aboard the ship. But there aren't even any character defects in the regular cast either (edit - I mean of the kind driving interpersonal conflict within the regular cast). Reg, the neurotic, isn't a regular, and in fact he's a good example for what I'm talking about. The conflict with him was that he didn't fit in. Pretty much everyone had a supercilious attitude with respect to him, and they wanted to get rid of him at first. But he wasn't a regular. He was a singular oddball.

Now, to really contradict what I'm saying, what they should have done was taken Reg's holo-addiction and given it to Geordi, post "Booby Trap." Don't have him fixate on Leah, but have him descend into a fantasy world making crew parodies. Then you would have had a regular with real emotional problems, with something for Troi to really do as space shrink.

We're kinda getting off the TOS track though, discussing TNG.

 

[BigJake]

The only one there between two regulars is Worf/Data, and neither is even human.

Pretty sure Picard and Wesley were regulars and both human.

I mean it is quite true that character conflict in TNG often originated with something or someone from outside the relatively charmed circle of the bridge crew, agreed. But once we've gotten to the point of breaking things down in this way, the original point about the crew being supposedly "perfect" and conflict-free is well in the rearview. Likewise about dickering over whether "human conflict" can apply to bridge crew members who are technically nonhuman, which if we're accepting Spock and McCoy as part of any "human conflict" dynamic then the same surely has to apply to, say, Riker and Ro. It's really just about technicalities at that point, which I don't think is that interesting.

But completely agreed that VOY punted badly on an opportunity to make crew conflict a more central part of its dynamic. One of DS9's better features was that it was much less avoidant about this.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Wesley wasn't a regular by the time of "The First Duty."

 

[BigJake]

No, but again, rather splitting hairs, right? He'd been a regular character for the first four seasons, more than half the show's eventual run. He has claim to being part of the core cast whether he was still in the bridge crew on that particular Episode or not.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

No, I don't think it's pedantic. It's a part of deconstructing the structure. Rigid structure with respect to how the characters are portrayed is one of the flaws of TNG. It's one of the reasons TNG has been called Star Trek Into Blandness. For another example, the obvious chemistry between Picard and Beverly wasn't allowed to flourish, because structure had to be maintained.

Getting back to the topic of TOS, a similar parallel, the desire of the showrunners not to have a recurring love interest for Kirk, is one theory behind why Rand was ditched. That's one of three primary theories I've heard about why Rand left the show, one other being personal problems of the actress for any reason from drug use to dietary problems or some combination thereof, and the third being interpersonal conflict between Whitney and someone on the production side for reasons that would make tabloid publishers happy. I have no idea what the truth is there. Maybe someone could comment?

TNG had structure similar to TOS, but TNG was produced 20 years later. It was the one that is more guilty of standing still while television drama was evolving around it.

One other thing, with respect to Wesley, getting him out of the main cast freed the character up for bolder developments when he came back for guest appearances. One was interesting, in "The First Duty." The other, "Journey's End," not so much and very retrograde: when confronted with conflict, press the godhood button. That was almost a love-letter to Roddenberry.

 

[Harvey]

I think Whitney's release was largely due to the fact that she was contracted for a larger role than the character ended up having, which meant the production was often paying her (and paying her well) to do nothing.

That said, they released Nichelle Nichols from an exclusive contract during season two for the same reasons, and still brought her back as a day player.

It's possible the man who sexually assaulted Whitney at a wrap party kept her from coming back to the series in any capacity (Whitney doesn't directly identify her assailant in her memoir). On the other hand, the show quickly disbanded the Yeoman role altogether, so it's possible there wasn't any room to bring her back. No way to know for sure.