Fascinating stuff - thanks. It's possible they had 16mm prints, isn't it? Weren't 16mm prints sent to some affiliates in the US? I seem to remember reading that somewhere. Maybe the UK received them, too.
Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story
- Thread starter Harvey
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Fascinating stuff - thanks. It's possible they had 16mm prints, isn't it? Weren't 16mm prints sent to some affiliates in the US? I seem to remember reading that somewhere. Maybe the UK received them, too.
The UK 'ban' seems to happened due to a wider report on depictions of horror, sex and violence (which was satirised in the 1972 Doomwatch episode Sex and Violence... which was itself banned!). As a result, the BBC took a more careful look at its imports, and withdrew a number of Trek episodes from future screenings, including three 3rd season episodes that hadn't yet been shown.
A few years down the line most of them were quietly slipped back into the repeats, but Miri and the 3rd season trio remained banned, more out of habit than conscious choice, until the Who fanzine DWB interviewed the BBC controller and asked if his planned Trek repeat would include the banned episodes.
"What banned episodes? Explain, and I'll check about them."
A few years down the line most of them were quietly slipped back into the repeats, but Miri and the 3rd season trio remained banned, more out of habit than conscious choice, until the Who fanzine DWB interviewed the BBC controller and asked if his planned Trek repeat would include the banned episodes.
"What banned episodes? Explain, and I'll check about them."
Not an episode that I had much time for I'm afraid! I first saw it on rental video back in 1983 due to it being banned by the BBC and I wasn't very impressed to say the least!
JB
JB
Plato's Stepchildren is almost unrelentingly sadistic. I recall an interview with Denise Okuda where she said she wouldn't watch it.
I will never understand how Star Trek trumpets this as a crowning moment. (The KISS.) It would be as if Kirk and Spock were forced to kiss and this was held up as groundbreaking.
I will never understand how Star Trek trumpets this as a crowning moment. (The KISS.) It would be as if Kirk and Spock were forced to kiss and this was held up as groundbreaking.
Progress is made in incremental steps. The only way they could get an interracial kiss past the censors at all was by making it forced. But getting it on the screen in the first place was progress, even though there was still a long way to go beyond it. If they could get a forced interracial kiss on TV without the audience burning the network to the ground, then maybe they could get a consensual one on TV, and then maybe they could have a whole interracial relationship, and so on and so on, step by step, each one building on the last, until society has come so far that that courageous first step looks timid.
I just saw this again. With every viewing now, it becomes more scary and jarring to me. I'm placing myself in the head of every character, each of whom knows that what they're being put through is only the beginning. It's really all about the stuff we end up never having to see happen.
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I love the music swelling in a way that's simultaneously harsh and triumphant, as Michael Dunn has his epiphany about how it's not him who's the freak, but them.
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When Dunn's riding Kirk like a horse, I'm afraid I'm having a totally different response than most here. Parman says to McCoy, "How can you let this go on?" Then it goes on. Kirk keeps "braying". At this point, I actually start tearing up a but.
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Then some stupid commercial shakes me out of that... Also note Barbara Babcock's reaction shots to every single sick thing going on. The character's trying not to let it show too clearly, but it's as if she's watching a porn film, and this is the ultimate thing for her. Of course, she knows this stuff is just the beginning, too.
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I don't have access to all the programme as broadcast documents for Star Trek but it does look as if the episodes shown in 1969 were initially transmitted from 16mm film. The Corbomite Manoeuvre, Dagger of the Mind, and The Return of The Archons are listed that way. But the film length for The Return of The Archons (4510 feet) is that of a 35mm print -for comparison the print length for 16mm Dagger of the Mind is 1803 feet.
There's no way to know if the person filling in the form got the format wrong, or the film length. Maybe the BBC had a mixture of 16mm and 35mm prints? Although I can't imagine why they'd take delivery of a series in mixed formats.
The only thing that changes during the 1969 run is that BBC1 starts colour broadcasts in November 1969. Maybe -and this is complete speculation- the BBC initially brought a cheap set of 16mm black and white prints. Then upgraded to better quality 35mm prints when they realized the change to colour would occur part way through Star Trek's initial run. Maybe whoever filled in the programme as broadcast sheet for The Return of The Archons (which was only the second episode shown in colour) just ticked the 16mm box out of habit?
It's funny to see that three of the programmes listed are from Desilu- Star Trek, Mannix, and The Untouchables.
I didn't know about DWB's part in getting the episodes broadcast but I think you're right about them being banned out of habit. It was as if the BBC had an institutional memory which remembered them as unsuitable, without taking into account the passing of decades.
Until 88ish, the BBC repeats ran in the same order as the original run, or the repeat once they'd been reinstated... including the omissions. Will try to dig out and scan the Graeme McDonald interview.
Notable that of the four British shows in that cutting, two (Baron and Avengers) are fantasy spy series aimed at an American sale; after that, there's Callan (a deliberately nasty and brutal series about how soul-destroying life as a spy/assassin would be), and Doctor Who (season eight would be on-air in the relevant timeframe).
Notable that of the four British shows in that cutting, two (Baron and Avengers) are fantasy spy series aimed at an American sale; after that, there's Callan (a deliberately nasty and brutal series about how soul-destroying life as a spy/assassin would be), and Doctor Who (season eight would be on-air in the relevant timeframe).
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Here's a brief piece that I whipped up today about a comment David Gerrold makes about "The Trouble with Tribbles" on his Roddenberry Vault commentary:
https://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2017/01/was-star-trek-first-show-to-say.html
Still working on Part II of "The Alternative Factor." No promises, but it should be ready by the end of next month, if not sooner...
https://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2017/01/was-star-trek-first-show-to-say.html
Still working on Part II of "The Alternative Factor." No promises, but it should be ready by the end of next month, if not sooner...
I was a kid then.... avoiding the word "pregnant" seemed as old fashioned as those striped men's bathing costumes that covered you up all over.
I love Star Trek more than the average human. I am an apologist for some many things when it comes to the series and its most staunch defender in my community, but man, the amount of "firsts" people want to credit Trek with is getting ridiculous. Trek was influential enough without having to elevate it artificially.
Honestly, I can't imagine David Gerrold was trying to artificially elevate it. I'm pretty sure he was just wrong; he thought it was true for some reason, and it wasn't, no motive or anything.
Whether it was conscious or not, these claims get tossed out there without fact checking and they soon become legend. Just look at how quickly Cushman's error filled claims have become facts, so much that they're being quoted by "Treksperts" in "The City on the Edge of Forever" commentary.
I can't speak for @Ssosmcin, but from my perspective, Gerrold's motives are largely irrelevant. What is relevant is that it has been more than fifty years since Star Trek made its television premiere, and people are still discovering new "firsts" about the series — regardless of the facts.
Star Trek didn't have to do anything first to be historically and culturally relevant — and yet, incredibly often, people cannot talk about the program's various achievements without artificially elevating it like Gerrold has in this case.
Agreed completely.
As a child I found quite a few episodes to be very scary but with such great actors on the show I knew that the good guys would win and save the galaxy each and every time!
JB
JB
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