"Plato's Stepchildren" and Southern TV Stations

[Christopher]

When ABC aired the "coming out" episode of Ellen Degeneres' sitcom back in the (I think) 1990s, the affiliate in Birmingham refused to carry it. The Huntsville, AL, affiliate carried it with a disclaimer, but they also refused to air ABC's "NYPD Blue" series for years, replacing it for a while with, of all things, "Star Trek: Voyager."

There was an episode of the mostly dreadful second season of the syndicated War of the Worlds: The Series that my local station in Cincinnati refused to carry, so I had to watch it through the staticky signal of a TV station in Dayton, Ohio, 50 miles away. It involved the aliens hiding subliminal messages in a very racy perfume commercial with a totally nude couple in bed together, their bits hidden only by camera angles and posed limbs. It was the show's third subliminal-message plot in two seasons, but the in-show commercial really pushed the envelope even by the standards of the NYPD Blue era.

Though of course, that's a very different thing from refusing to air an episode due to same-sex or interracial content. I think that by the time DS9 did "Rejoined," my local stations didn't carry it, so I had to watch it on a Dayton station too. So I don't know whether that particular episode would've been a problem locally.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

The point I was trying to make is that I would not be surprised at all if a Southern TV station did refuse to air "Plato's Stepchildren."

 

[Christopher]

The point I was trying to make is that I would not be surprised at all if a Southern TV station did refuse to air "Plato's Stepchildren."

Umm, and I wasn't refuting that. I wasn't being argumentative, just offering my own example of a similar experience I had.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

Umm, and I wasn't refuting that. I wasn't being argumentative, just offering my own example of a similar experience I had.

I wasn't accusing you of anything. I was just trying to make myself more clear. I'm sorry.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

In my "Complete 'Mission: Impossible' Dossier' book, co-star Greg Morris recounts several times during the first season CBS would send memos objecting to Greg standing too close to co-star Barbara Bain saying that it would offend viewers. Producers Bruce Geller and Joseph Gantman responded by having the writers include more scenes with Greg and Barbara together.

 

[Maurice]

Unfortunately, that article references an article at The Agony Booth, which appears to be no longer hosted.

I'll ask @Harvey to replace it with the WayBack Machine archived copy mb22 shared (link).

 

[Maurice]

 

[Harvey]

Unfortunately, that article references an article at The Agony Booth, which appears to be no longer hosted.

It's been ages since I've updated anything on the old Fact Check blog—all my energy has been focused on FACT TREK. I just went in there and updated the link, it should point to a viewable page on the Internet Archive now.

I would say, regarding affiliate preemption of either the kiss in "Plato's Stepchildren" or the entire episode, we haven't found any contemporaneous accounts that support this actually happening. The stories about this only popped up years later. Which is not to say that it didn't happen.

What I'd love to know is which NBC affiliates actually carried the series in the third year. We have the raw numbers—NBC had 210 affiliates and during the 1968-69 season 181 of those carried Star Trek—but no sense of where the show wasn't carried specifically.

It would take a lot more research to get to the bottom of either question. Not going to get there as long as FACT TREK is a part-time endeavor, but who knows what the future will hold there on my end.

 

[MAGolding]

I suppose its easy to be stereotypical of the South. I'm sure most people in the South are NOT racist or homophobic or misogynistic...

What does the way that most people in the South "are" have to do with what most people in the south were in 1968, 54 years ago.

People change. And people die and get born. Only a minority of the people in the South today were racists (or not) in 1968, since most people in the south today were born later than 1968.

 

[Gary Bitchell]

That's a good question.

I love how the Big Baloney myth about that kiss has been blown to bits by Fact Trek and others.
• "Plato's Stepchildren" wasn't the first interracial kiss on television.
• It wasn't the first one on American television, which happened later.
• It wasn't the first one on Star Trek.
• It wasn't even the first one on Star Trek that year.
• And it wasn't even a real kiss.

"Fact" Trek uses the term "fact" loosely.
Nobody has ever claimed it to be "the first interracial" kiss. It is certainly the first Black/white kiss on Star Trek, and stations DID threaten boycotts.

"Fact" Trek has an agenda, and regularly fights with people who know the truth. Get a better guru.

 

[Christopher]

Nobody has ever claimed it to be "the first interracial" kiss.

Sure they have: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=star+trek+first+interracial

 

[Maurice]

"Fact" Trek uses the term "fact" loosely.
Nobody has ever claimed it to be "the first interracial" kiss. It is certainly the first Black/white kiss on Star Trek, and stations DID threaten boycotts.

"Fact" Trek has an agenda, and regularly fights with people who know the truth. Get a better guru.

<snort>

 

[ZapBrannigan]

It is certainly the first Black/white kiss on Star Trek, and stations DID threaten boycotts.

I hate to be "that guy," but I just read the Wiki page @Christopher linked to, and I'm reminded of the kiss between Uhura and Chapel in "What are Little Girls Made Of." I'd forgotten that one. So technically, the coerced kiss in "Plato's" needs its gender qualifier as well as the exact races involved. But it was a big moment in a bad episode.

Also, thank you for capitalizing black but not white. That's very woke. Gotta keep us in our place.

 

[Maurice]

I'm reminded of the kiss between Uhura and Chapel in "What are Little Girls Made Of."

Women kissing women on the cheek is such a common thing I'd be surprised if there weren't a bunch of instances of such a thing on US network TV before Star Trek ever hit the airwaves.

Heck these two white men had kissed a black woman on the cheek on NBC a year before Star Trek premiered.

 

[Ragitsu]

What is a philosopher's favorite cereal?

Plate-O's.

 

[Maurice]

I've spent a lot of time scouring online newspaper archives for even a whiff of controversy surrounding "Plato's" and run targeted searches for mentions of Star Trek in general, the episode title, and even the term "pre-empt". They all turned up pretty much nothing but TV listings and loglines, and pre-empts of The Virginian and a controversy over a football game pre-empt. I even did searches specifically only in newspapers in "the south" from the period of a week plus before "Plato's" aired until New Years. Nada. The only letter I found about Trek was by a fan who was getting bored with the sameness of the show.

 

[Forbin]

As I've posted before - Robert Wagner and Denise Nicholas having an affectionate smack on It Takes a Thief, aired just one month after Plato's Stepchildren. Given the time lapse between filming and airing a show (according to Maurice, Plato's was shot 9 weeks before airing), could this scene have been shot before the Trek ep was shot?

 

[Ssosmcin]

What is a philosopher's favorite cereal?

Plate-O's.

Omg that was so bad I laughed out loud.

 

[1001001]

What is a philosopher's favorite cereal?

Hizzle my Dizzle

 

[Christopher]

What is a philosopher's favorite cereal?

Other answers:

Reason Bran
Cartesian Toast Crunch
Kant Chocula