Mulhall had a niche thst could have been used quite often. I agree that she had a presence that wasn't eclipsed by Shatner as well. Not quite the stellar chemistry with Helen Noel but definitely a unique dynamic among the female crew.
The One Thing You Could Change, TOS Edition...
- Thread starter Farscape One
- Start date
I've said before, meaning no disrespect to DeForest Kelley, that the big three should have been Kirk, Spock, and Helen Noel. She should have been the ship's doctor, not a guest psychiatrist. It would have been a richer and more interesting triangle, and it would have made TOS as woman-inclusive as The Big Valley and Get Smart.
Roughage. Easy fix.
The only chemistry I see re Noel is happening in fanbois attracted to her. I saw no great sparks between the actors to indicate she would have made a compelling lead.
I thought Noel was fine, not amazing. Mulhall was infinitely more interesting and with better chemistry.
Helen Noel should have been a recurring character in the series, the first season at least! Her Christ,as party history with Kirk could have been a continuing theme among the episodes of the first year!
JB
JB
Agreed
Well Get Smart was a comedy and its hard to compare.
You could say replace Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Doohan with ladies and be as woman-inclusive as Petticoat Junction.
Big Valley is a different matter though. But none of the female leads was a love interest for any of the male leads. If Noel or Rand or Chapel or Number One or whoever they picked as a co-lead were not crushing on the male leads then perhaps it would have been acceptable. I just absolutely hated in TNG that Crusher was crushing on Picard. Like the only reason to have a woman in a speaking role was to admire the men.
But the main issue is that Kelley was great and TOS would not have been as successful without McCoys southern wisdom.
Kelley was fantastic. I think I would favour beefing up the female lead rather than diminishing his role.
Rand not having a crush on Kirk would have made her so much more versatile, albeit episodic TV could have limited that. Imagine the scars to their working relationship after the Enemy Within if she views him from a purely professional view. More interesting, imagine the strain following Dagger of the Mind (which would gel better if it came before Enemy).
She was doomed to be an object of lust. Even years later, Roddenberry said he wished they'd kept her around, but only so she could deal with the fallout from Kirk's alien trysts, so he certainly had a very blinkered view of her development. She was still down to be a yeoman in Phase II.
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A relevant comparison, then, might be Gunsmoke, which was a tetrad instead of a triad. Kitty as a business owner and important part of the local economy was an independent woman and equal, more or less, to Matt and Doc. Matt and Kitty are close in age, have similar "on the frontier" experiences and their friendship is based on mutual respect and not, except for rare hints, romantic. The problem may be the shipboard setting. If the first officer and ship's doctor slots are filled, it's hard to think of a position which could be on a near-equal footing with the captain. Another doctor, a psychologist like Dr Dehner? A female chief engineer?
The casting would be important, too; I don't know if Marianna Hill or GLW would be right for a non-romantic co-star with Shatner. But Diana Muldaur, I can see that.
None of the actresses playing the yeomen had the stones to play a role like Kitty; they were too far down the chain of command and were written as very servile and largely useless. Basically they were eye candy. Kellerman, Muldaur, or Lee Merriweather could have been contemporaries of Kirk, or they could have used any number of older actresses for a contemporary of McCoy.
That said, I like Rand because she had a different kind of potential. Grace had great comic timing and I can imagine her developing decent banter with Sulu and Chekov. She had a kind of make do and mend gumption that could have been explored in a crisis. Had she spent more time alongside Kirk in a professional capacity, I think that they would have developed a decent dynamic.
Yep. Heck, you can see that same captain/ship's-doctor thing in FORBIDDEN PLANET as well.
Blasphemer!
And HELEN wouldn't have turned her back on her ship and crew to go with Khan.Helen Noel () should have been brought in to study Khan instead of some kooky historian.
No but she might have fallen for his bull.
Ha! Awesome. Though maybe that's not how warp speed works.
Not warp: you need to keep that bubble.
As short as the other mini-skirts are, Noel's is shorter.
Plus there's the camera framing where she's about to kick the technician into the elecrical panel and she pulls her knees up to her chest. Wonder how Roddenberry got that shot past the censors in the 1960s.
It's really not about that for me. Not even close. It's the vibrancy in her face, her expressions. Her character was completely in the moment, willing to enjoy things. She was confident and worldly enough to be amused and have some fun, where Kirk would have intimidated most crew women into toe-the-line seriousness. She got saucy and mischievous with Kirk, and had the charisma to get away with it. That was sexy.
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