The Way To Eden = propaganda?

[Wingsley]

Having said that about constrasting "The Way to Eden" against "Assignment: Earth", it is worth mentioning that Dr. Severn and his merry little band of followers are apparently capable of taking over the Starship Enterprise and using its technology to subdue (and nearly kill) the crew. So let's not completely write them off as an unflattering hippie caricature.

Growing up with TOS reruns, long before TMP or TNG, Severn's plot to storm Auxiliary Control and commandeer the Enterprise in pursuit of their Eden mission left an impression on me. It's easy to dismiss the Aurora pirates as misguided, but they weren't just spoiled, incompetent clowns. They managed to steal both the Aurora and the Enterprise and find the planet they were looking for.

Severn may have been a madman, but he was a brilliant, charismatic madman. His followers did go with him, but they also objected to his tactics. So they weren't transparently dumb and evil. Just lousy writing, lackluster acting, poor directing and apparently not enough nerve to tackle this issue that the episode brought up.

And ultra-cheesy musical scenes.

What I would give to see Adams and Tongo replaced by Crosby, Stills and Nash...

 

[Maurice]

But, they were also going to replace Ginger with 2 new female castaways and have Ginger conveniently forget about the other 6 castaways she was stranded with for so long. They also had some really absurd script ideas. To paraphrase the title of another recent topic, maybe cancellation was a blessing in disguise.

I've heard that rumor, based on some supposed 4th season scripts, but I've not found what I consider a reputable source for that.

Anyway, I wasn't saying that those choices would have necessarily been a good thing, but it was another way to stretch the format.

 

[horatio83]

I am a progressive guy and I cannot stand hippies. This "when you are young you are a hippie, when you are old you are part of the establishment" dialectic (many of the '68 generation ended like this) is not helpful for the progressive case. Of course there are some old hippies but they are usually some form of caricature (here is a nice fictional example from a great sci-fi flick).

So yeah, screw the stupid space hippies.