• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

what if kirk was single parent?

lordsofelsewhen

Lieutenant
Red Shirt
What if Kirk in the original series was single dad and each episode ended with kirk writtng a letter to his son(not david).about that episodes adventure..also. He would be a single parent (a widow) would this add to the series?
 
So combining Sisko from DS9 with Doogie Howser?

Pass.

If they were going to make Kirk a dad his son should be an active character, which means putting him on the ship, which not only would be difficult to justify but would just make the similarities to Sisko more pronounced.
 
What if Kirk in the original series was single dad and each episode ended with kirk writtng a letter to his son(not david).about that episodes adventure..also. He would be a single parent (a widow) would this add to the series?
I think that would have been quite the progressive concept for a 60s TV series, to say the least.

Maybe a bit formulaic to end every episode like that, but it could have worked for a more kid-oriented kind of show.
 
Dear Beloved Son,

Today several red shirts met horrifying deaths, we all stood on the bridge and had a good laugh about it.

Remember to brush your teeth.

Love Dad.
 
It would sure change his space gigolo persona and swashbuckler appeal.

It certainly wouldn't be a change I would want. Besides, Kirk is married to the Enterprise - be hard to share any long-term affection with anyone else.
 
Surely it would have been even better if Kirk had a brother who was a blind hermaphrodite jazz musician and at the end of each episode, Kirk sang one of his songs.

I think that would have made it a more gooder show.
 
Have him live aboard and throw temper tantrums like Worf's son. Fun. Wait... that opens the door to more families and kids moving in.. yuck.
 
Seriously thought, would it really change the basic format of Star Trek if Kirk had a son (according to OP off the ship), and Kirk in some fashion referred to his son occasionally? In the background supposedly McCoy had a daughter somewhere.

Lose the widower angle and have Kirk be divorced (controversial in 1965?), the son lives with the ex-wife, and Kirk communicates with the boy. This would seem on the surface to be something that would have minimum impact of the stories we're all familiar with.

At the same time it would add a bit more to Kirk's overall back story.

MITCHELL: If I hadn't aimed that little blonde lab technician at you
KIRK: You what? You planned that?
MITCHELL: Well, you wanted me to think, didn't you? I outlined her whole campaign for her.

KIRK: I married her.
 
I think that would have been quite the progressive concept for a 60s TV series, to say the least.
If you mean the angle of the lead character being a single father, see:



(The date's wrong...1958-1963.)

Other examples that come to mind are Bonanza and My Three Sons, then shows where it's a single man caring for child relatives like Bachelor Father and Family Affair. And those are just some from memory that I watched during the 60s. Oh, and The Andy Griffith Show.
 
Seriously thought, would it really change the basic format of Star Trek if Kirk had a son (according to OP off the ship), and Kirk in some fashion referred to his son occasionally? In the background supposedly McCoy had a daughter somewhere.

Lose the widower angle and have Kirk be divorced (controversial in 1965?), the son lives with the ex-wife, and Kirk communicates with the boy. This would seem on the surface to be something that would have minimum impact of the stories we're all familiar with.

At the same time it would add a bit more to Kirk's overall back story.

MITCHELL: If I hadn't aimed that little blonde lab technician at you
KIRK: You what? You planned that?
MITCHELL: Well, you wanted me to think, didn't you? I outlined her whole campaign for her.

KIRK: I married her.
I like that notion much better than him being a single parent who's always traveling, which sound tragic.
 
In the mid-'60s, divorced lead characters were pretty uncommon in prime time programming, and there was still a bit of a social stigma associated with it. Even the Mary Tyler Moore show had to be tweaked before it aired in 1970. She was originally supposed to be divorced, but the network or sponsors feared viewers would think she was divorced from Dick Van Dyke, even though his show had ended about 5 years earlier and was running in syndication. So Mary Richards became a 30-ish woman with an unsuccessful dating life.

Peyton Place may have been one of the few shows to even mention divorce back in the 60s, though it was a serialized soap opera I never watched.
 
Perry Mason (fall 1957–spring 1966) mentioned and had divorced clients all over the place. As to regular characters, Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) was a divorced mother raising a son on Desilu's own The Lucy Show starting in 1962. Very possibly the first lead female character on US network TV to be one.
 
Divorced men seemed to be played for laughs in comedies, or as cads in dramas.

Networks were still considering rural areas a target demographic then too.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top