I giggle at a lot of people who keep saying Star Trek has always been "woke." The Federation is expansionist and colonizing as hell. That's one of the major sources of its conflict with other powers who contest Federation expansion into their territories. So, you get Kirk, Picard, Archer, etc. patiently teaching these native chappies how the Federation is so much better. I'm surprised anyone Polynesian, African, or Arabic can stomach this franchise.
And you're critiquing MY reading comprehension? Isn't it amazing how a progressive show isn't as progressive as a society 60 years beyond it? I never would have imagined that attitudes towards some ideas might have shifted somewhat in over half a century. Just amazing.
I like to think that Picard's accent is a reflection that in WW3, the UK defeated France. Somewhere in the Federation chambers there's an angry Frenchman, hopping up and down like Yosemite Sam, over how Paris is now beset with Scouse accents, and moaning about British imperialism, before two scowling colleagues, Spanish and Argentinian, gruffly inform him there's a queue.
Two things can be true at once. TOS is what would be described as woke today, but some of the writers, over the years, have been in that subset of progressives incapable of figuring out their dream world has more in common with Pith helmetted Europeans of yesteryear, than it does some of their fellow travellers who can join dots.
Also, it seems beyond dispute that TOS was woke for its day, TNG was woke for its day, but since we have progressed as a society as much as we have that some of the aspects of those series is quaint and almost regressive. A story where someone had to force a gender-swap to get an opportunity to be a captain because women were strictly not allowed to be captains, or where a captain said, sorry, I'm only just getting used to a woman on the bridge would be crazy given where we are as a society now. But that was pretty radical thinking in the 1960s, where women serving in combat was basically not conceivable. TNG so wanted to support the notion of disability rights that they glossed over that the technology demonstrably existed at least a dozen times over to give Geordi normal eyesight or better than normal eyesight. Even though "Code of Honor" is recognized for being terrible, derivative and racist. But from the 80s mindset, at the time, the people who put that together probably thought that they were giving the quasi-Africans good treatment and that characters not just taking the vaccine showed how enlightened they were.
People tend to forget that NBC told Roddenberry he could have either the pointy-eared alien OR the female CO, but definitely not both. Which is why he kind of merged the characters of Spock and Una.
Picard is shown to be extremely skilled with languages. He learns Klingon in a pretty short time. And when Starfleet needed somebody to contact the Jarada, who view the slightest mispronunciation of their language to be an unforgivable insult, Picard was who they trusted with the mission. So it's not hard to imagine that he grew up bilingual and learned English with the pronunciation of the native speakers nearest to his home country.
I realize that everybody involved, not just Roddenberry, has a potential motive to remember the past in whatever way makes them look the best. But Herb Solow always maintained that Roddenberry's telling of the story wasn't true — that NBC actually liked the character of Number One just fine, but they thought Majel Barrett wasn't a good enough actress and were also wary of having the producer's mistress in a major role.
Yes it is. Ive still got my copy. Thank goodness too because there is so much misinformation about that show on the internet. Much of it thanks to Rodrnberry himself. NBC had no trouble with a female lead. They simply didnt want Majel because... 1.) Didn't think she was a good enough actress to be the lead 2.) Knew she was Rodenberrys mistress. What's ironic to me is they had no problem with Jeffrey Hunter, whom I always thought was the weakest link. The guy had no energy nor charisma and he is suppose to be the lead. IMO, that first pilot failing was a blessing in disguise.
Well, he was a movie star. Even if he was a B-lister, the generally accepted hierarchy of the time probably made them feel he wasn't a risk and would give the show prestige.
Compound that with his wife, who was rather meddlesome from what I've heard. But yeah... NBC's main objection was to Majel Barrett in the role because they knew what her relationship was with Gene... so much that when she appears as Chapel, their reaction was "well, look who's back." I'm guessing they didn't know about Nichelle Nichols...
Ah, but that's more boring than France and England turning up the heat on their eternal annoyance with one another! Although the French government did once broach joining the UK, although I suspect Mollet may not have survived long after publicly informing his people of his brainwave. Plus, Picard speaks in RP, which isn't a regional accent - it's a confected one for clearer speaking and to remove regionality.
With disabilities there's the fly in the ointment about certain groups concerned about gene editing technology effectively genociding them, which I personally think is absolute batshit.
And Gene was pretty insistent about getting her into episodes, to the point where he told John Meredyth Lucas that if a script called for a nurse, it had to be Chapel.
Well, honestly, in the end want it the right call? People loved Chapel. Number 1 made a huge impression. Lwaxana...was often terribly written but performed well, at least. And she will always be THE computer voice for many fans. I have no issues with Majel's skills.
Not even the fall she took in Spock's Brain and the way she dropped the tray and did the extended dramatic fall?
Starter Trek podcast Tawny Newsome (AKA Mariner from Lower Decks), and her cohost, Andrew T, discuss various episodes of Trek. Andrew has seen very few episodes of Trek, so he's assigned to watch an episode of one of the myriad Trek shows/movies for each episode. Their discussion about Author, Author episode of Voyager makes me think that it might be worth watching.
It's a great piece of comedy mixed with social polemic, and the unintentional hurt writers can cause with using their own lives (and those of others) as a basis for their material - but ending up as a review of exploitation by publishers where the author doesn't necessarily have a legal status to claim their own work... which opens up a whole NEW can of worms about rights. Your AI thread would LOVE this ep.
That episode bugged me because it would seem to me that TNG's Measure of A Man (or any reasonable aftermath of it off-screen) would have resolved the issue of personhood and the attendant rights for AIs. It's easier in 2026, where there is a more realistic possibility of AI-created plots than there was when Author, Author came out, to think that in particular the issue of rights for AI-generated content would have had to had some concrete ruling rather than be a case of first impression. Like when Geordi tells the Enterprise computer to create a mystery in the style of Sherlock Holmes for holodeck, does he own that? The Enterprise/Starfleet? No one?
