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rfmcdonaldI've recently started rewatching the remastered episodes of the original Star Trek series with some friends. We've only gotten part of the way into the first season so far, but there have been some rather good ones: "Charlie X" is an entertaining study of what happens when angsty adolescents have godlike powers; "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the first episode of many to touch upon the dangers of transcending the level of the human; "What Little Girls Are Made Of" combines android infiltrators and dead civilizations and sex and one of the worst breakup scenes ever.
And then, there's "The Enemy Within", the famous episode that sees Kirk split into good and bad halves by a transporter accident that leaves crewmembers stranded on a hostile planet's surface, apparently because the shuttles aren't working. Or something. The episode had any number of howlers, but easily the worst element of the show was the way in which sexual abuse was treated lightly. This episode's victim was Yeoman Janice Rand, a shy blonde miniskirted woman in her early 20s who was ambushed by Evil Kirk in her quarters. Afterward, when she goes to sickbay and tells her story, no one apparently sees anything wrong with letting Kirk sit in on his accuser's statement because he interjects and says that it wasn't her. Rand apologizes, telling him that she would have kept quiet if he hadn't also beaten a passing crewman who heard her screams for help. Later, she accepts with a quiet nod a smooth-talking Evil Kirk's statement that he'll come by her quarters later to explain exactly what happened earlier that day. The episode ends with Spock--Spock!--saying to Yeoman Rand, with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, that "The... impostor had some... interesting qualities, wouldn't you say... Yeoman?" One of our number wondered if Rand wasn't surprised so much by Kirk's breaking into her quarters, leering and stinking of alcohol, but by his decision to do it on a Thursday.
Let's stipulate that the original Star Trek was one of the most forward-looking shows of the 1960s. Even with this stipulation, it's still shocking that some of the most forward-thinking people saw nothing wrong with putting a television episode with horrific elements like this into the ether. I guess that by the mid-1960s, the sexual revolution had made just enough advances to be really nasty for sexual objects, like women, who were now entirely free to be victimized by anyone. (Maybe that's the in-univrse reason why Rand left in the middle of the first season.)
So. What horrors have you noticed pop up in your favorite pop-cultural ephemera on recent reviewing?
And then, there's "The Enemy Within", the famous episode that sees Kirk split into good and bad halves by a transporter accident that leaves crewmembers stranded on a hostile planet's surface, apparently because the shuttles aren't working. Or something. The episode had any number of howlers, but easily the worst element of the show was the way in which sexual abuse was treated lightly. This episode's victim was Yeoman Janice Rand, a shy blonde miniskirted woman in her early 20s who was ambushed by Evil Kirk in her quarters. Afterward, when she goes to sickbay and tells her story, no one apparently sees anything wrong with letting Kirk sit in on his accuser's statement because he interjects and says that it wasn't her. Rand apologizes, telling him that she would have kept quiet if he hadn't also beaten a passing crewman who heard her screams for help. Later, she accepts with a quiet nod a smooth-talking Evil Kirk's statement that he'll come by her quarters later to explain exactly what happened earlier that day. The episode ends with Spock--Spock!--saying to Yeoman Rand, with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, that "The... impostor had some... interesting qualities, wouldn't you say... Yeoman?" One of our number wondered if Rand wasn't surprised so much by Kirk's breaking into her quarters, leering and stinking of alcohol, but by his decision to do it on a Thursday.
Let's stipulate that the original Star Trek was one of the most forward-looking shows of the 1960s. Even with this stipulation, it's still shocking that some of the most forward-thinking people saw nothing wrong with putting a television episode with horrific elements like this into the ether. I guess that by the mid-1960s, the sexual revolution had made just enough advances to be really nasty for sexual objects, like women, who were now entirely free to be victimized by anyone. (Maybe that's the in-univrse reason why Rand left in the middle of the first season.)
So. What horrors have you noticed pop up in your favorite pop-cultural ephemera on recent reviewing?
