For Those around in the 60s, what was most Radical about Star Trek?

[EndersDame]

Star Trek has always had a reputation for being very progressive and forward thinking . I think for us who grew with TNG and DS9 probably take that for granted .
What was the most shocking a Black Woman communications officer? A Russian Ensign on the bridge during the height of the cold war? Or perhaps a "J*p" at the helm only 20 years after the internment camps ?

[LynneSin]

1. The idea of Humans and Aliens getting it on during the show

damnit, who wants to see that. Next thing you know people will want to marry someone of their own sex or something like that

:hide:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. watching the juxtaposition of progressive and forward thinking

midst the backdrops of hokey sets trying to emulate the high tech of space travel.

[Deep13]

3. It was in color.

It also had TVs first interracial kiss

[Deja Q]

8. Rumor has it that, because RCA was a part-owner of NBC, that they renewed Trek

Trek, obviously, was in color... :D

Some proof as I only recall a magazine article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_TOS


I wasn't around in the 1960s, but saw and grew attached to it quickly in the mid~late-1970s...

[HamdenRice]

4. Star Trek was blacked out in some southern cities because of Uhura

The idea of an integrated work setting period, let alone that she was an officer of some kind. The almost sex scene between Uhura and Kirk obviously was unthinkable.

I think it's hard for people to imagine or remember what a lot of the country was still like in the mid 60s.

Probably next would be the idea that some day Russians would our friends.

[Deja Q]

9. Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr already kissed -- in1967.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_TOS
(pity there was no backing citation given)

[Moondog]

5. The whole multi-ethnic thing.

[MicaelS]

6. An alien played as a straight serious character

Not only that he was second in command of a starship.

[hunter]

7. It wasn't "Lost in Space."

There was no deranged robot waving its arms around and flashing it's chest light warning "Danger, Will Robinson!"

The women weren't captain -- Star Trek still hasn't escaped sexism -- but they weren't white suburban housewives either.

If I was "rebooting" Star Trek I'd have made Kirk a girl.

[Deja Q]

11. Or make the second in command a female, like how Roddenberry originally wanted

"THE CAGE" (1964)

Still, we had "Voyager" and I liked Janeway's persona...

[Deep13]

13. NBC didn't mind a strong woman character...

...they just didn't like the fact that it was Roddenberry's girlfriend. That's what Herb Solo said in his book.

[EndersDame]

16. What if Peter Jackson made Frodo a girl?

I think that would have gone too far. It worked in Battlestar galacftica becuase that was a crappy show to begin with and the orginal Starbuck was very two dimensional

[Orsino]

10. Exciting portrayals of boring concepts.

I didn't know a thing about the civil rights struggle in the sixties, for example, and was too comfortably suburban (and young) to care. Uhura and Frank Gorshin helped me to start caring, without even realizing it.

I wasn't the semi-pacifist I am today, but I was pretty sure that being beaten up by Captain Kirk was better than being zapped by phasers.

[Deja Q]

12. Some of the concepts were naff,

but "The Immunity Syndrome", amongst others, was definitely new and fresh...

[rug]

14. Nuclear war was a thing of the past.

[RebelOne]

15. I guess I was pretty progressive in the '60s,

because I didn't consider anything about that show radical.

[mitchum]

17. When Ho Chí Minh played that silver alien

[Tikki]

18. Well, my mother used to watch it with us kids...that was...

fairly radical...and that we would all stay home on a Friday
night until each new Star Trek episode was over...


Tikki