50 Years of Star Trek Page #7

I called my mother and said,

"Ma, I'm not gonna

have to stress about work.

I got a job."

I had to audition

with a slight alien accent

for the character of

Dr. Phlox, which puzzled me.

I didn't really know what to do, so I...

I sort of tried out a

variety of funny voices

with my wife before

I settled on the voice

I eventually arrived at.

Sounds sort of vaguely East Indian.

I don't believe you'll

be needing my services.

You know, I thought

that we were gonna make it

and that we were gonna do seven years

like all the rest of these shows.

I was just trying to tell good stories

and do Gene's vision proud.

Tell the best "Star Trek" stories

that I could, you know?

And now that I'm no

longer involved with the show,

I'm the fan eagerly

awaiting the next television show.

Narrator:
Coming up, "Trek"

is on the cutting edge.

I had just been offered

a major role in a Broadway musical.

Narrator:
And later, a

look at "Star Trek's"

most beloved villain.

I ended up doing six

episodes of "Next Generation."

So in the 60', I mean, it a

period of racial discord.

We got the Vietnam

War, youth rebellions,

emerging feminism,

and, you know, TV...

- Dirty hippies.

- Dirty hi... exactly.

There's no series or television show

really addressing these things.

You know, Roddenberry's

able to do is kind of explore

these things, but

again, in a way which is...

Not only avoids the censors,

which he had a lot of problems with,

but also allows the audience

to kind of look at it from

a different perspective.

And if they were

looking at race in America

on a documentary, that's

just not gonna have

the kind of impact, whereas in

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,"

we have the black and white faces.

You know, and you can

imagine what the American public

was looking at this going, "You know,

yeah, this is right. This

is kinda strange."

And again, this is an episode that

was done right after Mart...

It was produced right after

Martin Luther King's assassination.

That's the beauty of sci-fi.

You can sort of

have these allegories without

people knowing they're

being taught a lesson.

- Yeah.

- Big two on the nose.

Yeah, they just

think they're watching

a fun space adventure with a Canadian.

[laughter]

"Star Trek" very much

at a time when, you know,

race, in particular, in the

'60s was such a big thing.

It broke down those

barriers in terms of talking...

Talking about color, multi-culturalism,

other people.

And instead of making

walls, and instead of trying to

villainize others,

it was all about embracing the other.

Because, you know, when you

look at the "Star Trek" world,

you know, Gene really

wanted to create a world

where everybody could be, you know?

And if we were

having some kind of trouble,

we could talk it out.

We had one of the

most wonderful icons

in Nichelle Nichols, who

was not only African American,

she was a woman.

And, you know, she was

there on the bridge all the time.

She was important.

Sometimes she would just

say, "Channels open, sir,"

but the thing was that she was there.

She speaks perfect English.

She's the communications officer

and she takes that very seriously.

She is not only gorgeous,

but she is the communications officer.

She's the one you have to talk to

if you want to talk to

anybody out in space.

And she's fly, okay?

And they all want to

bone her, and you know it.

And there were some

stations in the South that said,

"Oh, you're having," what was then,

"a black woman on the bridge.

We're not gonna show your show."

And Roddenberry said, "[bleep]

you," you know.

[chuckles]

And, you know, "Too bad. You lose."

A woman of color in the late '60s

while the civil rights

riots were going on.

Her presence there was a big deal.

I had just been offered

a major role in a Broadway musical.

And I met Dr. Martin Luther King.

And I was so excited to tell him.

And he said, "You can't do that."

He said, "Don't you

understand what you're doing?

"This is television and there's

nobody like you on TV.

You can't... you

can't abdicate."

And I couldn't.

The main thing that has struck me

about Gene's series at the

time was how he mirrored

the things that were

going on in our society

by using the aliens and the humans

to carry out those storylines.

He was very clever in doing that.

I liked the idea.

I'm not sure it was always executed

as well as it might have.

I think we used the bludgeon

when we did the story of

the half black and half white.

You know, but we did it you know?

And good for us for taking on the issue.

I am black on the right side.

[dramatic music]

I fail to see the significant difference.

Lokai is white on the right...

All of his people are

white on the right side.

Frank Gorshin was

a wonderful performer,

and he and Lou

Antonio were the two actors

who played these opposing roles.

People who were actually mirror

images of each other

should hate each

other they way they did.

And there was that great

moment where Kirk says,

"Why do you people hate

each other so much?

You're... you're the same."

"Don't you get it?

He's black on the right

side, I'm black on the left."

You know, "Oh." [laughing]

Science fiction is at its best

when it challenges you.

It presents a message

while disguising itself

as entertainment.

In an episode called "Symbiosis,"

there's a planet where

they're all addicted.

And there's another species

that always supplies

them with their drug.

And we know

that... that this is

this horrible enabling situation.

And we could easily cure the addicts.

- Please, help us.

- I'm not sure that I can.

But do we get involved

or do we let them figure it out?

The moment that I

felt was so haunting to me

was the one where B'Elanna is pregnant

and can see that her

child will have Klingon DNA

and be born with the

forehead and she has developed a way

to possibly alter that so her daughter

doesn't have to go through

what she went through.

And I wept when I read the episode.

But then to be responsible for a child

and to have the technology to change

the future of this child.

And it was, um...

It was a difficult and

wonderful episode.

When you look at Data, you know,

at one point he is on trial, you know.

And it's, like, is he on

trial because he's different?

Is he on trial because he

should be not be thinking

the way that he's

thinking because he's, after all,

a machine and should

not be moving...

I mean, they're all the questions

that we deal with.

And whether it's race because

it's skin color,

or race because you're an android,

or, you know, race because you're

only this big and fuzzy.

You're a Tribble, you know?

It's all of these

stories go into saying,

"Hey, we actually all have

to try to do this together."

The cultural makeup of the bridge,

that was science fiction...

- Absolutely.

In the mid '60s.

People who watch it today have no idea

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes