That Wacky Redhead

[Shevek23]

Change in composition from before the election. If you go from 45-55 to 55-45, it's a 10% swing. And it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing...

Apparently in the popular vote percentage as opposed to the number of seats. I was confused because "swing" often goes against the trend in number of seats.

Which is a commentary on the nature of electoral systems. In a good system they'd correlate every time. How can a party gain votes but lose seats?

In a winner-take-all system like the US has pretty much universally, that's a rhetorical question. But I thought Canada had some kind of proportional representation?

Maybe not ITTL, or not yet?

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

Apparently in the popular vote percentage as opposed to the number of seats. I was confused because "swing" often goes against the trend in number of seats.

Which is a commentary on the nature of electoral systems. In a good system they'd correlate every time. How can a party gain votes but lose seats?

In a winner-take-all system like the US has pretty much universally, that's a rhetorical question. But I thought Canada had some kind of proportional representation?

Maybe not ITTL, or not yet?

No, Canada has winner take all. New Zealand has MMP. Australia has IRV.

 

[NCW8]

Thank you, Nigel. And yes, the Liberals have their new leader. But how far will he take his party? There's only one way to find out!

Well for a start there's no Lib-Lab Pact ITTL to damage the reputation of the Liberals. It looks like you've taken that into account with the number of Liberal seats going up by 6 ITTL, compared to the drop of 2 seats OTL.

What's also interesting is how the Labour Party is going to react. Michael Foot has just lost a General Election so he'll probably stand down as party leader. Will his replacement be another left-winger or some-one more moderate ? If the former, how will Labour right-wingers react ? With the Tories under more moderate leadership than OTL, I suspect that they'll be less likely to try and form a new party, but there might be a couple of defections to the Liberals.

However as Britain is not a member of the EEC, Roy Jenkins won't have been appointed President of the European Commission and so will still be a Labour MP ITTL. IOTL he came third in the Labour leadership elections in 1976, so he's a good candidate to be a moderate replacement for Foot.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Thande]

For those of you unfamiliar with swing, you clearly need to be introduced to the Swingometer. Or search for "swingometer" on Youtube if you really want to get a flavour of UK election coverage.

 

[Glen]

@ Brainbin re: Rankin/Bass Tolkien - to each their own - as I consider that a pretty good snip of their ROTK if you didn't find it worth pursuing then best not. I'll still keep my 2c of being a fan of their take as an adaptation. However, I do think this review makes some interesting points about the animation of their Hobbit. Given the derision of animation of this decade I've seen here it makes it stand out the more as a herald of the rise of Japanese animation.
https://wondersinthedark.wordpress....a-arthur-rankin-jr-and-jules-bass-the-hobbit/

 

[Glen]

@ Brainbin re: Rankin/Bass Tolkien - to each their own - as I consider that a pretty good snip of their ROTK if you didn't find it worth pursuing then best not. I'll still keep my 2c of being a fan of their take as an adaptation. However, I do think this review makes some interesting points about the animation of their Hobbit. Given the derision of animation of this decade I've seen here it makes it stand out the more as a herald of the rise of Japanese animation.
https://wondersinthedark.wordpress....a-arthur-rankin-jr-and-jules-bass-the-hobbit/

I will try to make this my last on R/B Tolkien. This commentary on their ROTK sums up well why I and others loved it so much, I believe.

https://wondersinthedark.wordpress....the-return-of-the-king-a-tale-of-the-hobbits/

 

[Brainbin]

Star Trek Episode Guide: Bondage and Freedom

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the long-awaited second entry of the Star Trek Episode Guide, which provides some wiki-style information on the various episodes of Star Trek that were never made IOTL. Unlike “The Lorelei Signal”, the episode which I’m choosing to cover this time is one that never went beyond the idea stage IOTL, which ITTL became known as “Bondage and Freedom”. It’s an important episode for several reasons: it was the first proper writing collaboration between the show’s two primary creative forces, Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana; it’s an important showcase episode for Uhura, and for her subtextually significant friendship with McCoy; and it goes right for the jugular of racist complacency as the late 1960s come to a close. Yes, Uhura does a lot better for herself ITTL…

​

As this is only the third season (and not the Turd Season, mind you), there is no list of co-stars for this episode. However, all of the six actors who will be granted co-star status in the last two seasons – Doohan, Takei, Nichols, Koenig, Barrett, and Winston – appear in this episode. This is the penultimate writing credit claimed by Gene Roddenberry for the show IOTL, preceding only the series finale. Be sure to note the gold font; it remained that colour for the entire run of Star Trek ITTL.

(There is always something suspect about shows with blue fonts.)

Production Information

Also Known As: “The One With White Slaves And Black Masters” or “The One With The First Interracial Kiss On American Television”
Original Airdate: Monday, November 25, 1968, at 7:30 PM EST
Viewership Rating: 21.9, or 12.25 million households (#16 overall for that week)
Production Order: 03-12
Broadcast Order: 03-10
Written By: Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana (teleplay); Gene Roddenberry (story)
Directed By: Joseph Pevney
Music Composed And Conducted By: Gerald Fried

Plot Synopsis

The USS Exeter has been missing for several weeks; Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to proceed to her last known whereabouts to conduct a search operation. En route to the coordinates, Kirk remarks that his friend, and the Exeter’s Commanding Officer, Ronald Tracey, is an esteemed senior Captain of the Starfleet, and that the loss of his knowledge and experience would be irreplaceable. Upon arrival, there is no sign of the Exeter; Spock, however, reports that a nearby star system had been charted several decades before, and was reported to have one Class M planet, suitable for human life. With no other leads, Kirk orders Sulu and Chekov to proceed to the Ebonian star system. Sure enough, the derelict Exeter is found orbiting Ebonia IV, in a rapidly decaying orbit; in a matter of hours, the ship would have proven irretrievable.

Equipped with their quarantine suits for fear of contamination, Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov beam over to the Exeter. Though the latter three are quickly able to right the ship into standard orbit, it soon becomes clear that the ship is deserted, though this state of affairs occurred quickly; the engines are still running, machines in sickbay are still functioning, and (now-spoiled) half-eaten food remains at their place settings on the mess hall tables. The logical assumption, Spock infers, is that the crew must have beamed down to the planet, perhaps on account of some situation onboard, though whatever that might have been did not seem to linger.

Upon returning to the Enterprise – which is now taking the Exeter in tow, and with Uhura dutifully reporting the situation to Starfleet – the question of how to explore the (populated, and technologically advanced, though not spacefaring) planet and investigate the situation further becomes critical. Though Kirk, as his wont, plans on leading the landing party, Spock urgently recommends against it. Captain Tracey was a highly skilled commanding officer, and Starfleet can barely afford his loss, let alone that of himself and Kirk, should anything go awry. Likewise, Spock believes that he can best investigate the mysteries of the planet further from his console on the bridge. However, and considering that the crew of the Exeter may be in urgent need of medical attention, Dr. McCoy should be part of the initial cohort of crew members to beam down.

This results, of course, in a classic Spock-McCoy argument:

BONES: What’s this? You’re needed up here to sit comfortably in your chair and stare into that viewer of yours instead of going down and looking at a tricorder feed, because you’re so indispensable, but you’re not worried about sending me down there in the line of danger despite my medical training, which literally saves lives?

SPOCK: Your human pride, as always, is one of your many failings, Doctor. It is precisely because of your ability to save lives that you are needed far more on the planet than you are on this ship. Unless you intend to argue that treatment can be provided remotely?

BONES: You’re just lucky I’m a better doctor than you are a scientist, you green-blooded, pointy-eared…

SPOCK: Though fortunately, not a better specialist in Vulcan physiology than Dr. M’Benga, who is more than capable of tending Sickbay in your absence.

BONES: And I’m forever grateful that he’s the one who has to deal with your crazy Vulcan medical problems!

SPOCK: The feeling is mutual, Doctor.

Accompanying Dr. McCoy is Lt. Uhura, in order to facilitate communications with these potentially hostile aliens, and four security officers, all of Caucasian appearance. Though they are beamed down in a secluded area, where they can discreetly detect signs of lost crewmembers, they are soon ambushed by alien troops, who are humanoid, and dark-skinned – distinguished from the (human) crewmen of similar complexion (including Uhura) by their prominent use of body paint and/or tattoos. In their ambush, they subdue the entire landing party, save for Dr. McCoy (who raises his hands to prove that he is unarmed, crying “I’m a doctor, not a soldier!” as he does so), and Uhura herself, whom they address as if she were a member of their society. It soon becomes clear that they believe Uhura to have been kidnapped by the group of runaway slaves, and invite her to accompany them to the nearby capital. Uhura is outraged, but Bones convinces her to go along with them, suspecting that they will find the crew of the Exeter this way. She is extremely reluctant to do so, ironically agreeing only when McCoy reminds her that, that as her senior officer, he can (and will) order her to do so, if he must.

Upon arriving at the lavish court, Uhura makes the acquaintance of Prince Munsa, the local chieftain, who shamelessly flirts with her. Barely able to hide her disgust, she only does so in order to learn what became of the crew of the Exeter; their “pretence” at racial equality, the Ebonians knew, was surely a deception in order to deceive; in actuality, these pale-skinned ones had risen against and imprisoned their rightful dark-skinned masters. In fact, those so-called Ebonians had obviously been brainwashed, for even they seemed to truly believe it themselves. Therefore, they were being kept in custody to be re-educated, whereas the others had been properly returned to their prior status as slaves. Uhura, horrified by this, and all but compelled to speak against it, resists long enough to rebuff the advances of Munsa but accept his offer of guest quarters for her and her “manservant slave”, Dr. McCoy. Once they are alone, Uhura is able to get into contact with the Enterprise, warning them of the situation…

Kirk records a log entry, expositing that he will be leading a second landing party, which – since it is known that the crew of the Exeter are alive – will include Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Chapel, along with another security team. Spock assumes that, logically, the crew of the Exeter attempted to fight the Ebonians directly, but that they had obviously not succeeded. Therefore, subterfuge and infiltration would be the most viable tactics in seeking to liberate the Federation nationals from the enemy aliens. However, shortly after beaming down into the palace itself (and meeting up with Uhura and Bones), the landing party is detected, and caught. M’Benga, a “traitor”, is sent to join the other “traitors” (a planned contingency in case the landing party was captured), and all the others – including Captain Kirk – are put into slavery, just like the other light-skinned humans. Uhura duly informs Spock that the plan was a failure; though M’Benga and Chapel are able to treat the crew of the Exeter if need be, that is small consolation.

To Spock, it becomes increasingly clear that no show of force could work to deter the Ebonians (without also causing collateral damage that might well kill – among others – two Starship Captains). Spock and Uhura remain in communication, with the ardent Lieutenant attempting to relay messages on to her Captain. However, he is under the supervision of a kinswoman to Munsa – named Absinia – though she is gradually seduced by his charm and guile. The bulk of the act involves Captain Kirk attempting to incite a slave uprising against the Ebonian leadership, while at the same time working to endear himself to Absinia and earning her sympathy to his plight. This culminates in the famous kiss between the dark-skinned Absinia and Kirk, often reckoned as “the first interracial kiss in American television history”. This leads almost immediately into the slave insurrection, which reaches the throne room of the palace. Uhura, getting wind of this, informs Spock, who beams down with several crew members who are neither white nor black (including Mr. Sulu), hoping to confuse the Ebonians. However, just as before, the Ebonians are powerful enough to beat all of them back. Kirk informs Uhura that violence cannot be the answer: “We have to win hearts and minds.” Uhura then successfully interjects, announcing her true feelings about involuntary servitude and about racial discrimination. Her speech is then immediately followed by Kirk’s speech – in a reverse of the standard climactic formula for Star Trek (oratorical appeal, followed by fight scene). All of this, combined with Absinia’s urgings, is enough to convince Munsa to liberate the crews of both Starfleet ships, and agree to accept assistance from Federation diplomats.

We end the episode on the bridge, where everyone reflects on their ordeal. Kirk, Bones, and Uhura all share their thoughts on their experiences with the Ebonians, and their hopes for a better, more harmonious future for them. “If we could do it, then so can they,” Kirk remarks, and the Enterprise flies off once more into the great unknown.

Additional Information

• The episode is widely (though inaccurately) regarded as that which contains “the first interracial kiss in American television”.
• This was the highest-rated episode of the third season.
• The title of the episode comes from an autobiography by Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom.
• DeForest Kelley and Nichelle Nichols both list “Bondage and Freedom” as one of their favourite episodes.
• D.C. Fontana disliked the episode, noting in a 1976 interview commemorating the show’s tenth anniversary that “we could have hammered it out a dozen more times before we got it right”, and that it was the most “heavy handed, overwrought script any of us ever wrote”. She acknowledged that her co-writer, Gene L. Coon, was not fond of the script either: “I know Gene didn’t like it. He’d never taken so long to write a script before. He knocked out “The Devil in the Dark” in one weekend. We worked on “Bondage on Freedom” for months. I think in the end we both just gave up, went with what we had already written, and hoped it would work.”
• Gene Roddenberry, on the other hand, regards “Bondage and Freedom” as one of his favourite episodes – though it should be noted that every episode to appear on his list was either written, co-written, conceptualized, or personally produced by him (“The Menagerie”, for which he won a Hugo Award, finished first).
  
• Gene L. Coon acknowledged in a 1973 interview with David Gerrold for his book, The World of Star Trek, that many of the episode’s motifs were taken from other popular enslavement narratives: Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and (most obviously) The Planet of the Apes, a film released in early 1968 (prior to the submission of the first draft script). “But we made a point to avoid anyone actually calling each other apes, for obvious reasons”, he remarked to Gerrold. Indeed, no ethnic slurs of any kind appear in the finished episode; most of the cast and crew were opposed to their use, and NBC Standards & Practices would likely have forbidden them in any event.
  
• Kirk, in his climactic speech, paraphrases several quotes from Douglass. Uhura, in hers, echoes many statements delivered by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with whom Nichols had shared a mutual admiration. She did so with the express support of his widow, and a personal friend, Coretta Scott King. An over-arching theme of the episode – that violence and armed resistance was ultimately ineffective against a more powerful foe, and that winning over hearts and minds worked better than any weapon could – precluded any references to Malcolm X, which proved controversial among black Trekkies. Both speeches exist in the earliest drafts in a substantially identical form to how they were recited in the episode as aired; they were written by committee, with the rest of the episode later built around them.
  
• Shatner appears half-dressed and in chains as an explicit visual reference to Charlton Heston’s character being in bondage in Planet of the Apes (as well as in Ben-Hur), along with continuing the famous running gag of Kirk somehow losing his shirt (and, indeed, he is the only one of the dozens of slaves in a state of undress). His taking cues from Heston in his portrayal of Kirk in this episode would make for good practice after playing the transparent Heston pastiche in the 1973 parody film Monkey World.
• The decision to explicitly reference the past Human experience with racism and slavery only in the episode’s closing line was a deliberate one by Fontana. “The whole episode was such an obvious allegory; we didn’t really want to beat anyone over the head with it any more than we had to. So we decided to focus on objective reasons why slavery and racism were morally and ethically wrong. Gene [Roddenberry] didn’t like that, he wanted us to go on and on about how humanity had learned and how we were a better people because of it. Sometimes a little gloating can go a long way. And we did plenty of that in “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, anyway.”
• As far as fan reaction is concerned, Trekkies tend to be divided on the episode; even by Trek standards, it is generally seen as both exceptionally transparent and incredibly preachy. However, most fans, even if they regard it as a failure, acknowledge that it is an ambitious and well-intentioned one.
• The Palace Chamber set was constantly reused, most notably in “The Lorelei Signal”, which had a superficially similar plot.
• The name Munsa comes from Mansa Musa, the famed (and fabulously wealthy) medieval King (Mansa, literally King of Kings) of Mali. The name Absinia comes from Abyssinia, an old name for Ethiopia. The system and planet where the action takes place was originally to have been named Nigeria, but this was changed to Ebonia, as Nigeria was the name of an actual African country (and uncomfortably similar to a prominent racial slur). Both names literally mean “black-land”.
• Paul Winfield, a regular on the Desilu lot (he would appear in both Mission: Impossible and Mannix within the same year), played the role of Munsa. Recent immigrant Madge Sinclair, who had arrived in Los Angeles less than a year before, portrayed Absinia in her first television role.
• NBC did not want to air this episode; Lucille Ball herself had to personally appeal to the network executives to let it air. Surprisingly, very little hate mail arrived at Desilu despite the controversial kiss; after that point, NBC would never claim to be anything but all for the airing of the episode. Herbert F. Solow wryly remarked that it reminded him of when network executives had wanted Spock to get plastic surgery to remove those devilish ears before they (and he), too, became a big hit with viewers.

---

I hope you all enjoyed the latest episode guide entry! More will be forthcoming… eventually No footnotes or “Word-Of-God”-tinted font with this one, for a change, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I have included a few Easter eggs which I would very much like to see you respond to without my pointing them out!

 

[Lord Insane]

[*] Paul Winfield, a regular on the Desilu lot (he would appear in both Mission: Impossible and Mannix within the same year), played the role of Munsa. Recent immigrant Madge Sinclair, who had arrived in Los Angeles less than a year before, portrayed Absinia in her first television role.
[/FONT]

Seems Madge Sinclair gets to be or do something first in Star Trek in every timeline...

 

[e of pi]

So, two Constitutions class starships go to a planet. The entire crew of one gets captured, along with a substantial fraction of the key characters from the other...and no redshirts die, and both ships survive? This might be the most successful joint mission in Starfleet history!

 

[vultan]

Great post. Say, will we ever get to see a definitive list of every episode of Star Trek ITTL, perhaps with a short description for each? I was reading Memory Alpha's list of unproduced TOS episodes, and was wondering how many of them got made ITTL. "Machines Are Better", "Miss Gulliver", "The Shadow of Space", and especially "Sketches Among The Ruins of My Mind" sound like they would be interesting (as do "Aladdin's Asteroid" and "The Surrender of Planet X", if only because the titles sound delightfully silly).

 

[Orville_third]

With the success of Dr Who in the US, I can definitely see Terry Nation brushing up his spin-off pilot episode, The Destroyers. The pilot was based around the conflict between the Space Security Service and the Daleks (seen in The Dalek's Master Plan ), however given the crossover episode, the SPS could be replaced by Star Fleet, making it a spin-off of Star Trek as well. This could help it sell in the american market. It would probably be darker and grittier than the original series and incorporate ideas that Nation used in Blakes Seven IOTL.

I happened to be looking around a Doctor Who wiki and was reminded of this thread after noticing one of the characters was named "Mark Seven". He was an android- though one wonders if he had a connection to Gary...

On a totally different topic, is the BBC doing Christmas tapes ITTL?

 

[Asharella]

So did the writers and producers of "Bondage and Freedom" ever give credit to Robert Heinlein and "Farnham's Freehold?"

 

[stevep]

So did the writers and producers of "Bondage and Freedom" ever give credit to Robert Heinlein and "Farnham's Freehold?"

Asharella

From what I can remember of the novel the only similarity is that the core group are white people who find themselves in a society where blacks are dominant and enslaving white. Who they are, how they get there and how its all resolved are considerably different. Therefore I doubt there's any need, unless someone involved said that the book gave them the idea in some way.

Steve

 

[Brainbin]

Thank you all for your responses to the latest entry in the Star Trek Episode Guide! I thought that would be a nice surprise, so I hope that you all enjoyed it!

And now, as always, for my latest responses to your latest replies...

Which is a commentary on the nature of electoral systems. In a good system they'd correlate every time. How can a party gain votes but lose seats?

You're more than welcome to discuss the merits of various electoral systems in the Chat forum, but suffice it to say that FPTP (First-Past-The-Post, the proper name for "winner-take-all") is not intended to correlate with the overall popular vote; the winner of the most votes in each constituency wins that constituency. Some people find this lacking, unproportional, or unfair, and have devised alternative systems, some of which date back to the nineteenth century.

And besides, psephologically speaking, FPTP is by far the most fun and exciting electoral system

In a winner-take-all system like the US has pretty much universally, that's a rhetorical question. But I thought Canada had some kind of proportional representation?

Maybe not ITTL, or not yet?

MPs have been returned to the House of Commons under the FPTP system for its entire history. Some of the provinces (especially those with multi-member constituencies) have used runoff systems in the past, but at present (IOTL, and in the late 1970s ITTL) all are using FPTP. Electoral reform has been the subject of multiple referenda throughout the country in recent years (IOTL), but all have failed, and the subject is considered off the table for the foreseeable future.

No, Canada has winner take all. New Zealand has MMP. Australia has IRV.

Correct, though MMP was not instated in New Zealand until 1994 IOTL.

Well for a start there's no Lib-Lab Pact ITTL to damage the reputation of the Liberals. It looks like you've taken that into account with the number of Liberal seats going up by 6 ITTL, compared to the drop of 2 seats OTL.

Indeed so - we're looking at seat numbers comparable to what the Liberal half of the SDP-Liberal Alliance achieved in the 1980s.

What's also interesting is how the Labour Party is going to react. Michael Foot has just lost a General Election so he'll probably stand down as party leader. Will his replacement be another left-winger or some-one more moderate ? If the former, how will Labour right-wingers react ? With the Tories under more moderate leadership than OTL, I suspect that they'll be less likely to try and form a new party, but there might be a couple of defections to the Liberals.

Don't get ahead of yourself. Wilson didn't stand down after losing in 1970, after all, and neither did Kinnock after 1987.

However as Britain is not a member of the EEC, Roy Jenkins won't have been appointed President of the European Commission and so will still be a Labour MP ITTL. IOTL he came third in the Labour leadership elections in 1976, so he's a good candidate to be a moderate replacement for Foot.

An intriguing proposition.

For those of you unfamiliar with swing, you clearly need to be introduced to the Swingometer. Or search for "swingometer" on Youtube if you really want to get a flavour of UK election coverage.

Although the Swingometer generally talks about uniform two-party swing from one party to another (invariably the Tories to Labour, or vice-versa), at least in this era.

@ Brainbin re: Rankin/Bass Tolkien - to each their own - as I consider that a pretty good snip of their ROTK if you didn't find it worth pursuing then best not.

Thank you for understanding, Glen

Seems Madge Sinclair gets to be or do something first in Star Trek in every timeline...

Very well said, LordInsane My decision to cast two black actors who appeared in the OTL movies served me very well indeed!

So, two Constitutions class starships go to a planet. The entire crew of one gets captured, along with a substantial fraction of the key characters from the other...and no redshirts die, and both ships survive? This might be the most successful joint mission in Starfleet history!

Ebonia IV, like some (but not all) Terran slaveholding societies (including, not surprisingly, the Antebellum South) views their property as far too valuable to simply kill off when they could instead be put to productive work. That's part of the reason they were established as not spacefaring; to avoid comparisons to the other famous slaveholding society, the Roman Empire, which engaged in wars of conquest primarily to collect additional slaves, and often put them to work in the mines, where they had perilously high mortality rates. But yes, this is a quirky episode: every redshirt lives and Captain Tracey is the first Starfleet Captain other than Kirk to be seen alive, and to remain so by episode's end (a scene with Kirk and Tracey biding each other farewell from their respective bridges at the end of the episode was filmed, but cut for time).

Great post. Say, will we ever get to see a definitive list of every episode of Star Trek ITTL, perhaps with a short description for each? I was reading Memory Alpha's list of unproduced TOS episodes, and was wondering how many of them got made ITTL. "Machines Are Better", "Miss Gulliver", "The Shadow of Space", and especially "Sketches Among The Ruins of My Mind" sound like they would be interesting (as do "Aladdin's Asteroid" and "The Surrender of Planet X", if only because the titles sound delightfully silly).

Thank you, vultan! And yes, one of my key objectives for the Revised and Definitive Edition of That Wacky Redhead is a complete summarized episode guide for all five seasons of Star Trek, and the Memory Alpha page is one of my key sources. Others include, obviously, episodes of TAS and planned scripts for Phase II. However, that's probably at least a year out from now, and quite possibly longer. Likewise, some of those episodes on the Memory Alpha page wouldn't be made, simply because (given their dates of submission) they were obviously judged inferior by Coon, Fontana, et al. IOTL., and even I can't have them spinning too many miracles

I happened to be looking around a Doctor Who wiki and was reminded of this thread after noticing one of the characters was named "Mark Seven". He was an android- though one wonders if he had a connection to Gary...

Well, not ITTL, at any rate, where Gary Seven never got any further than a rejected pilot script, as "Assignment: Earth" never aired as an episode of Star Trek.

On a totally different topic, is the BBC doing Christmas tapes ITTL?

I don't see why they wouldn't be.

So did the writers and producers of "Bondage and Freedom" ever give credit to Robert Heinlein and "Farnham's Freehold?"

From what I can remember of the novel the only similarity is that the core group are white people who find themselves in a society where blacks are dominant and enslaving white. Who they are, how they get there and how its all resolved are considerably different. Therefore I doubt there's any need, unless someone involved said that the book gave them the idea in some way.

I'm inclined to agree with Steve. Farnham's Freehold plays out completely differently from "Bondage and Freedom" - ironically, it's actually closer to Planet of the Apes than the episode, despite the latter consciously, well, aping it And let's face it, any hack writer could come up with "black slaves, white masters" in about five minutes (not that I'm calling Heinlein, Coon, Fontana, or even Roddenberry hack writers). It's a classic role-reversal scenario. Besides, Heinlein almost certainly wouldn't go after them for something like that anyway - he didn't for "The Trouble With Tribbles" IOTL (and ITTL), after all, even though in that case he had far more of a leg to stand on.

 

[NCW8]

The USS Exeter has been missing for several weeks; Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to proceed to her last known whereabouts to conduct a search operation. En route to the coordinates, Kirk remarks that his friend, and the Exeter’s Commanding Officer, Ronald Tracey, is an esteemed senior Captain of the Starfleet, and that the loss of his knowledge and experience would be irreplaceable. Upon arrival, there is no sign of the Exeter; Spock, however, reports that a nearby star system had been charted several decades before, and was reported to have one Class M planet, suitable for human life. With no other leads, Kirk orders Sulu and Chekov to proceed to the Ebonian star system. Sure enough, the derelict Exeter is found orbiting Ebonia IV, in a rapidly decaying orbit; in a matter of hours, the ship would have proven irretrievable.

USS Exeter, with Captain Tracy as commander was, of course, the ship that was found abandoned at the start of The Omega Glory IOTL - around Omega IV instead of Ebonia IV.

However, just as before, the Ebonians are powerful enough to beat all of them back. Kirk informs Uhura that violence cannot be the answer: “We have to win hearts and minds.” Uhura then successfully interjects, announcing her true feelings about involuntary servitude and about racial discrimination. Her speech is then immediately followed by Kirk’s speech – in a reverse of the standard climactic formula for Star Trek (oratorical appeal, followed by fight scene). All of this, combined with Absinia’s urgings, is enough to convince Munsa to liberate the crews of both Starfleet ships, and agree to accept assistance from Federation diplomats.

AFAIR, The Omega Glory also reversed this formula, with a fight followed by Kirk's speech quoting from the pre-amble to the US Constitution.

[*] Paul Winfield, a regular on the Desilu lot (he would appear in both Mission: Impossible and Mannix within the same year), played the role of Munsa. Recent immigrant Madge Sinclair, who had arrived in Los Angeles less than a year before, portrayed Absinia in her first television role.

By coincidence IOTL they both appeared as Star Fleet captains in the ST movies.


Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[stevep]

Brainbin

And besides, psephologically speaking, FPTP is by far the most fun and exciting electoral system

The only thing I will say on this is 'interesting times' are fascinating from outside but often not enjoyed much from inside.

Noticed a couple of typos, one in the section above, unless psephologically is something I've never met before. The other one was:

That's part of the reason they were established as not spacefaring; to avoid comparisons to the other famous slaveholding society, the Roman Empire, which

Unless you know something about the Roman empire I don't.

Love the idea of the "complete summarized episode guide for all five seasons of Star Trek".

Steve

 

[NCW8]

Noticed a couple of typos, one in the section above, unless psephologically is something I've never met before.

Psephology is certainly a word, and psephologically is a reasonable adverb derived from it.

Unless you know something about the Roman empire I don't.

Romans IN SPACE !!!

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[stevep]

Psephology is certainly a word, and psephologically is a reasonable adverb derived from it.



Romans IN SPACE !!!

Cheers,
Nigel.

Nigel

Many thanks. Don't think I've heard of it before.

I have heard a rumour that Emperor Trajan Xenoicus is planning restore imperial rule to the old home planet.

Steve

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

I'm inclined to agree with Steve. Farnham's Freehold plays out completely differently from "Bondage and Freedom" - ironically, it's actually closer to Planet of the Apes than the episode, despite the latter consciously, well, aping it And let's face it, any hack writer could come up with "black slaves, white masters" in about five minutes (not that I'm calling Heinlein, Coon, Fontana, or even Roddenberry hack writers). It's a classic role-reversal scenario. Besides, Heinlein almost certainly wouldn't go after them for something like that anyway - he didn't for "The Trouble With Tribbles" IOTL (and ITTL), after all, even though in that case he had far more of a leg to stand on.

I don't know about the man's personality but, with Star Trek as big as it is in TTL, if I were him I'd just say, "You know, I really love your show, I understand you using some aspects of my works, and while I'm not going to go after you for copyright, I would really love it if you could pay me back with just a brief cameo.

 

[NCW8]

I don't know about the man's personality but, with Star Trek as big as it is in TTL, if I were him I'd just say, "You know, I really love your show, I understand you using some aspects of my works, and while I'm not going to go after you for copyright, I would really love it if you could pay me back with just a brief cameo.

They might have to give a cameo to Isaac Asimov as well in that case. The Currents of Space is also based upon Southern Slavery with the slaves being very pale skinned compared to the slave-holders.

Cheers,
Nigel.