Maybe we can have a sequel someday. That Whacky Redhead: The Next Generation sounds like a good title, don't you think?
That Wacky Redhead
- Thread starter Brainbin
- Start date
Maybe we can have a sequel someday. That Whacky Redhead: The Next Generation sounds like a good title, don't you think?
Not really, IMO. Any sequel would not work w/o Lucy still around, unfortunately. And that's my honest opinion.
Appendix A, Part IX: Star Trek Deuterocanonicity
Appendix A, Part IX: Star Trek Deuterocanonicity
For better or for worse, the broadcast of The Next Voyage had changed everything about the ardent Star Trek fandom, which devoted immeasurable time and energy to dissecting its ramifications. The years before had been nebulous, an era of unfettered creativity and unrestrained imagination. There was the television series, and as far as just about everyone was concerned, that was all she wrote; the few other “official” media attached to Star Trek were well-constructed trifles at best (the Gold Key comic), and tasteless irrelevancies at worst (the advertising fluff for some of the more… questionable action-figure releases, for example). This was the atmosphere that incubated the most notorious subculture of the Trekkie fandom, the Puritans, who made themselves known starting in 1978, once Desilu had breached the “integrity” of the so-called gentlemen’s agreement in place between the studio and the fandom. Most Trekkies were more sanguine about both The Next Voyage and about Desilu as the caretaker of Star Trek [1] – and they would react to changes in the marketing of supplementary material in a far more varied spectrum of ways than the categorical rejection employed by the Puritans.
But one aspect of Star Trek continuity which demanded consensus was canon. Desilu was surprisingly mum on the subject; as far as most at the studio were concerned, anything produced or licensed by Desilu and bearing the Star Trek name was exactly what it purported to be: Star Trek. David Gerrold, always the “Studio Ambassador to the Trekkies”, acknowledged that this was a problem – even the show itself had difficulty maintaining internal consistency (despite having an impressively coherent continuity for its medium, by the standards of its time), let alone the ancillary material, much of which was contradictory. But Gerrold, having been in charge of the comic since 1971, was hardly a neutral arbiter, and in the ad hoc system which he devised in the mid-1970s, the comic was unsurprisingly assigned greater canonicity than any other Star Trek media bar the series proper; the official short-story episode adaptations, written by James Blish, occupied the next step down, and this became an early point of contention.
The Star Trek comic, during the “classic” Gerrold era (from 1971 to 1978), published mostly “original” stories set during the course of the five-year mission, but occasionally, when the well of ideas ran dry, Gerrold would resort to adapting episodes of the series proper into comic form. [2] “The Trouble with Tribbles”, which he himself had written, was the first episode to get this treatment, in 1973; as the comic wore on, this easy out to avoid writing original stories (which, granted, was entirely predictable given that Gerrold had been part of the writing staff that had exhausted viable story ideas in the five-year mission setting in 1970-71) was employed more and more often as a means of getting the issue out on time. In the year leading up to the airdate of The Next Voyage (co-written and produced by Gerrold), more than half of the published issues were adaptations of episodes – in all, over two dozen episodes (all written, co-written, or heavily edited by Gerrold) would see print. But Gerrold was not the first to adapt the television series for the page – nor were his efforts the most comprehensive. Both of those distinctions were held by James Blish, a science-fiction author of some renown.
Blish had been commissioned in 1966 by Desilu to adapt several of the show’s earliest batch of scripts into short-story format; a collection of these formed the first of many books published until the Star Trek marque, in early 1967. In all, Blish would publish thirteen short-story collections, the last of which was released posthumously in late 1975. [3] Of the 133 episodes in the Star Trek syndication package (counting “These Were the Voyages” as a single episode, along with “The Menagerie”, as it – or rather, “The Cage” – was adapted as a single story), Blish adapted 89, with several notable omissions – none of the Harry Mudd stories were included (as Blish had attempted to release all five in a single volume, along with an original framing story), and nor was “The Borderland” (as Niven had expressed an interest in adapting the story on his own), nor “These Were the Voyages” (which Blish had quite logically decided to save for last). In fact, very few fifth-season episodes were among the “Classic 89” adaptations. [4] Quite a number of episodes had not been adapted by either Gerrold or Blish; however, the problem was with the overlapping adaptations. By any objective measure, Gerrold’s adaptations had the better claim to canonicity, since every doubly adapted work was one which Gerrold himself had played a large part in writing, in addition to his having worked on the show as a producer, and basing the comics on finished episodes, as opposed to Blish who worked from shooting scripts. However, the hypothetical situation of whether the comics were to trump the short stories if they ever adapted episodes not written by Gerrold continued to be raised, though it was never fully resolved.
The five-year mission was officially declared over by Desilu (at Gerrold’s behest) after The Next Voyage had aired; the “classic era” of the Star Trek comic ended in the spring of 1978 with a partial adaptation of “These Were the Voyages”, though it focused far more on the aftermath of the episode, with the crew saying their final goodbyes and (some of them) leaving the Enterprise, seemingly for good; notably, the Excelsior was shown in full (looking as it did in the miniseries) and the Enterprise (having been badly damaged in the recent conflict) was sent in for repairs. Thus began the “Lost Years” era of the comic, which was split into two different lines: Enterprise and Excelsior. It depicted the five-year missions in between the end of the series proper (2170) and the miniseries (2176). [5] The Enterprise series, which starred Spock, was slower, more cerebral and character-based; the Excelsior series, which starred Kirk, was more action-oriented and artistically inclined. The decision to focus on the “Lost Years” was a way to maintain the edict imposed by Gene Roddenberry not to expand upon the established televised canon, one that Desilu itself never saw fit to contradict; most everyone at the studio believed that television was the property’s first, best destiny, and that ancillary media were a sideshow. David Gerrold was “promoted” to Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Star Trek line, having neither the time nor the inclination to directly oversee two separate issues per month. Both of the comics were well-received, however, and in completely different ways. Star Trek: Enterprise was praised as reviving the best cerebral, allegorical detective-story aspects of the series proper, and seemed to swing more for the fences in its approach to continuing storylines, including the depiction of the romance between Captain Spock and his CMO, Dr. Christine Chapel. Enterprise sold better than Star Trek: Excelsior, though that line had the advantage of more diverse characters, including aliens who could never have been depicted in live-action, such as the many-armed Lt. Arex, and the seductive felinoid Lt. M’Ress [6]. It was certainly more “edgy” in its content than Enterprise, taking full advantage of Gold Key Comics being one of the few publishers not to adhere to the Comics Code (which, to be fair, had followed suit with the MPAA and had been relaxed considerably in recent years). [7]
Beyond the comic line, those Star Trek books beyond the Blish direct adaptations – which had been relatively few and far between, prior to 1978 – also flourished. Unofficial Desilu policy was to encourage writers to focus on the “Lost Years”; manuscripts depicting the official five-year mission continued to be accepted (in fact, adaptations of original episodes resumed after 1978, though they were generally regarded as inferior to the Blish stories), as were stories from the Captain Pike era, and depicting the earlier career of James T. Kirk (aboard the Republic, the Farragut, and during his years studying and teaching at Starfleet Academy). A precious few short-stories (never novels) were able to evade the prohibition against outpacing the canon, though never by much – the farthest-flung vignette was “Logical Inaugural”, depicting the swearing-in of Federation President Sarek in early 2177 following his successful election. This story, published in a 1981 collection by prominent Star Trek writer Diane Duane, and obviously inspired by John Glenn’s successful campaign for the Presidency, “confirmed” what had already been widely suspected by that point in naming his sensible silver-haired predecessor as Lucille Carter. [8] The comic, meanwhile, occasionally featured President Carter in cameo appearances, always taking pains to avoid mentioning her first name – demonstrating the need for hierarchical canonicity. Duane herself suggested a modified version of Gerrold’s original hierarchy (fittingly, as like D.C. Fontana before her, she had started out working as the assistant and secretary to “the boss” before emerging from his shadow): The series proper and the subsequent miniseries would come first, followed by the comics which were adaptations of the series, then by Blish’s novelizations, and then by the comics in general; all other books, which included “embellishments” by Blish that were explicitly contradicted in the comics, came at the bottom rung of the canonicity ladder. Duane, who (like Gerrold) was very aware of the fandom, tried to leave room for “below the ladder” material – from as far back as the late-1960s, certain conventions and customs that had no direct onscreen evidence to support them had been widely accepted among fans, and this “fan canon”, or simply “fanon”, was used to “fill in your own blanks”, as Duane had suggested in endorsing the practice. Her actions were well-intentioned, but at the same time they were rather akin to throwing a lit match atop a pile of explosives.
Even though it had been less than seven years between the grand finale of the series proper (in July, 1971) and the broadcast of the miniseries (in February, 1978), the entrenched fandom which had existed since the 1960s had plenty of time in the interim to develop their own ideas about the universe in which Star Trek was set. And though the notorious Puritan subculture would not make themselves known as a distinct group until after the fallout from the miniseries divided the fandom, many accepted “principles”, for lack of a better term, emerged during this period which could be described as “proto-Puritan”. The most controversial issue was the nature of the Doctor Who crossover which had opened the fifth and final season of Star Trek; in a real-world context, it was purely a mercenary matter that served to introduce the concept of Doctor Who to American audiences in preparation for NBC importing the series the following season. David Gerrold had considered featuring another appearance by the Doctor in the Star Trek comic, but eventually decided against it; as a result, neither property ever formally referred to the other again. It didn’t help that Star Trek, ubiquitous in syndication through the 1970s, did not include in its package of episodes the two-part crossover, leaving an “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” impression on many viewers.
In the United States, no small number of Trekkies were somewhere between dismissive of and hostile to Doctor Who, which was being hyped as the successor to Star Trek, and was naturally deemed to be unworthy of such a legacy; it didn’t help that Doctor Who, unlike Star Trek, faded quickly after riding a brief “fad” period (personified by Linda Johnson, the popular American companion who lasted only two seasons). The much smaller cadre of American Who devotees (who, by analogy with Trekkies, became known as “Whovians”, though this term was not used elsewhere) [9] could not possibly counteract the more mainstream opinion held within the much larger Trekkie fandom. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, Star Trek was perceived as the upstart attempting to piggyback off the success of the older, more established Doctor Who, and the overlap between both fandoms was much larger – a majority of Trekkies were also fans of Doctor Who, and indeed many Doctor Who fans were also fans of Star Trek, even though the initial crossover between the two would come to be perceived as the “original sin” which would result in the wretched excesses of the Yank Years. [10] For this reason (along with the more diffuse nature of “reality” in Doctor Who in general), the continuity of Star Trek was commonly considered fully intertwined with (if not subsumed within) that of Doctor Who – as a potential future from the vantage point of the UNIT years, and other references to the past in Star Trek were also to be considered part of the same timeline. This notion only curried favour as far as the fandom, and no further; the writers would never lock themselves into being forced to send the Doctor to the 1990s to fight Khan Noonien Singh in the Eugenics Wars, however tantalizing the idea might have proven to the certain contingents within the fanbase – at least, the British fanbase.
Across the pond, many American Trekkies shuddered at the very thought; from their discontent arose an alternative theory, which was at once more ambitious and had much farther-reaching repercussions for the concepts of fandom and continuity: the parallelism theory. [11] This held that all fictional universes (later extended to all universes, fictional or otherwise, for hypothetical purposes) each formed a single, distinct reality which operated in constant parallel to every other universe, all moving (by default) forward in time at a constant speed. If any two (or more) universes were to cross over, this would represent an intersection of the two parallel universes, creating a single, merged reality at that point in time (for the duration of the crossover). When the crossover came to an end, the universes would again diverge and resume their parallel course, ending the merged reality and once again establishing two separate realities. The implications that followed in terms of canonicity were that Star Trek and Doctor Who formed a shared reality only for the duration of the crossover, and never before nor after. The concept of a unified canon comprising both properties was therefore in contradiction of the parallelism theory of canonicity (which, granted, had been developed largely in response to the crossover and was therefore built around invalidating its implications). One more ideologically neutral advantage to the parallelism theory, however, was that it helped to neatly reconcile the parallel reality which had been featured in the episode “Mirror, Mirror”; the universe which contained the Terran Empire was just as different as the one which contained the Doctor, despite the much stronger superficial similarities, although in this case the intersection took a different form (a “transposition”, which entailed solely characters crossing over as opposed to the settings themselves coming together). [12] Again, the reality of the “mirror” universe was only valid within the context of Star Trek for as long as the characters were transposed. Prior and subsequent events within that universe, according to the parallelism theory, had no significance within the canon.
The complexity of the parallelism principle was, at first, a limiting factor in its gaining acceptance, but it acquired widespread currency upon being distilled into the maxim “What happens in crossover, stays in crossover”. [13] The opposing viewpoint, which held that Star Trek and Doctor Who were part of a single shared universe and separated only by the passage of time, came to be known as the concordance theory, though many “concordant” fans refused to dignify what they saw as the a priori viewpoint with a term which might imply that their views deviated from the norm. [14] But the parallelism view came to be accepted far beyond the Trekkie fandom, as it helped to address the crossovers (and visits to alternate realities) that were already commonplace in comics and animation, as well as between various universes which had fallen into the public domain. The overwhelming acceptance of parallelism within the Trekkie fandom made for strange bedfellows against the backdrop of the greater conflict that emerged as a result of The Next Voyage in 1978: the ideological divide was so intense that it came to be known as the “Star Trek Wars”. [15] Given that they could be traced to a single precipitating event that drove a wedge between the formerly (if nominally) united Trekkie fandom, Trekkies themselves often described it as the “Great Schism”. The conflict was waged between the mainstream (which, unlike the concordants, was sufficiently large to not require an identifying label) and the Puritan faction – perhaps the largest, probably the most notorious, and certainly the most vocal subculture in the fandom. The Puritanical view of canon was simple, and arbitrary only in that it brooked no compromise: the series proper comprised the entire canon. Naturally, this involved showing a special affinity to those personages who had been involved with only the series and nothing else: Gene Roddenberry, the “Great Bird of the Galaxy” and, extending the “Puritan” metaphor, the John Calvin; and Gene L. Coon, likewise the John Knox. [16] Many Puritans did not care for upstarts like David Gerrold (who, to be fair, considered himself no supporter of the Puritan mentality either, having coined the name for their mindset in derision), though the obvious question of whether they might have been more amenable to The Next Voyage if Gene L. Coon had lived to write it was one of the great hypotheticals of the fandom. [17]
The Puritans were so vociferous in their attempts to invalidate what was canon that, to paraphrase Captain Kirk himself, it was easier to apply “reverse logic” and agree on what was not canon. Fanon was recognized as merely convenient for use as a storytelling device, as opposed to meaningful information. This was to say nothing of certain genres or devices which were not widely accepted, such as the infamous “slash” fandom. Perhaps it was the slashers who took the plot developments of The Next Voyage the worst – Spock, one-half of their sacred couple, had been wedded to Nurse Chapel, whom they had long dismissed as utterly unworthy of the Vulcan’s affections. As a result, they found themselves in agreement with the Puritan stance on canonicity despite there being no love lost between the two factions otherwise. The slashers were, in essence, revisionists – viewing the interactions between the Captain and his First Officer through the lens of “subtext” – which most other Trekkies apparently did not notice. The slashers were prolific producers of fan fiction and fan art, and contributed heavily to the fanon; their interpretation of the Vulcan pon farr and its implications was a particular point of pride for the Kirk/Spock community. However, the marriage of Spock and Chapel, and the birth of their son Selek, was implied to have resulted from Spock entering pon farr on the occasion subsequent to his doing so during the events of “Amok Time” – that is, seven years later. D.C. Fontana, who had written the Spock/Chapel subplot, confirmed this during a convention appearance in 1978, saying “we double-checked the math on that one”. [18] Fontana never revealed whether this was written in response to the common slash fiction storyline of Spock entering pon farr and seeking solace from Kirk (as the writing staff delicately avoided acknowledging fan fiction in order to maintain plausible deniability of its existence), but the slashers very vocally reacted as if she had. [19] Stories of Nurse Chapel figurines being burned in effigy abounded, though these were likely apocryphal (the earliest mention was in a parody article from a 1979 fanzine). However, after the miniseries aired it did become a pastime of many slashfic writers to find novel ways to… “dispose” of “Mrs. Spock”, clearing the way for Commodore Kirk and Ambassador Spock to come together romantically.
Speaking of figurines, it was direct merchandising which occupied the lowest rung of canonicity, by universal agreement. Fluff in the product descriptions of toys and action figures, “trivia” in the board games and factbooks with no corroborating sources, and plot summaries for the video games – though the latter relegation would attract some controversy in later years. Many of the figurines themselves often did not bear close resemblance to the characters on whom they were based – it was not uncommon for Spock to be depicted with chartreuse skin, for example, despite having only a faint greenish tinge on television. Authorized images of Spock in “cartoon” form often followed this convention as well. The “official” excuse was that, given the small size of many Spock toys, the skin colour made it easier to tell him apart from other blueshirt characters, as the pointed ears and eyebrows were less apparent. By contrast, most of the human characters in each line were given identical skin colours despite the wide variation in complexions of the actors who played them – with the obvious exception of Uhura (though an unfortunate manufacturing error had once resulted in a batch of “White Uhuras” [20]; most of these had been destroyed once the mistake was spotted by quality control, but a few were anonymously misappropriated and became valuable collectors’ items).
Although the battle lines had been drawn along multiple fronts, the Trekkie fandom in the early-1980s still seemed to be entering something of an autumnal period; the years of callow enthusiasm, and then followed by resplendence and rejuvenation, were well behind them. Debates continued to rage about whether Star Trek should be continued in some “official” (televised) capacity or not – the revamp of the comics had been well-received, and the offshoot novel and short-story lines sold very well, with the constant reiterations of the Star Trek video game bettering even those. But there seemed to be a palpable need throughout the fandom for active and creative involvement in the property they loved so much. Fan fiction and fan art clearly sated a need that wasn’t met elsewhere. Desilu staffers, despite turning a blind eye to fanworks, were very much aware of the untapped outlet for Trekkie creativity. Just as they had staked a claim in other emerging media of the day, from home video to video games, those at the studio decided to explore aligning their interest with an altogether different, yet equally nascent, form of self-expression…
---
[1] In a letter to the editor of the April, 1980, issue of the fanzine Voyages, one “Betty from Boston” made the apt remark that “Desilu may not be perfect, but at least Star Trek isn’t in the hands of a greedy, corrupt studio like Paramount – or an upstart in over his head like George Lucas”.
[2] During the “pre-Gerrold” era, as IOTL, the Star Trek comic told exclusively original stories – though it had a far more erratic release schedule than the once-a-month pace at which Gerrold had been exhorted to churn out the comic. Gerrold, though a higher-calibre writer than those who had worked on the comic before him, and having the advantage of access to rejected story ideas for the show to mine for material, still faced considerable difficulty meeting deadlines, even after bringing in other writers.
[3] Blish adapted 75 of the 79 OTL episodes in twelve short-story collections before his death in 1975, omitting only “Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd” (which he planned to adapt into a Harry Mudd novel, which was published posthumously as Mudd’s Angels in 1978, having been completed by his wife), along with “Shore Leave” and “And the Children Shall Lead”. ITTL, even though more books are published and contain more stories per book, he cannot possibly adapt all 133 episodes before his death, at which point the series is abandoned – at about the same time that Gerrold asserts the primacy of the comics over the short stories (which is no coincidence).
[4] “Classic 89” was a retronym applied to the distinguish the Blish adaptations from other short-story and novel lines bearing the Star Trek name (including the later adaptations to complete the series proper), given that the books in which they first appeared were named, simply, Star Trek (followed by the numbers 1-13).
[5] The mission of the Artemis, which began very late into the “Lost Years”, was not depicted or even alluded to in the comics, with Cdr. Sulu and Lt. Cdr. Kyle instead serving aboard the Excelsior (as First Officer and Chief Engineer respectively), to add some familiar faces to Kirk’s roster.
[6] Arex and M’Ress, of course, both appeared in TAS IOTL, a series for which Gerrold wrote multiple episodes. They also serve a “political” purpose, in allowing non-human “minorities” to have a more visible presence aboard the Excelsior (since Spock, the token non-human of the series proper, is the Captain aboard the Enterprise).
[7] Yes, the potency of the Comics Code Authority survives ITTL, because there is no Nixon Administration to open a new front in the War on Drugs by requesting that Stan Lee write an anti-drug storyline for The Amazing Spider-Man. This gives the Code enough time to properly adapt to changing societal mores. Ironically, the greater success of the non-Code Star Trek line(s) still serve to weaken the authority of the code… only from without, instead of from within.
[8] Diane Duane wrote many stories for Star Trek IOTL as well, and despite her relative youth at the POD (she was born in 1952), she did indeed get her start as David Gerrold’s assistant when she moved to LA in 1976 IOTL (at which time Gerrold had little to do with Star Trek anymore) before moving onto work extensively with the franchise. All those coincidences (and the parallels between her career and that of D.C. Fontana) struck me as too profound to butterfly away. Whether Duane will go on to write the Young Wizards series as she did IOTL is another question entirely.
[9] As IOTL, where the term “Whovian” is also a creation of the American fandom, dating to the 1980s. “Whovian” is far more typical of American nomenclature than British, and the term has never held much currency in those old islands.
[10] As a result, many British Trekkies are, on the whole, far less approving of Desilu than American Trekkies, because of their memories of the studio “meddling” in the production of Doctor Who throughout the Yank Years (along with NBC, who to be fair receive the brunt of the vitriol on the score).
[11] So named because the word “parallelism” was so ambiguous that it could (and does) refer to one of any number of incredibly diverse concepts – why not try for one more?
[12] “Parallel universe” and “transposition” are both terms which were used in the teleplay of “Mirror, Mirror” (ITTL and IOTL), and this helped to inform the parallelism theory.
[13] Thanks to e of pi for this succinct summarization of the parallelism concept. ITTL, it is derived from the popular expression “what happens on tour, stays on tour” (sometimes rendered as “what happens on the road, stays on the road”), used by sports teams and rock bands since approximately the era of the POD. (The popular modern-day derivation IOTL, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, dates only to 2003.)
[14] The term “concordance” (a synonym for agreement) was used as part of the popular fan reference, The Star Trek Concordance, which was first written by the legendary Bjo Trimble in the late-1960s. It never achieved notoriety ITTL, allowing the term to be available for use in opposition to parallelism.
[15] Borrowed rather shamelessly from the quasi-religious conflict which took place in the backstory of Futurama (not to be confused with the Star Wars Trek, the mass migration of Star Wars fans). ITTL, obviously, the term is used without reference to what is known as Journey of the Force.
[16] Herbert F. Solow, the other major figure who had active involvement only with the original series, was usually disregarded, despite having wielded considerable creative authority on behalf of Desilu during the show’s development, because by 1978 he was known almost entirely for his role as a top studio executive.
[17] Not to mention the Questor fandom (Questies? Or perhaps Questorians?)
[18] This is contrary to Fontana’s OTL belief, expressed in her novel Vulcan’s Glory, that Vulcans could engage in sexual activity at any time, and were not bound to their seven-year mating cycle – however, the other writers (primarily Gerrold) talked her into “going with the flow” ITTL.
[19] Shippers in general (not necessarily just slashers, though they are certainly not exempt) tend to be very petty about… “obstacles”.
[20] Sometimes called “Friedas” (or “Fredas”, “Freidas”, or even “Freedas”) because Uhura was named in reference to the book Black Uhuru, a copy of which Nichelle Nichols brought with her to audition for Star Trek. Uhuru, of course, is Swahili for “freedom” or “independence”, and therefore the “cognate” of “Black Uhuru” would be “White Freedom”. Since Uhura is a “feminized” version of Uhuru (except not really, because Swahili doesn’t work that way), so too is Frieda equivalent to Freedom.
---
Thanks to e of pi for assisting with the editing of this latest update, and for serving as the sounding board to my ideas!
At long last, this is the update that sheds some light on the question of continuity within Star Trek, especially with regard to Doctor Who. To make a long post short, many British/Whovian (for lack of a better term) Trekkies say it happened, but they’re just about the only ones. The majority hold firm to the notion of parallelism, which becomes a core TTL concept of canonicity and continuity spreading far beyond both original fandoms. Such arcane concepts have caught fire IOTL… remember little Tommy Westphall?
For better or for worse, the broadcast of The Next Voyage had changed everything about the ardent Star Trek fandom, which devoted immeasurable time and energy to dissecting its ramifications. The years before had been nebulous, an era of unfettered creativity and unrestrained imagination. There was the television series, and as far as just about everyone was concerned, that was all she wrote; the few other “official” media attached to Star Trek were well-constructed trifles at best (the Gold Key comic), and tasteless irrelevancies at worst (the advertising fluff for some of the more… questionable action-figure releases, for example). This was the atmosphere that incubated the most notorious subculture of the Trekkie fandom, the Puritans, who made themselves known starting in 1978, once Desilu had breached the “integrity” of the so-called gentlemen’s agreement in place between the studio and the fandom. Most Trekkies were more sanguine about both The Next Voyage and about Desilu as the caretaker of Star Trek [1] – and they would react to changes in the marketing of supplementary material in a far more varied spectrum of ways than the categorical rejection employed by the Puritans.
But one aspect of Star Trek continuity which demanded consensus was canon. Desilu was surprisingly mum on the subject; as far as most at the studio were concerned, anything produced or licensed by Desilu and bearing the Star Trek name was exactly what it purported to be: Star Trek. David Gerrold, always the “Studio Ambassador to the Trekkies”, acknowledged that this was a problem – even the show itself had difficulty maintaining internal consistency (despite having an impressively coherent continuity for its medium, by the standards of its time), let alone the ancillary material, much of which was contradictory. But Gerrold, having been in charge of the comic since 1971, was hardly a neutral arbiter, and in the ad hoc system which he devised in the mid-1970s, the comic was unsurprisingly assigned greater canonicity than any other Star Trek media bar the series proper; the official short-story episode adaptations, written by James Blish, occupied the next step down, and this became an early point of contention.
The Star Trek comic, during the “classic” Gerrold era (from 1971 to 1978), published mostly “original” stories set during the course of the five-year mission, but occasionally, when the well of ideas ran dry, Gerrold would resort to adapting episodes of the series proper into comic form. [2] “The Trouble with Tribbles”, which he himself had written, was the first episode to get this treatment, in 1973; as the comic wore on, this easy out to avoid writing original stories (which, granted, was entirely predictable given that Gerrold had been part of the writing staff that had exhausted viable story ideas in the five-year mission setting in 1970-71) was employed more and more often as a means of getting the issue out on time. In the year leading up to the airdate of The Next Voyage (co-written and produced by Gerrold), more than half of the published issues were adaptations of episodes – in all, over two dozen episodes (all written, co-written, or heavily edited by Gerrold) would see print. But Gerrold was not the first to adapt the television series for the page – nor were his efforts the most comprehensive. Both of those distinctions were held by James Blish, a science-fiction author of some renown.
Blish had been commissioned in 1966 by Desilu to adapt several of the show’s earliest batch of scripts into short-story format; a collection of these formed the first of many books published until the Star Trek marque, in early 1967. In all, Blish would publish thirteen short-story collections, the last of which was released posthumously in late 1975. [3] Of the 133 episodes in the Star Trek syndication package (counting “These Were the Voyages” as a single episode, along with “The Menagerie”, as it – or rather, “The Cage” – was adapted as a single story), Blish adapted 89, with several notable omissions – none of the Harry Mudd stories were included (as Blish had attempted to release all five in a single volume, along with an original framing story), and nor was “The Borderland” (as Niven had expressed an interest in adapting the story on his own), nor “These Were the Voyages” (which Blish had quite logically decided to save for last). In fact, very few fifth-season episodes were among the “Classic 89” adaptations. [4] Quite a number of episodes had not been adapted by either Gerrold or Blish; however, the problem was with the overlapping adaptations. By any objective measure, Gerrold’s adaptations had the better claim to canonicity, since every doubly adapted work was one which Gerrold himself had played a large part in writing, in addition to his having worked on the show as a producer, and basing the comics on finished episodes, as opposed to Blish who worked from shooting scripts. However, the hypothetical situation of whether the comics were to trump the short stories if they ever adapted episodes not written by Gerrold continued to be raised, though it was never fully resolved.
The five-year mission was officially declared over by Desilu (at Gerrold’s behest) after The Next Voyage had aired; the “classic era” of the Star Trek comic ended in the spring of 1978 with a partial adaptation of “These Were the Voyages”, though it focused far more on the aftermath of the episode, with the crew saying their final goodbyes and (some of them) leaving the Enterprise, seemingly for good; notably, the Excelsior was shown in full (looking as it did in the miniseries) and the Enterprise (having been badly damaged in the recent conflict) was sent in for repairs. Thus began the “Lost Years” era of the comic, which was split into two different lines: Enterprise and Excelsior. It depicted the five-year missions in between the end of the series proper (2170) and the miniseries (2176). [5] The Enterprise series, which starred Spock, was slower, more cerebral and character-based; the Excelsior series, which starred Kirk, was more action-oriented and artistically inclined. The decision to focus on the “Lost Years” was a way to maintain the edict imposed by Gene Roddenberry not to expand upon the established televised canon, one that Desilu itself never saw fit to contradict; most everyone at the studio believed that television was the property’s first, best destiny, and that ancillary media were a sideshow. David Gerrold was “promoted” to Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Star Trek line, having neither the time nor the inclination to directly oversee two separate issues per month. Both of the comics were well-received, however, and in completely different ways. Star Trek: Enterprise was praised as reviving the best cerebral, allegorical detective-story aspects of the series proper, and seemed to swing more for the fences in its approach to continuing storylines, including the depiction of the romance between Captain Spock and his CMO, Dr. Christine Chapel. Enterprise sold better than Star Trek: Excelsior, though that line had the advantage of more diverse characters, including aliens who could never have been depicted in live-action, such as the many-armed Lt. Arex, and the seductive felinoid Lt. M’Ress [6]. It was certainly more “edgy” in its content than Enterprise, taking full advantage of Gold Key Comics being one of the few publishers not to adhere to the Comics Code (which, to be fair, had followed suit with the MPAA and had been relaxed considerably in recent years). [7]
Beyond the comic line, those Star Trek books beyond the Blish direct adaptations – which had been relatively few and far between, prior to 1978 – also flourished. Unofficial Desilu policy was to encourage writers to focus on the “Lost Years”; manuscripts depicting the official five-year mission continued to be accepted (in fact, adaptations of original episodes resumed after 1978, though they were generally regarded as inferior to the Blish stories), as were stories from the Captain Pike era, and depicting the earlier career of James T. Kirk (aboard the Republic, the Farragut, and during his years studying and teaching at Starfleet Academy). A precious few short-stories (never novels) were able to evade the prohibition against outpacing the canon, though never by much – the farthest-flung vignette was “Logical Inaugural”, depicting the swearing-in of Federation President Sarek in early 2177 following his successful election. This story, published in a 1981 collection by prominent Star Trek writer Diane Duane, and obviously inspired by John Glenn’s successful campaign for the Presidency, “confirmed” what had already been widely suspected by that point in naming his sensible silver-haired predecessor as Lucille Carter. [8] The comic, meanwhile, occasionally featured President Carter in cameo appearances, always taking pains to avoid mentioning her first name – demonstrating the need for hierarchical canonicity. Duane herself suggested a modified version of Gerrold’s original hierarchy (fittingly, as like D.C. Fontana before her, she had started out working as the assistant and secretary to “the boss” before emerging from his shadow): The series proper and the subsequent miniseries would come first, followed by the comics which were adaptations of the series, then by Blish’s novelizations, and then by the comics in general; all other books, which included “embellishments” by Blish that were explicitly contradicted in the comics, came at the bottom rung of the canonicity ladder. Duane, who (like Gerrold) was very aware of the fandom, tried to leave room for “below the ladder” material – from as far back as the late-1960s, certain conventions and customs that had no direct onscreen evidence to support them had been widely accepted among fans, and this “fan canon”, or simply “fanon”, was used to “fill in your own blanks”, as Duane had suggested in endorsing the practice. Her actions were well-intentioned, but at the same time they were rather akin to throwing a lit match atop a pile of explosives.
Even though it had been less than seven years between the grand finale of the series proper (in July, 1971) and the broadcast of the miniseries (in February, 1978), the entrenched fandom which had existed since the 1960s had plenty of time in the interim to develop their own ideas about the universe in which Star Trek was set. And though the notorious Puritan subculture would not make themselves known as a distinct group until after the fallout from the miniseries divided the fandom, many accepted “principles”, for lack of a better term, emerged during this period which could be described as “proto-Puritan”. The most controversial issue was the nature of the Doctor Who crossover which had opened the fifth and final season of Star Trek; in a real-world context, it was purely a mercenary matter that served to introduce the concept of Doctor Who to American audiences in preparation for NBC importing the series the following season. David Gerrold had considered featuring another appearance by the Doctor in the Star Trek comic, but eventually decided against it; as a result, neither property ever formally referred to the other again. It didn’t help that Star Trek, ubiquitous in syndication through the 1970s, did not include in its package of episodes the two-part crossover, leaving an “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” impression on many viewers.
In the United States, no small number of Trekkies were somewhere between dismissive of and hostile to Doctor Who, which was being hyped as the successor to Star Trek, and was naturally deemed to be unworthy of such a legacy; it didn’t help that Doctor Who, unlike Star Trek, faded quickly after riding a brief “fad” period (personified by Linda Johnson, the popular American companion who lasted only two seasons). The much smaller cadre of American Who devotees (who, by analogy with Trekkies, became known as “Whovians”, though this term was not used elsewhere) [9] could not possibly counteract the more mainstream opinion held within the much larger Trekkie fandom. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, Star Trek was perceived as the upstart attempting to piggyback off the success of the older, more established Doctor Who, and the overlap between both fandoms was much larger – a majority of Trekkies were also fans of Doctor Who, and indeed many Doctor Who fans were also fans of Star Trek, even though the initial crossover between the two would come to be perceived as the “original sin” which would result in the wretched excesses of the Yank Years. [10] For this reason (along with the more diffuse nature of “reality” in Doctor Who in general), the continuity of Star Trek was commonly considered fully intertwined with (if not subsumed within) that of Doctor Who – as a potential future from the vantage point of the UNIT years, and other references to the past in Star Trek were also to be considered part of the same timeline. This notion only curried favour as far as the fandom, and no further; the writers would never lock themselves into being forced to send the Doctor to the 1990s to fight Khan Noonien Singh in the Eugenics Wars, however tantalizing the idea might have proven to the certain contingents within the fanbase – at least, the British fanbase.
Across the pond, many American Trekkies shuddered at the very thought; from their discontent arose an alternative theory, which was at once more ambitious and had much farther-reaching repercussions for the concepts of fandom and continuity: the parallelism theory. [11] This held that all fictional universes (later extended to all universes, fictional or otherwise, for hypothetical purposes) each formed a single, distinct reality which operated in constant parallel to every other universe, all moving (by default) forward in time at a constant speed. If any two (or more) universes were to cross over, this would represent an intersection of the two parallel universes, creating a single, merged reality at that point in time (for the duration of the crossover). When the crossover came to an end, the universes would again diverge and resume their parallel course, ending the merged reality and once again establishing two separate realities. The implications that followed in terms of canonicity were that Star Trek and Doctor Who formed a shared reality only for the duration of the crossover, and never before nor after. The concept of a unified canon comprising both properties was therefore in contradiction of the parallelism theory of canonicity (which, granted, had been developed largely in response to the crossover and was therefore built around invalidating its implications). One more ideologically neutral advantage to the parallelism theory, however, was that it helped to neatly reconcile the parallel reality which had been featured in the episode “Mirror, Mirror”; the universe which contained the Terran Empire was just as different as the one which contained the Doctor, despite the much stronger superficial similarities, although in this case the intersection took a different form (a “transposition”, which entailed solely characters crossing over as opposed to the settings themselves coming together). [12] Again, the reality of the “mirror” universe was only valid within the context of Star Trek for as long as the characters were transposed. Prior and subsequent events within that universe, according to the parallelism theory, had no significance within the canon.
The complexity of the parallelism principle was, at first, a limiting factor in its gaining acceptance, but it acquired widespread currency upon being distilled into the maxim “What happens in crossover, stays in crossover”. [13] The opposing viewpoint, which held that Star Trek and Doctor Who were part of a single shared universe and separated only by the passage of time, came to be known as the concordance theory, though many “concordant” fans refused to dignify what they saw as the a priori viewpoint with a term which might imply that their views deviated from the norm. [14] But the parallelism view came to be accepted far beyond the Trekkie fandom, as it helped to address the crossovers (and visits to alternate realities) that were already commonplace in comics and animation, as well as between various universes which had fallen into the public domain. The overwhelming acceptance of parallelism within the Trekkie fandom made for strange bedfellows against the backdrop of the greater conflict that emerged as a result of The Next Voyage in 1978: the ideological divide was so intense that it came to be known as the “Star Trek Wars”. [15] Given that they could be traced to a single precipitating event that drove a wedge between the formerly (if nominally) united Trekkie fandom, Trekkies themselves often described it as the “Great Schism”. The conflict was waged between the mainstream (which, unlike the concordants, was sufficiently large to not require an identifying label) and the Puritan faction – perhaps the largest, probably the most notorious, and certainly the most vocal subculture in the fandom. The Puritanical view of canon was simple, and arbitrary only in that it brooked no compromise: the series proper comprised the entire canon. Naturally, this involved showing a special affinity to those personages who had been involved with only the series and nothing else: Gene Roddenberry, the “Great Bird of the Galaxy” and, extending the “Puritan” metaphor, the John Calvin; and Gene L. Coon, likewise the John Knox. [16] Many Puritans did not care for upstarts like David Gerrold (who, to be fair, considered himself no supporter of the Puritan mentality either, having coined the name for their mindset in derision), though the obvious question of whether they might have been more amenable to The Next Voyage if Gene L. Coon had lived to write it was one of the great hypotheticals of the fandom. [17]
The Puritans were so vociferous in their attempts to invalidate what was canon that, to paraphrase Captain Kirk himself, it was easier to apply “reverse logic” and agree on what was not canon. Fanon was recognized as merely convenient for use as a storytelling device, as opposed to meaningful information. This was to say nothing of certain genres or devices which were not widely accepted, such as the infamous “slash” fandom. Perhaps it was the slashers who took the plot developments of The Next Voyage the worst – Spock, one-half of their sacred couple, had been wedded to Nurse Chapel, whom they had long dismissed as utterly unworthy of the Vulcan’s affections. As a result, they found themselves in agreement with the Puritan stance on canonicity despite there being no love lost between the two factions otherwise. The slashers were, in essence, revisionists – viewing the interactions between the Captain and his First Officer through the lens of “subtext” – which most other Trekkies apparently did not notice. The slashers were prolific producers of fan fiction and fan art, and contributed heavily to the fanon; their interpretation of the Vulcan pon farr and its implications was a particular point of pride for the Kirk/Spock community. However, the marriage of Spock and Chapel, and the birth of their son Selek, was implied to have resulted from Spock entering pon farr on the occasion subsequent to his doing so during the events of “Amok Time” – that is, seven years later. D.C. Fontana, who had written the Spock/Chapel subplot, confirmed this during a convention appearance in 1978, saying “we double-checked the math on that one”. [18] Fontana never revealed whether this was written in response to the common slash fiction storyline of Spock entering pon farr and seeking solace from Kirk (as the writing staff delicately avoided acknowledging fan fiction in order to maintain plausible deniability of its existence), but the slashers very vocally reacted as if she had. [19] Stories of Nurse Chapel figurines being burned in effigy abounded, though these were likely apocryphal (the earliest mention was in a parody article from a 1979 fanzine). However, after the miniseries aired it did become a pastime of many slashfic writers to find novel ways to… “dispose” of “Mrs. Spock”, clearing the way for Commodore Kirk and Ambassador Spock to come together romantically.
Speaking of figurines, it was direct merchandising which occupied the lowest rung of canonicity, by universal agreement. Fluff in the product descriptions of toys and action figures, “trivia” in the board games and factbooks with no corroborating sources, and plot summaries for the video games – though the latter relegation would attract some controversy in later years. Many of the figurines themselves often did not bear close resemblance to the characters on whom they were based – it was not uncommon for Spock to be depicted with chartreuse skin, for example, despite having only a faint greenish tinge on television. Authorized images of Spock in “cartoon” form often followed this convention as well. The “official” excuse was that, given the small size of many Spock toys, the skin colour made it easier to tell him apart from other blueshirt characters, as the pointed ears and eyebrows were less apparent. By contrast, most of the human characters in each line were given identical skin colours despite the wide variation in complexions of the actors who played them – with the obvious exception of Uhura (though an unfortunate manufacturing error had once resulted in a batch of “White Uhuras” [20]; most of these had been destroyed once the mistake was spotted by quality control, but a few were anonymously misappropriated and became valuable collectors’ items).
Although the battle lines had been drawn along multiple fronts, the Trekkie fandom in the early-1980s still seemed to be entering something of an autumnal period; the years of callow enthusiasm, and then followed by resplendence and rejuvenation, were well behind them. Debates continued to rage about whether Star Trek should be continued in some “official” (televised) capacity or not – the revamp of the comics had been well-received, and the offshoot novel and short-story lines sold very well, with the constant reiterations of the Star Trek video game bettering even those. But there seemed to be a palpable need throughout the fandom for active and creative involvement in the property they loved so much. Fan fiction and fan art clearly sated a need that wasn’t met elsewhere. Desilu staffers, despite turning a blind eye to fanworks, were very much aware of the untapped outlet for Trekkie creativity. Just as they had staked a claim in other emerging media of the day, from home video to video games, those at the studio decided to explore aligning their interest with an altogether different, yet equally nascent, form of self-expression…
---
[1] In a letter to the editor of the April, 1980, issue of the fanzine Voyages, one “Betty from Boston” made the apt remark that “Desilu may not be perfect, but at least Star Trek isn’t in the hands of a greedy, corrupt studio like Paramount – or an upstart in over his head like George Lucas”.
[2] During the “pre-Gerrold” era, as IOTL, the Star Trek comic told exclusively original stories – though it had a far more erratic release schedule than the once-a-month pace at which Gerrold had been exhorted to churn out the comic. Gerrold, though a higher-calibre writer than those who had worked on the comic before him, and having the advantage of access to rejected story ideas for the show to mine for material, still faced considerable difficulty meeting deadlines, even after bringing in other writers.
[3] Blish adapted 75 of the 79 OTL episodes in twelve short-story collections before his death in 1975, omitting only “Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd” (which he planned to adapt into a Harry Mudd novel, which was published posthumously as Mudd’s Angels in 1978, having been completed by his wife), along with “Shore Leave” and “And the Children Shall Lead”. ITTL, even though more books are published and contain more stories per book, he cannot possibly adapt all 133 episodes before his death, at which point the series is abandoned – at about the same time that Gerrold asserts the primacy of the comics over the short stories (which is no coincidence).
[4] “Classic 89” was a retronym applied to the distinguish the Blish adaptations from other short-story and novel lines bearing the Star Trek name (including the later adaptations to complete the series proper), given that the books in which they first appeared were named, simply, Star Trek (followed by the numbers 1-13).
[5] The mission of the Artemis, which began very late into the “Lost Years”, was not depicted or even alluded to in the comics, with Cdr. Sulu and Lt. Cdr. Kyle instead serving aboard the Excelsior (as First Officer and Chief Engineer respectively), to add some familiar faces to Kirk’s roster.
[6] Arex and M’Ress, of course, both appeared in TAS IOTL, a series for which Gerrold wrote multiple episodes. They also serve a “political” purpose, in allowing non-human “minorities” to have a more visible presence aboard the Excelsior (since Spock, the token non-human of the series proper, is the Captain aboard the Enterprise).
[7] Yes, the potency of the Comics Code Authority survives ITTL, because there is no Nixon Administration to open a new front in the War on Drugs by requesting that Stan Lee write an anti-drug storyline for The Amazing Spider-Man. This gives the Code enough time to properly adapt to changing societal mores. Ironically, the greater success of the non-Code Star Trek line(s) still serve to weaken the authority of the code… only from without, instead of from within.
[8] Diane Duane wrote many stories for Star Trek IOTL as well, and despite her relative youth at the POD (she was born in 1952), she did indeed get her start as David Gerrold’s assistant when she moved to LA in 1976 IOTL (at which time Gerrold had little to do with Star Trek anymore) before moving onto work extensively with the franchise. All those coincidences (and the parallels between her career and that of D.C. Fontana) struck me as too profound to butterfly away. Whether Duane will go on to write the Young Wizards series as she did IOTL is another question entirely.
[9] As IOTL, where the term “Whovian” is also a creation of the American fandom, dating to the 1980s. “Whovian” is far more typical of American nomenclature than British, and the term has never held much currency in those old islands.
[10] As a result, many British Trekkies are, on the whole, far less approving of Desilu than American Trekkies, because of their memories of the studio “meddling” in the production of Doctor Who throughout the Yank Years (along with NBC, who to be fair receive the brunt of the vitriol on the score).
[11] So named because the word “parallelism” was so ambiguous that it could (and does) refer to one of any number of incredibly diverse concepts – why not try for one more?
[12] “Parallel universe” and “transposition” are both terms which were used in the teleplay of “Mirror, Mirror” (ITTL and IOTL), and this helped to inform the parallelism theory.
[13] Thanks to e of pi for this succinct summarization of the parallelism concept. ITTL, it is derived from the popular expression “what happens on tour, stays on tour” (sometimes rendered as “what happens on the road, stays on the road”), used by sports teams and rock bands since approximately the era of the POD. (The popular modern-day derivation IOTL, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, dates only to 2003.)
[14] The term “concordance” (a synonym for agreement) was used as part of the popular fan reference, The Star Trek Concordance, which was first written by the legendary Bjo Trimble in the late-1960s. It never achieved notoriety ITTL, allowing the term to be available for use in opposition to parallelism.
[15] Borrowed rather shamelessly from the quasi-religious conflict which took place in the backstory of Futurama (not to be confused with the Star Wars Trek, the mass migration of Star Wars fans). ITTL, obviously, the term is used without reference to what is known as Journey of the Force.
[16] Herbert F. Solow, the other major figure who had active involvement only with the original series, was usually disregarded, despite having wielded considerable creative authority on behalf of Desilu during the show’s development, because by 1978 he was known almost entirely for his role as a top studio executive.
[17] Not to mention the Questor fandom (Questies? Or perhaps Questorians?)
[18] This is contrary to Fontana’s OTL belief, expressed in her novel Vulcan’s Glory, that Vulcans could engage in sexual activity at any time, and were not bound to their seven-year mating cycle – however, the other writers (primarily Gerrold) talked her into “going with the flow” ITTL.
[19] Shippers in general (not necessarily just slashers, though they are certainly not exempt) tend to be very petty about… “obstacles”.
[20] Sometimes called “Friedas” (or “Fredas”, “Freidas”, or even “Freedas”) because Uhura was named in reference to the book Black Uhuru, a copy of which Nichelle Nichols brought with her to audition for Star Trek. Uhuru, of course, is Swahili for “freedom” or “independence”, and therefore the “cognate” of “Black Uhuru” would be “White Freedom”. Since Uhura is a “feminized” version of Uhuru (except not really, because Swahili doesn’t work that way), so too is Frieda equivalent to Freedom.
---
Thanks to e of pi for assisting with the editing of this latest update, and for serving as the sounding board to my ideas!
At long last, this is the update that sheds some light on the question of continuity within Star Trek, especially with regard to Doctor Who. To make a long post short, many British/Whovian (for lack of a better term) Trekkies say it happened, but they’re just about the only ones. The majority hold firm to the notion of parallelism, which becomes a core TTL concept of canonicity and continuity spreading far beyond both original fandoms. Such arcane concepts have caught fire IOTL… remember little Tommy Westphall?
Last edited:
A nascent form of self-expression in the early 80s... hm, perhaps it is my biases showing through, but I cannot help but think of a certain branch of role-playing which had (at least in our world) begun to emerge in the 70s but really hit its stride in the early 80s...
Fascinating !
From what I remember of the Blish adaptions (which were pretty good), he did tend to add his own ideas to the story lines. For example, he included a mention of the Vegan Tyranny in his adaption of Tomorrow is Yesterday.
"Trekky" and "Whovian" are labels adopted by people who perceived of themselves as minorities. Doctor Who fans in the UK, especially in the Seventies, didn't see themselves in that way. After all, you can hardly be in a ghetto if the Queen is there as well !
I can see that being the case immediately after the crossover episode. However, as time passes and especially if there is any large scale disillusionment with the "Yank Years", I can see that view fading away. While Starship from the Future will remain part of Doctor Who canon, it will become one of the many milieus that the Doctor visited once and never went back to.
The crossover episode is really much less of a problem for Doctor Who continuity than for Star Trek. By this time there had already been stories set in parallel universes - even in fantasy ones (e.g. The Celestial Toymaker and The Mind Robber).
That's going to be interesting if later series want to revisit the Mirror Universe, like DS9 and Enterprise did IOTL.
Cheers,
Nigel.
From what I remember of the Blish adaptions (which were pretty good), he did tend to add his own ideas to the story lines. For example, he included a mention of the Vegan Tyranny in his adaption of Tomorrow is Yesterday.
"Trekky" and "Whovian" are labels adopted by people who perceived of themselves as minorities. Doctor Who fans in the UK, especially in the Seventies, didn't see themselves in that way. After all, you can hardly be in a ghetto if the Queen is there as well !
I can see that being the case immediately after the crossover episode. However, as time passes and especially if there is any large scale disillusionment with the "Yank Years", I can see that view fading away. While Starship from the Future will remain part of Doctor Who canon, it will become one of the many milieus that the Doctor visited once and never went back to.
The crossover episode is really much less of a problem for Doctor Who continuity than for Star Trek. By this time there had already been stories set in parallel universes - even in fantasy ones (e.g. The Celestial Toymaker and The Mind Robber).
That's going to be interesting if later series want to revisit the Mirror Universe, like DS9 and Enterprise did IOTL.
Cheers,
Nigel.
Last edited:
Thande
Donor
Interesting update.
It occurs to me that Brainbin may have stolen the "transcendentally nerdiest conceivable subject to write about" crown from me, as he has now written about arguments between different Star Trek fan subcultures resulting from a different version of Star Trek in an alternate universe--which I believe trumps my "arguments about definitions of genres of science fiction literature in an alternate universe" in LTTW
My school had one of the 1970s Star Trek annuals with some of the collected Gold Key comics so I'm somewhat familiar with those, as well as the later Marvel ones. The latter had this strange thing where they would continue on from each Star Trek film with a storyline, then sort of backtrack and ignore everything they'd done when the next Star Trek film came out and of course followed directly on from the last one... They had some interesting ideas though, such as their take on the Mirror Universe.
1) Star Trek isn't as definitively American as Doctor Who is British; Star Trek has to compete with other big franchises like Star Wars, and is also explicitly internationalist in intent if not in practice;
2) America doesn't have a single centralised broadcasting institution like the BBC, which affects the way an individual programme is viewed as being emblematic of the nation of a whole or not.
It occurs to me that Brainbin may have stolen the "transcendentally nerdiest conceivable subject to write about" crown from me, as he has now written about arguments between different Star Trek fan subcultures resulting from a different version of Star Trek in an alternate universe--which I believe trumps my "arguments about definitions of genres of science fiction literature in an alternate universe" in LTTW
My school had one of the 1970s Star Trek annuals with some of the collected Gold Key comics so I'm somewhat familiar with those, as well as the later Marvel ones. The latter had this strange thing where they would continue on from each Star Trek film with a storyline, then sort of backtrack and ignore everything they'd done when the next Star Trek film came out and of course followed directly on from the last one... They had some interesting ideas though, such as their take on the Mirror Universe.
A good point, but I think this is more a matter of perception than reality. One survey in the 1990s said that 52% of Americans considered themselves "fans of Star Trek" in the sense of they would watch it if it was on and they had some level of recognition or understanding of concepts like warp drive, transporters and so on. That's not too different from the mainstream public perception of Doctor Who in the UK, and there is the same distinction between hardcore fans and casuals. To my mind the difference is:
1) Star Trek isn't as definitively American as Doctor Who is British; Star Trek has to compete with other big franchises like Star Wars, and is also explicitly internationalist in intent if not in practice;
2) America doesn't have a single centralised broadcasting institution like the BBC, which affects the way an individual programme is viewed as being emblematic of the nation of a whole or not.
Good points. I'd also add that the letter writing campaign due to the threat of cancellation probably catalysed organised Trek fandom. There's nothing like a good fight to bring people together.
Cheers,
Nigel.
I'd also add that, IME, the Doctor Who fans who are most contemptuous of the term Whovian (rather than just shrugging and wondering what the point is) are the ones who work very hard to make a ghetto for themselves - the grumpy Classic Series fans who don't consider anyone whose favourite Doctor is David Tennant, or who quite enjoyed the Virgin New Adventures novels, to be a "proper" fan.
The OTL UK version of the Puritans, in other words.
The OTL UK version of the Puritans, in other words.
Last edited:
Orville_third
Banned
And, it should be noted, one company had licenses for BOTH Star Trek and Doctor Who in RPG form. (FASA. My dad had the former, and I got a used copy of the latter.)
I remember the old Blish story versions- which involved a few alterations inside the story, some of which had minor changes.
As for the "concordance", I think it unlikely to be used in that context. Most would view a "concordance" in the religious context- a work designed to correlate references to various words, phrases or concepts in a single work or series of works.
On the other hand, as the footnotes point out this was not an issue for the fandom of OTL Star Trek...
Falkenburg
Monthly Donor
How about "Who-ligans" as a gently dismissive sobriquet for those rambunctious, predominantly youthful, new adherents to the Doctor?
Falkenburg
Falkenburg
Glen
Moderator
I'd also add that, IME, the Doctor Who fans who are most contemptuous of the term Whovian (rather than just shrugging and wondering what the point is) are the ones who work very hard to make a ghetto for themselves - the grumpy Classic Series fans who don't consider anyone whose favourite Doctor is David Tennant, or who quite enjoyed the Virgin New Adventures novels, to be a "proper" fan.
The OTL UK version of the Puritans, in other words.
I think Whovian is a delightful term.
I wish to know the status of Eunice. Also would the Golden Girls be broadcasting in this ATL.
Also wish to know what the status is of the 007 series in this ATL.
Also wish to know what the status is of the 007 series in this ATL.
Man, that whole update was an eerily apt take on the life cycle of a fandom.
I'm rather curious to read that, actually. "Bondage and Freedom" was my take on the "Cliché Storm" episode of Star Trek, which (to my delight and horror) turned out remarkably similar to the "formulaic action-adventure" concept which David Gerrold sketched out in The World of Star Trek (which contains a very impressive list of clichés, all of which he very sarcastically disdains as unworthy of what Star Trek should be about). Perhaps I should see if I can't find that story.
Alas. Wikipedia claimed that it was only a slight modification of earlier logos - as always, we learn the pitfalls of trusting anything written on there.
Interesting. In the United States, scheduling is generally far more strict - though with a few exceptions, at least one of which will become relevant to TTL in later updates!
An excellent reference. It would be interesting to speculate what shows Star Trek might replace during the years 1971-73 ITTL.NCW8 said:
I grew up watching The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, which packaged all of the classic cartoons into a half-hour (or hour-long!) show. I didn't see any of the shorts on their own (or even with their original opening titles!) until years later. One thing you realize in retrospect from the compilation programs is how much better Chuck Jones was as a director (or perhaps, Michael Maltese was as a writer? More likely both) than all the others. Funny how virtually all the classics were his work.
What amuses me about TAS was the schizophrenic tone - it tried very hard to be Star Trek (and, for the most part, it was), but it was also a Filmation cartoon made in the 1970s, and it crammed so much plot into those 22 minutes that the pacing was abominable. Of course, children don't tend to notice that sort of thing
Look at it this way. At least things actually happen in tennis. It sure beats a game where people throw an egg-shaped "ball" and then stand around for an hour.nixonshead said:
Well, was your assumption correct, Clorox?
I admire your ethics, LordInsane - though it's unfortunate that you were spoiled beforehand. I was lucky in that regard, since I was able to go into most of the episodes cold.Well after subbing was standard practice - it has been standard practice for as long as I can remember. For various reasons, mainly the fact of which channel showed Star Trek and that I did not wish to pirate Star Trek, I didn't actually watch an episode until 2009 (which point I watched several episodes in rapid succession, since the channel showed one a day) - and by then I had already read up on episodes, since it didn't look likely that I'd get to see them legally.
Which premiered over twenty years ago. Not really an exception, I'm afraid
Are you telling me they don't bump shows for the Olympics any more? I find that hard to believe - though admirable, if true.NCW8 said:
Thank you, John, and welcome aboard!
Dan has revealed the worst-kept secret of this thread
I couldn't end the timeline with her death - that would be far too depressing for what I feel has otherwise been a relatively optimistic timeline. Orson Welles said it best: "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."Yes, I think I've seen that one as well. I believe he was in the company of Captain Kirk, whom he usually calls Jim, and he pronounced the redshirt dead.
A number of you have asked after a sequel, and though I find that immensely gratifying, to be honest I'm inclined to agree with Dan. For one thing, what would I call my timeline if I were to create a sequel? Not to mention that, like TWR herself, I'm something of a perfectionist; I would much rather refine what I've already written than work on something new. This timeline is already the single longest thing I've ever written, and whenever I look back on prior updates I very often feel the urge to go back and fix all the mistakes I notice. But I have to keep moving forward, because if I stop to do that I may never restart. Once the timeline is finished, however...
You are very perceptive, LordInsane. Yes, our next visit to Appendix A will focus on a topic in which you've expressed considerable interest...
Our next visit to Appendix A will also be a (legitimate, this time) guest post from e of pi, an expert on the subject.
I never owned or read any of the Blish short-stories, but one of my consultants owns most of them and he has read excerpts to me to give me an example of Blish's writing style. It is very good without necessarily being strictly true to the show. The pacing is certainly more deliberate, which makes the stories that much more intriguing.
To an extent, although I think that Trekker, as opposed to Trekkie, carries a stronger connotation of this attitude.NCW8 said:
Was it actually known, all the way back in the 1970s, that HM the Queen was a fan?NCW8 said:
It's a delicate balance. Remember that Star Trek didn't come out of first run in the UK until 1973 - halfway through the Yank Years. Memories of the show are still very fresh, and very warm, even in the doldrums of Angela Bowie. And honestly, there are a lot of really fun story ideas that could come from a "concordant" stance: really, wouldn't the Doctor fighting Khan Noonien Singh in the Eugenics Wars be fun to see? That would never, ever, happen in canon, so the only place where it could is in fanworks.NCW8 said:
Later series?NCW8 said:
Someone may be getting rather ahead of himself... Thank you, Thande
Thande, I am honoured and humbled, and will wear the crown with prideThande said:It occurs to me that Brainbin may have stolen the "transcendentally nerdiest conceivable subject to write about" crown from me, as he has now written about arguments between different Star Trek fan subcultures resulting from a different version of Star Trek in an alternate universe--which I believe trumps my "arguments about definitions of genres of science fiction literature in an alternate universe" in LTTW
Would you mind if I quoted your endorsement on the wiki page?People after my own heart, thenI'd also add that, IME, the Doctor Who fans who are most contemptuous of the term Whovian (rather than just shrugging and wondering what the point is) are the ones who work very hard to make a ghetto for themselves - the grumpy Classic Series fans who don't consider anyone whose favourite Doctor is David Tennant, or who quite enjoyed the Virgin New Adventures novels, to be a "proper" fan.
The OTL UK version of the Puritans, in other words.
But in all earnestness, an excellent point, Daibhid. The Puritans are definitely not intended to be at all far-fetched.In addition to LordInsane's point, Orville, I remind you that canon is also a religious term that has been appropriated for use as a fandom definition, and it enjoys universal recognition as such. I really don't see why concordance, defined (ahead of the religious definition) as "agreement" or "harmony", wouldn't also find the same niche.
Very cute, FalkenburgHow about "Who-ligans" as a gently dismissive sobriquet for those rambunctious, predominantly youthful, new adherents to the Doctor?
Thanks for sharing, Glen. It certainly is an iconic episode of Star Trek, regardless of the continuing debates over its quality.
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but did you have any thoughts about the update that was just posted?
Still running, middling ratings, not winning any awards.
You'll find out in later cycles.MatthewFirth said:
Michael Billington remains as 007. As of 1981, he has starred in Moonraker, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, and The Spy Who Loved Me.MatthewFirth said:
Thank you for the compliment, Lavanya, and welcome aboard! I'm very pleased that this update was able to lure you out of lurkerdom
Speaking of lurkerdom, I'll reveal that this update was informed, in part, by my years of passively observing the Harry Potter fandom during its height (I was smart enough to never get actively involved). The Next Voyage and how its release changed the fandom was based on the publication of Order of the Phoenix, ending the "three-year summer" which followed the release of Goblet of Fire and completely upending the fanon which had congealed during that period. Likewise, the proliferation of the mainstream fandom in the late-1960s and early-1970s ITTL (which, of course, did not happen IOTL) was based on how the fandom mushroomed after the release of the first Harry Potter film in 2001 (and it was a big boom - things were a lot quieter and more intimate before then). And, finally, the "autumnal" atmosphere is based on that of the Harry Potter fandom in the present day - Pottermore and supplemental reference books do not invigorate the creative juices to nearly the same extent as proper narrative, and in the case of Star Trek ITTL neither do the ancillary product lines. Star Trek being the first modern fandom made it easy to weave those disparate story elements together into a cohesive whole.
It was certainly known by the 80s (it's generally believed that cancelling Doctor Who is the reason why Michael Grade is the only BBC director-general who wasn't subsequently knighted).