WI Star Trek Was Even More Progressive?

Inspired by the "WI Mr. Sulu Was Gay" thread. Let's say that NBC is more liberal and allows Roddenberry to get a 50/50 male/female cast and all the other progressive things he wanted to do. What happens?
 
Inspired by the "WI Mr. Sulu Was Gay" thread. Let's say that NBC is more liberal and allows Roddenberry to get a 50/50 male/female cast and all the other progressive things he wanted to do. What happens?

The show most likely gets pulled from the air. NBC can't produce the show without money and if there are no sponsors its not going to go anywhere. Roddenberry cann't be upfront and confrontational about 'all the other progressive things' he wants, he leaves that to the writers.
 
As far as a 50/50 cast is concerned, the sponsors would not have responded immediately. Viewership would have been low because most would have not accepted such a crew as credible, given its military orientation. Sponsors would have pulled their backing and unless there was a major crew change, the show would have been canceled mid-season.

Now, was it not until the second season when Uhura and Chekov were added to the crew? On the strength of its first season, the show was a sure-go, and this time two characters would address the issues of race, sex and cooperation with Russians, all at once.

One thing people often overlook that Roddenberry, a strong supporter of civil rights, chose to name the alien enemies "Klingon" because the leading KL was an inference against the Ku Klux Klan.
 

ninebucks

Banned
As far as a 50/50 cast is concerned, the sponsors would not have responded immediately. Viewership would have been low because most would have not accepted such a crew as credible, given its military orientation. Sponsors would have pulled their backing and unless there was a major crew change, the show would have been canceled mid-season.

If Star Fleet was presented as more of a scientific, than a military organisation, (as it was in later series), then a more equal crew would be more believable. Perhaps if half of the main characters were action men, while the other half were girl scientists - that'd be believable, and acceptable to people who still couldn't see a woman rolling around phasering at lizardmen.

And if anything, a more female crew is going to increase sponsorship, especially if said females are hot.
 
Vena Ray

I have the somewhat heretical notion that when Star Trek was pitched to them some of them thought "Hmm Something like Rocky Jones. Make sure there are a lot of fist fights". Rocky Jones had a female navigator Vena who went with him into harm's way--- in a sexy uniform of course.
 
Star Trek needed a military orientation in 1966. Its competitor, Lost in Space, was a very tacky, poorly written story about a space family oriented to scientific exploration.

In short, Star Trek had to take on a military regimen, with character development, to become, as billed, "the first adult space adventure," to distance itself from Lost in Space.
 
Uhura was there from the start, by the way. Except for the pilot episodes.

Perhaps if half of the main characters were action men, while the other half were girl scientists - that'd be believable, and acceptable to people who still couldn't see a woman rolling around phasering at lizardmen.
I'll go with that. I guess in that case they'd have kept the character Number One rather than combining her personality with Spock, but made her science officer rather than first officer - in which case Spock would have a different position (Security Chief Spock?) and would act very differently (Spock was originally meant to have emotions like normal, and his main defining character trait would be curiosity over new and "alien" things).

With this lineup, Scotty would probably remain the same, and McCoy (and of course Kirk).
 

burmafrd

Banned
Man, it was tough enough for Gene to Uhura in as well as showing black senior officers later on in the show. And you want to throw a gay in?
Talk about ignorance of the time. Frankly you would have had to have gone at least 10 years in the future to try it at all- and in a basically military organization forget it for even longer.
I will remind you that MASH was around for a long time and NEVER even came close to that area.
 
Trek is a synonym for Voyage

Star Trek needed a military orientation in 1966. Its competitor, Lost in Space, was a very tacky, poorly written story about a space family oriented to scientific exploration.

In short, Star Trek had to take on a military regimen, with character development, to become, as billed, "the first adult space adventure," to distance itself from Lost in Space.

I find it interesting that in discussing Star Trek that Lost in Space gets mentioned frequently but no one ever brings up the other Irwin Allen SciFi adventure Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea which is about this military ship which wanders around a strange environment and has equally strange adventures (and in its first season wasn't that badly written ).
 
I find it interesting that in discussing Star Trek that Lost in Space gets mentioned frequently but no one ever brings up the other Irwin Allen SciFi adventure Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea which is about this military ship which wanders around a strange environment and has equally strange adventures (and in its first season wasn't that badly written ).

Its not set in outer space.

I grew up watching reruns of the later seasons (ie.colour) of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. It wasn't bad, but I think there are greater restraints upon talking about social issues when one is totally grounded on earth (and at sea).
 
How about a future-Jew
*cough*WilliamShatner*cough*
*cough*LeonardNimoy*cough*
*cough*WalterKoenig*cough*

or some Hispanics?
That would be welcome, actually. In the original plan for Star Trek there actually was a Latino navigator, Lt Jose Ortegas - an impressively-skilled yet socially shy guy in his 20s who would continually be arguing and debating with the ship's doctor (that was the early version of the Spock/Bones animosity). By the time "The Cage" got made he'd transformed into the blond-haired blue-eyed Lt Tyler. (Which is why if you look up Tyler on the internet he's called "Jose Tyler" even though the name doesn't suit him - his first name isn't given in "The Cage")
 
If I recall, when Roddenberry passed away, there was talk about adding gay crew members to Star Trek: The Next Generation. I do not recall any openly gay characters in that series, though two females did kiss on Deep Space Nine, right?

Even in the nineties, there was reservation about putting gay relationships in a show that is aimed at a broad base and wide age range.
 
I'd have liked to see if Gene could get away with his original idea (according to Making of ST, anyhow) of a woman XO, by pulling a switch on Tuvok: a black woman as a Vulcan. You get the female & black viewers, you give the network & sponsors the headaches of opposing it, & you keep your visible (token?:D) alien. Of course, you might want a more talented actress...Say, Diahann Carroll (in a wig & ears, nobody'd recognize her...:p).
 
If I recall, when Roddenberry passed away, there was talk about adding gay crew members to Star Trek: The Next Generation. I do not recall any openly gay characters in that series, though two females did kiss on Deep Space Nine, right?

Even in the nineties, there was reservation about putting gay relationships in a show that is aimed at a broad base and wide age range.

IMO the Mirror Universe Kira was as clearly a lesbian as is possible to show on a primetime TV show. The fact that she was also evil complicates how 'progressive' that was a little.
 
IMO the Mirror Universe Kira was as clearly a lesbian as is possible to show on a primetime TV show. The fact that she was also evil complicates how 'progressive' that was a little.

Heck, in the DS9 mirror universe episodes just about every female character was a lesbian - one wonders just how the various species managed to propagate themselves. I always thought this was Trek satirising what seems to be Hollywood's key unwritten rule regarding gay characters on TV - namely you can have them so long as they're (a) female and (b) hot. It's only guys necking each other they get squeamish about, for some reason...
 
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