I’m not “flipping out” at all, just asking you to look at her comments logically. And to parse my own collectively. Star Trek is a subject I could probably debate for months. If it had been offered as a course at my college (Holy Cross), I would have signed up before Calculus II, and probably gotten more out of it. For instance, when I said that NOBODY watched the first season, I think that it was pretty clear that I was speaking from the perspective of Rev. King, and not inviting your response of “well I watched, so that’s somebody!!!” My obvious point was that in 1966 Rev. King was busy moving the civil rights movement north and peaceably opposing the Viet Nam war, not becoming a “Trekker” and Nichols’ “biggest fan.” As I said earlier, my real problem here is with people, who, like Nichols, blumenthal their way into history, regardless of motives.
Now, Roddenberry’s motives in casting the crew for the first season are meant to be obvious: Diversity will be standard in his future. He has a closeted gay Asian as his helmsman/weapons officer (my friends and I figured out that Sulu was gay when we were about ten in 1980). He has an alien at second in command. He has an alcoholic engineer. He has a Russian navigator at the height of the Cold War (albeit with a lower rank than Uhuru). And, yes, there’s a woman on the bridge (which, interestingly, was more significant to my eyes in the 70’s and 80’s re-runs). Yeah, she’s black, but she’s hardly in any position of power. And, as I pointed out before, she was completely ancillary in the first season. If anything, Roddenberry is revealing an inner conflict by integrating the bridge, and then making the only black (and only woman)superfluous. As a kid, I was more intrigued by the professional exchanges between McCoy and Chapel. "Communications" is a major for defective basketball players.
"Communications" is not the same thing as telecommunication ... FYI Im a telcom engineer ...
Checkov wasn't there until later. And check out the wig he wore originally. He was there to be Davy Jones of the Monkees as much as he was there for being Russian.
As for the overuse of the word NOBODY, well, that's patently FALSE, and an OVEREXAGGERATION, which is written in ALLCAPS. Ratings were low, but people were watching. More people watched the first season at that time than watch "hits" on network television now. Times have changed.
My obvious point was that in 1966 Rev. King was busy moving the civil rights movement north and peaceably opposing the Viet Nam war, not becoming a “Trekker” and Nichols’ “biggest fan.”
An obvious point to you, maybe, but you have nothing to back that up with. The man never sat down with his family? Never watched TV? And if there were a black person on TV in a prominent role on a network show, he wouldn't have known about it? Having known about it, he wouldn't have made it his business to check it out as something positive he could use in the cause of civil rights and equality?
Your argument doesn't withstand scrutiny or common sense. He only holds up under your shaky assumptions.