0:00

The History Channel Original Podcast.

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History

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this week,

0:06

September eight, nineteen sixty

0:08

six.

0:12

I'm Sally Helm.

0:15

Captain's law,

0:16

star date fifteen thirteen point one.

0:19

For the first time, the

0:21

starship enterprise appears

0:23

on screen. And almost half

0:25

of all the TVs that are on

0:27

in the US in that moment are tuned

0:29

in. It

0:30

is the premiere of a new futuristic

0:33

TV show.

0:34

Star Trek. On board the enterprise,

0:37

mister Spok temporarily in

0:39

command.

0:42

Captain Kirk and the ship's Chief Medical

0:44

Officer, doctor McCoy, being

0:46

down to the surface of planet m

0:49

one hundred and thirteen. Their

0:51

bodies rematerialize in front

0:53

of a set that is pretty obviously

0:55

fake. The idea of

0:58

beaming down is now iconic Even

1:00

if you've never seen Star Trek, you might have said the

1:02

phrase, be me up, Scotty. And

1:04

if you have seen Star Trek, you might know that this is

1:06

a famous misquotation. But

1:08

this beaming down effect was born

1:11

of necessity. It was too complicated in

1:13

nineteen sixty six to show the enterprise

1:15

actually landing on distant planets

1:18

And the whole concept of Star Trek is that Captain

1:20

Kirk and his crew will be visiting distant planets

1:22

all the time. So the show came up

1:24

with a workaround. The actors

1:27

dematerialize on the enterprise and

1:29

rematerialize wherever they need to go.

1:31

Like, teleporting. On screen,

1:34

on planet m one hundred and thirteen.

1:37

Their bodies shimmer for a moment

1:39

and then appear. the effect is

1:41

actually made using, among other things,

1:43

a high intensity light and

1:45

falling aluminum dust. On

1:48

this new planet, doctor McCoy

1:50

is set to examine some patients. One

1:52

of them is his old lover, Nancy

1:55

Crater. When McCoy finally

1:57

gets to do the examination, The futuristic

1:59

instruments that he's using are actually

2:02

a pair of weird looking salt

2:04

shakers. The props department bought

2:06

them to be used onboard the enterprise

2:08

as the salt shakers of the future, but

2:11

Star Trek's creator Jean Rodenberry thought

2:13

they'd be better used as surgical instruments.

2:16

They look that weird. He finds

2:18

different salt joker, a more regular looking

2:20

glass one, to use onboard the

2:22

ship.

2:25

Salt will in fact become

2:28

a key plot element in this first

2:30

episode of Star Trek.

2:31

the

2:33

salt hemp.

2:34

I'll take care of the provisioning,

2:37

Nancy.

2:38

Doctor McCoy's old lover seems

2:40

to be strangely obsessed with

2:43

salt. but all that

2:45

is to come. Before the opening

2:47

credits, all we know is that

2:49

something strange is going on with an Nancy

2:52

crater. and that the world

2:54

of Star Trek is set to be something

2:57

entirely

2:57

new. Space.

3:00

final frontier. These

3:02

are the voyages of distortion enterprise.

3:07

Today, A TV show tries.

3:09

To boldly go where no man

3:11

has gone before.

3:14

Why did NBC take a chance

3:17

on a creator had already once

3:19

gotten them in trouble with none other

3:21

than the US military. And

3:24

how did Star Trek push the boundaries of TV

3:26

in this galaxy.

3:41

David a Goodman is

3:43

a television writer. and a major

3:45

trekking.

3:46

Or trekker? I think there

3:48

was a general acknowledgment that

3:50

if you weren't a star trek fan, you call

3:52

them trekking's but that if you

3:54

were a Star Trek fan, you referred to

3:56

yourself as a trucker.

3:58

Oh, okay. And Tricky

3:59

initially seemed to have two

4:02

Star Trek fans a derogatory smell

4:04

to it. Sort of like you guys are nerds

4:06

kind of thing. And we were anyway.

4:09

so I have no

4:11

trouble being referred to as a Tricky.

4:15

When Goodman was writing for the animated show

4:18

futurama. He reunited the

4:20

original cast of Star Trek and got

4:22

them to appear in an episode. That

4:24

took him from regular fan to

4:26

industry star trek expert.

4:29

He later got hired as a writer on star

4:31

track enterprise and also wrote several

4:33

Star Trek books. He says his latest

4:36

show, The Oroville, is an homage to

4:38

the Star Trek

4:38

franchise. So I have

4:40

written for Star Trek, written things

4:43

that are like Star Trek that make fun of

4:45

Star Trek. But at core, I

4:47

am a very big Star Trek a fan.

4:49

And you are also Julia Press's

4:51

Uncle. Am I right? Producer Julia

4:54

Press? Yes. I guess for a journalist

4:55

to open this here, Yes.

4:57

I am the uncle of the show's producer.

5:00

Julia, who is listening? Hello, Julia. This is

5:02

your uncle David. Hello?

5:03

Hi, David. Yes. I need

5:06

do it. That's what

5:08

I call her niece Joy. It's weird and special.

5:11

Goodman

5:11

was first introduced to the Star Trek

5:13

series by his Uncle.

5:15

My earliest memories is I found it scary.

5:17

When I was very young, I walked in on

5:19

my uncle Marvin. We lived in a two family

5:22

house, and my uncle was watching it.

5:24

He said, Nephew David. Come watch this show

5:26

with me.

5:26

Fair. Nephew David. Yes. You're forgiven.

5:30

But eventually, I think I was

5:32

in six or six grade,

5:35

and I had two cousins

5:37

named Michael. Both of them were

5:39

big star trek fans. and they both in

5:41

their own weight introduced me to

5:43

it. And there was something about the

5:45

storytelling. There was something about the creation of

5:47

this world and outer space in the future

5:50

that hooked me and I

5:52

haven't looked back.

5:56

The creator of that world was a TV

5:58

writer, late Goodman. Jean

5:59

Rodenberry.

6:02

He's become a legend. Goodman

6:04

has heard lots of lore about him over

6:06

the years. somebody

6:07

commented once all his

6:09

suit seemed to come with stains.

6:11

Yeah. He could put on a

6:13

new suit and he would immediately look begging

6:15

the shovel. when he pitched, he would

6:17

sort of mumble and speak under

6:19

his breath and sort of required other people to lean

6:22

forward, to listen to what he was saying.

6:24

Red

6:24

and Mary had been a pilot in World War

6:26

two, survived a horrific crash.

6:29

And when he came home, before he

6:31

became that disheveled TV writer, He

6:33

got a day job working as a policeman.

6:36

There, he got assigned to be speech

6:38

writer for Los Angeles chief of police.

6:41

Well,

6:41

during the nineteen fifties, when he was doing

6:43

this, a big show on the air was

6:46

a cop show called Dragon. And

6:48

the Premise of Dragon that was presenting

6:52

real police stories. Ladies

6:54

and gentlemen, the story you're

6:56

about to see is true. the

6:58

names haven't changed to protect the innocent.

7:01

And it became known among the LAPD

7:04

that the producer of Fignet would buy stories

7:06

from actual policeman. And

7:10

this whole system developed

7:11

at the LAPD where a cop would

7:14

say I was just involved

7:16

in this investigation. He'd

7:18

send some notes to Gene Rockbury in the public

7:20

affairs office. Jean Rodbury

7:22

would type up the premise

7:24

of an episode, and Rodbury would split hundred

7:27

dollars with the

7:28

cop who brought him the

7:30

idea.

7:31

Oh, wow. It is kind of a training ground. He's

7:33

writing sort of episode after

7:34

episode. Yeah. Exactly. And but

7:36

he wasn't really writing scripts yet.

7:39

He was just writing sort of these these premises.

7:43

Soon, he starts writing full freelance

7:45

scripts for television. And in

7:48

nineteen fifty six, as the Zane goes,

7:50

he quits his

7:50

day job,

7:51

commits himself to TV writing full time.

7:54

It goes pretty well. Within a few

7:56

years, he's managed to pitch and sell

7:59

his first series idea to NBC.

8:02

It's a show called The Luchanic. And

8:04

this was a modern day drama about

8:06

the peacetime military. And

8:09

the show had

8:10

all the cooperation of The

8:12

Marines they provided uniforms and equipment

8:14

that they provided. The use of Camp Hedland

8:17

for free, and this obviously was very

8:19

attractive to the studio. MGM

8:21

produced it because it saved up a lot of money.

8:23

So everyone's happy with Ladenburg. Until

8:27

he writes an episode about racism in

8:29

the military.

8:29

I'm having a few problems with your

8:31

fiancee myself. They

8:34

concerned private Kevin's ethnic

8:37

background. Tellers in India was raised

8:39

at all. in the sixties. They never really

8:41

dealt honestly with any real issue.

8:43

And so the fact of

8:45

doing this really scared him to be see.

8:48

The Marines have pulled their support for the show,

8:50

and NBC wasn't

8:52

going to enter the episode.

8:54

Rodinbury doesn't like that one

8:56

bit.

8:57

but his bosses have spoken. So

8:59

he goes around his bosses and knocks

9:02

on the door of the NAACP. He

9:05

asked them to put pressure on NBC

9:07

to air the episode.

9:08

To go to an outside person and

9:10

get them to pressure his own network

9:12

to air his own show, their show,

9:15

and make them look bad. Some

9:17

might say that was brave. Others might

9:19

say that was foolish. So

9:22

that was apparently early on his career. show was

9:24

canceled. Okay. So he's

9:26

out of a job. He's out of a job. And he starts

9:28

sort of looking around for his

9:30

next job. and

9:32

he comes up with the premise

9:34

for Star Trek.

9:38

Rodnery

9:38

says that Star Trek will be kinda

9:41

like a very popular TV western,

9:43

wagon

9:44

train. wagon train was about

9:46

this never ending

9:47

Wagon Train have covered Wagons going

9:49

from one place to another, and they never got

9:51

anywhere. So that was a way to

9:53

let the

9:54

Networks understand what the show was,

9:56

which was people on a

9:58

ship going from place

9:59

to place. So it was

10:01

partly just a way to be like, this is familiar.

10:03

like, this is something you've seen before.

10:04

And similar to something

10:06

you consider to be a big success.

10:08

Sort of a classic sales pitch move, like,

10:10

every TV show is, like, it's this plus the

10:12

Absolutely right. We still do that. We

10:14

you call them comps. What's the comparison?

10:17

What's this show like, when you

10:19

do that, you wanna have a successful

10:22

show that your show is like.

10:24

Right. Of course.

10:25

It's like this terrible show that bombed.

10:27

That's made

10:29

my mistake a number of times.

10:32

Wagon Train may be what Rodenberry

10:34

is talking about to executives, but

10:36

he also has something else on his mind. Something

10:39

that harkens back to that controversial episode

10:42

of his old show, The Lieutenant.

10:43

He also wanted to disguise

10:47

Social issues talk about things like

10:49

religion and racism

10:51

and politics in

10:54

the form of science fiction metaphor. so

10:56

that he perhaps could escape

10:59

the concern of

11:02

networks of pissing off groups that

11:04

that might be offended by dealing

11:06

with a a controversial scene. Right. So

11:08

he's like, okay. Put it in space and then I won't have this

11:10

problem that I have with the marines where they come in and

11:12

they're

11:12

mad about this because there's no it's like a made

11:14

up boy. Exactly. University of

11:16

North Dakota professor Michelle Sauer

11:19

told us, this strategy actually has

11:21

ancient predecessors. Like,

11:23

there was a popular genre of writing in the Middle

11:25

Ages

11:25

called The Mirror for Princes,

11:28

where medieval writers would

11:31

construct a not real or

11:33

a fictional narrative to

11:36

critique current politics. That

11:39

way they could avoid, I guess, being killed.

11:41

And Star Trek is sort of like that.

11:44

Sauer is a professor of English and gender

11:46

studies and just

11:47

a nerd in general by definitely

11:51

a trekking or a tracker.

11:52

Late Goodman, she's been a fan since

11:54

she was a kit watching tapes in her family's

11:57

VCR. An old one where you loaded

11:59

the tapes in the

11:59

top actually like the thing in

12:01

Star Trek to shoot the phasers. This little thing

12:04

goes, it pops up at the top.

12:06

The original VCR look like that.

12:08

Saur is a fan first.

12:11

But that doesn't stop her from looking at Star

12:13

Trek with an academic's eye. She

12:15

even teaches it to her students. And

12:17

she said, Star Trek uses the techniques

12:20

of the mirror for princess. In

12:22

fact, it was conceived that way from

12:24

the start. Jean Rodenberry

12:26

writes in his original pitch, the time

12:29

is somewhere in the future. It could

12:31

be nineteen ninety

12:32

five, which was done in the future.

12:34

or maybe even twenty nine ninety

12:36

five. The people

12:38

would be totally recognizable, but

12:40

they'd be jetting around on spaceships. and

12:43

the themes would resonate with Ladenbury's

12:45

own time, the nineteen sixties.

12:48

Science fiction allows authors

12:51

and the audience that engages

12:53

with it to critique

12:55

leaders, to make

12:57

bold statements about what

12:59

the society is and where it is going

13:02

or where it could go if things aren't

13:04

changed.

13:07

So

13:07

that's what Ladenburg has in mind.

13:09

He pitches MGM on this wagon

13:11

train to the stars.

13:13

No dice. But

13:14

you know who is interested?

13:16

Lucille Ball. the star

13:18

of I Love Lucy and Lucy Show,

13:20

a savvy performer who's used her

13:22

fame to become a Hollywood power broker.

13:26

Ball runs her own production company, Desi

13:28

Lu. She's recently bought out her ex husband

13:30

Desi's share of business and is looking

13:33

for new shows to develop. and her

13:35

executives decide to buy this one.

13:37

Star Trek. Here's

13:38

David a Goodman again. The best

13:40

anecdote I ever heard about

13:43

Lucy's involvement with Star Trek

13:45

was her

13:46

exact Herb Solo was in a

13:48

a meeting with her and this was during the development

13:51

of Star Trek And Lucy

13:53

said, what's going on with that

13:56

USO show? Wait. Wait. What's the USO

13:58

for those Oh, I'm sorry. So the USO was

14:01

the performers who would go around and entertain

14:03

the troops and groups like

14:05

USO. Yeah. The one about the stars who were

14:07

traveling around So

14:08

she heard Star Trek and thought, ah,

14:11

the Stars Track

14:11

Now. Yeah. Like, Stars Like And she somehow

14:14

imagined Peron show, which I would

14:16

watch that show too. It's

14:19

like oh, no. No. No. Lucy, it's not about

14:21

DSO. It's about a spaceship. Desi

14:24

Lu pitches the spaceship show

14:26

to CBS. That's network that

14:28

airs Lucy's show. But

14:29

CBS isn't interested.

14:32

They

14:32

say they already have an outer space pilot in

14:34

development. And the execs

14:36

at Lucy's

14:37

company think, okay, we're gonna take

14:39

it to NBC. Now, Ron Barry did not have a

14:41

good relationship with NBC. He had

14:43

brought the NAACP down

14:45

on them on his last show. He publicly

14:47

complaining to the press about the cancellation of

14:50

lieutenant.

14:51

But

14:52

NBC

14:53

was very interested in getting in business

14:56

with Lucy. because it

14:57

kinda makes sense because CDS had seen such success.

14:59

Yeah. So they were like, we want a piece of something.

15:01

Lucy is

15:02

touching. Yeah. The idea that we could

15:04

be in business with Lucy and get her next

15:06

hit whatever it is that was

15:08

appealing to those executives.

15:09

So NBC says, go

15:11

ahead. Make a pilot. They

15:15

choose one of the episodes Rodbury had pitched.

15:17

It's called The Cage. The

15:20

studio says, you have eleven days

15:22

to film. Goodman told us that's

15:24

pretty standard for a pilot, but pilots

15:26

are not usually this ambitious.

15:28

Everything had to be

15:30

created from scratch. was like you were gonna get

15:32

military uniforms from the

15:35

cast of warehouse. You had to design

15:38

uniforms. You you couldn't use established

15:40

sets anywhere. You were gonna have to build

15:42

the spaceship sets, the kinds of special

15:45

effects that they were talking about doing had

15:47

never really been done on a weekly basis

15:50

on television.

15:50

What kinds of things like people

15:52

disappearing? Or I mean, even just

15:55

the spaceship flying through space. I mean,

15:57

there were television shows that did

15:59

that but not very

15:59

well as they've created new photographic

16:02

processes to do

16:04

the spaceship effects, the planet effects,

16:06

the phasor effects.

16:10

If a tracker were to watch that pilot

16:12

today, they wouldn't recognize much.

16:15

Nearly all the characters end up being played

16:17

by different actors. The key

16:20

exception is mister Spock,

16:22

the half human, half alien, played

16:24

by Leonard Niemoy. SPOC's

16:27

signature feature, his pointy ears,

16:29

give the makeup department a whole lot

16:31

of work before the pilot. They have to

16:33

use new rubber tips every day

16:36

because they're gluing them right to NIMO's ears

16:38

and can't figure out a way to reuse them.

16:41

And when the network execs

16:43

see their handiwork in the pilot? They

16:45

were very scared of the

16:47

mister Spok character. They were worried

16:50

that his satanic look with his

16:52

pointed ears would scare off

16:54

bible belt viewers. They

16:56

thought he was too demons. Too much like a demon.

16:58

Right? Okay.

16:59

The pilot goes over budget

17:01

and not a success with

17:03

the network. Wait.

17:05

So it's over budget. Over budget? It

17:07

flops. They don't love it. The NBC

17:09

execs think the episode is too heavy.

17:11

There's none of action, and the casting

17:13

is all wrong.

17:16

However,

17:16

The

17:17

one thing that the head of the network

17:19

that NBC really liked about the pilot

17:21

is he said, I've seen a lot of science

17:24

fiction. This is the first time I really

17:26

felt was on a spaceship. And

17:28

he really liked that. He really

17:30

thought that was worth continuing

17:33

to try to figure out

17:34

this show.

17:35

Wow. So they got another chance.

17:37

They did a second pilot. Wow. That

17:39

seems unusual. It it's happened, but it's

17:41

it's very unusual. but he felt

17:43

that there was something there. Wow.

17:45

So this is sort of like us, don't know, maybe

17:47

visionary's too strong a word, but a high up exec

17:49

who can kinda see it, who's like, Okay. It's not quite

17:51

there, but it's

17:52

gonna be And that's that's a really interesting

17:54

thing too, talking about today's television,

17:56

which is so driven by streamers and algorithms.

17:59

This was an individual guy who got to make

18:01

this decision based on his own gut. Mhmm.

18:04

And he was right. He was

18:06

right. He was right.

18:09

Pilot

18:11

number two is called where

18:13

no man has gone before.

18:15

In it, the star trek world is beginning

18:17

to look like the show you might know today.

18:20

Down to the crew aboard a spaceship, the

18:22

USS Enterprise. Let's start

18:24

with captain Kirk. Who is he? So in

18:26

the creation of the captain, Ron

18:29

Murray wanted to create a

18:31

character whose ancestors in the world

18:33

of Archer came from the old west. This

18:35

kind of character could fit in on any

18:37

western. And, actually, you can see William's other

18:40

the actor play him on a lot of westerns

18:42

in the sixties, so he really did fit

18:44

into that world. He's he's

18:46

an American hero, but

18:49

he was flawed. he could lose

18:51

his temper and then admit, he was wrong.

18:54

Look around that bridge. I

18:56

see the men waiting for me to make the next

18:59

move.

19:00

two bones.

19:04

What

19:04

if I'm wrong?

19:06

He could get scared. He was

19:08

lonely. Okay,

19:09

Dr. McCoy, tell me about him.

19:10

So Dr. McCoy is the country

19:13

doctor. He's not as comfortable with

19:15

the technology of the future. And there

19:18

you have a museum based doctor. Lens

19:20

type, manually operated, light

19:22

activated, spare me the analysis

19:24

mister Spot, please. It's enough

19:26

that it works. He's providing

19:29

sort of a yin to spots yang

19:31

for Kirk.

19:32

Spock, Kirk's

19:34

second in command, the controversial pointy

19:37

ear demonic half alien from the planet

19:39

Vulcan. NBC had

19:41

begged the creators to cut him.

19:43

But to the credit of the

19:45

guys at Desjardins, Ron Barry, they

19:47

said we're not losing spot.

19:49

If anything, the second pilot gives

19:51

SPOC

19:52

more importance, more depth.

19:54

They really got more into the

19:56

backstory of vulkins

19:59

having this

19:59

philosophy of logic. Mhmm. That

20:02

to me is beautiful in its inception.

20:04

This idea of a world that

20:06

follows logic. Wouldn't that be nice here?

20:09

Spot Catons. My trust all has gone

20:11

well.

20:11

Spot, are you alive? An illogical

20:14

question, doctor. since obviously you are

20:16

hearing my voice. My favorite

20:18

character was always mister Spock,

20:21

not because of the law Although, I suppose

20:23

I have been accused being pretty logical, being

20:26

a professor. Michelle Sauber again.

20:28

But because he is, you know, half

20:30

and half half milk and half human.

20:32

And I myself mixed race, half and

20:35

half equally. So I found that appealing.

20:37

Light Kirk, Spock is complicated.

20:40

He's trying to straddle two worlds, human

20:42

and alien, and makes sense of

20:44

himself as a mix of them both. For

20:47

a long time, Spok is the only

20:49

Vulcan that the audience meets. To

20:51

Goodman, that's part of what makes the care are

20:53

so amazing. He gestures at

20:56

an entire unknown culture

20:58

and makes us see it clearly.

20:59

We believe as an audience that there's

21:01

a planet of these people, and it's all because

21:03

of how this character is written and performed.

21:08

The actors that fill out the rest of the cast

21:10

are notably diverse. And

21:12

actually, that diversity was something

21:14

that NBC was very happy

21:16

about. I've read memos where they were

21:19

really encouraging of that. They certainly

21:21

understood that having a show that

21:23

was more reflective of the population

21:25

brings you more audience.

21:26

George McKay, a Japanese American

21:29

actor, plays Hulu, a physicist aboard

21:31

the ship. Michelle Nichols, a black

21:33

woman who had peered in that controversial episode

21:35

of Ladenbury's first show, Lieutenant, is

21:38

playing a communications officer. She

21:40

is a black woman who was

21:42

cast as a main character in a major

21:44

television show. She wasn't a

21:47

maid, she wasn't subservient,

21:48

she wasn't anything like that. In

21:50

fact, She was black and served in

21:52

an equal capacity as a starfleet

21:55

officer

21:56

with a crew that was

21:58

More male than female.

22:00

I'm afraid you have it all wrongness

22:02

to spark all of you. I've

22:04

been monitoring some of their old style

22:06

radio waves. That

22:07

was a big deal in the sixties.

22:12

After that second pilot,

22:14

even with Fox pointy ears prominently

22:16

featured NBC gives the show the

22:18

green light. The

22:20

team has about six months to get everything

22:22

together before the first episode premieres.

22:25

David A Goodman told us, the crew

22:27

has their work cut out for them. Creating

22:29

a science fiction universe with nineteen

22:31

sixties on a budget was

22:33

difficult. And some things

22:35

were more successful than

22:38

others. There's an episode early on where

22:41

we're in sort of the botany

22:43

room of of the enterprise. And

22:45

there's this plant that's making noise.

22:48

and it's very clear that the plant

22:50

is a decorated, gloved

22:53

hand. Yeah. And it's not very well

22:55

done at all. It's terrible.

22:56

decorated like painted

22:58

green or like It's

22:59

sort of a flower and it's got petals

23:01

and it's moving around and initially when it's

23:03

moving around, you can't tell what it is, but then there's

23:06

a move that it makes. It's like Oh, wait, that's a

23:08

thumb. There's

23:10

a creature in an episode where

23:12

they're they're testing the trans porter,

23:15

and it's clearly a dog with like a

23:17

plastic horn stuck to them for it.

23:19

On the flip side of it, there's this episode

23:21

involving a rock, come on And

23:25

it was sort of a decorated, like

23:27

rug that was thrown over a

23:29

guy. He moves across the floor but

23:32

it is so effective because

23:34

of sound effects and the music

23:37

that's added.

23:42

that it really looks pretty good, and it looks

23:44

pretty scary. It's fun. It sounds

23:46

like it would be fun to be in my room figuring

23:48

out, like, okay, we had a rock. How are we gonna How

23:51

are you? That to me is it's

23:53

based to sort of the creativity of

23:55

the artisans who were involved in

23:57

making the show was that they really cared about

23:59

and they really tried to do something

24:02

good and believable.

24:07

just a month before the first episode

24:09

is set to air. One of the show's producers

24:11

sends Ladenbury a memo telling him

24:13

it is important that you compose without

24:15

delay. our standard opening

24:18

narration. So he sits down

24:20

and comes up with that now famous intro.

24:23

Space, a final frontier.

24:26

Rodenburg seems to be speaking right

24:28

to his audience, a country

24:30

wrapped up in the space race between the US

24:32

and the Soviet Union. And

24:34

in fact, there's a private joke in the opening

24:36

of Star Trek.

24:37

It's five year mission to explore

24:40

strange new worlds. the enterprise

24:42

has a five year mission. That's Ron

24:44

Barry saying, I want this show to be on five years

24:46

because if it goes to syndication, I'll be rich.

24:48

On

24:50

September eight, nineteen sixty

24:53

six, audiences see

24:55

the first flight of the Starship Enterprise.

24:58

And pretty quickly, they like what they

25:01

see. As did Michelle Sauber watching

25:03

the show years later, when it did go into syndication,

25:05

as Runbury had hoped, I did love

25:08

it right away for having

25:10

Spok be a hybrid character just

25:12

like me and having women in

25:15

starfleet just like me. Sauer

25:17

told us that black female officer

25:19

lieutenant Ujura is a particularly

25:22

big deal. But apparently, at

25:24

the end of the first season, Nichols, the

25:26

actress who plays Aurora, is

25:28

considering leaving the show. What

25:31

she really wanted was to pursue a career

25:33

on Broadway. So

25:34

she's weighing her options when one day she's

25:36

at a fundraiser. And she hears that

25:38

a big fan once doctor her.

25:40

And it turned

25:41

out to be doctor Barton Luther King

25:43

junior.

25:43

Apparently, doctor King

25:45

was trekhy

25:46

or a tracker. Michelle

25:48

has sold the message and I worked with her

25:50

once and she told it to me that he

25:52

said to her, you can't leave

25:56

you being there is a message to

25:58

so many people out there

25:59

that were a part of the future.

26:02

Don't you understand what you've achieved? In

26:04

fact, this is the only TV

26:06

show that Correta and

26:08

I allow our little children to stay up

26:10

and watch. And it's all because

26:13

of you you have been

26:14

chosen to show the world

26:17

what we can do. And, I mean, she

26:19

was stunned speechless. And

26:21

that obviously in the late sixties, that was

26:23

a meaningful thing for her to peer

26:26

and she stayed with the show.

26:28

This isn't the first or

26:30

last time Star Trek packs a punch

26:32

beyond its galaxy. Space

26:35

is endless, so you wouldn't think there'd be boundaries.

26:37

but Jean Rodenberry will

26:39

keep

26:39

finding them and pushing them

26:41

further.

26:47

Now a word from our sponsor better

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27:50

From its inception, Star

27:52

Trek tried to engage with social

27:54

issues. using that sneaky, medieval

27:57

technique of in direction along

27:59

with a diverse cast

27:59

and well crafted scripts.

28:02

According

28:02

to one of the show's producers, They'd actually

28:04

sometimes leave expletives in the scripts

28:06

as low hanging fruit for broadcast

28:08

standards

28:08

to remove, so

28:10

that they could keep more controversial subject

28:12

matter. In the show's third

28:14

season, Michelle Nichols, who

28:16

stayed after her pep talk from doctor King,

28:18

stars in an episode with William Shatner,

28:20

Captain Kirk. It goes down in TV

28:23

history. It's called Plato's stepchildren.

28:28

Plato's stepchildren is a fascinating

28:31

episode A lot of people would say it's not a

28:33

very good episode, but it is

28:35

famous for having

28:37

the first interracial kiss on TV.

28:40

Now if we're gonna be absolutely real,

28:42

it's not the first interracial kiss on

28:44

TV.

28:44

Michelle Sauer told us Lucille Ball

28:46

had kissed her Cuban husband, Desi, on

28:49

TV. There had been other interracial

28:51

kisses too, like when between Nancy Sonatra

28:53

and Sammy Davis junior. But

28:55

what makes a special is the first ever

28:58

kiss

28:58

between series regulars.

29:01

These are characters you know and love. They're main

29:03

characters,

29:04

so it is making a statement.

29:06

And it's an extra powerful statement

29:08

because of the

29:09

timing. It's being aired

29:11

pretty much almost precisely a year

29:14

after loving versus Virginia.

29:16

Loving versus Virginia is the supreme court

29:18

decision that legal eyes interracial marriage.

29:21

And to say the least, not every American is

29:23

happy about that. So the kiss

29:25

might be seen by some viewers as a pop location.

29:28

The writers know this, but

29:30

they frame it in a way that somewhat softens

29:33

the impact. Kirk and Hurrah

29:36

don't kiss because want

29:38

to or because there's romantic

29:40

attraction. Rather, they're

29:42

under alien control.

29:44

So just like those medieval writers who

29:47

say, I'm just writing about theoretical prints,

29:49

not the actual ruler. Those Star Trek

29:51

writers can say, This isn't a black

29:53

woman and a white man kissing. It's

29:55

aliens

29:56

making these two

29:57

bodies kiss. Even

29:59

so,

29:59

Some stations in the south at

30:02

least

30:02

originally refused to air it.

30:04

Some of them, I guess, went to commercial

30:06

early or some But Nichols herself

30:09

says

30:09

that it was one of the episodes that

30:11

got the

30:12

most fan mail.

30:17

A

30:17

few episodes later, the series tackles

30:19

racism again in an episode called

30:22

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.

30:24

It's

30:24

pretty overt.

30:25

Kirk meets two alien species

30:28

that have been at

30:28

war for centuries.

30:30

At one point, Kirk is

30:32

like you're the same people. I don't

30:35

understand. Nothing about you seems

30:37

different to me. And the response

30:39

by the alien is, well, I'm black

30:41

on the right side and

30:43

white of the left side and he is

30:45

black

30:46

on the left side and white of

30:48

the right side. Other episodes in

30:50

the original series cover economic inequality,

30:53

environmental pollution. Sauer

30:55

told us they don't all come down on the left leaning

30:57

side of an issue. For instance,

30:59

there's an episode called a private little

31:01

war. Do you remember the twentieth century

31:03

brush wars on the Asian continent? a

31:06

very clear connection to Vietnam.

31:09

The only solution

31:11

is what happened

31:13

back then. Bradbury rewrites

31:16

the script and turns private little

31:18

more from being a

31:20

critic to a reluctant

31:22

justification. of the Vietnam

31:24

War.

31:27

Ladenbury is a complicated person,

31:29

much like the characters he created.

31:32

He made women leaders on the enterprise

31:34

but dressed them in little mini skirts. And

31:37

though the show had an overt anti

31:39

bigotry message, Sauer told us

31:41

Some bigotry snuck in there anyway. Big

31:43

spot, the half human, half falcon.

31:46

He calls himself

31:47

the offensive term, half breed

31:49

off and on throughout the series there's

31:51

a lot of bigotry that is

31:54

tolerated in forms of

31:56

teasing about his green

31:58

bloodedness or his coldness.

32:00

mocking his

32:01

Vulcan heritage. So

32:04

there you there's there's complicated relationships.

32:07

Right? There's all these messages

32:09

of don't

32:10

be bigoted, don't hate based

32:12

on appearance, don't

32:14

start wars that, you know,

32:16

are unnecessary. But

32:18

there are disturbing undercurrents,

32:20

and I think it's just as complicated as

32:23

real life. But

32:24

the shows goal of presenting an optimistic

32:26

vision of a world without prejudice, that

32:29

has outlived Radembury himself. The

32:31

original series ends after three seasons.

32:34

But the show has continued. In

32:36

reruns and remakes,sequels and

32:39

sequels up to the present day.

32:41

There are so many new star trek that respond

32:43

to the current times. It grows

32:45

and changes with the world. I think that is part

32:48

of at least of the reason that Star Trek can kinda

32:50

always be there. In the eighties, When mental

32:52

health becomes a prominent topic of conversation,

32:54

there are characters who suffer from depression.

32:57

In the nineties, a new female character

33:00

makes elite from supporting to leading

33:02

role as captain of her own spaceship.

33:05

And the latest iterations

33:07

of the series

33:08

have trans and non

33:10

binary characters and open

33:12

gay

33:13

relationships as they should because

33:15

our society is more open and accepting.

33:21

The

33:21

show's latest iteration, Star Trek:

33:23

Discovery, even imagines a world

33:26

in which planet Earth could have a black

33:28

woman as president. She's played

33:30

by Georgia politician Stacey

33:31

Abrams. United Earth is

33:33

ready right now to rejoin

33:36

the Federation. And

33:37

that optimistic world of Star Trek has

33:39

spilled off the screen. In

33:41

the seventies, actor Michelle Nichols

33:43

worked with NASA to recruit diverse

33:45

groups of astronauts. Now the shuttle

33:48

will be taking scientists and

33:50

engineers, men and women of all

33:52

races

33:53

into space

33:53

just like the astronaut crew

33:55

on the starship in the car. The

33:58

year after her campaign, Sally Ride,

34:00

the first American woman in space, and

34:02

Guy and Stuart Blueford Junior, the first

34:05

black American in space, apply

34:07

and join the program. When Nichols

34:09

dies at age eighty nine, in July twenty

34:11

twenty two, heart felt tributes

34:13

pouring from the many people she inspired. And

34:17

one trickies slash trucker even

34:19

makes it to the Oval Office. That

34:21

would be president Barack Obama.

34:23

It didn't matter that the special effects were kind

34:25

of cheesy and bad. Right? It

34:27

was really talking about a

34:30

notion of a common humanity.

34:33

and

34:34

a confidence in our

34:37

ability to solve problems.

34:39

For many people, like Sauer and Goodman,

34:42

Star Trek is in a face. It's

34:44

a life long love.

34:45

I

34:47

ask Goodman why it stuck with him

34:49

so long. Yeah. I mean, what was it? Can

34:51

you describe it at all? I know it's just a feeling and

34:54

sort of a that's what love is.

34:55

But what it well, like, So, yeah,

34:57

if you could describe it, what was it about? wanna

35:00

know what love it. I I

35:02

That's no question. I

35:04

think that Star Trek is a wish

35:06

fulfilling, has subtle themes

35:09

of acceptance that

35:11

the world is going to better that

35:12

most famous character

35:14

on the show

35:16

is an ultimate nerd, and

35:18

the jock is his best friend.

35:21

that might have an interest to me,

35:23

but it's interesting too that sort of

35:25

gets lost in this discussion

35:27

about Star Trek and rabbit Star Trek

35:29

fans like me and

35:31

his Star Trek was very

35:34

popular with everybody.

35:36

It was on seven nights a week in

35:38

York in the nineteen seventies when I was growing up.

35:40

That audience watching it was not just

35:43

Rabbit Star Trek fans. It was a show

35:45

that watched and lost and lots

35:47

of people who didn't think about

35:49

it after the hour was over, really

35:51

enjoyed because it was also really

35:53

well made entertainment. If you

35:55

go and watch other television shows from period,

35:58

nothing comes close in

36:00

terms of the technical

36:03

achievement, the writing, the depth

36:05

of character, and like I'm a

36:07

great piece of fiction. It

36:09

created a world that the audience

36:12

could have a communal experience chair.

36:18

Thanks for listening to History

36:21

this week. For more moments throughout

36:23

history that are also worth watching, check

36:25

your local TV listings to find out what's

36:27

on the history channel today. If

36:29

you wanna get in touch, please shoot us an email

36:31

at our email address, history this week

36:33

at history dot com, or you can leave us a

36:35

voice mail. 2123510410

36:40

Thanks to our guests today, David a Goodman

36:43

and Michelle Sauber. Goodman's latest

36:45

film Honor Society is now streaming

36:47

on Paramount Plus. Sauer is the author

36:49

of gender and medieval culture. This

36:52

episode was produced by Julia Press.

36:54

It

36:54

was story edited by Jim O'Grady

36:56

and sound designed by Brian Flyt. History

36:59

this week is also produced by Morgan Tibbens

37:01

and me, Sally Helms. Our

37:03

associate producer is emma Fidelics.

37:05

Our intern is Franchesca Labs, who

37:07

pitched us this episode. Our

37:09

senior producer is Ben Dixie, Our

37:11

supervising producer is Mckamey Lynn,

37:13

and our executive producer is Jesse

37:15

Katz. Don't

37:16

forget to subscribe, rate, and review

37:18

history this week wherever you get your podcasts.

37:21

and we'll see you next week.