Which Star Trek (original series) character are you?

[Bossy Monkey]

Poll question: Which Star Trek (original series) character are you?

Feel free to volunteer one-shot characters if you like, but I figure it's most fun to stick with regulars for the poll.

Sucks that I couldn't get Yeoman Rand on there. Gene didn't exactly write great parts for women, did he?

And a big salute, farewell and thank you to the late great Mr. Doohan.

[ghostsofgiants]

1. Shatner's toupée

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. "It is not logical, Captain."

[James T. Kirk]

3. I'm the real Kirk!

The other guy is my evil twin!

[mac56]

4. Ensign Ricky

From "The Family Guy"

Kirk: "Spock, Bones, Chekov, Ensign Ricky."

Ensign Ricky: "Aw, crap."

[Bossy Monkey]

7. Reminds me of Sam Rockwell's character in "Galaxy Quest"

DO I? DO I? For all you know, I'm "Crewman Number Six".

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Yeah.. I love that movie!

[GiovanniC]

5. Dammit Jim

I'm a doctor, not a goat-ball licker.

[Spinzonner]

6. I'm just a Tribblemaker

[Ikonoklast]

8. Gee, this red tunic sure can cover

the blood stains pretty good. EEEEAAAUUGGHHHHH!!!

[Deja Q]

9. I'm a Doctor, not a navigator! But you're wrong about the writing, dude.

But it wasn't all Gene's fault. Those were the 1960s. Prejudice and sexism were rampant.

The network HATED the idea there was no smoking! (note that in other sci-fi tv and movies, people in spaceships SMOKED CIGARS!)

Nichelle Nichols had to be signed as a guest star every week because of the network's racism. (She was about to quit until Martin Luther King told her to stay; very very prescence ALONE gave people hope.)

Network execs stole her fan mail and she got as much as Shatner and Nimoy.

In the context of the 1960s, the original Star Trek truly did shatter barriers and anger the execs.

Nichelle Nichols' book "Beyond Uhura" is one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. And don't let Ron Howard make it into a movie either, he'll glossy it up and remove some of the more "objectionable" points because it might bother somebody (as he had done in "A Beautiful Mind"...)

Indeed, Majel Barrett from the original pilot was intensely disliked by the execs. Gene Roddenberry found a way to keep her, though in a dimished and somewhat insulting role that Majel to this day openly speaks up against (a twit of a nurse who's got a thing for Spock). He had her wear a blond wig and, you guessed it, the execs were too dim to notice the similarities.

Yes, there was sexism in some of the scripts and sometimes those lines of dialogue makes my skin crawl, but I try to treat them as "macho man humor" on Kirk's part so I can stomach it. I can only recall a line from "Amok Time", an otherwise A+++ story that has Kirk saying a really scathing sexist remark. But given Kirk's personality it's more part of his macho bias than anything else... but "Turnabout Intruder" openly states there are no female starship captains (though Janice Lester believes it is because the disqualified candidates are merely female... there's nothing that means the former is because of the latter. And Janice was unbalanced. There is no correlation.)

People of today's era often summarily dismiss the original and it's a damn shame.

Yes, I wish more characters got inscreen time (the first season, the one least fettered by Shatner's ego - not that he was always wrong, mind you) often has side-characters getting decent noteworthy scenes.

[moof]

10. What Hypnotoad said & The first Captain was a woman.

The first pilot had Magel as the Captain.

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

14. Jeffrey Hunter played Captain Pike in the pilot

But Majel was "Number One" (second in command.)

[moof]

15. Hmmmm, and what was her status once Pike was captured on the planet ?

Seemed like she was the one giving all the orders on the bridge after that.

[XemaSab]

16. And the whole idea there

was that Pike didn't want a woman on the bridge AT ALL.

[Deja Q]

19. Partly to appease the execs, but there was character conflict involved...

Compared to the robot characters in any given Bermantrek series, the character conflict in that pilot is far more refreshing.

"The Cage" and Bermantrek are similar in many ways... except "Cage" had humans but Bermantrek's characters lack any character. That, to me, is why the original Trek and "The Cage" stand out.

"The Cage"'s plot is also exceptionally good. Even for now being 41 years old.

[XemaSab]

20. It may be genuine character conflict

But it's disheartening to realize exactly how sexist the 60's were, and to see how sexist the people in the 60's expected the future to be.

And it's not just the pilot. I understand that for the time, there were many things about the show that were forward-thinking, but Kirk's still a bit of a sexist pig.

[Deja Q]

18. Oops. I meant First Officer...

:crazy:

[Hugin]

11. Some guy caught up in a Transporter malfunction.

Eeeew!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. This poll is fascinating.

Although the idea of "dazzling" strikes me as illogical.

[hunter]

17. I work in the science lab with my wife.

One day Spock walked into the lab and caught us naked. We told him it was an experiment. He raised one eyebrow and said he was looking forward to reading that report.

[Dukkha]

21. Captain Pike in "The Menagerie"

I can only beep my answers

[malmapus]

22. Red Shirt here

Yeah I have some horrible death awaiting me in the first few scenes.

[DrGonzoLives]

23. McCoy

Because I get angry and cuss a lot.