Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about
Things You Never Knew About 'Star Trek: The Original Series'
The show never achieved high ratings during its original run of three seasons, but as it went into syndication throughout the 1970s, it became the cult classic it is today, with 13 feature films and five additional television series following. We’re rounding up some facts you might not have known about the series that boldly went where no other show had gone before.
1. Some of the ship’s equipment was a little too honest
Labels reading “GNDN” on the Enterprise‘s hallway tubing stood for “goes nowhere, does nothing.”
2. It brought the Old West to space
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry threw a number of influences into his initial pitch for Star Trek. He’d gotten his start in television writing shows about the Old West, and deliberately characterized Star Trek as “a Wagon Train concept” show.
3. But also brought the high seas to space
However, a conscious character model for Captain James Tiberius Kirk was Horatio Hornblower, the protagonist of C.S. Forrester’s novels of the same name.
4. Captain Kirk wasn’t even in the show’s pilot
The show’s pilot, “The Cage,” didn’t feature Kirk, but rather a Captain Pike. Spock, however, was featured. NBC actually turned down the first pilot of the show, but commissioned a second, which introduced Kirk, Scotty and Sulu.
5. The character of Uhura broke racial barriers on television
Star Trek aired right in the thick of the civil rights movement, and Nichelle Nichols’ character, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, was one of the first black women with a prominent role in a televised series. “There were parts of the South that wouldn’t show Star Trek because this was an African-American woman in a powerful position,” Nichols told the Huffington Post in 2012, “and she wasn’t a maid or tap dancer.” Though she said she didn’t face discrimination on set, other parts of the studio weren’t as kind – she wasn’t allowed to enter the studio through the same gate as the white actors on the show.
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
Comments
Post a Comment