“What a charming Negress. Oh, forgive me, my dear. I know that in my time some used that term as a description of property.”
“But why should I object to that term, sir? You see, in our century we’ve learned not to fear words.“
Conversation between Lincoln and Uhura, The Savage Curtain
Not fearing words would be a useful lesson for Star Trek to teach our own word obsessed time. Originally broadcast on March 7, 1969, The Savage Curtain is, like most of the final season of Star Trek, not a fan favorite.  I dissent both as to the episode and the Season. I found the Third Season to have usually highly imaginative episodes, some swings and misses but mostly solid hits and a few home runs. This was in the aftermath of the Civil War Centennial and interest in Lincoln was strong. Actor Lee Bergere gives a convincing performance as a simulation of Lincoln, capturing the man’s nobility, common sense and, yes, ruthlessness in the service of a just cause. Bergere passed away in 2007 at 88,
Barry Atwater was superb in the same episode of as Surak, founder of the Vulcan philosophy of pure logic:
A nice, and subtle, look at good and evil, evil being personified by the founder of Klingon civilization, Kahless the Unforgettable, Zora of Tiburon, Genghis Khan and Colonel Phillip Green, the leader of eco terrorists in the 21rst century who euthanized hundreds of thousands of irradiated people in the wake of World War III. (An all too plausible villain for our century.) Green’s uniform, such is the cheapness of television series, would serve as the uniform, with a white triangle added, for Mork of Mork and Mindy infamy!
In other news, William Shatner/Capt. Kirk is 90 years old.
And, environmentalists are truly evil people. They want to make our lives worse. The environment is simply the excuse.
It is interesting in the Fandom to debate over who Kahless is. After all he seems like a noble and decent chap when cloned back to life in TNG. Was the alien that bad or was it just the beliefs of the starfleet officers who made such an assumption about a foe at the time?
Then again, Klingons are a rowdy and stiff necked people. Their own Abraham Lincoln uniting the empire might seem harsh to us, but on the Klingon scale, was a noble and magnanimous fellow. In the books, Kahless was the guy who gave Klingons their code of honor, making him their equivalent of Surak.
Which means this episode instead of good vs evil could have been a meeting of historical minds to examine the heart and souls of their people.
Fun things to meditate on.
In TOS the Klingons were depicted largely, albeit not completely, as villains. This shifted in Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and is reflected in the sixth Star Trek movie. Compare and contrast with the depiction in the third movie. The role of evil incarnate in the Star Trek Universe was taken by the Borg.
Oh quite. A lot of the Klingon details were begun in the TOS movies then ironed out over the next two series.
Don’t forget the Dominion though. They were pretty evil too.
(Though some of us have had fun with the thought exercise on if the Borg are the logical extremist endpoint of the Federation’s ideals.)
The Federation reaction to the Maquis was the revelation that the Federation was not utopia.
This of course was caused by the surrender of territory to the Cardassians who were pretty evil until their conflict with the Dominion. Sometimes watching Star Trek I am reminded of the beginning of Serenity:
A good series to be made about Star Fleet Public Relations: Cleaning up actual Starfleet actions for public consumption.
Also I like that clip of Spock and Surak. It reminds me of this popular TNG clip:
As MANY have complained about, it’s amazing to go and watch drama as acted by adults, where you can have conflict with soft spoken words instead of DRAMA(tm) all over the screen.
Give me a hundred like that more than….
Ugh. Makes me sick every time.
Oh I love Serenity (it was my introduction to firefly) and it is entertaining as a rebuttal to the Federation.
Of course Foxfier and I have an ongoing debate about the cardassians as I argue that they are, in fact, the alien species meant to represent the “new soviet man.” A true fascist “species” (“nothing outside the state”, etc) which brings up a lot of interesting questions. I like them as a parable of how even if the new soviet man could be achieved, there would still be plenty of conflict of visions within the state.
And I quite believe that if the radicals had their way, Cardassia on earth is exactly what we’d get.
Soviet Japan.
There’s a REASON that “THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS” is such a popular meme the last few years.
“Soviet Japan” . . . I like that!
Hm. Guess our debate is over then. Fun times! What should we argue over next?
Better to keep chewing it over for a bit, you might find something I missed.
There’s always “Garak: Threat or Menace, both is an acceptable answer.”
lol the fun that argument is:
“Garak himself claims he is a threat or menace.
Garak also admits he lies.”
😉
Garak has also bragged about how he’ll tell people not to trust him, and it makes them trust him all the more.
Thus, it is logical to assume that he lies when it will get the effect he wants– which, notably, includes amusement.