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Posted: |
Sep 13, 2016 - 3:47 PM
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By: |
ScottyM
(Member)
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Outside of his bad business practices and suffocating writers in his box*, "Assignment: Earth" has the honors of being my go-to Episode if I need to be reminded how on much Gene was always about the business and never about the message.
It would be foolish for anyone t believe Roddenberry was altruistic and made a TV Series just to make a comment on society. Of course he was profit driven. He was a professional writer making a living. He wanted to make a mature, worthwhile TV series naturally, but he absolutely wanted to be able to pay his mortgage and sustain his lifestyle. Who the hell doesn't? But he did want to impart some messages and break some barriers, Otherwise, he could have created a more traditional show and make money pandering to the masses. He could have been Irwin Allen all over again.
When the threat of Star Trek being cancelled after it's second season, Gene thought it would be a good idea to take all that work, all those stories and all the love the fans have given and do something something special with what could be Star Trek's last episode... ever. What did he do? Turn Season Two's finale into a backdoor pilot for another series that has nothing to do with anything that Star Trek is about.
Why is this bothering you so much? He wouldn't be the first or last creator/producer to use his main show to create a pilot. Put it in context with the times: other than special exceptions like The Fugitive, nobody did concluding finales. Shows just ended and went into syndication. Unlike today, when season finales are big deals and everyone tunes in, the end of the season was usually where bad episodes went to die. Bread and Circuses, a biting satire on Network habits, was pushed all the way back to the penultimate spot on the schedule where it would be "buried" because NBC did not like the episode. Assignment Earth was dead last of the season, they didn't expect a lot of people to be watching, the show was most likely going to be cancelled, and there was no situation to "wrap up." Even in the third season, when they knew for certain it was coming to an end, they ended it with a regular (even worse) episode.
Gene created a show where humanity has accomplished amazing social and technological feats only to now reveal that it was thanks to some alien bred human who was sent to Earth to make sure we didn't blow ourselves up.
Why not? It was 1968 when we were obviously not mature enough to save ourselves yet. It wasn't as if they placed this episode in the year 2145 or something and humanity needed bailing out. It still fits because it's not in the future, but in the then present.
Here, Gene was perfectly fine with using his beloved series he created as a life reserver to start something else. Looking back at all of TOS's first two seasons, this is a real slap in the face of everyone involved who made this unique science fiction show work.
Sorry, I think that's a gross over reaction. It wasn't a slap in anyone's face, it was the work of a guy who thought he had a decent concept (he did, actually) and felt this was the easiest and cheapest way to get his pilot made. And since his only TV series was probably about to get shit-canned and, as far as anyone knew, soon forgotten, he made a perfectly sensible decision.
There are a number of reasons to have a hate on Roddenberry, I guess, but Assignment Earth is far from the worst thing he did to the series. You want to point to his greed masquerading as writing, hop over half a season to Is There in Truth No Beauty with the shoehorned in IDIC symbol. As much as it's a great thought behind it, the real reason was that he wanted to sell them via mail order.
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Posted: |
Sep 14, 2016 - 2:37 PM
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By: |
Jeyl
(Member)
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Why is this bothering you so much?
Let's just say that when it comes to Gene's vision of Star Trek, I don't consider it a good thing, let alone something that the franchise must adhere towards. Bryan Fuller recently said,
"And I would love for us to end up in Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future."
How am I supposed to feel about that? For what good there might be, humanity itself is just wrong. Assignment: Earth and a lot of other episode seem to convey this idea that Gene actually hated humanity.
Just look at how he compares his Star Trek characters to humans from Earth's past. In Assignment: Earth, we have the Enterprise labeling the 1960s as a mysterious time because they don't know how humanity could have possibly survived the events from that decade (Another stab. I seem to recall an episode from season one where it was the 90's that had Earth in the dark ages). Or how about TNG's episode The Neutral Zone where our crew revive three average 20th century humans and spend the whole episode berating them? We have Picard calling their way of life infantile and Riker using them as a basis for his contemplations on how humanity from the 20th Century could have survived. Yes, a cheerful redneck, a confused woman and a stuck up banker are the worst that humanity has to offer.
This isn't Star Trek using evil dictators, slave owners, serial killers ect as examples. It's using average people who have no ill-will against anyone as the worst that humanity has to offer. Us. People everyday who are simply trying to make it through life. Gene's vision of a perfect humanity is one where people can openly hate on today's humanity for no reason.
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Posted: |
Sep 14, 2016 - 2:53 PM
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By: |
Warlok
(Member)
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I hate humanity.
Its one of the reasons I revel so thoroughly in PREDATOR movies. Because we so richly deserve to be eviscerated. And at the peril of making this a political thread (which it isn`t... see following), I cite not propaganda or opinion but historical fact as the basis for such a hatred.
I confess, propose, and contend that one`s honest study of modern history brings one inevitably around to the truth that we can be a horrible species. Yet (!), one also often finds that the worst of us are the most aggressive of us to force their way into positions of power, subjecting us to their inhumanities. Judge the individual.
To come back to G. Roddenberry having been a police officer, seeing the drudgery - having the knowledge - of those amongst us who prove to disappoint time and again, it is not difficult to accept/understand such a negative world view. That view in and of itself is not negative. It is a healthy cynicism.
So looking back at his overall story bent, to contend that there is something profoundly ajar with modern culture is simply raw honesty. There *is* something terribly wrong with us. And of course we should hate that reality, and inveigh against it.
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Posted: |
Sep 14, 2016 - 6:09 PM
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By: |
Jeyl
(Member)
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So looking back at his overall story bent, to contend that there is something profoundly ajar with modern culture is simply raw honesty. There *is* something terribly wrong with us. And of course we should hate that reality, and inveigh against it.
And what terrible irredeemable facet of humanity can we take away from the good old L.Q. Clemonds?
The guy is pretty open minded to his surrounding and is curious to know what lies ahead for him. Over all, I'd say he's more likable than half the main characters in all of Season One. I mean, who could argue that humanity has gotten so much better in the future when exchanges like this take place?
DATA: I could not leave them there, Captain. The condition of their vehicle was deteriorating.
PICARD: But Data, they were already dead. I mean, what more could have happened to them?
DATA: I see your point, Captain, but at the time it seemed the proper thing to do.
PICARD: Well, they're alive now. We're going to have to treat them as living human beings.
I'm sorry, but you're not selling me on the notion that our present day humanity is deserving of such scorn when your supposed enlightened Captain of the Enterprise is ANNOYED by the prospect that his crew saved the lives of three people.
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In case you've never read this web comic (image below is just an excerpt)
That comic relates GR's own version of the event, as told in his authorized biography. Based on some other stories he told in his lifetime, I would hesitate to take the self-flattering details on faith.
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