UFO thoughts

[wrog]

I now find it weird to see shows from an epoch (in this case, 1969 [Britain]) when it was acceptable in any kind of professional context to use the word "girl" in reference to a woman over the age of 20. And of course it doesn't matter if she's the moonbase commander, she's still the one who's expected to make the coffee/tea when Straker or whoever walks into the room.

It's particularly weird when a given storyline is clearly attempting (in some completely pathetic manner) to address sexism/racism/etc issues. Apparently, Gerry did have thoughts about this stuff, though the resulting episodes have a certain missing-the-forest-for-the-trees quality to them.

Just about everybody smokes cigars all over the place.

Lots of flared pants and funky sideburns.

Lots of views of Col. Foster's chest hair ("Rug", I tell you, "Rug, rug, rug!")

1980 ... 1980 ... 1980 ...

Suffice it to say, this show has, shall we say, not aged very well. It does bother me a bit that this is all very likely to look as bizarre to a 90s kid as the Flash Gordon serials look to my generation.

It apparently also took Gerry a few episodes to get used to the idea that he had live actors now.

One of the outtakes is SID singing "Home on the Range". This was a good cut.

Moonbase babes with metallic outfits and purple hair? Still works for me.
I guess Sylvia just had an instinct for these things.
And they definitely got to do a lot more than Uhura ever did.

And "Mindbender" is still a classic episode.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

a certain missing-the-forest-for-the-trees quality to them.

that describes so much "earnestly addressing whatever-ism" stuff in science fiction.

Long, long ago...

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I was watching a old episode of National Geographic with Jacques Cousteau and a deep sea colony experiment -- and one of the biggest drawbacks to living in a helium environment listed by Orson Welles was that the residents couldn't smoke. It's probably a good thing that the helium is there, otherwise people would constantly be burning stuff and using up all the oxygen. Similarly they had a shot of the mother smoking while worriedly watching the descent.

Incidentally, Uhura was actually fourth in command of the Enterprise -- not that you'd notice most of the time.

Re: Long, long ago...

[wrog]

actually I imagine the helium has nothing to do with it (doesn't burn, after all) and that it's rather the higher partial pressure (read higher concentration) of the oxygen available when you crank up the overall pressure. Hm. That must make it really fun to design electrical equipment for use in such places.

So where was it actually said that Uhura was #4?

Re: Long, long ago...

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

Well, the helium was mentioned as a non-burning element, which is appropriate. They did say that cooking was impossible/unsafe because the fumes created would be lethal, which I didn't quite follow.

I think I read about Uhura's rank in David Gerrold's book on Star Trek. But I think in the episode "Cat's Paw" (the Halloween episode) Kirk, Spock and Scotty are all on the surface and you actually see Uhura in command.