Star Trek, Snapshot in Thought

I have a really hard time getting to sleep most nights, and now that I don't have a job or class to go to I'm staying up later than I used to. During school it wasn't unusual for me to be up 1:30 - 2:00 am, but now it can go 2:30 - 4:30 (4:30 happens only rarely). But I end up watching a lot of TV, or finding shows that I like to watch late at night. So this post comes out of that inability to sleep many nights.

I've already written about how I like watching COPS and Dog the Bounty Hunter, but Monday night I ended up watching Star Trek: The Original Series. I'm actually sort of a fan of Star Trek the Next Generation, but I've never enjoyed TOS that much. But I found the episode Monday night enjoyable.

It was the episode where one alien's face was half black and half white, and the other was half white and half black. Their distaste for the color of the other lead to the downfall of their civilization, and eventually themselves. The added irony was that to Spock and everyone else they looked the same. The social commentary of Star Trek, TOS and TNG, is a bit like getting hit over the head with a frying pan isn't it? I usually get the giggles from it, because sometimes its just so obvious that it overtakes the plot.

So when it came to find something to watch last night I had three choices; COPS, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and Star Trek. I usually find COPS and Dog more fun when I can talk about it real time with a friend over AIM, so I opted for Star Trek. The episode last night was called The Mark of Gideon (thanks digital cable!), and again the social commentary was not a secret.

Kirk gets beamed down on this planet, but wakes up to find he is on the Enterprise, but nobody else is there. Then there is this beautiful girl dancing around that he kisses. Long story short, it was all a ruse to get this virus that is in Kirk's blood to infect the people of their planet, because they are over populated (even to the point apparently that they can't really move anywhere without bumping into people). See, look at the poor Gideons.



Apparently their world is germ-free and the people have super-long lifespans and the world is super-overpopulated. Kirk, horrified at this, offers to supply the Gideons with contraception to help control their population (who knew Kirk was the future love-child of Planned Parenthood and the United Nations?). The Gideons reply that they could not do this because they love and respect life, and creating life is important to them.

I guess I just found it so amusing to see how Star Trek acts like such a snapshot of thought from that era. In the same way that Star Trek: TNG tries to tackle subjects very clumsily and obviously. For example they had the anti-dealth penalty episode and the accepting people of various sexual inclinations episode.

Oh Star Trek, you're so funny.