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Originally Posted by evay
it's kind of like Citizen Kane or the LOTR books -- what was astonishing and groundbreaking then is so commonplace and part of the landscape now that we can hardly imagine what it was like when it first debuted. "Science fiction on TV" was cheeseball stuff like Flash Gordon. You wouldn't expect Flash and Dale to handle interracial kissing (let alone inter-species bootknocking and procreation) or arms escalation.
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What about real conflict between characters, some random psychosis, and actual development of the character?
Quote:
Originally Posted by evay
Yes, sure, there were plenty of clunkers (The Gamesters of Triskellion, Spock's Brain) and plotless tripe (That Which Survives), but there was also real heartbreak (City of the Edge of Forever) and contentious issues (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, A Private Little War, the aforementioned interracial kiss). Science fiction was just not the genre used to tackle powerful questions back then. Hell, did TV in general even go there, in any genre?
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I take your point on the heartbreak and some contentious issues, but they tend to be handled in about as heavy a manner as possible, and you do tend to be fed a single viewpoint as 'right'. Obviously in some, 'Battlefield' being an example, there are clear distinctions. However, in the case of 'A Private Little War', we do get a muddy issue handed to us with a clear 'this is good, this is bad, now believe it' outcome.
Also, these are offset by some real tripe...