That's not David Gerrold, is it? Who wrote "Tribbles"? I know that he is gay and had a contentious relationship with Roddenberry et al. (he eventually wrote an sf trilogy thinly transformed from some of his unbought Trek scripts), though by the time they aired the DS9 Tribbles episode he and the Trek team were on a good enough footing that he has a cameo as an ensign.
The TOS and early TNG sets in particular seem to have been fairly awful behind the scenes--the actress who played Janice Rand left because she was sexually assaulted by someone on set and the producers did nothing about it; Gates McFadden left TNG because she was being harassed by someone on set and the producers wouldn't address it, and she only returned when her harasser had left.
But yeah, why the hell it took Trek so long to show a queer relationship onscreen--and I don't think it was a coincidence that it was DS9 that did it, and Terry Farrell also was apparently hugely uncomfortable with the whole thing--and why that DS9 episode is essentially it, still, are just unconscionable. Though going back and rewatching TOS and TAS, it's clear that the whole Trek spirit is thinly disguised fairly high humanism, which explains kind of a lot, though does not excuse it.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-27 19:57 (UTC)The TOS and early TNG sets in particular seem to have been fairly awful behind the scenes--the actress who played Janice Rand left because she was sexually assaulted by someone on set and the producers did nothing about it; Gates McFadden left TNG because she was being harassed by someone on set and the producers wouldn't address it, and she only returned when her harasser had left.
But yeah, why the hell it took Trek so long to show a queer relationship onscreen--and I don't think it was a coincidence that it was DS9 that did it, and Terry Farrell also was apparently hugely uncomfortable with the whole thing--and why that DS9 episode is essentially it, still, are just unconscionable. Though going back and rewatching TOS and TAS, it's clear that the whole Trek spirit is thinly disguised fairly high humanism, which explains kind of a lot, though does not excuse it.