# Incredible powers discovered/revealed on Star Trek that are used once and dismissed forever **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** star-trek-paramount\ **Created:** [April 7, 2024, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963 "2024-04-07T01:17:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/101 "2024-04-09T20:44:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > A lot of people like it. It seems more like a like it/hate it show. I don’t hate it. I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either. It certainly has some really good moments…and not so great ones. It certainly is not the best of Star Trek and it gets weird. I still find it ok to watch (I have not seen season 4 yet or 5 now because I do not have Paramount+). ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/102 "2024-04-09T20:48:13Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > But, still, with the loudest haters being the anti-woke crowd, I expected some Dopers to like it–even if only because the aforementioned haters. It’s so weird finding out there are anti-woke Star Trek fans. The original Trek never pandered to the woke crown by doing things like putting a black female officer on the bridge of the flagship, making a black man the foremost Federation expert on computers, or even having a black man preside over the courts martial of Captain Kirk. Nope. Trek wasn’t woke until recently. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/103 "2024-04-09T20:52:27Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Trek wasn’t woke until recently. IIRC Captain Kirk kissing lieutenant Uhura prompted the most mail (at that time) for a TV episode to the producers. A lot was hate mail. A lot was not. Certainly hyper-woke for the time (1969?). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/104 "2024-04-09T20:57:40Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > IIRC Captain Kirk kissing lieutenant Uhura prompted the most mail (at that time) for a TV episode to the producers. A lot was hate mail. A lot was not. Certainly hyper-woke for the time (1969?). > **[Kirk and Uhura's kiss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_and_Uhura%27s_kiss)** > > In the episode of Star Trek: The Original Series titled "Plato's Stepchildren", season 3 episode 10, first broadcast November 22, 1968, Uhura (played by black actress Nichelle Nichols) and Captain Kirk (played by white actor William Shatner) kiss. The episode is often cited as the first example of an interracial kiss on television. > The first interracial kiss on television is debated, with several examples identified in the 1950s. For example, Shatner had another interracial kiss more than 10 yea... _There are no records of any public complaints about the scene.[[13]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_and_Uhura%27s_kiss#cite_note-Nichols,_pp.196-197-13) Nichols observed that “Plato’s Stepchildren”, which first aired on November 22, 1968, “received a huge response. We received one of the largest batches of fan mail ever, all of it very positive, with many addressed to me from girls wondering how it felt to kiss Captain Kirk, and many to him from guys wondering the same thing about me. However, almost no one found the kiss offensive,” except from a single mildly negative letter from one white Southerner who wrote: “I am totally opposed to the mixing of the races. However, any time a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms that looks like Uhura, he ain’t gonna fight it.”[[13]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_and_Uhura%27s_kiss#cite_note-Nichols,_pp.196-197-13) Nichols said “for me, the most memorable episode of our last season was ‘Plato’s Stepchildren.’”[[14]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_and_Uhura%27s_kiss#cite_note-14)_ I cant find anything that has evidence of lots of hate mail. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/105 "2024-04-09T21:06:58Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > IIRC Captain Kirk kissing lieutenant Uhura prompted the most mail (at that time) for a TV episode to the producers. A lot was hate mail. A lot was not. Certainly hyper-woke for the time (1969?). I know. I figured the entirety of my post was pretty ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/106 "2024-04-09T21:11:49Z")
Maybe it was not “a lot” of hate mail. I remembered this bit (below). It seemed to stir the pot. And regardless, how was that, in 1968, any less “woke” than anything today? In short, it’s all much ado about nothing. > “Apparently, this was the largest fan mail that Paramount had ever gotten on Star Trek for one episode” she said. “They were simply amazed.” > > Notably, Nichols remembered one particular letter that had been selected for her to read by Roddenberry himself. > > “I opened it up, and I read it, and it said: ‘I’m a white man from the South, and I’m against the mixing of the races. But anytime a red-blooded boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms like Lt. Uhura, he ain’t going to fight it,’” she told an interviewer, before seeming to address the letter-writer. “Now what’s wrong with that, boy?” - [SOURCE](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/50-years-ago-star-treks-history-was-sealed-with-the-uhura-kirk-kiss/) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/107 "2024-04-09T21:16:04Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Maybe it was not “a lot” of hate mail. I remembered this bit (below). It seemed to stir the pot. And regardless, how was that, in 1968, any less “woke” than anything today? In short, it’s all much ado about nothing. Well, I agree that it was pretty liberal for its day, and that Discovery is no more liberal now than TOS was then. The hate for Discovery is that it is simply a bad show. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/108 "2024-04-09T22:16:07Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Also, it gets into alternate universes, time travel (not as a one off , like TOS did) and other crap. In general that stuff isnt popular as people see that it doesnt matter, that is it more or less “it was all a dream”. I’m going to agree with this, and I’ve never made a complaint about hugging it out or emotions. I hated it (and FTR, watched the entirety of the first two seasons, because sometimes it takes that long for a show to -work-) because it was bad TREK, not for stumbling around caring about people’s feelings. Bad writing, unappealing characters, tech that never existed before or since, huge new conflicts that are _still_ somehow supposed to tie into one of our universes, over-reliance on both alternate universes and time travel, each new “reveal” being trumped by the next, and on and on. It’s a bad story, a worse Trek story, and would have likely worked better (but not had the name brand recognition) if they’d gone Babylon 5 on it: a new setting, a new story, inspired by Star Trek but a lot more free to build it’s own mythology. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/109 "2024-04-09T22:20:55Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > > [@BigT](#): > > > > But, still, with the loudest haters being the anti-woke crowd, I expected some Dopers to like it–even if only because the aforementioned haters. ⁢ > > You are saying some people here should like it specifically because people that they don’t like don’t like it? ⁢ No. I’m saying I’m surprised there aren’t at least some people here who like it because of the same stuff that pisses off the bigots. A lot of people _like_ what these anti-woke activists call “woke” or claim is “wokeness shoved in their face.” To me, it seems like there are two major complaints: that it is “too woke,” or that it violates some practice/principle/canon of TNG-era Trek. The quality of the show itself is not usually cited. If it were objectively bad, then it wouldn’t have survived in the current climate. I make no “should” statements. Not only do I believe taste is subjective, but I’ve not watched the show beyond one episode and some clips. I didn’t get into it. That’s why I talk so much about what other people think and don’t give my own opinion. I’d be a hypocrite if I said people “should” like it. I’m just surprised, as I said. The position on this board is different than anywhere else I see Trek discussed. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/110 "2024-04-09T22:26:24Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > It’s a bad story, a worse Trek story, and would have likely worked better (but not had the name brand recognition) if they’d gone Babylon 5 on it IIRC Babylon 5 had time travel too. I think Babylon 4 was flung into the future and I think Sinclair came into the past (show “present”) to make it happen (it’s been a while since I saw that). I think that was left hanging out there though and never resolved in the story (was it?). ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/111 "2024-04-09T22:31:31Z")
It was handled in story. Major spoilers, and off topic, so I won’t explain (PM me or check a wiki if you want more). But it was pretty much a small, self-contained arc (a couple of two part episodes). It didn’t become the whole basis of the series. I’m not saying you can’t _use_ time travel in Trek. You could even do a Trek-based “Stories of the Temporal Cold War” series if you wanted. But suddenly rebuilding your entire story around it was jarring and felt a LOT like a creative team realizing they were losing their base (and for cause IMHO) and doing a massive reset. Or, as @DrDeth said in the section I quoted, the ever-groanworthy “It was all a dream” or the equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/112 "2024-04-09T22:34:56Z")
One notable point about B5’s time travel is that it wasn’t controlled: The tech was way beyond the main characters, and all they were able to do was to seize the opportunity to do what needed to be done, the one time that was possible. Future crises didn’t get “why don’t they just time travel?”, because that was never actually an option for them. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/113 "2024-04-09T23:14:14Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > [@BigT](#): > > > > A lot of people like it. It seems more like a like it/hate it show. > > I don’t hate it. I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either. It certainly has some really good moments…and not so great ones. > > It certainly is not the best of Star Trek and it gets weird. I still find it ok to watch (I have not seen season 4 yet or 5 now because I do not have Paramount+). Trek has become my daily treadmill watch. I haven’t watched the newer series. I’m finishing up _Picard_ now and moving on to DISCO. I’m semi-dreading it. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/114 "2024-04-09T23:27:51Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > To me, it seems like there are two major complaints: that it is “too woke,” or that it violates some practice/principle/canon of TNG-era Trek. Then you haven’t paid much attention to criticism of Disco. Just one of the big problems with the show isn’t the color of the characters’ skin it it is the content of their tear ducts. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/mtA1B3BFQ18/maxresdefault.jpg "Michael Burnham Crying Compilation Star Trek Discovery Season 2 Only") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtA1B3BFQ18) The show is soapy emo glurge. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/115 "2024-04-10T01:34:10Z")
Personally I didn’t mind Discovery as entertainment. We cut the cord at home about the time season 2 ended, I got the first episode of season 3 from unnamed sources and found it promising… as entertainment. But I never bothered to acquire the ensuing episodes and seasons. Maybe in a few years I’ll subscribe to Paramount+ (which by then will be _Paramount CBS All Access Plus Extra Turbo_) and watch it all. When I say “as entertainment”, I don’t mean that the rest of Trek wasn’t entertaining. I just mean that Discovery didn’t fit in Trek at all. There was no reason to have the show be yet another prequel of TOS while having tech that’s way more advanced. It just forced the story into weird, unsatisfactory contortions. And they could have introduced a few interesting characters instead of having one girl who’s essentially the main protagonist for everything that happens. In both universes. Oh, and she’s the never-discussed adoptive sister of Spock. With an odd first name that, in-universe, nobody seems to care about. It’s just too silly. But cute. Especially Ash Tyler. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/116 "2024-04-10T01:52:50Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > The show is soapy emo glurge. Geez, I didnt know it was that bad. How many times did Kirk or Picard cry… or a better analogy- Janeway? I think she got kinda emotional in one of the last episodes, with Kes? Oe correct me please, my memory is bad, and although i have watched every TOS episode multiple times, not so with Voyager. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/117 "2024-04-10T02:04:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > How many times did Kirk or Picard cry… or a better analogy- Janeway? That’s the problem, these are supposed to be officers in a (quazi) military organization, and they spend all their time crying, hugging, and telling each other how much they love each other. It is supposed to be trained, seasoned professionals, not a tween slumber party. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/118 "2024-04-10T02:28:10Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > With an odd first name that, in-universe, nobody seems to care about. It’s just too silly. But cute She was named after the Archangel (is my analysis, not something I read anywhere). The reason the tech is more advanced is that, at some point anyway, they wrote in that due to time-travel shenanigans they are now in the future future. (But the Galaxy is also more dangerous, with the concomitant opportunities for storytelling: the Federation is just coming back together, mirroring _Picard_ where it was on the verge of falling apart. Though any Star Trek show at all can set some action in the middle of nowhere where the Federation/Klingon/Romulan situation is irrelevant.) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/119 "2024-04-10T02:50:14Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > That’s the problem, these are supposed to be officers in a (quazi) military organization, and they spend all their time crying, hugging, and telling each other how much they love each other. It is supposed to be trained, seasoned professionals, not a tween slumber party. Yep. I mean, dont get me wrong, there _is_ the “Kirk maneuver” with hot alien women- but sometimes that actually helped the Enterprise out of a jam. Or as Bones said in one of the films- **Commander Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, M.D.:** _What IS it with you, anyway?_ But to be honest- handsome naval captains having an active love life is hardly unusual IRL. ---
**Author:** ![wanderer2575](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/2acd7d/32.png) [@wanderer2575](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wanderer2575)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/120 "2024-04-10T02:56:06Z")
Voyager, “Mortal Coil.” Seven of Nine’s Borg nanoprobes can bring the dead back to life. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963.md?page=7)