Episode 10: Mindy watches ‘Star Trek’ and you should too

2020-05-16

Star Trek debuted on CBS in 1966, the brainchild of creator Gene Roddenberry. Mindy, though, caught it first in afternoon reruns after she’d get home from school. She thinks that original series is good, but she really thinks everyone should be a Star Trek: The Next Generation Trekkie. “Roddenberry gave us hope for the future,” she says. The new direction in the latest two shows, she feels, is more about “me” and less about “us,” losing some part of the original’s optimism and group solidarity. ...

Star Trek debuted on CBS in 1966, the brainchild of creator Gene Roddenberry. Mindy, though, caught it first in afternoon reruns after she’d get home from school. She thinks that original series is good, but she really thinks everyone should be a Star Trek: The Next Generation Trekkie.

“Roddenberry gave us hope for the future,” she says. The new direction in the latest two shows, she feels, is more about “me” and less about “us,” losing some part of the original’s optimism and group solidarity.

The other big theme that pops up for Mindy in the shows is what makes us human and what we owe to the artificial beings we create. She says such Star Trek characters as the android Data and the hologram “The Doctor” spark the same sense of empathy she feels for pets. She hates seeing them abused and mistreated in films and TV shows.

“We brought the pet into our world, so anything that happens to them is our fault,” Mindy explains, and that’s “graduated” to thinking about other beings we might create in the future. It's the most philosophical and moral discussion we’ve gotten into on this podcast!

P.S. Mindy finally caught a bit of those new “Star Trek” shows. She says she liked them more than she thought she would.

P.P.S. I use one expletive. Don’t judge.

(PHOTO CREDIT: "Star Trek Exhibit Mall of America" by Margalit Francus is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

> Check out StarTrek.com.

> Humanists cover a little of Gene Roddenberry’s thinking from the show here. (Here’s a more pessimistic view on Roddenberry spun out of a book review of a two-volume history of the show.)

> Mindy gives an eloquent, heartbreaking description of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode about a world that depends on the torment of a single being for its civilization’s success. Brendan was reminded of a dark tale of a place that relies on hurting a being for its own happiness. It’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin. Brendan said it was 30 years ago; it’s closer to 50 years ago, first published in 1973.

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