Ground Control to Captain Kirk

The Amazing Bob and I have been watching old episodes of Star Trek -- the original series. Why? You have to ask? The show was awesome! OK, it was often awesome. As a severe and semi humorless wee lass of ten, I felt that Shatner was a painfully, embarrassingly ham handed actor. I could NOT understand, amongst many things, why he and not Spock, who was so much more attractive and calm, would always get the girl.

Eons later, when The Next Generation came out, I was happily surprised, stunned even, that the captain, Jean Luc Picard, was a Shakespearean actor. He had all the believability and gravitas that Shatner lacked.

I was 29 and oh so serious. Still.

Somewhere along the way, I came to enjoy Captain Kirk’s over the topness. I suppose watching Chris Pine in the 2009 Star Trek and Into Darkness helped me to see Shatner's performances in fresh light.

In any case, TAB and I popped a disk into the box after dinner last night and what came up? Space Seed. Fab-ola! I don’t recall ever seeing this one before and what a stone treat to see Ricardo Montalban in his original Khan role! (Damn, that man was studly!)

From Star Trek.com

Named after an infamous Australian penal colony, the S.S. Botany Bay was converted into a "sleeper ship" and launched in 1996 with refugees from the Eugenics Wars, namely Khan Noonien Singh and his band of genetically-bred "supermen." The launch was kept secret in order to not alarm a war-weary population that the tyrant who controlled more than one-fourth of the planet from 1992-96 was still alive. After being defeated in Earth's Eugenics Wars, Khan and his followers hoped to find another world to conquer and rule.

From Memory Alpha.org -- The Eugenics Wars

The Eugenics Wars (or the Great Wars) were a series of conflicts fought on Earth between 1992 and 1996. The result of a scientific attempt to improve the Human race through selective breeding and genetic engineering, the wars devastated parts of Earth, by some estimates officially causing some 30 million deaths, and nearly plunging the planet into a new Dark Age.

Fascinating stuff. Really!

Here’s the thing -- I’m used to the make up, special effects and continuity of present day productions. I’d forgotten the skunky cheese factor of 1960s sci fi shows/films.

In the 1967 show, Khan’s skin tone was horribly, laughably, obviously greasepaint.

Khan was from India. Instead of hiring an appropriately hued actor, they darkened Montelban up. In the 1982 movie though, he was more pasty white than me. Worse yet, in the 2009 and ’13 movies, he was played by Benedict Cumberbatch -- an alabaster skinned Brit.

New comic book explains Khan's evolution from Latino Ricardo Montalban to the very white Benedict Cumberbatch.

How Khan's ethnicity will change from Indian to Latino to Caucasian is obviously a big question the series is going to answer — though we're not sure how literally whitewashing an ethnic character is going to damp down any outcry. 

OK, clearly I need to hit the comic book store.

Then, and THEN, there’s Spock’s ears. Mister Spock’s ears in 1967 were...well, please see the illustration at left. In the later movies they were far less theatrical. And the 21st century young Spock’s receivers are even less less Bilbo Baggins-y.


OK, OK, I'll stop with the total geek-a-troid-ness. Sheesh.
Space Oddity -- Bowie