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Ricardo is 100% right. Klingons are a separate species and there has never (at that point) been sub-races of Klingons. The whole discussion was a moot point and ridiculous.
been listening since near the start and this was the first time i full on stopped listening and don't want to finish. which really sucks because this is a great podcast with a great group of people. i'll be back next week regardless. i just hope this isn't a future trend@@tdt3860
Has there ever been a racially diverse alien species in the old Star Trek shows? I think they've all been a monolith except for the half white half black guys in the TOS episode "Let That be Your Last Battlefield."
@@alexmontenegro9991 El-Aurians would be what comes to mind first. (Guinan, Soran etc). But as far as TOS, I think you're right. **EDIT** Vulcans by themselves were diverse going way back as well.
So the Chicago flood was because many of the older buildings in the loop were connected by underground tunnels designed for delivering coal and mail and other supplies. Usually these connected buildings in their basement or more commonly sub-basement floors. A lot of these tunnels were just closed off with metal or wooden doors (not water tight). Some tunnels were used for utilities, but they were horribly maintained and mostly just abandoned. For most buildings the sub-basement was just where you have your telecom and other connections, and the rest was usually storage, filing rooms, and occasionally the building maintenance or machine shops. When they were working they caused the ceiling of a tunnel under the river to collapse letting the river flow freely into these tunnels. Since the river level was just below the first floor of most buildings it filled up sub-basements and basements. This also cascaded through the basement into more modern utility tunnels, train stations, power and equipment rooms, etc extending for many miles of the downtown. Slowly workers had to find and seal off sections of these tunnels (underwater) so that these could be pumped out. Because of the extent of the interconnections this also meant that a lot of these places now were filled with mud, sewage, and debris. And most of these interconnections were completely unmapped. So building by building, tunnel by tunnel they had to be explored, examined, sealed, drained, cleaned, and then utilities and services replaced. Many many insurance companies declared it an act of god, except from coverage. Others noted as the tunnels predated the Insurance companies they were preexisting risks they were not liable for. The city had no documentation on a lot of these tunnels so the city was not liable. The city blamed the construction company for not doing proper investigation, but the contractors liability bond was capped way below damage rates, plus they claimed as the city was not aware of the risks the contractor could not be liable. In the end it really became every particular individual claim had to litigate their particular situation themselves. I was not working in Chicago when this happened. But I do remember being in buildings and dealing with with the consequences for basement use and missing records 3-4 years later. A lot of these tunnels are now sealed off with watertight systems, or have sections permanently filled in.
Someone says something like "Maybe Dorn was just like 'which kid knows their lines' so I can get home" And, if actors had any say in how casting handles things, that would be exactly what'd happen. There is nothing worse than already being at work for 15 hours and the last scene of the day is finally up and an actor doesn't know their lines or can't commit to a take. 14 hours becomes 16 real quick. Everyone just wants to go home.
@@JohnSmith-rw2yn For me in order to be offended it needs to either have malicious intent, which this obviously didn't. Or actively negatively impact someone, which this also does not. They're just uncomfortable because it reminds them of something racist people used to do even though it's not anything to be offended at in this instance
Exactly. And Kaylar was dark, but obviously not as dark as Worf. Sara has quickly become my least liked part of this podcast. She hasn't really offered anything but thinking everything is offensive. She somehow can't understand that Klingons aren't actors playing black face. It's ridiculous
you guys jumped the shark a bit by being upset that worf's son is played by a white kid... they're klingons... they're not humans... you're usually so reasonable. I'd go so far as to say it's lovely that people of various human races can all play aliens together.
39:00 Wow, another episode where I think you guys have gone way too in depth and seriously overthinking it. They are playing people of the Klingon race, not people who are black. Just enjoy the show dammit!
"Black face" conversation was frustrating... I agree with Dan saying it was becoming a circular argument based on presentism. But, not too mad about it, since it's for a TNG episode that sucks.
Not only did Disney go against his contract selling his genie likeness but they also attempted to sabotage ferngully by over paying to kick them out of their recording times. Robin put up his own money to help save the movie because of disney
I'm with Sara, I think Lwaxana was really trying to change herself to make things work with the stuck up guy just so she wouldn't be lonely, and she only gave up on that after spending time with tragic little Alexander and realising her life's ok.
I agree with Sara. Laxawna character was attractive for her age. Not every woman can be insanely attractive for thier age like Madonna or Dolly Parton.
I have a mild crush on her personality, her and Blanche deveraux from golden girls are the pinnacle of attractive personalities for mature women for me.
There’s actually a scene in this episode I absolutely love. When Lwaxana and Alexander are talking and she’s expressing her fears about being alone and getting older breaks my heart. Keep in mind this episode went into production not long after Gene passed away. By every single account with as many flaws as he had as a person Majel was totally devoted to him. To me I love her performance in that scene because it seems like a perfect example of actor and character being indistinguishable. Granted the rest of the episode is just chaos but that’s part of the fun to me. Not a great episode by any means but I can’t help but laugh when worf looks at Alexander after being told “the higher, the fewer”. You just know he’s questioning every single life decision that has lead him to being told this by this 3 foot young boy.
@@NewbieStarTrek totally agree! Scenes like that though make it worth it to me go watch a bad episode. Majel can be very talented with this character when given right material. Rob Roddenberry has actually said Lwaxana was pretty close to how his mom was in real life. The good news is you guys have some bangers on the horizon with only one meh episode! Can’t wait to hear what you guys think of I, Borg and the inner light. I feel like you guys will get some absolutely wonderful discussions about them.
I felt like the actors race was immaterial after the Klingon makeup went on, like they'd cast a white guy and a black guy to play Klingon brothers and to Klingons this would be a normal variation between siblings
42:59 _Dude_ . It was the 1990s, not the antebellum south. Whoopie Goldberg starred as the lead of an action comedy in 1986. My parents, friends, whole community were calling out crap like this back then. The excuse of "It was the time" is a weak excuse at the best of times. Using it for a show that came out at the same time as Do The Right Thing, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, My Beautiful Laundrette (another 1986 film) and just a _wealth_ of other films, books and television shows at the time, your argument that people didn't know any better holds _no_ water. My God, the phrase "Political correctness gone mad" was already in common use.
I agree that the "of their time" excuse is total BS at that point, what I don't agree with in this episode was that casting a white kid as Alexander was an example of a racial stereotype. Klingons aren't supposed to be representative of human ethnicities.
I think what Sara means is that Lwxana isn't catfishing her partner, because she was intending to 'clean up her act' so to speak. Like this wasn't a lie she was keeping up to rope someone in, she was seriously considering changing the way she lives her life and giving up things she loves FOREVER just to satisfy her partner.
I was listening on the Spotify version and was so confused why you were all saying it was such a terrible episode. Then I realised I was thinking of the episode 'Half a Life' because I forgot about this one!
She was making an "honest attempt" to change herself into what he wanted. There was no deceit intended. I wouldn't categorize all of that as catfishing. If she was catfishing anyone it was herself.
my problem with alex as a character is that he didn't act like kaylar or worf, he acted like a kid that was in a costume playing a character on a tv show, it was immersive breaking.
I love that Sara hasn't seen the first series. I think part of the experience of older Star Trek is watching them out of order when ever you catch an episode on basic cable. I watched most TNG, DS9, and Voyager for a while before actually seeing the first episodes.
@@sararazack it would also be interesting to hear how much he was able to influence the portrayal of Klingons on screen, sort of like how Nimoy influenced the culture of Vulcans.
Sorry but equating the klingon makeup to blackface was just silly, and it honestly feels slightly disrespectful to the meaning and history behind blackface. Like at that point you could also call the zoolander mining scene blackface because hey, dark paint on the face, must be blackface right? That seems extremely reductive to me.
Why do you respect the history of blackface so much? You think everyone everywhere all the time should be reverent to the nuance of the art form? It's not that serious bro.
One thing that is very clear on this episode is the A/B plot line formula. Star Trek TNG almost religiously stuck to an AB or an ABC plot. In this case it forces them ignore developing one well by filling the episode with the other. They usually did this however to ensure that there was “something for everyone” in each episode by ensuring people not into character drama have something in each episode to latch onto. This is however the major flaw of staying heavily episodic however, you cannot afford to expend screen time on development when it all resets again next episode. As to Alexander I think when the Star Trek casting looks for an actor to play a temporary alien they generally don’t specify an ethnicity. I think after they find a person they like they let the makeup and costume departments worry about how to fit them into the role. I guess it begs the question is it more or less of a responsibility to be neutral, knowing extensive makeup is required no matter what, or specifically narrow casting to people with darker skin. Now I believe in TNG it was kind of assumed that skin tone was just a natural thing that varied between Klingons and ages. We tend to see a lot more lighter skinned old Klingons with lighter brown and gray hair as well. But I also think that focus has changed since the 90’s. In general the idea at that time was if you simply don’t care about a person race, ethnicity, or background you are being fair. Remember this is the era of “don’t ask don’t tell”. In society we believed not paying attention to something was the ‘best’ way. Also remember in the 1990s you knew almost nothing about the actors off the show. Only the most diehard fans went to find that information, you didn’t have the internet bringing visibility into off screen lives. Now we have a different approach and that acknowledges the playing field of the industry is not fair, so if you are going to portray an aspect you should celebrate that aspect. They realize that there is a different aspect in providing role models for people, images that different people can ally with both on and off screen. This actually results into making the casting process more unequal but also can be said to serve the greater good. Things haven’t dramatically changed in the past 30 years but our approach to them has. And that will happen probably 3-4 times throughout your lifetime.
Worf has Russian step-parents, I think Worf, as a character, would not care what his kid look like, as long as he has HONOR! HE IS NOT HIS SON IF HE HAS NO HONOR!
I feel like this episode suffered from being more about Lwaxana than about Alexander. It seems the show not knowing what to do with him wasn't just in the makeup chair. For me, what stands out about having the Klingon-portraying actors darken their skin is that TNG made the conscious choice to make the portrayal of Klingons less overtly racist than it was in TOS. Worf is clearly positioned as a racial minority, being the token Klingon in Starfleet and getting shit from Romulans and humans in various episodes. There are major racial overtones to the perception of Klingons in the world of the show that seem to be forgotten when it came to things like casting. It's always interesting to see what blindspots 90s writers have for the future.
I have a feeling that the memory you were referring to of Alexander being played by a POC is in a picture of Worf and Alexander that is shown when Worf is introduced into Deep Space 9, while he is settling into his new home
Amazing work as always. The blackface discussion in the video was as interesting as in the comments. I agree, it's an unacceptable practice and confusing in TNG, as Alexander's skin colour is inconsistent as he ages. He's black as a child, then goes the more orange colour in DS9 as a teen, then is even paler in a future TNG episode as an adult. I agree that Alexander's casting is very short-sighted, even if it was for convenience sake or because he was a better actor, that doesn't excuse as problematic a portrayal. Klingon skin-tone is super inconsistent and could be problematic; especially in TOS, where they're clearly Asian stereotypes. I'd be interested to see if people of colour found/find the makeup offensive. I think that is the important opinion.
As an Asian, I find the TOS Klingons problematic, but I am not offended, and I am glad to see that Klingons evolved over time. I love that Star Trek has always been willing to re-invent and improve itself over time. Star Trek has always been progressive for its time. It's important to acknowledge from the past, but it's also important to acknowledge progress and improvement.
There’s so many moments in this podcast where someone says “I wonder why the don’t do XYZ” Like when after the entire blackface debate, Marvin says “I wonder if they actually do an episode with Michael Dorn out of makeup” & I start jumping in my seat shouting “DS9! DS9!” DS9 will cure anything & answer all. I’m not spoiling the what or why or how, because it’s frankly a beautiful, heartbreaking episode. But one very small part of the episode is them answering the question “is Worf black” & you can probably guess the answer. But even without that episode, I always felt like so much of Worf’s character was centered around ideas of the alienation of being a refugee, caught between two very different societies & being rejected by both, & the struggle between various forms of radicalization or assimilation that comes with trying to fit into either society. I usually agree with Ricardo on shit, & understand where he’s coming from. At the end of the day, the aliens are aliens. The way they design & visually present the Klingons makes the conversation more confusing when you compare it to how they narratively present the character. But to me it doesn’t feel unintentional that they’d choose to tackle these specific topics through the eyes of THE ONLY Klingon in Starfleet, who is played by a black actor. As far as Lwaxanna goes, I kind of love her. The first time I watched TNG, I checked out early in season 7. When I say down to watch it all the way through with my partner for the first time, I realized I stopped short of a really really amazing Lwaxanna episode. It hit me in the gut, & put a lot of her in a different perspective. Still have some problems with her, but she comes back around in a big way.
Actually the betazoid tradition is that everyone at the wedding is naked wait staff included no exception now I wonder if children are exempt but I don't know as weird as the world of Star Trek is it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't
Ah yes, this episode. This is an episode you survive, rather than enjoy. Next episode falls under my category of "more charming than it should have been, considering."
Just so you know. Alexander's father Worf maybe played by a black actor but Alexander's mother was played by a white actress. Suzie Plakson, who was a good choice in that era when you need a physically imposing woman who was a talented actress and not too expensive. When you have to limit yourself to women over six feet tall who can act and who are affordable on a late 80s TV budget, further limiting yourself to a specific race when you don't have to is really shooting yourself in the foot when you're trying to cast that role
It might have been a shit episode but there were some good discussions. I really agree with it being weird that Alexander was a white actor. Again, maybe it would have been different if they made him look like the orange / "white" Klingons - but they obviously didn't. However I do think the "blackface" detractor wasn't as pronounced, as the character wasn't shown to have the negative stereotypes usually shown in such instances.
I think your point with the 5 actors for Alexander is wrong. There were technically 5 actors who played Alexander, but only 2 of them was a child at the time of filming. 2 of them played the role of an adult Alexander, 1 just appeared in a photo (lol), 1 was a child, but about the age of most professional child actors, but the first one was very, very young. Young enough to reduce the pool of competent child actors significantly. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a 1-2 year old child chronologically, but maybe about 4-5 by Klingon standards so that means they had to choose the youngest actor they had available. I think they just wanted someone who could say the lines at first and by the time they had to age Alexander up to an age where a halfway decent actor wasn't hard to find, they were forced to cast someone who at least looks similar to the original. To that point: the child and young adult actors for Alexander (including photo kid) all look remarkably similar. TLDR: They probably picked a white kid to play Alexander at first because he could (somewhat) say the lines. After that, they had to choose people that looked like the first kid.
I have sworn for years it was Kiss from a rose on the grave.. not grey... wow. It is grey. I think it must of been the use of tombstones in the video for the song that was on all the time.
In no way shape or form is this black face an alluding to any concept that it is is just wrong how come nobody says anything the same about green face its primary colors people the concept of blackface was intentionally done buy racists to demean and demonsterify the black people intent matters and this is offensive to even suggest that the makeup artist intentionally did this out of hate is ridiculous you're all wrong and should literally be ashamed
No one suggests this about green face because no one ever used green makeup to try to make fun of black people before. That's a ridiculous, extremely old, very boring bad faith comparison.
Hey guys! I rarely comment, but wanted to echo some of the other folks here. I thought the conversation on the blackface equivalency was interesting and thought-provoking, but I felt that wayyyy too much time was spent on it 😅 Anyway, just some constructive feedback. Love the channel! Keep em comin’!
Regardless of position on the argument itself, Ricardo pulling the "I'm a director and an actor" card made him sound like a total prick. Pulling rank and belittling her, rather than her opinion, then getting in the last word. Everyone had moved on man...stop digging the hole.
43:00 I always found Alexander's makeup jarring. K'Ehlyr (kay-lar) was not darkened, and she was half-human. I'm not sure why Alexander, who is one-quarter human, had to match Michael Dorn's makeup. In that sense, it is blackface.
Its not black face as the klingons arent human nor are they black. Suggesting that it is is no different then suggesting its racist that orcs in lord of the rings are bad guys because they are also somehow black... they are not.
im sorry its alway been Kiss from a Grave... This GREY shit is making me rage its mandela effect crap and I swear My old universe was destroyed... cause I REMEMBER!
Was definitely better with the three. Toss in a special guest expert like they have before and it's perfect. I find myself skipping ahead anytime Sara talks because it's usually unrelated and unnecessary social commentary or forced humor.
@@Thena_the_Grey thank you so much you literally took the words from my mouth!!! Special guests were awesome. Didn't want to say anything cause I didn't want to sound like i was just trashing . Ty
The more I thought about this, the more your take on "Klingon racism" annoys me. Gene Roddenberry died during the making of season 5, perhaps directly involved in making this episode. You're sort of implying that Roddenberry was either a lightweight racist or just an ignorant fool. This was a man who created the very idea of diversity in television. The original series presents a future where people of all colors intermingle. Uhura was the woman of color to appear regularly on a TV series as a professional, not a maid, not a struggling mother, but a woman of intellect and leadership. Roddenberry oversaw Uhura and Kirk having the first interracial kiss in TV history. I believe Sulu was like Uhura in being the first Asian as a regular on a TV series that wasn't a stereotype. So for you to insinuate he's a racist 25 years later because you can't figure out the color scheme for the Klingons actors, frankly, is insulting. Roddenberry was a visionary, a TV pioneer, and for you to dummy him down like this simply breaks my heart. There is a story Nichelle Nichols used to tell about meeting Martin Luther King, I strongly urge you to find it on TH-cam and watch it, and then take a minute to consider if Gene Roddenberry really is the casual racist you're implying him to be.
But he was a casual racist. Even Leonard Nimoy said he was anti-Semitic: jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/164916/ Nobody denies that Roddenberry had great ideas. He was also very progressive for his time. That doesn't mean he was perfect. Why do people put other people up on pedestals and pretend they are perfect, unassailable saints beyond reproach? I have never understood this approach to celebrity.
@@NewbieStarTrek I'm not putting Roddenberry on a pedestal. Your arguments on "Klingon racism" seem to be an attempt to undermine his decades of work. You posit Nimoy's beliefs, let me posit Martin Luther King: th-cam.com/video/pSq_UIuxba8/w-d-xo.html Roddenberry wasn't perfect. But you are guilty of the very wokeness that is really pissing a whole lot of people off in this country, nitpicking details from 30 years ago and looking for a GOTCHA that besmirches a man's legacy. I'm a pretty progressive guy, but this irritates me to no end, looking for reasons to tear people down when there's nothing really there. There's a difference between saying a man isn't perfect and saying he's a bigot; I question your ability to tell the difference.
We never mentioned Roddenberry once in the short. You're extrapolating quite a bit. If you want to talk about season 5, Roddenberry was actually so sickly by that point that he wasn't involved in any production at all. In fact, he hadn't really been involved in TNG production in any active capacity since season 3 because of declining health. This is when Michael Piller and Rick Berman largely took over the creative side of production. We also did an entire short, and a section of our podcast episode, specific on Nichelle Nichols and this story of her meeting MLK. th-cam.com/users/shortsAqT56T73oJ4?feature=share th-cam.com/video/wGWlEM2wpj8/w-d-xo.html I guess I find it kind of annoying that you think your extreme extrapolations have any relevance to what we're talking about, and also that you assume we haven't done our own research, or that our interpretation of Star Trek are any less valid than yours.
@@NewbieStarTrek You're getting this butthurt over one guy's criticism two months after the fact? You shouldn't have to get do defensive if you really believed in the things you're saying. Roddenberry is synonymous with Star Trek. It's his legacy. You don't have to say his name, it's implied. Whatever the producers do to the franchise, they do in his name. I stopped watching Star Trek when Majel stopped being a part of it and stopped giving her blessings, because, at least in my warped point of view, Star Trek is not worth ot without a Roddenberry in the mix. Sorry we don't agree on this. I like your channel a lot. Sometimes, as we all do, IMHO, you talk out of your ass, and this "Klingon Racism" tangent you went on was one of those times. No need to apologuze or get defensive. Grow a thicker skin. I'll see you in the comments another time, likely with something more positive.
Two months? What are you talking about? You made this comment yesterday. And yes, it's definitely a warped point of view to say Star Trek is entirely Gene Roddenberry. That's even more ridiculous than people who claim Star Wars was all George Lucas. Dozens of writers, tons of producers, many unique and wonderful actors, hundreds of special effects experts, these were the additional people who came together to make Star Trek what it actually is. Some of the best concepts in Star Trek came out of actively disagreeing with Gene or didn't even involve him at all. To lay it all at Gene's feet is putting him on a pedestal, which you should never do to anyone. No one is worth deifying. To deify one person as if he's that important isn't fandom, it's fanaticism.
Something I never knew until just now was there was two actors who played Alexander. The very first time he showed up it was one actor and the reason they selected that kid was because he was the only one who would stay in the makeup chair and not move long enough to apply all the prosthetics. It's understandable that would be a hard thing with 4 year old actors so I can understand that you would get whoever you can get whether they're white or black. But by the time of the second kid it's kind of surprising thing stuck with a white actor...
In 1992 , black face was definitely acceptable still. Unfortunately. If this show was made today, all klingons would be people of color, for better or for worse.
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What is "the higher, the fewer" supposed to mean in the first place?!
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Ricardo is 100% right. Klingons are a separate species and there has never (at that point) been sub-races of Klingons. The whole discussion was a moot point and ridiculous.
The discussion turned into an unnecessary tangent for almost 20 minutes that derailed the episode.
been listening since near the start and this was the first time i full on stopped listening and don't want to finish. which really sucks because this is a great podcast with a great group of people. i'll be back next week regardless. i just hope this isn't a future trend@@tdt3860
Has there ever been a racially diverse alien species in the old Star Trek shows? I think they've all been a monolith except for the half white half black guys in the TOS episode "Let That be Your Last Battlefield."
@@alexmontenegro9991 El-Aurians would be what comes to mind first. (Guinan, Soran etc). But as far as TOS, I think you're right.
**EDIT** Vulcans by themselves were diverse going way back as well.
show starts back up again at 58:33
So the Chicago flood was because many of the older buildings in the loop were connected by underground tunnels designed for delivering coal and mail and other supplies. Usually these connected buildings in their basement or more commonly sub-basement floors. A lot of these tunnels were just closed off with metal or wooden doors (not water tight). Some tunnels were used for utilities, but they were horribly maintained and mostly just abandoned.
For most buildings the sub-basement was just where you have your telecom and other connections, and the rest was usually storage, filing rooms, and occasionally the building maintenance or machine shops.
When they were working they caused the ceiling of a tunnel under the river to collapse letting the river flow freely into these tunnels. Since the river level was just below the first floor of most buildings it filled up sub-basements and basements. This also cascaded through the basement into more modern utility tunnels, train stations, power and equipment rooms, etc extending for many miles of the downtown.
Slowly workers had to find and seal off sections of these tunnels (underwater) so that these could be pumped out. Because of the extent of the interconnections this also meant that a lot of these places now were filled with mud, sewage, and debris. And most of these interconnections were completely unmapped. So building by building, tunnel by tunnel they had to be explored, examined, sealed, drained, cleaned, and then utilities and services replaced.
Many many insurance companies declared it an act of god, except from coverage. Others noted as the tunnels predated the Insurance companies they were preexisting risks they were not liable for. The city had no documentation on a lot of these tunnels so the city was not liable. The city blamed the construction company for not doing proper investigation, but the contractors liability bond was capped way below damage rates, plus they claimed as the city was not aware of the risks the contractor could not be liable. In the end it really became every particular individual claim had to litigate their particular situation themselves.
I was not working in Chicago when this happened. But I do remember being in buildings and dealing with with the consequences for basement use and missing records 3-4 years later.
A lot of these tunnels are now sealed off with watertight systems, or have sections permanently filled in.
Someone says something like "Maybe Dorn was just like 'which kid knows their lines' so I can get home"
And, if actors had any say in how casting handles things, that would be exactly what'd happen.
There is nothing worse than already being at work for 15 hours and the last scene of the day is finally up and an actor doesn't know their lines or can't commit to a take. 14 hours becomes 16 real quick. Everyone just wants to go home.
To me I don't consider it Black face because they arent playing black people, they're playing Klingons.
Agreed 100%
I just commented the same and then saw this, spot on, it's not the first time it's happened in episodes where they gone a bit too deep on a topic 😅
@@JohnSmith-rw2yn For me in order to be offended it needs to either have malicious intent, which this obviously didn't. Or actively negatively impact someone, which this also does not. They're just uncomfortable because it reminds them of something racist people used to do even though it's not anything to be offended at in this instance
@@jackbrennan1125 Fair point well made. 👍
Exactly. And Kaylar was dark, but obviously not as dark as Worf. Sara has quickly become my least liked part of this podcast. She hasn't really offered anything but thinking everything is offensive. She somehow can't understand that Klingons aren't actors playing black face. It's ridiculous
you guys jumped the shark a bit by being upset that worf's son is played by a white kid... they're klingons... they're not humans... you're usually so reasonable. I'd go so far as to say it's lovely that people of various human races can all play aliens together.
Yeah, i don't get it. The Klingons are not supposed to be stand in black people.
39:00 Wow, another episode where I think you guys have gone way too in depth and seriously overthinking it. They are playing people of the Klingon race, not people who are black. Just enjoy the show dammit!
" I am weasel " cartoon also had too much race baiting sub-text .
"Black face" conversation was frustrating... I agree with Dan saying it was becoming a circular argument based on presentism. But, not too mad about it, since it's for a TNG episode that sucks.
Not only did Disney go against his contract selling his genie likeness but they also attempted to sabotage ferngully by over paying to kick them out of their recording times. Robin put up his own money to help save the movie because of disney
The next episode...Sara's head explodes.
You’ll see :)
I'm with Sara, I think Lwaxana was really trying to change herself to make things work with the stuck up guy just so she wouldn't be lonely, and she only gave up on that after spending time with tragic little Alexander and realising her life's ok.
Sara is just so so into laxawna and no one else ive ever met has been into her
I mean, she’s okay, I don’t hate her lol she just okay 🤷♂️
I agree with Sara. Laxawna character was attractive for her age. Not every woman can be insanely attractive for thier age like Madonna or Dolly Parton.
I have a mild crush on her personality, her and Blanche deveraux from golden girls are the pinnacle of attractive personalities for mature women for me.
There’s actually a scene in this episode I absolutely love. When Lwaxana and Alexander are talking and she’s expressing her fears about being alone and getting older breaks my heart. Keep in mind this episode went into production not long after Gene passed away. By every single account with as many flaws as he had as a person Majel was totally devoted to him. To me I love her performance in that scene because it seems like a perfect example of actor and character being indistinguishable. Granted the rest of the episode is just chaos but that’s part of the fun to me. Not a great episode by any means but I can’t help but laugh when worf looks at Alexander after being told “the higher, the fewer”. You just know he’s questioning every single life decision that has lead him to being told this by this 3 foot young boy.
The episode is not well-written for her, that's for sure.
@@NewbieStarTrek totally agree! Scenes like that though make it worth it to me go watch a bad episode. Majel can be very talented with this character when given right material. Rob Roddenberry has actually said Lwaxana was pretty close to how his mom was in real life. The good news is you guys have some bangers on the horizon with only one meh episode! Can’t wait to hear what you guys think of I, Borg and the inner light. I feel like you guys will get some absolutely wonderful discussions about them.
I felt like the actors race was immaterial after the Klingon makeup went on, like they'd cast a white guy and a black guy to play Klingon brothers and to Klingons this would be a normal variation between siblings
But why couldn't they just be a light Klingon and a dark Klingon? Why did they have to make the white actors dusty?
42:59 _Dude_ . It was the 1990s, not the antebellum south.
Whoopie Goldberg starred as the lead of an action comedy in 1986.
My parents, friends, whole community were calling out crap like this back then.
The excuse of "It was the time" is a weak excuse at the best of times. Using it for a show that came out at the same time as Do The Right Thing, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, My Beautiful Laundrette (another 1986 film) and just a _wealth_ of other films, books and television shows at the time, your argument that people didn't know any better holds _no_ water.
My God, the phrase "Political correctness gone mad" was already in common use.
I agree that the "of their time" excuse is total BS at that point, what I don't agree with in this episode was that casting a white kid as Alexander was an example of a racial stereotype. Klingons aren't supposed to be representative of human ethnicities.
Klingon or Drow are not black face, get a grip.
I think what Sara means is that Lwxana isn't catfishing her partner, because she was intending to 'clean up her act' so to speak. Like this wasn't a lie she was keeping up to rope someone in, she was seriously considering changing the way she lives her life and giving up things she loves FOREVER just to satisfy her partner.
This is the most excruciating conversation ever, I’m going to go stick my head in the toilet
Tropic thunder 😮
I dont consider it odd because then all klingons would be black.
When I was little I accidentally recorded over an old family video VHS with this episode! Ughhhh. Could at least have been something good lol.
I was listening on the Spotify version and was so confused why you were all saying it was such a terrible episode. Then I realised I was thinking of the episode 'Half a Life' because I forgot about this one!
Haha
1:59 it is not a network show. It was first run syndication. No network sensors.
Lighter censorship but not none
I hope Ricardo knows he's the fuckin best.
Star of the show, reason I listen.
She was making an "honest attempt" to change herself into what he wanted. There was no deceit intended. I wouldn't categorize all of that as catfishing. If she was catfishing anyone it was herself.
Body shaming can come from girls. Actually they rip each other apart just as men objectified
my problem with alex as a character is that he didn't act like kaylar or worf, he acted like a kid that was in a costume playing a character on a tv show, it was immersive breaking.
This is the best way to explain how immersive breaking Alex was.
I love that Sara hasn't seen the first series. I think part of the experience of older Star Trek is watching them out of order when ever you catch an episode on basic cable.
I watched most TNG, DS9, and Voyager for a while before actually seeing the first episodes.
This is the episode where as a kid i got crush on Lawaxana.😂😂
Schrodinger's cat has the same issue that " pull yourself up by the bootstrap" ... people just hear what they want though.
1992 was 31 years ago.
To put this in perspective, 31 years prior to 1992, was 1961. We hadn't landed on the moon 31 years prior 1992.
I wonder if Michael Dorn would be open to being on the show for a deep dive on this.
Would love that!
@@sararazack it would also be interesting to hear how much he was able to influence the portrayal of Klingons on screen, sort of like how Nimoy influenced the culture of Vulcans.
@@johnathanmichaud867totally agree!! Maybe one day he’ll be on the podcast - that would be amazing ❤
Sara really should go back and watch the other episodes.
But then we wouldn't get these attempts to badly explain past episodes. So....
1 of the reasons why I feel like they should have ensign pips on their avatars
Sorry but equating the klingon makeup to blackface was just silly, and it honestly feels slightly disrespectful to the meaning and history behind blackface. Like at that point you could also call the zoolander mining scene blackface because hey, dark paint on the face, must be blackface right? That seems extremely reductive to me.
Why do you respect the history of blackface so much? You think everyone everywhere all the time should be reverent to the nuance of the art form? It's not that serious bro.
One thing that is very clear on this episode is the A/B plot line formula. Star Trek TNG almost religiously stuck to an AB or an ABC plot. In this case it forces them ignore developing one well by filling the episode with the other. They usually did this however to ensure that there was “something for everyone” in each episode by ensuring people not into character drama have something in each episode to latch onto. This is however the major flaw of staying heavily episodic however, you cannot afford to expend screen time on development when it all resets again next episode.
As to Alexander I think when the Star Trek casting looks for an actor to play a temporary alien they generally don’t specify an ethnicity. I think after they find a person they like they let the makeup and costume departments worry about how to fit them into the role. I guess it begs the question is it more or less of a responsibility to be neutral, knowing extensive makeup is required no matter what, or specifically narrow casting to people with darker skin.
Now I believe in TNG it was kind of assumed that skin tone was just a natural thing that varied between Klingons and ages. We tend to see a lot more lighter skinned old Klingons with lighter brown and gray hair as well.
But I also think that focus has changed since the 90’s. In general the idea at that time was if you simply don’t care about a person race, ethnicity, or background you are being fair. Remember this is the era of “don’t ask don’t tell”. In society we believed not paying attention to something was the ‘best’ way. Also remember in the 1990s you knew almost nothing about the actors off the show. Only the most diehard fans went to find that information, you didn’t have the internet bringing visibility into off screen lives.
Now we have a different approach and that acknowledges the playing field of the industry is not fair, so if you are going to portray an aspect you should celebrate that aspect. They realize that there is a different aspect in providing role models for people, images that different people can ally with both on and off screen. This actually results into making the casting process more unequal but also can be said to serve the greater good.
Things haven’t dramatically changed in the past 30 years but our approach to them has. And that will happen probably 3-4 times throughout your lifetime.
Worf has Russian step-parents, I think Worf, as a character, would not care what his kid look like, as long as he has HONOR!
HE IS NOT HIS SON IF HE HAS NO HONOR!
But his son has so little honor
and that is why Alexander is sent to Russia.
I feel like this episode suffered from being more about Lwaxana than about Alexander. It seems the show not knowing what to do with him wasn't just in the makeup chair.
For me, what stands out about having the Klingon-portraying actors darken their skin is that TNG made the conscious choice to make the portrayal of Klingons less overtly racist than it was in TOS. Worf is clearly positioned as a racial minority, being the token Klingon in Starfleet and getting shit from Romulans and humans in various episodes. There are major racial overtones to the perception of Klingons in the world of the show that seem to be forgotten when it came to things like casting. It's always interesting to see what blindspots 90s writers have for the future.
I have a feeling that the memory you were referring to of Alexander being played by a POC is in a picture of Worf and Alexander that is shown when Worf is introduced into Deep Space 9, while he is settling into his new home
Omg like 15 min on black face
We need a live reaction of Sara watching the next eps. Be very interested in seeing her unedited reactions. 😂😂
Minor spoilers, she kinda loved it lol
Her work place is also her house/embassy/apartment building/school/ and depending on who you ask.....a warship
Amazing work as always. The blackface discussion in the video was as interesting as in the comments. I agree, it's an unacceptable practice and confusing in TNG, as Alexander's skin colour is inconsistent as he ages. He's black as a child, then goes the more orange colour in DS9 as a teen, then is even paler in a future TNG episode as an adult.
I agree that Alexander's casting is very short-sighted, even if it was for convenience sake or because he was a better actor, that doesn't excuse as problematic a portrayal.
Klingon skin-tone is super inconsistent and could be problematic; especially in TOS, where they're clearly Asian stereotypes. I'd be interested to see if people of colour found/find the makeup offensive. I think that is the important opinion.
As an Asian, I find the TOS Klingons problematic, but I am not offended, and I am glad to see that Klingons evolved over time.
I love that Star Trek has always been willing to re-invent and improve itself over time. Star Trek has always been progressive for its time. It's important to acknowledge from the past, but it's also important to acknowledge progress and improvement.
There’s so many moments in this podcast where someone says “I wonder why the don’t do XYZ” Like when after the entire blackface debate, Marvin says “I wonder if they actually do an episode with Michael Dorn out of makeup” & I start jumping in my seat shouting “DS9! DS9!”
DS9 will cure anything & answer all. I’m not spoiling the what or why or how, because it’s frankly a beautiful, heartbreaking episode. But one very small part of the episode is them answering the question “is Worf black” & you can probably guess the answer.
But even without that episode, I always felt like so much of Worf’s character was centered around ideas of the alienation of being a refugee, caught between two very different societies & being rejected by both, & the struggle between various forms of radicalization or assimilation that comes with trying to fit into either society. I usually agree with Ricardo on shit, & understand where he’s coming from. At the end of the day, the aliens are aliens. The way they design & visually present the Klingons makes the conversation more confusing when you compare it to how they narratively present the character. But to me it doesn’t feel unintentional that they’d choose to tackle these specific topics through the eyes of THE ONLY Klingon in Starfleet, who is played by a black actor.
As far as Lwaxanna goes, I kind of love her. The first time I watched TNG, I checked out early in season 7. When I say down to watch it all the way through with my partner for the first time, I realized I stopped short of a really really amazing Lwaxanna episode. It hit me in the gut, & put a lot of her in a different perspective. Still have some problems with her, but she comes back around in a big way.
Actually the betazoid tradition is that everyone at the wedding is naked wait staff included no exception now I wonder if children are exempt but I don't know as weird as the world of Star Trek is it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't
Oh yeah I totally forgot about Alexander
Ah yes, this episode. This is an episode you survive, rather than enjoy.
Next episode falls under my category of "more charming than it should have been, considering."
Just so you know. Alexander's father Worf maybe played by a black actor but Alexander's mother was played by a white actress. Suzie Plakson, who was a good choice in that era when you need a physically imposing woman who was a talented actress and not too expensive. When you have to limit yourself to women over six feet tall who can act and who are affordable on a late 80s TV budget, further limiting yourself to a specific race when you don't have to is really shooting yourself in the foot when you're trying to cast that role
It might have been a shit episode but there were some good discussions. I really agree with it being weird that Alexander was a white actor. Again, maybe it would have been different if they made him look like the orange / "white" Klingons - but they obviously didn't. However I do think the "blackface" detractor wasn't as pronounced, as the character wasn't shown to have the negative stereotypes usually shown in such instances.
Oh fuck, he said "so say we all". And i was literally just thinking they should do a BSG watch through.
Took me 0:26 seconds and I was already subscribed! haha
I think your point with the 5 actors for Alexander is wrong. There were technically 5 actors who played Alexander, but only 2 of them was a child at the time of filming.
2 of them played the role of an adult Alexander, 1 just appeared in a photo (lol), 1 was a child, but about the age of most professional child actors, but the first one was very, very young. Young enough to reduce the pool of competent child actors significantly. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a 1-2 year old child chronologically, but maybe about 4-5 by Klingon standards so that means they had to choose the youngest actor they had available. I think they just wanted someone who could say the lines at first and by the time they had to age Alexander up to an age where a halfway decent actor wasn't hard to find, they were forced to cast someone who at least looks similar to the original.
To that point: the child and young adult actors for Alexander (including photo kid) all look remarkably similar.
TLDR: They probably picked a white kid to play Alexander at first because he could (somewhat) say the lines. After that, they had to choose people that looked like the first kid.
I have sworn for years it was Kiss from a rose on the grave.. not grey... wow. It is grey. I think it must of been the use of tombstones in the video for the song that was on all the time.
Fuck there are no tombstones in the video... what universe am I in now?
Hahaha
Newbie Star Trek with arms wide
It's been years since I've seen Holy Matrimony but I remember it being a good time.
I’m sorry but this and “Forsaken” are some of the best eps with her.
I really like Dark Page! I like how we get a bit more of her story in that one and I think Majel gives a great performance in it.
In no way shape or form is this black face an alluding to any concept that it is is just wrong how come nobody says anything the same about green face its primary colors people the concept of blackface was intentionally done buy racists to demean and demonsterify the black people intent matters and this is offensive to even suggest that the makeup artist intentionally did this out of hate is ridiculous you're all wrong and should literally be ashamed
No one suggests this about green face because no one ever used green makeup to try to make fun of black people before. That's a ridiculous, extremely old, very boring bad faith comparison.
Isnt the character of Lwaxana Troi based on an interfering overbearing Jewish mother?
Yep
Are klingons even black I always considered them a dark orange haha
Worf is not dark orange.
Hey guys! I rarely comment, but wanted to echo some of the other folks here. I thought the conversation on the blackface equivalency was interesting and thought-provoking, but I felt that wayyyy too much time was spent on it 😅
Anyway, just some constructive feedback. Love the channel! Keep em comin’!
Regardless of position on the argument itself, Ricardo pulling the "I'm a director and an actor" card made him sound like a total prick.
Pulling rank and belittling her, rather than her opinion, then getting in the last word.
Everyone had moved on man...stop digging the hole.
The higher, the fewer!
43:00 I always found Alexander's makeup jarring. K'Ehlyr (kay-lar) was not darkened, and she was half-human. I'm not sure why Alexander, who is one-quarter human, had to match Michael Dorn's makeup. In that sense, it is blackface.
I can tell the episode sucked because this hour kong argument session was tiring, next bad episode just skip lol
If you thought this was insufferable then you should definitely skip the next episode.
Its not black face as the klingons arent human nor are they black. Suggesting that it is is no different then suggesting its racist that orcs in lord of the rings are bad guys because they are also somehow black... they are not.
im sorry its alway been Kiss from a Grave... This GREY shit is making me rage its mandela effect crap and I swear My old universe was destroyed... cause I REMEMBER!
i was going to play devil's advocate... 😅but this klingon talk is too close to race relations IRL...
I like this better with just 3 people
Was definitely better with the three. Toss in a special guest expert like they have before and it's perfect. I find myself skipping ahead anytime Sara talks because it's usually unrelated and unnecessary social commentary or forced humor.
@@Thena_the_Grey thank you so much you literally took the words from my mouth!!! Special guests were awesome. Didn't want to say anything cause I didn't want to sound like i was just trashing . Ty
🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
@@nicholastrascik705🤷♂️
@@Thena_the_Grey🤷♂️
I want to see the livestream without paying i dont have money. Im upset now. I wanna support you guys but im broke.
That's okay! You support us just by watching. Thank you!
The more I thought about this, the more your take on "Klingon racism" annoys me. Gene Roddenberry died during the making of season 5, perhaps directly involved in making this episode. You're sort of implying that Roddenberry was either a lightweight racist or just an ignorant fool. This was a man who created the very idea of diversity in television. The original series presents a future where people of all colors intermingle. Uhura was the woman of color to appear regularly on a TV series as a professional, not a maid, not a struggling mother, but a woman of intellect and leadership. Roddenberry oversaw Uhura and Kirk having the first interracial kiss in TV history. I believe Sulu was like Uhura in being the first Asian as a regular on a TV series that wasn't a stereotype. So for you to insinuate he's a racist 25 years later because you can't figure out the color scheme for the Klingons actors, frankly, is insulting. Roddenberry was a visionary, a TV pioneer, and for you to dummy him down like this simply breaks my heart. There is a story Nichelle Nichols used to tell about meeting Martin Luther King, I strongly urge you to find it on TH-cam and watch it, and then take a minute to consider if Gene Roddenberry really is the casual racist you're implying him to be.
But he was a casual racist. Even Leonard Nimoy said he was anti-Semitic: jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/164916/
Nobody denies that Roddenberry had great ideas. He was also very progressive for his time. That doesn't mean he was perfect.
Why do people put other people up on pedestals and pretend they are perfect, unassailable saints beyond reproach? I have never understood this approach to celebrity.
@@NewbieStarTrek I'm not putting Roddenberry on a pedestal. Your arguments on "Klingon racism" seem to be an attempt to undermine his decades of work. You posit Nimoy's beliefs, let me posit Martin Luther King: th-cam.com/video/pSq_UIuxba8/w-d-xo.html
Roddenberry wasn't perfect. But you are guilty of the very wokeness that is really pissing a whole lot of people off in this country, nitpicking details from 30 years ago and looking for a GOTCHA that besmirches a man's legacy. I'm a pretty progressive guy, but this irritates me to no end, looking for reasons to tear people down when there's nothing really there. There's a difference between saying a man isn't perfect and saying he's a bigot; I question your ability to tell the difference.
We never mentioned Roddenberry once in the short. You're extrapolating quite a bit.
If you want to talk about season 5, Roddenberry was actually so sickly by that point that he wasn't involved in any production at all. In fact, he hadn't really been involved in TNG production in any active capacity since season 3 because of declining health. This is when Michael Piller and Rick Berman largely took over the creative side of production.
We also did an entire short, and a section of our podcast episode, specific on Nichelle Nichols and this story of her meeting MLK.
th-cam.com/users/shortsAqT56T73oJ4?feature=share
th-cam.com/video/wGWlEM2wpj8/w-d-xo.html
I guess I find it kind of annoying that you think your extreme extrapolations have any relevance to what we're talking about, and also that you assume we haven't done our own research, or that our interpretation of Star Trek are any less valid than yours.
@@NewbieStarTrek You're getting this butthurt over one guy's criticism two months after the fact? You shouldn't have to get do defensive if you really believed in the things you're saying.
Roddenberry is synonymous with Star Trek. It's his legacy. You don't have to say his name, it's implied. Whatever the producers do to the franchise, they do in his name. I stopped watching Star Trek when Majel stopped being a part of it and stopped giving her blessings, because, at least in my warped point of view, Star Trek is not worth ot without a Roddenberry in the mix.
Sorry we don't agree on this. I like your channel a lot. Sometimes, as we all do, IMHO, you talk out of your ass, and this "Klingon Racism" tangent you went on was one of those times. No need to apologuze or get defensive. Grow a thicker skin. I'll see you in the comments another time, likely with something more positive.
Two months? What are you talking about? You made this comment yesterday.
And yes, it's definitely a warped point of view to say Star Trek is entirely Gene Roddenberry. That's even more ridiculous than people who claim Star Wars was all George Lucas. Dozens of writers, tons of producers, many unique and wonderful actors, hundreds of special effects experts, these were the additional people who came together to make Star Trek what it actually is. Some of the best concepts in Star Trek came out of actively disagreeing with Gene or didn't even involve him at all. To lay it all at Gene's feet is putting him on a pedestal, which you should never do to anyone. No one is worth deifying. To deify one person as if he's that important isn't fandom, it's fanaticism.
I love this episode so please check your brain off!
1992 was a long time ago by the way lol
Something I never knew until just now was there was two actors who played Alexander. The very first time he showed up it was one actor and the reason they selected that kid was because he was the only one who would stay in the makeup chair and not move long enough to apply all the prosthetics. It's understandable that would be a hard thing with 4 year old actors so I can understand that you would get whoever you can get whether they're white or black. But by the time of the second kid it's kind of surprising thing stuck with a white actor...
That's kind of why we were surprised lol
Sara made some great points and as a lady trekkie I think yall should listen to her more!!!!!
Ha
This whole episode has always sucked.
In 1992 , black face was definitely acceptable still. Unfortunately. If this show was made today, all klingons would be people of color, for better or for worse.
I remember 1992 no one cared if you wore black face