10 Most Frustrating Star Trek Moments Ever
8. Her Life Could Have Been As Rich As Any Woman's
The final episode of the Original Series, Turnabout
Intruder, has the sad honour of finishing the show with a line that suggests
women are looking at a pretty grim version of the future. This would come after
three years of, many, many missteps, a concerted effort to show that in
the future, equality really was possible.
This is something that would be fixed in future series. Here, it is suggested that Janice Lester was unable to become a starship captain, and thus lost her sanity, owing simply to the fact that she was a woman.
In a show set in a future of equality and enlightenment, female Starship captains were considered too risqué.
While Star Trek would quickly work to brush this aside, as early as the Animated Series, with Uhura taking command of the ship, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, with Madge Sinclair appearing as the captain of the USS Saratoga, it is a deeply annoying stain on the show’s history.
It is compounded by the fact that the final words spoken
seem to confirm that Star Trek of the 23rd century had a less than
enlightened view towards women in general. Bad enough that the idea is there,
but it’s the last idea offered by the Original Series to boot.