Plato's Stepchildren (TOS episode)
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| Star Trek: TOS episode | |
| "Plato's Stepchildren" | |
 Kirk and his officers are forced to perform, Plato's Stepchildren. |
|
| Episode no. | 65 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 067 |
| Airdate | November 22, 1968 |
| Writer(s) | Meyer Dolinsky |
| Director | David Alexander |
| Guest star(s) | Michael Dunn Barbara Babcock Liam Sullivan Ted Scott (actor) Derek Partridge William Blackburn |
| Year | 2268 |
| Stardate | 5784.2 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "The Tholian Web" |
| Next | "Wink of an Eye" |
"Plato's Stepchildren" is a third season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast November 22, 1968. It is episode #65, production #67, written by Meyer Dolinsky, and directed by David Alexander. The episode is popularly cited as the first example of an inter-racial kiss on United States television (between Kirk and Uhura).
Overview: The crew of the Enterprise encounters a mischievous race of humanoids.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
On stardate 5784.2, the starship USS Enterprise, after receiving a distress call, arrives at a planet that is highly enriched with rare kironide mineral deposits. Captain James T. Kirk, along with his first officer Mr. Spock and chief medical officer Dr. McCoy, beam down to the planet to investigate.
Once there, they are greeted by a friendly dwarf named Alexander, who wears clothing reminiscent of Earth's Ancient Greece. Alexander leads the landing party to meet the rest of his people who call themselves Platonians in honor of the Greek philosopher Plato. The Platonians indicate that they had spent time on Earth during the golden age of the Greek civilization and modeled their ways after it. All of the Platonians, except for Alexander, seem to possess telekinetic powers.
The Platonians explain the reason for "luring" them to their planet centers on their leader Parman, who has contracted an infection in his leg. The resulting fever caused by his injury has made him delirious and his psychokinetic powers are running haywire. In one outburst, he causes objects such as urns and large chessmen to fly about the room. Parman's fit also rattles the Enterprise up in orbit. Interestingly enough, despite their telekinetic powers, the planet's natives suffer from impaired immune systems which cannot fight off even marginal infections or injuries.
After Dr. McCoy treats Parman, he demands that McCoy remain on the planet permanently in case something similar happens to him or someone else in the future. Naturally, Captain Kirk deems this unacceptable, so he is punished with the Platonians' powers. They humiliate Kirk and Spock as Dr. McCoy watches, forcing them to do little songs and dances like foolish court jesters. The Platonians then use their powers to send down other Enterprise officers to the planet for their entertainment, namely Lt. Uhura and Nurse Chapel.
Once on the planet, the officers quickly get their bodies usurped by Parman and his cohorts who proceed to make them perform ludicrous rituals. Parmen forces Lt. Uhura, Nurse Chapel and Captain Kirk to perform for him. Spock is prompted to strum a harp and sing a song. Alexander becomes angry after watching the humiliating tricks played upon the crew by his Platonian masters. He tries to attack Parman with a knife, but Parman stops him in his tracks with his power and forces Alexander to turn the knife onto himself.
Earlier however, Dr. McCoy had managed to isolate and identify the substance that provides the inhabitants with their special powers: the kironide mineral itself; which is abundant in the natural food and water supply of the planet. He is able to prepare a serum and inject Captain Kirk and Spock with doses of it. Kirk uses his new found telekinetic powers in a contest of strength with Parman, and the two fight for control of Alexander's knife.
Kirk's willpower wins out. The Platonian admits defeat and begs for mercy where he promises to mend his bullying ways. Kirk warns him that the events encountered here will be reported to Starfleet and if Parman goes back on his word, the powers can be recreated by anyone whenever they wish in order to defeat him.
Kirk promises to send appropriate medical technicians to the planet as long as the Platonians behave themselves. Alexander, who would not internalize the empowering substance because he did not wish to "become one of them", is released from his duty as serving the planet's denizens as a slave and jester, and requests to go with the Enterprise to start a new, (and presumably happier), life elsewhere in the galaxy.
[edit] The kiss
The episode is often cited as the "first interracial kiss" depicted on television, between James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), but the reality is not so straightforward. There are a number of caveats, the main one being that it's debateable the episode actually even depicts the kiss in question. According to William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols in Shatner's "Star Trek: Memories", NBC insisted that their lips never touch and the episode portrays it as being forced by alien mind control; that is, by telekinesis, and therefore not voluntary. Their heads turn away from the camera in the shot. Note that 'interracial' specifically means between black and white actors. There had been a number of 'interracial' kisses before this - the two leads of sitcom I Love Lucy, which ran for six years from 1951, were white and Hispanic, after all. Star Trek itself had already filmed episodes prior to this one where white actors shared kisses with actors of Hispanic and Asian descent (specifically Madlyn Rhue with Ricardo Montalban in Space Seed, and William Shatner with France Nuyen in Elaan of Troyius), and both of those episodes aired without controversy. Also note that it applies to actors, not characters - television presentations of, for example, Othello had featured blacked up white actors blackface kissing white actors. Another important qualification is that it's the first for a US show, not the first in the world - the British hospital drama Emergency Ward 10 had portrayed a lasting relationship between a black female surgeon and a white doctor in 1964 - they were shown kissing in a July episode - over four years before. The storyline proved uncontroversial. Emergency Ward 10 was sold to other countries such as Australia and Canada, and there's no record the scenes were censored (or in any way controversial) in those countries.[citation needed]
At one point during the back-and-forth arguments with NBC over the kiss, the idea was brought up of having Spock kiss Uhura instead, but William Shatner insisted that they stick with the original script.[citation needed]
While the kiss is often cited as 'controversial', there are no contemporary records of any complaints or press stories commenting on this aspect of the episode.
In the United Kingdom, the BBC skipped this episode in early runs of the series. This was not due to the kiss between Kirk and Uhura (as noted, that 'taboo' had already long been broken on British TV). The reason was that Star Trek was shown in the very early evening, and there had been viewer complaints about 'sadistic violence' in the episode Miri. The BBC reviewed subsequent episodes and dropped Plato's Stepchildren, The Empath and Whom Gods Destroy. The specific instance given by the BBC for banning this episode was the degrading treatment that Alexander suffers. The four stories were released on home video, marketed as 'banned' episodes, in the nineteen eighties. Plato's Stepchildren was finally televised for the first time on December 22, 1993.
[edit] Cultural references
The song sung by Spock, Maiden Wine, was more popularly referred to as Bitter Dregs, and the latter became a catchphrase among American sports fans, who proceeded to use that term to denote a team having an extremely poor season; often, fans of said team would sarcastically propose that the club entitle its annual highlight film Plato's Stepchildren, because the team had become the "bitter dregs" of the league. [citation needed]
[edit] External links
- Plato's Stepchildren at StarTrek.com
- Plato's Stepchildren article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
| Last produced: "Day of the Dove" |
Star Trek: TOS episodes Season 3 |
Next produced: "Wink of an Eye" |
| Last transmitted: "The Tholian Web" |
Next transmitted: "Wink of an Eye" |
