Showing posts with label Joan Collins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joan Collins. Show all posts

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Edith Keeler

E is for Edith but who is she? Edith Keeler is played by Joan Collins caught at the center of a temporal accident in Star Trek's City on the Edge of Forever.

Her 21st Street Mission helps scores of unemployed people who have reached the end of their rope. 1930's planet earth is a gloomy, primitive culture rocked by hunger, suffering and homelessness. Fighting oppression with hope and encouragement, Edith preaches from her mission's soup kitchen feeding lost unhappy souls wandering in from the streets, inspiring them to believe in a bright future.

Keelers optimism insists life is worth living but its a tough job converting hungry stomachs dying for some food. 'I don't pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love when each day is a struggle to survive.'

The Guardian of Forever identifies itself to Kirk and Spock summarizing their predicament.

"Your vessel, your beginning. All that you knew is gone."

'Little ms Goodie two-shoes' soon realizes Kirk and Spock are not what they seem. The Mission's angel of mercy is curious about Kirk and Spock who hides his ears under a beanie hood. Trust is the cornerstone of all friendships however Edith soon falls for quiet Kirk and a romance follows.

We know from Spock's chat with Captain Kirk that if Edith lives, Earths history will be irrevocably contaminated tipping the balance of power into evil Nazis hands. Imagine the Third Reich winning World War II erasing the United Federation of Planets from cosmic history! How is this possible? Spock jumpstarts his tricorder and discovers shocking timeline displacements.

1) Keelers pacifist peace movement convinces Franklin D. Roosevelt to delay the United States entry into World War II with disasterous consequences.
2) Has Dr McCoy's meddling damaged time beyond repair?
3) What if Edith Keeler must die?

What would you do?

Saturday, August 07, 2010

City on the Edge of Forever

The USS Enterprise NCC 1701 detects time disturbances centred around a deserted planet. Mr Sulu is injured on the bridge and Dr McCoy saves his life with just a few drops of cordrazine. However, McCoy accidentally suffers an overdose when the Enterprise experiences another time displacement and injects a full vial of the powerful drug cordrazine into his bloodstream causing him to go beserk. Bones beams down to the planet below amidst the remains of a ruined city some 10,000 centuries old. In the grip of complete madness, he evades the enterprise crew yet again and leaps through a strange arch pulsating with power. The Guardian of Forever identifies itself to Kirk and Spock summarizing their predicament.

"Your vessel, your beginning. All that you knew is gone." Dr McCoy has gone back through time and changed their history! Their world no longer exhists! Uhura reports dead communicator contact with the ship. Fortunately, Mr Spock's tricorder was recording the Guardian's past timeline events, right at the point, McCoy dived through the portal giving them a chance to rectify the damage done. I love how Spock manufactures a computer from his tricorder that shows how history will unfold if the focal point in time, Edith Keeler, lives.

City on the Edge of Forever" had inclusions from Gene Coon and Steve Carbastos, major changes from Dorothy Fontana and a final rewrite from Gene Roddenberry, won the 1968 Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in a shortlist that was entirely composed of star trek episodes. Harlan Ellison's story won a Writers Guild of America (WGA) award for Outstanding Dramatic Episode Teleplay in 1967-68.


Image owner/Creator: Paramount Pictures and/or CBS Studios.

My friend is obviously Chinese. I see you've noticed the ears, they're actually easy to er explain" Kirk looks to Spock with a lost look on his face.

"Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child." prompts Mr Spock.

"The unfortunate accident he had as a child, he caught his head in a mechanical rice picker."

This is a great moment when Kirk and Spock face a 1930's policeman who isn't convinced with the captain's rice picker bluff. Now I wonder why?

Live long and prosper, trekkers.


Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Nyota Uhura

In 1966 Nichelle Nichols played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura for three seasons going boldly where no woman has gone before. In 2266 Uhura took to the stars aboard the original USS Enterprise NCC 1701 in her most famous role as Communications Officer entertaining viewers with her "Hailing frequencies open, Captain." Her character is eventually promoted in Starfleet to the rank of Commander. Indeed Uhura reached deep into the hearts and minds of trek fans right accross the space time continuum and proved to be a valuable technician manning the USS Enterprise 1701. Under the command of Captain Kirk, Uhura is responsible for all incoming and outgoing starship communications. Her bridge responsibilities require establishing first contact with alien worlds, bypassing and repairing communication starship systems, detecting and isolating communication signals, responding to distress calls, warning the Captain and raising Starfleet Command.


Uhura can always be relied upon to cheer up the USS Enterprise by singing and seranading to her fellow crew mates in song. In fact her most shocking interstellar experience occured on stardate 3541.9 when the Enterprise was taken over by the space probe Nomad. The probe misunderstood Uhura's singing of 'Beyond Antares,'which she was fond of and assimulated all her memories in an effort to correct a malfunctioning biological unit. Captain Kirk was naturally displeased with Nomad but fortunately Dr Mc Coy's skilled medical techniques restored Uhura's memory to within fully operational starship parameters.

On stardate 5784.2, Uhura performed the first groundbreaking kiss between an Africian-American and a Caucasian, controlled by alien empaths, she was forced to kiss her commanding officer, Captain James T. Kirk in Platos Stepchildren. It was too bad for Trekkies in Europe because it was over 25 years before British television allowed it to be broadcast. Thats how delayed Europe is to the Americas. The history of Star Trek from the 1960s to 2007, depicts conflicts leading to the eventual rise and rapid emancipation of women on tv, films, the internet and societies accross theglobe. Nichelle Nichols, Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan in Star Treks TNG TenForward, JoanCollins as Edith Keeler in Star Trek's 'The City on the Edge of Forever', Mary Mc Alese as President of Ireland, Governor Sarah Palin and Sonia O'Sullivan have succeeded and become major forces to be reckoned with.

In 1968 Star Trek took the first step with Nichelle Nichols and it was a very neat one indeed despite NBC insisting that Kirk and Uhura's lips not be captured on camera. Even so, Nichols states in her book, 'Saturn's Child,' that the kiss was real. Because she is both female and black, Lieutenant Uhura represents two disparate communities united in the shape of one actress. Its interesting to note how far society as a whole has come all because of Star Trek and Nichelle's chance encounter with Martin Luther King. He urged her to remain on as Communications Officer because her character served as a role model not only for blacks but for everyone. Luther's words had such an effect on Nichol's that she later revealed in a "20/20" interview, "I knew that now black children must look at me on that ship even if I was pushing some buttons and know that 'this is a person that I can identify with, that I can emulate.'" One of those kids was Whoopi Goldberg, who told Starlog magazine, "I've been a Trekkie from way back. The only time you ever saw black people in the future was on Star Trek." In 1987 the Enterprise Starship Legacy lived on in the crew of the USS Enterprrise NCC 1701-D. Nichelle and Whoopi may not be in the captain's chair yet but Guinan is on the Flagship of the Federation and Lieutenant Uhura is on the Bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701.

Kiss long and Prosper, Trekkies!

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