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00:00You're watching BBC 2 with an entire evening dedicated to the fantastic universe created by Gene Rottenbury.
00:09This is Star Trek Night.
00:23Most illogical.
00:25Star Trek fever can strike almost anywhere and almost anyone, even at the heart of the intellectual establishment.
00:34Star Trekkers now reveals some curious celebrity devotees.
00:55In the early 1960s, space travel literally got off the ground.
01:05We'd had the first satellites. In 1961, upwind Yedde Gagarin, the first man in space.
01:10So space travel was coming along. As you know, the first men went to the moon in 1969.
01:14And this was also the time when science fiction films took rather a different turn.
01:18There were quite a number of them. And I think my fault, all those, the best of all is Star Trek.
01:22Launch shuttlecraft.
01:27When one talks about space warps, and time warps, and teleportation, and thought travel, and instantaneous movement.
01:31Well, as far as we are concerned, it's completely out of the question.
01:34We have no idea, no idea how it may be done.
01:38And Star Trek, I think, uses that very cleverly. They don't try and explain how it's done. It just is done. And therefore, one can really believe it in a way.
01:47Position? 3.7.
02:003.7.
02:04Make up your mind, please, Mr. Latimer.
02:06This indicator's gone crazy.
02:08Has to be expected, Mr. Spock.
02:10Wazers are extremely disruptive.
02:12The characters in Star Trek are very well drawn, and I think myself that that gives a greater impact on the shared technology.
02:18They're very different, and they're knit together, so it's very, very clever script writing.
02:22The captain, the first engineer, and so on.
02:24Personally, I think the cleverest of the lot is Mr. Spock, the Vulcanian with the strange ears.
02:28Because he could so easily be either repellent or completely impossible.
02:32But he's neither of these things.
02:34The script is so good, and the appearance is so good, you will always believe in him.
02:38I can't believe you're serious about leaving someone behind.
02:40Now, whatever it is out there that we...
02:42It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six, Doctor.
02:45I'm not talking about rationality.
02:47You might be wise to start.
02:49I like Mr. Spock, definitely, and his logical way of thinking.
02:52Well, um, he is logical, which is fine.
02:54Now look, we may all die here. At least let us die like men, not machines.
02:59By dealing with first things first, I hope to increase our chances of staying alive.
03:06Well, Mr. Scott.
03:07I remember one episode where Mr. Spock is left in charge of a small craft that's been separated from the main ship,
03:13and he has his first command entirely on his own, with no one to answer to.
03:17And he has to make various very difficult decisions.
03:19And that, again, could so easily be incredible.
03:21But if his logical mind works it out, the decisions turn out to be right,
03:24even though they appear to be crazy on the face of it.
03:26And one can just imagine that's just how Mr. Spock would behave.
03:31I am a logical man, Doctor.
03:33Well, it would take more than logic to get us out of this.
03:35Perhaps, Doctor, but I know of no better way to begin.
03:38I realize that command does have its fascinations, even under circumstances such as these.
03:43But I neither enjoy the idea of command, nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists.
03:49Whether there are civilizations like that? Well, who knows?
03:53I'm sure there are plenty of civilizations spread all to our galaxy and others.
03:56And some of them may be very like Mr. Spock. I don't know.
03:59It would be an entirely different kind of culture.
04:01Nothing we can emulate.
04:02And I'm quite sure that we human beings never will emulate that.
04:04Ten seconds to atmosphere.
04:06It may be the last action you'll ever take, Mr. Spock.
04:11It was all you.
04:13Totally illogical.
04:15Looking at Mr. Spock, do we ourselves try and transport ourselves in a logical way?
04:21Well, I suppose I'd try to do so, but I'm quite well aware of the fact that many of the decisions I make are totally illogical.
04:27And Mr. Spock would never fall into that trap.
04:33My favorite character from all the Star Trek series is Data, the android.
04:38And I myself have written a love letter to Data, asking him to perhaps mate with me so that we can produce some strange new entity.
04:47Request denied.
04:49Love Data. I identify strongly with Data.
04:52I see in Data a kind of vision of myself, I think.
04:56The intellectual side of me.
04:58Slightly absurd.
04:59The bookworm.
05:01The person who is perhaps somewhat socially alienated.
05:04Has trouble with romantic relationships and so on.
05:10I'm only going to tell you this just once.
05:13It never happened.
05:15It's clear that Gene Roddenberry has imagined Data as a version of the Tin Man.
05:21In The Wizard of Oz.
05:23Because he is someone who simply wants to be human.
05:27He's looking for his heart.
05:30And he's very lovable.
05:32One of my favorite moments in the series is when Data is baffled by something.
05:37He simply turns his head like a cucker spaniel.
05:40He's a literalist.
05:43He understands the dictionary meanings of terms, but he does not understand ambiguity or irony or wordplay.
05:50So that when someone speaks, for example, oh, you've let the cat out of the bag.
05:55You know, he whirls around looking for the cat and so on.
05:58I know.
05:59It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.
06:01Why should anyone wish to expend his time in such a search?
06:06Correction, Data.
06:07I should have said proverbial needle in a haystack.
06:09A human proverb.
06:11As in folklore or an historical illusion.
06:14One of the things that is very interesting about Data is what he shows in terms of the evolution of the image of the robot in popular culture.
06:21We go back to the great science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet.
06:25You see Robbie the robot, a somewhat clunky, comical object.
06:29And then we move into a period where computers are represented as huge, the size of rooms, rather sinister.
06:37We see it in 2001 where the computer becomes deranged and seems about to exterminate the human race.
06:45What Data represents is the 1980s era of the personal computer, of the microchip, where the computer is now user friendly, is a companion in the home.
06:56They were all sucked out into space.
06:59Correction, sir.
07:00That's blown out.
07:02Thank you, Data.
07:03A common mistake, sir.
07:05My very favorite Data episode is it's a moment when the ship is endangered and there is a wave of pseudo intoxication sweeping over the crew.
07:14Tasha Yar makes advances to Data and we learn that he has been fully equipped for pleasuring, every kind of pleasuring.
07:23There's a moment when Tasha Yar pulls him down into a bed and we see as the door closes this delighted look on Data's face.
07:29We learn no more after that.
07:31Data, you are fully functional, aren't you?
07:33Of course, but...
07:34How fully?
07:35In every way, of course.
07:37I am programmed in multiple techniques.
07:40A broad variety of pleasuring.
07:44Oh, you jewel.
07:46That's exactly what I hoped.
07:48In the same episode, poor Data must, he's lurching like a drunken sailor, sits down cross-legged and has to restore all of the control chips to the computer within seconds before the ship is destroyed.
08:09And this is, to me, one of the great, great moments in all of popular culture, as far as I'm concerned, where you have him working almost like a woodpecker at a sewing machine as he puts all these control chips into these slots.
08:21And I identify with this so strongly.
08:24I think that that's a kind of paradigm of the way I work.
08:28Each of these chips would correspond for me to the little note cards that I have been writing on the thousands of note cards that I have accumulated for the last 30 years and that are the basis of all of my writing.
08:40It's almost like looking into my soul at that very moment.
08:51That is intellectual production, it seems to me.
08:53Bridge, engage engines.
08:58The Enterprise gets an assignment from the Federation or Starfleet or, you know, whoever, to go find this colony.
09:22So they beam down a search party and find that the people are actually still alive and they're incredibly healthy and happy.
09:30And they don't want to leave the planet.
09:33They refuse to go.
09:35And before long, all the people from the search party don't want to leave the planet either.
09:43They've all gotten spored.
09:47There are certain plants there which emit spores which, it turns out, inhabit your body.
09:56They make you totally happy and at peace.
10:00Now, now you belong to all of us.
10:06And we to you.
10:09There's no need to hide your inner face any longer.
10:12We understand.
10:26I love you.
10:27I mean, I interpreted it as drugs, as people getting high, connecting with other people around them, feeling all part of the same family, not having any ambition.
10:41But just feeling wonderful about being and loving.
10:46Mr. Sulu understands, don't you, Mr. Sulu?
10:49Yes.
10:50I see now.
10:53Of course we can't remove the colony.
10:55He'd be wrong.
10:56I don't know.
10:57It was just something about the time, I think, when I first saw it and finding paradise.
11:03And, which I felt like was paradise too, and yet it gets rejected.
11:10And I was thinking, but I think this is great.
11:12What's wrong?
11:13Why don't they like this?
11:14You know, it gets you thinking about what is the purpose of humankind and life and accomplishment and being and happiness, all those things.
11:28There's belonging and love.
11:31No wants, no needs.
11:33We weren't meant for that.
11:36None of us.
11:37A man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.
11:42We have what we need, except a challenge.
11:46Well, you know, I mean, if Kirk had really, you know, come over to the other side, if the spores had continued to affect him, that would have been the end of the series.
11:58Maybe what it's saying is that, yeah, we would all be a lot better off if we were all a lot more blissed out and felt a lot more interconnection with each other.
12:16But that the rulers, the people that really wield the power in our society, in our world, are not susceptible to the nutrition that's offered by things like the pods on this show.
12:33Miss Kalomi, you'll have to come back with us to the settlement and prepare to transport up to the ship.
12:38There'll be no evacuation, Jim.
12:40But perhaps we should go back and get you straightened out.
12:44Mr. Sulu, Mr. Spock is under arrest and he's in your custody until we get back to the Enterprise.
12:50I mean, it's almost like the childhood that he never had and experiencing those things for the first time. He's talking about a rainbow.
13:05You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question.
13:14Not here.
13:15Yeah, that was the most beautiful thing, seeing Spock in love. And it was really cool how whenever they shot the female love object, she was in soft focus. We really got off on that state-of-the-art visual technique.
13:34This made a big impression on us. Plus, you know, Spock getting the girl, not Kirk. I mean, that's such a twist on things.
13:42I mean, Kirk is always getting the girl. Spock, he's got no emotions. And to have him open up and flower as, you know, that human part of him is just beautiful.
