Episode no. Season 3
Episode 10 Written by Meyer Dolinsky Cinematography by Al Francis | Directed by David Alexander Featured music Alexander Courage Production code 067 | |
"Plato's Stepchildren" is the tenth episode of the third season of the original science fiction television series, Star Trek, first broadcast November 22, 1968. It is episode No. 65, production No. 67, written by Meyer Dolinsky, and directed by David Alexander. This episode is notable for depicting an inter-racial kiss between a white man (Kirk) and a black woman (Uhura), which was daring for 1960s US television.
Contents
In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise encounters an ageless and sadistic race of humanoids with the power of telekinesis and who claim to have organized their society around Ancient Greek ideals.
Plot
Captain Kirk, along with First Officer Spock and Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy beam down to a planet (rich in rare "kironide" mineral deposits) to investigate a distress call.
Once there, they are greeted by a friendly dwarf named Alexander (Michael Dunn), who leads the landing party to meet the rest of his people, who have adopted classical Greek culture, and named themselves Platonians in honor of the Greek philosopher Plato. All of the Platonians, except for Alexander, seem to possess telekinetic powers. (Later, it is determined one of the biochemical effects of Alexander's dwarfism is the inability to make use of the kironide.)
The Platonians explain they "lured" the Enterprise to their planet because their leader, Parmen, requires medical help. After being treated by Dr. McCoy, Parmen demands McCoy remain on the planet to treat other Platonians. When Captain Kirk objects, the Platonians use their powers to punish him. They arrogantly humiliate Kirk and Spock as Dr. McCoy watches, forcing them to sing and dance like court jesters. Parmen forces Spock to laugh and, despite the strong objection of Dr. McCoy, to cry. Later, the Platonians use their powers to force two other Enterprise officers to the planet for their entertainment: Communications Officer Lt. Uhura and Nurse Chapel.
Once on the planet, the officers quickly get their bodies usurped by Parmen who proceeds to make Kirk, Spock, Chapel, and Uhura, all forced to wear Greek garb, perform for the gathered Platonians and a captive McCoy, including forcing Kirk and Uhura into a passionate kiss, as well as Spock and Chapel. Alexander becomes angry after watching the humiliating tricks played upon the crew by his Platonian masters. He tries, unsuccessfully, to attack Parmen with a knife.
Earlier however, Dr. McCoy had managed to isolate and identify the kironide mineral that provides the inhabitants with their special powers; it is abundant in the natural food and water supply of the planet. McCoy is able to prepare a serum and inject Kirk and Spock with doses of it. Furthermore, since Alexander tells them each person has a different and incompatible psionic frequency, they will not have to deal with a massed attack. As a result, Kirk uses his new-found telekinetic powers to defeat Parmen, for Alexander's life.
The Platonian admits defeat and begs for mercy; he promises to mend his bullying ways. Kirk warns him the events encountered there will be reported to Starfleet and if Parmen goes back on his word, the powers can be recreated by anyone whenever they wish to defeat him.
Kirk promises to send appropriate medical technicians to the planet as long as the Platonians behave themselves. McCoy finds a way to enable Alexander's body to use the kironide, but Alexander would not internalize the empowering substance, because he did not wish to "become one of them." He is released from his duty of 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.
The kiss
The episode features a kiss between James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) which is usually described as the first scripted interracial kiss on American television. The first interracial kiss on television may have occurred some years earlier on American television on December 5, 1960, in Adventures in Paradise - "The Big Surf", between Gardner McKay and Pilar Seurat; then next on September 26, 1961, in Laramie - "Dragan At The Door", Season 3, Episode 1, by Nobu McCarthy and Robert Fuller. Later on British television, You In Your Small Corner, featured a kiss between black actor Lloyd Reckord and white actress Elizabeth MacLennan, and was broadcast live on the UK's ITV channel in June 1962. Another such kiss occurred in 1966, when The Wild Wild West, James T. West (Robert Conrad) and Princess Ching Ling (Pilar Seurat), shared a white and Asian interracial kiss in "The Night the Dragon Screamed", which aired January 14, 1966. In the same year on I Spy, Kelly Robinson (Robert Culp) and Sam (France Nuyen) also had a white and Asian interracial kiss ("The Tiger", aired January 5, 1966 ). There had also been a kiss between Sammy Davis, Jr. and Nancy Sinatra on Movin' with Nancy in 1967, a year before "Plato's Stepchildren" aired.
The episode portrays the kiss as involuntary, being forced by telekinesis, perhaps to avoid any hint of romance that would risk outrage among some viewers. Also, William Shatner recalls in Star Trek Memories that NBC insisted their lips never touch (the technique of turning their heads away from the camera was used to conceal this). However, Nichelle Nichols insists in her autobiography Beyond Uhura (written in 1994 after Shatner's book) that the kiss was real, even in takes where her head obscures their lips.
When NBC executives learned of the kiss they became concerned it would anger TV stations in the Deep South. There were, however, few contemporary records of any complaints commenting on the scene. Nichelle Nichols observes that "Plato's Stepchildren" which first aired in November 1968 "received a huge response. We received one of the largest batches of fan mail ever, all of it very positive, with many addressed to me from girls wondering how it felt to kiss Captain Kirk, and many to him from guys wondering the same thing about me. However, almost no one found the kiss offensive" except from a single mildly negative letter from one white Southerner who wrote: "I am totally opposed to the mixing of the races. However, any time a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms that looks like Uhura, he ain't gonna fight it." Nichols notes that "for me, the most memorable episode of our last season was 'Plato's Stepchildren.'"