Star Trek Predicts A United Ireland; The 8th Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival

Special thanks to listener James who spotted this on a BBC News site:

Star Trek predicts a united Ireland

Hopefully we can get Erin to go and have a look.  As part of the 8th Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival the Trek episode is showing at the Black Box Monday, the 7th of May at 8pm - and hey it's free, always a big plus to us here at LTA.

From the Black Box website:

Star Trek - The High Ground
(The Banned Episode)

Beverly Crusher, who is trying to help wounded based on a terrorist attack on a non-aligned planet, is taken hostage. Based on what she learns, she comes to see what terrorism means first hand.

In his study of terrorism, Data notes that Ireland would be reunified in 2024 as a result of a successful terrorist campaign. Due to its content (and specifically its mention of Irish reunification), this episode has never been shown on free-to-air television in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland, and initial airings were edited when shown on Sky One.

The Black Box previously on the site:

'Fresh Meat' at the Black Box

Belfast - City of a Thousand Festivals

(Photo above taken from the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival website - I'm such a Trek nerd that I instantly realised that the pic is not from the TV show but from one of the movies...man, I gotta get out more)

Comments

[Phil]

Well, for God's sakes, don't make a video about it.

[Ronster]

I remember this well (in fact, as a sad Trekkie I knew what year it was) - however I didn't know it had been banned here.

It's not worth going to see though... it wasn't a particularly good episode IIRC, and there really is only that one mention of Ireland...

In a fictional sci-fi context.

[James]

This reminds me of an episode from my darkest of cult tv secret's: Gerry Anderson's 1970 TV series 'UFO' (basically a very expensively made and largely unsuccesful sci-fi story set in the distant future..... well, 1980...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_%28TV_series%29

In one scene a white character is talking to a black character about the way the black guy was treated badly by a former colleague. I don't have the script to hand, but a suggestion of the show's aspirations for the future comes in a line which goes something like:

"Surely you don't think it was because you're black?"
"Don't be stupid... that whole racism thing burnt out in the nineteen-seventies..."

The distant future of 1980's Britain was also expected to feature cars that drove on the right hand side of the road and evil aliens intent on body snatching for organ transplants... class.

*j*

[Jett Loe]

Ahhh, UFO - a strange, strange show. There's something very odd about it - and other Gerry Anderson 'live-action' projects, (as opposed to his puppet shows), such as Space 1999 and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun - they all have an inhuman coldness / a strange flat tone that permeates the action and acting.

I'm working right now with a guy who was the 'show-runner' on one of his live action things - will have to ask him about it.