South Pacific

[osprey_archer]

In other news this weekend, I went down to Bloomington to visit Caitlin and see South Pacific. I first saw South Pacific in an amphitheater when I was about eleven, and fell in love with Joe Cable (I can't actually remember, but I presume the actor was very attractive, as indeed the actor playing Joe Cable was this weekend), but I have to say his romance with Liat seems way less sweet when you're old enough to realize that they take one look at each other and are ten seconds later doing the frick frack.

I'm not sure what, at eleven, I thought Joe Cable and Liat were doing, but it must have involved soul communion or something, because I definitely felt like there was a little more substance to their relationship than "You are so so so hot."

But I still enjoyed it. The actor playing Emil was especially excellent - there's a moment where he does an imitation of Nellie singing "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair," and it's just so goofy and fun, and it really solidifies for me why they are a good match, despite being quite different. They have the same sense of humor.

***

We also watched a lot of Star Trek, in memory of Leonard Nimoy's death. I'd never seen the pilot episode, and it's really odd to watch it - like you're peering into an alternative universe Star Trek, which is like and yet oddly different than ours - because Leonard Nimoy is the only actor the pilot has in common with the show.

The pilot also has a woman as the captain's Number One (which I guess is space ship for first mate?), which I think would have been so cool and wish the show had gone with, even though the pilot also makes it fairly clear that the show would have been regularly trainwrecking itself on gender issues. ("I don't feel comfortable with women on the bridge," says the captain, after a cute little ensign hands him a report. Number One turns sharply to look at him. "You don't count," he reassures her, which is not reassuring at all.)

***

And also we had delicious food! I had eggs benedict for lunch yesterday, with perfectly poached eggs and fresh golden hollandaise and cheesy biscuits: scrumptious and immensely rich.

Comments

[entwashian.livejournal.com]

I've watched, like, 2 episodes of the original Star Trek. I need to get on that. I bought a DVD set for my dad 2 Christmases ago with the idea that we would watch them together, but we haven't yet!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

They can be very WTF, and the acting and the plotting etc. are sometimes quite wonky, but they're still weirdly addictive. We were like, "We could do other stuff, but...Spock."

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, the character of Number One was a big reason the original premise (as depicted in the pilot) was nixed--some people criticized Majel Barrett's acting, and others just plain didn't like how the character was such an "unfeminine" woman. The fact that she was second-in-command and thus in a relative position of power probably didn't help, either. (I console myself with the fact that the fandom, at least, tends to love the hell out of her.)

And as bizarre as the original pilot is in retrospect, I always thought it was really cool how they managed to reuse footage from it by tying it into the plot of "The Menagerie."

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Did Majel Barrett go on to be a different character in the regular show? The name sounds familiar.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

She was later recast as the recurring Nurse Chapel, and then showed up again in the TNG era as both Deanna Troi's mom, Lwaxana, and the voice of the ship's computer. Also, somewhere in there she married Gene Roddenberry. So yeah, she's a pretty familiar name, as far as the franchise goes.

[artemis_wandering]

I want to say that there was some trade off...like Spock got to be Spock because the female Number One went away? I forget exactly. But Number One (which, yeah, Number One is Star Trek speak for "XO", the executive officer and the ship's second in command) was traded for something else, IIRC. That said, I think it would have been interesting to see those gender dynamics play out, even if we'd cringe at them today. Because frankly, those attitudes are still there. It just gets restated in a "gender-blind" way. "I don't see gender!" they say, and it amounts to the same thing as "well most women aren't good enough, but you're the exception". Much tokenism, yes. (hey, Spock icon!)

Oh, South Pacific. Used to be one of my favs as a kid.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I've heard something similar about the trade-off between Spock and Number One. Maybe Spock became Number One after the pilot? I can't quite remember.