I swear, sometimes I think Andrew is my lost twin brother. Of course, that makes no sense. Why would our mutual parents have given us the same name? For years, I have gone to the Star Trek well (once you’ve had that Kool Aid, you keep going back) and used as a springboard for social commentary, political science, moral plays, and more. And that was what it was originally intended to be. It was a deeply subversive show but done in such a unique way that the conservative execs at NBC never caught on that this quirky space opera was making bold anti-Vietnam or pro-racial equality statements. It hosted the first interracial kiss on television (though Kirk and Uhuru never actually kissed, it was just a trick of the camera angle) and had the first overt pro-peace plotlines in that stormy period that was the late sixties.
More recently, Babylon 5 has taken up that mantle doing shows about the dangers of complacency in the rise of an authoritarian government (something I believe is highly relevant to some of what is going on today as I have spoken about previously in these pages).
Andrew makes some excellent points and his words are very much worth reading.