Primitive Culture: A Star Trek History and Culture Podcast

Federation Politics in Star Trek.

The United Federation of Planets is at the heart of Star Trek’s utopian vision of a deeply complex future society, though relatively little interest has been shown in the nuts and bolts of the organization’s democracy and governance. The machinations of the Klingon High Council have taken up more screen time than the workings of the Federation’s own equivalent, and the bulk of our time is spent in the military environment of Starfleet rather than the civilian halls of power.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Tony Black and Duncan Barrett are joined by Star Trek novelist Keith R.A. DeCandido, author of Articles of the Federation, a West Wing-inspired novel about the day-to-day business of the Federation president and her staff. They discuss the three Federation presidents shown on screen—in The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country, and Deep Space Nine’s “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost”—and examine how future Star Trek might engage with the democratic and diplomatic process in more detail.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Military and Civilian Authority (00:09:36) Presidential Qualities (00:17:34) The Birth of the Federation (00:35:59) President Ian McKellan (00:43:24) Closing (00:49:44)

Hosts Tony Black and Duncan Barrett

Guest Keith R.A. DeCandido

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Star Trek and Fan Fiction.

Star Trek fans have always been more dedicated than most, organizing large-scale letter-writing campaigns to save their favorite show, perfecting elaborate costumes so they can impersonate individual characters, and even mastering entirely fictional languages. But for some fans, simply enjoying Star Trek as audience members is not enough—they want to be co-creators of the stories that keep their beloved franchise alive.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Tony Black consider the phenomenon of fan fiction, from its origins with the 'Slash' movement of the 1970s through to the present day, when the internet has made thousands of fan-written works, some of them novel-length or more, available to fellow enthusiasts around the world. Along the way, they consider the thorny question of what counts as canon, tropes such as the much-derided 'Mary Sue', and talk in depth about Tony's own fan fiction script series, Star Trek: Premonition.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) A history of Star Trek fanfic (00:07:00) Slash (00:14:20) Fanfic websites (00:18:15) Star Trek: Premonition (00:28:40) Licensed works (00:45:00) Mary Sues (01:00:05) Final thoughts (01:10:00)

Hosts Clara Cook and Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Anne Frank and Counterpoint. Perhaps more than for any other Star Trek series, the shadow of the Holocaust loomed large over Voyager. So, it’s not surprising that, when the time came to pitch a story about alien refugees using the Starfleet vessel as a way to escape persecution, The Diary of Anne Frank was a key touchstone. The resulting episode, “Counterpoint,” remains both a fan favorite and the personal number-one of Captain Janeway herself, Kate Mulgrew.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett look into the genesis of this popular Voyager episode, teasing out some of the parallels between its story and Frank’s diary. We consider the ways in which Voyager—and Star Trek in general—engages with the painful legacy of genocide, and the Holocaust in particular. We also look at Starfleet’s approach to aid and asylum, and consider the role of humanitarian resistance against oppressive regimes in the real world.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Space Nazis (00:06:10) The Diary of Anne Frank (00:17:15) Genocide, Refugees, and Asylum (00:32:20) Humanitarian Resistance (00:56:40) Final Thoughts (01:14:20)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Michael Piller, Joseph Conrad, and Star Trek: Insurrection. Love it or hate it, most fans agree that Star Trek: Insurrection was not the strongest story to spring from the keyboard of Michael Piller. He is the man who set the template for much of nineties’ Star Trek as a writer, producer, and eventually showrunner on The Next Generation, yet this film is something of a mixed bag. The same cannot be said of Fade In, the memoir Piller later wrote about the time he spent working on the screenplay. A witty, insightful page-turner—and a fascinating insight into the Hollywood movie-making process—many readers have felt that Piller’s book is ultimately more successful than the film that it explores.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Tony Black and Duncan Barrett take a close look at the creative process behind this divisive TNG outing and consider the constraints with which Piller was forced to deal as he attempted to translate his vision to screen. We also examine one of the original inspirations for the storyline, Joseph Conrad’s deeply disturbing novella Heart of Darkness, as we look back on the film we ended up seeing in 1998 and consider some of the other parallel-universe movies that Piller would, perhaps, rather have written. Join us for a reevaluation of Insurrection, a film that—ironically, given its themes—plays very differently to an adult audience than it does to teenage boys.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Calling Captain Conrad (00:04:00) First Contact with Insurrection (00:18:55) Up the River (00:35:25) Damage Report (00:47:55) Final Thoughts (01:10:30) Hosts Tony Black and Duncan Barrett Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

The British Isles in Star Trek.

For an American TV show, Star Trek was multinational right from the start. The bridge crew of Kirk’s Enterprise included an African communications officer, a Russian navigator, and a Japanese-American helmsman. But down in the ship’s bowels, other nationalities were represented, including a Scottish engineer, an English transporter chief, and an Irish communications specialist. Throughout Star Trek’s 51-year history, the British Isles have offered Starfleet their best and brightest-even as attempts to recreate the history and culture of those countries in the Federation’s high-tech future often failed to hit the mark.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Lee Hutchison and Tony Robinson to discuss the portrayal of their homelands over a few synthales at the Grosvenor Hotel in London. We consider the varying ways-some more successful than others-that our nationalities have been depicted in Star Trek. Looking at characters such as Scotty, O’Brien, and Bashir, and taking trips to Fair Haven and the Scottish heritage planet Caldos IV, we examine real-world nationalist independence movements, the thorny questions of cultural appropriation and community representation, what exactly European heritage might mean to an American audience, and the impact widespread transporter use might have on cultural identity on a united Earth.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Sub Rosa (00:03:08) Fair Haven (00:09:24) Accents (00:18:55) O’Brien and Scotty (00:22:50) Cultural stereotypes and International Fandoms (00:35:25) Nationalism (00:41:25) English stereotypes (00:49:10) Class (00:56:00) Final Thoughts (00:59:08)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guests Lee Hutchison and Tony Robinson

Production Tony Black (Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Cinematic Influences on Star Trek: First Contact. As a first-time movie director, the stakes could not have been higher for Jonathan Frakes when he signed on to helm the Next Generation crew’s first solo outing, Star Trek: First Contact. Aware that his small-screen experience might not cut it at the cinema, he immersed himself in the work of three science-fiction masters-Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron-from whom he borrowed cinematic touches. It was an approach that paid off handsomely, as the resulting film was both a commercial and critical success, cementing Frakes’s reputation as a safe pair of hands.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Chris Nunn, a lecturer in film at Greenwich University in London, to look at some of the movies that influenced the making of First Contact. Together, they put themselves into Jonathan Frakes’s screening room, teasing out connections between the works he viewed and the movie he ended up making, and how First Contact’s mélange of cinematic nods and styles contributes to its success as a work of art in its own right.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Jaws (00:03:25) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (00:24:15) Alien (00:37:00) Blade Runner (00:52:10) Terminator (01:13:55) Final Thoughts (01:19:40)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Chris Nunn Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

When Star Trek: Discovery debuted in September 2017, it brought to our TV screens the first explicitly gay couple in the franchise’s fifty-year history. Lieutenant Stamets and Doctor Culber, played by LGBT “actorvists” Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz, quickly won their way into the audience’s hearts, presenting one of Star Trek’s most realistic onscreen relationships. But why has it taken half a century for Star Trek to get to this point? Is sexuality the true final frontier for Gene Roddenberry’s inclusive agenda?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook are joined by Kay Elizabeth Shaw to trace the history of LGBT representation in Star Trek, from the early 1990s to the present day. Looking at iconic episodes such as “The Outcast,” “The Host,” and “Rejoined”-as well as taking a brief trip to DS9’s sexually fluid Mirror Universe-we consider some of the reasons that true representation has taken so long, as well as some of the people who played a role on both sides of this long-running debate.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Allegorical Representation (00:04:50) Misplaced Pronouns (00:14:50) Roddenberry’s Plan (00:22:30) Slash Fictions and Resistant Readings (00:26:48) Mirror Sexuality and Kira Nerys (00:48:35) Gatekeepers and Fan Fiction (00:54:40) Straight Actors and Gay Roles (01:12:20) Bury Your Gays? (01:23:00) Final Thoughts (01:33:10)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Guest Kay Elizabeth Shaw

Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Star Trek’s Impossible Choices.

Since the publication of William Styron’s novel Sophie’s Choice in 1979, the title has entered the cultural lexicon as a term meaning a difficult situation in which a person must choose between two equally deserving alternatives. Two Star Trek episodes-Discovery’s “Lethe” and Voyager’s “Latent Image,” both written by Joe Menosky-borrow the story’s horrifying central conceit: a mother forced to choose between her children. In Jeri Taylor’s Voyager novel Mosaic, we learn that a similarly unbearable choice early in Kathryn Janeway’s Starfleet career almost destroyed her chances at command, plunging her into deep depression.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett consider Star Trek’s approach to impossible choices. For the men and women who want to sit in the captain’s chair, part of their training involves facing the most terrible dilemmas-sending a friend to his death to save the ship or facing the ultimate no-win scenario: the Kobayashi Maru. But are some choices just too awful for human beings to cope with? And what happens when being forced to choose makes us lose something we can never get back?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) “Lethe” (00:04:43) “Latent Image” (00:13:00) Boundaries of Impossibility (00:23:00) Mosaic (00:31:45) The Kobayashi Maru (00:36:15) “Children of Time” and Generational Empathy (00:38:20) The Needs of the Many (00:50:45) Twenty-first-century Choices (01:02:00)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett

Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Voyager, History, and Nostalgia.

While Captain Picard took command of the Enterprise-D with an order to “see what’s out there,” Captain Janeway’s mission statement was almost the opposite: “Set a course for home.” For seven years, the crew of the USS Voyager was, in a sense, exploring backwards; and this return journey was reflected in the show’s obsession with the past. Many episodes dealt with thorny questions of history and historiography, debating the relationship between official narratives and more personal, individual memories of days gone by. Others reveled in the pleasures of nostalgia, celebrating the ways our links to the past—and to our ancestors—can inspire and comfort us in the present.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by award-winning Irish blogger Darren Mooney to discuss Voyager’s approach to history and nostalgia in the context of the broader Star Trek narrative. Is the impulse to get home an inherently conservative mission? Does the shift to prequels and reboots since Voyager ended signal an inability to truly move forward? Or is it simply inevitable that a franchise with a fifty-year history would be as concerned with the past as with the future?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) History (00:04:01) Nostalgia (00:08:50) Memory As the Guarantee of Truth (00:22:24) Guilt and Shame (00:30:05) The Impossible Future (00:40:00) Tom Paris, Retro Screenwriter (00:54:00) Corporate Meddlers and Continuity Pornographers (01:06:30) Final Thoughts (01:23:15) Hosts Duncan Barrett

Guest Darren Mooney

Production Clara Cook (Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

A Christmas Carol and Tapestry. The halls are decked, the wine is mulling, and the presents are neatly stacked under the tree. But what hope is there of a white Christmas in the inky black of outer space? Traditionally, Star Trek has steered clear of more than glancing references to the festive season, yet popular holiday stories—such as A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life—have worked their way into the plots of fan-favorite episodes.

In this special Christmas installment of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook to consider the influence of Charles Dickens’s classic on The Next Generation’s “Tapestry” and how Patrick Stewart’s experience playing Mr. Scrooge might have informed his characterization of Captain Picard. Along the way, we talk about regrets and redemption, how a good person can follow a bad path, and the role Christmas plays in the secular societies we see in Star Trek.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) “Tapestry” (00:07:26) A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life (00:13:40) “All Good Things…” (00:23:40) Why Christmas? (00:32:52) Regrets? We’ve Had a Few (00:41:39) Dickens the SF Writer (00:51:26) Christmas in Star Trek? (00:58:50) Final Thoughts (01:09:30) Host Duncan Barrett Guest Clara Cook Production Tony Robinson (Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)