People were used to all-white TV westerns. Then Star Trek came along and showed a world where people earned their place based on ability. There was Uhura, an African American woman played by Nichelle Nichols, handling communications with calm authority—she almost quit after the first season, but Martin Luther King Jr. convinced her to stay. There was Sulu, played by George Takei, piloting the flagship just twenty years after Japanese Americans had been locked up in internment camps. And there was Mr. Spock, an alien second-in-command played by Leonard Nimoy, who Altman describes as “the ultimate immigrant.”
Altman also notes that this diversity wasn’t just limited to the main crew. He points out that the guest characters were diverse too. In one episode, Captain Kirk takes orders from his superior, Commodore Stone, played by the late Percy Rodriguez. Long before Colin Powell held high office, Kirk was answering to an African American boss. That kind of thing matters too.
The original series aired from 1966 to 1969, right in the middle of the Vietnam War, racial violence, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. After that came animated series and movies, followed by The Next Generation (1987–1994) with Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Deep Space Nine (1993–1999), Voyager (1995–2001), and several other shows after that.
Altman sees Kirk as a stand-in for John F. Kennedy—the young president who promised to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. “The final frontier is the New Frontier,” he says. “Kirk is very much a Kennedy-style liberal. He’s progressive on social issues but tougher on defense. He’s more of a traditional moderate than what we see with democratic socialists today. It’s a meritocracy—everyone starts from the same line, but then it’s about your talents and what you can do.”
But The Next Generation, Altman argues, reflects a George H.W. Bush vision: building consensus and encouraging many small efforts. “Kirk has a line: ‘When this becomes a democracy, I’ll let you know.’ Picard was more of a consensus builder who held lots of meetings to get input from everyone. That was more of an H.W. Bush thing.”
He adds that this pattern extends to many Star Trek shows, which were clearly shaped by the mood of their times, even if not directly by the president. “Deep Space Nine was heavily rewritten after the Los Angeles riots and the beating of Rodney King. It was about rebuilding and asking, can’t we all just get along? It has one of the great Star Trek quotes: ‘It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.’ On a starship where everything’s fine, sure, it’s easy. But on a station, there’s more struggle and conflict.”
The latest series, Starfleet Academy, starred Oscar winner Holly Hunter as the captain and a chancellor, with Paul Giamatti as the main villain. It had the biggest and most expensive physical set in the franchise’s history. Set in a distant future where young cadets rebuild the Federation after a catastrophic event, it was meant as a story about renewing institutions.
But after Paramount merged with Skydance—led by David Ellison, whose father Larry is a Trump ally—Starfleet Academy was cancelled, and its upcoming second season will be its last. Tech billionaire Elon Musk joined a wave of MAGA criticism against the show, accusing it of being too “woke.”
Altman is harsh on this rightwing backlash. “How can you criticize Starfleet Academy for being too diverse? That’s absolutely ridiculous, especially if you claim to be a Star Trek fan. You have to understand that diversity is built into Star Trek’s very DNA. Diversity is a strength.”This is something celebrated as a common thread across all the Star Trek series. The shows can be very different, but one thing that has never changed since 8 September 1966 is the belief that diversity makes these crews stronger. If they were all the same, they wouldn’t be able to handle the challenges they face in space as effectively.
Veteran actor Robert Picardo shares that view. He spent seven seasons playing Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram and later reprised the role in Starfleet Academy. Speaking by phone, the 72-year-old doesn’t hold back: “Let’s face it: when someone that high up in the administration and also Elon Musk piled on the same day, do I think it’s a coincidence that the new owners of Paramount cancelled our show the first moment they could? We didn’t get a fair chance. We were killed in the cradle.”
Picardo adds: “Yes, there was the fact that we had a gay Klingon. Did a lot of people get overly upset about that? My feeling is, get over yourself! There seems to be a movement to push us back to the 1950s. Star Trek is all about the future, not about going back.”
In that climate, the core values of Star Trek – science, diversity, and inclusion – are going to be lumped in with what’s under attack. Some people ask, do you feel that current politics had something to do with your cancellation? If we caught the same flu that Stephen Colbert and the editorial freedom of CBS 60 Minutes caught, then we’re in excellent company.
If Star Trek’s social politics were ahead of their time, its engagement with science and technology was often eerily accurate. Decades before smartphones, tablets, automatic doors, and voice-activated digital assistants, the Enterprise was using personal access display devices, communicators, and talking computers. But it also questioned the ethics of innovation.
For Picardo, who spent seven years playing a holographic doctor dealing with questions of consciousness and civil rights on Voyager, today’s debates about Silicon Valley’s generative AI boom feel strangely familiar. “The explosion of the technology and the speed at which it’s happening is something nobody could have predicted.”
“It’s a useful tool, but it’s raised all sorts of issues. We actually did episodes on Star Trek where my character wrote a book, and then there was the question of whether an artificial intelligence could have intellectual property rights. We covered the whole issue of whether an AI can have an original idea or if it can only mix and match human ideas scraped from the internet, from everything ever written.”
Sixty years on, Star Trek’s belief in a United Federation of Planets that has moved beyond bigotry, racism, and nationalism feels strangely out of place in an era where Trump has championed “America first,” dismissed the UN, and belittled the very idea of empathy. The show, whose future is uncertain as Paramount’s new owners focus on a proposed $110bn acquisition of Warner Bros, offers a vision of utopia in a time of dystopia.
Picardo observes: “After 9/11, a lot of science fiction has become very apocalyptic. It’s set in some hellish future with a few survivors, and Star Trek is the opposite of that. But to me, the biggest damage done in current politics is the destruction of the idea of truth, or that there is such a thing as a fact, and that our words matter. I worry about Star Trek’s survival in a post-truth, post-literate world.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the topic of William Shatners comments on Star Trek at 60 written in a natural conversational tone
General Background
1 Who is William Shatner and why is his opinion on Star Trek a big deal
He played Captain James T Kirk in the original Star Trek series Hes one of the most famous faces of the franchise so when he talks about its legacy people listen
2 What did William Shatner actually say about Star Trek turning 60
In a recent interview he was asked about the shows 60th anniversary He said that while hes proud of it he suggested the creators might have used a lighter touch with some of the storylines and the shows overall seriousness He felt it could have been a bit less heavyhanded
3 What does a lighter touch mean in this context
It means he thinks the original show was sometimes too serious preachy or dramatic He believes they could have infused more humor subtlety or fun into the episodes without losing the core message
4 Is William Shatner criticizing Star Trek
Not exactly Hes offering a critique from the perspective of an actor who was there Hes saying he loved the show but looking back 60 years later he thinks some creative choices were a bit too onthenose or serious
5 Does he think Star Trek should have been a comedy
No Hes not saying it should have been a comedy just that the tone could have been more varied He means they could have balanced the heavy scifi concepts with more moments of lightness and characterdriven humor
Specifics The Shows Legacy
6 What parts of Star Trek was he referring to as too heavy
He didnt point to specific episodes but he was likely referring to the shows tendency to tackle big social issues with very direct allegories He thinks some of those messages were delivered with a sledgehammer instead of a feather
7 Was the original Star Trek actually that serious
Yes compared to modern TV it was quite earnest It often used scifi scenarios to comment on realworld problems like the Cold War or civil
