"For you Kirk, zee Trek is over."
*pistol whipping*
Although I imagine he managed to find a well dressed German Fräulein to get jiggy with first.
German television has finally aired an episode of Star Trek, which was previously held from broadcast due to a Nazi theme that ran throughout. Filmed in 1968 for the second season of the original series, Patterns of Force features Kirk and Spock dressed in Nazi uniforms, trying to blend into a planet overrun by aliens that …
"with viewers strictly warned that no one under the age of 16 should watch it."
And thus INSTANTLY attracting the attention of every under 16 year old in the country as to why these guys were so "important" that they couldn't be shown to children.
Talk about unintended consequences. If you'd just broadcast the damn thing in the middle of children's TV and parents *hadn't* made a fuss, nobody would care about it whatsoever. But by "banning" it and provide stark warnings about it not being suitable for children, you have just intrigued an entire generation.
I still say that Germany (and France) should have called all toilets "Nazis" and marked them on signposts / doors with the symbol of the Swastika across the entire country. Just how many Nazist lunatics do you think you'd get worshipping the name/symbol then, instead of how many you get now that you've "banned" it's use?
A common complaint these days (and a couple of decades backwards) is that because of anti-Nazi laws being interpreted as "not showing Nazi stuff at all" instead of "not showing Nazi stuff in a good light" has been that a good bunch of people do not know how bad they were, and some Germans don't even know there *was* a Second World War at all! The missus was shocked when she discovered this.
No, it is not.
A book, video or game can be put on what we call the index.
In that case stores are still allowed to sell them, but no active form of marketing is allowed, not even putting it on the shelves. Therefore these items are sold from under the counter if somebody specifically asks for them.
I remember quite well (as a Jerman livink in biutiful Bavaria) that the 1968 episode was aired end-1990s in Austrian television for the first time in its dubbed German lingo version: quite unspectacular I thought... and still think: it's quite a dull episode actually...
The Voyager 2 Résistance Hirogen episode was aired along with the other ones without any trouble or uprising or warnings what so ever..
I guess that ZDF itself found it extremely odd to have a sci-fi series cover such a serious topic in such a dumb way and banned it first from being aired...
Fawlty Towers was aired by Franco-German tv station ARTE a couple of years ago also alongside the German tourist episode in subtitled version: that one's pretty funny actually, also for me as a German...
..where to save money they raided the props department to do episodes that looked like lame westerns/WW2 movies/gangster epics, etc.
However, I have to chuckle at the picture above with the classic shirtless-and-oiled-up Kirk with his glistening chest.
Now, if they really want to test German sensibilities, they need to bring back Baywatch and do a Nazi episode :)
...only if you get Prince Harry as cast!
I wonder what the US audience was thinking at the time they aired this episode first in 1968 with a Vietnam war raging and still no man on the moon but Star Trek turning Nazi ? :)
I guess if you really want to test German sensibilities about WW2, you need to show disrespect for the victims: that would be the only thing to drive Germans mad, since respect for the victims is enshrined by German sensibilities since the 1980s...
BTW: try asking young people in Berlin about World Wars: they won't even know what you're talking about when they're asked for the *Second* WW...