S01E14. Yesteryear, How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth
Behold me as I am! Melissa comes to us with two episodes from The Animated Series: “Yesteryear,” (S01E02) written by D. C. Fontana and directed by Hal Sutherland; and “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth,” (S02E05) written by Russell Bates and David Wise and directed by Bill Reed. Like “Qpid,” these episodes involve paternalism echoing from the past. We talk about radical autonomy, monoculturalism, paternalism, orientalism, and (of course) assessment. We also geek over James Doohan (despite his accent work), space monsters, and how all the writers agree about young Vulcan bullies.
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Connections:
- The Enterprise encounters two warring races, one white on the right side and the other white on the left, in The Original Series S03E15, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.”
- Spock’s half-brother Sybok is introduced in the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
- Spock’s childhood home city, ShiKahr, is actually named in “Yesteryear.” In later appearances and the extended universe, it is established as the capital city of Vulcan.
Works Cited:
- Adichie, C. (2009, July). The danger of a single story [Address]. TEDGlobal 2009, Oxford, U.K. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
- Benares, C. (1977). Zen without Zen masters. And/Or Press.
- The quotation on “One of the hazards of refusing to accept change in yourself…” is found on p. 45.
- Gerber, S. (Creator). (1980-1981). Thundarr the barbarian [TV series]. Ruby-Spears Productions.
- Glassner, J., Wright, B., Cooper, R., Mallozzi, J., Mullie, P., Anderson, R. D., & Greenburg, M. (Executive producers). (1997-2007). Stargate SG-1 [TV Series]. MGM Television, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Film Corp., Sony Pictures Television, Showtime Networks, & Sci-Fi Originals.
- Homer. The Odyssey.
- The Lotus Eaters appear in Book IX.
- Malaclypse the Younger. (1979). Principia Discordia: or how I found Goddess and what I did to her when I found her: the magnum opiate of Malaclypse the Younger, wherein is explained absolutely everything worth knowing about absolutely anything. Rip Off Press.
- The “Sermon on Ethics & Love” is on p. 38.
- Toth, A. (Creator). The Herculoids [TV series]. Hanna-Barbera Productions.
- von Daniken, F. (1968). Chariots of the gods? Unsolved mysteries of the past. Bantam Books.
- West-Puckett, S., Caswell, N. I., & Banks, W. P. (2023). Failing sideways: Queer possibilities for writing assessment. Utah State University Press.
For our next episode, we’ll watch Star Trek: Prodigy S01E09-10, “A Moral Star” parts 1 and 2, written by the entire Prodigy writing team and directed by Ben Hibon.
Before the Future Came is edited by Lucy Arnold, transcribed by Melissa Avery-Weir, and webmavened by Gregory Avery-Weir.
Our theme is “Let’s Pretend” by Josh Woodward, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.