Plato's Stepchildren - Production and Reception

Production and Reception

Further information: Racism in the United States

The episode features a kiss between James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). This is often cited as the first white and black interracial kiss depicted on a scripted television series, but took place after Sammy Davis, Jr. had briefly kissed Nancy Sinatra on the variety program Movin' With Nancy in December 1967; and an interracial kiss on Emergency Ward 10, a British drama series, in 1964; a kiss between Asian American actress, Victoria Young and David McCallum in the 1966 The Man from U.N.C.L.E episode, "The Her Master's Voice Affair;" September 16th, 1966, and a kiss between multi-racial actress Barbara Luna and William Shatner in the October 6th, 1967 Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror, Star Trek: The Original Series. Predating, in America, all of these but the "Man from U.N.C.L.E", the November 3rd, 1966 episode of "Daniel Boone" where the title character leans in to take a kiss on the cheek (audible smack) from a little black girl who Boone had saved from slavery, along with her family and friends. The episode and the little girl are both called "Onatha".

The episode portrays the kiss as involuntary, being forced by telekinesis, perhaps to avoid any hint of romance that would risk outrage among some sensitive viewers. As one TV critic put it, "The underlying message was, 'If I have to kiss you to save my ship and crew, by God, I'll do it.'" Also, William Shatner recalls in Star Trek Memories that NBC insisted their lips never touch (the technique of turning their heads away from the camera was used to conceal this). However, Nichelle Nichols insists in her autobiography Beyond Uhura (written in 1994 after Shatner's book) that the kiss was real, even in takes where her head obscures their lips.

When NBC executives learned of the kiss they became concerned it would anger TV stations in the conservative Deep South. Earlier in 1968, NBC had expressed similar concern over a musical sequence in a Petula Clark special in which she touched Harry Belafonte's arm, a moment cited as the first occasion of direct physical contact on American television between a man and woman of different races. At one point during negotiations, the idea was brought up of having Spock kiss Uhura instead, but William Shatner insisted that they stick with the original script. NBC finally ordered that two versions of the scene be shot—one where Kirk and Uhura kissed and one where they did not. Having successfully recorded the former version of the scene, Shatner and Nichelle Nichols deliberately flubbed every take of the latter version, thus forcing the episode to go out with the kiss intact.

As Nichelle Nichols writes:

'Knowing that Gene was determined to air the real kiss, Bill shook me and hissed menacingly in his best ham-fisted Kirkian staccato delivery, "I! WON'T! KISS! YOU! I! WON'T! KISS! YOU!"

It was absolutely awful, and we were hysterical and ecstatic. The director was beside himself, and still determined to get the kissless shot. So we did it again, and it seemed to be fine. "Cut! Print! That's a wrap!"

The next day they screened the dailies, and although I rarely attended them, I couldn't miss this one. Everyone watched as Kirk and Uhura kissed and kissed and kissed. And I'd like to set the record straight: Although Kirk and Uhura fought it, they did kiss in every single scene. When the non-kissing scene came on, everyone in the room cracked up. The last shot, which looked okay on the set, actually had Bill wildly crossing his eyes. It was so corny and just plain bad it was unusable. The only alternative was to cut out the scene altogether, but that was impossible to do without ruining the entire episode. Finally, the guys in charge relented: "To hell with it. Let's go with the kiss." I guess they figured we were going to be cancelled in a few months anyway. And so the kiss stayed.'

There were, however, few contemporary records of any complaints commenting on the scene. Nichelle Nichols observes that "Plato's Stepchildren" which first aired in November 1968 "received a huge response. We received one of the largest batches of fan mail ever, all of it very positive, with many addressed to me from girls wondering how it felt to kiss Captain Kirk, and many to him from guys wondering the same thing about me. However, almost no one found the kiss offensive" except from a single mildly negative letter from one white Southerner who wrote: "I am totally opposed to the mixing of the races. However, any time a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms that looks like Uhura, he ain't gonna fight it." Nichols notes that "for me, the most memorable episode of our last season was 'Plato's Stepchildren.'"