The 'banned' Star Trek episode that promised a united Ireland
The 'banned' Star Trek episode that promised a united Ireland
A scene discussing Ireland's "2024 unification" stopped the episode from being shown in the UK.
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It's always rubbed me the wrong way when people regularly say it was banned in the UK (funny enough, people never mention that Ireland also didn't show it).
The BBC in the UK and RTE in Ireland chose not to show it. It's a bit like saying Comedy Central cutting the Muslim prophet Muhammad from that south park episode means he was banned from US TV. It's not the same thing.
To my knowledge, the episode has now been shown in full in the UK plenty of times, but not yet in Ireland.
And it's completely reasonable that both broadcasters chose not to show it. It was effectively condoning ongoing terrorism where innocents were being killed.
Imagine if Enterprise had some pro-al-qaeda remarks immediately after 9/11. There's no way networks would show it lol
Thankfully, the GFA came about and the troubles were ended in the way that Picard advocated in the episode - with diplomacy, compromise, and dialogue, not endless violence.
It's a bit like saying Comedy Central cutting the Muslim prophet Muhammad from that south park episode means he was banned from US TV. It's not the same thing.
It's a fair point but not quite the same. At the time in Ireland the vast majority of the population only had access to RTÉ (and BBC if you had a big aerial on your roof and lived close enough to the north) so both state broadcasters not choosing to broadcast was an effectively a ban.
Satellite and cable were taking root but cable wasn't an option where I lived at the time which was only 20KM from the centre of Dublin city. Outside the major cities it just wasn't happening.
We did get a satellite dish around that time so that we weren't restricted to just two channels (edit: our house was located in a lowland that ruled out BBC even with the usual roof aerial) but with Sky in on the ban that would have ruled that out as a way to see it too.
Different times!
Hello there fellow Dub. :) I grew up in Fairview and Greystones aka British Bray.
Hello fellow Dub. :) I'm a Northsider too. Your brief foray to the south (even if it is the north of Wicklow it'll always be the south side) doesn't count and means we're kindred. :D
Maybe I'm not fully versed in The Troubles, but why must Irish unification be terrorism?
In the episode it is stated that Irish unification happened because terrorist attacks kept happening for decades and the British government eventually just gave in to the terrorists.
Oh, you're right. I'm well versed enough in Star Trek to have already known that. For some reason I didn't actually think about the episode.
Just to nitpick - the BBC is a government entity, so I think it's a fair point.
Consider RT's coverage on the war in Ukraine. Is it RT dictating it or is it the Russian government.
The BBC is not a government entity. It is publicly owned but not government-owned.
It's not comparable to RT.