Musing on the legacy of Nichelle Nichols (204.1)
I started "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" after hearing about David Warner's passing, and finished it yesterday after hearing about Nichelle's.
I hadn't remembered Nichelle Nichols got the VERY LAST character close-up of the original movie series, before standing up and walking over to Jimmy Doohan, standing at the railing, for the group shot at the end of the movie.
When did I FIRST see Nichelle in person? I'm not certain, but it was probably I-CON in Stony Brook in April 1992. It's possible I also saw her at an NYC convention before that, but I can't find evidence she was at any of the cons I'm sure I went to.
When did I LAST see Nichelle in person? My last photo of her is from Shore Leave 29 in July 2007. She was at Dragon*Con in 2012 and so was I, but I'm not 100% sure I saw her that year.
I found myself wondering if "Star Trek" existed in the alternate reality of "For All Mankind," and sure enough, last night we watched S1E07, the episode with the "Bob Newhart Show" tapes, and astronaut Danielle Poole refers to character actor John Fiedler's appearance on "Star Trek."
That a fictional Black female astronaut was the one to mention "Star Trek" can't have been an accident. Let's credit Ronald D. Moore, Naren Shankar, and/or Mike Okuda, all Trek alums working on Mankind, for this important representation, just a few years after "Star Trek" ended in our timeline. Did it also end in this alternate timeline? Maybe we'll find out later.