I can't really say that this is the best argument, especially considering the hindsight of why Walter Koenig was added to the cast. Let's face it, Walter was brought in to appeal to the younger generation, who was hooked on the Beatles and the rest of the mop-haired pop set.Quote:
Originally posted by Calcoran
I don't know, let's try to put this back in the 60s. People knew from TV that the Russians had a bad, treacherous governement, that some Russians were in fact evil spies, whatever. Was Chekov an evil spy? Star Trek then showed what could be, not what was. Was that good? Well, I think so.
If someone knows if Gene's thought process was chronicled, please chime in here, but it appears to me that they made Koenig's character Russian because the Canadian Keonig would have a hard time passing himself off as a Central or South American ;) (thus requiring someone of European/Western Asian descent, since that was the only other region not covered by the rest of the main human characters...). For his origins, I'm sure they looked at Germany, Poland, and other East Bloc satellite nations (to show that Communism failed in these nations, and they returned to democracy and freedom), and probably came to the conclusion that it would be most "ironic" to have the character be Russian.
Now, did it have the extra effect of "look, even the Russians are part of the equation in the future...we can work together"? Sure, but I think that was only a secondary motivation, if it was even considered at all at the time they were developing the character.
And do we know if people actually paid attention to that fact when the show aired, or were the kids just looking at the cool-looking young officer with a foreign accent?
