This Star Trek episode was banned in the UK for almost 30 years

In the Star Trek episode “Empath” (December 6, 1968) Captain Kirk (William Shatner)Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly) are on a field mission when they are suddenly abducted by off-screen aliens and placed in a mysterious blackened chamber somewhere beneath the planet’s surface. While trapped, they encounter a mute woman in purple whom McCoy calls Jem (Katherine Haze). They discover that the gem has an unusual superpower. If someone is injured, Jem can heal them by absorbing their wounds into himself. She feels the same pain. Then the wound heals quickly.

Jem ends up getting plenty of opportunities to use his superpowers as the four characters are repeatedly tortured by evil aliens with large skulls called Wayans (played by Alan Bergman and Willard Sage). The Vianci spend most of the episode torturing and injuring the crew members of the Enterprise, sometimes while Jem watches. Gem, meanwhile, offers to heal them each time, getting weaker and weaker with each heal.

The Vianci eventually reveal the reason behind their actions. It looks like the Gem species is about to die out due to an upcoming supernova. The Vians can save either her world or another inhabited world nearby, but don’t have the resources for either. The Viana say they will only save Jem’s world if she proves she is willing to sacrifice her own life (ie heal someone who is close to death), thereby passing a warped test of morality.

The BBC seems to have changed its mind when preparing to show The Empath to the public in 1970. The broadcaster had already received a number of complaints about Star Trek over some of its cruder material and the torture episode, it knew it was probably going to keep the angry mail coming. As a result, Empath, along with three other episodes of Star Trek, were completely removed from the BBC’s broadcast schedule and stopped for literally decades. After all, The Empath wasn’t released in the UK until the 90s.

Apparently, when the BBC went on the air star trek episode “Worlds”, the public reacted badly. This episode was a scary, dark story about a planet of slowly aging children who still remember the centuries-old plague that wiped out the adults in their world. Kirk and company head down and contract the plague, growing strange scabs all over their bodies. Mira’s character (Kim Darby) is about to become the equivalent of her planet 12, but now she’s at risk of infection. Miri must convince the other feral children that Kirk is trustworthy and that growing up is okay. Obviously, this episode got a lot of hate mail (although, as noted on the Space Doubt websitethe exact nature of the complaints was never revealed).

However, it was enough to make the BBC wary. The Empath was about to air and the BBC wasn’t going to take any chances. So he outright banned Empathy from airing, knowing that the episode would be too heavy for more sensitive viewers. Indeed, the BBC began going through its Star Trek catalog more thoroughly and found two more episodes it decided to ban: Plato’s Stepchildren and Whom the Gods Destroy. The first featured a group of all-powerful hedonists mentally forcing Kirk and his crew to perform humiliating acts for fun. The latter featured a shape-shifting antagonist who took over a mental hospital and formed a cult.

Non-Trekists may know “Plato’s Stepchildren” as the episode where Kirk kisses Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and “Whom the Gods Destroy” as the episode where Yvonne Craig plays a scantily clad green-skinned dancer…killed by her. cult leader. The former was too disturbing for the BBC and the latter was too disturbing…but also too sexy.

“Empath” is really moving, although most tracks will be better remembered for this episode because of its low budget. The episode appeared during the third season of the series, at which point the funding was stopped and the creators of the series had to show ingenuity. There’s a reason Jem and the crew of the Enterprise are held captive in mysterious black space: it ensured that the series crew didn’t have to build a set. It’s also a little surprising that “Empath” should be singled out, given how many early Star Trek episodes have a terrible pattern; monsters regularly kill people or suffer from scabies throughout the first season of the series.

The ban was still in effect in the mid-1980s. Some researchers have found memos attached to the four episodes in question that read:

“We feel that all (episodes) deal very unpleasantly with the already unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism and disease. You will notice that it is worth considering that among the many and enthusiastic fans of Star Trek, many are minors who would like to watch the program regardless of what time of day the series is scheduled.”

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry eventually saw the memo and vehemently objected, saying at a press conference in 1984 (via A geek’s lair):

“I strongly disagree (with the ban). “Empath” was a beautiful story for me (…) When someone wants to tell me: “You can’t have hurt and pain”, I say: “Nonsense! ‘ Suffering and pain are a part of life and should be handled well.

Roddenberry went on to point out that fistfights in most action shows—which were commonplace and expected—usually featured two fist-pumping fighters enjoying a punch. Roddenberry objected to “hilarious violence” on television, believing that “gritty violence” was healthier and more accurate.

Eventually, however, the standards were relaxed. By the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation aired on the BBC in the 1990s, the station finally removed the memo and allowed previously banned Trek episodes to be shown to the public. They are now widely visible.