In an episode of TV’s original “Star Trek” entitled “Plato’s Stepchildren,” the crew aboard the Starship Enterprise became enslaved by humanoid Platonians, who possessed a telekinetic ability to force them to do anything the Platonians wanted them to do.
Enterprise Capt. James Kirk, a white man played by William Shatner, was forced to kiss Nichelle Nichols’ character, Lt. Nyota Uhura, a black woman.
Censors at NBC insisted on filming an alternate version sans smooch — fearing that local TV affiliates in the Deep South would refuse to air the episode.
Shatner is reported to have purposefully ruined all the alternative takes so the network would be forced to air the kiss.
Appropriately, Kirk has this line in the episode: “Where I come from, size, shape or color makes no difference.”
