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For those that don’t know, I’m a massive fan of the Muppets, in particular The Muppet Show. I used to get up at 5am to watch an hour of reruns on weekdays before getting ready for school at a time when I had few friends, and the batch of weirdos on the screen made me feel alright.
Of course, to most people Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show is just a show, and an old one at that. The concept of the variety show is now relegated to late night television in the United States, but in the late 1970s American TV was flooded with them, which made The Muppet Show something of a parody. To fans, every episode of The Muppet Show is good, each with at least one entertaining sketch or musical number, but for most people my age the guests are unknown and dull. So what if you want to experience The Muppet Show but don’t want to wade through 120 episodes? I’ve got you covered with five of the best and most acclaimed episodes of one of my all time favorite pick-me-ups. A word of caution before diving into this list with children. It is important to remember that The Muppet Show was intended for college students in the 1970s, which is to say that it’s not meant for kids. That’s not to say kids can’t enjoy some of these episodes, but don’t automatically assume they’re okay and go in blind. #1) Harry Belafonte (Season 3 Episode 14) If you’re only going to watch one episode of The Muppet Show, make it this one. Jim Henson attracted individuals like himself, and he and Harry Belafonte shared an interest in racial unification and the power of love and compassion to end pain. Every segment of this episode is outstanding, from the unexpectedly hilarious performance of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)”, to the climax performance of “Turn The World Around”, which is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful musical numbers in Muppet history. Definitely one to share with the whole family. #2) Peter Sellers (Season 2 Episode 19) I love Peter Sellers, and if you’re familiar with his work then it’s no surprise that he fits right in with the Muppets. When Disney released The Muppet Show on Disney+ people discovered that some of the episodes started with content warnings. This might be a shock from someone as socially minded as the creator of Sesame Street, but times change and prejudices are recognized. Some of the episodes with content warnings seem to be for relatively minor things, but in the case of the Peter Sellers episode the content warning is for… well, just about everything. Sellers was at his best when doing accents, and he does almost nothing else in this episode. Notably the opening number would have been considered fine ten years ago, but now is a bit painful. Still, it’s a classic episode, and Gonzo’s musical number is a personal favorite of mine. #3) Vincent Price (Season 1 Episode 19) Special Mention: Alice Cooper (Season 3 Episode 7) It’s no surprise that someone who loved costumes and performance as much as Jim Henson would love Halloween, and in The Muppet Show’s first season they featured the king of Halloween himself, Vincent Price. This episode is a must-watch on the holiday at my house, and it’s fun for all ages with just enough comedy to take the edge off for little kids. Plus you get to hear Vincent Price sing, which is something. (It’s not great, but it’s something.) I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the second Halloween themed episode of The Muppet Show (because of course there are two), which stared none other an Alice Cooper! Yup. Alice Cooper, the “Godfather of Shock Rock” paraded around with a bunch of felt puppets and it’s excellent. The opening number is, of course, “Welcome to My Nightmare” with some specially created monstrous Muppets as the band. One highlight of this one is Gonzo eagerly selling his soul to the Devil. (It’s a weird episode.) #4) John Cleese (Season 2 Episode 23) The story goes that when John Cleese was approached to be on The Muppet Show he requested to help write the episode. As you’d expect, the Monty Python member was a massive fan of the mad cap antics of the Muppets. While brainstorming someone hit on the idea that maybe John, a massive Muppet fan, would be doing the show reluctantly. This was the kind of comedy Cleese loved, so the underlying concept of the episode is that John Cleese is doing the show against his will. This episode really highlights Cleese’s comedic and acting talents, and is a fun watch. It’s worth noting that the motif of the reluctant host was repeated in 2011’s The Muppets feature film, with Jack Black (frequent Sesame Street guest and Muppet fan) playing an identical role to Cleese. #5) Mark Hamill/Star Wars (Season 4 Episode 17) By season four The Muppet Show was a massive success. So was Star Wars. Jim Henson already had a connection with George Lucas through Frank Oz (who performed Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle, Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover, among others) performing Yoda. Though ostensibly a Mark Hamill episode, “Luke Skywalker”, C3PO, R2D2, and Chewbacca all show up. This one is a must for Star Wars fans, and meta comical for its prophetic closing number. A number of vintage science fiction writers well worthy of renown are undergoing a period of rediscovery, and Cyril M. Kornbluth is yet another example. Frequently writing with his childhood friend and fellow science fiction author Frederik Pohl, Kornbluth’s solo publications were mostly short stories. Pohl and Kornbluth had been friends since they were teenagers, when Pohl lived in Brooklyn just down the street from Isaac Asimov’s parent’s candy store; the same store where Asimov himself first read a science fiction magazine off the rack. (New York City in the 1920 was a major nexus point of science fiction, but even knowing that it’s a bit of a shock to learn that Asimov, Pohl, and Kornbluth knew each other as teens.)
Kornbluth is another example of an author I knew before I knew him, because one of my absolute favorite Night Gallery episodes was based on one of his short stories. The ability to convert a 1950 story into an early-1970s TV show gives you some idea how forward thinking Kornbluth was. The tone and quality of his stories would easily fit into the 1960s-1970s, and one has to keep in mind that he mostly wrote from 1940-1958 to appreciate his skill. Kornbluth passed away suddenly at the age of 34 of a heart attack when racing to catch a train that was to take him to a job interview for potentially taking over editorial duties for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I wonder what direction Kornbluth could have taken such a venerable publication, and it’s a shame we’ll never know what he could have accomplished, as he was clearly just getting started. It’s hard to not assign at least partial blame for Kornbluth’s death to his personal habits. Even his friends (Pohl and Asimov among them) testify that he was a very odd man. Supposedly he never brushed his teeth, to the point that they were actually green. This fact struck me as there has long been a connection between oral hygiene and heart health. At a time of strange characters writing science fiction, Kornbluth was clearly one of the strangest. The Rocket of 1955 Originally published in the fanzine Escape, August 1939 Read in The Best of C. M. Kornbluth This was Kornbluth’s first solo story publication, and appeared in a fanzine. Any time I have an author’s first story I like to add it to the Trifecta along with a later story to see any evolution. I might not have picked this story if I’d known how short it was – about a page and a half – but it did give me an indication of what seems to be a hallmark for Kornbluth, which is a vague hinting at what is happening rather than hitting the reader upside the head. Kornbluth wants the reader to think their way through the evidence he provides in the story to figure out what is happening, rather than putting it in plain black-and-white. This is something a lot of modern science fiction writers still don’t do (but I find is common in horror); there is always that drive to provide for the lowest common denominator of reader. Kornbluth seemed perfectly happy to swing above a reader’s head, which was definitely an uncommon approach in 1939 sci-fi. I have to admit that I was a little confused by this story and gave it a reread to pick up on it, and I think I got it the second time. Quite simply, this story tells the sordid tale of the world’s first rocket launch to space, which doesn’t go exactly as the passenger expects. Definitely worth a read, and you can do so online. The Little Black Bag Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, July 1950 Read in The Best of C. M. Kornbluth This one probably has to be Kornbluth’s best based on its accolades. It won the 2001 Retro-Hugo Award for Best Novelette (of 1951), and has been adapted into at least three television episodes, including one of my favorite episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. This is the story of a drunk, disgraced doctor and a medical bag from the future so advanced that it is almost magical. The story is fairly similar to the Night Gallery episode, except that the sidekick character is a woman in the original story, which I think actually plays a lot better. Both the story and the episode are worth your time, especially since the episode stars the incomparable Burgess Meredith as the protagonist. It looks like Escape Pod has the story available online, as well as an audio version, if you’re into that kind of thing. The Marching Morons Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1951 Read in The Best of C. M. Kornbluth I came across several mentions of this story when researching Kornbluth, and it is cited as a sequel to The Little Black Bag, so I had to give it a read. This story is notable because Kornbluth not only revisits the future world that created the titular “black bag” of the previous story, but he also utilizes the same vague hinting around that he did in The Rocket of 1955, though he makes it a bit clearer at the last moment here. I don’t know if Kornbluth originated the idea at the core of the film Idiocracy (I suspect he didn’t), but it is too similar to not have been an inspiration for the film. Kornbluth latches onto the idea that idiots have more kids than well educated people do, to the point that evolution basically splits the human species. The vast majority of the world is populated by barely functioning morons who are fooled by the super-intelligent, but numerically inferior, super-humans, into thinking that they run the world. Meanwhile the super-humans are at the mercy of the idiot masses, working themselves to death just to try to keep the world from going boom. In walks a cryogenically preserved “average man” of our time (yeah, it’s almost verbatim the same setup as Idiocracy) who the super-humans hope can find a solution to The Problem. Mild spoiler here, but The Problem they struggle to solve is essentially “How the fuck do we get rid of all these morons?!” Our man-from-the-present has a way, and it’s something none of the super-humans would ever think of. It’s an interesting read, and is considered by some to be one of the best science fiction novellas published before 1965. Since it first appeared in Galaxy this is yet another story you can read for free online. (See, I take good care of you, fine reader. All three stories this month are available just a click away.) I think Pohl described his friend best when he wrote “Cyril was a wise as well as a talented man. He was also a sardonic soul. The comedy present in almost everything he wrote relates to the essential hypocrisies and foolishness of mankind. His target was not always Man in the abstract and general. Sometimes it was one particular man, or woman, thinly disguised as a character in a story – and thinly sliced, into quivering bits. Once or twice it was me.”* I have a feeling I would have got along really well with Kornbluth. Except maybe for his epically bad breath. *From Pohl’s introduction to The Best of C. M. Kornbluth, published 1976. I’ve written about how Star Trek struggles to handle the concept of religion, but that doesn’t mean that Star Trek can’t be interpreted through the language of religion. In fact, the greatest messianic figure in all of Trek lore is undoubtedly Zefram Cochrane. First off, we should establish that Star Trek can be interpreted as a system of mythology, with myth being defined as “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people,” with those “people” being devout Star Trek fans – Trekkies or Trekkers. The idea being that the future-history of Star Trek shows us where our world can go if we put aside our hate; a future of racial integration, and a world without poverty or hunger. An alternative definition of myth is as a synonym for parable, being “a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude,” which is a good description of how a lot of fans I grew up with thought about individual episodes of Star Trek. According to Trek mythology, Zefram Cochrane was the human being that invented warp drive. He accomplished this task in a post-World War III apocalyptic waste, and almost single handed, with only the help of a Black woman that future-history has largely forgotten (which says a lot more than I can unpack here). As the story goes, Cochrane piloted the human race’s first faster-than-light spaceship, which attracted the attention of a passing Vulcan spacecraft. The Vulcans, learning that humans had discovered warp travel, land on Earth to introduce themselves. These events are shown in the film Star Trek: First Contact, in which the Next Generation crew have to travel back in time to make sure the aforementioned first contact event happens as it is supposed to. Events force the crew to confront Zefram Cochrane and tell him who they are and what he has to do to bring about the human utopia portrayed in the rest of Star Trek lore. But the man they meet does not match up with the historical figure. This is not the visionary scientist they learn about in school. This man is a womanizer and an alcoholic. Cochrane later admits that he never built the ship for the reasons future generations think he did. "I didn’t build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity… I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with naked women. That’s Zefram Cochrane. That’s his vision. This other guy you keep talking about, this historical figure? I never met him. I can’t imagine I ever will." Cochrane clearly asserts that he is not a saint, and from our perspective he certainly isn’t. But according to the parable of first contact that’s okay, because he hasn’t yet been spiritually transformed. Star Trek is fairly unique among science fiction stories in that it portrays first contact with an alien race as an almost universally positive societal transformation. A lot of science fiction views first contact as a threat leading to annihilation, drawing parallels to historical “first contacts” between societies on Earth (i.e. Native American Indians and Columbus, or almost any country and the British). Still more science fiction views first contact in more mundane terms, being just another amazing thing that happens to technologically advanced societies that they learn to live with (the television series Babylon 5 comes to mind). First contact is different in Star Trek. At least for humanity, the knowledge that we are not alone in the Universe sparked a spiritual awakening and a golden age. The crew of the Enterprise tell Cochrane that his warp flight will “change everything.” "It is one of the pivotal moments in human history, doctor! You get to make first contact with an alien race, and after you do, everything begins to change… It unites humanity in a way no one ever thought possible when they realize they’re not alone in the Universe. Poverty, disease, war, they’ll all be gone within the next fifty years. But unless you make that warp flight… none of it will happen." Warp drive is a transformative technology in Star Trek. It is the point in a species’ technological development where it becomes okay for other alien races to introduce themselves. In the same way that the atom bomb resulted in mass societal change, faster-than-light travel magically unites a species for the common good. As a result, Zefram Cochrane is a messianic figure for the humans of Star Trek. Once a man consumed by hedonism, alcohol, and greed, when he became the first human to shake an alien’s hand he was spiritually transformed. Within him resides all of humanity, because they too will set aside their petty conflicts and stand together to feed the hungry, sooth the poor, and bring about true peace on Earth. They can do this not because of some technological advancement, but simply because they choose to. News of first contact triggers a global spiritual awakening and transforms our species in a few short decades. In a way, this is Star Trek’s origin myth, because through this one event the story world that we watch is made possible. At least, that’s one way to look at it. Let’s get something straight before we begin: I am neither pro- or anti-religion. I feel it’s necessary to lay that out at the beginning because there is a natural instinct in our society when reading anything about religion in popular culture to divine through the tea leaves the spiritual orientation of the author. My interest in how religion is discussed in Star Trek (and science fiction in general) is in the undeniable fact that religion is something that a vast number of humans continue to practice in their daily lives and, as such, religion is fair game for science fiction the same way any topic of human society is. Of course, if Star Trek never addressed religion that would be a point in and of itself, but from time to time Star Trek does address the topic of religion in various alien cultures. Since the aliens of Star Trek serve as reflections of contemporary Western society, how Trek approaches religion is a reflection of how the writers view religion. So how does Star Trek view religion?
First we should acknowledge that science fiction generally does a bad job of addressing religion, and science fiction television is a particularly poor venue. Perhaps the most deep reflections on religion in science fiction television come from the 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica, in which religion featured prominently throughout. I’m a huge fan of that series, and if you’re familiar with the show you might be aware that the final episode was extremely contentious and angered many fans (I’m not one of them). The final episode of Battlestar is the clearest indicator I’ve ever had of whether or not someone is comfortable with the concept of religion in science fiction. Can an atheist accept that God can exist in a work of fiction? In my experience there are a lot of atheist fans of science fiction for which the answer is a clear “no.” Truth is that Star Trek addressing religion at all is going to put the show in a precarious position. Which is why it’s so surprising that the show not only decides to touch on the topic, but so often fumbles it. There are two episodes of Star Trek that stand out in my mind when thinking about religion. The first is the Next Generation episode “Who Watches the Watchers”. In that episode the Enterprise races to a hidden anthropology research station which is studying a primitive Bronze Age alien race called the Mintakans. The Mintakans are described as “proto-Vulcan” meaning that although they are primitive they are “highly logical” and thus not superstitious. One of the Mintakans witnesses the Enterprise crew beaming away while the hidden observation post is temporarily made visible by a malfunction, which quickly convinces the Mintakans that gods do exist and that Captain Picard is their leader. The episode focuses on Picard’s attempts to undo the damage the Enterprise has inadvertently done to the Mintakan’s culture. At one point Counselor Troi, disguised as a Mintakan, is going to be sacrificed to please The Picard. Troi asks the man about to shoot her if he is certain that her death is what The Picard wants. “That’s the problem in believing in a supernatural being,” she says, “trying to determine what He wants.” This is a fair and true statement, but it is also not the logical trap that it is portrayed as in the episode. The overt statement made in the episode is that by making the naturally logical Mintakans once again believe in gods, the Enterprise has reverted their culture to a less developed state. Secular logic good. Religion bad. Science good. Faith in god bad. In the end Picard convinces the Mintakans that they are actually just technologically advanced aliens from another planet, which is clearly easier to believe than that they are gods, and nowhere near as horrible for their culture. In the end the leader of the Mintakans asks Picard to remember her people, and I couldn’t help but think Picard was wishing that they would all forget about his. Undoubtedly this culture was contaminated by an understanding of aliens from other worlds, which is somehow less problematic than a very natural belief in supernatural beings. Another standout episode is from Voyager titled “Prophecy”. Seventy years into deep space, Voyager encounters a hundred year old Klingon ship which has been converted into a generation ship by a group of Klingon pilgrims in search of a savior. Their search is based on an ancient scripture, and they have searched for decades for the Klingon messiah. They come to believe that the pregnant B'Elanna Torres is carrying the messiah, and paste together some Nostradamus logic to make the case. This episode intrigued me, as it is a setup to explore some interesting issues between religion and the Federation belief system. However the episode quickly deteriorates. We learn that the Klingon’s leader posses no faith, and is simply trying to save his people after the destruction of their ship. He wants to settle on a nearby planet, and is willing to use his people’s beliefs to manipulate them into settlement, asking the Voyager crew to assist in the deception. Captain Janeway agrees, and Torres helps the Klingon leader to manipulate the story of her life to fit the sacred scrolls. In the end, stem cells from Torres’s hybrid Klingon-Human fetus heal a disease the Klingon pilgrims have suffered from for decades, thus the messiah has healed their people and they settle on a nearby planet, never to be heard from or discussed again. Religion in this episode is nothing but a flawed belief system that fools adopt, leading their families to suffering and pain, and that can ultimately be used by leaders to exploit the masses. It has to be the single most cynical portrayal of religion in all of Star Trek, and the ease with which the supposedly enlightened Starfleet officers agree to exploit a community’s spiritual beliefs is shocking. Any discussion of religion in Star Trek has to touch on the whole of Deep Space Nine, whose main character, Captain Benjamin Sisko, is found to be the Emissary of the gods of the Bajoran people. The Bajoran people have just recently exited from a Holocaust at the hands of their nearest celestial neighbors, the Cardassians. The gods of the almost universally adopted Bajoran religion are the Prophets, who scripture says reside in a “Celestial Temple” that is meant to be a physical place. Sisko discovers a stable wormhole near Bajor that is the home of a non-corporeal race of aliens that live outside time, which he quickly realizes to be the Prophets of the Bajoran faith, as they admit to guiding the Bajorans throughout history. The series explores the themes of belief in enigmatic gods and the influence religion can have on a troubled society. Even in this fertile ground most of the storylines that come up portray religion as a system of control (one recurring villain is the Bajoran Pope) or which dismisses the Prophets as nothing more than weird aliens. In numerous episodes Starfleet leadership argues with Sisko about the Prophets, calling them “wormhole aliens” and trying to either distance him from his role as the Emissary, or to get him to exploit his position to convince the Bajorans to join the Federation. Even when faced with the fact of an alien race that lives outside of time which frequently guides the Bajoran race, the Federation citizens criticize the Bajorans for their faith in these same beings. The Prophets never claim to be something they’re not, but still, religion is bad, even when that faith is placed in scientifically verifiable claims. The ultimate issue is that Star Trek can never bring itself to acknowledge the most basic fact about religion: that religious faith gives many people comfort. This form of spiritual comfort is fundamentally incompatible with the Star Trek ethos because the utopia that the Federation embodies is one of materialistic comfort. Nobody is hungry, there is no poverty, and war is largely unheard of. The body is nourished, leaving only the mind. In the Federation, the mind is nourished by science and the freedom to pursue your worldly desires. But the basic comfort of belief in a higher power, in an ordering force for the Universe… that is absent from this utopia. There is a closed mindedness that comes from this worldview, because if we embrace an unbending belief that religion is nothing but a cynical system of control for fools, that ignores the appeal of religion for many in modern society. This belief robs us of the opportunity to understand one another. It is a fact that religion has sometimes led to human suffering, but it is a fact that science has as well. Religion, like science, is not inherently good or evil, it is what we do with them that matters. A belief that religion is always bad is a belief that is simply not based on factual evidence, and Star Trek itself would criticize such a belief. |
AuthorDr. Andrew Porwitzky is a scientist and freelance writer living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is the author of numerous works of fiction, scientific articles, and essays. 
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