I think it's funny that the episode that very briefly mentions Irish unification was banned, but the episode that stereotyped all Irish men as drunkards and all Irish women as scolds was just fine.
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024
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I mean, one was viewed as being supportive of an ongoing terrorist campaign, a touchy subject in both Ireland and the UK, that no TV channel wanted to get involved with, and the other was viewed as a dumb cringe-inducing stereotype.
Imagine the tables were turned and an Irish or British show airing in 2001 had an episode where they appear to be supportive of al-qaeda carrying out 9/11, and another episode where they depict Americans as being fat, uneducated, pickup-driving hillbillies with tacky bleached blonde hair.
I suspect US networks wouldn't show the first episode, but they'd show the other one, even knowing it'd elicit an eye roll and a "Christ, is that really what they think we're like?" from the audience.
I get why they banned the one they banned (even though I wouldn't have been okay with it at the time), I just think it's funny because Up the Long Ladder is basically "let's cram as many Irish stereotypes into one episode as we possibly can" and they didn't think that it might be extremely offensive to Irish people.
EDIT: Just the very concept that Irish people would colonize another planet in order to be pig farmers is pretty offensive.
Most of those early episodes weren't just fine.
It's always rubbed me the wrong way when people regularly say it was banned in the UK (funny enough, people never mention that Ireland also didn't show it).
The BBC in the UK and RTE in Ireland chose not to show it. It's a bit like saying Comedy Central cutting the Muslim prophet Muhammad from that south park episode means he was banned from US TV. It's not the same thing.
To my knowledge, the episode has now been shown in full in the UK plenty of times, but not yet in Ireland.
And it's completely reasonable that both broadcasters chose not to show it. It was effectively condoning ongoing terrorism where innocents were being killed.
Imagine if Enterprise had some pro-al-qaeda remarks immediately after 9/11. There's no way networks would show it lol
Thankfully, the GFA came about and the troubles were ended in the way that Picard advocated in the episode - with diplomacy, compromise, and dialogue, not endless violence.
It's a bit like saying Comedy Central cutting the Muslim prophet Muhammad from that south park episode means he was banned from US TV. It's not the same thing.
It's a fair point but not quite the same. At the time in Ireland the vast majority of the population only had access to RTÉ (and BBC if you had a big aerial on your roof and lived close enough to the north) so both state broadcasters not choosing to broadcast was an effectively a ban.
Satellite and cable were taking root but cable wasn't an option where I lived at the time which was only 20KM from the centre of Dublin city. Outside the major cities it just wasn't happening.
We did get a satellite dish around that time so that we weren't restricted to just two channels (edit: our house was located in a lowland that ruled out BBC even with the usual roof aerial) but with Sky in on the ban that would have ruled that out as a way to see it too.
Different times!
Hello there fellow Dub. :) I grew up in Fairview and Greystones aka British Bray.
Hello fellow Dub. :) I'm a Northsider too. Your brief foray to the south (even if it is the north of Wicklow it'll always be the south side) doesn't count and means we're kindred. :D
Maybe I'm not fully versed in The Troubles, but why must Irish unification be terrorism?
In the episode it is stated that Irish unification happened because terrorist attacks kept happening for decades and the British government eventually just gave in to the terrorists.
Oh, you're right. I'm well versed enough in Star Trek to have already known that. For some reason I didn't actually think about the episode.
Just to nitpick - the BBC is a government entity, so I think it's a fair point.
Consider RT's coverage on the war in Ukraine. Is it RT dictating it or is it the Russian government.
The BBC is not a government entity. It is publicly owned but not government-owned.
It's not comparable to RT.