Stolen from the Forbidden Planet International Blog Log:

The Women of Star Trek

Here’s a bit of browsing fun as the holidays edge closer and closer - a Flickr user called Poletti has created a photo-stream of “Galactically Hot” women from the original 1960s Star Trek. Now, now, don’t tut-tut, you know fine well that you want a look, but only to examine those retro-futuristic clothes and hairstyles of the 60s, of course, honest… Quite funny to look back through a number of them gathered together like this - there’s a very, very young Joan Collins and look, there’s a very young Diana Muldaur, pictured below in those oh-so-sexy mini-skirted Starfleet uniforms (hey, it might have been the 23d century, but the costume designers were firmly in the Swinging 60s!), although if my memory served she appeared again as a different character in another classic Trek episode.



Of course much later on in the 1980s she would return to Trek, this time for the second season of the Next Generation, replacing Gates McFadden in playing the ship’s doctor for a season. I realise how big a geek I am when I look at these pictures and can place the episode for most of them are from and I’m sure that’s the case with a lot of us. And while we’re browsing, extra-credit at Starfleet Academy’s SF Pervert Course if you can identify the actress in Poletti’s same Trek women photo-stream who would later infamously appear in a hardcore naughty movie (no, we’re not posting pics from that!). Strange that there are no green-skinned Orion slave girls in the collection though… I notice Poletti also has a similar stream but this time for classic cult British science fiction show UFO, a live action Gerry Anderson series which managed to make silver jumpsuits and purple wigs sexy, especially on Gabrielle Drake’s Gay Ellison (below) character on the moonbase. No wonder they made a collector’s doll of her. How the future used to look… (link via Boing Boing)



Diana Muldaur did indeed play more than one character on Classic Trek, and after having my memory jogged by these photos, I definitely see where Gene Roddenberry was coming from on that score. You might not think it if you've only seen her as Doc Pulaski on Next Gen (or, God help you, as Rosalind Shays on L.A. Law), but goddamn, she was a little hottie back in the day.

Its why I'll always enjoy the origial Trek over the shows that came after it, which took themselves far too seriously. TOS was about three swinging bachelors (well, two and a half) cruising the galaxy getting into fights and meeting girls.

I'm glad to see they included Mariette Hartley as one of the ladies. Yowza!

I like the classic Trek, but I admit I'm more of a fan of Next Gen or Voyager (I thought the subjects they explored with the Doctor were by far the most entertaining part of that series, although some of it had been done with Data before I suppose).

~Hat~