But I'm not? That was just about your use of Plato's Closet, which is often mis-remembered as being controversial, when it wasn't. It was overwhelmingly positively received.
It is "Plato's Stepchildren". And, I didn't put it forth as being "controversial", really. I put it forth as a thing some parents of the day would not find suitable for children. Because the ultimate question here is exactly how much of a family show TOS was, and how much more or less of a family show The Orville is, right?
I used it as an example because claims that nobody cared would not seem plausible, given the events of the day. MLK had been shot months before, for having the audacity of saying that African Americans should have their rights protected. You really want me to think that, in places like the deep south, everyone was just hunky-dory with it? Really? The Detroit riots in 1967, the DC riots in 1968... meant that race relations were fine?!? If everyone in the nation were so cool with it... why did we need a Civil Rights Movement at all?
Will you argue next that Nichelle Nichols being on the bridge at all... wasn't notable for media of the day?
I accept that the studio didn't receive a whole lot of negative mail on it. But, that doesn't mean parents thought it was okay for kids. I mean, did you write a letter to the makers of The Orville? No? Well, then your discomfiture would not be recorded anywhere but here, which for all intents and purposes means it is lost to history. Would parents in the deep south in 1968 write to the studio, or just decide that the show was not fit for their kids and go about their lives?
There *were* shows in the day that were generally acceptable as family viewing. I've named several. And TOS Trek is more challenging than they were. That's all I am saying, in the end - Trek never was a show any family could sit down with an 8-year old and be confident that the content would be suitable.
But I do think that we might be so inured, that we don't notice that this was a little more than the usual Orville episode.
When Dr Finn is not-entirely-consensually intimate with a blob of goo, the show also discusses the sexual performance of an android, and takes on forced gender assignment surgery... this was somehow strange? I wonder if you are watching the same show I am watching.
In addition, to be inured to a thing, it must be common, right? So, if we are inured to it... it isn't unusual. I am not sure how this is helping your case at all.