Why were the other characters so hostile to Christine Chapel?

[Christine]

As the character who inspired my forum username, I'm obviously going to be a bit biased to Chapel, but I do think she was treated like dirt by the other characters and I've no idea why. Her mooning over people could be annoying, but she was so inoffensive I find it strange that the other characters seemed almost weirdly hostile towards her. Whether the actors meant to play it this way or not, I don't know, but McCoy in particular treated her like something that had crawled out from under his shoe.

I was reading an older, lovely post on here about Chapel and her hidden depths and how she basically represented hope, and I totally agreed with it. I feel Chapel was a character with a lot of potential but for some reason I sense that the writers didn't like the character and so they underused her and had the other characters act oddly unpleasant towards her for no apparent reason.

It's one of the few things that seriously irks me about TOS and something I find a negative distraction during Chapel's scenes. I can overlook a lot of the not-so-great things about TOS, but the treatment of Chapel is borderline upsetting because I just can't understand it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Any examples?

 

[Therin of Andor]

the treatment of Chapel is borderline upsetting because I just can't understand it.

I don't see it. Have you noticed Uhura's fond "good luck" hug when they think they've found Dr Corby? ("What are Little Girls Made of?") Spock is quite gentle with her in "Plato's Stepchildren".

Isn't any friction towards Chapel more due to her job? People are scared of nurses. They are also scared of the doctor, too, but they are more likely to take out their fears on the doctor's underling.

Chapel is feisty: poor ol' Garrovick wasn't sure what to make of her when he was in sick bay in "Obsession".

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I have not noticed any particular nastiness toward Chapel in any of the episodes. Examples would be welcome.

I do seem to recall instances where Chapel may have been in a scene, but not given any lines of dialog, essentially being ignored by the others. But that's really not any slight directed at Chapel. It's just a result of her being a minor character and the era in which TOS was made. Shows of that era were, for the most part, more concerned with keeping scenes tight and focused on the story rather than with giving all the actors something to say.

 

[horatio83]

The only Starfleet officer I remembered being mobbed was Barclay. Chapel was perhaps portrayed as a bit naive but I did not sense any hostility by other characters.

 

[Sindatur]

I remember, McCoy had to verbally slap Nurse Chappel once or twice, and Spock abusing her when he was under the influence of his hormones in Amok Time, but, I don't remember any other instances of hostility towards her from the crew

 

[Pauln6]

I don't think TOS was that kind to Chapel as a character in general. She is cited as a scientist in WaLGMo but at no point in the episode does she use any scientific knowledge. She is qualified as a researcher but generally just assists McCoy. Most significant scenes involve her mooning over either Korby or Spock.

In TMP it looked like they were grooming her to become the more scientific doctor, the one who would be at home in the 'computer centre' but events conspired to see Chapel fade away.

Personally I think they should have placed far more focus on her as a scientist rather than making her a second fiddle MD. As an astrobiologist she could have filled a niche unoccupied by either Spock or McCoy that would have given her some input in her own right.

It was disappointing to see 'Nurse' Chapel featured briefly in NuTrek. They should have drafted Chapel in from life sciences to help out in the crisis.

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

In TMP it seems as though Kirk does slight Dr. Chapel in the scene after Spock mind-melds with V'ger, onboard the Enterprise in Sickbay. Kirk responds to Dr. Chapel as though he is speaking down to her or at her instead of to her, he does not even look at her while he is responding to her question. This may have been staged this way so the actress got paid less under SAG rules, or Bill Shatner may have been trying to upstage Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, or it may have been Director Robert Wise's decision to stage that scene that way, I don't know.


Here is the script excerpt courtesy of http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/startrek01.html

320   ACROSS THEM TO SICKBAY                                     320
 
 
                               KIRK
                            (gently)
                    Were you right? Spock? V'ger
                    is a living machine...?
 
                                  SPOCK
                            (nodding)
                    A life form of its own; a
                    conscious, living entity.
 
                                  CHAPEL
                            (reacting)
                    [B]A [U]living machine[/U]...?![/B]
 
                                  McCOY
                            (to Chapel)
                    [U]We're[/U] living machines, too: protein
                    mechanisms.
 
          Kirk nods at McCoy.
 
                                  KIRK
[B]             And it considers the Enterprise a[/B]
[B]             living machine: that's why the[/B]
[B]             probe refers to our ship as an[/B]
[B]             entity.[/B]

In the above script excerpt the following was not in the film:

                                  McCOY
                            (to Chapel)
                    [U]We're[/U] living machines, too: protein
                    mechanisms.
 
          Kirk nods at McCoy.

and Kirk's response to Chapel's question in the film was:

                                  KIRK
[B]             It considers the Enterprise a[/B]
[B]             living machine: that's why the[/B]
[B]             probe refers to our ship as an[/B]
[B]             entity.[/B]

Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

[Destructor]

I remember Rand being treated like shit a lot.

 

[AFEK ESLCAFE W]

I remember Rand being treated like shit a lot.

The fictional world of Star Trek was progressive; the real world TPTB still had (has) a long way to go...

 

[T'Girl]

Kirk: "And it considers the Enterprise a living machine: that's why the probe refers to our ship as an entity. "

McCoy: "We're living machines, too: protein mechanisms."
.

Am I the only one who finds this a profoundly odd thing to be coming out of McCoy's mouth? Considering his position on Humanity in the past, now we are "mechanisms?"

 

[Jonas Grumby]

^ No, you're not the only one. I thought it was odd, too.

I suppose people can change. But that seems a pretty big shift for McCoy in only three years.

 

[AFEK ESLCAFE W]

I personally found Christine Chapel to be part of the main TOS ensemble and was surprised to findout that she was not included in subsequent sequels with the rest of the USS Enterprise crew's main adventures beyond TMP.

Majel was the only TOS main cast member not to have her handprints imprinted at the Gauman Chinese Theatre. That really says something there.

 

[Esteban]

I personally found Christine Chapel to be part of the main TOS ensemble and was surprised to findout that she was not included in subsequent sequels with the rest of the USS Enterprise crew's main adventures beyond TMP.

Majel was the only TOS main cast member not to have her handprints imprinted at the Gauman Chinese Theatre. That really says something there.

With all due respect to Ms. Barrett, her acting credentials--and, I might argue, abilities--were rather thin.

Whitney and Takei and Koenig all had more chops before the series. She, alas, was the mistress of the producer.

What's fair is fair.

 

[A.V.I.A.F.]

This is pure speculation here based on some facts. Is it not true that Barrett lost her role as "No.1" due to negative reactions from women who viewed her role in The Cage as uppity for a woman?

Perhaps, this stayed with the producers and so they wanted to keep her role relatively docile. Barrett seems to have a naturally strong presence and so perhaps the goal was to try to keep that as subdued as possible.

I never liked McCoy's tendency to literally snap his fingers at her (and to others as well).

 

[Nerys Myk]

This is pure speculation here based on some facts. Is it not true that Barrett lost her role as "No.1" due to negative reactions from women who viewed her role in The Cage as uppity for a woman?

Perhaps, this stayed with the producers and so they wanted to keep her role relatively docile. Barrett seems to have a naturally strong presence and so perhaps the goal was to try to keep that as subdued as possible.

I never liked McCoy's tendency to literally snap his fingers at her (and to others as well).

Nah, she lost her role because she was Roddenberry's mistress.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I personally found Christine Chapel to be part of the main TOS ensemble and was surprised to findout that she was not included in subsequent sequels with the rest of the USS Enterprise crew's main adventures beyond TMP.

Majel's white medical smock from TMP was given the same ST II update as Kelley's, so at one point they were obviously expecting her to take up the invitation to join the cast for at least a cameo. The Roddenberrys sent a letter to all the fan clubs, just before filming on ST II commenced, to explain that Roddenberry had been demoted to Creative Consultant, that neither Bennett nor Meyer had to read his memos re the script, and that Majel would not be appearing, as support for her husband's stance on the film.

GR added that fans would know his final feelings on the matter because he reserved the right to remove his own name from the credits, as a sign to the fans.

Majel was the only TOS main cast member not to have her handprints imprinted at the Gauman Chinese Theatre. That really says something there.

Had she done ST II, and then ST III, Chapel would probably still have been part of the "big eight" (as in TMP).

 

[T'Girl]

Is it not true that Barrett lost her role as "No.1" due to negative reactions from women who viewed her role in The Cage as uppity for a woman?

The Cage was screened for NBC executives, male NBC executives. No test screenings.

 

[nightwind1]

This is pure speculation here based on some facts. Is it not true that Barrett lost her role as "No.1" due to negative reactions from women who viewed her role in The Cage as uppity for a woman?

No, it's because GR was banging her while married to another woman (as well as banging Nichelle Nichols for the entire run of the series).

 

[Maurice]

This is pure speculation here based on some facts. Is it not true that Barrett lost her role as "No.1" due to negative reactions from women who viewed her role in The Cage as uppity for a woman?

Perhaps, this stayed with the producers and so they wanted to keep her role relatively docile. Barrett seems to have a naturally strong presence and so perhaps the goal was to try to keep that as subdued as possible.

I never liked McCoy's tendency to literally snap his fingers at her (and to others as well).

Nah. I quoted this in another topic, but since it's germane to this discussion:

"In varying degrees, we're not too happy with some of the cast. We support the concept of a woman in a strong, leading role, but we have serious doubts as to Majel Barrett's abilities to 'carry' the show as co-star. We also think you could do better with the ship's doctor, the yeoman, and other members of of the crew. We applaud the attempts at a racial mix; it's exactly what we want. Hopefully, there'll be more experienced minority actors available for next year. Jeffrey Hunter was okay, and if you want to use him again, that's fine with us.

"'Leonard Nimoy isn't a problem, but the role he plays is a major problem! If you want to lose Nimoy, that's also fine with us. You've already heard the sales department reaction to the character.'"

Herb Solow, relating feedback from NBC's Mort Werner
Inside Star Trek, p. 60
​

From reading the pages I've sampled here, Solow is paraphrasing a meeting or a call rather than citing a memo or letter, so his recall may not be 100% accurate, but it does completely contradict Roddenberry's take.