Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Colonel Phillip Green, a recurring character who appeared on TOS and Enterprise.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp230
Colonel Green was a despotic militia leader on Earth during World War III in the 21st Century. He was known for his ruthless waging of war as well as some other very Hitler-esque qualities. For example, in his only appearance in TOS in the episode The Savage Curtain, we find out that one of his tactics was striking at enemies during treaty negotiations. So in dealing with him, it was kind of like dealing with the Freys in Game of Thrones...AKA, never to be trusted.
The reason we see Green in The Savage Curtain is that an alien race called the Excalibans formed a replication of him to help them study various concepts of the nature of humans and their concepts of good and evil. Obviously, there was not a much better example of evil than this.
His motto says it all:
QUOTE
"Overwhelm and Devastate!"
The character appears again in the final season of Enterprise. As we covered last week in the Arik Soong segment, a descendant of Colonel Green was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Augments trilogy of episodes, but that was re-written for Brent Spiner when that actor showed interest. Nevertheless, other stories were written to work this character in to Enterprise.
The most notable of these is in the episode Terra Prime, where a student of Green's teachings made use of the same ideologies to try and expel all non-humans from the Sol system. We learn in this episode another atrocity of Green, that being the euthanasia of hundreds of thousands of radiation-sickened humans over 3 years after the World War ended, on the basis of not passing mutations onto future generations. Much like the complicated figure of Hitler, this act had two sides and was fiercely argued at the time and in the history books. But it was pretty evil, indeed.
The character of Green was developed by Gene Roddenberry as a direct corollary to the then-recent word history, so this was another chance to speak on a social issue as Trek does so well. Green was played by Phillip Pine in TOS, who loved the part because it was such a perfect Machiavellian role. He stated before his death that it was his most recognized role, likely because in his words, "he was such an unmitigated bastard, he had no redeeming qualities at all!"
Because Pine had passed away before Enterprise was made, Steve Rankin played him during his appearances in the latter show. Rankin still acts today, but his most notable role was a 25 year stint on the soap opera All My Children.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp230
Colonel Green was a despotic militia leader on Earth during World War III in the 21st Century. He was known for his ruthless waging of war as well as some other very Hitler-esque qualities. For example, in his only appearance in TOS in the episode The Savage Curtain, we find out that one of his tactics was striking at enemies during treaty negotiations. So in dealing with him, it was kind of like dealing with the Freys in Game of Thrones...AKA, never to be trusted.
The reason we see Green in The Savage Curtain is that an alien race called the Excalibans formed a replication of him to help them study various concepts of the nature of humans and their concepts of good and evil. Obviously, there was not a much better example of evil than this.
His motto says it all:
QUOTE
"Overwhelm and Devastate!"
The character appears again in the final season of Enterprise. As we covered last week in the Arik Soong segment, a descendant of Colonel Green was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Augments trilogy of episodes, but that was re-written for Brent Spiner when that actor showed interest. Nevertheless, other stories were written to work this character in to Enterprise.
The most notable of these is in the episode Terra Prime, where a student of Green's teachings made use of the same ideologies to try and expel all non-humans from the Sol system. We learn in this episode another atrocity of Green, that being the euthanasia of hundreds of thousands of radiation-sickened humans over 3 years after the World War ended, on the basis of not passing mutations onto future generations. Much like the complicated figure of Hitler, this act had two sides and was fiercely argued at the time and in the history books. But it was pretty evil, indeed.
The character of Green was developed by Gene Roddenberry as a direct corollary to the then-recent word history, so this was another chance to speak on a social issue as Trek does so well. Green was played by Phillip Pine in TOS, who loved the part because it was such a perfect Machiavellian role. He stated before his death that it was his most recognized role, likely because in his words, "he was such an unmitigated bastard, he had no redeeming qualities at all!"
Because Pine had passed away before Enterprise was made, Steve Rankin played him during his appearances in the latter show. Rankin still acts today, but his most notable role was a 25 year stint on the soap opera All My Children.
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