The Filipina Frontier
I goofed last week when I discussed Filipino representation in STAR TREK. There were a few of the pamilya I missed. Mea culpa.
Let me make that up to y'all now and showcase those I forgot because of my nearly 50-year-old memory banks. And yet I can still clearly remember all the words to Gin Blossom's "Allison Road," but not my childhood phone number or the remaining Filipinos on STAR TREK.
Let's take a look at the ones who graced THE ORIGINAL SERIES.
Captain Kirk's Enterprise encountered two Filipinas on its five-year mission, cut painfully short by NBC executives.
Pilar Seurat as Sybo in "The Wolf in the Fold."
Seruat, given name Rita Hernandez, migrated to the United States from the Philippines as a child. She broke into television in the late 1950s and became a frequent guest on several hit shows, such as MAVERICK and NAKED CITY. In her television journey, she worked with Gene Roddenberry on his previous series THE LIEUTENANT and with George Takei on VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.
Seurat appeared in a second-season episode of STAR TREK, "The Wolf in the Fold," as Sybo, wife of the planet's prefect. When Scotty is accused of killing three women, the empathic Sybo steps in to help Captain Kirk's investigation. She ferrets out the real culprit with her genetically-inherited empathic abilities.
The murderer is an alien entity, called Redjac, who can inhabit people and machines, but only she could feel its presence during an empathic séance.
But before she could fully tell anyone, Redjac leapt into the body of the planet's chief investigator. Then, they puppeteered the investigator to murder Sybo with the same murder weapon that they forced Scotty to use. It's later revealed that Redjac feeds on fear. That the creature had been known on Earth as Jack the Ripper.
Seruat made many more TV appearances before retiring from acting in the 1970s. But STAR TREK wasn't her only science-fiction contribution. She's also the mother of Dean Devlin, writer and producer of STARGATE and INDEPENDENCE DAY. She passed in 2001.
BarBara Luna, "Mirror, Mirror"
Born in New York, Luna is part of the Mestizo Mafia, like me. Her mother was from Budapest, and her father was from Manila. This gave her what's known in the business as an "ethnically ambiguous look," which got her cast in a variety of ethnic roles. First, on Broadway, in shows like THE KING AND I and TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON. After making her film debut, she was cast opposite crooner Frank Sinatra in THE DEVIL AT 4 O'CLOCK.
Throughout the 1960s, Luna guest-starred on several shows, including MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. She joined the Enterprise in the episode "Mirror, Mirror," as Lt. Marlena Moreau, where she got to play two versions of the same character — a colluding love interest in a parallel universe and the one in our usual Trekverse. When Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty are accidentally beamed into this Mirror Universe, Moreau eventually helps them escape.
Although at first, she tries to get them to take her to their universe as she's sick of her conniving, backstabbing world. But only the original landing party can make the transition. So Moreau stays behind with that universe's Spock, whom Kirk convinces to overthrow the evil Terran Empire and build something better.
Luna later returned to STAR TREK in two fan productions for the NEW VOYAGES team.
Next week: The Filipinos of STAR TREK: PICARD