Horatio Hornblower
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Search complete. 255 mentions across 14 episodes found for "Horatio Hornblower".
Sep 16, 2026
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
Now, in the terrific book, Star Trek and the British Age of Sail, Stefan Rabich identifies the transatlantic double consciousness, of Star Trek's dual foundations, based on creator Gene Roddenberry's original pitches for Star Trek.
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
These include the U.S.-centric wagon train to the stars concept of frontier exploration, and the British Horatio Hornblower in space sense of naval prowess.
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
Roddenberry obviously drew connections between the tales of the U.S. Western series Wagon Train, which ran from 1957 to 1965, and the fictional Horatio Hornblower.
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
a British Royal Navy officer who served during the Napoleonic Wars in a series of 11 completed novels, one unfinished one, and several short stories published from 1937 to 1967 by British author C.S. Forrester, and dramatic adaptations of these works that followed.
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
Both works of historical fiction, that is, Wagon Train and the Horatio Hornblower series, they share an emphasis on adventure and honor, individual heroism and valiant teamwork, offering tales of a once real but then heavily mythologized past as inspirations for the present and the future, providing instructive morality tales.
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
The wagon train episodes and Horatio Hornblower tales are also popular exemplars of separate national myths.
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
These myths possess different meanings, while privileging certain peoples and erasing others.
Amy H. SturgisCORRESPONDENT
While the Western as a genre draws upon the idea of U.S. exceptionalism, for example, westward expansion, and rugged individualism, the British naval tale underscores the notion of duty.
Peter LohmannHOST
So I...
Peter LohmannHOST
I grew up on Horatio Hornblower.
Jon MatznerHOST
Yeah, you've mentioned that.
Jon MatznerHOST
Which is kind of
Peter LohmannHOST
like the competitor, if you will, to the Master and Commander series.
Peter LohmannHOST
Love Horatio Hornblower.
Peter LohmannHOST
I read through the whole series multiple times.
Peter LohmannHOST
And about 10 years ago, I read Master and Commander and kind of bounced off it.
Bob CescaHOST
Yes, yes.
Bob CescaHOST
And that was a moment of Kirk expressing some real self-doubt, which is something that we don't see often in the rest of the run of the original series because he's this Horatio Hornblower kind of leader and he is unflappable, full of bravado and swagger.
Bob CescaHOST
And so to have that moment where he's like, Yeah, you know what? I hope I'm making the right choice because the stakes of this might be beyond me.
Bob CescaHOST
And it reminded me very much so of John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
speaker_13UNKNOWN
So my hot take is probably fairly clear.
speaker_13UNKNOWN
I prefer Star Trek as like a Horatio Hornblower, Lieutenant Leary style series of action, philosophical discussions more than the quirky science squad that it's sort of turning into.
speaker_13UNKNOWN
Interesting.
speaker_13UNKNOWN
That's very hot.
Terry MatalasGUEST
Well,
Mark A. AltmanHOST
he went back to Horatio Hornblower, one of the original inspirations of Star Trek and and.
Mark A. AltmanHOST
you know, and it's interesting because I'm probably the oldest one here.
Mark A. AltmanHOST
So I remember, you know, seeing it in a theater and finding it a little incongruous at the time.
35 MINS LATER
Nicholas MeyerGUEST
And when I was watching it, and I didn't understand what I was seeing a lot of the time.
Nicholas MeyerGUEST
I just thought, why does it look like they're in a Holiday Inn? And I didn't understand the uniforms, and I didn't understand the show until I thought of something that I had read when I was a kid, along with Sherlock Holmes when I was 11.
Nicholas MeyerGUEST
Around 13, I discovered The Adventures of Captain Horatio Hornblower, written by a man who called himself C.S. Forrester, wasn't his name, who also wrote The African Queen.
Nicholas MeyerGUEST
And I said, oh, hang on a minute.
Craig HoustonHOST
Kirk was definitely based on John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Stuart JacksonGUEST
And Horatio Hornblower.
Stuart JacksonGUEST
Exactly.
Stuart JacksonGUEST
But it's a very utopian, it's a very optimistic.
Peter MooreHOST
The autobiography remains the book that most powerfully shapes our picture of Cochrane today.
Peter MooreHOST
C.S. Forrester mined it when he was working on his Hornblower series, and Patrick O'Brien used it as the keystone for his novel Master and Commander, 1969, with his irresistible hero Jack Aubrey evolving out of the 25-year-old Cochran, whose HMS Speedy became HMS Sophie, whose Gamow became La Cacafuego, and whose Dr. Guthrie provided the hint for Stephen Machen.
Peter MooreHOST
A trove for the novelist, the autobiography is nonetheless problematic for the historian.
Peter MooreHOST
In the last years of the 1850s when it was composed, Dundonald was an old, frail man.
L.W. MarshallHOST
Its creator, Gene Roddenberry, had pitched the idea to the network.
L.W. MarshallHOST
He said he was inspired by Horatio Hornblower novels, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, and the 1956 classic Forbidden Planet, one of my favorites.
L.W. MarshallHOST
And even if you don't like that movie, you see parts of it every year when you watch Halloween because they have actual footage from Forbidden Planet on the screen.
L.W. MarshallHOST
Part of that marathon that seems to go on forever.
JodiHOST
Okay, the story today.
JodiHOST
Last season, because we're nearing the end of season two here, at the end of season one, our season one, we met a young midshipman in the British Navy named Mr. Horatio Hornblower.
JodiHOST
And back then, he was brand new to Navy life and seasick every time he went to sea, but already exceptional with a calculating mind and amazingly fast and innovative thinking.
JodiHOST
So before this season closes out, we had to include another hornblower and see how he's progressing.
JodiHOST
So let's get into it.
JodiHOST
Time for a story.
StephenHOST
When Lieutenant Bush comes aboard the British warship Renown, he is welcomed by a skinny, formal-appearing officer named Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower.
StephenHOST
As Mr. Bush assumes his position on the ship, he is repeatedly confused and impressed by the behavior of this young lieutenant.
ScottHOST
there is some great scenes in this okay we're missing some of the regulars but there is a lot of famous faces before we get to the Village Hall of Fame Mark mentioned Percy Herbert and Donald Houston Now, Donald Houston, I think, is perfect casting.
ScottHOST
If this was a serious, you know, Mutant on the Bounty-type, Hornblower-type movie, Donald Houston would play that role.
ScottHOST
Mark, I mean, you haven't really got a problem, as you said, with it, but I think it's quite refreshing to see these two together.
ScottHOST
It adds a bit of gravitas to it, doesn't it, as well? It does.
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