Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (1 Viewer)

[FanCollector]

Those are definitely the correct episodes. You have made the numbers and usages a little too smoothly consistent, however. The truth is messier...

 

[Nelson Au]

Looks like I ran off half-cocked tryin' to give an answer!The General Order that no starship captain shall visit Talos 4 is General Order 7. The only death penalty left. I took a look-see and listened to The Menagerie carefully. I may have to give Turnabout Intruder a spin next!

 

[FanCollector]

That's right. The death penalty statute changed from General Order 7 to General Order 4 from one episode to the other. And your explanation of it in Turnabout Intruder is different (although probably more logical) from the explanation in the episode.

 

[Nelson Au]

No one on board the Enterprise has violated General Order 4!Just watched Turnabout Intruder. I had forgotten how good everyone was in that episode. Everyone focuses on Shatner's stand out performance. But everyone was great. I dont think i ever remembered the look of astonishment on Spock's face when he mindmelded with Kirk/Lester. And I don't think I ever found out why Majel's hair went back to being brunette.

 

[FanCollector]

Perhaps she thought Mr. Spock preferred brunettes? (Though evidence indicates otherwise.)Yes, good acting in Turnabout Intruder. The thing about the executions is that it seems to make Janice Lester so absolutely over the top raving crazy. She has obviously been preparing for so long; surely she realizes that executing three crew members, even if the rest of the crew allows it, will just get her fired and imprisoned. Why bother having a court martial if she is just going to stage an illegal execution anyway? Your idea of having her pretend General Order 4, whatever it might be, had been violated would have been smarter. But when Chekov says no one has violated it, he doesn't get an argument. Just that wonderful line reading of "Go to your posts..."I realize that Janice Lester is insane, so maybe it isn't the fault of the script. But it does seem as though it goes back and forth about how functional she really is. (The dermal optic test, on the other hand, is entirely the fault of the script. Any explanation at all as to why it doesn't show that Kirk is less emotionally stable than when he took command? Was he just having a particularly homicidal day when he last took it?)

 

[Nelson Au]

I'm never going to be the Captain! Kill him....I noticed this time how fast she cracked as everyone started to question her orders or point out things she missed, like the rendezvous with the Potemkin or contacting Starfleet about a change. And I thought that the way Spock is written, he's already acting early on that he is questioning Kirk's stability when he stated its usually the captain who contacts Starfleet.

 

[FanCollector]

It's a kind of variation of Spock's dictum from the end of Mirror, Mirror: it was very difficult for Janice Lester, an unstable person, to behave as a sane person. So it doesn't take much time at all for Spock and McCoy to reach the conclusion, separately, that things are not normal in the command chair. And that failing in Janice's plan made sense to me because she would not be aware of her own limitations that way and Coleman would be too weak to tell her otherwise.

 

[Ockeghem]

One of the things I really like about Turnabout Intruder are the references to earlier events (particularly when Dr. Lester is trying to convince Spock who 'she' really is). Those moments for me are priceless.

Dr. Lester: "Spock, when I was caught in the interspace of the Tholian Sector, you risked your life and the Enterprise to get me back. Help me get back now."
Dr. Lester: "When the Vians of Minara demanded that we let Bones die, we didn't permit it."

Spock: "That is true. The captain did not. However, those events have been recorded. They could've become known to you."

http://www.voyager.cz/tos/epizody/80turnaboutintrudertrans.htm

 

[FanCollector]

Can you say more about why that moment is so powerful to you?

 

[Nelson Au]

It's interesting in that my early memories of this episode is the TV Guide magazine description that this episode showcases William Shatner's acting talents as he portrays a woman who takes over Kirk's body.Then at a similar time, reading what must have been David Gerrold's The World of Star Trek. The stories that always stuck to me was Shatner arguing with the director that the door to the briefing room wasn't where the director wanted the posessed Kirk to walk towards after his tirade and ordering the executions.Then Shatner's high fever on the day he tries to ccmfort Janice on the bed. He looks sick in some of the close-ups. I remember that story everytime I see the episode. Perhaps it was in Star Trek Lives by Jacqueline Lichenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston where I read that story. Whatever happened to them? For me, it wasn't always one of the better episodes. But as we have discussed before, it does have a lot of great stuff going on. But it was odd that Roddenberry's name is on an episode where a women are not allowed to be in command of a starship.

 

[Ockeghem]

I like the coffee mug and the T-shirt! I may have to spring for one (or both) of these. There is some fun information for fans of Trek (all films and series) here. And Dr. Dehner has that glazed look in her eyes again.

http://www.startrek.com/

 

[Ockeghem]

Can you say more about why that moment is so powerful to you?

Lee,It's mostly the self-referential aspect of the statements that I like. I like such things in other contexts as well (eschatology, musicology, and theology, etc.). You know what's somewhat odd for me though? I thought Dr. Lester mentioned a line or two from Arena.

 

[FanCollector]

Scott, that makes sense, especially because such "callbacks" are relatively rare in the series. I think it was Allan Asherman who said he didn't understand why Kirk wouldn't have described some more personal moments to Spock, so that Spock's objection wouldn't apply so easily. (e.g. "Remember that time I called you an elf with a hyperactive thyroid and made fun of your mother and then you broke a food synthesizer trying to beat the hell out of me?") But even if he/she had, they would likely have had to do the mind meld anyway. Also, the audience might recall recent plot lines but perhaps it seemed like asking too much to remember more subtle character moments from past episodes.Nelson, I know we have talked about that line before. I still don't think it means women aren't allowed to be starship captains; just that they haven't yet. It's still sexism, but a less institutionalized variety. We haven't had a female president yet, for example, but it isn't a legal prohibition. I only mention it because I feel like the line is often cited as inherently sexist and I'm not sure it is. Kirk doesn't say, "Of course women can't be starship captains!" He acknowledges the truth of her statement, but doesn't endorse it. I see it as admitting that we haven't conquered sexism in the future yet, but not that sexism is good. (There are certainly examples of sexism in Star Trek; I just don't necessarily agree with the interpretation that this is one of them.) Are you surprised at Roddenberry's credit because you expect him to be more enlightened? Or because he generally avoided admitting that prejudices remained in man's future? The earliest episodes, personally produced by Roddenberry actually seem more sexist to me in many ways. That doesn't mean they reflected his personal feelings on the subject, but he didn't seem to be more concerned about it than other writers and producers on the show. I think you're right about Joan Winston. She was visiting the set that week and shared those stories. Do you remember the TV Guide close-up from the initial airing? Or did you see it later? If the former, were you excited that the series was returning after a two-month hiatus? In the days before even syndicated airings, I imagine that was a long drought.I also like the story that Fred Freiberger told about asking Roddenberry how he should go about breaking it to Shatner that he was going to be playing a crazy woman in Kirk's body. Roddenberry kept telling him not to worry because Shatner wouldn't mind at all. And sure enough, Freiberger didn't give him any advance notice and Shatner was delighted by the role. The executive producer and the star may not have gotten along very well, but Roddenberry sure seems to have understood Shatner.

 

[Nelson Au]

I got one of those coffee mugs as a gift ages ago! I still have it, it's white though.Regarding the sexism. I forget exactly what you said last time Lee, but I think you mentioned that before. That the line wasn't so much that women were not allowed as a rule, it just didn't happen yet, like a woman has not been a US President yet. Over the decades, that line has always been interpreted by everyone as if it was a rule. But I bet you are right, it was up to the point of Lester's time, just the way it was. And my interpretation was that Roddenberry would have been more enlightened about that then, given how he felt that Number One was a woman. The TV Guide synopsis I remember is always the normal one, not the Close-Up feature they used to do. Though I do remember seeing a stack of TV Guides at a Star Trek Convention where I did see the Close-Up feature on Shore Leave. I remember reading in the early days of fandom that the series was off the air for a few months before Turnabout Intruder aired, must have been in one of those books at the time. And that long a gap in my mind meant that the episode might have been filmed a few months later after a short stoppage. And that in my mind explained Majel's brown hair! But I realized later they simply didn't air it for a while for some reason. I was still a grade school kid then, so Star Trek wasn't quite as important to me yet, but it already had a grip on me! I don't recall the story of Frieberger's concern that Shatner would play a crazy woman! That's a good one. Regarding Joan Winston, I remembered after I posted that yes, it was her anecdote in that book about spending the week on the set of Star Trek. How cool is that! StarTrek.com has Joan's photos from the set posing with the cast. She appears to have had a blast! I'm sorry to see she passed aware. I do remember her appearing on Creature Features talking about the book. I saw Star Trek ID this early morning. A friend wanted to see it in IMAX 3D and had not seen it yet. I have to saw, the second viewing was better. Perhaps because I could absorb more and learn more. The large image was great! I did have an epiphany. It was clear from the first film in 2009 that this movie wants to start way apart from the series. While I am not a Harry Potter fan, and I only saw the first film, and I was indifferent to the Lord of the Rings films, those set you into a specific universe. Since I was a fan for all my life, the Star Trek universe is not so foreign to me. It's home. So it occurred to me this time around when I saw Kirk and Spock in the grey uniforms and hats, this is a Starfleet headquarters and this is a different place. And I don't mean different from the earlier franchise outings. I mean JJ Abrams wanted you to feel you are in another world and place, just like in Star Wars, that's a specific universe. So it's merely another way to set this Star Trek apart from the other fantasy/Sci Fi universes.

 

[FanCollector]

I knew that Joan Winston had died, but thank you for sending me to her startrek.com obituary. Those pictures were great!I believe the postponement of Turnabout Intruder was because Eisenhower died on March 28th when it was originally scheduled to air, and they put on an NBC News special instead. What has always puzzled me is why they didn't air it on April 4th instead. The show went on hiatus after April 4th, but they just aired a rerun that night. That's such a good point about Abrams. His movie career has consisted almost exclusively of adapting older material and it is obviously important to him to separate it from the original source. One means of doing that is the new, unique sense of "place" to which you refer. I wonder if the Star Wars people will be upset by it.

 

[Nelson Au]

I didn't know she died till recently. I agree, those photos are great, the one with Shatner I'm sure was one of her favorites! You can just make out the edge of the briefing room set.

 

[FanCollector]

Yes, she doesn't even look too concerned about catching his cold!Incidentally, Nelson, your intricate knowledge of Starfleet death sentences has earned you the next question if you like.

 

[Nelson Au]

Lee, I've got a couple ideas.Here's a related question. We've often seen episodes where a hearing or board of inquiry or trial is seen. Name all those times and or episodes.

 

[Ockeghem]

Nelson,I will start with Court Martial, The Menagerie, and Turnabout Intruder. Would Whom Gods Destroy count, or is that a mock trial and therefore not on your list?

 

[FanCollector]

The Deadly Years and Space Seed.