The biggest legacy of Star Trek is that Uhura doesn’t look revolutionary any more from the point of view of a 21st century newcomer. Its influence helped create the world we live in.
@@padinspi11 I know this fact is spread to death on all Uhura content, but, I don't care because it's the coolest fact ever and I get emotional thinking about her impact after her passing especially. 🖖🏽🖖🏾🖖🏼🖖🏿🖖🏻
You are absolutely right, and we should be proud of what we've done. But there is more we can do. I'm sad to say that old school racism is alive and well in the trades, although myself and others of my generation are trying to change that. They can't gatekeep the trades forever. Luckily my bosses' boss is closer to my age. He's still a generational business owner, but he's more aware of the way the world has been changing.
According to Shatner's book Star Trek Movie Memories, the script for TUC also had Uhura saying something like "Yeah, but would you want your daughter to marry one?", but the line was dropped altogether after Nichols flat out refused to say it. Good for her.
Can you imagine having something like that mislaid about your passion? "Ok. You pride yourself in beating Isaac Frost in one try, every time. As such, here's a twitchcam. Now say some shit for me right now about apartheid that is neither for or against. Go, actor. Improvise"
@@drt1605 And then we saw same sex marriage voted down in California, mainly because of the Black vote, proving that even a race of people who had been persecuted could turn around and vote down civil rights for others. I call HYPOCRISY on the part of NIchols and peters.
‘Didn’t reuse any elements or characters from TOS’… ironically the inverse is true. TNG actually reused a lot of unused ideas from TOS and Phase II in its early seasons, and that actually is the reason it took so long to find its own identity.
That is a valid point in many regards, and yes, that was likely a contributing factor to the early growing pains of the show. With that said, as Shanti points out, it's not strictly RE-use. However, it certainly pertains to material previously meant for, and tied to a previous iteration so there's good points on both sides of that fence I reckon. I would also add that, as a writer of sorts (I've been running TTRPG games for literally decades) I have ended up with SO VERY MANY more ideas than I have been afforded opportunities to use them, and as such I am certain other creators have, like me, acrued quite the backlog of ideas just 'waiting in the wings' for their moment under the lights. To repurpose those ideas in new settings or circumstances is a very good way of ensuring considered content at low cost and effort, so I feel it's to be somewhat expected for a fledgling show.
@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan It's not like the cast mattered in the first couple of seasons. They were generally plug and play episodes, not ones written for particular characters
@@KiraBKADestroyerOfWorlds Consider the second episode, then. "The Naked Now" was a complete repeat of "The Naked Time." And a really dumb idea for your seocnd epsiode.
While it's true that Prime Spock never forced a meld in TOS, Mirror Spock did it to McCoy in "Mirror, Mirror". McCoy didn't scream in pain (if memory serves), but his totally blank expression was chilling in it's own right. On another note, I love the way that Vulcans were portrayed in "Mirror, Mirror", because it shows aspects of their character that are always there, but - mostly - under control in the Prime Universe. It reminds me of Spock's chilling statement about his father in "Journey to Babel": "If there were a reason, my father is quite capable of killing. Logically and efficiently." Yikes!
Depends on what you mean by forced? Wasn’t there a few episodes where overcame their resistance, or made people do things they wouldn’t have otherwise done?
Be honest, most movable entities on this planet can kill if they have too. Monkeys, whales, deer, rabbits, and others. Not to mention our fellow humans. All things can kill if circumstances make it necessary.. Someone or something tries to kill you, you'll probably do your best to prevent it and if it requires killing what threatened you, most will do it.
If I'm not mistaken, the consent issue was brought up in the DS9 episode where the great Jeffrey Combs played an alien that wanted Quark to get him a holosuite version of Major Kira. Quark informed him that it was against Federation law to create holographic images of real people without their consent, but when threatened proceeded to secretly scan Kira for the program the alien wanted. The way it turned out was priceless.
@@adamweissman7286 Yeah, that's another issue. Same with the Voyager episode where they produce that cardassian surgeon. The Voyager situation can be put under the rug like "Yeah, we're at the other end of the galaxy and delete the files, nobody will ever know" And Geordi was definitely breaking some rules there. At least when it got into something personal. I mean there is a copy of him in the holodeck that Troi has to send into certain death during a test. And I don't think that was a special case just for Troi but rather the standard test she took. So there has to be some copy of some starfleet officer that has be sent in there, somebody that the testee knows to make the task harder. So I assume that there is a specific permission somewhere in the work contract that allows making a copy for work-related tasks.
The Borg, in Voyager, could have fulfilled the role of the pursuing Cylons in the early episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica. Some existential threat breathing down the necks of our rag-tag heroes.
And if the producers just really wanted to have the Borg be a presence that our crew somehow magically escapes from each time, even that could've worked with some effort. tl;dr imply there's some outside force that's weakening the Borg and that's how the Voyager crew are able to survive each time; they recognize what's happening and take advantage of it. Then end the series on a somewhat ominous note. Have a scene where Janeway is standing quietly by herself while the rest of the crew is celebrating returning to Earth. Tuvok comes up to her and asks why she's not joining in the festivities, and she goes "Because I can't help but wonder, what will happen if who or whatever was able to reduce the Borg to a nuisance [in universe, I mean] decides to come after the Federation?"
3:00 YES! Tasha Yar showed me that women can be strong, and have healthy, platonic friendships with men. At her funeral, we learn that Riker and Yar were close friends, even though we didn't get to see much of this on screen. Riker has a reputation of being a bit of a womaizer, but her and Tasha were just friends. And that mattered a lot to a pre-teen me. I see this in Lower Decks with the friendship between Tendi and Rutherford. They are both single, both trying to date, but even with Tendi being an Orion woman (highly sexualized since ToS), they are just friends, with no sexual tension. I hope little girls watching Lower Decks today get this same message. I will be pissed if the showrunners ship them.
And in that episode (that is a straight ripoff of a TOS episode, TNG even acknowledges that), She goes to Data to test his "fully functional" body, not Riker. If there was something going on between the two, she would've gone to him. Tasha was great, and even tho she wasn't in the series for long, she still had an impact.
Regarding the expectation that diverse people would be treated with respect in a workplace: That was driven home by the episode "Balance of Terror" when Kirk tells Stiles to leave his bigotry in his quarters. I was 8+ in the seventies and that scene really hit me. I work in a very diverse workplace now (a library ) and I couldn't imagine bigotry being tolerated. In fact, I'm low level management and if I saw it, I might even subconsciously call up Kirk's rebuke of Stiles. The message was clear to me at a very early age: you just don't act like Stiles. Period. Full stop. No, "well, it depends on the context…" You just DON'T DO IT.
Not having known the origins of that line, I'd always found it odd it was given to Chekov, as it struck me as them deliberately giving the Russian character a line expressing discomfort at the cold war peace analogy, which felt particularly off, at the time. Honestly if it meant that much to them to keep the line in, just give it to McCoy.
McCoy had some of the funniest lines in TOS. One of my all-time favorites was, "Get these muscle-men out of my sick bay!" I don't remember the episode, just that we had to hit pause until we could compose ourselves and stop laughing. Okay, I looked it up and I had the line wrong, still cracks me up though! "And would you get that muscleman out of my Sickbay?" Star Trek (1966) - S01E27 The Alternative Factor
For the “Holodeck prank” idea, I seem to recall there was a “Starfleet Academy” novel back in the 90’s where the cadets were sent on a mission to space dock and ended up having to fend off an attack, only to learn in the end they had been in a Holodeck for most of the time.
I was born in 63 and grew up with Star Trek. Because I saw a diverse cast I had no idea that the world was facing biggotry against women, people of color, etc. It shaped my world view in a way that made me empathetic and open. It's the best gift i've been given and makes me stand up for unity in the world. I had the great fortune of being able to have dinner with Nichelle at a convention where i was part of the small security team. She was an amazing and gracious woman.
If I recall the story correctly, "The Guess who's coming to dinner" line was given to Walter Koenig because Michelle Nichols flat up refused to say the words.
I think that's right. And, while I certainly can't presume to understand a Black woman's thoughts on this, I think it would have been more relevant and funnier coming from Uhura. I remember thinking when I saw this show that _she_ should have gotten the line, not Chekov. I didn't know why that happened until now.
Following the dinner, whilst the Enterprise is escorting the Klingon Chancellor's vessel, Kirk asks Chekov about a radiation surge, to which he miserably replies, "Only The Size Of My Head". Which has to be (For me anyway.) the most deadpan response of the TOS movies and I loved it.
I laughed out loud when you said the part about how we're not supposed to say "Get her Spock!" When my friends and I were watching TUD on opening day in a packed theater, some woman literally yelled out "GET HER SPOCK! GET THAT B*****!" I don't think that woman got the memo lol
There is a possible reason how Barkley got away with the "impersonations" of other crew member. Reference to the episode where "La Forge" created a holographic version of the warp core designer. It was only based on information that could have been accessed .The Holodeck filled in the rest of the blanks. This ended up with a fantasy version of the real person. In Barkley case I felt the same applies. Only going with information able to be accessed and altering and filling in the blanks to his Fantasy. Both counts still was very intrusive don't get me wrong there. But it would explain how he got around what was later mentioned in DS9 as against laws or mandates set.
The Spock scene was disturbing but it needs to be in context, they were facing galactic war. We saw Sisko sink into the mud in DS9, he would've known Garak was going to do what Garak does but he still chose to work with him.
Enterprise had FAR FAR more exploration and encountering completely new things all the time than Voyager. Especially funny since the ship was much slower and had to stick much closer to Earth than ships in later series.
okay so maybe I'm missing something, but in TWOK, at the end, when Kirk is making his log entry, he specifically says "'There are always...possibilities,' Spock said...and if Genesis truly is life from death...I must return to this place again." He already suspects that Spock might come back. Am I misinterpreting that, because that's always what I gathered from it.
Ahh, the poor redshirt that has to mop the holodeck floor. That said I would have written a holodeck scene where one of the crew was engaged in building a virtual model railroad. Monorail trains levitating through miniature 23rd century buildings.
Voyager deserves some of the disdain purely from how quickly they abandoned the core premise of being lost far from home. Every so often they remember and do an eposode or two... but then back to be TNG version 1.5. The notion of dwindling resources and increasingly desperate alliances had potential. By the end of the series that ship should have been a Pakled level mishmash of technologies and patchwork repairs. The Equinox is what Voyager SHOULD have been.
Wasn’t it established in TNG that the borg come from the Deta Quadrant, meaning that Voyager encountering the Borg was always part of the plan? When I was a kid that’s what I thought when I was watching season 1, I was surprised it took them so long to encounter the collective.
If I'm remembering the star map correctly, Borg Space was close to the Beta/Delta Quadrant border, hence why they were able to encounter (and nearly destroy) Guinan's race, who were native to the Beta quadrant. So they were likely always a planned part of Voyager, but vaguely located to allow them to be slotted in when the writers felt necessary.
I saw Nichelle Nicholas At a convention in Philadelphia PA. In 1985 and heard her story about how MKL talked into staying the Classic Star Trek TV series. I thought that was very inspirational and made me admire them both more than I already did.
Your comments on Robbie losing a fight on Lost in Space reminds me of the Green Hornet cross-over episode of Batman. I can imagine Bruce Lee approaching the producers and saying indignantly "You mean I have to lose a fight to Robin?"
Talking about accidental gags on the Holodeck remember when Worf was getting a promotion and had to walk the gang plank to jump up to grab the promotion and Riker misspoke when he says to remove the plank and Worf ends up in the water. Then Data who just got a emotion chips pushes Dr. Crusher also in the ocean off the old wooden battle ship. Apparently gags are timeless.
I don't think it's a plot hole in Star Trek 3 because McCoy (influenced by Spock's katra) has been trying to book passage to Genesis all over the place. He's told lots of people that he has to get to Genesis. Kirk would know this, and once he knows about Spock's katra, he must figure Spock-in-McCoy is insisting on going to Genesis for a reason. He has enough faith even in the psychological remnant of his friend that he's willing to torpedo his own career to go to Genesis on that basis alone, even if he doesn't really understand why Spock-in-McCoy wants to go to Genesis or what he plans to do there.
Kirk is also visited by Sarek who demands Kirk share Spock’s Katra with him. As his closest friend it is Kirks responsibility to bring Spock’s remains to Vulcan. Then they investigate and realize that Spock gave it to McCoy because Kirk was not there.
The one episode on Star Trek that was a take off from a Classic Hollywood Movie was Spectre of the Gun from the Gun Fight at the OK Corral. Deforest Kelly played Morgan Earp in the 1957 Classic with Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp, Kirk Douglas as Doc Holiday and Dennis Hopper as Billy Clanton.
22:06 I mean, in a way, we did see the holodeck, or holosuite, used in such a way, such as when Odo and Kira put the head of Quark on the Kira hologram in an early episode of DS9 or, in a less humorous and more nefarious way, when Sloane put Bashire through that simulation that made him think he was going to be arrested as a traitor.
30:33 I am now forced to imagine a truly fantastic horror episode where Voyager finds a derelict Cube and decide to scavenge it for some vital resource they’re dangerously low on. There’s no air & minimal lighting inside. There’s no way to know for certain if the Cube really is dead, or if it’s just lying in wait, or in sleep mode or something. The concern is raised that using borg tech might assimilate the Voyager *itself* if done incorrectly. They do solve the mystery of what killed this Cube, but it’s not something that can just be brought back to hold onto for a rainy day, not a weapon or anything like that… but *does* set up a fantastic season finale somewhere down the line where they need to recreate that event just to buy Voyager enough time to escape. There is exactly one jumpscare in the episode, when the a borg drone, cut off from the collective after feeling the rest of the Cube die, seriously injured, and experiencing the individual fear of death for the first time, uses the last of their strength to grab a member of the away team & beg for help. This could be a way to introduce Seven, or it could be a tragic parable on the individuals still trapped inside each of the borg & not being able to save everyone. A lesson the character most emotionally invested in saving the drone could then have recited back to them the next time they were about to do something suicidal, allowing the show to finally take a solid stance by either having them break down over their own helplessness or pulling away from the person lecturing them with a soft, “I have to *try.”* (I’m such a sucker for that. “You can’t save everyone.”/“But I have to try.” That saving even one person, one token, one *memory,* is better than saving nothing at all. That trying & failing is better than not trying at all. Giving it your best, because you couldn’t live with yourself if you gave it any less. Even when it fails, even when someone needs to be *stopped* from helping for the sake of the greater good or because they would’ve died in the process, that desperate compassion for complete strangers in times of strife… that’s humanity at our best. Gets me every time.)
As to the holodeck prank, they did this in DS9. Agent Sloan beamed a sleeping Dr. Bashir into a holodeck simulation to learn if he could be trusted as a Section 31 agent by putting him through a simulation where everyone claimed he was a spy for the Dominion. Not quite the level of a prank, but similar to doing that.
22:40 In The Culture novel, Surface Detail, a person is killed and uploaded into a computer before being asked if they want to be ressurected, at the bottom of their field of view is the text SIMULATION. Which the ship's Mind removes once they understand. Once again, The Culture is what The Federation would be if the writing was consistent.
My memory is sketchy but I believe there was a throwaway gag in Lower Decks where Mariner questioned her reality and says aloud: "Computer, end program" when she saw Boimler had a girlfriend that was way out of his league.
Gates McFadden tweeted about a photo of Elvis in a jump suit looked (vaguely) like a starfleet uniform and that got me thinking about far off future Elvis fans recreating concerts on the holodeck. Or a KISS fan painstakingly programming one of their acts after stumbling across old recordings in a pop history course. Would there be ensigns trying to drag their buddies to a GWAR concert? Would someone create a continuing series of concerts of the Grateful Dead as they tour?
I know you've soured a bit on Lower Decks, Steve- but your description of holodeck "pranking" is exactly what I would expect someone like Mariner to do. As for pranks at large - I think they can be funny. I think there are three key elements for a funny prank: They need to be actually harmless, they need to be easily reversed, and they need to be done to someone who will be okay with it. That means nothing that's likely to cause property damage or emotional harm, nothing that takes extensive cleanup (like anything involving glitter or filling a space with balloons), and while you don't have to interview the intended prankee ahead of time or anything, I'd say it's important to limit your pranks to people you know well, and no would be all right with the occasional prank. In the past, my go to prank has been gift wrapping my boss's computer. I individually gift wrapped the screen, the keyboard, and the mouse. I used very little tape, and it took him less than 2 minutes to undo the wrapping and throw it away - but he got a chuckle out of it and went on with his day. Pranks aren't for everyone, but for those who do enjoy them, I think that kind of thing is the right way to go.
47:47 I don't think it's a plot hole in Star Trek 3 because maybe Spock's body was supported to remain in orbit around Genesis, but the gravitational fields caused it to land on the planet. So that is why Kirk went back for the body.
51:00 question is very interesting. Especially when they found Spock as a child. It makes me feel sad now that the new Spock has a soul which will be extinguished when Spock's katra is placed back into the body.
Oh. Beaming someone into a holodeck happened in Deep Space 9 when the guy from section 31 beamed Julian into the holodeck to try to get him to confess to being a Dominion spy.
"They might have a problem with that!".... Lol.. You handled the Holodeck simulated workbuddy problem very intelligently... So smart.. You're too funny.
1 - As for anthologies, in Japan, Ultra Q was an anthology SF/F series, mainly dealing with Kaiju and some incidental recurring characters, but it was followed by the first of many (MANY) Ultraman series - which change characters with the new series, but also has some returners. 2 - As for holo-pranks, I always thought of Wes's stealth-emergency test at the Academy in that light, but for the real deal see a young Worf novella wherein he and his Russian brother enter the Academy (he has a different name than in the TNG ep) and he has a harder and harder time until a similar 'emergency' test crops up - and Worf's brother then attacks the chuckling instructor - after which he resigns from the Academy. Mind you, this was written by Peter David, who has some experience with rage-driven characters.
Wrath of Khan: When Khan said he recognized Chekov. Which would have been impossible because "Space Seed" aired in the first season of Star Trek TOS but, the character of Ensign Chekov was not added until season 2.
15:00 in another comic book Superman under the control of Max Lord nearly beats Batman to death without Batman making any meaningful attempt to resist. He tried everything he could do. It just failed to stop Superman. then later we have Blackrock-Batman where Superman convinces Blackrock to release him since... Batman would rather die than be Blackrock's body. Thus Batman would rather have Superman kill him than live as Blackrock's pawn. Which is relly weird when you consider how he's said no not be willing to kill in general, but is willing to commit suicide by Superman....
(33:44) Maybe only have one primary alien antagonist soecies per season as Voyager traverses their space, and secondary one-off species in scattered episodes here and there. Each species could be increasingly difficult for Voyager to deal with, but the crew learns from each along the way, acquiring knowledge and even technology. When they DO eventually encounter the Borg during, (say, the last two seasons the way the Dominion War dominated the last two seasons of DS9), Voyager has itself become a little like the Borg, assimilating knowledge and technology along the way, setting up that "two sides of the same coin" dichotomy that would have paid off really well. Hell, they start off by "assimilating" the Maquis crew into theirs at the very beginning, so it seems like it could have paid off very well.
I always thought for Voyager, it would have been cool if, each season, there was a different dominant alien whose territory the crew was passing through at that time. So like, season 1 is the Kazon season, season 2 is the Vidian season, etc., etc., but no, Rick Berman was so against continuity and good storytelling that he didn't even let Year of Hell be a season-long arc like the rest of the creative staff wanted.
For the Batman vs Superman part read the 1978 one-shot issue Superman vs Muhammad Ali. Superman fought Ali under a red sun light that weakened his powers. As powerful as he is I have wondered, “Does Superman have proper combat training?”
The holodeck prank: so you mean, someone on lower Decks? Mariner could do it. Or Boimler, only to be told he went too far. Just have a prank war set up and someone goes that route.
2.4K Thumbs Up + Mine! 👍 You're welcome! Thanks for a fun, insightful digital video recording! 🎬✌️🖖🙏🤠😎🤓 Notes: Wow! The answer is, "Yes!", because if I could afford it, that would mean that we had the income to do it! But we can't. 😧
Regarding Spock's body left behind on Genesis, I remember from a novelization of ST III that Saavik intentionally programmed the torpedo to make a soft landing on the planet.
I’ve always thought that the Klingon translation scene in Undiscovered Country is likely the funniest bit in a very funny film. That fake laugh at the end kills me.
Mark 43:38. I've never met actress, Kirstie Alley, but I wish that I had. But I met actress, Robin Curtis, more than once. She told my best friend and I, in a polite way, that she doesn't even dance with her husband, when she rejected my requests to dance with her. So, Lolita Fatjo, Robin Curtis, my friend, and myself, just stood there conversing while others at the event were finding people to dance with. 😁 Jennifer Lien! I admired her from afar, ever since she was, "Hannah", in the former, "NBC", series, "Another World". Jeri Ryan, I admired her from afar, ever since she was in the, "NBC" series, "Dark Skies". I've met them both in person too. The big difference is, I've seen the episodes with, "Kess", but I've missed quite a few episodes when, "Seven-of-Nine", arrived on scene. In fact, for a lot of the series, I missed quite a few episodes in their later seasons, so they are basically still new to me. So your complaints about, "Star Trek: Voyager", are lost on me. The original series though? I lost count, but it feels like I have seen every episode at least, 100 times! 😳 Shatner & Nimoy. My friend and I were oh so happy, that they both recognized us, whenever we met them. All we had to do was remind them of our names, then we could resume conversations from where we left off at before. What all of the celebrities had in common, if they knew that you had seen them before, was to ask us, or remind us, about the other guests, not as if we were tired of meeting them again and again, nor about how many autographs did we need, but about missed opportunities. They didn't want us to miss out! 🖖
The *BIGGEST HOLE* I found was in the movie sequel, *"STAR TREK II, THE WRATH OF KHAN"* where Khan "recognizes" Mr. Chekov, when that character was nowhere to be seen in the original episode....I'm done ranting.
I had a concept for a space cruse ship, when you're (guest) "scanned" through security you're secretly transported into a small individual holodeck (10' cube) that is interlinked to the others, that provides the expected environment (including the necessary furnishings, ie; beds chairs, etc... ). The moment the ship goes into warp, the exterior hollo emitters automatically power down, leaving a far less grandiose and sizable ship (1/3rd size). ;-)
When watching "The Search for Spock." I always thought that the talk with Mccoy gave him the hint that Spock was somehow alive. Or at least made him wonder if it was possible.
Being from the delta quadrant does not mean they have to be in the delta quadrant. Until they established it in voyager, I don't recall them saying that the borg actually held space. There is no reason at all to not have them be a completely fleet based species. There is actually little reason for them to hold planets. Imagine a voyager in a delta quadrant that was abandoned by the borg and other species are trying to fill in the power vacuum
It's gotta be really hard for new young fans discovering Star Trek and learning the history to understand just how groundbreaking TOS was & that's because it broke new ground to the point that a generation later it was basically common place. BTW it kind of shows the glass half empty way we view our history that young people are so quick to point out all the bad things we see in a show from the 1960s and much less inclined to talk about the good.
Representation definitely matters. And not just to those being represented. Saying to someone that YOU can do or be this is critically important. But the flip side sometimes gets overlooked. Telling OTHERS that someone else can do or be something also helps make the change. The obvious importance is the greater one, but this often unacknowledged side of the conversation still matters.
Pranks are still a thing. I cannot remember which Trek show or episode, but I remember someone mentioning a prank with a sonic shower programmed to spray someone with mud.
When I first saw the thumbnail regarding plot holes in Trek, I immediately thought of complaints many had regarding “Nu Trek”, and your videos responding to such things. Or a top 10 list of inconsistencies (but there are already channels for that!). Such as why Kahn and Checkov know of each other, despite having never met beforehand, or why Guinan doesn’t know Picard in 2021, despite having met him much earlier, etc. And those that make online statements about what is or is not Trek cannon. As if they, and only they, are the gatekeepers of continuity. I think Star Trek already has one of those. Your responses correctly reminded us all of 1) creative storytelling 2) it’s TV show! Relax! Since I didn’t get a chance earlier, I’d like to add a 3) that allows me to relax, appreciate and enjoy. Time Travel Fu%#ery. Can’t think of a single Trek property that doesn’t have it . And every time a character goes back in time, something, however small or subtle, gets changed. Every time giving us a new timeline. Worked for original Planet of the Apes, works here. While it doesn’t explain or excuse everything, relax. It allows for new directions. Not knowing can be half the fun, if one allows it to be. As for the Uhura translation frustration, I remember interpreting it as “well we got caught with our pants down”, or “not our proudest moment….dammit!” Still funny no mater how you translate, er, interpret it. Not gonna tell you how you’re the greatest RUclipsr ever, but weather talking about Star Trek, DC Comics, or the b.s. that is social politics, you manage to say alot of what I’d like to if I had the time and wherewithal to do so. And that’s why I keep coming back.
In regards to the question of likeness rights and the Holodeck, it is possible that part of signing on with Starfleet is signing away your likeness rights to Starfleet. It could be part of the fine print, something most people don't realize.. And the organization itself only wanted to be able to use real officers for training simulations(think poor holo-Geordi getting sent to his death), but a skilled engineer like Barclay can get those same paterns out of the memory.
Also the doctor in Voyager misuses medical scans for holographic patterns, so maybe Barclay just cracked the protection on Crusher’s scans 🤔 or the transporter trace scans
@Kaitlyn L It certainly does seem that there are a lot of ways in Star Trek to have yourself copied and that data just sits around waiting to be misused.
You go from holodeck issues to Sisko's hatred of Picard. I could see Sisko "working out" his issues with Picard on the holodeck. LOL! The other thing that always seemed present was the warning of the Talosians, from the beginning of the show, where a similar technology basically wrecked their civilization. The holodeck was simultaneously overused and underused, IMO.
40:00 It might be crass to think about it, but I can’t help wondering how the economics of a TV show came into play. It’s like reading about how they invented the transporter to escape the economics of showing a starship landing on a planet. I wonder how much a new enemy costs, in development time, design, prosthetics, makeup and even back story. Did they wonder how much they could save by bringing back the actors and prosthetics of a previous species?
"Living Witness" is a sterling example of a wonderfully fantastic episode that exists because of a major plot hole (the EMH back-up module). This is one of the reasons why I don't get in too much of a twist over continuity flub if it facilitates a great story.
Mark 44:17. With the original, "Charmed", people will point out that there are more seasons with, "Paige", than there are with, "Prue". Poor, Robin Curtis, though, she had to remind people that she had played the role more than her predecessor had. That reminds! I was going to mention it before, but I digressed after distracting myself, because the memories kept rushing in. Ahem. I had to check the date for this video, because I wondered how you had the audacity to speak ill of the dead and give her the middle finger! 🤬
My personal headcanon. We know there's two language centers in your brain, your primary language center which works between 1 year and about 16 years old where you plug in whatever language you grow up with and your secondary language center where you learn languages any time thereafter. This is why it's so easy for children to learn languages and so hard for adults. Gotta input them prior to being 16. When Uhura's brain was erased by Nomad in The Changeling he obviously erased her secondary language center as she still spoke Swahili fluently in the episode. That tracks with what we know of languages. At that time Uhura would have lost her knowledge of Klingon. This fact is supported by the 2013 film where Uhura knows Klingon because she's not been in contact with Nomad. Afterward she may have had little incentive or time to relearn. It had been several years since the Klingon-Federation war.
I really liked the Vidians as an antagonist of Voyager. I thought they were - in some ways - more terrifying than the Borg. Intelligent, technologically advanced organ snatchers obsessed with their species' survival and willing to put medical or ethical concerns aside to pursue that goal. When Jason Alexander appears in "Think Tank" and tells Janeway that they helped cure the Phage, I was bummed because a well-written future Vidian episode could have made for a great horror-themed story...or movie.
my headcanon on recreating real people, especially members of the ship is that when you sign up as part of your Starfleet entrance application is a consent form. You can either say yes or no then. If you mark no then your likeness will never appear if you mark yes then your likeness can be used by anyone for any reason.
Regarding the lack of Borg in DS9 - considering that the Borg waited until Sisko was away before attacking Earth, perhaps it was less of restraint on the writer's part and more of an acknowledgement the Borg had heard of the person favoured by some space gods who built his own personal invisible Borg murdering ship... and decided to wisely steer clear.
Oh man, every season of Voyager could have been their efforts to get safe passage through another species space. The process of travel, inevitable social interactions. Like, if they had slowed that down, they could have had some recurring villains (because they live in the area that Voyager is travelling through) occasionally chase after Voyager to other systems, and they could have really got into gritty detail about different cultures.
1. Wes Crusher, Starfleet cadet, chilli sauce in the sonic shower. 2. Holodec likeness watermarks. You'd have to edit core subroutines to remove them at risk of total program collapse.
Mark 21:54. "Holodeck", means that you're aboard a ship. "Holosuite", implies that you are paying for it, be it aboard a space station or in a hotel. That's why the terminology used in, "The Orville", is much better. You could be wealthy enough to have such a facilility at home. By the way! The, "United States Army", hired the crew member of, "Star Trek: The Next Generation", that came up with the concept in the first place, to work on a real training simulator, for their needs. 😎👍
Maybe the writers of Voyager had too many plot using the Borg, but remember the Borg were at war with species 8472 and losing. It showed a vulnerability with the Borg which to that point was not really explored properly, and that the Borg was able to be defeated. That opened the door for voyager to try to pass through Borg space by helping who they believe were the aggressors in the war. It also brought in Seven of Nine to the series and apart from some overkill with Borg plot, many episodes were focused around seven of nine which had to include some Borg related issues.
Each photon torpedo has a subspace tag that can't be removed/disabled - they are very powerful devices and Spock's torpedo had kept on broadcasting so Kirk knew the torpedo was intact. They didn't show it because it wouldn't really add anything to the plot.
That scene with Uhura struggling to speak Klingon really pissed me off! Absolutely she should have been fluent in Klingon (and Romulan, Vulcan and many other "alien" languages)
Holodeck tech allows all kinds of abuse. Years ago a friend asked me to "guest star" in his Star Trek tabletop RPG's Halloween session as a slightly more advanced, very clever alien pirate attacking the ship. I did lots of awful stuff that only a Trekkie would come up with (like stringing monomolecular cutting wires across the turbolift shafts), but the best/worst thing I did was hack the ship's computer and activate the SHIPWIDE HOLO-EMITTERS to remove the safeties and begin running a borg-centric Kobayashi Maru scenario. The protagonists only realized it was a "prank" when a runabout carrying several incapacitated and partially assimilated crew cleared the shuttle bay (and emitters) and the implants suddenly vanished (killing said crew). Good times.
The thing about DS9 and Voyager and their villain choices is location, location, location. They wanted the Bajorians and Bajor as the location of the station, so who are they right next to and would naturally be an antagonist/villain the major conquering race that conquered them before that is right next to them the Cardassians. They then went to use Gamma quadrant antagonists and used the Cardassians only as needed to created a good story which they used amazingly well. They also brought in Q which again stolen from TNG but only for one good episode and didn't over use him, which Voyager did too. The thing was Voyager was in the delta quadrant, so who is the delta quadrant the borg so naturally a reason to use them of course, but the thing is the Cardassians although may have greater resources then DS9 aren't really superior like the borg or supposed to be so smart or even really talk to any of the other species, but because they made the mistake trying to conquer the Undine they needed Voyager to save them and kept going from there fighting them again and again. Which I don't think as a villain made them that ominous. In TNG they only fought a borg invasion once the other times were rogue borg or reasons to make them less of a threat then a borg invaision and made much better story lines. As the showrunner or one of the excutives for TNG said if they fight borg so many times they lose any value as an unstoppable threat which they kinda did with Voyager. Also by DS9 never using them as they had no real reason to be in DS9 the borg weren't in Gamma quadrant and the borg weren't even invading the federation again until First contact and it took place during DS9 time but as the borg start with Earth and wouldn't care about Bajor at first it didn't really involve them other than Worf commanding the defiant. DS9 and the borg it was decided wouldn't mix probably as the writers found no way to create a good story with them in it. They created much higher claibe shows with new atagonists/new villains from the delta quadrant. They would really have stretch things to put the borg in the delta quadrant which I can't think of remotely good reason they would go by Cardassia/Bajor or if they did stop there unless they had a fleet to stop them and it was more written they were by Romulain space in their path to Earth.
Although Nichelle Nichols has passed, She was, is and will always be the Grande Dame of Trek, as we will always have her on film, both professionally in Trek and by the fans filming her at conventions.
THE missed opportunity in Voyager is that in my opinion, Janeway should have established a BASE of operations and started COLONIZING the Delta quadrant. Exploring, setting up shipyards and a Starfleet Academy for the residents of the Delta quadrant who joined the Federation. Inside of 50 years, Starfleet would have been able to visit their far flung, NEW colonies and a second "seed" of humanity in the Milkyway. Voyager should have been a new frontier humans established a foothold on, not ran away from because everyone missed home.
Sarek thought Kirk had Spock's Katra, and still complained that he left the dead, damaged, body on Genesis. So that proves they wanted the body to be laid to rest on Vulcan, as a matter of respect and custom. That's why Kirk went to Genesis.
The unimaginably weirdly intense responsibilities and burdens she took on. My hell. The best I can do is say I'm glad I don't have to pretend to know. I know I can't.
Regarding pranks in Star Trek, Star Fleet Academy seems to be a hotbed of them. Kirk talks about Finnegan's pranks in "Shore Leave" from TOS,. Data, Wesley, and Lefler discuss Academy pranks in "The Game" from TNG. All of these pranks (except for some of Finnegan's abuse of Kirk) seem to be of the slapstick rather than psychologically ruinous variety.
I don't know if others have said this, but thank you for both being honest about how imposter syndrome affects you, and for helping us laugh with you about it. I struggle greatly with imposter syndrome in everything I do from my model kits, my job or even my RUclips channel. Seeing people that i respect deal with similar issues really helps. Thanks Steve.
"anyone who wants to see you naked can see you naked is a consent issue, it's a privacy issue" why am I having Lower Decks flashbacks to the holodeck test, "naked time"?
To the plot hole issue...McCoy/Spock is trying to secure passage to Genesis...it stands to reason there could have been a talk between Kirk and McCoy we SHOULD have seen so the movie works but I'm curious if there was no thought given to that possible conversation or if it was cut at the scripting stage for flow or with an eye on cutting the eventual runtime.
So to help close the Star Trek III plot hole that you mention, remember that just because one character does or doesn't know something doesn't mean all characters know or don't know something. David and Savik didn't know that Spock's torpedo tube soft landed on the planet but that doesn't mean that Kirk didn't. In fact, you can make a reasonable assumption that off-screen Kirk and the crew tracked the landing of Spock's tube at the end of Star Trek 2. So while David was surprised that it "soft-landed", Kirk might have known it would be there all along.
On the borg... I am a big Dr Who fan so I know about how overuse of a monster can kill all of the threat (*cough*Daleks*Cough*). And I know how to fix it - witness RTD's season 1 episode "Dalek". It's possible to really reinvigorate the Borg but you have to reestablish the threat. And then don't do RTD and then overuse them yourself.
The biggest legacy of Star Trek is that Uhura doesn’t look revolutionary any more from the point of view of a 21st century newcomer. Its influence helped create the world we live in.
That is such an important and beautiful observation. 💜
Martin Luther King Jr personally convinced her to continue playing. That really shows how important she was
@@padinspi11 I know this fact is spread to death on all Uhura content, but, I don't care because it's the coolest fact ever and I get emotional thinking about her impact after her passing especially. 🖖🏽🖖🏾🖖🏼🖖🏿🖖🏻
@@TheEmpireDabsBack Yeah this really shows everyone can change things by working hard
You are absolutely right, and we should be proud of what we've done. But there is more we can do. I'm sad to say that old school racism is alive and well in the trades, although myself and others of my generation are trying to change that. They can't gatekeep the trades forever. Luckily my bosses' boss is closer to my age. He's still a generational business owner, but he's more aware of the way the world has been changing.
Humanity hasn't evolved past holodeck pranks.
"Computer, remove the plank."
Number one, that should be retract the plank.
@@princeoftonga Of course, Sir. Sorry!
Worf stretched like Wile E. Coyote, too!
*emotionless Android begins hurling crew into the ocean for the lulz*
@@woogha How funny would have been to see Data methodically throwing everyone into the water, one by one?
According to Shatner's book Star Trek Movie Memories, the script for TUC also had Uhura saying something like "Yeah, but would you want your daughter to marry one?", but the line was dropped altogether after Nichols flat out refused to say it. Good for her.
I swear everything I hear about Nichelle Nichols just makes me love her more.
@@drt1605 yeah I've heard that he was really really upset about that
@@drt1605 He was playing a planetary xenophobe. That line works.
Can you imagine having something like that mislaid about your passion? "Ok. You pride yourself in beating Isaac Frost in one try, every time. As such, here's a twitchcam. Now say some shit for me right now about apartheid that is neither for or against. Go, actor. Improvise"
@@drt1605 And then we saw same sex marriage voted down in California, mainly because of the Black vote, proving that even a race of people who had been persecuted could turn around and vote down civil rights for others. I call HYPOCRISY on the part of NIchols and peters.
‘Didn’t reuse any elements or characters from TOS’… ironically the inverse is true. TNG actually reused a lot of unused ideas from TOS and Phase II in its early seasons, and that actually is the reason it took so long to find its own identity.
That is a valid point in many regards, and yes, that was likely a contributing factor to the early growing pains of the show. With that said, as Shanti points out, it's not strictly RE-use. However, it certainly pertains to material previously meant for, and tied to a previous iteration so there's good points on both sides of that fence I reckon.
I would also add that, as a writer of sorts (I've been running TTRPG games for literally decades) I have ended up with SO VERY MANY more ideas than I have been afforded opportunities to use them, and as such I am certain other creators have, like me, acrued quite the backlog of ideas just 'waiting in the wings' for their moment under the lights. To repurpose those ideas in new settings or circumstances is a very good way of ensuring considered content at low cost and effort, so I feel it's to be somewhat expected for a fledgling show.
Riker = Decker. Troi = Ilia. Picard = middle-aged Kirk. Data = Xon (maybe.)
@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan It's not like the cast mattered in the first couple of seasons. They were generally plug and play episodes, not ones written for particular characters
@@RhapsodyInBlaah Data=Questor (lifted from another Roddenberry project)
@@KiraBKADestroyerOfWorlds Consider the second episode, then. "The Naked Now" was a complete repeat of "The Naked Time." And a really dumb idea for your seocnd epsiode.
While it's true that Prime Spock never forced a meld in TOS, Mirror Spock did it to McCoy in "Mirror, Mirror". McCoy didn't scream in pain (if memory serves), but his totally blank expression was chilling in it's own right.
On another note, I love the way that Vulcans were portrayed in "Mirror, Mirror", because it shows aspects of their character that are always there, but - mostly - under control in the Prime Universe. It reminds me of Spock's chilling statement about his father in "Journey to Babel": "If there were a reason, my father is quite capable of killing. Logically and efficiently." Yikes!
Depends on what you mean by forced? Wasn’t there a few episodes where overcame their resistance, or made people do things they wouldn’t have otherwise done?
Be honest, most movable entities on this planet can kill if they have too. Monkeys, whales, deer, rabbits, and others. Not to mention our fellow humans. All things can kill if circumstances make it necessary.. Someone or something tries to kill you, you'll probably do your best to prevent it and if it requires killing what threatened you, most will do it.
"It's a prank, bro! You've been in the Holodeck for two days!"
"I've been eating holographic food for two days? No wonder I'm so damn hungry."
If I'm not mistaken, the consent issue was brought up in the DS9 episode where the great Jeffrey Combs played an alien that wanted Quark to get him a holosuite version of Major Kira. Quark informed him that it was against Federation law to create holographic images of real people without their consent, but when threatened proceeded to secretly scan Kira for the program the alien wanted. The way it turned out was priceless.
@@Cdr2002 Nope, the hologram had Kira's body, but Quark's head
Actually Riker says so also in the Barclay episode he's just not remembering it
Which, come to think of it, makes Geordi a criminal.
@@adamweissman7286 Yeah, that's another issue. Same with the Voyager episode where they produce that cardassian surgeon.
The Voyager situation can be put under the rug like "Yeah, we're at the other end of the galaxy and delete the files, nobody will ever know"
And Geordi was definitely breaking some rules there. At least when it got into something personal. I mean there is a copy of him in the holodeck that Troi has to send into certain death during a test.
And I don't think that was a special case just for Troi but rather the standard test she took. So there has to be some copy of some starfleet officer that has be sent in there, somebody that the testee knows to make the task harder. So I assume that there is a specific permission somewhere in the work contract that allows making a copy for work-related tasks.
@@HappyBeezerStudios AI "Art" is a thing now. I'm surprised they didn't just AI generate people for tests.
The Borg, in Voyager, could have fulfilled the role of the pursuing Cylons in the early episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica. Some existential threat breathing down the necks of our rag-tag heroes.
And if the producers just really wanted to have the Borg be a presence that our crew somehow magically escapes from each time, even that could've worked with some effort. tl;dr imply there's some outside force that's weakening the Borg and that's how the Voyager crew are able to survive each time; they recognize what's happening and take advantage of it. Then end the series on a somewhat ominous note. Have a scene where Janeway is standing quietly by herself while the rest of the crew is celebrating returning to Earth. Tuvok comes up to her and asks why she's not joining in the festivities, and she goes "Because I can't help but wonder, what will happen if who or whatever was able to reduce the Borg to a nuisance [in universe, I mean] decides to come after the Federation?"
@@arklestudios Scorpion could have been a series finale that would fulfill this
Defeating Species random number generator would free the Borg
@@arklestudios "...Or if whatever it was...follows us home."
3:00 YES! Tasha Yar showed me that women can be strong, and have healthy, platonic friendships with men. At her funeral, we learn that Riker and Yar were close friends, even though we didn't get to see much of this on screen. Riker has a reputation of being a bit of a womaizer, but her and Tasha were just friends. And that mattered a lot to a pre-teen me. I see this in Lower Decks with the friendship between Tendi and Rutherford. They are both single, both trying to date, but even with Tendi being an Orion woman (highly sexualized since ToS), they are just friends, with no sexual tension. I hope little girls watching Lower Decks today get this same message. I will be pissed if the showrunners ship them.
I wish more could have been developed with Ensign Ro’s character. She was finally learning to trust people before she exited the show.
And in that episode (that is a straight ripoff of a TOS episode, TNG even acknowledges that), She goes to Data to test his "fully functional" body, not Riker. If there was something going on between the two, she would've gone to him. Tasha was great, and even tho she wasn't in the series for long, she still had an impact.
It also showed that they could bang basically autistic men by largely ignoring their agency.
I enjoy all your videos, Star Trek and the political ones too. You're awesome. Thanks!
Regarding the expectation that diverse people would be treated with respect in a workplace: That was driven home by the episode "Balance of Terror" when Kirk tells Stiles to leave his bigotry in his quarters. I was 8+ in the seventies and that scene really hit me. I work in a very diverse workplace now (a library ) and I couldn't imagine bigotry being tolerated. In fact, I'm low level management and if I saw it, I might even subconsciously call up Kirk's rebuke of Stiles. The message was clear to me at a very early age: you just don't act like Stiles. Period. Full stop. No, "well, it depends on the context…" You just DON'T DO IT.
Not having known the origins of that line, I'd always found it odd it was given to Chekov, as it struck me as them deliberately giving the Russian character a line expressing discomfort at the cold war peace analogy, which felt particularly off, at the time. Honestly if it meant that much to them to keep the line in, just give it to McCoy.
McCoy had some of the funniest lines in TOS. One of my all-time favorites was, "Get these muscle-men out of my sick bay!" I don't remember the episode, just that we had to hit pause until we could compose ourselves and stop laughing.
Okay, I looked it up and I had the line wrong, still cracks me up though!
"And would you get that muscleman out of my Sickbay?"
Star Trek (1966) - S01E27 The Alternative Factor
For the “Holodeck prank” idea, I seem to recall there was a “Starfleet Academy” novel back in the 90’s where the cadets were sent on a mission to space dock and ended up having to fend off an attack, only to learn in the end they had been in a Holodeck for most of the time.
I was born in 63 and grew up with Star Trek. Because I saw a diverse cast I had no idea that the world was facing biggotry against women, people of color, etc. It shaped my world view in a way that made me empathetic and open. It's the best gift i've been given and makes me stand up for unity in the world. I had the great fortune of being able to have dinner with Nichelle at a convention where i was part of the small security team. She was an amazing and gracious woman.
If I recall the story correctly, "The Guess who's coming to dinner" line was given to Walter Koenig because Michelle Nichols flat up refused to say the words.
I think that's right. And, while I certainly can't presume to understand a Black woman's thoughts on this, I think it would have been more relevant and funnier coming from Uhura. I remember thinking when I saw this show that _she_ should have gotten the line, not Chekov. I didn't know why that happened until now.
Following the dinner, whilst the Enterprise is escorting the Klingon Chancellor's vessel, Kirk asks Chekov about a radiation surge, to which he miserably replies, "Only The Size Of My Head". Which has to be (For me anyway.) the most deadpan response of the TOS movies and I loved it.
I laughed out loud when you said the part about how we're not supposed to say "Get her Spock!"
When my friends and I were watching TUD on opening day in a packed theater, some woman literally yelled out "GET HER SPOCK! GET THAT B*****!"
I don't think that woman got the memo lol
There is a possible reason how Barkley got away with the "impersonations" of other crew member. Reference to the episode where "La Forge" created a holographic version of the warp core designer. It was only based on information that could have been accessed .The Holodeck filled in the rest of the blanks. This ended up with a fantasy version of the real person. In Barkley case I felt the same applies. Only going with information able to be accessed and altering and filling in the blanks to his Fantasy. Both counts still was very intrusive don't get me wrong there. But it would explain how he got around what was later mentioned in DS9 as against laws or mandates set.
The Spock scene was disturbing but it needs to be in context, they were facing galactic war.
We saw Sisko sink into the mud in DS9, he would've known Garak was going to do what Garak does but he still chose to work with him.
Enterprise had FAR FAR more exploration and encountering completely new things all the time than Voyager. Especially funny since the ship was much slower and had to stick much closer to Earth than ships in later series.
okay so maybe I'm missing something, but in TWOK, at the end, when Kirk is making his log entry, he specifically says "'There are always...possibilities,' Spock said...and if Genesis truly is life from death...I must return to this place again." He already suspects that Spock might come back. Am I misinterpreting that, because that's always what I gathered from it.
Ahh, the poor redshirt that has to mop the holodeck floor. That said I would have written a holodeck scene where one of the crew was engaged in building a virtual model railroad. Monorail trains levitating through miniature 23rd century buildings.
Thanks!
Thanks! I always enjoy and am challenged by your insights. LLAP
Thank you!
Voyager deserves some of the disdain purely from how quickly they abandoned the core premise of being lost far from home. Every so often they remember and do an eposode or two... but then back to be TNG version 1.5. The notion of dwindling resources and increasingly desperate alliances had potential. By the end of the series that ship should have been a Pakled level mishmash of technologies and patchwork repairs. The Equinox is what Voyager SHOULD have been.
"Pakled level mishmash", great, now I can't stop laughing at the idea of Voyager's red alert sound going "RED ALARM, RED ALARM"
I think one of the writers on Voyager went on to write for the new Battlestar Galactica so there is a version of that story out there.
@@Kameth Ron D. Moore, who wrote a lot of the Klingon episodes on TNG, and was involved with DS9. He was essentially pushed off of Voyager.
Wasn’t it established in TNG that the borg come from the Deta Quadrant, meaning that Voyager encountering the Borg was always part of the plan? When I was a kid that’s what I thought when I was watching season 1, I was surprised it took them so long to encounter the collective.
They promised some harrowing Borg space traversal, they delivered.
If I'm remembering the star map correctly, Borg Space was close to the Beta/Delta Quadrant border, hence why they were able to encounter (and nearly destroy) Guinan's race, who were native to the Beta quadrant. So they were likely always a planned part of Voyager, but vaguely located to allow them to be slotted in when the writers felt necessary.
I saw Nichelle Nicholas
At a convention in Philadelphia PA. In 1985 and heard her story about how MKL talked into staying the Classic Star Trek TV series. I thought that was very inspirational and made me admire them both more than I already did.
Your comments on Robbie losing a fight on Lost in Space reminds me of the Green Hornet cross-over episode of Batman. I can imagine Bruce Lee approaching the producers and saying indignantly "You mean I have to lose a fight to Robin?"
Talking about accidental gags on the Holodeck remember when Worf was getting a promotion and had to walk the gang plank to jump up to grab the promotion and Riker misspoke when he says to remove the plank and Worf ends up in the water. Then Data who just got a emotion chips pushes Dr. Crusher also in the ocean off the old wooden battle ship. Apparently gags are timeless.
I don't think it's a plot hole in Star Trek 3 because McCoy (influenced by Spock's katra) has been trying to book passage to Genesis all over the place. He's told lots of people that he has to get to Genesis. Kirk would know this, and once he knows about Spock's katra, he must figure Spock-in-McCoy is insisting on going to Genesis for a reason. He has enough faith even in the psychological remnant of his friend that he's willing to torpedo his own career to go to Genesis on that basis alone, even if he doesn't really understand why Spock-in-McCoy wants to go to Genesis or what he plans to do there.
Kirk is also visited by Sarek who demands Kirk share Spock’s Katra with him. As his closest friend it is Kirks responsibility to bring Spock’s remains to Vulcan.
Then they investigate and realize that Spock gave it to McCoy because Kirk was not there.
The one episode on Star Trek that was a take off from a Classic Hollywood Movie was Spectre of the Gun from the Gun Fight at the OK Corral. Deforest Kelly played Morgan Earp in the 1957 Classic with Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp, Kirk Douglas as Doc Holiday and Dennis Hopper as Billy Clanton.
22:06 I mean, in a way, we did see the holodeck, or holosuite, used in such a way, such as when Odo and Kira put the head of Quark on the Kira hologram in an early episode of DS9 or, in a less humorous and more nefarious way, when Sloane put Bashire through that simulation that made him think he was going to be arrested as a traitor.
30:33 I am now forced to imagine a truly fantastic horror episode where Voyager finds a derelict Cube and decide to scavenge it for some vital resource they’re dangerously low on. There’s no air & minimal lighting inside. There’s no way to know for certain if the Cube really is dead, or if it’s just lying in wait, or in sleep mode or something. The concern is raised that using borg tech might assimilate the Voyager *itself* if done incorrectly. They do solve the mystery of what killed this Cube, but it’s not something that can just be brought back to hold onto for a rainy day, not a weapon or anything like that… but *does* set up a fantastic season finale somewhere down the line where they need to recreate that event just to buy Voyager enough time to escape. There is exactly one jumpscare in the episode, when the a borg drone, cut off from the collective after feeling the rest of the Cube die, seriously injured, and experiencing the individual fear of death for the first time, uses the last of their strength to grab a member of the away team & beg for help. This could be a way to introduce Seven, or it could be a tragic parable on the individuals still trapped inside each of the borg & not being able to save everyone. A lesson the character most emotionally invested in saving the drone could then have recited back to them the next time they were about to do something suicidal, allowing the show to finally take a solid stance by either having them break down over their own helplessness or pulling away from the person lecturing them with a soft, “I have to *try.”*
(I’m such a sucker for that. “You can’t save everyone.”/“But I have to try.” That saving even one person, one token, one *memory,* is better than saving nothing at all. That trying & failing is better than not trying at all. Giving it your best, because you couldn’t live with yourself if you gave it any less. Even when it fails, even when someone needs to be *stopped* from helping for the sake of the greater good or because they would’ve died in the process, that desperate compassion for complete strangers in times of strife… that’s humanity at our best. Gets me every time.)
50:32 I thought Sarek thought Spock’s katra was with Kirk until he learned they were physically separated in the chamber when Spock died.
The only reason Star Trek was made was because Lucille Ball thought the title referred to a group of traveling USO performers during WWII.
I low key want someone to write this sit com.
As to the holodeck prank, they did this in DS9. Agent Sloan beamed a sleeping Dr. Bashir into a holodeck simulation to learn if he could be trusted as a Section 31 agent by putting him through a simulation where everyone claimed he was a spy for the Dominion. Not quite the level of a prank, but similar to doing that.
22:40 In The Culture novel, Surface Detail, a person is killed and uploaded into a computer before being asked if they want to be ressurected, at the bottom of their field of view is the text SIMULATION. Which the ship's Mind removes once they understand.
Once again, The Culture is what The Federation would be if the writing was consistent.
My memory is sketchy but I believe there was a throwaway gag in Lower Decks where Mariner questioned her reality and says aloud: "Computer, end program" when she saw Boimler had a girlfriend that was way out of his league.
Even better, a deep fake of Steve Shives praising every single episode of “Star Trek Voyager“! That might kill the real Steve Shives.
Gates McFadden tweeted about a photo of Elvis in a jump suit looked (vaguely) like a starfleet uniform and that got me thinking about far off future Elvis fans recreating concerts on the holodeck. Or a KISS fan painstakingly programming one of their acts after stumbling across old recordings in a pop history course. Would there be ensigns trying to drag their buddies to a GWAR concert? Would someone create a continuing series of concerts of the Grateful Dead as they tour?
I know you've soured a bit on Lower Decks, Steve- but your description of holodeck "pranking" is exactly what I would expect someone like Mariner to do.
As for pranks at large - I think they can be funny. I think there are three key elements for a funny prank: They need to be actually harmless, they need to be easily reversed, and they need to be done to someone who will be okay with it.
That means nothing that's likely to cause property damage or emotional harm, nothing that takes extensive cleanup (like anything involving glitter or filling a space with balloons), and while you don't have to interview the intended prankee ahead of time or anything, I'd say it's important to limit your pranks to people you know well, and no would be all right with the occasional prank.
In the past, my go to prank has been gift wrapping my boss's computer. I individually gift wrapped the screen, the keyboard, and the mouse. I used very little tape, and it took him less than 2 minutes to undo the wrapping and throw it away - but he got a chuckle out of it and went on with his day.
Pranks aren't for everyone, but for those who do enjoy them, I think that kind of thing is the right way to go.
47:47 I don't think it's a plot hole in Star Trek 3 because maybe Spock's body was supported to remain in orbit around Genesis, but the gravitational fields caused it to land on the planet. So that is why Kirk went back for the body.
51:00 question is very interesting. Especially when they found Spock as a child. It makes me feel sad now that the new Spock has a soul which will be extinguished when Spock's katra is placed back into the body.
Oh. Beaming someone into a holodeck happened in Deep Space 9 when the guy from section 31 beamed Julian into the holodeck to try to get him to confess to being a Dominion spy.
"They might have a problem with that!".... Lol.. You handled the Holodeck simulated workbuddy problem very intelligently... So smart.. You're too funny.
1 - As for anthologies, in Japan, Ultra Q was an anthology SF/F series, mainly dealing with Kaiju and some incidental recurring characters, but it was followed by the first of many (MANY) Ultraman series - which change characters with the new series, but also has some returners.
2 - As for holo-pranks, I always thought of Wes's stealth-emergency test at the Academy in that light, but for the real deal see a young Worf novella wherein he and his Russian brother enter the Academy (he has a different name than in the TNG ep) and he has a harder and harder time until a similar 'emergency' test crops up - and Worf's brother then attacks the chuckling instructor - after which he resigns from the Academy. Mind you, this was written by Peter David, who has some experience with rage-driven characters.
Wrath of Khan: When Khan said he recognized Chekov. Which would have been impossible because "Space Seed" aired in the first season of Star Trek TOS but, the character of Ensign Chekov was not added until season 2.
15:00 in another comic book Superman under the control of Max Lord nearly beats Batman to death without Batman making any meaningful attempt to resist. He tried everything he could do. It just failed to stop Superman.
then later we have Blackrock-Batman where Superman convinces Blackrock to release him since... Batman would rather die than be Blackrock's body. Thus Batman would rather have Superman kill him than live as Blackrock's pawn. Which is relly weird when you consider how he's said no not be willing to kill in general, but is willing to commit suicide by Superman....
(33:44) Maybe only have one primary alien antagonist soecies per season as Voyager traverses their space, and secondary one-off species in scattered episodes here and there. Each species could be increasingly difficult for Voyager to deal with, but the crew learns from each along the way, acquiring knowledge and even technology. When they DO eventually encounter the Borg during, (say, the last two seasons the way the Dominion War dominated the last two seasons of DS9), Voyager has itself become a little like the Borg, assimilating knowledge and technology along the way, setting up that "two sides of the same coin" dichotomy that would have paid off really well. Hell, they start off by "assimilating" the Maquis crew into theirs at the very beginning, so it seems like it could have paid off very well.
I always thought for Voyager, it would have been cool if, each season, there was a different dominant alien whose territory the crew was passing through at that time. So like, season 1 is the Kazon season, season 2 is the Vidian season, etc., etc., but no, Rick Berman was so against continuity and good storytelling that he didn't even let Year of Hell be a season-long arc like the rest of the creative staff wanted.
For the Batman vs Superman part read the 1978 one-shot issue Superman vs Muhammad Ali. Superman fought Ali under a red sun light that weakened his powers. As powerful as he is I have wondered, “Does Superman have proper combat training?”
The holodeck prank: so you mean, someone on lower Decks? Mariner could do it. Or Boimler, only to be told he went too far. Just have a prank war set up and someone goes that route.
2.4K Thumbs Up + Mine! 👍 You're welcome! Thanks for a fun, insightful digital video recording! 🎬✌️🖖🙏🤠😎🤓
Notes: Wow! The answer is, "Yes!", because if I could afford it, that would mean that we had the income to do it! But we can't. 😧
23:09 "Are you decent?" "Who, me?"
Gilda forever, Rita forever.
Anyway, the matter of consent is a pertinent issue.
Regarding Spock's body left behind on Genesis, I remember from a novelization of ST III that Saavik intentionally programmed the torpedo to make a soft landing on the planet.
I’ve always thought that the Klingon translation scene in Undiscovered Country is likely the funniest bit in a very funny film. That fake laugh at the end kills me.
Mark 13:57. Oh! I met that actor too! He and the costume toured together. 🤖 He was quite fun and charming. 😎🤓
Mark 43:38. I've never met actress, Kirstie Alley, but I wish that I had. But I met actress, Robin Curtis, more than once. She told my best friend and I, in a polite way, that she doesn't even dance with her husband, when she rejected my requests to dance with her. So, Lolita Fatjo, Robin Curtis, my friend, and myself, just stood there conversing while others at the event were finding people to dance with. 😁
Jennifer Lien! I admired her from afar, ever since she was, "Hannah", in the former, "NBC", series, "Another World". Jeri Ryan, I admired her from afar, ever since she was in the, "NBC" series, "Dark Skies". I've met them both in person too.
The big difference is, I've seen the episodes with, "Kess", but I've missed quite a few episodes when, "Seven-of-Nine", arrived on scene. In fact, for a lot of the series, I missed quite a few episodes in their later seasons, so they are basically still new to me. So your complaints about, "Star Trek: Voyager", are lost on me. The original series though? I lost count, but it feels like I have seen every episode at least, 100 times! 😳
Shatner & Nimoy. My friend and I were oh so happy, that they both recognized us, whenever we met them. All we had to do was remind them of our names, then we could resume conversations from where we left off at before. What all of the celebrities had in common, if they knew that you had seen them before, was to ask us, or remind us, about the other guests, not as if we were tired of meeting them again and again, nor about how many autographs did we need, but about missed opportunities. They didn't want us to miss out! 🖖
The *BIGGEST HOLE* I found was in the movie sequel, *"STAR TREK II, THE WRATH OF KHAN"* where Khan "recognizes" Mr. Chekov, when that character was nowhere to be seen in the original episode....I'm done ranting.
I had a concept for a space cruse ship, when you're (guest) "scanned" through security you're secretly transported into a small individual holodeck (10' cube) that is interlinked to the others, that provides the expected environment (including the necessary furnishings, ie; beds chairs, etc... ).
The moment the ship goes into warp, the exterior hollo emitters automatically power down, leaving a far less grandiose and sizable ship (1/3rd size). ;-)
"adult Spock repeating high school."
Star Gate SG1 basically set this gag up with a teenage Jack O'Neill with adult Jack's mind going to HS.
When watching "The Search for Spock." I always thought that the talk with Mccoy gave him the hint that Spock was somehow alive. Or at least made him wonder if it was possible.
Being from the delta quadrant does not mean they have to be in the delta quadrant. Until they established it in voyager, I don't recall them saying that the borg actually held space. There is no reason at all to not have them be a completely fleet based species. There is actually little reason for them to hold planets.
Imagine a voyager in a delta quadrant that was abandoned by the borg and other species are trying to fill in the power vacuum
Worst job in the world is the janitor that has to clean the holodeck on Monday morning.
It's gotta be really hard for new young fans discovering Star Trek and learning the history to understand just how groundbreaking TOS was & that's because it broke new ground to the point that a generation later it was basically common place.
BTW it kind of shows the glass half empty way we view our history that young people are so quick to point out all the bad things we see in a show from the 1960s and much less inclined to talk about the good.
Representation definitely matters. And not just to those being represented. Saying to someone that YOU can do or be this is critically important. But the flip side sometimes gets overlooked. Telling OTHERS that someone else can do or be something also helps make the change. The obvious importance is the greater one, but this often unacknowledged side of the conversation still matters.
Pranks are still a thing. I cannot remember which Trek show or episode, but I remember someone mentioning a prank with a sonic shower programmed to spray someone with mud.
When I first saw the thumbnail regarding plot holes in Trek, I immediately thought of complaints many had regarding “Nu Trek”, and your videos responding to such things. Or a top 10 list of inconsistencies (but there are already channels for that!). Such as why Kahn and Checkov know of each other, despite having never met beforehand, or why Guinan doesn’t know Picard in 2021, despite having met him much earlier, etc. And those that make online statements about what is or is not Trek cannon. As if they, and only they, are the gatekeepers of continuity. I think Star Trek already has one of those. Your responses correctly reminded us all of 1) creative storytelling 2) it’s TV show! Relax!
Since I didn’t get a chance earlier, I’d like to add a 3) that allows me to relax, appreciate and enjoy.
Time Travel Fu%#ery.
Can’t think of a single Trek property that doesn’t have it . And every time a character goes back in time, something, however small or subtle, gets changed. Every time giving us a new timeline. Worked for original Planet of the Apes, works here. While it doesn’t explain or excuse everything, relax. It allows for new directions. Not knowing can be half the fun, if one allows it to be.
As for the Uhura translation frustration, I remember interpreting it as “well we got caught with our pants down”, or “not our proudest moment….dammit!” Still funny no mater how you translate, er, interpret it.
Not gonna tell you how you’re the greatest RUclipsr ever, but weather talking about Star Trek, DC Comics, or the b.s. that is social politics, you manage to say alot of what I’d like to if I had the time and wherewithal to do so. And that’s why I keep coming back.
In regards to the question of likeness rights and the Holodeck, it is possible that part of signing on with Starfleet is signing away your likeness rights to Starfleet. It could be part of the fine print, something most people don't realize.. And the organization itself only wanted to be able to use real officers for training simulations(think poor holo-Geordi getting sent to his death), but a skilled engineer like Barclay can get those same paterns out of the memory.
Also the doctor in Voyager misuses medical scans for holographic patterns, so maybe Barclay just cracked the protection on Crusher’s scans 🤔 or the transporter trace scans
@Kaitlyn L It certainly does seem that there are a lot of ways in Star Trek to have yourself copied and that data just sits around waiting to be misused.
You go from holodeck issues to Sisko's hatred of Picard. I could see Sisko "working out" his issues with Picard on the holodeck. LOL! The other thing that always seemed present was the warning of the Talosians, from the beginning of the show, where a similar technology basically wrecked their civilization. The holodeck was simultaneously overused and underused, IMO.
40:00 It might be crass to think about it, but I can’t help wondering how the economics of a TV show came into play. It’s like reading about how they invented the transporter to escape the economics of showing a starship landing on a planet. I wonder how much a new enemy costs, in development time, design, prosthetics, makeup and even back story. Did they wonder how much they could save by bringing back the actors and prosthetics of a previous species?
Now I desperately want a scene where someone quotes stats on what the holodeck gets used for most often
Imagine having the job of cleaning body fluids in the holodeck. Yuck.
Like those reports that Pornhub releases every so often 😆😆😆
"Living Witness" is a sterling example of a wonderfully fantastic episode that exists because of a major plot hole (the EMH back-up module). This is one of the reasons why I don't get in too much of a twist over continuity flub if it facilitates a great story.
Mark 44:17. With the original, "Charmed", people will point out that there are more seasons with, "Paige", than there are with, "Prue".
Poor, Robin Curtis, though, she had to remind people that she had played the role more than her predecessor had.
That reminds! I was going to mention it before, but I digressed after distracting myself, because the memories kept rushing in. Ahem.
I had to check the date for this video, because I wondered how you had the audacity to speak ill of the dead and give her the middle finger! 🤬
My personal headcanon.
We know there's two language centers in your brain, your primary language center which works between 1 year and about 16 years old where you plug in whatever language you grow up with and your secondary language center where you learn languages any time thereafter. This is why it's so easy for children to learn languages and so hard for adults. Gotta input them prior to being 16.
When Uhura's brain was erased by Nomad in The Changeling he obviously erased her secondary language center as she still spoke Swahili fluently in the episode. That tracks with what we know of languages. At that time Uhura would have lost her knowledge of Klingon. This fact is supported by the 2013 film where Uhura knows Klingon because she's not been in contact with Nomad. Afterward she may have had little incentive or time to relearn. It had been several years since the Klingon-Federation war.
I really liked the Vidians as an antagonist of Voyager. I thought they were - in some ways - more terrifying than the Borg. Intelligent, technologically advanced organ snatchers obsessed with their species' survival and willing to put medical or ethical concerns aside to pursue that goal. When Jason Alexander appears in "Think Tank" and tells Janeway that they helped cure the Phage, I was bummed because a well-written future Vidian episode could have made for a great horror-themed story...or movie.
my headcanon on recreating real people, especially members of the ship is that when you sign up as part of your Starfleet entrance application is a consent form. You can either say yes or no then. If you mark no then your likeness will never appear if you mark yes then your likeness can be used by anyone for any reason.
Regarding the lack of Borg in DS9 - considering that the Borg waited until Sisko was away before attacking Earth, perhaps it was less of restraint on the writer's part and more of an acknowledgement the Borg had heard of the person favoured by some space gods who built his own personal invisible Borg murdering ship... and decided to wisely steer clear.
Oh man, every season of Voyager could have been their efforts to get safe passage through another species space. The process of travel, inevitable social interactions. Like, if they had slowed that down, they could have had some recurring villains (because they live in the area that Voyager is travelling through) occasionally chase after Voyager to other systems, and they could have really got into gritty detail about different cultures.
A persistent damage mod would've been welcome too.
1. Wes Crusher, Starfleet cadet, chilli sauce in the sonic shower.
2. Holodec likeness watermarks. You'd have to edit core subroutines to remove them at risk of total program collapse.
Mark 21:54. "Holodeck", means that you're aboard a ship. "Holosuite", implies that you are paying for it, be it aboard a space station or in a hotel. That's why the terminology used in, "The Orville", is much better.
You could be wealthy enough to have such a facilility at home.
By the way! The, "United States Army", hired the crew member of, "Star Trek: The Next Generation", that came up with the concept in the first place, to work on a real training simulator, for their needs. 😎👍
I love it when Steve is overcome by mock tears and emotion: good acting Steve!
Maybe the writers of Voyager had too many plot using the Borg, but remember the Borg were at war with species 8472 and losing. It showed a vulnerability with the Borg which to that point was not really explored properly, and that the Borg was able to be defeated. That opened the door for voyager to try to pass through Borg space by helping who they believe were the aggressors in the war. It also brought in Seven of Nine to the series and apart from some overkill with Borg plot, many episodes were focused around seven of nine which had to include some Borg related issues.
Each photon torpedo has a subspace tag that can't be removed/disabled - they are very powerful devices and Spock's torpedo had kept on broadcasting so Kirk knew the torpedo was intact. They didn't show it because it wouldn't really add anything to the plot.
That scene with Uhura struggling to speak Klingon really pissed me off! Absolutely she should have been fluent in Klingon (and Romulan, Vulcan and many other "alien" languages)
Thanks for responding to my comment. I appreciate your appreciation.
I feel honor bound to get in on your Patreon, now.
I was planning to, anyway
Holodeck tech allows all kinds of abuse. Years ago a friend asked me to "guest star" in his Star Trek tabletop RPG's Halloween session as a slightly more advanced, very clever alien pirate attacking the ship. I did lots of awful stuff that only a Trekkie would come up with (like stringing monomolecular cutting wires across the turbolift shafts), but the best/worst thing I did was hack the ship's computer and activate the SHIPWIDE HOLO-EMITTERS to remove the safeties and begin running a borg-centric Kobayashi Maru scenario. The protagonists only realized it was a "prank" when a runabout carrying several incapacitated and partially assimilated crew cleared the shuttle bay (and emitters) and the implants suddenly vanished (killing said crew). Good times.
The thing about DS9 and Voyager and their villain choices is location, location, location. They wanted the Bajorians and Bajor as the location of the station, so who are they right next to and would naturally be an antagonist/villain the major conquering race that conquered them before that is right next to them the Cardassians. They then went to use Gamma quadrant antagonists and used the Cardassians only as needed to created a good story which they used amazingly well. They also brought in Q which again stolen from TNG but only for one good episode and didn't over use him, which Voyager did too. The thing was Voyager was in the delta quadrant, so who is the delta quadrant the borg so naturally a reason to use them of course, but the thing is the Cardassians although may have greater resources then DS9 aren't really superior like the borg or supposed to be so smart or even really talk to any of the other species, but because they made the mistake trying to conquer the Undine they needed Voyager to save them and kept going from there fighting them again and again. Which I don't think as a villain made them that ominous. In TNG they only fought a borg invasion once the other times were rogue borg or reasons to make them less of a threat then a borg invaision and made much better story lines. As the showrunner or one of the excutives for TNG said if they fight borg so many times they lose any value as an unstoppable threat which they kinda did with Voyager. Also by DS9 never using them as they had no real reason to be in DS9 the borg weren't in Gamma quadrant and the borg weren't even invading the federation again until First contact and it took place during DS9 time but as the borg start with Earth and wouldn't care about Bajor at first it didn't really involve them other than Worf commanding the defiant. DS9 and the borg it was decided wouldn't mix probably as the writers found no way to create a good story with them in it. They created much higher claibe shows with new atagonists/new villains from the delta quadrant. They would really have stretch things to put the borg in the delta quadrant which I can't think of remotely good reason they would go by Cardassia/Bajor or if they did stop there unless they had a fleet to stop them and it was more written they were by Romulain space in their path to Earth.
The Hirogen do make sense as recurring villains. Like the Yautja they don’t have a defined realm, just a collection of colonies.
Although Nichelle Nichols has passed, She was, is and will always be the Grande Dame of Trek, as we will always have her on film, both professionally in Trek and by the fans filming her at conventions.
THE missed opportunity in Voyager is that in my opinion, Janeway should have established a BASE of operations and started COLONIZING the Delta quadrant. Exploring, setting up shipyards and a Starfleet Academy for the residents of the Delta quadrant who joined the Federation.
Inside of 50 years, Starfleet would have been able to visit their far flung, NEW colonies and a second "seed" of humanity in the Milkyway. Voyager should have been a new frontier humans established a foothold on, not ran away from because everyone missed home.
Like Casablanca and Raiders - the giant plot holes are irrelevant because a great story just carries you through :)
Sarek thought Kirk had Spock's Katra, and still complained that he left the dead, damaged, body on Genesis. So that proves they wanted the body to be laid to rest on Vulcan, as a matter of respect and custom. That's why Kirk went to Genesis.
The unimaginably weirdly intense responsibilities and burdens she took on. My hell. The best I can do is say I'm glad I don't have to pretend to know. I know I can't.
Regarding pranks in Star Trek, Star Fleet Academy seems to be a hotbed of them. Kirk talks about Finnegan's pranks in "Shore Leave" from TOS,. Data, Wesley, and Lefler discuss Academy pranks in "The Game" from TNG. All of these pranks (except for some of Finnegan's abuse of Kirk) seem to be of the slapstick rather than psychologically ruinous variety.
I don't know if others have said this, but thank you for both being honest about how imposter syndrome affects you, and for helping us laugh with you about it. I struggle greatly with imposter syndrome in everything I do from my model kits, my job or even my RUclips channel. Seeing people that i respect deal with similar issues really helps. Thanks Steve.
"anyone who wants to see you naked can see you naked is a consent issue, it's a privacy issue"
why am I having Lower Decks flashbacks to the holodeck test, "naked time"?
Re: Body - I figured Kirk felt he had to go and check. At that point, he was running on hope he could correct his mistake leaving him there.
To the plot hole issue...McCoy/Spock is trying to secure passage to Genesis...it stands to reason there could have been a talk between Kirk and McCoy we SHOULD have seen so the movie works but I'm curious if there was no thought given to that possible conversation or if it was cut at the scripting stage for flow or with an eye on cutting the eventual runtime.
So to help close the Star Trek III plot hole that you mention, remember that just because one character does or doesn't know something doesn't mean all characters know or don't know something.
David and Savik didn't know that Spock's torpedo tube soft landed on the planet but that doesn't mean that Kirk didn't. In fact, you can make a reasonable assumption that off-screen Kirk and the crew tracked the landing of Spock's tube at the end of Star Trek 2. So while David was surprised that it "soft-landed", Kirk might have known it would be there all along.
On the borg... I am a big Dr Who fan so I know about how overuse of a monster can kill all of the threat (*cough*Daleks*Cough*). And I know how to fix it - witness RTD's season 1 episode "Dalek".
It's possible to really reinvigorate the Borg but you have to reestablish the threat. And then don't do RTD and then overuse them yourself.