For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky

[Orius]

Random Thoughts....

I sure an enjoying these remastered Trek episodes. Man, take a look at the Constellation after the Doomsday Machine got threw with her.

Yeah, some of the remastered episodes have some good work done in them. "The Doomsday Machine" of course is one because there's a lot of shots of the Constellation and the planet killer. Some episodes just have an establishing shot of a planet and the Enterprise warping away at the end, so there's less to see.

But, another thing I like about Star Trek is that we don't always see the series regulars in their positions. In For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky, Kirk puts Assistant Chief Engineer DeSalle in charge of the ship while he is down on the planet.

This gives the impression of a real, working starship where there are more than one person for the main positions aboard a vessel.

I'm not sure, but I don't think this practice was carried on as much with later Trek series (though, I think, it should have been).

Possibly it's because only Shatner, Nimoy, and (later) Kelley had top billing, everyone else in the original crew were just guest stars or something, even Doohan, and Scotty was pretty important in the command structure. So maybe they weren't contracted to do every episode or something like the stars of the later series. Possibly it was cheaper to have fewer crew members shown on a regular basis, maybe actor contracts were higher by the time TNG aired? Or maybe it's the result of Roddenberry trying to make Starfleet less military.

I was thinking. You know, Uhura would be one of the most important characters on the show if every alien race encountered by the Enterprise didn't already speak English.

Think about it: I think it would add quite a lot to the show if more aliens races had their own languages and dialects.

Having all those different languages around would have been very unusual for 60s television, and even modern sci-fi tends to have a lot of aliens speaking English because it's just easier. And it was already pretty groundbreaking at the time for Uhura to have a fairly important position on the bridge, even if she didn't do much in most episodes. Enterprise though did more with a linguist as communications officer, though they didn't always use Hoshi either.

 

[Water Bob]

Having all those different languages around would have been very unusual for 60s television, and even modern sci-fi tends to have a lot of aliens speaking English because it's just easier. And it was already pretty groundbreaking at the time for Uhura to have a fairly important position on the bridge, even if she didn't do much in most episodes. Enterprise though did more with a linguist as communications officer, though they didn't always use Hoshi either.

Still, the Communications position should be one of the "star" positions from a ship's crew. I think the position should go beyond just straight back-and-forth dialogue. Your Comms Officer should know about alien customs and protocol. A Captain would always need his Communications Officer at his side when meeting with any alien race. It shouldn't be Spock who figures out that the ancient hieroglyphics found scratched in the rock of a cave on the frozen world are, indeed, similar to that of the ancient Egypitans. It should be the Communications Officers that figures that out.

The Starfleet Comms Officer is under-utilized, I think. I don't think I've ever ready a novel or seen a show where the Comms Officer was extremely important to the protagonists' success. And, that doesn't seem right.

 

[Water Bob]

Here's a nice comparison pic, although some argue that the new, alternate universe Enterprise has been re-sized to a bigger ship.

I still love the middle one. Man, that's a good looking ship. I hated the bottom one for a while, but it has grown on me. It's still not what I hoped it would be, but there's a lot about the new Star Trek that doesn't live up to my expectations. And, that bottom one sure is a heck of a lot better looking that TNG's Enterprise D. In fact, I like it better than the C and E, too. I think TNG ships are too aerodynamic looking. I mean, I like the bulk of the C, and the E is a fine looking ship--but it reminds me more of a space Trans-Am than a starship.