What's up with those food cards?! I really must be missing something here because I don't see how you can apparently have any variety of food you wish from a small handful of wooden cards. At one point in this (abysmal) episode, the last child wants chocolate marble and pistachio. Nurse Chapel picks a card and is about to put it into the slot, then the kid says, "And peach". Well, she has a card for that, too, apparently. And she was only holding two cards! So they just happened to be "Chocolate marble and pistachio" and "Chocolate marble and pistachio with peach"?! Furthermore, was that kid afraid of, or allergic to, the colour WHITE?!! What was the point of that sequence? Was it supposed to show how cute kids are with their arbitrary tastes? Was it supposed to be funny?
I do have the same questions but haven't been able to come up with good answers, either. Almost seems that those "tapes" have some voice recognition chip inside or something like that. There are strange things going on in this epsode. And considering the multitude of Chinese names in California, I still wonder why of all the Chinese names (for the couple of the Starnes expedition) they picked "Tsing Tao". Maybe that was supposed to be funny, but my concept of humor is apparently somewhat different. Bob
We really don't know how those food synthesizers work. It might have something to do with what order the menu tapes are inserted, and any unmarked buttons are pressed on the synthesizer dispenser. I try not to think about some of the third season episodes too much.
Always hated that part too. "I want cookies and cream with caramel and nuts." "Wow, one of the 3 cards I'm holding is cookies and cream with caramel and nuts!"
What we see happen in this episode doesn't appear to have anything to do with how food dispensers or memory cards actually work. It's a game to keep children entertained, is all. Chapel makes up the rules, and no doubt adjusts them as needed to keep the kids happy. Timo Saloniemi
That about nails it down. The idea was that the kids were choosing from flavors they could see on the cards. But in the end, it's just another terrible scene in a terrible episode, leavened by Majel Barrett's total lack of charisma.
Maybe Picard learned of the events in this episode, and that is why he was so leery of having children on board Enterprise-D. Oh, and Melvin Belli dressed in a shower curtain..some things you just can't un-see.
This episode is so awful--it's one of the few I can't bear to watch unless forced to at gunpoint (or just about)--that the contradictions and plot inanities (is that a word?)don't register with me.
Gents, I think you are being to harsh. From a treknological point of view this episode features some intersting "firsts". We finally got to see the banner of the United Federation of Planets (was that one of the flags in the Season One hearing room and if yes, what was the other?), and we finally got to see the Season Three recreation room we had previously missed (because that scene from "Elaan of Troyius" had been abandoned on the floor of the editing room). It was nice to see the Auxiliary Control Room again and the episode had a good shocker, just to imagine that those two security crewmen had beamed into the vacuum of space. Okay, the premise that Sulu would take daggers in space for real is outrageously naive , but despite the many flaws there are still a few items that are worth seeing. Bob
My take is that this wasn't a requirement. All the card could have been the exact same color and the children could have still ordered different favors. When the children announced which favors they wish, Chapel handed them a colored card that was reasonable close to the selection. When that one kid wanted to reorder, Chapel could have simply used the same card the kid used the first time, but choose to employ a different card. As noted above, there was the element of a game to it.
Hail, hail fire and snow, call the angel we will go, far away, for to see, friendly angel come to me! If you think about it Gorgon was actually pretty twisted and scary. At least he would have been if he were played by a real actor, not a famous lawyer. But his motives and actions were really quite unsettling. He drives grown-ups to suicide through sheer terror (or maybe they just read the script) and controls children with the promise of "a million friends" to play with. The fact that he wore a sparkling robe and is referred to as "friendly angel" actually makes him seem even more twisted. At least, in theory. In actuality he's quite laughable. But I can appreciate the idea. And I still crack up at the thought of those kids with their mind control via fist pumping.
True, it seems that that there is always something good to be found, even in the not-so-good TOS episodes.