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Star Trek Continues, Episode 5....

I would like to think M'Benga isn't on board just to work on Spock, but is a fully qualified human physician.

It does seem somewhat short-sighted for there to be only one physician on board to take care of 430 people for any duration. I mean, Scotty has plenty of engineers to help him repair the ship; why can't McCoy have other doctors on his staff in Sickbay?
 
I would like to think M'Benga isn't on board just to work on Spock, but is a fully qualified human physician.

Yeah, you're right...guess I was just surprised he made it up to second behind McCoy and all, the way he keeps slapping the bejeezus out of every patient at the end of treatment :rommie:
 
I'm still waiting for that episode with Uhura in command.

No offense to either Nichelle Nichols or the ladies that have tackled the role since, but Uhura never really had much of a character or at least one that would be credible as a higher-ranked military leader. They seemed usually to play her as overly emotional and blubbering when something dramatic happened. She just never really exhuded the confident air a commander needs.

She's actually very bipolar, just look at Mirror Mirror where she looks unsure and ready to fall apart, yet when she plays the role of her counterpart, she totally plays it like she was born there (what the hell? )

Now if you had Diana Rigg from the Avengers as a candidate, I would be on your side...

but not Uhura...
 
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I'm still waiting for that episode with Uhura in command.

Been there, done that back in "Blood and Fire:"

4227018994_c03c7926c8_z.jpg
 
It's probably worth mentioning that New Voyages has shown Uhura in command of the Enterprise on occasion, even if it's not been in any particularly meaningful way beyond having their Uhura in the center seat when Kirk or Spock return to the bridge.
 
It's probably worth mentioning that New Voyages has shown Uhura in command of the Enterprise on occasion, even if it's not been in any particularly meaningful way beyond having their Uhura in the center seat when Kirk or Spock return to the bridge.
At least it's a nod to the possibility. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but it's fun to imagine that these productions could throw a bone to the fans regarding some things that could have been done but weren't if TOS had continued.
 
It's probably worth mentioning that New Voyages has shown Uhura in command of the Enterprise on occasion, even if it's not been in any particularly meaningful way beyond having their Uhura in the center seat when Kirk or Spock return to the bridge.
At least it's a nod to the possibility. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but it's fun to imagine that these productions could throw a bone to the fans regarding some things that could have been done but weren't if TOS had continued.
Exactly. Nail the look, the feel, the style, but improve on some of the outdated '60s dramatic television tropes.
 
It's probably worth mentioning that New Voyages has shown Uhura in command of the Enterprise on occasion, even if it's not been in any particularly meaningful way beyond having their Uhura in the center seat when Kirk or Spock return to the bridge.

all done for the wrong reasons, the same as in one of their very early episodes James Cawley as Kirk had Janice Rand assume the con. Look, I'd like to see a woman as a captain, but Uhura and Rand? No way!...

Commander Harris from Exeter? Absolutely!!
 
Actually aside from sitting and pressing a few buttons, nothing much is done in the captain's chair. It would be nice to have a storyline focused on Uhura. Maybe she can get captured by the Shore Leave planet's computer and has to negotiate her way out? . (jJust kidding but that was sort of a fun TAS episode). She needs a story done around her.
 
Actually aside from sitting and pressing a few buttons, nothing much is done in the captain's chair. It would be nice to have a storyline focused on Uhura. Maybe she can get captured by the Shore Leave planet's computer and has to negotiate her way out? . (jJust kidding but that was sort of a fun TAS episode). She needs a story done around her.

We had been working on such an episode ("Pursuit") and even put together a teaser/trailer for it. That's Doug Drexler's VFX of course, and Julienne Irons (our original pre-Kim Stinger Uhura). It would have been fun.

[yt]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ppRYbI1vkzA[/yt]
 
Speaking strictly about the TOS era fan films, both Starship Exeter and Starship Valiant have shown strong, compelling female characters - the first officers - (who, by the way, were played by talented actresses giving nuanced and believable performances) that are light years ahead of any of the other female characters and how they've been utilized in Dreadnought: Dominion, Star Trek: Equinox, Star Trek: Secret Voyage, or Star Trek: Phase II/New Voyages.

Starship Farragut gets a bit of a pass on this from me because I really enjoy the triumvirate of Carter/Tacket/Mike and how their obvious real-life friendship spills into their performances, but even so, Mike doesn't have much in the way of characterization beyond her job (chief engineer) and her on-again/off-again romance with Tacket. I'm hoping that changes with "The Crossing" though.

I do agree though that it's not enough to have Uhura or Rand or any of the female characters just "sitting in The Chair." There needs to be a story, there need to be stakes at play. I mean come on guys, it's 2015, not 1966.
 
Actually aside from sitting and pressing a few buttons, nothing much is done in the captain's chair. It would be nice to have a storyline focused on Uhura. Maybe she can get captured by the Shore Leave planet's computer and has to negotiate her way out? . (jJust kidding but that was sort of a fun TAS episode). She needs a story done around her.

We had been working on such an episode ("Pursuit") and even put together a teaser/trailer for it. That's Doug Drexler's VFX of course, and Julienne Irons (our original pre-Kim Stinger Uhura). It would have been fun.

[yt]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ppRYbI1vkzA[/yt]

Forgive my ignorance but what happened?
 
I do agree though that it's not enough to have Uhura or Rand or any of the female characters just "sitting in The Chair." There needs to be a story, there need to be stakes at play. I mean come on guys, it's 2015, not 1966.
Agreed. Technically it doesn't even have to be Uhura liteally sitting in the command chair. She could be the ranking officer on a shuttlecraft mission roughly similar to "The Galileo Seven" or "The Slaver Weapon."

There were strong female characters on television in the 1960s so in a hypothetical successive season for TOS it wouldn't have been out of place for Uhura (or someone else) to have been seen in command under a given situation. In all candor there were those times I think Uhura had more credebility to be in command than DeSalle.

I recall a first season Mission: Impossible episode ("Action" aired in 1967) where it was Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain) who organized and lead the IMF team.
 
Very cool. Let's see it produced. Btw, from what little I've seen, this Uhura would make a good commander.
 
I do agree though that it's not enough to have Uhura or Rand or any of the female characters just "sitting in The Chair." There needs to be a story, there need to be stakes at play. I mean come on guys, it's 2015, not 1966.
Agreed. Technically it doesn't even have to be Uhura liteally sitting in the command chair. She could be the ranking officer on a shuttlecraft mission roughly similar to "The Galileo Seven" or "The Slaver Weapon."

There were strong female characters on television in the 1960s so in a hypothetical successive season for TOS it wouldn't have been out of place for Uhura (or someone else) to have been seen in command under a given situation. In all candor there were those times I think Uhura had more credebility to be in command than DeSalle.

I recall a first season Mission: Impossible episode ("Action" aired in 1967) where it was Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain) who organized and lead the IMF team.

They actually had to reshoot that episode because Steven Hill was such a pain in the ass:

The leader of the IMF is initially Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill. As an Orthodox Jew, Hill had to leave on Fridays at 4 p.m. to be home before sundown and was not available until after dark the next day. Although his contract allowed for filming interruptions due to religious observances, the clause proved difficult to work around due to the production schedule and as the season progressed, an increasing number of episodes featured little of Dan Briggs. Hill had other problems as well. After cooperatively crawling through dirt tunnels and repeatedly climbing a rope ladder in the episode "Snowball in Hell," in the following episode ("Action!") he balked at climbing a stairway with railings and locked himself in his dressing room. Unable to come to terms with Hill, the producers re-shot the episode without him (another character, Cinnamon Carter, listened to the taped message, the selected operatives' photos were displayed in "limbo", and the team meeting was held in Rollin Hand's apartment), and reduced Briggs' presence in the five episodes left to be filmed to a minimum.[2] As far as Hill's religious requirements were concerned, line producer Joseph Gantman simply had not understood what had been agreed to. He told author Patrick J. White, "'If someone understands your problems and says he understands them, you feel better about it. But if he doesn't care about your problems, then you begin to really resent him. Steven Hill may have felt exactly the same way".

The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier by Patrick White, pp. 59

..which isn't to say it wasn't an excellent choice to sub in Barbara Bain for Hill. And all melodrama on the fan film sets aside, there's really no reason the fan films can't elevate their female characters with better characterization and storylines.
 
Actually aside from sitting and pressing a few buttons, nothing much is done in the captain's chair. It would be nice to have a storyline focused on Uhura. Maybe she can get captured by the Shore Leave planet's computer and has to negotiate her way out? . (jJust kidding but that was sort of a fun TAS episode). She needs a story done around her.

We had been working on such an episode ("Pursuit") and even put together a teaser/trailer for it. That's Doug Drexler's VFX of course, and Julienne Irons (our original pre-Kim Stinger Uhura). It would have been fun.

[yt]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ppRYbI1vkzA[/yt]

Forgive my ignorance but what happened?

I don't know. It was before I joined the production. I can tell you that by looking at the costumes, props, set pieces, and make-up, this appears to have been shot right around the time of "To Serve All My Days." Perhaps we just couldn't make it work without crashing into the "Feminist Fantasy" TV Trope.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FeministFantasy

We also were working on a script for Nichelle. She approached us after Walter and George spoke glowingly of their experience with us. We wrote a cool script (somewhat contrived) where Uhura had to rescue a famous African Earth leader--something like Mandela or King--except a grandmotherly woman (Nichelle). "But I wanted to play Uhura again--like Walter and George got to revisit their old characters." We couldn't figure out a way to make it all work without dipping into the time travel or flashback well too many times.
 
Thank you for the explanation Greg. Sucks that the project got shelved, and that there wasn't any way to do the show for Nichelle either.
 
Thank you for the explanation Greg. Sucks that the project got shelved, and that there wasn't any way to do the show for Nichelle either.

Hey--I found this content online. It looks like this was simply a vignette that wasn't really a teaser/trailer for anything. It was fully realized as it was.

************

In fact, this isn’t the only episode where Julienne gets to shine and stretch Uhura. She stars in an upcoming vignette for New Voyages, called “Pursuit.” It’s directed by none other than her New Voyages co-star, Andy Bray. And it has something we never got to see in the Sixties version of Star Trek, except in its ‘bad’ mirror universe. “Uhura kicks butt in this vignette. And anybody who wants to see her kick butt will love this vignette.”

Much of this vignette was filmed during the actors down time from actively filming “World Enough and Time” – whenever they weren’t needed to be in front of the cameras, you could find them off in the corner of the bullpen area where the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft was (yes, authentic replica of that as well), working on their vignette. Conditions were less than ideal, as they would have to stop every time quiet was called for on the set, but they persisted. Often you could see trusty friend and co-star John Lim working the lighting so his pal Andy could shoot, or filling in for whatever other crew person was needed and not available.

Hence, it’s no surprise that when Julienne was asked to talk about her favorite moments from the episode, she brought up the guerrilla filming of “Pursuit.” “That was my favorite part of the shoot, hands down. Just working with Andy, just seeing him get all frantic and stressed out, because we only had like two hours to shoot like eight pages.”

To make things even harder, Julienne had a scene near the end where she has to come out of her shuttle in tears. But the bullpen was the area where the crew hung out and passed the time talking and playing computer games when they weren’t needed to do their jobs on the set. Hence it was hard for her to get into the proper frame of mind for her emotional scene.

But like a beautiful princess, she had a knight come to her rescue – in the form of a guy named Pat Cleveland. “He was like, ‘you guys need me to do anything?’ And we told him we just needed people to be quiet. And he was like our dude, getting people to be quiet when we were shooting, saying, ‘okay guys, everybody shut up. Be quiet. They’re doing their thing.’ He was our guy. Protecting our little Pursuit world. Protecting our little vignette world. Helping us get our episode done. As soon as he told everybody to get quiet, I took five, ten minutes, got my tears up, and it was pretty good.”

Hence, it is easy to see why Julienne remembers this as her “favorite moment, hands down. Love that guy for telling everybody to shut up. Love Andy. Andy’s like a phenomenal director.” In fact, it was hard to stem Julienne’s enthusiasm for this vignette of Andy’s. “I can’t imagine if we had everything that we needed to shoot this project, which we didn’t, but if we did, if we had had all the manpower that we had needed to do this, Andy is such a great director, it would have been like a billion times better. It’s good, but we could have done so much more with it. But kudos to Andy for being so fabulous.”
 
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