Did the 24th century shows get too insulting/condescending about TOS?

[JonnyQuest037]

It's a little-known fact that Ship Historians were phased out after the Marla McGivers Incident back in the 23rd century.

Heck, they might've been on their way out even before that. McGivers had so little to do aboard the Enterprise that Kirk couldn't even remember her name.

 

[Greg Cox]

Heck, they might've been on their way out even before that. McGivers had so little to do aboard the Enterprise that Kirk couldn't even remember her name.

Good point.

Which kinda begs the question of why she wasn't consulted on the time-travel missions, but . . ..?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Good point.

Which kinda begs the question of why she wasn't consulted on the time-travel missions, but . . ..?

Well, from what we saw in "Space Seed," I get the impression that McGivers wasn't the most reliable of officers. I'd say that maybe Kirk consulted with the ship's other historians off-camera, but "Space Seed"'s reference to her as "that historian" tends to imply that she was the only one.

Maybe Kirk just never replaced her? There's no reference to there being a ship's historian in "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Metamorphosis," "Who Mourns for Adonais," "Wolf in the Fold," "Bread and Circuses," "A Piece of the Action," "Patterns of Force," "Assignment: Earth," "Spectre of the Gun," "The Paradise Syndrome," "Requiem for Methuselah," "The Savage Curtain," or "All Our Yesterdays," all missions where having a ship's historian might've come in handy. I guess Kirk figured that since McGivers was of no help with Captain Christopher in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and she outright mutinied later, who needed her?

 

[Shawnster]

City on the Edge... They would not know of any need for a historian. They didn't know about time portal or that the 3 would go back into the past. When Kirk, Spock, and McCoy returned it was just after they left.

Same for most of those other episodes. They didn't know a historian would be needed and, in some cases, were out of contact with the ship for duration of the mission.

 

[lawman]

I have no proof, but I'm not sure it is that arbitrary. 2364 places The Voyage Home in 2286, which would put it exactly three hundred years from its release date of 1986.

But placing TOS exactly three hundred years after broadcast/release is pretty much the definition of arbitrary. Prior to 1988, the general consensus timeline placed TOS in the first decade of the 23rd century.

(It's also worth noting that the backdating of TOS from TNG was only implicit, not explicit. The "78-year-gap" was never actually mentioned in canon AFAIK, although I do remember it being used a lot in promotional material before TNG premiered.)

So in my mind Riker is always a bit of an arrogant jerk - more so than I think he would be if I hadn't seen this episode.

IMHO Riker was pretty much always an arrogant jerk, through the entire run of TNG. Nothing special about this episode; he was always pompous and insufferable. I remember that when I first saw "Yesterday's Enterprise," I positively enjoyed seeing him get it in the neck.

 

[Lord Garth]

(It's also worth noting that the backdating of TOS from TNG was only implicit, not explicit. The "78-year-gap" was never actually mentioned in canon AFAIK, although I do remember it being used a lot in promotional material before TNG premiered.)

The first and only time they had "78 years later" was in the caption during the transition from the 23rd Century to the 24th Century in Generations... a long way off from TNG's premiere.

 

[lawman]

Yeah, you're right, it did show up there... but that was the gap between the Ent-B's launch and the End-D's destruction, so it didn't necessarily have any implications for earlier events. (And it also complicated things by having both Soran and Picard mention 80 years in the dialogue... I guess we have to assume they were just rounding off?)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

But placing TOS exactly three hundred years after broadcast/release is pretty much the definition of arbitrary. Prior to 1988, the general consensus timeline placed TOS in the first decade of the 23rd century.

Which I believe was chosen partially because it allowed them to preserve the references in "Space Seed" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday" that TOS around 200 years from the 20th century. But I suppose that assumption was blown out of the water by Kirk explicitly telling Gillian in STIV that he was from the late 23rd century by her calendar.

Interestingly, "Encounter at Farpoint" had Data saying that he was in "Starfleet Class of '78," which I believe was derived from the Spaceflight Chronology timeline or something akin to it. So if Data had been around for 22 years, TNG would've been taking place in the year 2300, at the very beginning of the 24th century.

I've long thought it was funny that Data's "Class of '78" reference from EaF is completely disregarded by the official Chronology, but Data saying that McCoy was 137 in the same episode became carved in stone. My big problem with that is that it retroactively makes McCoy in his mid-30s during TOS, which DeForest Kelley was noticeably not.

(It's also worth noting that the backdating of TOS from TNG was only implicit, not explicit. The "78-year-gap" was never actually mentioned in canon AFAIK, although I do remember it being used a lot in promotional material before TNG premiered.)

I remember a 1987 Meanwhile... column in DC Comics promoting their then-upcoming TNG miniseries saying that it was 87 years after the original series. Even though it was most likely a typo, the 87 number became fixed in my head, so a 78-year gap has always seemed "wrong" to me.

I wonder why they decided on 78 years, anyway. Was it just to place TNG far enough into the future that guest spots by TOS cast members would be unlikely?

 

[lawman]

I've long thought it was funny that Data's "Class of '78" reference from EaF is completely disregarded by the official Chronology, but Data saying that McCoy was 137 in the same episode became carved in stone. My big problem with that is that it retroactively makes McCoy in his mid-30s during TOS, which DeForest Kelley was noticeably not.

Indeed, that's awfully selective use of evidence. I don't quite share your concern about McCoy, though; if he was 137 going into 2364, that puts his birth in 2226, and hence his 40th birthday roughly during season 1, which seems reasonable.

I wonder why they decided on 78 years, anyway. Was it just to place TNG far enough into the future that guest spots by TOS cast members would be unlikely?

I've long suspected it was because someone had been looking at the Spaceflight Chronology (or some equivalent), and intended to place TNG at the very start of the 24th century (without explicitly citing a Gregorian year). If the original FYM were understood to be c. 2207-12, putting TWOK and TSFS c. 2223, adding 78 years to that would work out just about perfectly. After all, the very first sentence(!) of the Season One TNG Writer's Bible says the show is set "near the beginning of the 24th century."

(Apparently whoever wrote "Neutral Zone" didn't read that document very closely...)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I don't quite share your concern about McCoy, though; if he was 137 going into 2364, that puts his birth in 2226, and hence his 40th birthday roughly during season 1, which seems reasonable.

I was remembering that the ST Chronology put his age at even younger, like 37 or something. But it's been years since I contemplated the question of McCoy's age. My memory is likely playing tricks on me and I don't particularly feel like pulling my reference books off the shelf right now...

After all, the very first sentence(!) of the Season One TNG Writer's Bible says the show is set "near the beginning of the 24th century."

(Apparently whoever wrote "Neutral Zone" didn't read that document very closely...)

Or else they just consciously decided to change it. TNG being set right at the beginning of the 24th century could've just been one of those early concepts that fell by the wayside, like Spock being a "Vulcanian," the United Earth Space Probe Agency, Picard being a major booster of all things French, or the women in Riker's life calling him "Bill."

 

[lawman]

Or else they just consciously decided to change it.

It's possible. On the one hand, the script was by Maurice Hurley, who was the showrunner and (at the time) apparently on pretty good terms with Roddenberry and his lawyer (the widely detested) Leonard Maizlish, so it's possible that the script reflected a revised preference by those "at the top" about the show's chronological setting, reached subsequent to the drafting of the Writer's Guide a year earlier (which in reality had been written mostly by David Gerrold and not Roddenberry anyway).

On the other hand, it's kind of odd to have something that was subsequently so pivotal slipped in so casually, and I'm honestly inclined to believe that it may well have been just an arbitrary date inserted in the first-draft script, which then wound up being used as the shooting script because it couldn't be revised due to the 1988 writer's strike.

I do recall reading that when the first edition of the Star Trek Chronology was in the works it was Roddenberry's assistant Richard Arnold who was the primary figure insisting to the Okudas that the events of TOS had to be set exactly 300 years after their broadcast date. Arnold wasn't really involved with the show in S1, so the date in the script couldn't have come from him initially... but whether his later insistence arose from his own interpretation of the "2364" date, or whether it genuinely reflected Roddenberry's own preference, is anybody's guess.

Ultimately, it could've been deliberate, or it could have been completely arbitrary, and we have no way of knowing.

However, what we can say with certainty is that the weight hung upon that slender hook of dialogue is more than it was ever meant to bear. In particular, even if that episode was set in 2364, there's nothing in it (or elsewhere in canon) to support the widespread assumptions that it was the very end of 2364, and that TNG S1 started at the beginning of that calendar year, and in fact that each TV season of 1000 stardate units corresponded to exactly one Gregorian calendar year, Jan-Dec. I've never understood how those particular assumptions caught on in the first place, since there's an awful lot in canon that flatly contradicts them.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

On the other hand, it's kind of odd to have something that was subsequently so pivotal slipped in so casually, and I'm honestly inclined to believe that it may well have been just an arbitrary date inserted in the first-draft script, which then wound up being used as the shooting script because it couldn't be revised due to the 1988 writer's strike.

Yeah, it feels like that has to be the case. My gut feeling is that if the script had gone to additional drafts, that reference would've been eliminated.

I do recall reading that when the first edition of the Star Trek Chronology was in the works it was Roddenberry's assistant Richard Arnold who was the primary figure insisting to the Okudas that the events of TOS had to be set exactly 300 years after their broadcast date.

Yeah, that sounds like a Richard Arnold sort of thing. He has that bad fan habit of presenting his personal opinions and assumptions as incontrovertible facts.

...but whether his later insistence arose from his own interpretation of the "2364" date, or whether it genuinely reflected Roddenberry's own preference, is anybody's guess.

Arnold apparently also had a habit of presenting his own directives as coming from Roddenberry himself, so that they carried more weight.

In particular, even if that episode was set in 2364, there's nothing in it (or elsewhere in canon) to support the widespread assumptions that it was the very end of 2364, and that TNG S1 started at the beginning of that calendar year, and in fact that each TV season of 1000 stardate units corresponded to exactly one Gregorian calendar year, Jan-Dec. I've never understood how those particular assumptions caught on in the first place, since there's an awful lot in canon that flatly contradicts them.

True. It was probably just easiest to assume that one calendar year equaled one season. If season one of TNG was, say, 2263-2264 instead of just 2264, then you've have to figure out where the New Year fell. When you're doing something as massive as creating a timeline for the entire ST universe, why create extra headaches for yourself?