Production Order Group Viewing 2018

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Why is it necessary for Uhura to vacate her quarters? There always seem to be extra rooms in other episodes. Maybe there's an unusual number of guests from Elas and Troyius aboard? Where does Uhura stay while Elaan is in her quarters?

Uhura's are more luxurious/larger than typical guest quarters, and therefore more befitting someone of Elaan's station. Supposedly. Elaan heartily disagrees.

ELAAN: Quarters! (throws something that breaks)
KIRK: Yes, not happy at all.
ELAAN: Am I a soft Troyian fawn to need pillows to sit on? And these ridiculous female trappings. They are an offense to my eyes.
KIRK: My communications officer generously vacated the rooms hoping you would find it satisfactory.
ELAAN: I do not find them so,

 

[Henoch]

Uhura's are more luxurious/larger than typical guest quarters, and therefore more befitting someone of Elaan's station. Supposedly. Elaan heartily disagrees.

Larger? It was the same set as Kirk's, Spock's, McCoy's, Scott's, Sarek's, (continues...) It was the standard officer's room, though, she decorated it nicely. I assumed putting Elaan in Uhura's room was to locate her in the officer's section for security and diplomacy reasons, rather than in a guest/passenger section with normally less protection.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

They thought she'd appreciate a tastefully decorated, comfortable room rather than a spare-looking closet with a cot by comparison. They guessed wrong.

 

[Henoch]

I stand corrected. Based on dialog, Kirk's attempt was to provide a comfortable room as you say. I forget just how sterile and minimalist the guest quarters are.

 

[Mytran]

ELAAN OF TROYIUS

I rewatched this episode with trepidation, but ended up quite enjoying it. Despite the somewhat simplistic depiction of Elaan as a “brat” and Kirk’s somewhat 1960s style attitude towards her this is a pretty good bottle show, with a nice dose of ship to ship combat action (itself a rarity in Trek)
@Poltargyst has mentioned several callbacks to earlier episodes, but what with Kirk tutoring Elaan and the presence of the weird female pheromones, there's elements of both Charlie X and Mudd’s Women as well.
It's a less strong entry than some earlier episodes in the series, but worthwhile nonetheless.

Why is it necessary for Uhura to vacate her quarters? There always seem to be extra rooms in other episodes. Maybe there's an unusual number of guests from Elas and Troyius aboard? Where does Uhura stay while Elaan is in her quarters?

I think Kirk hints toward the reason when he says to Elaan:

"My communications officer generously vacated the rooms hoping you would find it satisfactory."​

Rooms plural. Yes there are two compartments (like all Enterprise cabins, areas always referred to in the singular) but we also see another room in this episode when Elaan locks herself in it - the bathroom! My guess is that Uhura somehow wangled the cabin with the largest and fanciest bathroom on board (we saw in Man Trap how much sway she had over the repair staff). Uhura giving it up to space royalty is just the decent thing to do.

Other thoughts:

• Mr Petri is green; he’s a little, green man! Does that mean that Spock doesn’t believe in him?
• New feature in the Engine Room! Mr Scott has pinched that vertical light streaming unit from McCoy’s lab, who in turn nicked it from Harry Mudd’s android planet. A popular item!
• Nurse Chapel has a scene! Granted it’s an exposition scene, but at least she’s not swooning over Spock.
  Plus she gets to do sciencey stuff later on
• Dilithium crystals! Not seen them since The Alternative Factor, I believe. Now they are housed inside that big double-triangular doohicky in the Engine Room.
• That Kryton tried to sabotage the ship: What a smeeeeeg heeeeeeead!
• Elaan seems contrite at the end when she beams down, but when is she supposed to have learned all these new manners? Were there several more days of tutelage from Kirk that we just never got to see? There was enough time to rebuild the damaged engine components and reassemble her wedding necklace, anyway

At last, the Klingons get their own ship! In the original FX, anyway.
TOS-R had featured the ship a few times by now, but the way they depict it pursuing the Enterprise places it way too close for a “distant” object. Original FX for the win, this time.

They can't generate enough power to fire weapons without dilithium crystals? Impulse power's not enough?

Since the dire situation in Engineering went from being “if we cut in warp drive we’ll blow up” to “we can’t use warp drive because the entire converter assembly is fused” I’d say that Scotty worked some of his magic to defuse the explosive, perhaps at the cost of the converter assembly and all the stored energy in the phaser banks (and the torpedo launch system apparently).
The impulse engines are clearly not up to the task to recharge the phasers, not in time anyway. It Scotty a little while to use the Constellation's Impulse drive to recharge ONE phaser bank in Doomsday Machine after all.

Why doesn't Kirk know who the Dohlman is before she comes aboard? Doesn't Kirk get briefed when he's assigned these missions?

Well he does say in his log that the mission is top secret. Maybe that piece of info was super double secret?

The Klingon was following them at a snail's pace then is going Warp 6. How far away were they that it takes them that long to get to the Enterprise at Warp 6?

Ships travelling at warp yet moving at a snail's pace is nothing new to Trek - see such episodes as Tomorrow Is Yesterday or Operation Annihilate for just two of many examples. A side effect of the massive gravitational force of the nearby star, maybe?

 

[Pauln6]

I rather like Elaan. She feels genuinely alien. I love the way she relies on her tears to try and influence Kirk into doing her dirty work. She's not politically astute but she's no passive victim, she's grifting like Kirk with a 15 year old girl.

I'm troubled by the notion that Impulse power can be exhausted so quickly. Saucer separation sounds like a death sentence and that can't be right.

 

[Henoch]

Key battle strategy at the end of this episode; should we call this "The Kirk Maneuver":

KIRK: You and Spock get up here. Sulu, prepare for warp manoeuvres.
SULU: Aye, sir.
KIRK: Chekov, arm photon torpedoes.
CHEKOV: Photon torpedoes ready.
SULU: Warp power to the shields, Captain?
KIRK: Negative. His sensors will pick up our power increase. The more helpless he thinks we are, the closer he'll come. As he passes, I want to cut in warp drive. We'll pivot at warp two and bring all tubes to bear.
SULU: Aye, sir.
KIRK: Mister Chekov, give him a full spread of photon torpedoes.
CHEKOV: Aye, Captain.
(Scott and Spock enter)
SULU: One hundred thousand kilometres.
KIRK: Scotty, stand by to cut in warp drive.
SCOTT: Fluctuation. It's the shape of the crystals. I was afraid of that.
SULU: Seventy five. Seventy. Sixty. Fifty.
KIRK: Fire at minimum range.
SULU: Forty.
SCOTT: She won't steady down.
SULU: Thirty.
KIRK: Warp in, Scotty. Full power to shields.
(The Klingons fire.)
KIRK: Warp factor two. Bring us to course one four eight mark three.
(The Klingons fire again)
KIRK: Chekov, photon torpedoes. Fire!
CHEKOV: Aye, sir.
(Six torpedoes go, but not all hit the Klingons)
SULU: Direct hit amidships by photon torpedo.
SPOCK: Damage to Klingon number three shield. Number four shield obliterated. Loss of manoeuvre power.
CHEKOV: He's badly damaged, Captain. Continuing away at reduced speed.​

So, in order:

1. Sulu is ready for warp maneuvers.
2. Chekov arms photon torpedoes (couldn't do this without warp power?).
3. Kirk plays lame duck.
4. Sulu likes to count things down.
5. Kirk lets the Klingon ship get past him to attack the Enterprise's weak flank.
6. Scotty turns on the warp power.
7. Shields instantly charge to full power.
8. Shields repulse Klingon attack (no damage).
9. Kirk maneuvers at Warp Two to bring tubes to bear on the Klingon ship. (maybe bringing tubes to bear is important to use the torpedoes and without warp maneuvering, you can't hit a warp speed moving target?)
10. Shields repulse another Klingon attack (no damage).
11. Kirk fires a spread of six photon torpedoes at close range into the Klingon's flank/rear.
12. Klingon ship hit, damaged and retreats.

 

[Maurice]

At last, the Klingons get their own ship! In the original FX, anyway.
TOS-R had featured the ship a few times by now, but the way they depict it pursuing the Enterprise places it way too close for a “distant” object. Original FX for the win, this time.

The TOS-R Klingon ship looked like ass. It literally looks like a PSOne game object, and I do mean that literally. POS.

 

[johnnybear]

The remastered footage is klak compared to the original stuff! I was rewatching that scene a few weeks back and I still love it! "Hmmm, our ghost has materialised!" Kirk's reply of a Klingon warship and then the Enterprise and Klingon ships in similar moves was just great! The new scenes were too quick and without any real effort I thought! Maybe they thought we don't need to make such a big deal of the Klingon due to the fact that we've been adding them to all the old shows that didn't originally have them unlike Elaan where it is featured for the very first time?
JB

 

[Mytran]

I'm troubled by the notion that Impulse power can be exhausted so quickly. Saucer separation sounds like a death sentence and that can't be right.

It may be troubling but it's nothing new. The situation was the same in Doomsday Machine with the Impulse fuel only having hours left.

TOS Enterprise is certainly very dependent on her main engines, perhaps due in part due to the mass reducing effects of the nacelles' field emissions. Without them, the impulse engines (and their own fuel tanks) have to move the entire mass of the ship on newtonian thrust alone (AKA wallow like a garbage scow). No wonder they struggle!

 

[Henoch]

Maybe they thought we don't need to make such a big deal of the Klingon due to the fact that we've been adding them to all the old shows that didn't originally have them unlike Elaan where it is featured for the very first time?

Thanks for the trivia on Klingon's ships, JB! After watching the episodes out of order for the last forty+ years and owning D7 models, etc...the D7 was so familiar to me that it never occurred to me that we don't get the ship until season 3.

Info: The ship made its first "TV" appearance in The Enterprise Incident, 9/27/1968, S3E2 even though it was production order 59. Elaan of Troyius, 12/20/1968, S3E13 was production order 57. The other appearance was in Day of the Dove, 11/1/1968, S3E7 for production order 66.

Does anyone know why Elaan of Troyius was delayed half a season?

 

[johnnybear]

As a child I too thought they were seen in every Klingon episode too, Henoch! Especially Trouble With Tribbles, but it is Elaan of Troyius that it first appears! Elaan should really have been screened before Incident to be honest...
JB

 

[johnnybear]

Maybe the suits didn't rate it much as an episode?
JB

 

[Mytran]

Maybe the suits didn't rate it much as an episode?
JB

Less than And The Children Shall Lead which aired fourth?
Yikes

 

[johnnybear]

I don't see the problem with And The Children to be honest! It didn't get banned by the BBC for one thing and although it's not a particular favourite it's a fair episode!
JB

 

[Mytran]

I don't see the problem with And The Children to be honest! It didn't get banned by the BBC for one thing and although it's not a particular favourite it's a fair episode!
JB

That episode does have a bad rep but admittedly it's been a few years since I watched it in its entirety.
So I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks' time!

 

[UnknownSample]

I wonder whether they could have made the same-ish episode and not directly bring in the parallel Earth stuff. Two groups (not Yankees and Communists, but maybe one people for individual Freedom/Liberty and the other people for communism principles) fighting a centuries old war at the wind down stage where the side of freedom has finally won. Fight about Good versus Evil: sure. Kirk rips his shirt, give a motivational speech (freedom good, communism bad), then flies off and never looks back (as usual).

If it were me , and I had to take out the parallel Earth aspect, I just wouldn't make the episode. It guts the story. You lose the shock of us "This is US" and the idea of these incredibly long stretches of time on an almost exactly identical course, due to precisely identical circumstances.
-----------------
Make it "Well this planet's history is sort of similar" and it stops being a nervy, awe inspiring TOS episode, and becomes a Voyager-of-the-week. Really, parallel development is the most interesting thing here.

 

[Mytran]

If it were me , and I had to take out the parallel Earth aspect, I just wouldn't make the episode. It guts the story. You lose the shock of us "This is US" and the idea of these incredibly long stretches of time on an almost exactly identical course, due to precisely identical circumstances.
-----------------
Make it "Well this planet's history is sort of similar" and it stops being a nervy, awe inspiring TOS episode, and becomes a Voyager-of-the-week. Really, parallel development is the most interesting thing here.

Of course, the original shooting script did offer a reason as to why the Yangs and Cohms were so close to Earth history - although it would have played merry hell with Trek chronology if the exchange had remained!
It was to have been a classic Spock/McCoy moment that in the end got edited out entirely, with Kirk's "the fighting is over" line being joined directly to his earlier one.
The intonation that Shatner brings is still present in the final episode, although there's nothing now left for him to object to!

KIRK: We merely showed them the meaning of what they were fighting for. Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words---

MCCOY: Jim, the parallel's too close. They seem so completely Human. Is it possible that… ?
KIRK: The result of Earth's early space race?
SPOCK: Quite possible, captain. They are aggressive enough to be Human.
MCCOY: Now listen, Spock, you…​

KIRK: ---Gentlemen, the fighting is over here. I suggest we leave them to discover their history and their liberty.

 

[Henoch]

Adding onto the deleted dialog, McCoy may have indirectly pinpointed the era of the colonization of the planet, Omega Four:

MCCOY: Our tissues definitely show a massive infection, Jim, but something is immunising us down here, thank heavens, or we'd have been dead hours ago.
KIRK: I don't think we're going to have time to isolate it, Bones.
MCCOY: The problem is, it could be anything Some spores or pollen in the air, some chemical. Just finding it could take months, maybe even years. And I've only got one lead. The infection resembles one developed by Earth during their bacteriological warfare experiments in the 1990s. Hard to believe we were once foolish enough to play around with that.​

The planet was colonized after the 1990's, perhaps an early space race between the U.S. and China where both put a colony on the same planet. Isolated from Earth forever, and years later, politics get out hand and biological warfare breaks out between the two colonies. We could be taking about a limited population over a smaller area on the planet.

The timeline is off, though:

TRACEY: Their year of the red bird comes once every eleven years, which he's seen forty two times. Multiply it. Wu is four hundred and sixty two years old. His father is well over a thousand. Interested, Jim?
KIRK: McCoy could verify all that.
TRACEY: He will if you order it. We must have a doctor researching this. Are you grasping all it means? This immunising agent here, once we've found it, is a fountain of youth. Virtual immortality, or as much as any man will ever want.​

Tracey thinks that Wu's father is over a thousand years old, which can't be true if Earth's early space colonization period was only 200-300 years ago and the Constitution was written in 1787 which would be about 500 years ago. To counter the time issue, Kirk is not convinced about their extreme ages, saying McCoy would need verify it, and even Tracey wants McCoy to verify it either implying that he wants to proven right, or even he is open to the medical truth and wants proof one way or the other, but regardless of the results, Tracey is still convinced that the inhabitants are very old.

Deleting the Earth dialog eliminates the time discrepancy and puts the mystery of a parallel world up to our imaginations.

 

[Mytran]

Adding onto the deleted dialog, McCoy may have indirectly pinpointed the era of the colonization of the planet, Omega Four:

MCCOY: Our tissues definitely show a massive infection, Jim, but something is immunising us down here, thank heavens, or we'd have been dead hours ago.
KIRK: I don't think we're going to have time to isolate it, Bones.
MCCOY: The problem is, it could be anything Some spores or pollen in the air, some chemical. Just finding it could take months, maybe even years. And I've only got one lead. The infection resembles one developed by Earth during their bacteriological warfare experiments in the 1990s. Hard to believe we were once foolish enough to play around with that.​

The planet was colonized after the 1990's, perhaps an early space race between the U.S. and China where both put a colony on the same planet. Isolated from Earth forever, and years later, politics get out hand and a biological warfare breaks out between the two colonies. We could be taking about a limited population over a smaller area on the planet.

The timeline is off, though:

TRACEY: Their year of the red bird comes once every eleven years, which he's seen forty two times. Multiply it. Wu is four hundred and sixty two years old. His father is well over a thousand. Interested, Jim?
KIRK: McCoy could verify all that.
TRACEY: He will if you order it. We must have a doctor researching this. Are you grasping all it means? This immunising agent here, once we've found it, is a fountain of youth. Virtual immortality, or as much as any man will ever want.​

Tracey thinks that Wu's father is over a thousand years old, which can't be true if Earth's early space colonization period was only 200-300 years ago and the Constitution was written in 1787 which would be about 500 years ago. To counter the time issue, Kirk is not convinced about their extreme ages, saying McCoy would need verify it, and even Tracey wants McCoy to verify it either implying that he wants to proven right, or even he is open to the medical truth and wants proof one way or the other, but regardless of the results, Tracey is still convinced that the inhabitants are very old.

Deleting the Earth dialog eliminates the time discrepancy and puts the mystery of a parallel world up to our imaginations.

Exactly the problem I was aluding to. However, bear in mind that this was one the earliest scripts that Roddenberry ever wrote, so these chronological oddities likely stem from that, when which century Star Trek was set in hadn't been remotely considered.