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By Any Other Name: A New Perspective

Many sets got little tweaks over the three seasons, but Engineering feels like it was almost a personal project for Matt Jefferies, growing from that bare room with a few odd looking things in the middle of it in "The Enemy Within", to being that elaborate multi-story set with lots of visual interest by the third year. It's almost like, every time a new season started and there was just a little more give in the budget, he would refine it.

Exactly. And as you might expect from someone with an interest in engineering!

One of the things I love about S3 is that we learn so much more about the Enterprise and how it works.
 
On that note though, did you or someone say they flipped the opening planet scene in Enemy Within for TOS-R?
 
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On that note though, did you or someone say they flipped the opening planet scene in Enemy Within for TOS-R?

It was actually flipped for the DVD prints and stayed that way ever since. At that point, the image was sharp enough to see "BOTANY DIV. 6 SEC. 5" written on one of the boxes on top of the rock at the start of the episode, so that's probably one reason why they did it.
 
Thanks. I take it the laserdisc is correct? ;)

Yup, it was always like that in syndication.

Do you know what the reason was for the original flip?

I can only guess. Maybe to open the set up a little bit. Since Shatner's insignia was missing and Takei's was hidden behind the space dog, only the hair would give it away.

There were another few on the bridge at the end, probably because the duplicate Kirk was shot at the wrong angle and had to be corrected ("Good" Kirk was looking to the left of our screen and the double had to be "flopped" to be looking to the right). This results in the facial scratches being on the wrong side and the view screen being in the wrong spot. This episode is kind of a mess, editorially.
 
Exactly. And as you might expect from someone with an interest in engineering!

One of the things I love about S3 is that we learn so much more about the Enterprise and how it works.
That was primarily due to the writer John Meredyth Lucas who really had a thing about there being a single, centralised matter-antimatter reactor on the Enterprise - it's in all his stories!
 
That was primarily due to the writer John Meredyth Lucas who really had a thing about there being a single, centralised matter-antimatter reactor on the Enterprise - it's in all his stories!
Yes he did, and thus stirring up the reactor(s) dilemma on this site. Odd that he also produced this episode, By Any Other Name which slips in an alternate version than his own...I guess the producer has other responsibilities.
The perspective I have about the ship's M/AM reactors in Second Season By Any Other Name is that they are clearly in the nacelles:
SPOCK: There is one other possibility, Mister Scott. The final decision, of course, must be the captain's, but I believe we must have it ready for him. The Enterprise is propelled by matter-anti-matter reactors. The barrier we must traverse is negative energy.
SCOTT: I see what you're getting at. I can't say I like it.
SPOCK: Nor I. But it must be made available to the captain.
...
KIRK: Well?
SPOCK: Impossible, Captain. The power source is protected by a material we cannot breach even with our phasers. Mister Scott and I have prepared the means for the only logical alternative available to us.
KIRK: What alternative?
SPOCK: The barrier we must penetrate is composed of negative energy.
SCOTT: I have opened the control valves to the matter-anti-matter nacelles. On your signal, I will flood them with positive energy.
Spock and Scott discussing M/AM reactors and next about flooding the M/AM nacelles to blow up the ship strongly implies that M/AM reactors (and probably some amount M and/or AM fuels) are in the M/AM nacelles.
 
Saying that your starship is propelled by matter-antimatter reactors could be like saying that your car is propelled by an internal combustion engine though, or a battleship by a nuclear reactor. In all cases the physical propulsion is handled by something else (tyres, propeller screws) but the heart of the movement is something else.
As for the reference to multiple reactors, I have no problem imagining at least three smaller units operating together, forming the "main" reactor energy production system that the nacelles require.
SCOTT: I have opened the control valves to the matter-anti-matter nacelles. On your signal, I will flood them with positive energy.
This whole positive energy is a bit weird though - what exactly it is or where it comes from is never elaborated upon. Is there a "positive energy generator" somewhere on board ship that can flood its output into the nacelles? Or is it just a variant output of a normal M/AM reaction? If so then that really puts reactors in the nacelles completely out of the question, since otherwise Scotty could just get the nacelles to generate positive energy themselves, no need for opening control valves!
 
This whole positive energy is a bit weird though - what exactly it is or where it comes from is never elaborated upon. Is there a "positive energy generator" somewhere on board ship that can flood its output into the nacelles? Or is it just a variant output of a normal M/AM reaction? If so then that really puts reactors in the nacelles completely out of the question, since otherwise Scotty could just get the nacelles to generate positive energy themselves, no need for opening control valves!

One thing I like about Spock's line in "By Any Other Name" is that it's a very specific call back to WNMHGB, in which he is scanning the Barrier and shouts "Deflectors say there's something there, sensors say there isn't. Density negative. Radiation negative. Energy negative!"

And here he is, years later saying "The barrier we must penetrate is composed of negative energy." It's not what I thought the line meant in WNMHGB, I thought it meant he could not detect the energy, but it's cool when "strictly episodic" TOS has a memory; it adds something to the realism.
 
One thing I like about Spock's line in "By Any Other Name" is that it's a very specific call back to WNMHGB, in which he is scanning the Barrier and shouts "Deflectors say there's something there, sensors say there isn't. Density negative. Radiation negative. Energy negative!"

And here he is, years later saying "The barrier we must penetrate is composed of negative energy." It's not what I thought the line meant in WNMHGB, I thought it meant he could not detect the energy, but it's cool when "strictly episodic" TOS has a memory; it adds something to the realism.
But if Spock meant that it was composed of negative energy, that mean the barrier also emitted negative radiation and was composed of negative mass?
What would those terms even mean???
:shrug:
 
One thing I like about Spock's line in "By Any Other Name" is that it's a very specific call back to WNMHGB, in which he is scanning the Barrier and shouts "Deflectors say there's something there, sensors say there isn't. Density negative. Radiation negative. Energy negative!"

I actually appreciate the fact that he says those three things exactly, only in "second season Spock" fashion.

KIRK: Reading, Spock.
SPOCK: Sensors indicate density negative, radiation negative, energy negative.
 
But if Spock meant that it was composed of negative energy, that mean the barrier also emitted negative radiation and was composed of negative mass?
What would those terms even mean???
:shrug:

It can only mean that those three things were not being detected by the instruments, but it turns out that energy was present as a previously unknown type we can't scan for. After the first Barrier encounter, that new type came to be known as "negative energy," in much the way that dark matter and dark energy were named. They can't be seen, and were named for that fact.

This might lead to a theory that the Barrier is a boundary between different universes. A universe with weird properties, unknown energy, bleeds into ours a little there.

I actually appreciate the fact that he says those three things exactly, only in "second season Spock" fashion.

KIRK: Reading, Spock.
SPOCK: Sensors indicate density negative, radiation negative, energy negative.

I forgot about that! More subtle the second time, for sure.
 
Yeah, I've said before - even though the ep is Top 20-25 material for me - that the thing that makes me maddest in all of Star Trek is the total lack of justice for the outrageous murder of Yeoman Thompson. I like to think that once Kirk and Starfleet regained control and neutralized the paralyzer, they returned to the planet and quietly arrested, tried, and convicted Rojan before sending him away for life to a penal colony.
 
Yeah, I've said before - even though the ep is Top 20-25 material for me - that the thing that makes me maddest in all of Star Trek is the total lack of justice for the outrageous murder of Yeoman Thompson. I like to think that once Kirk and Starfleet regained control and neutralized the paralyzer, they returned to the planet and quietly arrested, tried, and convicted Rojan before sending him away for life to a penal colony.

Yeah. At least "Catspaw" got a "Jackson is dead" at the end. If they wanted BAON to be lighthearted, they should have had Kirk save both redshirts in Act 1.
 
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