"The Host" is one of the very few things I accept as being non-canon. The inconsistencies are so bad that I can't rationalize it, and they're too significant to the plot for it to be an acceptable retcon (like James R Kirk, for example).
TNG's 'The Host' vs. DS9 Trill Makeup
- Thread starter Methuselah Flint
- Start date
That's how Trek gets built, though: interesting executions emerge from interesting concepts, even if there's a disconnect between the two.
The interesting concept may be something a writer thought up. It may also be something a writer failed to think of, though - a good thing may emerge from the need to rationalize, e.g. to explain how this Trill thing really works in light of half a dozen already written episodes where nobody paid any attention to the "really works" bit. Or from a simple omission aka opening: the Klingon Empire having no emperor is such a development, say.
I don't loathe "The Host". It just allows me to loathe a character, which is fun: Odan is an asshole (or perhaps the thing you find therein), exploiting the possibilities of Trill existence in an uncomfortable way, and its next host already appears to anticipate the unpleasantness of being deprived of name and personality and just serving as a pair of opposable thumbs. Dax... is not.
Timo Saloniemi
The interesting concept may be something a writer thought up. It may also be something a writer failed to think of, though - a good thing may emerge from the need to rationalize, e.g. to explain how this Trill thing really works in light of half a dozen already written episodes where nobody paid any attention to the "really works" bit. Or from a simple omission aka opening: the Klingon Empire having no emperor is such a development, say.
I don't loathe "The Host". It just allows me to loathe a character, which is fun: Odan is an asshole (or perhaps the thing you find therein), exploiting the possibilities of Trill existence in an uncomfortable way, and its next host already appears to anticipate the unpleasantness of being deprived of name and personality and just serving as a pair of opposable thumbs. Dax... is not.
Timo Saloniemi
There's always an explanation posited. The real issue might be more about a balance, or in this case a lack of it. 90s Trek's delving into "Treknobabble", especially in VOY, even turned off "geeks". Maybe most dramas and shows don't to that extent, but there are always explanations. Also, wasn't JR's shooting nothing more than a dream sequence? Dang geeks on that nerd show...
(Seems more an issue of pedantry than "geekery"?)To my current understanding, didn't Terry Farrell have an allergic reaction to the latex prosthetics, so went a different route with the make-up? Recasting and finding someone who has screen chemistry with the other actors isn't exactly easy, especially with time constraints?
Going back to the aforementioned nerdantry, could they really have explained it in-universe? Not when they didn't for the Vulcans and Romulans, and already passed off Klingons with the "outsiders" line in DS9. The species introduced in "The Game" (Katarians?) became a regular species in VOY but they changed the latex mold with zero explanation for that as well... (I recall Memory Alpha struggling to explain it, via sexual dimorphism as I recall... vaguely...)
Wasn't it ENT that opted for the "augment virus" thing, because - as explanations go - that one wasn't the strongest. There's a better one, devised fairly recently, that had the guts to try to make the transformation process a bit more authentic than the throwaways like that (and what "The Enterprise Incident" did to show Kirk looking like a Romulan, as if their ship's sensors wouldn't be used to point out non-Romulan intruders very quickly... Enterprise had such sensors, which were used in the episode. Romulans didn't? )
Gary was so high on esper power that he was mocking Jimmy by using "R" instead of "T" but Kirk wasn't to be distracted.
(Yeah, I agree that's a rubbish rationalization... not as rubbish as Kirk being so egocentric that he went through all the paperwork necessary to change his middle name from "Robert" to that of a Roman emperor who, in a decree of hilarious and historical ironically, banned kissing in his city because of the high rate of herpes spread throughout... wasn't it STVI that first introduced the full middle name being told? With only "T" said onscreen in TOS and not because they really knew his middle name and create such a silly nod/homage to said erstwhile emperor?)Or, in other words, even I won't rationalize various retcons if they're good enough.
Wasn't Tiberius first heard in TAS' BEM?
It's the same novel needed to explain to the Andorians why not all humans are pink skinned. Why should only humans be diverse?
But there might be one out there, check Memory Beta
But there might be one out there, check Memory Beta
Tiberius is Kirk’s paternal grandfather, assuming that bit from the Kelvin universe is the same for Kirk Prime, and there is no reason to believe Kirk always used the same form of his name in every context. What if R. is his second middle name and James R. Kirk the form he used early on in his command? When he began introducing himself on hailing frequencies, T. or Tiberius may just have sounded better.
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