Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

[trynda1701]

In tonight's (3-24-67) Time Tunnel, Michael Ansara is... a silvery... plant... guy.

This show is really stupid.

This looks like how TOS might have done the Borg if they'd come up with concept then!

Of course, Cybermen in Dr Who first appeared in "The Tenth Planet" serial in 1966. This Time Tunnel episode "Kidnaopers", first broadcast on 24th March 1967.

 

[Christopher]

This looks like how TOS might have done the Borg if they'd come up with concept then!

I doubt it. It doesn't convey the idea of a hybrid between biology and technology. A TOS Borg design probably wouldn't have been that different from the early TNG Borg design, just with fewer blinkies and moving eye gizmos. After all, the original Borg design always looked pretty old-fashioned and cheesy to me even by 1980s standards.

Of course, Cybermen in Dr Who first appeared in "The Tenth Planet" serial in 1966. This Time Tunnel episode "Kidnaopers", first broadcast on 24th March 1967.

Nobody in the United States saw Doctor Who until the 1970s. And "Tenth Planet" Cybermen's faces weren't silver, but more of a grayish-white fabric. The original design was meant to represent medical life-support equipment taken to an extreme, so the face masks looked more like medical gauze than the more metallic designs that came later.

 

[FormerLurker]

I doubt it. It doesn't convey the idea of a hybrid between biology and technology. A TOS Borg design probably wouldn't have been that different from the early TNG Borg design, just with fewer blinkies and moving eye gizmos. After all, the original Borg design always looked pretty old-fashioned and cheesy to me even by 1980s standards.

To me the Borg will always look more like the original Robocop than the remake. More functionality, less aesthetics.

 

[Christopher]

To me the Borg will always look more like the original Robocop than the remake. More functionality, less aesthetics.

I don't care about aesthetics -- I've just always thought the mechanical parts looked ridiculously clunky and boxy for what's supposed to be a hyper-advanced technology. And making them asymmetrical isn't functional at all. What's the value in covering only one eye with techie gizmos? Sacrificing binocular vision is not functional. Nor is covering parts of the skin in protective coating but leaving other parts exposed.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I don't care about aesthetics -- I've just always thought the mechanical parts looked ridiculously clunky and boxy for what's supposed to be a hyper-advanced technology. And making them asymmetrical isn't functional at all. What's the value in covering only one eye with techie gizmos? Sacrificing binocular vision is not functional. Nor is covering parts of the skin in protective coating but leaving other parts exposed.

The Borg Collective doesn't care about what's best for a given individual, nor about minimizing his discomfort, nor even maximizing his capabilities. It only cares about achieving each of its specific goals with maximum efficiency. If a drone's job doesn't require binocular vision or two built-in handtools, then you give him one to meet the functional need, save the difference, and questions of symmetry or depth perception can go hang. As long as each job is getting done, the Collective doesn't care.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Antoinette Bower back again on Hogan's Heroes

Celeste Yarnall, Yoeman Martha Landon, love interest of Chekov in "The Apple" on Hogan's Heroes

I think their period accuracy is on par with MASH and Happy Days.

 

[Forbin]

^Yah! My wife has an interest in historical fashion and hairstyles. She often chimes in when we're watching something historical. She especially hates Loretta Switt's feathered Farah hair in later seasons of MASH. And God help a costume drama where a zipper shows 200 years before they existed!

 

[Forbin]

We watched Blazing Saddles last night (could that even get made today???), and they shot some location scenes at Vasquez rocks.

 

[FormerLurker]

The Borg Collective doesn't care about what's best for a given individual, nor about minimizing his discomfort, nor even maximizing his capabilities. It only cares about achieving each of its specific goals with maximum efficiency. If a drone's job doesn't require binocular vision or two built-in handtools, then you give him one to meet the functional need, save the difference, and questions of symmetry or depth perception can go hang. As long as each job is getting done, the Collective doesn't care.

This.

 

[Neopeius]

Nobody in the United States saw Doctor Who until the 1970s..

While it's true that Doctor Who wasn't shown in the U.S. until the 1970s, that doesn't mean it would be unknown to filmmakers. There was a lot of cross-pollination back then -- shows routinely crossed the Atlantic, both ways, sometimes virtually simultaneously. Recall that Stanley Kubrick inquired after an effect used in Who for his upcoming movie, Journey Beyond the Stars (ultimately released as 2001).

Even Japanese animation made it to the U.S. surprisingly soon after airing, starting with the first one, Mighty Atom (Astro Boy).

 

[Christopher]

While it's true that Doctor Who wasn't shown in the U.S. until the 1970s, that doesn't mean it would be unknown to filmmakers.

But that doesn't make it any less of a stretch to assume that something in an American show that vaguely resembles something from Doctor Who was likely to be inspired by it. Even if it's conceivable that an American creator was aware of it, it's far from probable. "It's possible" is a meaningless argument, because many things are possible. What matters is which possibilities are more likely than others. It's illogical to assume that the only possible source of inspiration for something in an American TV show would be a British show that few Americans had ever heard of at that point. Culture and media existed long before Doctor Who, and Doctor Who drew from earlier influences as much as anything else did. If two things from close to the same time resemble each other, it's far, far more likely that they're both drawing on earlier precedents than that one was directly inspired by the other.

Laypeople are always quick to assume copying, but creative people generally try to avoid duplicating anything contemporary or recent, because nobody likes to be accused of imitation (like how one of the X-Men movies spent millions to reshoot an entire sequence because it was too similar to something in Inception). So contrary to what laypeople assume, any similarity between two contemporaneous things is more likely to be evidence that they were not aware of each other, because if they had been, they would've tried harder to be different.

Even Japanese animation made it to the U.S. surprisingly soon after airing, starting with the first one, Mighty Atom (Astro Boy).

Yes, and there were British shows that aired on American TV contemporaneously, like The Avengers and The Prisoner. But Doctor Who was not one of them, which is the point. I'm not talking about the general practice, but about that single specific example.

 

[M'Sharak]

Even Japanese animation made it to the U.S. surprisingly soon after airing...

Perhaps not so surprising, though, given the numbers of US military personnel stationed in Japan at the time (not a few with families including small children.)

 

[Nerys Myk]

Perhaps not so surprising, though, given the numbers of US military personnel stationed in Japan at the time (not a few with families including small children.)

Mostly I watched Ultra Man.

 

[Neopeius]

Perhaps not so surprising, though, given the numbers of US military personnel stationed in Japan at the time (not a few with families including small children.)

I'm actually not sure what led to the quick adoption of Japanese cartoons. I'll have to dig into that. Fun fact: Mighty Atom and Star Trek were both shown at Worldcon first before they aired on regular TV!

But that doesn't make it any less of a stretch to assume that something in an American show that vaguely resembles something from Doctor Who was likely to be inspired by it. Even if it's conceivable that an American creator was aware of it, it's far from probable.

I wasn't arguing that. Just noting that Doctor Who would not be unknown to American filmmakers. If it caught Kubrick's eye, it might have caught others.

 

[Christopher]

I wasn't arguing that. Just noting that Doctor Who would not be unknown to American filmmakers. If it caught Kubrick's eye, it might have caught others.

But I was not speaking to that in general -- I was refuting the suggestion that a silver-painted guy in a Time Tunnel episode may have been inspired by the Cybermen. The point is that that's incredibly unlikely, not only because it's unlikely that the episode's makers were aware of Doctor Who, but because it's based on an idea of Cyberman appearance that didn't even exist yet when that episode was made. At the time, only "The Tenth Planet" had aired, and Cyberman faces there were more like medical gauze than metallic masks. Plus silver face paint is not a silver mask, so it's a huge stretch to read a similarity into it at all. If anything, the Tin Woodsman is a more likely inspiration, if you want to base it on color alone.

 

[Neopeius]

But I was not speaking to that in general -- I was refuting the suggestion that a silver-painted guy in a Time Tunnel episode may have been inspired by the Cybermen. The point is that that's incredibly unlikely, not only because it's unlikely that the episode's makers were aware of Doctor Who, but because it's based on an idea of Cyberman appearance that didn't even exist yet when that episode was made. At the time, only "The Tenth Planet" had aired, and Cyberman faces there were more like medical gauze than metallic masks. Plus silver face paint is not a silver mask, so it's a huge stretch to read a similarity into it at all. If anything, the Tin Woodsman is a more likely inspiration, if you want to base it on color alone.

That I agree with. I only took issue with the idea that no one knew what Dr. Who was in the states.

 

[MAGolding]

That I agree with. I only took issue with the idea that no one knew what Dr. Who was in the states.

The first episode of Dr. Who was broadcast 23 November 1963 in the UK.

I read about Dr. Who in the USA in a magazine about science fiction and fantasy movies and tv shows - probably Famous Monsters of Filmland or Castle of Frankenstein. I read one article mentioing Dr. Who. The article had one or more stills from "The Web Planet" (13 February to 20 March 1965) and so would have been published in 1965 or later. And I got the impression that Dr. Who mostly looked like "The Web Planet".

There was a movie based on Dr. Who, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), and I remember the American comic book, released in December 1966, based on the movie. I think that I bought.and read it in the waiting room at Reading Terminal, Philadelphia. So I should have acquired a more accurate idea of Dr. Who from that comic book.

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Who_and_the_Daleks_(comic_story)

When I saw Carrry On Screaming (1966) during the period of 1968-1972, it had a joke where Dr. Watt introduced himself and someone said; "Who?" and Watt said "No, Watt. Who's my cousin." So I deduced from that joke that Dr. Who was popular in Britain.

In the very early 1970s, some recent serials of Dr. Who were shown on American television. I remember seeing the last scene in the last episode of "Dr. Who and the Silurians", which aired 14 March 1970 in the UK, when shown in the USA, probably only a year or two latter, and possibly some other episodes as well.

I remember that was several years before The first batch of 4th Doctor Tom Baker episodes (1974-75 in Britain) were shown in the USA.

So people in the USA interested in science fiction movies and tv shows could be aware of Dr. Who long before it became popular in the USA during the middle and late 1970s, even in the 1960s.

I can't think of any obvious examples of any US science fiction movies or shows influenced by Dr. Who.

One possible example would be "Spectre of the Gun", first broadcast on 25 October, 1968. The idea might have been suggested by the Dr. Who serial "The Gunfighters" broadcast from 30 April to 21 May 1966. Lee Cronin first submitted his story outline for "Spectre of the Gun" on 6 March 1968, so it is theoretically possible that he might have heard about "The Gunfighters" and been inspired to do an "gunfight at the OK Corral" story. But there may be some evidence somewhere about what his inspiration was.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Spectre_of_the_Gun_(episode)#Production

I have argued that some aspects of the serial "The Keeper of Traken" (31 Janaury to 21 February 1981) show influences of other SF works. Something reminds me of "The Terrible Clockman", Shirley Temple's Storybook (January 29, 1961), and some plot elements seem derived from "Flight of the War Witch" Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (March 27, 1980), while a name seems influenced by the Silmarillion (1977).

 

[Christopher]

I can't think of any obvious examples of any US science fiction movies or shows influenced by Dr. Who.

As I often point out, it is reckless to mistake similarity for evidence of influence. All fiction draws on the same pool of ideas existing in the culture, so different works of fiction accidentally resemble each other all the time. It's actually frustratingly hard for creators to avoid accidental similarities. Contrary to popular belief, we don't want our works to be too much like other recent or current works, because one of the main reasons stories get rejected is because they're too similar to something else. So, again, any similarity between closely contemporary works is usually evidence that the creators were not aware of each other, or they would've changed it.

One possible example would be "Spectre of the Gun", first broadcast on 25 October, 1968. The idea might have been suggested by the Dr. Who serial "The Gunfighters" broadcast from 30 April to 21 May 1966. Lee Cronin first submitted his story outline for "Spectre of the Gun" on 6 March 1968, so it is theoretically possible that he might have heard about "The Gunfighters" and been inspired to do an "gunfight at the OK Corral" story. But there may be some evidence somewhere about what his inspiration was.

That makes no sense at all. The Gunfight at the OK Corral had been a major part of American historical lore and pop culture for decades at the time "Spectre" came out. There had been numerous movies and TV series connected to the gunfight or Wyatt Earp, and DeForest Kelley himself had been in two of them, including one that was remade in 1967 as Hour of the Gun, an obvious influence on "Spectre"'s title. https://www.facttrek.com/blog/spectre

The makers and viewers of Star Trek had grown up surrounded by lore about the Earps and the gunfight for their entire lives, so they sure as hell didn't need a British production to give them the idea. OK Corral stories were an established and recurring Western subgenre in their own right, one that "The Gunfighters" was inspired by as much as "Spectre" was. As I said, two similar things are more likely to be drawing on the same earlier cultural precedents than directly on one another. You can't meaningfully talk about story influences if you don't consider the historical context.

 

[M'Sharak]

As I often point out, [ ... ]

What is the purpose of this?

The frequent prefacing of a comment with "As I said" or "As I've said before" or "As I often point out" or any of a not-insignificant number of other variations on the same theme behaves primarily as a device for calling attention to oneself.

Do you honestly believe that, because one happens to have said something on a particular subject before, their words ought then be given more weight than anyone else's remark? Are you of the opinion that having commented previously on a topic makes one magically 100% more expert than any other participant in a given conversation?

Again: What is the point of this affectation?

What message is meant to be conveyed by its inclusion? What real requirement does the repetition of an attention-seeking but functionally superficial preface satisfy?

Does the continued employment of such a self-serving device constitute an absolutely essential contribution to any discussion? If so, in what way?


NOTE: All questions contained in this post are rhetorical. No in-thread response is solicited.

 

[ItsGreen]

Kara (Marj) on Hogan's Heroes once again looking at brains!