FACT TREK's Back…& That's A Fact
- Thread starter Maurice
- Start date
In a memo dated 1966-10-28 from Roddenberry to Coon, Gene talks about looking for opportunities to bring back Rand in up-coming episodes (with a different hairdo, lol). I'm sorry that never happened, it would have been nice to see Rand pop up every now and then through the series. Not sure if her personal issues may have been a factor in her not making it back, none-the-less, I missed my pretend girlfriend, lol
It doesn't even make sense to beam down Kirk's yeoman in "Miri." If she were somehow a specialist in something relevant, instead of Kirk's administrative assistant, it would make more sense. Yet there she is.
Like so many TOS landing parties going on adventures, the composition is often, if not usually, cast-driven over being logic-driven. Being logic-driven would mean the bridge crew should tend to stay on the bridge, to man their stations, Scotty should tend to stay in engineering, unless he's needed to engineer something, etc.
She's record-keeping, perhaps? Like how that Oak Street Health commercial touts the fact that they have someone to take notes so the doctor won't be distracted from listening to you.
That's what tricorders are for, and those are standard issue equipment for all landing party members.
In Trek's 23rd century, I never thought the function of a Captain's Yeoman really made sense, as the ship's computer would handle all of those duties. Obviously, it's a tool used to help give the contemporary 60's audience context to how a Starfleet ship runs from a writing perspective.
She'd add her own comments, or activate various specific sensors. Human judgment/input is valuable when combined with computer readings.
It's not my intention to hijack this thread to discuss Rand, so I'll make one more reply on the subject, and then bow out of further discussion, unless there's a more appropriate thread for it.
Rand's not even carrying a tricorder.
But, OK, let's turn to dialog. Rand's completely ignorant of what the tricorder readings are regarding the presence of life on the planet, right after they've beamed down; Spock has to fill her in.
The episode clearly establishes that Rand's presence in the landing party has nothing to do with using a tricorder. What else is there to say?
Boiling it down like that, the only function Rand has is to be the audience representative to ask questions of the characters that would be otherwise clunky to write as exposition. It's kinda no wonder the character ended up getting written out of the show from a purely script and story perspective.
I should stress, of course, this is not to diminish or dismiss the horrible shit that happened to Grace behind the scenes that also factored into her being let go.
Thank you; I was just getting ready to type this myself. Landing party equipment fascinates me (username checks out, I guess), and Rand's lack of a tricorder in "Miri" really bugs. She's not even wearing a belt, which means that she was almost certainly unarmed and without even a communicator. How hard could it have been to give her a belt? Such an odd choice, and I agree that this weirdness doesn't diminish Rand's role in the story. I think she's interesting and Grace did a great job.
But as you said–I don't want to hijack Maurice's thread either.
Thanks. There's a big difference between production-related decisions and in-episode stuff, and we're not about the in-episode stuff unless it relates to decisions made in the production. Whether someone is carrying a tricorder in a given episode is a story issue, not a production issue.But as you said–I don't want to hijack Maurice's thread either.
So, anyway, I just got Gene Roddenberry's military records, so will be poring through that.
Of course, yes. I really shouldn't have posted at all, honestly, and thanks for your graceful reply. But the good news is that I stumbled into your concise responsive mission statement, which helps me understand better what you folks are about, and that's awesome.
I am quite interested in Roddenberry's military service. I reference it often, but don't really know enough about it. I really look forward to your content about it! Thanks for everything you do.
Seems a bit beyond a Yeoman's duties.
I remember reading in one or both of The Making of Star Trek by Stephen Whitfield and The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold that Rand was intended to be a longtime acquaintance/friend of Spock's. This never came out onscreen, but would go a long way toward explaining his wholly inappropriate comment at the end of Mudd's Women. If she had continued to be around on the series it could have been established that they teased each other inappropriately in this way. Ah well. The things that will never be.
...are you misconstruing this with Spock's comment at the end of The Enemy Within where he basically tells Rand that she must've enjoyed being sexually assaulted by the evil Kirk? That goes way beyond "inappropriate teasing."