It's in the original format pitch.
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The Enemy Within
- Thread starter Mendon
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By the time they moved along to production, he was given the dual-heritage I spoke of above. I think I first read about it in Allan Asherman's Star Trek Compendium when I was about 12 years old. As Asherman pointed out, Roddenberry gave Spock Number One's non-emotionalism and a much more extreme version of Tyler's divided heritage when he re-tooled for regular production.
I learned about these things through the same channels - after seeing "The Cage", but before reading some Trek novels that played the "Jose" angle.
Without the backstage info, one doesn't get any "Latino charmer" vibe from Joe-boy, nor an "unemotional" feel from Number One. The acting rather makes Joe look a bit insecure, eager to please but shy to proceed, while Number One seems to seethe with (mostly bitter) emotions.
Reading the novels after seeing the acting gives a nice twist to the interpretations, then. Perhaps these people in the novels are calling the boy "Jose" in a cruel joke, where the punchline is that Farmer Joe Junior doesn't have a drop of "hot Latino" blood in his veins and miserably fails in the toils of love? Perhaps Number One is described as devoid of emotion for the same reason that Spock appears that way - because she's suppressing rage?
The novels also give alternate angles to other briefly appearing characters who don't stay on screen long enough to be "established". How about viewing the attempted rape and its aftermath in "Enemy Within" through the filter of "Enterprise: The First Adventure" which states that Rand snuck into Starfleet grossly underage to escape a miserable childhood? We'd now have an emotionally highly insecure individual who may nevertheless consider attempted rape a weekly occurrence she has already learned to deal with and shrug off - when it's not date rape by the man she has a big crush on?
Timo Saloniemi
Yikes - whatever happened to our Utopian future! I certainly never saw Rand as emotionally insecure especially when you compare her to the most of the other female characters in TOS. In the Man Trap and Charlie X she strikes me as quite confident, and she has the strength of will to fight off the drunken Captain and report him. She only breaks down in Miri because she's under the influence of the illness.
Rand's origin was one thing I didn't like in the First Adventure; it was almost as if the author had never seen an episode featuring Rand. She certainly wasn't 17 (the actress was 36 and I found a line that didn't make it into the script for Miri in which she tells Kirk she's 24) and we also know this because she introduces Charlie to a girl his own age in Charlie X. Plus the job of Captain's Yeoman is a senior position for a non-comm - it's unlikely they'd give it to someone as a first assignment.
"Mudd's Women" made it pretty clear that life could still have its rough edges in the 23rd Century.
I agree that McIntyre seems to have a poor grasp of things in Enterprise, which is strange because I still have fond memories of The Entropy Effect.
I agree that McIntyre seems to have a poor grasp of things in Enterprise, which is strange because I still have fond memories of The Entropy Effect.
I get the impression that McIntyre is trying to find the little cracks in the Trek universe in which she can squeeze an interesting new angle. Klingons and Shakespeare, long before ST6... The Laughing Vulcan, long before ST5... The idea of Kirk captaining a ship of the darned, a bunch of nobodies on their way to obscurity... Of Sulu hating his assignment, of Gary Mitchell missing his train, of McCoy's longterm familiarity with Kirk being turned into a minor plot point rather than just awkwardly being offered as explanation for his presence and the bland Dr. Piper's corresponding absence. Lots of clever little tricks being played within the bounds of "Trek rules" but without much respect for said rules.
The young Rand fits in there, sort of. And her position wouldn't really reflect her age, because she lied that (or let Einstein lie for her, which was rather cute).
Whether GL Whitney looks the part is a different question. OTOH, if she didn't look like thirty, Rand could never have tricked Starfleet. And tangenting on the previous theme of racism and intolerance, why couldn't a teen look like thirtysomething, when it's supposedly objectionable that thirtysomethings are required to look like teens?
Timo Saloniemi
The young Rand fits in there, sort of. And her position wouldn't really reflect her age, because she lied that (or let Einstein lie for her, which was rather cute).
Whether GL Whitney looks the part is a different question. OTOH, if she didn't look like thirty, Rand could never have tricked Starfleet. And tangenting on the previous theme of racism and intolerance, why couldn't a teen look like thirtysomething, when it's supposedly objectionable that thirtysomethings are required to look like teens?
Timo Saloniemi
While Grace was in her early thirties, I got the impression she was playing a much younger character - late teens/early twenties, much like a lot of the show's other yeomen.
Also, the 'unemotional' stuff about Number One is right there in "The Cage". Granted, this amounts to different characters referring to her as such - the Talosians summarising her personality, Vina chilly comparing her to a computer, and Pike's offhand (and hilariously sexist) observation that she's 'different' from normal weapon. She didn't get a lot of opportunity to show that, but it's there. Just like Yeoman Colt's unusually strong female drives must be left to our (fevered) imaginations.
Also, the 'unemotional' stuff about Number One is right there in "The Cage". Granted, this amounts to different characters referring to her as such - the Talosians summarising her personality, Vina chilly comparing her to a computer, and Pike's offhand (and hilariously sexist) observation that she's 'different' from normal weapon. She didn't get a lot of opportunity to show that, but it's there. Just like Yeoman Colt's unusually strong female drives must be left to our (fevered) imaginations.
Yeah, I guess the point I was making is that we know Rand was considerably older than Charlie's 17 years because she introduces him to someone of 'his own age'. She's not a 'girl', she's a 'woman'. Thus, regardless of what Rand looks like, canon tells us that she is definitely not near 17, which contradicts the novel (Charlie X was set in year two of the 5-year mission at the latest). Being aged 24 in Miri seems about right to me (so the character could be introduced as a 16-year old in the NuTrek sequel).
Number One was so cool. She wasn't really THAT unemotional though - just unemotional compared to how other women were portrayed at that time. Vina and Number One are two of my favourite sci fi heroines actually. Even though the episode was 40 years ago, they coud hold their own as non-sexist characters today.
I always assumed Colt had the urge to do housework all the time. My imagination really is fevered.
...Of course, we could argue that Rand was merely sticking to the role, continuing to pretend she was older than her biological clock was reading. Charlie Evans wouldn't be the person she'd first let in on her little secret. 
And any excuse to dump the kid on another girl would be a good one. 
All sorts of interesting directions where the females of TOS could have gone. Too bad that they never went anywhere (except to an early grave or an insane asylum). Uhura has the excuse of being "reset" by Nomad in the middle of her so-called character development, of course...
Oh, well. That leaves #1 and Vina right where they started, which, like you say, is a pretty good place to be. Interesting people for different reasons: one a vague mystery painted with a really thin brush, perhaps to be colored in later, the other a freak with a fascinating background, a remarkable present, and a touching future. Both still making a good stand during their brief onscreen moments. I think I could have learned to like the Colt character eventually, too.
Timo Saloniemi
And any excuse to dump the kid on another girl would be a good one. All sorts of interesting directions where the females of TOS could have gone. Too bad that they never went anywhere (except to an early grave or an insane asylum). Uhura has the excuse of being "reset" by Nomad in the middle of her so-called character development, of course...
Oh, well. That leaves #1 and Vina right where they started, which, like you say, is a pretty good place to be. Interesting people for different reasons: one a vague mystery painted with a really thin brush, perhaps to be colored in later, the other a freak with a fascinating background, a remarkable present, and a touching future. Both still making a good stand during their brief onscreen moments. I think I could have learned to like the Colt character eventually, too.
Timo Saloniemi
Vina really makes "The Cage" work, Suan Oliver is quite good in the role. And that silky Talosian dress... they may have had no guide about how to put her together, but they had a good knack for it.
And Number One isn't exactly Mr. Spock of unemotionality, but she is a cool, controlled, serious woman. One wonders how that would pan out, since, unlike Spock, there wasn't a ready built excuse for the deferred attitude.
Bad boy! That's sexist!
Or it's not sexist enough, I'm not sure.
And Number One isn't exactly Mr. Spock of unemotionality, but she is a cool, controlled, serious woman. One wonders how that would pan out, since, unlike Spock, there wasn't a ready built excuse for the deferred attitude.
Bad boy! That's sexist!
Or it's not sexist enough, I'm not sure.
What I liked about Vina was that she had already tried most of Pike's ideas for escape. She wasn't a passive puppet, she was an intelligent three-dimensional character - one of the best Trek ever produced.
I think Ann Mulhall and Uhura were probably the other female characters who stand up to the test of time the best. It's a shame Mulhall spent most of the episode possessed by a girlier character - she rocked. I wished they'd used her a couple more times.
She only gets a minor nod because she slept her way to the top.
Bonus credit!
...
I'm a really, really despicable human being.
Ahem.
Both of Diana Muldaur's characters were good in the positive regard, though - Miranda Jones was also a capable, confident character. One can see why they decided to bring her back for TNG.
One of us! One of us!
OK, to your last point, ever heard the song, Everybody Ought to Have A Maid from A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum? That's what popped into my fevered brain!
I have to agree with you that how McIntyre characterized Rand was way off point. It seemed like she was a totally different character from the one we saw in the show.
Most of the other characterizations in Enterprise: The First Adventure rang true to me, even though I also found Kirk to be too young to be a full captain (29 years old?
). Strudel: I also enjoyed Entropy Effect. It's better than E:FA. My favorite non-regular characters in it were Lt. Cmdr. Mandala Flynn, the fiery, red-haired security chief who worked her way up through the enlisted ranks to officer (this was years before Tasha Yar, too), and the insecure Ens. Jenniver Aristeides, the stone-like woman from a heavy gravity planet where humans were genetically engineered to live there (similar to Charlie-27 from Marvel Comics' Guardians of the Galaxy).
RR
I have to agree with you that how McIntyre characterized Rand was way off point. It seemed like she was a totally different character from the one we saw in the show.
Most of the other characterizations in Enterprise: The First Adventure rang true to me, even though I also found Kirk to be too young to be a full captain (29 years old?
It's been a while since I read the novel but I recall that most of it was pretty good. I was only a tad miffed by Rand because she rarely gets a mention in the novels and she seemed so out of whack.
I can't recall the timeline but Kirk was 35 in Year 3 of the 5-year mission and Rand was 24 (per Miri) in year 2, then she is 10 years younger than him. If he was 29 in the First Adventure, she'd have been 19, so the novel wasn't as far out as I thought.
I, too, liked The Entropy Effect more than Enterprise: TFA, but I'll just add my two cents and say that I don't think Vonda ever characterized Scotty correctly. Her version of the character is considerably more dour, and considerably less...I dunno, friendly...than the TV version ever was. In her adaptation of Star Trek III, she even has him respond to Chekov speaking Russian with "None o'thy heathen gibberish, lad," which is not sometjhing I could ever imagine our beloved chief engineer saying.
