Noticed something strange in Realm of Fear

[Luckyflux]

So last night I was flipping the channels and I came upon Realm of Fear. That is the Barclay episode where he sees strange things in the transporter.

So cut to the end sequence where O'Brien and Geordi have to use the transporter to suspend Barclay in a transporter beam until they figure out how to fix whatever was broken.

I hadn't noticed what was wrong with the sequence of events until last night. So in one scene they show O'Brien at the transporter controls and Geordi is monitoring a panel behind him. The Chief tells Geordi that Barclays transporter signal is 60 percent. Geordi says that is in a good range. Then the next shot is Geordi saying that his signal is down to 55 percent, and the Chief responds by saying that he can still keep barclay safe at that level. Then the next shot is the Chief telling Geordi that the signal is getting lower, but Geordi repsonds by saying that he can keep the signal in tact.

So it was weird how one minute The Chief is watching the transporter signal and Geordi is worried, to the very next scene with Geordi watching the signal and the The Chief is worried.

 

[TheQman]

They must be both working together to monitor the signal. They probably both had access to the percentage. We might do a similair thing while driving with someone else, we might announce if a collision is imminent, even though the driver may be seeing the same thing.

Anyway, that is my explaination.

 

[GalaxyX]

Even more weird in that episode is how human bodies suspended in the transporter beam can look like giant worms/grubs to someone else in the beam. Yikes!!!!

 

[Luckyflux]

Two other things I noticed about the episode was another of the "Security to Transporter Room 2!" Said in a slight panic to convey the importance of the request...only to have Worf just casually saunter into the room like he was walking into a KFC. Not a care in the world for him.....

The other is that when Reg does come out of the beam, he and the rescued crewmen both collapse to the floor. Then Worf walks into the room and Barclay says that they must go into the beam and rescue the crew members. Then Worf and co re-materialize with the rescued people and everyone is fine. But I thought it was a risky procedure that has never been tried before, yet Worf just say "Understood" and goes into the beam like it was nothing...

Those two aren't as bad. But it struck me as odd with the thing with Geordi and O'Brien. First the Chief is concerned and Geordi is monitoring, then in the next scene Geordi is concerned and Chief is monitoring, then in the next scene they reverse again!

Fun episode, but that struck me as odd.

 

[Timo]

Well, Worf is famed for his stoic approach to life and death; those two bits critiqued above are actually fairly typical of him... And Barclay collapsing shouldn't be that surprising: the true nature (and mass!) of the thing he was holding in his arms came as something of a surprise to him, and he was under strain already. Plus, he isn't particularly muscular, whereas Worf and Riker have both always been portrayed as stronger than the human average.

And while the "alternating concern" thing is odd and no doubt a writing error of sorts, I'm ready to speculate that LaForge felt he was the better transporter operator all along; he was just itching to have a go at the main controls, and tried to tell O'Brien that things were starting to look bad - so bad in fact that he should take over. Which he then did, and it was O'Brien's turn to get worried...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GalaxyX]

Two other things I noticed about the episode was another of the "Security to Transporter Room 2!" Said in a slight panic to convey the importance of the request...only to have Worf just casually saunter into the room like he was walking into a KFC. Not a care in the world for him.....

The other is that when Reg does come out of the beam, he and the rescued crewmen both collapse to the floor. Then Worf walks into the room and Barclay says that they must go into the beam and rescue the crew members. Then Worf and co re-materialize with the rescued people and everyone is fine. But I thought it was a risky procedure that has never been tried before, yet Worf just say "Understood" and goes into the beam like it was nothing...

Those two aren't as bad. But it struck me as odd with the thing with Geordi and O'Brien. First the Chief is concerned and Geordi is monitoring, then in the next scene Geordi is concerned and Chief is monitoring, then in the next scene they reverse again!

Fun episode, but that struck me as odd.

As far as the Worf thing, it's completely in character for him. He is bound by honor and duty, and he could care fucking less if he dies saving someone else's life. That is an honorable death.

 

[buckeyenation]

Is it just me, or is Barclay really, really, really, annoying sometimes? I know he's supposed to be annoying, but couldn't he be just a little less annoying sometimes. I can think of only 1 good Barclay episode, that being "The Nth Degree". As for the rest, I'll pass.

 

[Epsilon IX]

The strangest thing I noticed about this episode is that someone in the visual effects department thought it would be a great idea to make the people trapped in the transporter matterstream look like big floating turds!

 

[Hober Mallow]

If I remember right, O'Brien tells Barclay he'd been a transporter chief for 22 years or something, at odds with his previously stated history at tactical on board Captain Maxwell's ship.

 

[CaptainStoner]

The strangest thing I noticed about this episode is that someone in the visual effects department thought it would be a great idea to make the people trapped in the transporter matterstream look like big floating turds!

Excuse me. I gotta go leave a little something in the matterstream...

 

[Lor'Vela]

I found those "mouth-things" very creepy actually. Although it's interesting to see what it actually looks like to be "beamed".

 

[Hober Mallow]

I found those "mouth-things" very creepy actually. Although it's interesting to see what it actually looks like to be "beamed".

I thought it was stupid. You're conscious and see sparkly lights the whole time while you stand there like you're waiting to be seated at a Denny's? Did Scotty just stand in one spot staring at a lightshow for the better part of eight decades patiently waiting for someone to materialize him? And how does one whose atoms have been disassembled move around and "grab" things? Definitely one of the goofiest episodes.

 

[Timo]

But the disembodied atoms better do exactly that - grab onto their neighbors - because that's the easiest way to store the information of what goes where. If the atoms didn't maintain cohesion, the info dump of beaming somebody would be astronomically greater. Not to mention that an incoherent beaming would probably allow the atoms to interact at some point, chemically or physically. So the receiving end would be getting burned goo. Or, if there was antimatter involved, burned goo sprayed by an annihilation explosion...

As for Scotty, he rigged a special diagnostics loop for survival, rather than using a standard beaming process. The whole point of using the transporter to survive for decades would be to stop all life processes. No doubt the device allows for that option, too, when suitably rigged - but the setting would have few benefits in standard use.

Really, "Realm of Fear" looks like they thought it through. Or then they didn't, but still stumbled on the only reasonable way to describe the device and the process.

Certainly this episode is consistent with the well-established fact that one can move while within the transporter beam. Too may episodes to ignore stand testimony that your hand or foot or accessory can be repositioned "in flight"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hober Mallow]

Really, "Realm of Fear" looks like they thought it through. Or then they didn't, but still stumbled on the only reasonable way to describe the device and the process.

Just as with Isaac Asimov and his "psychohistory," I find the more the Trek writers try to rationally explain silly tech like transporters and warp drive, the less believeable it seems. All we need are throwaway lines about Heisenberg compensators.

As far as a conscious Barclay standing in the matter stream, you can rationalize it, but it's still silly. For me, it would be as silly showing Barclay's POV from inside the Enterprise computer in "Nth Degree," having him stand with a pixelly colored background behind him, 3D algebra equations floating over his head. We could rationalize that as well, but it's still cheese. Okay, I'm exaggerating the cheese factor of "Realm of Fear," but it's pretty close to what I thought of the episode even as a kid.