Dumbest Log Entry Ever

So you're saying that in times of stress Kirk starts making up log entries in his head? I love it! Now it's even funnier! That's why he doesn't know the date, he's panicking?

 

He also finds it soothing to imagine he's signing the fuel consumption report.

 

Yeah. In modern parlance it would be "wtf? wtfai? I better keep a record. LMFAO look at Spock's beard!!!!"

 

Although you joke, I seem to recall one of the TOS-era novels from Pocket Books actually established that very thing. That the logs are in fact "internal monologues" recorded in some fashion by an implanted chip. Of course that doesn't explain all those times when we saw Kirk recording something into the armrest of his chair on the Bridge, but it's the only way you can rationalize the fact that many episodes have Kirk in dire peril, yet he still has time to record a log entry in present tense.

Alex

 

Ultimately, the logs are a storytelling device. It's no worse than the problems with any other type of voiceover narration, or first-person storytelling in prose. When, say, MacGyver or Burn Notice's Michael Weston narrates the story in voiceover, who is he talking to? And in the Dresden Files novels (which are told in first person by Harry Dresden), it always amuses me when Harry tells the readers about his magic fairy cleaning service that he can't tell anyone about or the fairies will quit. In first-person prose narratives in general, you can wonder what opportunity the narrator had to write this down, how they got the talent to write it professionally, how they remember every line of dialogue verbatim, etc. And then you've got the extreme case of something like the movie Sunset Boulevard, which is narrated by a dead man. Talk about lack of opportunity!

So first-person narration often can't be taken literally. Sometimes it's just a figurative device, and that's what the captains' logs in ST became.

 

Kirk uses the armrest recorder whenever possible because plugging his brain into the ship's computer system is very difficult.
<--demonstration

 

Indeed. Sea Hunt is an excellent example of the same narrative style.
I think modern viewers make the mistake of not familiarizing themselves with the conventions of the day (and earlier) when watching older shows.

 

ST:TNG

"Elementary Dear Data"

Picard- "We've reached the rendevous coordinates early and have absolutely nothing to do".

WTF!!!

 

I'd like to add Quantum Leap into that list as well. Here's this guy bouncing around time and space without even his clothes, yet he pauses to narrate events that he's witnessing, apparently to himself! Maybe it's Dr Beckett's way of keeping his sanity intact?

 

True, but then they shouldn't have used the words "Captain's log." A ship's log (or any log, for that matter) is, by definition, a written record. It can presumably be dictated into a recording device and transcribed, but unless it's recorded, it isn't a log.

"Captain's expository voiceover narration, stardate such-and-such" does sound a bit awkward, though.

 

What's wrong with that? Ship's logs aren't only entered when something exciting happens, they're a chronicle of the entire voyage for the official record. That includes the slow periods too.

And again, the primary purpose is to give exposition to the audience, so it's best not to take them too literally in any case.