I've never understood why they sent a communications officer down to help capture a drug-crazed fugitive surgeon. Was she skilled in negotiating with the insane or something?
Episode of the Week : Miri
- Thread starter Botany Bay
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I've never understood why they sent a communications officer down to help capture a drug-crazed fugitive surgeon. Was she skilled in negotiating with the insane or something?
Kirk was momentarily confused by the red shirt. 
She went down because
a) Janice was originally in the script as going down and Scotty couldn't say, "I'm frightened," and
b) she was the officer in charge of the security team.
Presumably officers get landing party duty as part of a rotation but for a fairly standard man hunt you would not need a security officer to be in charge of a search party. It's also possible that Uhura possessed some kind of training that might have been relevant to what they were expecting to find.
I love this part of the episode because it puts the black woman in charge of the white man (he has no rank stripes) and I find that nice and subversive for the time it was written.
a) Janice was originally in the script as going down and Scotty couldn't say, "I'm frightened," and
b) she was the officer in charge of the security team.
Presumably officers get landing party duty as part of a rotation but for a fairly standard man hunt you would not need a security officer to be in charge of a search party. It's also possible that Uhura possessed some kind of training that might have been relevant to what they were expecting to find.
I love this part of the episode because it puts the black woman in charge of the white man (he has no rank stripes) and I find that nice and subversive for the time it was written.
Interesting. I never noticed that aspect in the ep, or sensed any authority coming from her. I should look again.
It's entirely possible that no conscious decision was made about giving the guard any stripes, and that he was just given the shirt that fit. I say that because speaking of black women, in "The Alternative Factor" Charlene Masters is openly treated as a white guy's boss, but he has a lieutenant stripe and she has none. It seems in that case, the script was hip but the costumer was not.
I think that's likely. Basically, Uhura is walking around with a tricorder just as Janice would have. Still, even Janice would have been a more senior non-com, most likely a petty officer since she was a CPO in TMP.
They did underscore Masterson's seniority quite heavily so that was a definite conscious decision.
Agreed that Uhura's presence in the "City on the Edge" search team is probably the one least in need of explanation. She's a random officer competent enough to lead the team - which makes it all the weirder why the captain of the ship should feel a need to beam down, or why the science officer would!
However, our heroes know they are beaming down to the very center of the time disturbance. They do so without any medical specialists in the team, so apparently they want to do some very sensible scouting first. And after that's concluded, they do need to beam down a doctor or a medic, or beam up McCoy and the guys holding him in an iron grip. And for that, they need working communications through the time disturbance - probably not a trivial feat!
Timo Saloniemi
However, our heroes know they are beaming down to the very center of the time disturbance. They do so without any medical specialists in the team, so apparently they want to do some very sensible scouting first. And after that's concluded, they do need to beam down a doctor or a medic, or beam up McCoy and the guys holding him in an iron grip. And for that, they need working communications through the time disturbance - probably not a trivial feat!
Timo Saloniemi
I'm willing to go along with the time disturbance/communications explanation.
It's a bit anachronistic to invoke the "away team" concept, which hadn't been developed yet; Kirk and Spock were almost always in the landing party, so their presence makes no less sense in that episode than in any other.
It's a bit anachronistic to invoke the "away team" concept, which hadn't been developed yet; Kirk and Spock were almost always in the landing party, so their presence makes no less sense in that episode than in any other.
Exactly. There's a contradiction built into the Star Trek format. Kirk is in command of a capital ship, so his place is on the bridge. But Shatner is the star of a TV show, so his place is where the action is.
Does anyone else here love Christopher L. Bennett's explanation for the whole duplicate Earth concept as detailed in DTI: Forgotten History?
Who? I don't think I've ever heard of him.... 
He's "Christopher" on this forum. And here's the Memory Beta link to Forgotten History. http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Forgotten_History
You seemed to miss the facetious emoticons....
Kim Darby is like Holly Earl from that Christmas episode of Doctor Who - both were 19 and trying to play 12-13. Both didn't really look convincing.
Yes I thought it a very credible explanation. Given you're in the Star Trek universe. To me it harks back to the TOS episodes where mysterious things exist at the edge of the known universe.
And I usually don't like those sort of things - like the explanation for changing the Klingons appearance in Star Trek. I could have lived without that.
Though an explanation of why you can travel greater than Warp 10 in TOS but not so in the 24th century might be good.
Regarding Kim Darby and Michael J. Pollard looking too old, I'm fine with it. This is an alien disease-- who are we to say what 12 year olds will look like when they turn 300? [I just noticed that Pollard is 75 now. He might be amused to learn he looked too old at age 27.]
Also, Darby and Pollard were talented as hell. And I'm sure actual 12 year olds with any kind of stage presence and natural authority would be very hard to find.
And even if you found such a young girl who had all that talent queued up, say a young Dakota Fanning, her thing with Kirk might come off as creepy to some people (althought I think Shatner could have made it an innocent and adorable spoof of romance with the right little girl).
Also, Darby and Pollard were talented as hell. And I'm sure actual 12 year olds with any kind of stage presence and natural authority would be very hard to find.
And even if you found such a young girl who had all that talent queued up, say a young Dakota Fanning, her thing with Kirk might come off as creepy to some people (althought I think Shatner could have made it an innocent and adorable spoof of romance with the right little girl).
I remember Kim Darby from Better Off Dead back in the mid-80's, I was like "Hey, that's Miri!!"
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