"The Conscience of the King": Plot Holes and Questions.

[Push The Button]

Shore Leave – After everything has been sorted out, Kirk is quite willing to go off with "Ruth". Which frankly seems a bit creepy.

I think it's creepier that Kirk, at 34, wants to beat up a 20 year old kid from Academy after 15 years. If he hates Finnegan that much, why not just hunt him down today and kick his ass? Maybe Finnegan was still stronger than him 15 years later.

It is too bad that Kirk never met up with the real
Finnegan later in the series or in any of the films. I'm hoping that we have a nu-Finnegan (and a nu-Janice too) in the next JJ movie.

 

[Mytran]

Thanks, I thought it was in there somewhere. Funny, I never noticed before that the half-console near the view screen has no actual controls. Just an information display booth, perhaps?

 

[Christopher]

It is too bad that Kirk never met up with the real Finnegan later in the series or in any of the films.

He was reunited with Finnegan in Peter David's story arc toward the end of DC Comics' first volume. Since it was a Peter David story, Finnegan was as much of a prankster as ever. (David later wrote an annual that showed a version of Kirk's first year at the Academy, including his clashes with Finnegan.)

 

[GSchnitzer]

For it's worth, we have Finnegan in our "flashback-to-Cadet Kirk" episode Origins: The Protracted Man:"

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db5LXPLmCac[/yt]

 

[GSchnitzer]

Thanks, I thought it was in there somewhere. Funny, I never noticed before that the half-console near the view screen has no actual controls. Just an information display booth, perhaps?

Both the Engineering Sub-Systems Checkout Station (just port of the Main View Screen) and the Defense Systems Monitor Station (just starboard of the Main View Screen) are both "half stations." They generally have no chairs and are unmanned. The Engineering Sub-Systems checkout station actually does have some control interface on the "desktop" surface of the console, in addition to the four winky-blinky displays. But the Defense Systems Monitor Station doesn't have any control interfaces--just the four monitor screens. ("Looky but no touchy.")

Nice McMaster blueprints here:

http://starfleetmodelacademy.com/images/NCC-1701_BRIDGE_PLANS.pdf

 

[Mytran]

I see he couldn't resist putting an extra chair in there!

Nice reminder about the half station on the opposite side though, thanks. They were the control panels which blew out in WNMHGB, wheren't they? And later replaced, of course.

 

[GSchnitzer]

I see he couldn't resist putting an extra chair in there!

Nice reminder about the half station on the opposite side though, thanks. They were the control panels which blew out in WNMHGB, wheren't they? And later replaced, of course.

Yes. That's the WNMHGB panel we're talking about--although those white drop-in control panels were relocated to corridor walls later in the first season. Some similar (but a more blending-in black-colored) panels replaced them (well, re-replaced them). Interestingly, those two half stations sometimes have chairs and sometimes they don't. (For example, they have chairs but are unmanned when Kirk and Spock walk by the "front" of the bridge at the end of "The Doomsday Machine.")

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

??? Where on earth are you getting any of that? That's a lot to read into a couple of glances, with almost no dialogue. "Painful" and "regret" are complete projections on your part. Kirk just doesn't say very much to Ruth, or about Ruth. We've got damn little to go on. When he plucks the rose and starts reminiscing, just before Ruth appears, he has a fond smile on his face. Clearly his memories of her are not all painful.

JimZC, I disagree with you here; I always took Kirk's reactions to Ruth as one one lost love/longing. If you have ever run into a woman you were once in love with--but the relationship was interrupted by anything other than anything in a category of "bad experience," then you will understand Kirk's behavior.

His expression/behavior said he was immediately placed back at the point when he was fully invested in her; at first, he could not believe his eyes (considering the nature of the planet), but he fell into a longing remembrance of what was--obviously--a special part of his past.

The direction and Shatner's believable, careful performance did not require a page of dialogue to convey what he was feeling.

 

[Mytran]

For years I had it in my head that the starboard half-console had a sort of quarter - circle's worth of controls on the desk, quite bizzare. I now realise where I got that idea from:

Quite apart from the fact that there's clearly room for a full half circle's worth of controls on the desk, there's not even a chair there. A curious artistic choice.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

For years I had it in my head that the starboard half-console had a sort of quarter - circle's worth of controls on the desk, quite bizzare. I now realise where I got that idea from:

Quite apart from the fact that there's clearly room for a full half circle's worth of controls on the desk, there's not even a chair there. A curious artistic choice.

Another curious artistic choice is the positioning of the characters. Sulu seems to have Kirk at some disadvantage here, based on Kirk's body language, he seems more...indecisive than usual. In fairness, though, maybe he's just getting used to life with no legs.

And Spock, standing at a distance, looking somehow helpless to get involved...

 

[DonIago]

Sulu's just not happy that Kirk accidentally sent out everyone's salary info on an open channel.