When it comes to that, it's hard for ones viewing not to be retrospectively informed by his behavior in TMP, which is only a few years down the road in Trek's timeline.
50th Anniversary Rewatch Thread
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I love that scene and Shatner's reaction. The only thing that irks me is that McCoy should know what goes on at the Academy, but someone had to play the cabbagehead for the audience's benefit.
On the contrary, his offscreen backstory involved him joining Starfleet from a medical career, which didn't involve having attended the Academy, and this episode supports that backstory.
I know, but I never bought that. Was it canon?
McCoy did seem ignorant of a lot of Starfleet protocols didn't he for a man that is supposed to have attended the academy!
JB
JB
This episode would be support for it being so. I don't believe we have any onscreen info contradicting that backstory.
From DS9 “Trials and Tribbl-ations”:
In the 21st century, at least, the University of Mississippi has a medical school. Of course, McCoy might have been working on his undergrad degree, but this is good enough for me.
What is all this Frank Cannon fascination? Great series by the way and very expensive on DVD sadly...
JB
JB
But where does the backstory come from? Not being a pedant, just really don't know.
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. Oy vey!
The backstory was literally just that: the Writer’s Guide implies that McCoy joined Starfleet in consequence of a failed marriage:
None of this is canon, of course, because it was never stated explicitly on screen. Early drafts of “The Way to Eden” made reference to Joanna and might have shed light on McCoy’s history, but we know how that went.
It was also published in The Making of Star Trek, a tie-in publication co-authored by Gene Roddenberry that was released while the show was being made.
Good enough for me but still doesn't say anything about the Academy.
Was there ever dialogue indicating Bashir's backstory? His initial LTJG rank worked for someone who joined Starfleet after civilian med school (like today) but maybe there was something in the Genetic Genius episodes stating he tanked an Academy exam so as not to give himself away?
Was there ever dialogue indicating Bashir's backstory? His initial LTJG rank worked for someone who joined Starfleet after civilian med school (like today) but maybe there was something in the Genetic Genius episodes stating he tanked an Academy exam so as not to give himself away?
Daystrom had a commanding presence. He was tall and had a deep voice. At one point, it looked like Daystrom was going to manhandle Kirk if Spock hadn't neck pinched him.
And Daystrom had a lot hubris. From his facial expression, Daystrom seemed to take pleasure when M-5 embarrassed Kirk by stating that he and McCoy were non essential personnel.
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Military doctors don't necessarily follow the same track as other officers. In the US Army they don't do basic training or anything like that, but attend an Officer Basic Leadership Course. If you're already a Dr. before signing up, you wouldn't have had to even attend a military medical school. If Starfleet is anything like this, then you can bet credits to navy beans that Bones never never attended Starfleet Academy in the way Kirk et al did.
I didn't realize that the part @GNDN18 posted didn't include that. The relevant passages as published in TMOST:
Thanks for following up. It’s been a long time since I’ve read TMOST and I thought that McCoy’s past was somewhat more dramatic than what I posted. (The ‘09 movie did a really good job of illustrating that history. IMO, of course.)
Also, the Writer’s Guide I posted is the 3rd edition (1967), printed after Paramount took over. It seems likely that Poe (Whitfield) had one of the earlier iterations.
All the other captains we've seen have gone crazy, so why not Kirk?
Heck, we had one go nuts just last week...
What's bad about the jab is not Wesley's intent, but that he said it out loud in front of Kirk's subordinates. If it had been him commiserating with Kirk in private, that would be one thing, but the reaction shots on the bridge tell the story: A really unprofessional move on Wesley's part.
In the 1960s, with the draft going strong for a quarter century, a considerable percentage of the audience would find it extremely unusual for a military doctor to have attended a service academy. McCoy not being familiar with "ring knocker" terminology strikes me as more believable than it would be otherwise, really.
And, if we go by those backstories, Scotty is not an Academy man, either, having come up from the enlisted ranks and served in the merchant service. It also sounds like Chapel entered Starfleet pretty much directly from civilian life. Again, with the WW2/Cold War experience of the OS audience, a great many viewers would take for granted that there were a number of different roads to becoming an officer. It's something that has always bugged me about later Trek, that the Academy is implied to be the one and only route to a Starfleet career.
Yep, and it has been that way for ages. Military physicians are not so different from civilian that they need their own medical schools, it's much more efficient to take the products of civilian schools and adapt them to the service.
Yup, that all makes good sense; thanks. Now I'm realizing that something bothered me much more about McCoy being at the Academy in NuTrek, but, of course, that's only the tip of THAT iceberg . . . .
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