A thought about Landru's planet

[gastrof]

I know this is a bit late, the episode running on TOSR a few weeks ago, but I'd meant to post about it and kept forgetting.

Anyone wonder how in the world that planet had clocks that looked like the ones we have on Earth?

I'm not talking about the mechanics...I mean the number of hours, and even the way the numbers were "written".

Isn't this taking the "parallel world development" theory a bit far? (Miri's planet was bad enough! )

 

[simmsbc]

It is probably the most obvious reason of all. It was cheap and was something that all the viewers would understand. Or maybe the universal translator was working on overdrive.

 

[gastrof]

Your attempts to break thru the 4th wall will not be tolerated.

You...

You're not of the body!

 

[A beaker full of death]

gastrof said:

Isn't this taking the "parallel world development" theory a bit far?

No.

 

[Timo]

In all fairness, Landru might believe in Red Centuries in addition to Red Hours; every now and then, it might revamp the entire culture in order to keep its pets from getting bored. And quite possibly, the last template that Landru used was 19th century United States, as pilfered from the memory banks of the Archon.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[erastus25]

gastrof said:
I know this is a bit late, the episode running on TOSR a few weeks ago, but I'd meant to post about it and kept forgetting.

Anyone wonder how in the world that planet had clocks that looked like the ones we have on Earth?

I'm not talking about the mechanics...I mean the number of hours, and even the way the numbers were "written".

Isn't this taking the "parallel world development" theory a bit far? (Miri's planet was bad enough! )

Maybe Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development can only manifest on 24 hour planets.

 

[Kegek]

It's about as plausible as an identical Earth ("Miri"), a 20th century Rome ("Bread and Circuses"), a planet of immortal telepathic/telekinetic aliens who admire Platonism ("Plato's Stepchildren"), and so on.

So the numbers are quite par for the course.

 

[Outpost4]

A television broadcast of High Noon was intercepted by Beta III. It had travelled through a wormhole and went back 6,000 years in time, becoming the most popular form of entertainment for Betans before the lawgivers took over. It is responsible for the Old West look of the place. And as any film buff knows, the last half of High Noon is done in real time, with a clock on screen counting down to high noon.

You don't believe me? Look at the similarity between Landru and a picture of Gary Cooper from the movie.

See, there is always a logical explanation.

 

[Red Ranger]

Kegek said:
It's about as plausible as an identical Earth ("Miri"), a 20th century Rome ("Bread and Circuses"), a planet of immortal telepathic/telekinetic aliens who admire Platonism ("Plato's Stepchildren"), and so on.

So the numbers are quite par for the course.

Makes sense to me! Besides, unlike a movie like "Predator," where they were able to create a phony number system to indicate the Hunter-antagonist's self-destruct countdown, they simply didn't have the budget to create a fake number system for Landru's world.

Also, the show-runners figured it would make more sense to use Earth-time clocks so the audience could understand the whole "red hour" concept better. Made it more accessible to the audience of the time.

Red Ranger

 

[A beaker full of death]

Red Ranger said:
they simply didn't have the budget to create a fake number system for Landru's world.

No. 12 symbols. Pretty easy.

Also, the show-runners figured it would make more sense to use Earth-time clocks so the audience could understand the whole "red hour" concept better. Made it more accessible to the audience of the time.

Yes. Rodenberry's initial pitch stressed to the suits that the "parallel development" theory would make the "alien" worlds accessible to viewers.
People need to stop taking the outer space thing so literally. It was just a device. They could just as easily have turned it into Sliders, traveling between dimensions rather than worlds.

 

[Kryton]

Don't forget that Lucy thought "Star Trek" was about USO entertainers in the South Pacific in WWII!

 

[Timo]

No. 12 symbols. Pretty easy.

To be sure, if they had had the resources to tell somebody "Make that clock alien in two minutes using nothing but office supplies!", they wouldn't have used 12 symbols. More probably something like 16 or 8, with an extra hand to the clock, going counterclockwise to hit the Red Hour mark.

But they were probably way too busy to do even that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jayrath]

Easiest explanation of all: it was cultural contamination from the lost crew of the U.S.S. Arkon.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

jayrath said:
Easiest explanation of all: it was cultural contamination from the lost crew of the U.S.S. Arkon.

Could be, could be.

Assuming the Archon was from the same time period as the Horizon (from "A Piece of the Action"), then the Prime Directive wouldn't have existed yet when the Archon visited the planet.

OTOH, Landru itself might have picked and chose which parts of Earth culture it 'liked' based on the contents of the Archon's historical database.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Kryton said:
Don't forget that Lucy thought "Star Trek" was about USO entertainers in the South Pacific in WWII!

She was understandably confused after seeing the lost "Tiki Planet" episode.

 

[Forbin]

McHale's Starfleet?

 

[Capt.Mac]

The clock observation is interesting, but has anyone noticed that in the teaser Sulu and O'Neil are dressed in 18th century style clothing, but the rest of the episode has the actors wearing 19th century style clothing?

 

[UssGlenn]

you are supposed to notice that, the clothing is a plot point. It's how they were discovered to be imposters.

 

[A beaker full of death]

UssGlenn said:
you are supposed to notice that, the clothing is a plot point. It's how they were discovered to be imposters.

WHAT???

 

[jayrath]

Are you of the body?