Maybe, but it's also gratifying to know that a human who was as flawed as the rest of us was nonetheless able to create something as long lived as Star Trek
Dagger of the Mind - What was Dr. Adam's Plan ?
- Thread starter DanGussin
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Maybe, but it's also gratifying to know that a human who was as flawed as the rest of us was nonetheless able to create something as long lived as Star Trek
Well, he had a lot of help.
Fair point - although I deliberately avoided putting "single handedly" in there for that very reason!
And he did come up with the original concept
Back in the good old sixties and seventies they had this idea to get good ratings for their shows by hiring well known guest actors and even former movie stars to appear in their series! Now some of these actors would be in high demand and unable or unwilling to do more than one episode, so they created the unseen members of the crew and we were supposed to accept that they had been on board the ship during all of the other episodes but were working below decks or at other stations throughout the vessel! How dull would it have been to see the very same twenty odd faces each and every week? 
JB
JB
You mean like any job, including my own?
It's not as if there are too many guest appearances in the average sitcom, either. And those generally take place on the wide planet Earth, not in a tin can floating in vacuum.
I gather references to a crew of 200-400 were ideal for the purposes of the show, allowing for regulars, recurring extras and one-off guests alike. What was lost in the process was verisimilitude with today's or 1960s naval vessels, in that the guests added to a top-heavy rank structure (it being impractical to use low-ranking guests for interacting with the high-ranking heroes). But "Space Seed" did an excellent job lampshading the idea that Kirk's ship is full of semi-idled passengers who are only called to action once a year or so!
Timo Saloniemi
I gather references to a crew of 200-400 were ideal for the purposes of the show, allowing for regulars, recurring extras and one-off guests alike. What was lost in the process was verisimilitude with today's or 1960s naval vessels, in that the guests added to a top-heavy rank structure (it being impractical to use low-ranking guests for interacting with the high-ranking heroes). But "Space Seed" did an excellent job lampshading the idea that Kirk's ship is full of semi-idled passengers who are only called to action once a year or so!
Timo Saloniemi
Unless your job is mobile in a vastly unknown, potentially perilous region of the galaxy...
I suppose anyone who has a "seldom-needed, but when needed, crucial to mission success" role, also has a secondary, more routine role. The astro-paleontologist may double as a medical tech, for instance.
Or then not, as it has not been customary here on Earth to make onboard scientists, artists and envoys take part in the operation and maintenance of the ship.
That Kirk's specialists are part of the Starfleet rank structure no doubt makes it easier to draft their aid in tight spots (although I'm pretty sure Kirk would hand a phaser to a visiting UFP President, too, to defend against Klingon boarders, and then give him, her or it direct orders about where to point that thing - he has no trouble commanding a High Commissioner that way in "Taste of Armageddon", say). Whether a ship that once sailed with a crew of just 200 and sometimes moved just fine with half a dozen people awake really would need the daily services of the extra 230 (or the extra 425!) is debatable.
Timo Saloniemi
That Kirk's specialists are part of the Starfleet rank structure no doubt makes it easier to draft their aid in tight spots (although I'm pretty sure Kirk would hand a phaser to a visiting UFP President, too, to defend against Klingon boarders, and then give him, her or it direct orders about where to point that thing - he has no trouble commanding a High Commissioner that way in "Taste of Armageddon", say). Whether a ship that once sailed with a crew of just 200 and sometimes moved just fine with half a dozen people awake really would need the daily services of the extra 230 (or the extra 425!) is debatable.
Timo Saloniemi
The more people there are, the more mess, food, repairs, etc, there are. And I'm sure there are individual days off, so Joe the chemist can help Ralph the botanist synthesize the sap of an alien plant when Lila the biotech is spending the day in the ship's library reading a good book.
Roddenberry was painting networks and studios in a bad light years before Trek.
@Harvey and I haven't found any smoking gun paperwork that relates to the casting changes after the first pilot, so we can't really debunk any of it. Solow says NBC didn't like any of the cast except Hunter and Nimoy. Fontana supports GR's take on the "who does she think she is" story re Number One, but we don't know if she heard this from Gene or otherwise. The truth is slippery in situations like this. But as only Nimoy remained after Hunter bowed out, that tends to lend credence to the idea that NBC didn't like the casting in "The Cage". It's possible test audiences didn't respond well to Number One, too.
@Harvey and I haven't found any smoking gun paperwork that relates to the casting changes after the first pilot, so we can't really debunk any of it. Solow says NBC didn't like any of the cast except Hunter and Nimoy. Fontana supports GR's take on the "who does she think she is" story re Number One, but we don't know if she heard this from Gene or otherwise. The truth is slippery in situations like this. But as only Nimoy remained after Hunter bowed out, that tends to lend credence to the idea that NBC didn't like the casting in "The Cage". It's possible test audiences didn't respond well to Number One, too.
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I wondered that too. Maybe he knew he was caught and there was no use hiding. Maybe he had become used to being king of his hill and he had lost the ability to try to maintain approval of an external authority figure like Kirk.
I agree with the other comments saying maybe Adams got slowly seduced by the power of mind control. Mind control is a whole genre of dirty stories, and I suspect Roddenberry was familiar with it.
I also agree if Adams had kept up with his act of being an arrogant (and somewhat unctuous) expert dedicated to helping the mentally ill, he might have gotten away with it. Maybe Kirk would have gotten to the truth. It's easy to imagine an average starship captain having suspicions but not wanting to accuse an esteemed expert of a crime. It would be easy to say, "I'm a star ship captain, not an expert on the mentally ill. I have to trust the scientific medicine communities to police malpractice. My job is focusing on things like reports of ship movements along the Klingon border."
I'm not sure what this "Dr Adams panics and jumps the gun" thing refers to. The good shrink had given his tour and dinner and was thinking that he had gotten away scot free, that his guests were happily <insert personal preference> in their suite and would be departing in the morning, satisfied with their findings. And then Kirk and Noel break into Adams' treatment room in the middle of the night! That's the first time he "responds aggressively", and justly so...
The reason Kirk gets to the bottom of this is the serendipitous presence of a specialist who can give professional backing to Kirk's suspicions - Noel wasn't associated with the Tantalus V resupply mission specifically, and Captain Nowan of USS Insignificant would in all likelihood not have been provided with a comparable expert. The reason Kirk survives in turn is the serendipitous presence of a Vulcan in his crew, capable of melding with van Gelder. Whether Adams would have gotten away with it if not for that meddling expert and her Vulcan is debatable, as he rather apparently wasn't a master criminal planning on this contingency. But those two sealed his fate.
Timo Saloniemi
The reason Kirk gets to the bottom of this is the serendipitous presence of a specialist who can give professional backing to Kirk's suspicions - Noel wasn't associated with the Tantalus V resupply mission specifically, and Captain Nowan of USS Insignificant would in all likelihood not have been provided with a comparable expert. The reason Kirk survives in turn is the serendipitous presence of a Vulcan in his crew, capable of melding with van Gelder. Whether Adams would have gotten away with it if not for that meddling expert and her Vulcan is debatable, as he rather apparently wasn't a master criminal planning on this contingency. But those two sealed his fate.
Timo Saloniemi
..I'm trying to figure out a way to include that episode of "South Park". lol.Good question. Maybe he was creating a horde of mindless zombies who would work for long hours and low pay at the nearest galactic Walmart.
..Then how did the chair end up in "Whom Gods Destroy" ?
As I think I mentioned before, it's likely that the chair and the emitters are standardized pieces used for various similar medical or therapeutic technologies. If your goal is to design a new way of treating mental illness, you wouldn't bother to design custom furniture at the same time. You'd just take an existing chair and stick it under your emitter. And you'd probably take an existing emitter design and just modify the electronics inside it. So the visual similarity doesn't prove it's the same device. (Especially since the episode has plenty of other recycled props, like the semicircular console that was previously seen as Landru's conversion controller and the Romulans' cloaking device station.)
...Yet it is the same chair, as per the dialogue.
Garth says it is "his invention". Kirk, minding Marta's insane ramblings about "her" poetry, might choose to humor the madman there. Instead, he says he "recognizes" the device, a rehabilitation instrument, in clear reference to the "Dagger of the Mind" adventure; Governor Cory agrees. Garth then further expands on the connection, by describing the chair in terms matching the Neural Neutralizer (it "makes men docile").
It is of little use to try and argue that this would be a different device, then. Dr. Adams invented it, used it for both good and evil, and left behind a working specimen and no doubt a full set of blueprints, too. The Federation then manufactured more, and used them for good only, until Garth came along and added the ultrasound torture function he so proudly describes.
Timo Saloniemi
Garth says it is "his invention". Kirk, minding Marta's insane ramblings about "her" poetry, might choose to humor the madman there. Instead, he says he "recognizes" the device, a rehabilitation instrument, in clear reference to the "Dagger of the Mind" adventure; Governor Cory agrees. Garth then further expands on the connection, by describing the chair in terms matching the Neural Neutralizer (it "makes men docile").
It is of little use to try and argue that this would be a different device, then. Dr. Adams invented it, used it for both good and evil, and left behind a working specimen and no doubt a full set of blueprints, too. The Federation then manufactured more, and used them for good only, until Garth came along and added the ultrasound torture function he so proudly describes.
Timo Saloniemi
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