Is the doctor going to be Piper or McCoy?
- Thread starter Phoenicianknight
- Start date
Babaganoosh said:
If Boyce shows up at all, I have the perfect candidate for who should play him. Unfortunately, he's already playing a doctor on another sci-fi show, but I think they could work around it. Linky
And when you think about it, Boyce wasn't so different from Cottle anyway.
Great choice! I love Donnelly Rhodes in BSG.
I remember him from 30 years ago when he played "Dutch" on the TV series 'Soap'. He looks pretty much the same now as he did 30 years ago (maybe a few more wrinkles.)
McCoy got folksy and said "It's time to pay the piper," and was chagrined to find the other doc got his paycheck.
That was him?! I didn't realize that!
Bruce Greenwood looks more like Piper than he does Christopher Pike, but...oh well. I'm not the ones casting the movie.
^ Nah, I think Greenwood looks close enough to Pike. He looks *more* like Pike than like JFK, and he pulled that role off just fine (Thirteen Days).
Do we even know how old Pike was, by the way? I don't recall anyone ever stating Pike's age any time on the show.
Do we even know how old Pike was, by the way? I don't recall anyone ever stating Pike's age any time on the show.
Pike's age is sort of contradictory... ie, the only real evidence is based upon some flawed information.
* Commodore Mendez states that Pike is "about your age" to Kirk.
* Kirk was about 34 at the time of the first season of TOS (when this statement was made).
* "The Cage" was set 13 years prior to that.
* Meaning, Kirk would have been 21 at that point.
* There is NO WAY that Pike was supposed to be 21 at the time of "The Cage."
SOO... the best option is to assume that Mendez misspoke. I treat it as though he "really said" that Pike was "about Kirk's age" when he took command of the Enterprise... ie, he's 15 years or so older than Kirk, making him (not at all unreasonably) about 50 at the time of "The Menagerie."
This is consistent with all of the on-screen evidence (age of actors, etc, etc) except for that one line by Mendez.
Okay, so Mendez misspoke...
That's probably what the writer meant, too. He can't consciously have been implying that Pike, a figure from the past, would be the same age as the current hero of the show.
Mendez never says "Pike is about your age", to be sure. Rather, there's this bit of dialogue:
It seems like deliberate writer intention that Mendez be speaking about the past there. After all, Pike certainly ISN'T "vital and active" as Mendez speaks!
Essentially, Mendez seems to be saying that Pike was promoted to Captain at the same age that Kirk was. Whenever that was.
Since we don't know when exactly Kirk was promoted, we can't really use this to nail down Pike's age, either. Was Kirk a Captain in "Where No Man" already, or just a Commander like his uniform would suggest to a follower of the regular episodes? (For that matter, was Pike a fleet Captain in "The Cage", or something less?) But we can use the ballpark estimate that Pike would be born at least a decade before Kirk, possibly closer to two but apparently not three.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, I agree with all that you have written. Except the way I read it, Mendez met Pike when he was promoted to fleet Capt. So at that time, he was about Kirk's age.
Which can't possible be right, since it's established canonically that Kirk is the youngest officer ever given command of a Starship.
If Pike was, when PROMOTED FROM that grade, the same age as Kirk was when he RECEIVED that grade... well... we have another conflict there, don't we?
You have to pick-and-choose which part to accept, and which part to disregard. BOTH can't be true. One is a core description of a major character, another is an offhand line about a secondary character (albeit one who was originally invented as a major character). So, I choose to accept the "Kirk is the youngest officer ever given command" as the canon statement and I disregard the other as a "misstatement" by Mendez.
Your mileage may vary... but there's no way you can reconcile BOTH.
Pike's original character sheet, written by Roddenberry, made it clear that Pike was "one of the youngest officers ever given command." He carried this over when he essentially rewrote the character into Kirk (which makes perfect sense... Roddenberry never expected to see Pike again at that point!)
SO... the "real intent" was that Pike was young when he took command of the Enterprise, then Kirk was just slightly younger when he took command of the Enteprise.
And Mendez is obviously in the first stages of Beregarian Alzheimers.
With a name like Mendez, I say that it had less to do with alzheimers and more to do with Tequila!
Nope, and nope.
Kirk was never established or even hinted at as being the youngest in anything. And there is little reason to think that Pike's rank would differ any from Kirk's, even if Pike's has this strange "fleet" moniker before it.
So no contradiction, unless one deliberately adds fan speculation and then derives a contradiction from that.
Timo Saloniemi
So, let me get this clear... you think that Pike was the same age as Kirk? And that Pike led the Talos mission at the age of twenty-one or so?
The bit about Kirk being the youngest ever was established in the original series bible, and I believe that it IS established on screen as well (though for the life of me I can't recall where at the moment).
Every person who wrote for Kirk in TOS would have read the series Bible, and would have known that Roddenberry had established that Kirk was the youngest officer to be given command of a starship.
If, as you SEEM to be arguing, it's possible that Pike and Kirk were literally the same age... how can you justify a 20-ish kid sitting in the center seat of a major ship-of-the-line? How can you justify the part being played by an actor many years older than that, for that matter?
If you're just saying that it's possible Kirk wasn't the very youngest... OK, I can deal with that. I don't AGREE, but such is life, huh? It was the INTENT of the character, but if neither of us can recall where it might have been on-screen... oh well.
Still... you said "nope and nope" meaning you disagree with BOTH points. In other words, you're saying you think it's possible that Pike and Kirk really are the same age or close to it.
I'd really like to see how you support that possibility. I'll sit back and shut up... instruct me.
"About your age" isn't the same thing as "exactly your age," though. Mendez appears to be in his 50s or so (though according to IMDb, Malachi Throne was only 37 at the time - which is a shock to me, to be honest). Kirk is 33 in S1 ("The Deadly Years," when he says he's 34, is a S2 episode), so if Pike had been 40, that might well be "about Kirk's age" from Mendez' POV.
Quite true, but that is rationalization, and IMHO that is unnecessary rationalization. Because the writer got it right in the first place.
Just watching the dialogue gives me the impression that the writer knew exactly what he was doing. Mendez habitually speaks in clipped, fragmentary sentences. In this particular context, he uses a series of clipped sentences to specifically refer to Pike as he used to be in the past, before the accident. Furthermore, he uses that particular clipped sentence, "About your age", right after he has discussed Pike's promotion to Captain with Kirk.
It is IMHO not only justified to rationalize that Mendez was comparing the exploits of Pike in his past youth with those of Kirk in his current youth, in order to drive home the point (for Kirk, and moreso for the audience) that Pike and Kirk are so very similar. No, it is IMHO justified to claim that this was the writer intention all along, as it all falls so neatly in place.
If Mendez didn't speak in clipped sentences; if the discussion had been about something else besides the last experience shared by Pike and Kirk; if there wasn't an emphasis on the dramatic contrast between Pike's past and present when Mendez speaks; then I'd say we need a rationalization to explain away a writer's goof. As matters stand, I think the writer was spot on, and the audience simply finds error where there is none.
Sorry about the confusion. I was disagreeing with
1) "Which can't possible be right, since it's established canonically that Kirk is the youngest officer ever given command of a Starship."
Because AFAIK it never was established, and
2) "If Pike was, when PROMOTED FROM that grade, the same age as Kirk was when he RECEIVED that grade... well... we have another conflict there, don't we?"
because not only do I think that 1 is false (which would then remove any conflict even in case the first half of 2 were true, thus causing the second half of 2, after "well..", to be untrue anyway). I also think the grade of fleet Captain to which Pike, aged X, was promoted in Kirk's youth is the very same that Kirk received when he reached age X, some time before the first regular episode. That is, the service histories and rank progression of the two officers are nearly identical, just separated by a decade or so.
Timo Saloniemi
Just watching the dialogue gives me the impression that the writer knew exactly what he was doing. Mendez habitually speaks in clipped, fragmentary sentences. In this particular context, he uses a series of clipped sentences to specifically refer to Pike as he used to be in the past, before the accident. Furthermore, he uses that particular clipped sentence, "About your age", right after he has discussed Pike's promotion to Captain with Kirk.
It is IMHO not only justified to rationalize that Mendez was comparing the exploits of Pike in his past youth with those of Kirk in his current youth, in order to drive home the point (for Kirk, and moreso for the audience) that Pike and Kirk are so very similar. No, it is IMHO justified to claim that this was the writer intention all along, as it all falls so neatly in place.
If Mendez didn't speak in clipped sentences; if the discussion had been about something else besides the last experience shared by Pike and Kirk; if there wasn't an emphasis on the dramatic contrast between Pike's past and present when Mendez speaks; then I'd say we need a rationalization to explain away a writer's goof. As matters stand, I think the writer was spot on, and the audience simply finds error where there is none.
Sorry about the confusion. I was disagreeing with
1) "Which can't possible be right, since it's established canonically that Kirk is the youngest officer ever given command of a Starship."
Because AFAIK it never was established, and
2) "If Pike was, when PROMOTED FROM that grade, the same age as Kirk was when he RECEIVED that grade... well... we have another conflict there, don't we?"
because not only do I think that 1 is false (which would then remove any conflict even in case the first half of 2 were true, thus causing the second half of 2, after "well..", to be untrue anyway). I also think the grade of fleet Captain to which Pike, aged X, was promoted in Kirk's youth is the very same that Kirk received when he reached age X, some time before the first regular episode. That is, the service histories and rank progression of the two officers are nearly identical, just separated by a decade or so.
Timo Saloniemi
Several of the (non canonical) novels and comics have explained that McCoy needed to take leave to attend his daughter's graduation ceremony, so Piper held the fort for WNMHGB.
...Although it would make equal sense to have Kirk and McCoy be old friends who only rejoin shortly before "Corbomite Maneuver", after Kirk returns from the failed mission to beyond the rim.
McIntyre sort of goes that route in Enterprise: The First Adventure, although it supposedly takes place before "Where No Man". The hiatus in the relationship flows rather naturally from the depiction in early TOS.
Looking at this from another angle, Dr Mark Piper is the only character in "Where No Man" whom Kirk calls by first name... (Spock perhaps excluded, but Gary Mitchell included!)
Timo Saloniemi
McIntyre sort of goes that route in Enterprise: The First Adventure, although it supposedly takes place before "Where No Man". The hiatus in the relationship flows rather naturally from the depiction in early TOS.
Looking at this from another angle, Dr Mark Piper is the only character in "Where No Man" whom Kirk calls by first name... (Spock perhaps excluded, but Gary Mitchell included!)
Timo Saloniemi
Non-canonically from novels and non-official books he was supposed to be about Kirk's TOS age in "The Cage"...maybe a few years older. Someone somewhere on the web once told he thought Pike was in his early-to-mid 50s when he was crippled by the delta radiation.
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