I mentioned that the Recorder/Task Monitor was revised for the second and third seasons of
Star Trek. It's time to take a look at this revised prop.
As we saw, the original "
Mark I Recorder/Task Monitor" looked like this:
But for the second and third seasons, two small changes were made to the prop:
- [li]A small piece of sheet metal was added to the top of the prop[/li]
[li]A funny looking, yellow bulb-like thing that looks like sort of like a honey drizzler was also added to the top of the prop[/li]
You get a decent look at this spruced-up "
Mark II Task Monitor" in "A Private Little War." Dr. McCoy actually brought one down with him to the surface of the planet Neural; he appears to be using it while doing some kind of biological research on the surface:
You get a slightly different angle of the prop a few moments later in the episode:
Here is
my "Mark II Recorder/Task Monitor" with the small sheet metal piece added and the yellow "honey drizzler" thing in place:
Actually, this yellow "honey drizzler" thing seems to be in different positions on the prop from episode to episode. Here it is again from "The Doomsday Machine." If you have a good set of eyes, you'll notice that the "honey drizzler" is not on the sheet metal; it's off to the side--and it has a diagonal orientation:
(Also, notice that the sheet metal piece is being used to carry around the magnetic "3O" and "7W" "jumper"blocks I talked about in my Engineering "Jumpers" post.)
Here's
my prop, with the same diagonal honey drizzler:
Here it is again, with the same two jumpers as seen in "The Doomsday Machine:"
And again, with a few extra non-canonical jumpers:
There are a couple more variants of the honey drizzler's position on the prop. In "By Any Other Name," the yellow honey drizzler has the same location as in "The Doomsday Machine," but this time it is oriented perfectly vertically, instead of diagonally:
And another shot from the same episode:
You might have noticed the small red, magnetic "Control Device" box that is sticking magnetically to the sheet metal. Do you recognize it? That's the detonator device that Captain Kirk and Ensign David Garrovick stick to the antimatter bomb when they beam down to Tycho IV to destroy the Dikironium "vampire" cloud creature in "Obsession." You can see it in David Garrovick's hand and, later, attached to the bomb:
"By Any Other Name" was filmed shortly after "Obsession" so evidently, sticking this detonator Control Device onto the top of the Mark II Recorder/Task Monitor seemed like a good thing to do with this extra little prop. You can see Mr. Scott using the Mark II Recorder/Task Monitor again with the detonator/Control Device stuck to it in the third season episode "Elaan of Troyius:"
Note that the honey drizzler thing has yet another position in this episode: up on the very top of the Recorder/Task Monitor prop.
Here's
my prop in its "By Any Other Name" configuration:
And here it is again in its "Elaan of Troyius" configuration:
Folks might also recognize that this little red Control Device that sometimes appears on the top of these Mark II Recorder/Task Monitors was seen all by itself one other time besides as the detonator in "Obsession." It was also used by Dr. Janice Lester to remotely "freeze" Captain Kirk while his back was turned to her and to activate the Life-energy transfer device in "Turnabout Intruder:"
It also shows up on the desk on the planet Gideon:
Since it pretty much constitutes a prop in its own right, here are a couple of shots of my detonator/Control Device/remote control:
The obligatory slide show to circle through these images is at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/sets/72157602992034793/show/
And some other appearances I recently discovered:
The Mark II Recorder/Task Monitor also makes an appearance in "The Changeling." (An Engineering Guy carries it onto the bridge from the turbo-lift):
It also is carried by four different people in "Who Mourns for Adonais:"
Uhura has it and hands it to Gold Shirt Guy:
Gold Shirt Guy carries it around:
Sciences Guy carries it around:
Sciences Lady carries it around (and you can just barely make out the blue and red jumpers stuck to the top):