Question: suitable time period for long term passage on Kirk's Enterprise

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Suppose someone were a passenger on the Enterprise over the period of several episodes of TOS. Which time period would be most suitable for a bunch of characters being ferried to a planet while other episodes take place?

They would experience some effects from the episode storylines (such as shipboard attacks, sicknesses going around, etc) but remain (essentially) off camera for the events therein. (As in, they shouldn't have appeared in/ be missing from any filmed scenes of the show, but still present aboard the ship.)

 

[Admiral2]

The problem with that question is that TOS is an anthology. You have no definitive frame of reference as to when specific events actually occurred. They may be separated by days, weeks or months (stardates being bullshit), and the whole reason for creating Warp Speed is to make sure that a simple ferry mission won't necessarily take more than one episode. Trying to write a narrative where passengers not involved in the main action will experience a host of the implausible canon experiences of the Enterprise stretches the internal logic of the series. As such, there is no suitable extended time period where such a story will work.

 

[mthompson1701]

The only episode where that might work would probably be Journey To Babel if they were maybe one of the other ambassadors or something like that.