Season 1 Roles (or lack thereof)

[Michael]

I'm also more convinced the more I watch that Data should be in blue.

They tested him in various uniform colors, and the gold worked best with his makeup.

Acutally I can see why they thought blue wouldn't really work with his makeup ...

 

[Christopher]

^The problem with that photomanipulation is that it doesn't take interactive lighting into account. The Data makeup was a pearlescent white whose apparent color was affected by scattered/reflected light from his costume. The apparent golden hue of his skin is due to the golden hue of his tunic. So if he'd been genuinely wearing blue, the makeup might've looked more a sort of corpselike blue-white.

 

[Michael]

^ Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. So maybe he would have looked something more along the lines of this ...

The still-yellow eyes, however, look weird in my photo manipulation.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

I didn't like that first photoshop job. But I think the colors work in the second. Soong couldn't have given Data deep blue eyes?

 

[Balok's Head]

It's interesting to note that Brent Spiner said that the actual colour of his makeup was gold, and that it either photographed in green or white hues. I think his make up looked best in the early episodes of season 3, where, IMHO the cinematography was at it's best.

 

[Christopher]

^Funny, that's not what Michael Westmore says.

 

[Michael]

^ Well, what does Michael Westmore say?

 

[SonicRanger]

Well, here he says:

So we did many film tests with Brent Spin basically for colour. Pencilling in his hair line to give him a patent leather look through his hair. It finally got down to three colours, it got down to a yellow-gold, a battleship grey and bubblegum pink. And actually Gene Roddenberry kind of liked the pink. Then they kind of liked the grey, it's like yellow was the afterthought. Data's make-up is literally the only make-up that hasn't changed one iota since the original application, still the same steps.

 

[Christopher]

Odd. There are mixed messages about this out there, apparently. I could swear I've read that Data's makeup literally incorporates mother-of-pearl.

 

[Balok's Head]

I think we can also count Brent Spiner as a major authority on this as he wore the stuff for 15 years. In all the intereview/convention footage I've seen he has alwayssaid that it was gold.

 

[Myko]

Obviously he should be wearing a gold, uhm, green, shirt from TOS.

 

[SonicRanger]

Fun fact: Data's makeup was actually avocado green but only looked gold on film.

 

[Jedi_Master]

There is a great deal about the first season that was just the typical growing pains of a new show. For instance the reclining chairs at conn and ops, and the man skort uniform.

As to Geordi's role, can anyone remember him showing any particular engineering aptitude in the first season? Relying on fuzzy memory, I cannot remember any things in the first season that scream at me "this guy should be chief engineer!".

 

[Christopher]

There is a great deal about the first season that was just the typical growing pains of a new show. For instance the reclining chairs at conn and ops, and the man skort uniform.

I think they should've kept the skorts. Why should unisex clothing only mean women adopting traditionally male garments instead of the other way around? That's a double standard. Not to mention that there are plenty of societies where males have traditionally worn kilts, togas, kimonos, and other non-pants-oriented garb. If they really wanted to show a multicultural, egalitarian future humanity, the costume designs shouldn't have been so conventionally 20th-century Western.

As to Geordi's role, can anyone remember him showing any particular engineering aptitude in the first season? Relying on fuzzy memory, I cannot remember any things in the first season that scream at me "this guy should be chief engineer!".

Yeah, it was rather out of the blue. Personally, I think it would've been more interesting if they'd made Worf the chief engineer, instead of just slotting the Klingon character into the obvious, stereotypical "warrior" role. It would've also been cool if Geordi had been security chief. For one thing, it would've let them play up the friendly, protective side of security work rather than just the aggressive, military side, and I think that would've also defied stereotypes nicely. And for another thing, it's a role that would've made good use of Geordi's VISOR. A security chief with built in night vision/thermal vision/binoculars/lie-detector vision? That would've been really cool! Certainly better than reducing the VISOR to a device that did nothing except allow Geordi to be mind-controlled and tortured from time to time.

 

[Doug Otte]

As to Geordi's role, can anyone remember him showing any particular engineering aptitude in the first season? Relying on fuzzy memory, I cannot remember any things in the first season that scream at me "this guy should be chief engineer!".

Yeah, it was rather out of the blue. Personally, I think it would've been more interesting if they'd made Worf the chief engineer, instead of just slotting the Klingon character into the obvious, stereotypical "warrior" role. It would've also been cool if Geordi had been security chief. For one thing, it would've let them play up the friendly, protective side of security work rather than just the aggressive, military side, and I think that would've also defied stereotypes nicely. And for another thing, it's a role that would've made good use of Geordi's VISOR. A security chief with built in night vision/thermal vision/binoculars/lie-detector vision? That would've been really cool! Certainly better than reducing the VISOR to a device that did nothing except allow Geordi to be mind-controlled and tortured from time to time.[/QUOTE]

Christopher, out of all the many wise and detail-perfect posts I've read of yours, this is the best one. Switching those two roles would indeed have suited the characters and their pecularities much better.

In particular, I always thought that the promise of Geordi's Visor capabilities was almost never fulfilled, but I couldn't think of ways to do so, except maybe more usage on Away Teams, where he would analyze native flora/fauna/technology.

Doug

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I'm rewatching the first season now. At least twice so far "The last Outpost" and "11001001", Geordi spends a fair amount of time down in Engineering, giving the expository dialogue that the Chief would normally give. It doesn't surprise me that the producers eventually sunk him down there (but they DID relabel the aft station so nthe bridge to ensure he could pop up there as needed).

I thought of another possibility for the rotating chief engineers in the first season: what if Starfleet was actively field-training new chiefs for other new Galaxy-class ships under construction? Give 'em a bit of actual action on a working example of the new ship class before they took up residence aboard their own? I could see that as feasible, especially since the Galaxy and the Yamato may have done the same (if they weren't too far out from Federation space).

That way, Sarah "These are CONTROL CHIPS!" MacDougall would end up on the Venture, Michael "I showed up TWICE" Argyle got the Odyssey engine room, Leland T. "Was there when Yar died" Lynch found himself aboard the Challenger, and Charles "I hate Geordi" Logan would die and go to hell.

As for Geordi, he WAS a junior officer on the command track but there is evidence that part of their jobs as junior officers was to spend time everywhere, including engineering. Between that and conjectural engineering training or even past assignments, he could have put in for a transfer and Picard would have seen enough in him to let him do it.

Mark