Season 1 Uhura

But failing to include, JonnyQuest037, Nichols complaint was she was wearing an ugly GREEN costume. Amazing how that portion wasn't included in your post???

 

Last time I saw Corbomite Manoeuvre the briefing room scene looked odd, with four golds on one side of the table, and three red/blues on the other, as if they were opposing sides. With Uhura in red, the six regulars were two of each, so add one guest star in any colour and it's still more balanced: 3/2/2.

 

There were seven regulars at that point.

 

Quite right, I'd forgotten Rand. But she wasn't in the briefing room session.

 

Bailey was originally the communications officer in "Corbomite", so when they stuck Uhura in they gave her only some of his lines.

 

That's interesting. How different would things have been if Uhura had been navigator instead?

 

I’ve long thought that was a tremendous missed opportunity. The precedent for the communicator acting as a relief navigator/helm was set in WNMHGB.

 

We did see her briefly crew the station in at least one fairly early episode, but I can't recall which one. Sulu smiled approvingly when she took her seat.

 

Bailey became the navigator when Uhura was added into the script. presumably the original would have had a non-speaking extra at nav.

 

That avocado would imho not be real flattering. But was def part of that mid 60s palette, judging by old greeting cards I saved. I think the gold looks bland, at least with Uhura, so red was a good change. The greener green of the command wraparound looks real good when other colors are around. Very RGB which was the point, eh?

 

JB, not sure if you're kidding, but production (and IIRC the rest of the cast) were pretty ticked off at her, so I don't think anyone was racing down that road exactly.

And you're right, she was not a good choice. Kate M. was perfect, though.

 

Comms in TOS seems more of an engineering related discipline. She has to keep communications running, be able to repair damage equipment, modify existing equipment. Not a lot of work for an actor to do, but important. Hoshi was more of a translator. They ran with that concept from ENT when they remade the Uhura character for the Abrams movie.

 

More than one. Three or four I think.

It would have been cool to see her as the regular navigator.

 

Which reminds me, if you do an image search for Peggy Fleming at the 1968 Winter Olympics, the dress in her gold-medal winning skate is a light green that can look quite different depending on the photo. When I saw it in 50th anniversary coverage I immediately thought TOS.

FWIW in naval practice at that time, communications (or the older term signals) was very much a "line of command" department because it was so crucial to controlling numbers of ships in battle. In the British Royal Navy, signallers and wireless telegraphists were the elite of the seaman branch. In WW2 and after that control function began to incorporate radar and what the USN called the Combat Information Center and the new Operations Department, which then had to be integrated with Communications.

The problem with navy comparisons is that what Uhura is shown doing most of the time would be done by an enlisted seaman or petty officer. The officers in the Communications Department (or Divisions) would be managing those people and activities, hands off the equipment. But again FWIW, on a 1960s USN cruiser, CR division (or OR if Communications had been brought under the Operations Department) would be Radiomen, operating the radio equipment, sending, receiving and processing the message traffic. OE division in Ops would be the Electronics Technicians who maintained and repaired everything.

 

when I was in Coast Guard Auxiliary, our local sector from the regular and reserve CG had been moved to the disaster area to start helping. I couldn't reach our Aux field commander so I called in to the Sector and the co said politely "Where the f are you people? get your ass down here" so I put on a uniform and drove down.

When I got there he asked what I was qualified on, I told him I did safety checks and boat crew. He asked if I did radio watch standing or repaired, I said I'd never been trained. He asked if I knew about radios, and I told him I was a ham. He literally threw the book at me. A binder for radio watchtstanding went across the room at me followed by repair manuals for their VHF, which turned out to be down, while he said something about "well you are now" An interesting week followed.

So yeah, doesn't take a Lieutenant to fix and answer radios, but hey, she was on the bridge and deserved the stripe. maybe comms are a lot more complicated in the future.

 

I think this is true. In fact wasn't there a CPO at communications in the Cage?

In the TMP refit plans there is a communications bay where Uhura's enlisted crew are busy filtering signals. The ones that Uhura fields have either already been triaged or are direct communications from the planet. In Star Trek IV when Uhura is 'busy' in the Bounty she's basically doing all that work herself.

So I agree, the communications officer is an officer of the line and there is a lot more going on that we don't see. She's like swan, serene on the surface but coordinating a lot of people . She also coordinates damage control teams in conjunction with the operations station on the bridge.

 

In Star Trek (2009), (which takes the Phase II bible idea of Uhura as a linguist) we actually see the "signals monitoring bay" which is where Kirk finds her after waking up in sickbay.

 

I think Trek suffers with being top heavy with officers. Uhura as a lieutenant should be on one of the communications shifts for bridge duty. Most of the monitoring staff would be petty officers (communication specialists) supervised by a CPO (communication chief) each shift. That said, they did assemble the crews in a hurry in Trek 09.

 

I was only thinking about that scene this morning as well, Redfern, but I can't recall exactly which episode it was either!
JB

 

It's The Naked Time. She takes over after the navigator flips out, and is then relieved herself by Frank da Vinci's character.

She is also navigator in the opening shot of The Man Trap, which was filmed during filming of The Naked Time.