"Shore Leave"...was Ruth Mitchell's blond lab assistant?

[Kryton]

Kirk was pretty massively into the attentions of "Ruth" in this episode. I'd always thought the "lab assistant" Mitchell had referred to in WNMHGB was probably Carol Marcus, but after re-seeing this ep, Kirk seems massively into someone from about 15 years back in his past named Ruth....

Just a stray thought!

 

[Christopher]

I doubt Ruth was a lab assistant. Kirk was seeing her as she was 15 years before, and the actress was 32 at the time and looked it. She was pretty clearly an "older woman." One would expect a lab assistant at the Academy to be closer to Kirk's age. Maybe Ruth was more of a "Mrs. Robinson" type.

FWIW, Bibi Besch was about 9 years younger than Shatner, which would make Carol too young to have been the lab assistant if she was the same age as the actress. But it's possible Carol was older. Picard was a full decade older than Patrick Stewart, and Chekov was 9 years younger than Walter Koenig during TOS.

 

[Kryton]

Besch was an actress and was certainly playing a character older than her years...by at least a decade or so. Which is why I was a bit surprised she wasn't involved in SOME way with ST:3,4,+. But it works, I suppose, just as well without her.

Still...it's fun to retcon the Gary Mitchell lab assistant line.

 

[Kryton]

I should also point out that McCoy's "accompaniment" (the two girls with him when he reveals he's still alive) showed off their NAVELS!

That was SO inappropriate at the time...yet they let it through. What's up with that?!?

 

[Sir Rhosis]

I think your avatar could be any straight male's "little blonde lab assistant."

Sorry, had a Shatmandu moment, there.

Sir Rhosis

 

[Kryton]

(Sorry--trying to fend off the women with hot dudes avatars in the MISC forum...otherwise it would be a cartoon or a pic of Kryton from Red Dwarf.)

 

[Trekker4747]

Mmmmm. Yeoman Barrows.

 

[A beaker full of death]

No.

 

[Kagan]

Christopher said:
Maybe Ruth was more of a "Mrs. Robinson" type.

Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs Robinson
"Joltin' Joe has left and gone away"

 

[Therin of Andor]

Kryton said:
Which is why I was a bit surprised she wasn't involved in SOME way with ST:3,4,+.

When Harve Bennett was constructing the script beats for ST III, he realized that David Marcus cheating with protomatter in ST II had to be "repaid" with his death. But having Carol in ST III would have tarnished her with the same brush. If she stayed on Grissom, she'd be lost when the ship blew up, and if she was with David to see the Genesis planet age rapidly, she'd have to die with him. So he elected to just omit the character.

When Bibi Besch realized she wasn't needed for ST III, she was very upset, but was understanding when Harve Bennett explained his reasons. This was explained a "Starlog" interview with Bennett.

The novelists of the ST III, IV and VI adaptations still made excellent use of the character, though, but in ways that were superfluous for the movies' main plots. For a time, the Carol character had been included in a cameo scene for ST VI: ie. the "last round-up" prologue that was eventually deemed unnecessary.

 

[Ronald Held]

Even though there is no strong onscreen evidence for it, I still think that it could have been Carol.

 

[Christopher]

Sir Rhosis said:
I think your avatar could be any straight male's "little blonde lab assistant."

Only if that straight male likes silicone. Or women with chronic back pain.

 

[Green Shirt]

Christopher said:
I doubt Ruth was a lab assistant. Kirk was seeing her as she was 15 years before, and the actress was 32 at the time and looked it.

Hypothetically speaking, maybe an actress' "skill" on the casting couch was a more important consideration than getting someone who better fit the role.

 

[Green Shirt]

Christopher said:

Sir Rhosis said:
I think your avatar could be any straight male's "little blonde lab assistant."

Only if that straight male likes silicone. Or women with chronic back pain.

Hmmmm, "silicone avatar", now WHERE have I heard THAT before?

 

[Deleted 2]

Christopher said:
I doubt Ruth was a lab assistant. Kirk was seeing her as she was 15 years before, and the actress was 32 at the time and looked it.

Huh? You could've fooled me.

But I don't think Ruth was the lab assistant either. Mainly because you don't "almost marry" someone and retain almost adolescent romantic feelings for them years later. That, and I doubt Kirk was a Lieutenant teaching classes at the academy at 18.

Carol is a far less unlikely choice. Kirk must've fathered David in his mid- to late twenties, which is not irreconcilable with a position at the academy.

 

[Forbin]

I like the theory that the lab assistant was Carol Marcus. In my mind the "I almost married her!" line fits well with them having had a child together.

But his subconscious summoning of Ruth on the SL planet tells me that Ruth, not Carol, is the woman Kirk most regrets leaving behind.

 

[Deleted 2]

Therin of Andor said:
When Harve Bennett was constructing the script beats for ST III, he realized that David Marcus cheating with protomatter in ST II had to be "repaid" with his death. But having Carol in ST III would have tarnished her with the same brush.

Well, one could argue that losing her son might be enough punishment.

 

[Forbin]

I don't get that - he had to DIE because he cheated on an experiment?! Strange Hollywood thinking.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Forbin said:
I don't get that - he had to DIE because he cheated on an experiment?! Strange Hollywood thinking.

Bennett had devised a particular formula (that worked for him). He sees nature (and scriptwriting) as a set of actions/reactions, and balances/counter-balances. Kirk found David again, but Spock died: ST II. David cheated, so had to be punished: ST III. And since Spock was miraculously returned, Kirk must lose even more: a son - and the Enterprise. With ST IV, Kirk is demoted, but regains his ship, and so on.

 

[Plum]

^^^
Hrrmmmrrmm, I'm not edumakated or anything, but I believe writers refer to this as "the law of consequences" or something. I think it's an old Greek thing? You know... "what ye sow ye shall reap."