Time Frame From Star Trek 2 - 4

[RPJOB]

I think Antonia was just random, and random never works in this context. Like introducing a character, like a red shirt, or Hawk or Valeris, just to have them get killed or be the bad guy.

Having a random woman in Kirk's paradise is a big wtf, when there are so many women in his past that fans, and casual viewers might remember. Edith being #1.

So here, your girlfriend turns and says "who's Antonia" and no one has a clue, she is no one, "never heard of her". As opposed to "who's Edith", and you say "she is from a classic episode, Joan Collins".

No big deal either way but one resonates, the other is nothing, never heard of her, and I don't care if he stays or leaves.

Very much so. When we met the other women that Kirk's been involved with we actually spend a little time with them. We learn something about them even if it's just trivial. We see that there's something between her and Kirk. A shared experience, a chemistry between them, something. When we see Antonia it might as well be Walter Koenig in a dress for all we find out. Oh, she rides horses. Yeah, that's what's Kirk been looking for in a woman all these years. If we don't know anything about Antonia, why should we care if Kirk leaves her to go back to Starfleet? She's just random woman #472 in the big black book of JTK. We know more about Kirk's relationship with Deela from Wink of an eye. At least we know that they had sex.

A lot of it can be blamed on the Nexus. Guinan told Picard that it was "like being inside joy." and that they'd never want to leave. Picard saw a Christmas ornament and snapped out of it. Kirk wasn't worried about jumping a ditch on a horse and realizes that he's in a fantasy. None of what we saw matches up with what Guinan said. It was like being told a carnival ride was the scariest thing ever. You jump the first time something unexpected happens but you realize that it's fake after that.

Either that or never for Starfleet officers is equal to about 15 minutes.

 

[RPJOB]

Plus, the episode itself builds her up a lot. She's not just some blonde cheesecake in a skimpy outfit; the episode goes out its way to portray her as a visionary humanitarian who is way ahead of her time. And a strong, independent woman worthy of Kirk's respect and admiration.

(Okay, she was also going to cause the Nazis to take over the world, but nobody's perfect . . . .)

Plus, the episode itself builds her up a lot. She's not just some blonde cheesecake in a skimpy outfit; the episode goes out its way to portray her as a visionary humanitarian who is way ahead of her time. And a strong, independent woman worthy of Kirk's respect and admiration.

Honestly, I've recently come to feel that Joan Collins was miscast in the role. Edith shouldn't have been this glamorous beauty with a posh English accent -- she should've been a harder-edged, scrappier, no-nonsense type. As scripted, Edith isn't just a starry-eyed idealist, but someone tough and skeptical and realistic enough to handle the burden of running a Depression-era shelter/soup kitchen and keep its patrons in line. A line like "If you're a bum, if you can't break off of the booze or whatever it is that makes you a bad risk, then get out" just isn't entirely convincing in Collins's dainty, rarefied voice, or at least isn't as effective as it could've been coming from an actress with more of an edge.

Years ago, shortly after getting out of high school, i worked at a downtown coffee shop/book store. The manager was slight, British woman who stood maybe 5 foot two and weighed 100 pounds if she was soaking wet. In the two years I was there I never herd her swear or curse no matter how mild. No heck or darn. Always very polite but not stuffy.

However she also regularly helped unload the boxes from the delivery truck. She would grab an end of a bookshelf when we were reorganizing the store. She once blocked the door to prevent a shoplifter from getting out. He was taller than me, probably a good foot taller than she was and weighed more than double what she did. Without a second thought she simply stood in the doorway, placed her hands on either side of the frame and told him that he was not leaving.

Don't mistake soft spoken for soft.

Edith, more than any of the other women in Kirk's life showed us what sort of woman he was attracted to. To be sure, there were some for whom the attraction would be purely physical but Edith showed us what kind of woman would keep his attention. We also saw that she had an effect on him. It was one of the few times that he turned off the Kirk Charm Field and simply was himself.

Who was Antonia? Who knows? Who cares? We're given no reason to care about her other than the fact that they both like horses.

 

[Christopher]

A lot of it can be blamed on the Nexus. Guinan told Picard that it was "like being inside joy." and that they'd never want to leave. Picard saw a Christmas ornament and snapped out of it. Kirk wasn't worried about jumping a ditch on a horse and realizes that he's in a fantasy. None of what we saw matches up with what Guinan said. It was like being told a carnival ride was the scariest thing ever. You jump the first time something unexpected happens but you realize that it's fake after that.

Either that or never for Starfleet officers is equal to about 15 minutes.

I think that's missing the point. It's a recurring theme in James T. Kirk's adventures (and Christopher Pike's one canonical adventure before him) that he's skeptical of paradise. A lot of people would happily accept living in a world where everything they want comes effortlessly, but Kirk isn't like that; he needs the struggle, the conflict. Philosophically he believes in peace, but he doesn't feel he belongs in a world at peace, because he's too much of a fighter at heart. So when he's offered a life of unquestioning, passive serenity, of luxury without struggle, he questions or rejects it, as in "This Side of Paradise," "Metamorphosis," "Who Mourns for Adonais?," or "I, Mudd." When Sybok used his brainwashing mojo to free others from their pain and leave them only contented submission, Kirk resisted, saying "I need my pain."

And I don't count his two months with Miramanee as an exception. That may have seemed like paradise to a tired starship captain, but let's face it, he was living for two months in a preindustrial, probably seminomadic agrarian culture. I'm sure he had to work hard and overcome challenges and dangers to earn his happiness, so it was a happiness he could accept as legitimate and meaningful.

So it's perfectly in character for Kirk to question the reality of a world where there's no danger, no risk of failure, nothing but total, instant gratification and success. That's not a life he can trust or accept. And that's why he reacted differently to the prospect of total, continuous fulfillment than Guinan or Soran did.

Don't mistake soft spoken for soft.

I'm not. Once again you're misinterpreting a specific point of mine as a generalized one. I'd have no problem with a soft-spoken actress who managed to convey the intended strength and streetwise quality of the character. Joan Collins had no problem being loud (you know her career-making role was a very nasty character in Dynasty, right?), but that's got nothing to with it. She just came off as very polished and upper-class and rarefied, and while she didn't fail in the role, and did well in her own way, I nonetheless think that she probably wasn't the best fit for the role as it was written, that she didn't bring as much out of it as a different actress would.

 

[RPJOB]

I don't see Miramanee as being one of Kirk's great loves simply because he had amnesia at the time. How can he enjoy the time away from being a tired starship captain if he doesn't know he's a starship captain. He's basically got nothing left except for his language skills and a few vague memories that seem to be dreams. Can you actually miss something that you never knew you had? A part of him may have loved Miramanee but I don't think that the whole of James T Kirk would have. He would have been bored to tears in her world if he stayed there after his memory returned.

Honestly, I've recently come to feel that Joan Collins was miscast in the role. Edith shouldn't have been this glamorous beauty with a posh English accent -- she should've been a harder-edged, scrappier, no-nonsense type. As scripted, Edith isn't just a starry-eyed idealist, but someone tough and skeptical and realistic enough to handle the burden of running a Depression-era shelter/soup kitchen and keep its patrons in line. A line like "If you're a bum, if you can't break off of the booze or whatever it is that makes you a bad risk, then get out" just isn't entirely convincing in Collins's dainty, rarefied voice, or at least isn't as effective as it could've been coming from an actress with more of an edge.

I feel the opposite, the casting against 'type' works for me and avoids many of the obvious cliches such as the ones you mentioned. She is supposed to be a bit of an outsider there on the mean streets, a savior with a vision and carriage beyond her circumstance.

Also, I don't think a scrappier hard-edged character would be up to the task of talking the President out of WWII. I think the the fineness and class that Collins brings to the role is perfect, and has stood the test of time.

I totally agree that Collins portrayal worked well because of her outsider status. Her thoughts and beliefs would have been more at home in the 23rd century and she saw something similar in Kirk. They were both outsiders, she philosophically and he temporally. Making her into a character like Frances Sternhagen's character in Outland may have made her fit in the time more but would have detracted from her status as a woman before her time.

James Kirk and Edith Keeler, two lost souls who found each other at the wrong time.

 

[Timo]

None of what we saw matches up with what Guinan said.

How so? Guinan herself was only in the Nexus for a very brief time. Much like Soran, she mistook the initial bliss for eternal. And the apparition she left behind was not her, not as such - as far as we know, the apparition could not learn anything or experience anything, and thus would only have the fifteen-minute experience of the real and already departed El-Aurian bartender-to-be to relate to Picard.

I've come to view the Nexus as the ultimate cruise ship from a culture that isn't all that alien after all. Boarding is made simple and comfortable, unless you unreasonably fight it. Thereafter, the automated steward wishes you a pleasant cruise and immerses you in bliss till your destination. And if you're not too cynical, you can enjoy the cruise for something like two days, pretend to enjoy it for the next two weeks, and sort of refrain from strangling that couple from Newark until halfway through the 40-year trip.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I think Smallville, Sunnydale, The Simpsons' Springfield, and a number of other TV communities have had a similar continuity issue in that they start out relatively small but then just keep getting bigger, accumulating their own universities and stadiums and multiple neighborhoods and industrial sectors and whatever else needs to be accreted onto them for the sake of a story, and thus ending up as pretty big cities. In around Smallville's second season or so, they even concocted a backstory that the city was founded by a Mr. Small, in order to reconcile the name with the city's growing size. (Not to mention that it ended up being anywhere from 3 hours' to a few minutes' drive from Metropolis.)

Exactly. Sunnydale started out as a dinky "one-Starbuck town" that eventually acquired museums, a waterfront, and its own university. Granted, this led to a funny, self-aware bit in "Buffy versus Dracula" where the town suddenly acquires a gothic castle that nobody remembers noticing before!

Let this be a lesson to us all: if you're developing a new TV (or book) series set in a small town, make sure you have everything you need from Day One: parks, zoos, museums, tunnels, beaches, forests, a nuclear power plant . . . .

I'll be curious to see if "Univille" on Warehouse 13 enjoys a similar growth spurt!

Quoth Lucy Lawless in "Stretch Dude and Clobber Girl," "A wizard did it."

 

[RPJOB]

None of what we saw matches up with what Guinan said.

How so? Guinan herself was only in the Nexus for a very brief time. Much like Soran, she mistook the initial bliss for eternal. And the apparition she left behind was not her, not as such - as far as we know, the apparition could not learn anything or experience anything, and thus would only have the fifteen-minute experience of the real and already departed El-Aurian bartender-to-be to relate to Picard.

I've come to view the Nexus as the ultimate cruise ship from a culture that isn't all that alien after all. Boarding is made simple and comfortable, unless you unreasonably fight it. Thereafter, the automated steward wishes you a pleasant cruise and immerses you in bliss till your destination. And if you're not too cynical, you can enjoy the cruise for something like two days, pretend to enjoy it for the next two weeks, and sort of refrain from strangling that couple from Newark until halfway through the 40-year trip.

Timo Saloniemi

The impression that I got was that Guinan was existing in both places at once, the "real world" and the nexus. She was still feeling what her other self was experiencing in both realities. That explains her "this is wrong" feeling in Yesterday's Enterprise. Her nexus self was an outside observer and could tell when something had changed in the real world. Being connected, real Guinan would know this too.

 

[Christopher]

^If Guinan were directly experiencing what her Nexus echo felt, then she wouldn't feel that sense of yearning for the bliss she lost. She'd be in constant bliss all the time. So would Soran, and thus he wouldn't be as desperate to get back as he was.

Here are the deleted lines from the script:

GUINAN
It took a long time, but
eventually I learned to live with
it. And I began to realize that
my experience in the Nexus had
changed me...
(beat)
I knew things about people...
about events...about time...

PICARD
Your "sixth sense"... I've always
wondered where it came from...

So it's not that she directly experienced what her Nexus echo experienced -- just that having that echo gave her an intuition about time.

 

[22 Stars]

^ Agreed.

 

[RPJOB]

She doesn't have to experience everything to the same degree. She could perceive the Nexus as if she had just awakened from a wonderful dream. It fades but never goes totally away. She's constantly aware that she is missing something wonderful. Just knowing that it exists may explain her relaxed manner. It would be like having a vague memory of heaven. She KNOWS it exists and, perhaps through meditation or when she sleeps or some such, she experiences it just a bit more. She could be like an addict who won't give up their drugs but cautions others about using them.

The deleted line sort of says the same thing. In time, she learned how to tap into the echo of herself that was left behind. It takes time and effort, after all, she cannot always explain why she feels what she does. It took her a while to figure out what exactly was wrong with Tasha being alive.

Beisdes, if deleted scenes, even more than unfilmed lines, were canon, Commander Maddox would be first officer instead of Worf.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I think if it had been Edith, it might've made it too obvious to Kirk too early what was going on.

Agreed! Not to forget that fans would be up in arms that the producers had failed to secure Joan Collins to reprise her role.

 

[Shazam!]

Kirk specifically said they were in the third month of their Vulcan exile, which limits it to 2-3 months after the end of The Search for Spock.

Were they actually exiled at the end of TSFS or did they just land there? You could argue they left Vulcan, messed around for a bit and then did something else that caused their exile.

I'm not saying I'd argue that, mind.

 

[CaptainMatt]

Isn't that what they did in the 80s comic books put out by DC?

 

[Shazam!]

LOL Is it?

 

[CaptainMatt]

If memory serves, yes, the crew got another starship or something and had some offscreen comic book-only adventures before going back to Vulcan with the bird of prey again in time for STIV.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Yeah. Spock got back to normal but then there was a Mirror Universe story and he had a mental battle with MUSpock, as a result of which he was weakened. This was how the comics explained how he ended up in his condition at the start of TVH.

 

[CaptainMatt]

Crazy time-hopping comic book plots. How did we survive them?

 

[Christopher]

^ Yeah. Spock got back to normal but then there was a Mirror Universe story and he had a mental battle with MUSpock, as a result of which he was weakened. This was how the comics explained how he ended up in his condition at the start of TVH.

No, that's not right. The DC Mirror Universe Saga came right after The Search for Spock, and in fact it was just the opposite: Spock's mental state was deteriorating after the fal tor pan and it was his meld with Mirror Spock that fully restored him.

After that, Spock was assigned as captain of the science vessel Surak while the rest of the crew, who were forgiven for their crimes in TSFS due to their heroism in the Mirror Universe crisis, got the Excelsior; this was because the studio didn't want DC to do much with Spock while his status in the next movie was still up in the air. For a couple of years, we got Excelsior stories with only occasional appearances by Spock.

The lead-in to TVH was actually a story called "The Doomsday Bug," in which a deadly virus killed the Surak's crew and undid Spock's recovery; and in order to solve the crisis, Kirk violated Romulan space and risked a major diplomatic incident. So he had the Excelsior taken away and the charges restored, and the main crew had to flee back to Vulcan in the Klingon Bird of Prey (which apparently had been stored in the Excelsior's shuttle bay the whole time, even though it's far, far too large to fit).

 

[22 Stars]

Those were fun times reading those comics, trying to figure out how they were going to continue while the new films were being formulated. I think this is the time that Richard Arnold started to direct the licensees on what they could and couldn't do with primary and secondary characters.

 

[Greg Cox]

Marvel's STAR WARS comic faced similar challenges, having to vamp shamelessly in between the original movies. (As I recall, Vader spent most of the three years between STAR WARS and EMPIRE trying to find out the name of the rebel pilot who blew up the Death Star. He didn't learn it was Luke until right before EMPIRE came out.)

And pity the poor writers who had stall for three years after the cliffhanger ending of EMPIRE . . . !