Uniform Code Not So Uniform
- Thread starter Bry_Sinclair
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Well, except for Dowton Abbey, I cannot think of any popular period piece /present day television series shown in the US that are not set in the US.
I mean, I don't even know if the current Dr. Who is shown on a mainstream US channel.
The US exports their shows, not import them. Even shows like The Office and House of Cards were remade and set in the US.
I mean, I don't even know if the current Dr. Who is shown on a mainstream US channel.
The US exports their shows, not import them. Even shows like The Office and House of Cards were remade and set in the US.
Outlander?
Bridgerton is probably the biggest American-made show made today not set in America.
Harry Potter was huge despite lacking any American Characters.
Game of Thrones wasn't set in America (and the characters didn't behave American either)
And I can imagine that Vikings show is probably very popular in the US as well (for whatever reason)
As far as Bridgeton goes... I'd argue the characters behave a lot more like modern Americans than Regency Era Brits. Which was actually the reason why I didn't like it all that much, the characters behave too modern.
Game of Thrones wasn't set in America (and the characters didn't behave American either)
And I can imagine that Vikings show is probably very popular in the US as well (for whatever reason)
As far as Bridgeton goes... I'd argue the characters behave a lot more like modern Americans than Regency Era Brits. Which was actually the reason why I didn't like it all that much, the characters behave too modern.
I've not heard of Bridgeton, but a quick Google search shows it's relatively new.
The other movies and television mentioned.. Yes, you have me there.
Still, outside of our particular niche is scifi fantasy fans, the majority of lowest common denominator viewers in the US are not exposed to programs set in other countries.
The other movies and television mentioned.. Yes, you have me there.
Still, outside of our particular niche is scifi fantasy fans, the majority of lowest common denominator viewers in the US are not exposed to programs set in other countries.
I'm glad my daughters can watch Australian shows, and wife and I enjoy some BBC. They've gotten a lot of exposure to other cultures since they were 4.
Eh...you haven't seen some of my friends and my home movies from high school
Yeah, Bridgerton premiered in December, but it's been one of the top 10 US Netflix shows for awhile, and I was looking at current shows. If you are looking for all shows of all time produced in America, then my mind would go to things like Spartacus (Starz), Rome (HBO), Flashpoint (which was a Canadian-produced and -set show that aired on CBS for some reason), and even, perhaps Tyrant (FX), which was set in a fictional Middle Eastern country with an American(ized) family moving in, and Lilyhammer, Netflix's first original TV series set in Norway (but, of course, with an American protagonist reacting to those kooky Norwegians).
These are all within the last twenty years, and are period pieces or contemporary shows and not sci-fi or fantasy realms (unlike Outlander, which is a time-travel romance half-set in Massachusetts as well as Ye Olde Scotland).
I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything. It's a fun mental exercise to try to remember these shows that fit this specific criteria, because, of course, how rare they are.
If you threw Chief O'Brien in the brig, the station would fall to pieces within a matter of hours. His grit is the only thing keeping DS9 together. He can report for duty in a tutu & clown makeup for all we care!
As for Ro, I would chalk that up to cultural illiteracy on Riker's part. He assumed that it was a personal decoration and didn't know about its religious significance just like they didn't know that she was supposed to be addressed as "Ensign Ro," not "Ensign Laren." (Cultural ignorance about that part of the galaxy might also explain why Captain Picard referred to "Captain Gul Macet," not realizing that "Gul" was already his rank, not part of his name.)
Also, wasn't she always wearing it on the wrong ear? IIRC, every other Bajoran wore the earring on their right ear. She's the only one who wore it on the left. I seem to recall the DS9 Relaunch novels saying that she did that in protest because the left ear is the one that Vedeks grab in order to sense your pagh, so she wore it there to discourage them from grabbing it. So, by wearing it that way, it's less a symbol of religious devotion and more like an act of blasphemy? That's an interesting question. How much leniency should you be granted in cultural expression if your main expression is contempt for that culture?
It wasn't Riker's ship.
Then why is he always the one shouting, "Red alert!"?
And then there are aliens who don't seem to have multiple names at all. Spock implied once that he has a first name but there's never been any indication that any other Vulcans do. Klingons just seem to have one name and then add the "Son of (X)" when they need to be formal. Ferengi seem to only have one name. I don't recall Dr. Phlox, Neelix, Kes, or Icheb having any other name. And while Cardassians have first names, I guess maybe they don't use them very often? In "The Wire," Dr. Bashir didn't realize that "Elim" was Garak's first name until Enabran Tain told him. But wouldn't he have had access to Garak's full name as part of his medical chart? It's never suggested that Garak was using a different first name as an alias or something.
Keel hauled in a vacuum. Ooof! That's rough!
Well, as the most racially diverse country on Earth and a country that's traditionally been an immigration destination for peoples from all over the globe, it's not for nothing that Americans tend to have the attitude that everyone will be American eventually. I'm not saying that it's accurate to how the future will be but it makes sense why an American sci-fi show from the 1990s would have that attitude, especially riding high off of the end of the Cold War.
It's not. You generally have to have a pretty elaborate cable package in order to get BBC America. (Although I did once see some David Tennant era reruns on Disney XD.)
He is the executive officer who maintains the captain's expectations of daily operations. Doesn't make it his ship, no matter what he might think...and we all know he smuggled the chair off the bridge in Generations.Then why is he always the one shouting, "Red alert!"?
Bashier only had it recorded from his initial intake with Garak.
Bashier: What's your name?
Garak: Garak is my name.
Bashier: Garak. Nothing else?
Garak: Garak.
Eh...you haven't seen some of my friends and my home movies from high school
Well home movies themselves are a form of torture that should be made a crime.
A Cardassian who is so evasive that he won't even give his full name? I'm sure that the Bajoran government LOVED that. Probably a good thing that Starfleet was in charge of the station. The Bajoran Militia probably would have spaced him within a week. (Maybe, since he was a tailor, he claimed that he only had one name because he's like some kind of weirdo fashion designer.)
He was a political refugee and hated by Dukat. I think his cover was safe enough.
Picard likes to throw him a bone.Then why is he always the one shouting, "Red alert!"?
How do they know that that's not a cover for him to be a spy?
And if we're going by the novels, "A Stitch in Time" establishes that Garak initially thought that he was left behind specifically to spy for the Obsidian Order. It wasn't until he went months without any orders or communications that he realized that he'd been abandoned and that Gul Dukat used whatever political pull he had to get Garak fired.
Because Dukat hated him.
Later on in the episode, Ro pulled off a nice trick with her uniform.
Ro was part of the landing party that beamed down to a Bajoran camp. At the camp, Ro encountered a little Bajoran girl. Feeling sympathy for the girl, Ro took off her jacket and gave it to the girl. Note how she opened up her jacket from the frontside.
But just previous to her taking off her jacket, you can notice that her jacket (as well as the jackets of every other Enterprise Starfleet crew member) had the zipper, or opening, on the backside.
That was a nice trick Ro pulled off. 
Apparently, Starfleet uniforms may not be uniform from one scene to another. I guess it depends on the plot.
In any case, when Ro did take off her jacket, it was revealed that she wore a sleeveless shirt under that jacket. Actually, I thought that she looked good wearing that shirt. Too bad TNG didn't incorporate that jacketless-sleeveless-undershirt look more often for its female crew members. It was a good look. It was casual, yet it still looked respectable.
It might have happened, but I can't recall anyone else going jacketless (with that particular uniform jacket) during the series. Early on the series, there were crew members who wore the short sleeve and shorts getup. But that looked tacky. And on TMP, there was also a short sleeve version of the uniform that crew members had the option of wearing.
So it wouldn't have been unprecedented for there to have been a casual version of the Starfleet uniform that could have been worn by some TNG characters at various times.
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