Indeed, ol' Kegek hates that episode. As do I. Stupid stereotypes merged with a lame and boring attempt at a plot.
Up The Long Ladder is absurd.
- Thread starter Trekker4747
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No, you misunderstood me. I meant the character B'Elanna, whose surname is Torres, is probably at least part Latina. I know for sure Roxann is Latina. -- RR
As Rama pointed out the plot has merit. The advanced but dying clone society needing help to re-enliven their gene pool must rely on "less advanced" or geneticly superior people to do so.
The plot would've been fine if the Irish-Folk weren't so over done. They could've made the "simpler" people less... "simple."
I also agree that Riker and Pulaski killing their clones was a bit out of line considering we're supposed to believe by the 24c people take killing a lot more seriously.
Rÿcher
Fleet Captain
"You're missing your epithelial cells!"
"Oh noes, I must've been cloned!"
Christ, people lose epithelials every day! You loose billions just rubbing your hands together!
Replacitive fading? Puh-leeze! As if your body can't grow another cell taken from the donor!
Oh sure, NOW Geordi's VISOR is good for something other than making him look like a dork. The 24th century, when you would have hoped cybernetics and implants would have improved somewhat.
"Oh noes, I must've been cloned!"
Christ, people lose epithelials every day! You loose billions just rubbing your hands together!
Replacitive fading? Puh-leeze! As if your body can't grow another cell taken from the donor!
Oh sure, NOW Geordi's VISOR is good for something other than making him look like a dork. The 24th century, when you would have hoped cybernetics and implants would have improved somewhat.
That's because it operated under the ridiculous assumption of "terrorism working" in the "reunification of Ireland." I think many people found it odd that the Trek-writers would so openly write such an uninformed drive-by...
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Well, it might have worked that way, in the Trek timeline. I mean, no reason why it wouldn't. Plenty of examples in history of the occupier getting fed up and leaving when the natives do enough mischief to the troops, the installations, and the families.
But wouldn't that have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise? That part of the episode wasn't about a bunch of Irish people on a planet - it was specifically about people who had taken "simple" to an absurd degree, because they had chosen to.
Indeed, odds are that most of the people on that colony were in fact overenthusiastic re-enactors rather than genuinely related to sustenance farmers from Ireland. They'd have learned how to be a "poor Irish peasant" from a book or a holoshow, and gotten so excited that they decided to found a reenactment colony beyond the stars.
Timo Saloniemi
But wouldn't that have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise? That part of the episode wasn't about a bunch of Irish people on a planet - it was specifically about people who had taken "simple" to an absurd degree, because they had chosen to.
Indeed, odds are that most of the people on that colony were in fact overenthusiastic re-enactors rather than genuinely related to sustenance farmers from Ireland. They'd have learned how to be a "poor Irish peasant" from a book or a holoshow, and gotten so excited that they decided to found a reenactment colony beyond the stars.
Timo Saloniemi
"The high ground" was banned here in Ireland too.Some silly gratitous line about Irish reunification was probably the cause rather than any concerns about violence/terror.
As for UTLL,I personally have no problem with it,although I would like to have seen the "peasants" interact with 24tH century Irishman O'Brien.
Look,do the British gripe about the stereotypical "Lords/cockneys",or the French "Lothario/wine swiller" images.
And yeah,Rosalyn Landor.......
I had quite forgotten.
As for UTLL,I personally have no problem with it,although I would like to have seen the "peasants" interact with 24tH century Irishman O'Brien.
Look,do the British gripe about the stereotypical "Lords/cockneys",or the French "Lothario/wine swiller" images.
And yeah,Rosalyn Landor.......
I had quite forgotten.
Here we go:
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder089.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder104.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder106.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder119.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder215.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder089.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder104.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder106.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder119.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x18/upthelongladder215.jpg
I seriously doubt anyone involved with ST hated the Irish. The episode clearly suggests that the less advanced Irish people were a return-to-nature group and perhaps had some of the traits attributed to farmers/less sophisticated people from Ireland. Whether these are stereotypical or not you can decide for yourself, but are there really NO strong-willed Irish women who berate others in Ireland, or drunk fathers, etc? Obrien was a modern Irishman and he wasn't a stereotypical character. We could assume the more technically advanced group may also have been Irish and lost their accents and mannerisms much like a lot of 24th century races seemed to.
RAMA
I Agree, I found her kinda hot.
she'd of made a fine but bitchy comander or higher in Star fleet,
Sub Rosa takes place on a planet terraformed to look like Scotland, and Beverly's maternal ancestry is Scottish; but otherwise the episode plot is more about classic Gothic novels than Scotland.
It just happens that Gothic novels were often set on some highland moor in a run-down pile of a castle. I liked Sub Rosa for this reason and also because it tied in Beverly's background that she revealed way back in Arsenal of Freedom.
(In that episode, she was trapped with a broken leg underground, suffering shock, and wishing her healer grandmother were there to do something with all those roots. She also wanted her granny's vegetable soup at one point later in the series. Nice tie-ins.)
Instead of the inhabiting spirit being a ghost as in Gothic novels, it was changed to an alien. I liked it.
It just happens that Gothic novels were often set on some highland moor in a run-down pile of a castle. I liked Sub Rosa for this reason and also because it tied in Beverly's background that she revealed way back in Arsenal of Freedom.
(In that episode, she was trapped with a broken leg underground, suffering shock, and wishing her healer grandmother were there to do something with all those roots. She also wanted her granny's vegetable soup at one point later in the series. Nice tie-ins.)
Instead of the inhabiting spirit being a ghost as in Gothic novels, it was changed to an alien. I liked it.
But, the Irish people living on that planet were "stereotypically Irish" in their accents, behaviors, and way of life. As if rather than evolving with society over the last 300 years they regressed BACK 300 years.
The wierd thing about their evolution, or lack thereof, was their population. There was only 200-something of them when the Ent-D picked them up. They only procreated that much in 300 years? Their infant mortality rate must've been severe.
With such a small population, is it possible that had something to do with their return to these "stereotypical" mannerisms?
There is a similar story in ENT:North Star, where a society of humans from the 19th century are settled on a planet in the expanse. They continue to practice their frontier West manner. However, they were abducted by aliens, called Skagarans, to work there; and they busied themselves over the next few centuries by throwing off their captors and building a life on a new planet. And there were thousands of them in several towns.
In VOY:The 37's, the abductees do not stay within their early 20th century cultural time frame at all, but continue to progress and multiply. What I can guess from Up the Long Ladder is that, rather like the Masterpiece Society, the Irish chose their lifestyle and stuck to it.
I remember something from one of the early ST novels that mentioned historical reenactors who established replica colonies; and Bones mentioned in City on the Edge of Forever, that he thought Edith Keeler's neighborhood was a replica of modern museum perfection.
In VOY:The 37's, the abductees do not stay within their early 20th century cultural time frame at all, but continue to progress and multiply. What I can guess from Up the Long Ladder is that, rather like the Masterpiece Society, the Irish chose their lifestyle and stuck to it.
I remember something from one of the early ST novels that mentioned historical reenactors who established replica colonies; and Bones mentioned in City on the Edge of Forever, that he thought Edith Keeler's neighborhood was a replica of modern museum perfection.
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Is that the same planet that Kirk & Co. went to visit in the episode that was all Wild-Westernly?
That might have more to do with what resources were available than with what choices were made, though.
The 37s might have had access to working Briori technology, necessary for kickstarting their society. The Irish Reenactors mightn't have had even the most primitive means to extract iron, which would have stumped them at get-go. Rather than wear down their meager resources of iron or steel tools in a futile attempt to start a mining industry, they might have concentrated on preserving their existing tools and using them for sustenance farming.
Really, it would take major expertise to turn a 19th or 20th century township into two such townships. What township is going to have people skilled in constructing a steel mill, for example? Or even in building a lathe or a drill? Uproot any suburb today, cars and lawnmowers and all, and in a generation or two, it's back to bronze age at very best, and far more probably to the stick-and-stone age.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo, excellent points.
In North Star, it's no scenario; the settlement is real.
North Star (from Memory Alpha)
In Spectre of the Gun, aliens called the Melkotians pulled the western scenario out of Kirk's head -- hence the set-like appearance, with false fronts, etc. It was only used as a testing ground.
In North Star, it's no scenario; the settlement is real.
North Star (from Memory Alpha)
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