WTF moments in TOS & TAS....

Yeah, I am failing to see the issue here. I knew people in college at the age of 17. Sooooo . . . maybe 15 years later I'm a starship captain (NOTE FOR POTENTIAL CONTENTIOUS REPLIES: not actually true) at 32, and I work with one of them.

 

And people round all the time. If MAGolding were here, he'd note that 15 could mean 12.50000000000001 years

 

My memory is that all Roddenberry's treatments for Star Trek had the Captain character, whether he was named April, Pike, or Kirk as "about 34 years old." If they had chosen to mention Kirk's age in dialogue in "Where No Man . . . " or during Season One, chances are good that they would've used the "34 years old" figure there, too, so, when Peeples was writing the second pilot and Gene was polishing it, they would most likely have been thinking that Kirk was 34, and that 15 years earlier, he was 19.

Fast-forward two years to the filming of "The Deadly Years." TV characters generally exist in an "Eternal Present" and character aging is rarely acknowledged unless vital to the plot. (It's like Bronze Age Superman and Batman being "eternally 29" pre-Crisis.) So, instead of bumping Kirk's age up to 36 in "The Deadly Years," they made the "about 34" of the format documents specifically 34 in that episode (although Kirk, in his addled state, could've misspoke). They were not predicting the rise of obsessive fan chronologists sifting through conflicting esoteric trivia to come up with ironclad historical biographical sketches of the characters. They were making a weekly tv show. If the big picture held together, great; who really cared whether "the only death penalty left on the books" was General Order Seven or General Order Four? (Well, WE do, of course, but we're weird that way.)

 

Yes I like the fact that Kirk is a bit real not a perfect human like the TNG guys.

Whether you believe in K/S or not - nobody nobody threatens Spock on Kirk's watch.

About the 100th worst thing IMO.
1. Kirk didn't disagree that women couldn't make captains
2. Coleman could look after Lester after he'd aided and abetted Lester
3. Lester killed her team needlessly just to get back at Kirk.
4. McCoy....
.....

 

We have all faced individuals we know you cannot argue with even though you know they’re flat out wrong or just plain nuts. I face enough customers who are insistent about things they clearly have no idea about. You just nod politely and let them rant in ignorance.

 

1. You can't argue with crazy.
2. Well, he could very well be in the same penal colony and working as her doctor while...okay look, I'm trying.
3. Cray cray people do cray cray things.
4. The hell with McCoy what's what that guard who just puts his ear to the door when Johnson cries out "SECURITY GUARD!!!" My sister and I have been laughing at that for decades.

 

Circling back to Kirk being a 'real person' with flaws...

I totally love in Charlie X how he simply walks over Spock and McCoy's recommendations that he take Charlie under his wing as an authority/father figure, and his awkwardness after Rand redirects him to Kirk to explain why a friendly slap on the rump isn't okay between men and women. Another subtle touch is the way Kirk always to attempt to escape from Charlie whenever the intercom sounds or something else needs his attention. Kirk makes it very clear that he doesn't want to be bothered- until circumstances force his hand.

 

It's one of the reasons Kirk is my favorite character in all of Star Trek. He's a strong, highly effective leader/hero who is a true human being with flaws and insecurities. But, it's the fact that he OVERCOMES these things and continues to be great that makes him inspirational .

 

You stole my thunder about basically in a series, people will sometimes not age and remain say, 34 years old.

James Bond always remains in his late 30s/early 40s. It got to be ridiculous when 57 year old Roger Moore is still playing a guy in his early 40s.

Robert

 

Exactly.

Or, in more real life, my wife and I reading up on the life of Keanu Reeves. Same idea. He's inspiring because of what he overcomes, not because he's just awesome.

 

The worst was the paunch he had in his final outing. Even if he's playing an older version of the character, an actor should, during preproduction, at least try to look like the character is supposed to physically, and James Bond is physically fit.

 

What's the difference between Kirk and Charlie and Picard and the 20th Century humans.?

I sort of really didn't think Charlie was Kirk's problem anyway. Surely a psychologist would have been better, a relative of Charlie's. Honestly Kirk is the captain, doesn't he and Picard have important things to do?

 

Sure he does. The point is that Kirk wasn't a 'perfect' human. Whether he had better things to do or not, he clearly wasn't interested in mentoring Charlie, trod on his subordinates' suggestions that he do so, and only dealt with him when we was forced to. As I said in my post, I really liked that bit of Kirk's characterization in that episode.

As an aside, it might also explain some of his willingness to let his own son by Carol Marcus be raised by his mother with no interaction from him- he was laser-focused on his duties and career, and self-centered enough to not let himself be bothered by outside distractions.

I'm not sure where Picard figures into this. I made no mention of Picard at all- I was talking about Kirk and his interaction with Charlie Evans in that one episode of TOS.

 

What always made me chucle is the relationship between Bond and Patrick Macnee's character in "A View to a Kill".

My impression was that Macnee's character is supposed to be and older man advising/mentoring the younger man James Bond.

So what we have is a doddering old man giving advice to a younger whippersnapper of a secret agent who is also a doddering old man. They should be passing the geritol back and forth.


I'M one to talk, I won't see 57 again.

Robert

 

Other than Tanya Roberts and Roger Moore were being ridiculously far apart in age, I don't think they ever tried to sell Moore as being young. For Your Eyes Only made a point of his advancing years, even going as far as showing us the year Tracey died. He was the same guy Connery and Lazenby played and Bond aged normally until they went younger with nearly everyone in The Living Daylights (Lazenby was an odd duck but they brought him back into continuity with FYEO and TSWLM).

I simply felt the Moore/Macnee bit was a fun role reversal. Godfrey Tibbitt was knighted and Bond was merely an agent who got to boss him around as part of the cover.

 

I've heard there was a reference to On Her Majesty's Secret Service in The Spy Who Loved Me but I just can't remember what it was. Could you tell me?

Robert

 

“Commander James Bond, recruited to the British Secret Service from the Royal Navy. License to kill and has done so on numerous occasions. Many lady friends but married only once. Wife killed..."

Bond cut Anya’s resume short when Tracy was mentioned.

 

Anya mentioned Bond's marriage briefly in Max Kalba's club before he cuts her off.

EDIT: Ninja'd by @GNDN18