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About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Too hard. I’m torn between Doctor McCoy and Scottie.
Hmmm
So you like Engineers and Doctors (who are body mechanics.) Are you a technical person yourself?
I chose Scottie, of course.
But I really liked Commander Data in “Star Trek, the Next Generation”.
Every thing he did was kind of sweet and geeky and he was cute. Also my favorite part – he claimed to be “fully functional”!
I’ll go back to the Cafe now…
Mine would have to be when Whoopi Goldberg was Guinan…
I’m partial to the Tribbles.
I don’t normally like to post pics in an Open Thread BUT I stole this from Cheers & Jeers at dKos today…and tribbles come to mind!
Wow when I first saw this picture there was only one!
Ding! Ding! Ding! We’ve got a winner!
Best one-liner in the entire thread.
ROTFLMAO
😀
And I think Tribbles is a great name for the people who post here. I’m a tribble, you’re a tribble, etc.
I suspect the diarist of anti-Tribble sentiment.
he knew how to dish out zingers whenever they were trying to rush him, which was often.
Yeah, if I HAD to choose between Doctor McCoy and Scottie, it would have to be Scottie.
My favorite one-liner belongs to Dr. McCoy, though. In an early episode the red alert siren goes off and people start rushing around. “Dr. McCoy, come on, it’s a red alert!” some ensign calls out as she evacuates the sick bay.
As the door to the medlab closes McCoy, now alone in the emptied sick bay, mutters, “If I jumped at every red alert that happened around here I’d end up talking to myself.”
I’ve never watched the show and don’t plan to. (STOP THAT! OWWW! That hurt!)
sci-fi channel usually runs a marathon on memorial day. It’s a great way to see most of the episodes.
The original show was flat-out hilarious. I never liked the new ones because they took themselves too seriously.
Kirk, on the other hand, was on a one-man mission to bed down every hot alien in the galaxy.
All I want is Al and Alma back on my teevee …
I need a new “fix” on TV. “Sleeper Cell” is over. Hey, I wrote Showtime a fan letter and got the nicest personal reply! She said she’d pass my note on to the programming people. And she told me that “Huff” is coming back in April…. that’s a great Six-Feet-Under-ish series. Definitely worth getting Showtime for.
On the Enterprise, Mudd pretends his name is Leo Francis Walsh, but is eventually forced to admit his true identity. The crew of the Enterprise, including Sulu and navigator John Farrell, become fascinated with the three beautiful women Mudd has been transporting: Ruthie (from a planet of sea ranchers), Magda (from Halium Experimental Station), and Evie McCurin (from a farm planet). The women are destined to be wives for settlers on Ophiuchus 3. McCoy notices a strange effect on his medical panel when one of the women walks near it and is about to investigate when he is distracted by another matter.
As a result of the destruction of three of its lithium crystals, the Enterprise is forced to divert to Rigel 12 to obtain new crystals. Before it can arrive, Mudd obtains a communicator and make his own bargain with the lithium miners (Chief Ben Childress, Benton, and Herm Gosset) on the planet. At Mudd’s prompting, the miners offer to provide Kirk with lithium only in exchange for Mudd’s freedom and the three women. Mudd and the women beams down to Rigel 12, where Evie becomes fed up with her plight and runs away, but Kirk finds her without difficulty using ship sensors. In the meantime, he learns the secret to the women’s beauty: Mudd has been providing them with the Venus drug. Childress rescues Evie, but wants nothing to do with her when her beauty wears off. Kirk beams down to collect the lithium from Childress, at the same time providing Evie with red gelatin she believes to be the Venus drug. Evie believes herself once again to be beautiful, and unintentionally reveals her natural inner beauty. In the end, Kirk gets his lithium, Evie remains with Childress, and Mudd is taken into custody to be turned over to the authorities, only to make a second appearance in the episode I, Mudd.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd, previously encountered in the Mudd’s Women episode, is the “ruler” of the robots. He has escaped from prison (where he was condemned to death for fraud), and has created an army of 500 robot women He has also created an android version of his nagging wife Stella. Unlike the real Stella, the android follows instructions and is forced to shut up when Mudd tells her to.
Mudd is being studied by the robots, who are accommodating, but refuse to let him go. The androids tell Kirk that they were built by people from the Andromeda galaxy. However, the civilization which constructed them was destroyed by a supernova, and so the androids were left without supervision. Now they have found new purpose in Mudd. Spock makes inquiries, discovers that there are 207,809 androids, and most importantly that they seem to be controlled by some central coordinating power.
Mudd beams androids aboard the Enterprise and has them send down the entire crew. Chekov is fascinated when he finds that the female robots have been programmed to carry out all activities of which human females are capable. Uhura also doesn’t find captivity so unpleasant when she is promised immortality. Mudd attempts to take over the Enterprise and strand Kirk and the crew on the planet in place of himself. However, the robots do not permit Harry to carry out his plan. They find people too destructive, and plan to take over and “serve” all humans (according to their programming) in the galaxy in order to control them.
Spock learns that there are many robots of each Alice, Oscar, etc., series, but only a single Norman. He speculates that Norman is the central coordinator, and suggests that they coordinate their efforts on him. They tranquillize Mudd and then claim they need to beam aboard the Enterprise to cure him. The androids are about the grant the request until Uhura pretends to reveal that this is merely a ploy to get aboard the Enterprise. She claims her motivation is that she wants to be made immortal. The landing party (including Spock), then engage in a series of illogical (and moronic) actions in order to confuse and overload the androids. This culminates in the immobilization of Norman himself when Harry tells him “everything I say is a lie.”
Kirk leaves Harry on the planet with his attendant robots to serve as an example of human failure to them. The robots are also reprogrammed to carry out their original task of rendering the planet fit for human life. As a final blow to Mr. Mudd, Kirk also leaves behind several android copies of his shrewish wife Stella.
Favorite scene:
When crew of the Enterprise is held hostage by Mudd and the androids, Spock decides to confound them with illogic. He encounters two identical versions of the “Alice” model:
Then the two identical androids blink and smoke in response to the illogic overload, and then cease to function.
Spock: “fascinating”
Someone once told me that there were only four Star Trek plots. (Well, actually, an English prof told us that there were only four plots, period, but that was slightly different.)
One of the Star Trek plots was “Capt Kirk tames obstreperous female by . . .” well, back then of course actual sex had not yet been invented, but we got the idea.
Anyone remember the other three?
Capt Kirk beats the crap out of ___ and peace reigns on the alien planet.
my own list:
capt kirk solves difficult situation and develops romantic relationship with female guest lead
-major injustice reigns in a given civ. starship enterprise personnel put it to rights
but let’s face it guys – how about City on the Edge of Forever – that’s great science fiction!,
I remember someone once telling me that the great apes had only 4 sounds in their language. I think they were for pleasure, anger, fear, and hunger, and maybe all “plots” are similarly organized around these fundamental triggers.
Sad. Very sad.
The thing that made the first star trek series so good was the writers. They got real science fiction writers to write many of the best episodes.
There is a massive difference between good written science fiction and what passes for most science fiction in movies and on TV. Good science fiction is not especially visual, so the movies and TV get too damned involved in the technical graphics stuff, and forget that real science fiction is about how people interact with technology.
What? No Khan?
“I’ve done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on … hurting you.”
Oh yeah, Khan was great. My wife says some clueless reviewer proclaimed Ricardo Montalban to be “hopelessly miscast” when he redid the role in Star Trek 2. Presumably he either missed Montalban’s performance in “Space Seed” or thought he was hopelessly miscast then. 🙂
What in the hell happened at Air America radio?
Marc Maron is gone? Fired? I got an e-mail from him cuz i signed up for his Web site list a long time ago.
And that Jerry Springer is still on?
Danny Goldberg, CEO of AAR, apparently didn’t like Marc, and let his contract expire. I can see why, Marc spent the last 6 weeks or more of his contract in this maudlin campaign to cry as much as possible about his loss of position at AAR. On the other hand, the humor in the morning was quite excellent, outrageous, and a MUCH better way to wake up than any TV or radio program (not that I listened or watched anything else).
Maron was great on the radio, though he completely dominated his co-host Mark Riley, who became less than a straight man on the show. So there was some imbalance, but it seemed the crew was pretty happy.
That stinks. When AAR was on Sirius, I liked their show. Now I listen to Bill Press on Sirius Left. I actually enjoy his show more, although the interviews aren’t as interesting.
Maron was still in negotiations for a possible evening show to originate in LA — he was tiring of the bi-coastal relationship (spouse in LA, they got together when they could but was a strain). With Janeane spending much time in LA with her acting work, could be a possibility — could have Janeane and/or Marc on from LA with Sam Seder in NYC (though Sam has done an excellent job solo anyway IMNSHO).
Been quite impressed with Thom Hartmann, though — wish they could find a spot for him on a regular basis…
(And for those with iTunes, you can get just about every AAR show downloaded daily — that’s how I keep up…)
Scottie: I can give you warp factor 2 Captain, but
not a bit more.
Kirk: Please try Scottie.
Scottie: Allright, allright, warp factor 3.
Kirk: I knew you could do it.
Sounds like the conversation between Cheney and Abu Gonzales when preparing memos justifying torture.
Out of all the series, I ended up thinking that DS9 was the best. The characters had the most depth and they had conflicts that weren’t resolvable in a 1 hour episode. OK — now I MUST get back to work.
Scottie always reacted emotionally. Plus that accent was irresistible.
Well, sort of. My real name is Jerome. My older sibs used to call me Jerome Jeroma Boma after the Saturday Night Live character Roseanne Roseanna Danna. It was quickly shortened to just Boma.
Episode 14 (I think) had a Star Fleet jerk named Mr. Boma antagonizing Kirk. In Star Trek, “Mr.” was a rank or title (Mr. Spock, Mr. Scott, etc.). Kirk had a habit of forgetting the Mr. when addressing his crew. He did this with Mr. Boma, who angrily replied, “That’s MISTER Boma.”
Well, from that point on I became Mr. Boma, thank you very much.
I love this story! Also your idea about tribbles.
You remind me of my little brother – I salute you, Mr. Boma.
Your sister Tribble
“Mr.” is a carry-over from the real-life navy where officers are or were referred to as “Mr.” (so I gather, never having been a sailor myself). cf. the play “Mr. Roberts”.
This makes sense, since Gene Roddenberry’s idea of Star Trek was basically “Horatio Hornblower in space.”
Anybody else see the common thread between these two? No, I’m not suggesting that they were wiretapping abortion clinics or anything like that. The common thread is the right to privacy. No right to privacy means no right to an abortion. No right to privacy means no need for a warrant to wiretap someone. It is as simple as that.
That Vulcan Mind Meld was so kinky.
I voted for Dr. McCoy. When I was young (when the series was originally aired — yes, I’m that old!), I was really in love with Captain Kirk. Spending a little time around Shatner cured me of that. I also just have to like Sulu because George Takei is such a great guy. Yep, I’ve been identified as a long-time trekker! The franchise had my loyalty right up until Enterprise. (Now, I spend my scifi time with Stargate.)
In my youth and on up into my thirties — had to take my own second generation — I attended a lot of SF&F cons. But, I was never a Trekkie. Don’t know why because I loved the show, never missed it, wrote letters when it got cancelled the first time. I guess it was the uniforms. When I wanted to get dressed up for a con, I wanted to be a fairy warrior or a dragon rider, you know, stand out. Being in a costume just like a hundred other people lacked glamour and individuality.
of the Patriot Act. According to MSNBC, senators have reached an agreement.
Beam me up.
H.F. Mudd’s wife Stella!
I can’t believe that Yeoman Rand is getting no love in the poll.
NYC cops. They have a common sense approach to law enforcement that I’ve never seen anywhere else. This outrage from the Times may have changed my view of them:
The spying is obviously wrong in itself.
But it can be further abused. From NYT:
I went with Scotty. Bones was the conscience of the show, but Scotty was the “can-do” guy who always seemed to be able to come through.
The real-life choice was just about as tough. De Kelley and James Doohan were apparently two of the nicest guys you ever wanted to meet, and both sadly gone now. George Takei is still around, and squarely in the “nice guy” category as well. I’m not sure what else he’s doing these days, but I hear him voicing cartoons every so often (e.g. he played a Fire Nation admiral on Avatar: The Last Airbender).