User:T smitts/The Real Page

Things Best Swept Under the Rug
As we know, in nearly thirty-five years of Star Trek, there's been more than a few cases of errors or contradictions on the part of writers, producer, directors, visual effects supervisors, the guy who runs the craft service table, etc. Some are easily explanable (I really don't know why people dwell on that "Khan knows Chekov" one so much) while others aren't so much. In the case of a few, it's almost impossible to reconcile them with established Star Trek history.

While perhaps the biggest of these (the difference between original series Klingons and Klingons from any other era) was first acknowledged (in ) and then actually explained (in and ), it's much better, I say to take an "out of sight, out of mind" approach to the rest. First, however we should go down the list just so we can remember what we're supposed to forget...

"Did I forget to wear my spots today?": The tale of TNG Trills
When fleshing out characters for the new series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine way back in 1992, producers were obviously intruiged by the Trill from the episode and the idea of someone you knew coming back in a new body.

After Terry Farrell was cast, however, somebody decided covering her lovely features in latex might not be such a good visual idea (ya think!?)  So they borrowed the lovely trail of side spots from Kamala in  and thus a new breed of Trill, was born, as was a glaring inconsistency.

Now, here we are left with the question of how can you really justify saying Odan and Dax are members of the same species. Yes, there both called Trills and they both have symbionts and hosts but the differences, even beyound appearances are staggering:


 * Odan can't use the transporter. The symbiont-host connection is too fragile.  Apparently Dax can use it just fine though.


 * Odan's personality appears to be dominant, suggesting a parasitic relationship, rather than a symbiotic one. Dax, however seems to blend both personalities.


 * The idea of Trill joinings was apparently almost or completely unknown to non-Trills until "The Host". But Curzon Dax was a respected Federation diplomat since the late 23rd century, suggesting they were members.  And Benjamin Sisko certainly knew about Curzon's symbiont.  Does anyone really buy that something like this could be kept a secret, especially since so many Trills try out to be hosts?  I certainly don't buy that lame-@$$ explanation Odan gave Beverly that "it's no normal for me, I didn't think to tell you."

And lest you try to explain it away by suggesting Odan's male host was just some spotless, lumpy-foreheaded mutant who was allergic to transporters, the fact that the new host Kareel has the same features, almost completely nullifies that idea. Frankly, I think they would have been better off saying there are two different races that consist of hosts and symbionts. But since they didn't, I say let's just erase the name Odan from our brains and pretend that Jadzia Dax arriving on Deep Space 9 in was our first appearance of a Trill.

A Grave Mistake: The Tale of James R. Kirk
So crossing the galactic barrier apparently gives Gary Mitchell these extraordinary mental abilities but he can't remember the middle initial of his closest friend? The real world explanation is that Gene Roddenberry admitted he simply forgot about this when he later wrote Kirk as being James T. Kirk. (It does have more of a ring to it, doesn't it?)

A Klingon Battle Cruiser in an "Unexpected" Place
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode marked the first appearance of a Klingon ship on the show. Something about didn't seem quite right, though. It looked a little anachronistic, didn't it? Kind of like Kirk running into a Romulan warbird on the original series.

Apparently someone raised this question in a letter to the Star Trek Magazine And this was posted in response:


 * ''"As Rob (Bonchune) explains, John Eaves had designed a new Klingon ship specifically for this scene. 'It was kind of the same shape as the original Klingon battle cruiser; just a little more primitive. The way John had done it was very much like the original series one, so it had very few windows, and they were small and red. So, when I dropped the ship into the scenes that we had worked out, you couldn't see that it had windows.


 * ''At the time, it never dawned on me that this would be an issue, but I understand why it is, because in STAR TREK if there are windows they are obvious.' The producers saw the model only a few working hours before the show was due to be delivered. They decided it could only be used with major changes, but after their work on Broken Bow the team was simply too exhausted to work through the night in a desperate attempt to get the shots ready. Instead, the producers made the decision to use an old model.


 * '' 'We wound up going back to a version of the Klingon ship that had been built for DEEP SPACE NINE,' Mitch (Suskin) says. 'But that particular type of Klingon ship will not be used again, because they decided that it just didn't fit into their vision for this universe.'


 * Rob admits that, he for one, is sorry the old ship was used, but acknowledges there was no alternative. 'As a fan I really regret that that ship is in there, but people were just working too much. After Broken Bow, everyone had already worked so much overtime'."

Rank Amateurs: The Epic of Miles O'Brien's Rank
Why? Why couldn't they have just left him a lieutenant and be done with it? If Sergey Rozhenko had just kept his mouth shut, this whole thing could have been avoided. Bear with me...

Okay, so the Chief starts off as a conn officer on the battle bridge in and later a security officer in  before taking his familiar place at the controls of the transporter in TNG's second season. Things are all well and good. He's got the 2 rank insignia of a lieutenant. Riker even refers to him as such in. Yes, people start calling him "Chief", but that's only because he's a transporter chief, right?

Wrong, apparently. In when Worf's adoptive parents, Sergei and Helena Rozhenko, show up for a visit, Sergei SOMEHOW identifies O'Brien as being a "Chief Petty Officer", despite O'Brien wearing the same rank as Worf, who is definately a Lieutenant. (Sigh) Okay, so apparently O'Brien's a petty officer now. Since they've really been rather vague as to the rank system for non-commissioned officer, it starts getting a bit blurry.

Despite his established rank, O'Brien keeps his two full pips until "Realm of Fear", when he's relegated to one dark pip. Presumably this was done to make it clear that Reginald Barclay, with whom O'Brien interacts a great deal in the episode and frequently calls "sir", is O'Brien's superior officer. Some have speculated O'Brien committed some dreadful offence and was demoted severly, though I don't buy that. It's more likely that this was either a promotion for O'Brien or a change in the Starfleet uniform code (or O'Brien was just wearing the wrong pips on his uniform for four years and nobody noticed).

Evidently, O'Brien recieved yet another promotion when he transferred to Deep Space 9. Keiko said as much in. No change his one dark pip though. That doesn't come until the fourth season fo DS9 when O'Brien starts sporting this wierd little rectangle-shaped pip that nobody else has ever been seen wearing. He's still a petty officer but is that a promotion. Maybe, since Dax and Bashir also got promotions that year. Maybe Sisko figured since he'd gotten a promotion, so should the rest of his senior staff (except for Kira and Odo, whom he may not have the authority to promote).

So what are we left with? Only a series of ever-changing rank insignia and the certainty that O'Brien is an enlisted officer. (Wait. Didn't Riker call him a Lieutenant in "Where Silence Has Lease?"  Nah.  Much be my imagination.)

In a Class By Himself: Data's Gradutating Year
COMING SOON!

The Yamato and the Prometheus: (1305-E + 59650 = WTF???)
COMING SOON!

Dmitri Valtane: Ghost, zombie, or just a case of nobody bothering to watch the whole movie?
COMING SOON!

"...a three day tour, a three day tour.": The distance from Earth to Kronos
COMING SOON!

"Threshold": The episode even Brannon Braga was ashamed of.
COMING SOON!