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Did people catch that one of the screens on the bridge had a schematic of the Patrick Starship Enterprise? And it looked like a similar schematic was on the screen behind Spock in the transporter room although all you could see was a portion of an arm and the head.

I love when production teams take such care with little details even when it's for a silly little ad.

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Just wanted to express my appreciation for the Elsbeth show runners for adding bits of humor to the episode titles and the title cards which precede commercial breaks. (One title card had the swaying condo tower in the ep with the high end escort as the killer. Another title card had the crows circling over the location of a body as happened in the ep.) A few weeks ago, we had "Hot Tub Crime Machine" for a title. And this week we had "I Know What You Did 33 Summers Ago" which came after the Ghosts episode "I Know What You Did 37 Summers Ago".

And on a somewhat different note, as soon as Wagner's wife took Judge Crawford's glass to get it refilled I knew the purpose was to get a sample of his DNA. But credit to the writers for having Crawford correctly assessing what was going on. Too often in books, movies, and TV shows, supposedly intelligent characters are a bit too obtuse to the events taking place. And that undermines the willing suspension of disbelief when indulging in a piece of fiction.

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The SNW cast getting up to shenanigans with characters from SpongeBob (from the new Paramount Plus promo)

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@tinsnip Your very clever and amusing take on this shouldn't be hidden in the tags.

One of my favorite historical tidbits is that Arab traders, for centuries, fooled Europeans into thinking cinnamon came from a rare, vicious and fearsome cinnamon bird.

The belief was so prevalent, in fact, that the mythical cinnamon bird shows up in the writings of Herodotus and Aristotle, all the way into medieval European manuscripts where it’s illustrated in all its fierce, cinnamony glory:

Pliny the Elder expressed skepticism of the bird in his writings, rightly assuming that it was a tale invented to keep control on the trade and prices by reducing competition, but the belief was already so widespread that it persisted in many areas into the early 1300’s.

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I made a couple of gifs last night when someone posed the question as to who slapped Spock harder - his mother or the Romulan commander. And it occurred to me that Spock got slapped a lot in TOS.

And then I realized that Spock underwent a lot in the series even though it was only 3 seasons long. In addition to all the slaps, Spock

had his legs broken,

was subjected to massive pain by a parasite,

was blinded to be rid of the parasite,

suffered the original “horny or die” condition,

hit by poison thorns,

struck by lightning,

experienced rapid aging,

shot through the chest,

driven mad by seeing the Medusan ambassador,

and had his brain stolen!

Sure, people in the Trek fandom talk about everything Chief O’Brien went through because of the “O’Brien must suffer (at least once per season)” directive in the DS9 writers’ room. But Spock fared just as badly.

P.S. In my previous post I joked that “slapping your Spock” should become a euphemism in the Trek fandom. Maybe after seeing all these gifs perhaps it will.

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Happy First Contact Day!

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Vulcans suppress their emotions but those emotions are still there. When you see someone who’s done something that seems impossible and incredibly reckless but gets away with it you just want to shake your head in amazement and laugh at the whole thing. That’s what the Vulcans would be feeling deep inside when finding out that Cochrane’s warp flight was achieved with a craft cobbled together out of scrap.

Happy First Contact Day!

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mccoy invented vulcan no fault divorce in amok time

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Never forget what is known as The Bradbury Defense:

According to Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury told the following anecdote:

One dreadful boy ran up to me and said: “That book of yours, The Martian Chronicles?” “Yes,” I said. “On page 92, where you have the moons of Mars rising in the east?” “Yeah,” I said. “Nah,” he said. So I hit him.

There are two types of writers:

1. 'It's fiction, it doesn't need to make sense!'

2. 'I didn't account for the rotation of the planet and how that affects the constalations while my characters stargazed at different times of year, I have failed as a writer, and this entire thing is trash'

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Love it when animators treat characters like they are actual actors.

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As an old Trekkie, I find it hilarious that thanks to DS9, the early 90s travel mug continues to live on. Back when cup holders weren't a standard feature in cars, this mug shape existed so you could have your coffee while commuting to work and put this mug on your dashboard or your center console or the passenger seat without the risk of it tipping over.

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While Jake's and Sisko's caps could indeed have meant to honor those players, it should also be noted that Cirroc Lofton (Jake) is the nephew of former player Kenny Lofton who played for the Braves around the time this episode was shot. And Avery Brooks chewed on a toothpick in his scenes ala Dusty Baker who was managing the SF Giants at that time.

And while initial show runner for DS9 Michael Piller was a baseball fan, it was Piller who declared that baseball was a dead sport in TNG. Piller convinced Ira Behr to come back and work on Star Trek while they were at a baseball game but Behr told Piller it was his intention to revive baseball in DS9.

I recently saw a post about the baseball cap that Sisko wore in the pilot being for a Negro League team from Pittsburgh. Were details like that, and Sisko having African art decorating their quarters, instigated by the show runners, writing room, or Avery Brooks?

From my understanding, Mr. Brooks did have a lot of input on things like the decor in his quarters and may very well have picked out the Homestead Grays cap, though I have no specific knowledge of either. Avery definitely wanted to infuse Sisko with African and Black American culture, and the showrunners and department heads were very supportive of that.

FWIW Ira is a huge baseball fan (and so was Michael) so he may have had a hand in the cap, at least. Michael 100% named the "London Monarchs" after the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues.

Couldn't find Sisko wearing the Grays cap, so here it is on Kira.

More baseball caps! Sisko's Giants cap is almost certainly in honor of Willy Mays. Jake's Braves cap is probably a nod to Hank Aaron. That said, Ron Moore is a Giants fan (and I am too) and Rene Echevarria is a Braves fan.

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"There's a scene where Rene's face is peeling off and kind of wasting away. And I don't think I've ever had more fun in terms of the intensity of the scene where [Odo and Garak] are huddled together. And, in fact, I kept telling them to put their faces closer and closer together. So the intimacy of it was incredible. It was almost like a love story in a nonsexual way." - Director David Livingston re: the interrogation scene from the Star Trek DS9 episode The Die is Cast.

This episode was just on Pluto TV. And I thought it an appropriate time to fully capture the director's exact words about the scene above.

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I made a gif of this moment some years ago. I'm putting it after the cut in case anybody seeing this might be bothered by seeing Odo go sploosh.

When Julian shoots mirror Odo and he just explodes into flying globs of goo

Visionary, cinematic, breathtaking

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Given the stories that he and Colm Meaney were drinking buddies off camera and that Meaney is a bit of a prankster, I can picture Meaney playing up the idea that Siddig's constant fatigue was due to drugs. And who knows - maybe he was the one who got the idea of an intervention going.

I'm still delighted to find out Alexander Siddig was addicted to playing elder scrolls during his tenure on DS9, to the extent they staged an intervention for him. that is just totally relatable, i find myself thinking about it at all hours 🥹

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The used plates, utensils, and cups go back into the replicator so they can be reverted into source matter for some future item to be replicated. In the DS9 episode "The Ascent", Sisko comments to Rom about Jake's habits irritating Nog when they tried to be roommates, "I'm afraid Jake's going through a phase of his own. I don't know what's so difficult about putting a dirty dish back into the replicator."

ok. in star trek. what do they do with all the silverware the replicator makes with their meals??