Star Trek nitpicks.

[kane_magus]

Oh, and while I'm on the subject... a few nitpicks about some of the episodes. In most cases, I just follow the MST3K Mantra, but these are the cases where fridge logic hit like a ton of bricks and couldn't be ignored.

Just three for now, but I may update this later as I watch more:

-- Where No Man Has Gone Before. Okay, the galactic barrier affected people with high ESPer ratings. Namely, Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner. Now, here's my question. Why didn't it also affect Spock? You know, the telepath? My only guess to this is that, this being the second pilot, the show creators didn't yet know Spock had these powers. Or a cop-out would be that it somehow doesn't affect Vulcans or something. *shrug*

-- Miri. This is the only episode so far that I hadn't already seen. Okay, here's the nitpick. They encounter a planet that is exactly like Earth! Not just "Earth-like". No, really, it is Earth. And yet, nothing at all is made of this. They note it, beam down, and then the story about the disease kicks in and it's never really mentioned ever again. Really... what? (This one I'll admit to having seen on TVTropes prior to watching the episode, but still... it's a pretty obvious wall banger, even so.)

-- The Conscience of the King. Okay, the whole premise of this episode is that there are only a few people left who can identify Kodos the Executioner, one of whom is Captain Kirk. These people all wound up mysteriously dead, leaving only two left (one of whom, again, is Captain Kirk, and the other of whom also conveniently serves on the Enterprise). Keep in mind (SPOILERS), the reason these people are dead is because they are the only ones who can identify Kodos as being the actor Anton Karidian. But... Kirk pulls up a picture of the man on the Enterprise computer! They also have a voice print of him on file as well! What? But I thought Kirk and those other people were the only ones that could identify him. Hell, Spock is able to figure it out by himself, after Kirk starts acting weird. The existence of the picture and the voice print on record, presumably available to anyone who cares to look it up, simply blows the whole premise of the episode out of the water. Beyond all that, though, it was still a pretty good episode.

That's all for now. I may edit this later, or perhaps just make a new post if I encounter anything else like this that I feel is post-worthy.

Comments

[rabbitucker.livejournal.com]

If memory serves, Spock and other Vulcans are only tactile-empathic. They have to touch someone to read their vibes. (Of course, big, big stuff like an all-Vulcan starship getting blown up can be an exception, I suppose.)

For the rest, I would suggest the MST3K mantra.

[korby.livejournal.com]

The whole "the only other man in the universe who can do this, just happens to be here too" is one of the most annoying things that seems to pervade Star Trek. The prequel comics for ST11 suffered heavily from that, in that Spock's little spaceship just happened to be designed and built by LaForge, also Worf, Data, and Picard all happen to show up in the same place. Really? Out of the trillions of sentient lifeforms in the universe, the same half dozen people seem to constantly be at the center of events. It's forgivable for fanfiction, because people want to write using the established heroes, but this kind of unimaginative writing and name dropping just annoys me.