Star Trek Ruminations

No, this isn't a discussion of the more sweeping Klingon forehead problem. This is simply a problem with Duras' forehead in the episode "Judgement" ( ENT ). There is a very strange discrepancy between the flashback sequences where he is on board his ship, and the courtroom scenes. In the flashback sequences his forehead looks normal. The distinctive family ridge that runs around the outside of his forehead is symmetrical. In the courtroom sequences the ridge seems to be incomplete along the right-hand side of his face (our left). Looking at the screen captures from TrekCore you can see that it isn't likely that his hair is just covering the upper part of the ridge; the hair is actually deeper in his skull than the ridge. With no evidence of trauma or scarring it's hard to explain away as a battle injury, but I suppose that's a possibility. The real-world explanation would seem to be that sometime between the filming of the flashback and the courtroom scen...

I can't personally comment on how "I, Mudd" compares to the first episode featuring Harry Mudd, but the comic overtones in this episode seem right on target. Not only is there some great banter between Mudd and Kirk, but the solution to overload the androids involves some all-out silliness that's plain entertaining. (In fact this episode contributes some great footage to the " Python's Camelot interlude, by Kirk and crew, " which I also happened upon recently.) But aside from all the silliness, it struck me that this episode lays the groundwork for a lot of modern Trek . What I mean is this: The androids in this episode have a kind of collective consciousness that almost anticipates the Borg collective. Norman is basically the Borg Queen of his day. He processes and controls the other "drones." If you can put all the silliness aside and consider the implications of what the androids were attempting to do, their objective to control biological l...

I recently saw "The Changeling" for the first time. I had read summaries of it before, and basically knew what to expect - V'Ger -lite - but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of its execution. When Scotty was pronounced dead and it cut to a commercial my attention was captured. Sure, I knew Scotty would come back somehow, and I could guess that Nomad would be the one to bring him back, but somehow it still managed to be shocking. Scotty was dead! And perhaps in an even more daring move for which Nomad did not have a magic reset button, Uhura's mind had been erased! I also enjoyed some of the camera work - particularly when the camera followed right along side Nomad . On one hand it was smart from a technical standpoint because Nomad could appear to be floating without having to find some way to conceal the strings or rods that held him up. But from an aesthetic standpoint it created a very eerie almost claustrophobic feeling, a very real sense that this dead...