Star Trek Ruminations

Never-before-seen features of the Enterprise pop up in the TOS and TNG movies like the proverbial Vulcan third eyelid. Usually plot-driven, rarely seen or spoken of again, here are my ratings of surprising “new” features of the move-era ships called Enterprise . Manual Steering Column ( Star Trek: Insurrection ) "Computer, access manual steering column!" And with that, Riker summons...a joystick. Out of the floor. Somewhere between ops and the conn. That you have to use from a heroic standing position. Did I mention the Sovereign Class starship has a joystick? I get it, it fits the movie's theme of youth and playfulness, but it's one of the silliest plot-driven features of any ship called Enterprise .  Plausibility: 1/10 Story Telling Value: 4/10 Overall Rating: 2/10 Service Corridors ( Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ) The service corridors on the Enterprise-A, with their colorful pipes and trip hazards, primarily serve as a set up for Scotty to say “I know this shi...

Maybe you've already seen this before. It's the smallest of silly footnotes to my ongoing discussion of the Universal Translator , but I just came across this post about the physical prop used for the UT on Enterprise ("Terra Prime") . Turns out they used a "mineral magnet toilet cleaner." Hey Hoshi, Translate This! (Have Phaser, Will Travel)

As I mentioned before, I've been re-watching a lot of Enterprise episodes on the Sci-Fi channel. Recently I saw the episode "Judgment" again. I was pleasantly surprised to realize it was more enjoyable than I remembered, but I was again struck with some of its unrealized potential. Speaking as the Advocate For me, seeing the Klingon court again was great. That may have something to do with my memories of Star Trek VI . That was the first Star Trek movie I saw in a theater (the others coming out before I was old enough to have a clue what was going on). The tri-angular pit, the judge's claw and ball "gavel," prosecution-in-the-round, the chilling verdict: those images were etched into my mind, and I loved seeing them again. I also think using Rura Penthe was a nice way to reverse engineer some continuity. In Star Trek VI Chekov comments that Rura Penthe is "known throughout the galaxy as the alien's graveyard," letting us know what a bad place...

Somehow during the original run of Enterprise I missed "The Catwalk." Now that the episodes are showing on the Sci- Fi Channel I finally was able to see it. I'm pretty sure it's the only episode that I have never seen before, so on one level I just enjoyed getting to see a new episode of Enterprise for the first time in a long time. There's also the novelty of the idea of living in a nacelle in the first place. (I had seen this trick re-used later in "The Crossing," but had always wanted to see the original.) And I have to give the episode some credit too for being one of the few times it is actually acknowledged that even Starfleet personel have to use the bathroom now and then. (Although Trip didn't think of it until Travis brought it up. Having a "boomer" along who knows how you really survive in space certainly has its advantages.) There's also a great gag when we almost get to see Chef . . . but not quite. I've read some...