blame xkcd for the url

spock’s space instagram live explaining scientific safety measures to the entire crew goes as well as you’d expect

au where eberytjings the same but they have to go to five guyd

It just struck me how unusual it is that Star Trek TOS had no smoking. Not on the Enterprise. Not while people are relaxing on shore leave. Not by desk admirals. It was the 60s and this was actually pretty unusual. Go under-the-radar accurate predictions!

(after reading through the various notes) Leaving aside the concept of Roddenberry purposely having thought about this and ruled smoking out of the show (which is absolutely possible): it strikes me as likely that if they had ever wanted to depict smoking in an episode, they might have had to have fire marshals present on the set. Which would have cost extra… and ST:TOS was already routinely the most expensive TV show shooting in LA at that point.

Anyway, I’m curious about this now. I’ll go ask David Gerrold: he might very well know.

ETA: David got back to me and simply said in response to the query "Did Roddenberry explicitly rule smoking out?" — "Probably."

ETA 2: And as usual,, David was right. Thanks to @ceropegia for pointing me at this entry on "Smoking" at Memory Alpha, which deals with the issue directly.

Journey to Babel happening after Amok time is so incredibly funny because in that episode Jim learned that Vulcans have a heat cycle and his first officer has to fuck right now or he'll die. Met Spocks WIFE and also learned that T'Pau the most influential person on Vulcan is related to Spock, got into a messy three way divorce arc between T'Pring, Stonn and Spock, then having to literally fight Spock to the death and DIED. And yet after all of that extremly personal drama Jim witnessed Spock still didn't tell Jim who the fuck his parents are. Like the man is insane, your best friend and captain saved you from a fuck or die situation, got you out of a loveless marriage, literally died for you and you still won't introduce him to your mom and dad.

Welcome to the time when there was no guarantee that episodes would air in any kind of specific order—and the affiliate stations showing them straightforwardly refused to give any kind of commitment to showing episodes in any order that the studio desired.

Therefore TV Then was nothing, nothing like TV Now.

Episodes had to be able to stand alone when shown in any order. None of them could refer specifically to any other, because there was no way to tell which eps an affiliate had already shown. (Or not shown.)

People do know that order-of-showing of any kind in syndication didn't even start until Hill Street Blues, yeah? That the concept of the "episode arc" was first implemented then, in the early 1980s?

If you didn't know that, please know it now.

Therefore: if you were only young in the 1960s, or not born yet—as regards episode arcs and the logical results of anything you saw in any one given episode—please let ST:TOS off the hook.

Thank you. :)

Wait, so how did the Menegerie part 1 and 2 work? I’m watching my Star Trek on Netflix where they are two separate episodes. Were they originally not two episodes? The end of part 1 does have a continues next week text at the end.

Those are, AFAIK, the only eps made where a showing order is implied (as by the TBC card). And in the Syndication Times, they would still sometimes be shown separately/out of order if the local affiliate felt like it.

The only time the "Continued next week" card was guaranteed to be valid was on the initial live showing, fed by the network (NBC, it was then) to a given affiliate. In reruns, depending on the affiliate, the implication of showing order might or might not be honored. No way to tell.

It just struck me how unusual it is that Star Trek TOS had no smoking. Not on the Enterprise. Not while people are relaxing on shore leave. Not by desk admirals. It was the 60s and this was actually pretty unusual. Go under-the-radar accurate predictions!

(after reading through the notes) Leaving aside the concept of Roddenberry purposely having thought about this and ruled smoking out of the show (which is absolutely possible): it strikes me as likely that if they had ever wanted to depict smoking in an episode, they’d have had to have fire marshals present on the set. Which would have cost extra… and ST: TOS was already routinely the most expensive TV show shooting in LA at that point.

Anyway, I’m curious about this now. I’ll go ask David Gerrold: he might very well know.

#star trek#fan: 'hmm. i wonder this about star trek'#famous writer who has written star trek novels and an episode: 'good question. i'll ask the guy who wrote the tribble episode he might know'

That's some very important context that shouldn't be left out.

History loves to repeat itself

Happy(?) anniversaries to my blorbos <3 Can't believe so many anniversaries in one week!

I drew this last year and completely forgot to post it! That's why the numbers are wrong but shhh

S2E1 Amok Time: 15 Sept 1967 (birth of fuck-or-die, going into heat, slash fiction and modern fandom as we know it)

S4E1 Lazarus Rising: 18 Sept 2008 (Cas' first appearance, birth of Destiel)

S1E1 The Dragon's Call: 20 Sept 2008 (First ever episode of Merlin!)

Id under cut!

happy fuck or die 15th of september to all who celebrate. on this day, a bajillion years ago, amok time served the most cunt no one has ever served before. and then slash fanfiction was invented. it is the sacred texts 🙏

amok time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLASH FANFICTION I HOPE EVERYONE GETS TO ROLL IN THE GLITTERY SANDS FOR THEMSELVES TODAY!

STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES Season 2, Episode 1: Amok Time

I feel like people who write off Kirk as a "womanizer" don't really draw the lines in the right places.

To me the division is not "man who has a lot of sex | man who doesn't." It's "man who treats women as objects to collect and enjoy | man who genuinely sees women as people and loves them."

It's the post scarcity future, I'm sure there's a vaccine for every STI and we know their birth control works great. There's no reason not to have sex if you want to have it. There shouldn't be shame involved in having lots of it.

But if you watch Kirk carefully, he does not ever treat women like collectibles or disposables. He interacts with them very much as people. Some he flirts with and it's not serious (which they know). Some he's trying to help. Some manipulate him, which sucks. And some he presumably has sex with, but only because he genuinely likes them as people and wants to do this fun thing with them.

None of this fits the idea of a womanizer as a man who takes advantage, pretends to be in love only long enough to score, cheats, gropes his employees, can't see women as people because he's only looking to get as many of them into bed as possible.

So I wish people would stop painting him as that. He's a flirt, he falls for people easily, he's noticeably horny, but he's never disrespectful of women. The writers were very careful about that. They saw the world around them full of that kind of caddish behavior and wrote a man who would never. They show Kirk being tempted by Rand, Marlena, etc., and then making the deliberate choice not to act that way. Because they were making a point about how a hero acts. We even see him give Charlie a lecture about how to treat women, and it's a lesson he personally follows. It's a bit heavy handed if anything.

And then people watch like half of one episode and go "oh yeah ha ha that Kirk, such a sixties womanizer hero, so backward, I'd never watch that." I thought that initially before my recent rewatch, but....that is simply not what's in the show.

This is how pornos start

And Spock looks so flustered right after Kirk asks

the only show on television

we won’t last long (give it our best shot) by Muir_Wolf

Something I love about the Star Trek TOS movies

They take place years after the end of the series. Even though the show asked lots of character questions and got us all invested in their individual arcs, there never really was a promise to see it through. So TOS ends with the status quo intact. Kirk is still first and foremost captain of the Enterprise despite his loneliness, Spock is still stoutly Vulcan despite any and all misgivings, and McCoy is still with them on the ship, despite everything.

And the movies ADDRESSED all that. Guess what Kirk IS lonely. The Enterprise, while very important, ISN'T enough to be his everything. Spock's inner struggle isn't going to peacefully resolve, he's got to face it head on and accept the parts of himself he's always denied. And Bones is um still with them despite everything.

The movies ALSO decided that they were going to be fun and joyful. Horrible things happen in them, but what do you really remember? "This simple feeling." Uhura and Scotty's romance. The freaking whales. Kirk shoving Spock into the ocean. Spock saying hell. Spock saying hell a lot.

also the awful transporter malfunction whoops

It seems a lot of times when stories get sequels where the characters are older, they're also hardened. Whatever joy existed in the original is overshadowed by larger, darker themes. Everyone's sad now. The happy-go-lucky guy is a drunk. The confident woman is divorced and miserable. Star Trek was just like, nah, these guys are Olds and they are living their BEST LIVES. Everything starts when you're past 50. Admiral and don't wanna be? Be a starship captain again and man your ship with exclusively geriatric ward officers. Now there's nothing stopping you being Sexiest Captain.

Sequels featuring older characters often undo whatever was built in the original to create something new. That isn't a criticism - it's just a story-telling choice. It's nice to also see sequels where the older characters are not just happy, but happier than they were in the original.

I mean I definitely don't love everything about these movies, some of them are really slow moving to the point of... almost lifelessness... It is a mixed bag. But overall they're just such a great wrap up for the original series and I just love so much seeing the actors have fun with their characters.