The promo for this ep has the Vulcan male stating that I Love Lucy is on tonight. Why do I have this horrible feeling that they are going to make this guy a Vulcan couch potato?
Why do I have a horrible feeling about this episode, period?
Because you're being unfair by judging this episode before you see it?
Eh, it wasn't that bad. And it ended with a variation on the "it was all a dream" anti-nit by having T'Pol do her "it was all a story" bit. Of course, if the incident was so well-documented? Couldn't Archer or Trip simply look it up?
One of the Vulcans winds up working at a mine. And they were supposed to avoid detection? If there's an accident, that green blood is going to look mighty suspicious.
So if all the Vulcans were supposedly "buisness associates," how did they pass off staying in Carbon Creek? Additionally, since they supposedly came in a vehicle, one of them would supposedly have a driver's license. So I wonder what they did if the townsfolk asked to see either thing?
I was watching this with a friend who hails from Pennslyvania, and he pointed out that between this and "Signs," aliens seem to be flocking to Pennslyvania in droves! I also noted with pride that the other United State most referenced in the episode was none other than New Mexico (White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns)!
So back in Broken Bow, T'Pol noted that Vulcans just don't eat meat, period. Even given the choice of killing the deer for food sparks an argument amongst the Vulcans here. So, I'm having a hard time believing that they managed so many months in 1950s Carbon Creek without eating it once!
Oh, my friend from Penn. also pointed out that there is no baseball team in Doylestown. My anti-nit is that at that time, there very well could have been, as the minor leagues were much more extensive then.
So, the Vulcan who played the pool game seemed to pick up rather quickly on the concept of the eight ball, especially given that he had never seen the game played before!
Yeah, that's about all I have right now.
If the Vulcan survey vessel came to study Sputnik 1, they must have detected the satellite somehow to know it was there to study. That implies that Vulcans were already there. This isn't necessarily a nit-they could have had an automated probe orbiting-but it just seemed a bit odd to me.
After their emergency rations ran out within a week, the Vulcan survivors spent five days in the wilderness without food. Three points. One, why did they only have emergency rations? Shouldn't the ship have been stocked with food-or do they have replicators? (And if so, why did they take so long to filter into Federation society, so that Kirk's Enterprise apparently didn't have them?) Two, Vulcans are supposed to be able to go a long time without food, aren't they? And three, why weren't they spending the week while they still had rations, and the five days afterward, studying local plants for nutritional value?
Naturally, when stealing clothes, T'Mir can only find high heels for shoes. Gotta keep the sex-appeal quotient up(although those silhouette shots did enough of that for half a dozen episodes, didn't they?).
So, after going without food for five days, T'Mir and Mestral walk into a bar, the bartender passes them a bowl of pretzels or beer nuts or whatever, and we don't see either of them eat a single one.
Mestral calls pool "simple geometry." A Vulcan, trained in science, ought to know it's more like simple vector mechanics.
The time setting of this episode is very odd. Supposedly, the crew arrived on Earth several weeks after Sputnik 1 went up, in early October 1957. When they first enter town, though, they hear a baseball game on a car radio. The season ought to be over by that time. Worse, weeks pass, and it's obvious that local minor-league games are still being played as it's turning into winter, which is ludicrous in Pennsylvania. (I lived there; I know.) It's conceivable that they actually landed in spring of 195,8 to explain the baseball, but then Billy shouldn't be talking about being able to see it near twilight, because the satellite had fallen out of orbit by that time. No way out of this bind that I can see.
ANTI-NIT: I'd love to note that "I Love Lucy" had ended production in May 1957, before Sputnik 1 went up. However, CBS did air reruns of the show starting that September, so the writers luck out. (If they had shown the opening credits of the show, I could have walloped them with a nit, but 'twas not to be.)
There's a cave-in in the mine. Men are working desperately to free trapped miners. How can Mestral wander through the mine, passing several of these people, without having them tell him to pull his head out of the clouds and help the rescue effort?
When Maggie discovers T'Mir's college donation in the jar, one can plainly see a $50 bill with the new design, one forty years out of date for this episode.
Now for three grouses: One, did anyone else notice that the audio synching was well off, especially in the third act? People spoke before their lips moved. Second, Trip's comparison of T'Pol's story to an episode of "The Twilight Zone" couldn't be a subtle plug for the show airing right after "Enterprise", could it? And third and last - Velcro? Velcro?!?!? BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
The concept is simply hit all of your balls into one of the pockets, if you make a shot you get another one if you miss the other guy gets to shoot. The skill is not from knowing the ins and outs of the rules it is from understanding the geomatry of angles to make the balls roll where you want them to.
Interesting...
Velcro was invented by a Swiss engineer named George de Mestral around that time.
So back in Broken Bow, T'Pol noted that Vulcans just don't eat meat, period. Even given the choice of killing the deer for food sparks an argument amongst the Vulcans here. So, I'm having a hard time believing that they managed so many months in 1950s Carbon Creek without eating it once! - Sparrow47
Actually, I think it's Archer who says he knows Vulcans are vegetarians in Broken Bow. But I think they would have eaten meat if they had to.
So they had a problem with keeping it in the 50's in this ep.
About halfway through the episode, when T'Pol's Great-Great-Great-Grandma (or whatever) was driving away, we see a Speed Limit 35 sign. Correct me if I"m wrong, but they weren't around (or at least this style) 50 years ago.
Also, in the jar of money at the end... is a bunch of the new 50's introduced a couple years ago. You can tell from the big Monopoly Money 50 on the back of the bills.
My last post was an answer to:
So, the Vulcan who played the pool game seemed to pick up rather quickly on the concept of the eight ball, especially given that he had never seen the game played before!
I didn't realize someone would get a post up between me and Sparrow47
France. We're from France.
And when T'Mir and Mestral bought TV dinners from his pool winnings, didn't they notice that those dinners had meat in them? Can't imagine a 50's TV dinner being vegetarian.
Well, I was expecting this episode to be a train wreck but I was pleasantly surprised. It was fun.
But first, UPN News is back to their old tricks. Their teaser story in the NYC area was about a sex museum. Sometimes I wonder if they have no shame. Then I realize they don’t.
I’m not sure what to make of T’Pol’s story. However, I find the lead-in to be a bit unlikely. Archer happens to run across Carbon Creek in T’Pol’s bio and just happens to remember that piece of trivia to ask her about it and it leads to this incredible story. You know what Garak says about coincidences.
During the conversation about meditation in the bar, T’Mir’s lips and the audio seem to be out of sync just a bit.
One of the Vulcans mentions fish sticks as part of the human culture they have experienced. Are they eating them? Isn’t that meat?
Velcro? Besides the obvious implications, I see two problems with this concept of selling Velcro for money. First, there is no guarantee that this man would be willing to buy it. Many new inventions meet with early resistance (“there’s no market for this”, “why would they want X when they already have Y”, etc.) so T’Mir was very lucky that the first person she visited was willing to give cash for it. Second, I remember an ALF episode where our favorite alien wanted to raise some money. So he pillaged his damaged starship for gold and platinum used in the construction. You would think that the Vulcan craft would have some standard valuable metals that could be plundered. A whole lot easier to sell gold than it is to sell a new invention.
And whatever happened to that wrecked Vulcan ship anyway?
As for the ending, I saw that one coming a mile away. I guess it was appropriate that the Twilight Zone would be on afterwards…
Nobody reported clothes stolen from the clothesline and then later noticed the strangers wearing the stolen clothes?
At the beginning we see a sign with a population figure but I couldn't read it. Looked like a small town.
I didn't bother looking for Carbon Creek in an atlas, but would there be reasons not to use a real small town?
Why didn't that couch-potato Vulcan mention I Love Lucy and Milton Berle as being the good,
non-violent aspects of humanity?
(Okay, I've read Mr. Berle wasn't very nice, but his show was less violent than a lot of shows.)
I feel like making a list...
TOS: visited the '60s, '70s
Movies: '80s
TNG: 1890s, 1930s in the holodeck; maybe the 1940s.
DS9: '40s, 2010s
VOY: 1990s, 2000s, early episodes had a holodeck novel in the 19th century.
Do we want the Enterprise to visit the 18th century, the middle ages? I wouldn't, unless it's the distant past of another planet so we can learn more about the Vulcans, Andorians, whoever.
As long as it's not the past of some alien race we've never seen before and will never see again.
The name of that one Vulcan kept reminding me of a movie, Mistral's Daughter, about the world of high fashion. It was a TV mini-series based on a Judith Krantz novel. I don't think I actually watched it, I just remembered the weird name and title, and how hyper-dramatic the promos were. Weird how I'd remember it without actually watching the movie. I suppose it's just a coincidence. It's hard to make up names that can be easily written in the script, and which don't sound like other names.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/MistralsDaughter-1014077/preview.php
From the 1920's Paris of Chanel and Picasso to New York's modeling agencies of the 1950's, to contemporary industry wars, this story captures all the sizzling glamour of life at the top in the world of art and high fashion. Based on the international best-seller by Judith Krantz.
Somebody - TOS also visited the 30's.
The movies also visited 2051.
The concept is simply hit all of your balls into one of the pockets, if you make a shot you get another one if you miss the other guy gets to shoot. The skill is not from knowing the ins and outs of the rules it is from understanding the geomatry of angles to make the balls roll where you want them to.Brian Webber
Sure, but in order for Mestral to win the game, he has to know that the eight-ball must be sunk last and the shot must be called. Perhaps from watching the other guy shoot, he'd know that the eight-ball was to be avoided, but how would he know to sink it last?
Someone-
How could you miss the visit of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to the late 1930's in City On the Edge... (Also if you are including holodeck stories for TNG and VOY, then Patterns of Force and A Piece of the Action could also be said to represent this time period for TOS)
Well, it seems like Darth was a little quicker than me....
DS9 also visted the 60s, albeit briefly.
Gotta keep the sex-appeal quotient up(although those silhouette shots did enough of that for half a dozen episodes, didn't they?).
My thoughts exactly.
Nobody reported clothes stolen from the clothesline and then later noticed the strangers wearing the stolen clothes?
It's the Ladyhawke method of getting clothes. 
It worked for Philippe the Mouse! (And also possibly Virginia and Tony in The 10th Kingdom, but we won't go into that.)
And it ended with a variation on the "it was all a dream" anti-nit by having T'Pol do
her "it was all a story" bit.
Question: now that Archer and Trip believe that she "told a story," will they accept that? Do Vulcans ever just "tell stories" for the heck of it? (Sorry, I'm not all that familiar with the lore.)
So, subtle programming note? Trip at one point mentions "The Twilight Zone," a new addition to UPN's fall schedule. Hmmmmm...
I can't believe I didn't mention this so far, but I found the Vulcans' exchange about "I Love Lucy" to be pretty funny!
"Shouldn't the ship have been stocked with food-or do they have replicators? (And if so, why did they take so long to filter into Federation society, so that Kirk's Enterprise apparently didn't have them?)" -- SMT
It's never been established that Kirk's Enterprise did not have some kind of food processing device. The Voyager episode "Flashback" says that there were no replicators in Captain Sulu's time, but that doesn't say anything about a protein resequencer. Also, in the episode where they go to the past (I know that doesn't narrow it down much), the one guy gets chicken soup from some sort of food dispenser. Furthermore, in "STVI", we get a shot of Kirk's quarters and we see what looks like a replicator with dishes inside. (Phil mentions this in his guide)
This was a nice episode. Very fun. This episode also had some interesting characters. I liked Mestral or whatever his name was.
see ya later
TUE
So the Vulcan ship has a problem with it's impulse drive, just like that? Don't they have backups?
I don't even know where to start with this episode. I had mentally made a list of nits a mile long when T'Pol hit us with the grand anti-nit at the end. That means I'm basically left to judge the story on its own merits, not on how it fits into continuity. (Hmmm, are we being sent a message?) Based on that, it was OK, for Star Trek lite.
Nits and notes:
-- One big point to consider in the whole did-this-really-happen debate: If T'Mir submitted a detailed report of her time on Earth, did it include how she deceived the rescue party into thinking Mestral was dead? Or, is this an aspect of the story she related to T'Pol personally or that became a family legend?
-- Mestral might be a cool character, but he's the most undisciplined Vulcan I have ever seen. He was blatantly and frustratingly insubordinate on several occasions. I could hear Tuvok trying to bring him under control in the back of my head ("If you disobey me again, I will be forced to incapacitate you.").
-- T'Mir (am I spelling it right?) perhaps is a nod to the Mir space station.
-- According to information I can find, Doylestown, Pa., has never had a minor-league baseball team. It's pretty close to Philly, anyway, and not close at all to mining communities. Also, neither the Phillies or Pirates (I assume it was one of those two teams who were on the radio) had a player named Thompson in the 1958 season.
-- The high school student's attitude toward Sputnik did not mesh with comtemporary views. Most were not in awe of it, but rather afraid of it and by the shift in the balance of power it gave the Soviets.
-- Trip mentions seeing the Cochran statue in Montana. That's a nice continuity nod to the "First Contact" movie, which also mentions the statue.
Archer: "Yeah, and it sounds just like that Buffy novel I read from Pocket Books while wearning my Nike sneakers and eating a stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut!"
Great Line: "It sounds like an old episode of the Twilight Zone." –Trip to T’Pol in Act 2, finding incredulous T’Pol’s story of her great grandmother and Menstral walking into a bar, playing pool, and walking out money to buy TV dinners.
---Critique:
---Loved it. One of the best episodes of Enterprise so far, and the flat-out best character drama episode. It was touching, had some good character development, revealed some very interesting information about Vulcan contact with humans, it kept me wondering what would happen until the end, had a lovely musical score, some really nice humor that didn’t go overboard, and was a much better "ancestor flashback" episode than 11:50(VOY)! Kudos to the creators!
---It was nice to see Ann Cusack in a more important role after having only seen her as the illiterate Shirley Baker in A League of Their Own, and after the sad ending of Drone(VOY), I was happy to see J. Paul Boehmer in a lovable good-guy role where he didn’t have to die at the end.
---I genuinely enjoyed the relationship among T’Mir, Mestral and Stron, hearing their conversations, seeing their different perspectives of humans of 1957, seeing how each approached logic and emotion to varying degrees. While I liked the references to The Three Stooges and I Love Lucy, I was worried at first that they might degenerate into farcial parody, but the creators showed admirable restraint.
---Mestral’s relationship with Maggie wasn’t very surprising, and perhaps a bit cliché, but I really liked how T’Mir and Jack found common ground, and how her sympathy for him led to her sale of a Velcro pouch to help pay for his college, which I found heartwarming. (I still have to wonder, though, if she would’ve done this if he said he wanted to be an artist, actor or football player, and indeed, who’s to say that as a mechanical engineer, he won’t work on nuclear bombs or other military devices, which T’Mir and Stron were so concerned about?) I’m not often surprised lately by plot twists on Trek, so Mestral’s decision to stay on Earth, and T’Mir’s decision to support that decision, were welcome eyebrow-raisers. It would be great to see more episodes with Mestral travelling Earth (hell, an entire spinoff series could be based on it), in the vein of other "walking the Earth" stories like The Fugitive, Starman, The Questor Tapes, or Forrest Gump. It would also be interesting to know if Mestral is still alive by 2152. If he was in his thirties in 1957, he’d be in his 220’s or 230’s in 2152. A stretch, but possible.
---The creators’ way of acknowledging the real inventor of Velcro was dead-on cute. The closing shot and the accompanying score was PERFECT.
---I also wonder if the final scene where Trip complains that T’Pol just rewrote their history books and that he may have to wonder if Neil Armstrong really was the first man on the moon was the creators’ way of answering nitpickers and critics who wonder if Enterprise is mucking around with established Trek history.
---Notes:
---At two minutes and thirty-four seconds, this episode has the longest Enterprise teaser since the pilot.
---While Phlox mentioned in Act 1 of Shadows of P’Jem that a Vulcan’s service on a Starfleet vessel never exceeded a "few days," T’Pol establishes it more precisely in the teaser of this episode to be ten days. We learn that T’Pol took a five day leave during her stay on Earth to Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania to visit the site of First Contact between humans and Vulcans, and we also see two Vulcan ships circa 1957.
---I suppose it’s just a coincidence, but another time travel story, Back to the Future, featured a "Twin Pine Ranch" that eventually became the "Twin Pine Mall," and after the timeline was altered, the "Lone Pine Mall." This episode features a place called the "Pine Tree Bar and Grill."
Some old guy from Florida is at the wheel
No indication is given of an imminent arrival at any destination for the Enterprise, so why is it as subwarp in the opening shot of the episode?
They were passing by and stopped to hear T’Pol’s story
The stars in the captain’s dining room windows are motionless, even though the opening shot of the episode showed it in motion.
Man, the rewrite to the Chronology’s gonna give Mike Okuda an aneurysm
What I find interesting about T’Pol’s mention of First Contact in the teaser is that it revises my previous understanding of the definition of First Contact, which heretofore I thought referred to the formal and public meeting between two species. This episode establishes that the term refers to the first meeting of any kind between the two species, which means that April 5th, 2063 wasn’t really First Contact between Vulcan and Humans. It also means that it wasn’t First Contact between Earth and Aliens (since First Contact no longer implies a formality), since the earliest known contact was between the Sky Spirits and early humans 45,000 years ago, according to Tattoo(VOY). Why, if humans have been under the impression up until now that First Contact occurred in Bozeman, Montana in 2063, has no one informed them of the truth? It’s also interesting that Tuvok never mentioned this in Homestead(VOY), when Neelix concocted a "First Contact Day" with references to Zephram Cochrane’s encounter with Vulcans, not Pennsylvanians of the late 1950’s. Or is T’Pol simply employing her own definition of the term?
Probably sold them to a snotty fashion designer for his new fall "Spaceman" line
I’m curious to know where Mestral and T’Mir—who was very concerned about contaminating human culture—hid their Vulcan clothing while helping themselves to a human clothesline. I didn’t see their Vulcan clothes anywhere while they were changing, and while I’m not certain how much contamination would result from someone finding their clothes, I do wonder what they did with them.
Hope they were wearing their seatbelts
In the opening shot of Act 3, just as Maggie’s car comes into the middle of the screen, the film skips backward just a for a brief split second.
And I’m thirsty two! Someone give me a silica-based container of hydrogen hydroxide!
In the last scene of Act 3, Mestral is in the ship, and when T’Pol and Stron shows up, Mestral tells them, "I’m looking for a particle weapon." This sounds like me going to a gun shop and saying, "Quick! I need a firearm with chemically propelled discharges!"
Tune in next week, when we see Mestral decades later buying Microsoft at ten cents a share…
The bit with T’Mir selling a Velcro pouch was utterly hilarious. I laughed out loud. Of course, in our timeline, Velcro was actually invented by a Swiss mountaineer named George de Mestral (gee, why does that name sound familiar?), who, after walking through the woods with his dog in 1948, noticed that his dog’s coat and his pants were covered with cockleburrs. After studying the burrs under a microscope, he discovered their natural hook-like shape, and realized the principle by which Velcro would work. He and a weaver at a textile plant in France designed "locking tape" made from cotton and then nylon. The eventual name Velcro derived from the French words "velour" and "crochet." The differences in the the timeline we know and the one in this episode are apparently not do to T’Mir’s actions, and it would appear her sale of the pouch had nothing to do with Mestral not making his discovery, since her sale of it occurred at least 9 years after Mestral’s discovery.
It’s interesting to see that relations between the Vulcans and Tellarites might be friendly in 2152, given that a Tellarite freighter relays the stranded Vulcans’ distress signal to the Vulcan High Command.
Sparrow47: One of the Vulcans winds up working at a mine. And they were supposed to avoid detection? If there's an accident, that green blood is going to look mighty suspicious.
Luigi Novi: True, but they need money and have limited options.
Sparrow47: So if all the Vulcans were supposedly "business associates," how did they pass off staying in Carbon Creek? Additionally, since they supposedly came in a vehicle, one of them would supposedly have a driver's license. So I wonder what they did if the townsfolk asked to see either thing?
Luigi Novi: Would they need one to work as a miner or plumber? Aren’t there ways of getting important documents in cases of theft, loss, or even amnesia? Also, we know that some devices from their ship, like their communicator and particle weapons, were still intact after the crash. Is it possible that there were printing or rendering devices for making fakes?
SMT: After their emergency rations ran out within a week, the Vulcan survivors spent five days in the wilderness without food. Three points. One, why did they only have emergency rations? Shouldn't the ship have been stocked with food-or do they have replicators?
Luigi Novi: I think it’s unlikely that they had replicators. For one, as you point out, they didn’t have them in Kirk’s time. Second, if they did, they could’ve replicated the parts to make the subspace transceiver to call Vulcan. I also find it hard to believe that if they had replicators in 1957, that they’d need to tractor the shuttle out of the comet’s crevice in Breaking the Ice, rather than beaming Reed and Travis out, since transporters and replicators use the same technology, and transporters came first, and even if there was one on the ship, it might’ve been destroyed in the crash.
SMT: There's a cave-in in the mine. Men are working desperately to free trapped miners. How can Mestral wander through the mine, passing several of these people, without having them tell him to pull his head out of the clouds and help the rescue effort?
Luigi Novi: For all they know, maybe he’s relaying equipment from different locations in the mine.
Brian Fitzgerald: The concept is simply hit all of your balls into one of the pockets, if you make a shot you get another one if you miss the other guy gets to shoot. The skill is not from knowing the ins and outs of the rules it is from understanding the geomatry of angles to make the balls roll where you want them to.
Luigi Novi: But does he know that he’s not supposed to hit the eight ball until last, or the significance of the cue ball? (The cue ball, he obviously picked up after watching Billy use it, but he didn’t know this at the time he told T’Pol he could do it, and he’s lucky he didn’t make any balls on the break, because then he wouldn’t be able to observe Billy.)
PaulG: One of the Vulcans mentions fish sticks as part of the human culture they have experienced. Are they eating them? Isn’t that meat?
Luigi Novi: It’s possible that Mestral is eating them, and Stron is making an indirect criticism, since Mestral doesn’t seem to mind abandoning certain Vulcan beliefs, but Stron thinks eating meat is "savagery."
PaulG: I remember an ALF episode where our favorite alien wanted to raise some money. So he pillaged his damaged starship for gold and platinum used in the construction. You would think that the Vulcan craft would have some standard valuable metals that could be plundered. A whole lot easier to sell gold than it is to sell a new invention.
Luigi Novi: That’s EXACTLY what I thought she would do! I remember reading about a guy who stripped down computers for their metals, like gold, and I thought that’s what T’ Mir was going to do.
PaulG: And whatever happened to that wrecked Vulcan ship anyway?
Luigi Novi: I would’ve assumed that they tractored it out or destroyed it somehow, but then, they didn’t mention doing this, and besides, if they Vulcan rescuers did this, why would they have to meet T’Mir and Stron somewhere else where’d they’d have to travel by train?
Somebody who feels like once again posting a little mini-essay:
TOS: visited the '60s, '70s
Luigi Novi: As well as the 30’s in City on the Edge of Forever and various other points in All Our Yesterdays. I don’t recall them ever visiting the 70’s.
Somebody Movies: '80s
Luigi Novi: And 2063 in ST First Contact.
Somebody: TNG: 1890s, 1930s in the holodeck; maybe the 1940s.
Luigi Novi: And the time periods of Shakespearean stories in The Defector and Emergence, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in Devil’s Due, 19th century London in Elementary, Dear Data and Ship in a Bottle, etc.
Somebody DS9: '40s, 2010s
Luigi Novi: Plus the 30s and 60s in Past Tense partII. Since you’re counting holosuites, they visited the 1950s in Our Man Bashir, A Simple Investigation, and all episodes featuring Vic Fontaine, the mid-20th century in episodes in which O’Brien and Bashir participated in the Battle of Britain, and Bashir invited Ezri to participate in the Battle of Thermopylae in What You Leave Behind, which was in 480 BC.
Somebody: VOY: 2000s
Luigi Novi: When did they visit that time period? Or are you talking about the flashback story of 11:59? And since you’re including holodecks, they visited WWII France in The Killing Game partI-II, and (I believe) 19th century Ireland in Fair Haven and Spirit Folk.
TUE: Also, in the episode where they go to the past (I know that doesn't narrow it down much), the one guy gets chicken soup from some sort of food dispenser.
Luigi Novi: The air Sargent in Tomorrow is Yesterday(TOS).
TUE: Furthermore, in "STVI", we get a shot of Kirk's quarters and we see what looks like a replicator with dishes inside. (Phil mentions this in his guide)
Luigi Novi: It’s possible, given what they said in Flashback(VOY), that this was some kind of food slot/food delivery system, rather than a replicator. If it was a replicator, why does the ship have a kitchen, and why didn’t Kirk tell the replicator to reabsorb the dishes?
Trike: The high school student's attitude toward Sputnik did not mesh with comtemporary views. Most were not in awe of it, but rather afraid of it and by the shift in the balance of power it gave the Soviets.
Luigi Novi: Some did, some did not. Reactions were mixed, and some were indeed in awe of it, according to this site. Some excerpts:
"Many people did not know how to think of a satellite in orbit. It was too mysterious for them, "What is a 184 pound object in orbit?" "Are they looking down at us?"
Engineering colleges were flooded with new students the following quarter. It was as if everyone was "joining the army" to take on the Russians in the New Frontier.
Everyone on Johnston Island in the Pacific were issued sidearms to carry at all times. Johnston Island is so small it only has room for a runway and a hanger for airplanes.
Students at Case Institute immediately became "Rocket Scientists" and stayed up many late nights discussing various methods of space travel.
Jim Dawsons, science writer for the Star Tribune, wrote about how his third grade teacher was very nervous at the time. His school at Omaha, Neb., was just a few miles from the Air Force's Strategic Air Command headquarters. A fleet of F-100 fighters appeared in the sky coming right for the school. "MiGs!" the teacher shrieked. "MiGs!" She ran, hysterical, from the classroom, convinced they were about to be nuked by Russian fighter jets. The kids, mostly Air Force brats, ran to the windows to admire the F-100s, the coolest jet of its day.
After observing Sputnik, seven year old Franklin Chang-Dìaz of Costa Rica became infatuated with space travel and eventually became a NASA astronaut.
Since Jack wants to study mathematics and mechancial engineering, his view of it is perfectly consistent.
Cute episode. The I Love Lucy line worked better in context than in the commercial.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't an earlier episode (Fusion?) establish that T'Pol hardly left the Vulcan Embassy?
T'Mir says 2 lifeforms (refering to the deer), but aren't trees and plants lifeforms?
Mestral suggests possibly eating the deer, but what about all those plants they are surrounded by? Wasn't it Ewall Gibbons who said that many parts of a pine cone are edible?
T'Mir says, "Some type of combat, no doubt."
Mestral replies, "I believe it may be an entertainment."
For all they know it could be both, not necesarily one or the other.
Since TV was a fad that ended in the 2040s how would Trip be familiar with The Twilight Zone?
How did they keep people from discovering the crashed ship?
I thought it interesting that the sensor T'Mir uses to guide Mestral in the mine was more accurate than the sensor that T'Pol used in Terra Nova.
Sooooooo, a woman & two men all living together in the same place in the late 1950s?
And at the end T'Pol reveals she has Great-great-grandmother's purse. How sentimental of a Vulcan.
Luigi--
None of the passages you quote, nor any of the others on that site mention the kind of emotion that Trike referred to as "in awe of it."
Re-read why engineering colleges were flooded with new students -- for "patriotic" reasons, not for the new frontiers of science.
The Case Institute students *all* became "Rocket Scientists," not because their personal interests had changed, but because the national interests had.
It was only seven and eight year olds (and younger) -- who did not understand geopolitics -- who were fascinated by the "toy" factor in these developments. (Although, once they got over their initial fear, some adults figured out how to channel that enthusiasm, and others, like the gum-ball maker, figured out how to exploit it.)
(On a personal note, I was four when the news about Sputnik broke. My brother was only hours old -- if he was even born yet.)
Maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't an earlier episode (Fusion?) establish that T'Pol hardly left the Vulcan Embassy? KAM
It established that she rarely left the embassy, not necessarily that she never left it.
T'Mir says 2 lifeforms (refering to the deer), but aren't trees and plants lifeforms?
That's true, but the usage is not inconsistent with Trek continuity. "Lifeforms," on Trek, almost always refers to "higher animals" and often to intellegent/humanoid life.
Since TV was a fad that ended in the 2040s how would Trip be familiar with The Twilight Zone?
Maybe the Twighlight Zone movie survived and was recently shown in the ship's "theatre."
"One of the Vulcans mentions fish sticks as part of the human culture they have experienced. Are they eating them? Isn’t that meat?" PaulG
Not if you were a Catholic in the 50's.
Did anyone else have a problem with the Vulcans lying so easily? I thought it was established that Vulcans are incapable of lying.
You heard it here first:
Enterprise Kitchen Sink/ What Existing Races . . .
TJFleming (7/18/02): "(NANJAQ) What is there in ST:FC that precludes earlier, nonintentional, unrecorded contact?"
I DEMAND REPARATIONS!
Pennsylvania has two Doylestowns, but the one near coal country is too small for even Rand McNally. (BTW, apropos of the shadow-puppet show, Pennsylvania also has two Blue Balls. No, really.)
Anachronism traps skillfullly avoided:
(SMT already mentioned the Lucy reruns.)
The Stooges revival was in bloom then.
Newest identifiable car model: 1956 Mercury. (Not enough detail shown on the Chrysler to distinguish 1957-58-59.)
Politically unavoidable anachronism trap:
Apparently nobody smoked in a blue collar bar back then.
Prop nit: Please tell the geezer in Act I that you put the cane on the strong side.
And finally: It's pronounced "Carbon Crick."
I thought it was kind of early in the season (and the series!) for an off-premise show, nevertheless, I did like it very much.
I find it difficult to believe they were in the woods five days, and only then scanned their first life forms.
Mestral was surprised that Earth had the concept of "cryogenics". Seems that the simple process of freezing should not be so advanced for Earth at that time.
I believe that First Contact is a term that is usually used for knowledgeable contact/communication between two species. That is, both species knows that they are meeting a new one. That's not really what happened here, but I had the impression that T'Pol was talking about first contact, "in a way".
Some old guy from Florida is at the wheel
No indication is given of an imminent arrival at any destination for the Enterprise, so why is it as subwarp in the opening shot of the episode?
They were passing by and stopped to hear T’Pol’s story
The stars in the captain’s dining room windows are motionless, even though the opening shot of the episode showed it in motion.
From inside the ship, if they are at subwarp, the stars would not be noticeably moving, even though the ship is in motion. (Remember the Voyager "Why are they always at impulse?" rants?)
It's called motion parallax, and it's one of the most important cues to depth perception. It's defined as "apparent, relative motion of stationary objects as viewed by a moving observer. Near objects appear to move past or opposite the landscape; far objects seem to move in the direction of motion or remain fixed. The rate of apparent movement depends on the distance the observer is from the object. Rapidly moving objects are judged to be near while slow moving objects are judged to be distant." United States Army School of Aviation Medicine, Fort Rucker, Alabama (LESSON PLAN: VISION, DEPTH PERCEPTION, AND NIGHT VISION ORIENTATION)
Anti-nit: A local rich guy owns both a radio station and a local baseball team--maybe the team isn't even in the minor leagues, it's just a bunch of guys who like baseball. So the weather was unseasonably warm, they all agreed to play one more game, and it gets broadcast. Maybe one of the games referred to was a minor-league game, and some of the other games were teams not in any league at all.
KAM:
T'Mir says 2 lifeforms (refering to the deer), but aren't trees and plants lifeforms?
I don't think Trek ever acknowledges plants and bugs as "life."
Mestral suggests possibly eating the deer, but what about all those plants they are surrounded by? Wasn't it Ewall Gibbons who said that many parts of a pine cone are edible?
His name was Euell Gibbons;
http://www.wildfoodadventures.com/euellgibbons.html
What's edible for humans isn't always edible for Vulcans; they had to be really careful. But yeah, they should have been able to eat something.
Since TV was a fad that ended in the 2040s how would Trip be familiar with The Twilight Zone?
The really good stuff was preserved on DVD or CD or something.
I thought the name sounded familiar, I'd forgotten who invented Velcro.
KAM pointed out people would disapprove of a woman living with two men; they could have said they were siblings. Being gay was frowned on, but would people be more tolerant if the men were gay living with a woman? But, I'm kinda glad they didn't bring it up.
There would have been no point in Mestral staying behind if he didn't submit his reports. So when does he submit his reports, and what to the Vulcans say when he turns out to be alive?
I don't know how I missed TOS and the '30s.
"Yesterday is Tomorrow" indicated they were in the early '70s, and the TOS Technical Manual specified 1970, I think.
I didn't feel like listing all the Holodeck episodes, thanks for the contributions.
What do you make of the scene in the Tribbles episode where Kirk is in the dining room, opens a door in the wall and finds a tribble where his lunch should be?
In "Charlie X" there are cooks in the galley, but that's 'cause some people just like to do their own cooking.
The TNG finale visited Earth a few billion years in the past.
Maybe, only some of T'Pol's story is factually accurate. Maybe the Vulcans knew Mestral was staying behind. Maybe he was supposed to stay behind all along. Maybe the Vulcans were
receiving Mestral's reports by radio (or whatever) on a regular basis.
Logically, there should have been several Vulcans observing different parts of the world. Maybe there were.
In cases where history is not fully recorded or the records aren't entirely reliable, Vulcans might invent details for didactic or other purposes.
"Yesterday is Tomorrow"
You mean "Tomorrow is Yesterday". Speaking of which, how did the food dispenser in the transporter room work here ("It *is* chicken soup!"). Looked kind of like a replicator... (see earlier discussion of replicators).
The stars in the captain’s dining room windows are motionless, even though the opening shot of the episode showed it in motion. - Luigi
It depends where the Captain's Mess is located on the ship. If the windows face forward, then they wouldn't appear to move at all. Someone can check to be sure... I'm reasonably certain we saw the windows at warp in an episode... I distinctly remember a shot of T'Pol sitting in front of the window, with the stars streaking behind her (Fight or Flight, maybe?).
>PaulG: And whatever happened to that wrecked Vulcan ship anyway?
Luigi Novi: I would’ve assumed that they tractored it out or destroyed it somehow, but then, they didn’t mention doing this, and besides, if they Vulcan rescuers did this, why would they have to meet T’Mir and Stron somewhere else where’d they’d have to travel by train? <
IIRC, T'Mir traveled by train to sell the Velcro idea, not to get to the crash site. I don't remember them both being on a train at the end.
I'm just wondering how Mestral kept his ears hidden for the rest of his life. I don't think he could've gotten plastic surgery, since that would've involved people seeing his green blood.
One other thing-I also remember some sort of food dispenser on TOS in "The Trouble With Tribbles." I can't recall if it was a replicator-like device, or if it was more like an Automat. Kirk pulled his food tray out of a recess in the wall, and it was covered in tribbles.
Sheesh, I'll accept the fact that I might be the only person who really didn't get into this story. The Vulcans were portrayed as being too sentimental, and I just couldn't buy into that.
Another reason is that Jack's plotline reminded me too much of the movie "October Sky." I thought it was just me until I read an article at TrekToday.com where a reviewer was also reminded of the movie. The main character in "October Sky" was a high school boy living in a coal-mining town who was inspired to become a scientist after seeing Sputnik. Sound familiar? The movie (and the memoir it's based on, Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys) is so vastly superior to this episode, including how it incorporates honest sentimentality, that "Carbon Creek" couldn't measure up for me.
It still appears to me that the story was (or should have been) set in early 1958, to allow the Vulcans time to detect Sputnik and send a survey mission. That also explains why it's baseball season at the beginning and why, after spending several months in Pennsylvania, there are still leaves on the trees.
Thanks, TJ, for correcting me on the other Doylestown. "Somebody" also has a point that it could have been a company baseball league. The writers should have taken another cue from "October Sky" and set the story in West Virginia, where several mining towns had minor-league teams at the time.
TomM also made a good point which I tried, but failed, to make, about Sputnik stirring feelings of patriotism in Americans and a desire to surpass the Soviet Union.
Wouldn't the Vulcan who went to the baseball game have been obligated to take off his hat for the playing of the national anthem?
Uh Sparrow, you attributed a comment to me that I did not make, and I would appreciate it very much if you apologized for it. OK, you don't have to apologize since it was just a silly mistake.
BTW, I also liked this episode. I didn't think i would though. I went into thing thinking it was going to be what Trike thinks it was. Few things in life are as enjoyable as being pleasently surprised.
For someone who hadn't worn high-heels before (illogical) T'Mir did a very good job.
Also, about the prop nit and the cane, it depends on what is wrong with the leg. I've known people with a bad knee that use the cane on the weak side. This way, they put less weight on the knee, and it doesn't hurt as much.
Uh Sparrow, you attributed a comment to me that I did not make, and I would appreciate it very much if you apologized for it.Brian... uh... Wilson?
Oops! Well, guess it's 50 lashes for me...
I'm left wondering...
If there really was a male Vulcan left on earth,
then what happened when he eventually went through pon-far?
But it's hard to know how much of the 'story' was true. I believe that T'Pol told some disinformation along with some true facts. She did have the purse at the end, but that only proves that part of the story was true.
Regarding First Contact...
If only Trip and Archer knew about all the aliens that have visited earth before the FC Vulcans.
I can think of Bajoran, Trill (before FC?), Borg (in orbit), a half-Betazoid, El-Aurian, crew of Voyager including a half-Klingon (did she stay in orbit?), Founder, and Ferengi.
I believe the contact w/ Ferengi is the only one that a humans knew about.
Still, the FC w/ Vulcans is the 'official' First Contact when most humans realized that we're not alone.
If only Trip and Archer knew about all the aliens that have visited earth before the FC Vulcans
How about Half-Vulcans ("City on the Edge of Forever", "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "Assignment Earth", STIV:TVH)?
Or "Cat People" (Isis - "Assignment Earth").
"Sky Spirits (VOY -- "Tattoo")
Android (TNG - "Time's Arrow")
Nits, bah. All nits are explainable as part that T'Pol made up. It might be based in fact, but nevertheless Trip and Archer twisted her arm for a "story". There is a ready anti-nit for all of it - $50 bills, I love Lucy, speedlimit signs, rules of pool, baseball, etc. Yup. T'Pol made that part up. Was the "story 10% factual or 98% factual. All we know is it is not 0% factual nor, since Vulcans don't lie (about telling stories anyway) is it 100% factual.
ScottN, don't forget:
Q (Death Wish, All Good Things)
Devidians and ophidians (Time's Arrow)
Apollo (Who Mourns for Adonais?)
Platonians (Plato's Stepchildren)
Preservers (The Paradise Syndrome)
Sargon's People (Return to Tomorrow)
I assume they cut each other's hair, and stayed out of the way of small children who might have swept their hair out of place and found their pointed ears. But some friendly woman might run her fingers through somebody's hair and detect the ears.
Nestral would have a problem with pon far--but maybe he volunteered because he's one of those rare individuals who don't have a pon far-- analogous to a human being impotent.
I wonder if anybody has speculated on the concept of gay Vulcans? 
Maybe they don't have pon far.
If they got caught, they'd just use the "Rice Picker" line (City on the Edge of Forever).
S: I wonder if anybody has speculated on the concept of gay Vulcans?
According to Peter David's New Frontier series, Dr. Selar's brother is bisexual.
TomM, forgot about the Twilight Zone movie. Another possibility is that IIRC there were some book versions of Twilight Zone episodes.
Somebody, thanks. I figured my spelling was probably wrong, but Euell isn't a common name so I had to guess.
Darth Sarcasm - with the stars streaking behind her
Well Archer was naked in the shower & Hoshi went topless, but I don't remember any of the stars of this show streaking behind T'Pol. 
Christopher Q, B'Elanna was on Earth when the shuttle she & Chakotay were on crashed & they were captured by extremists.
Blue Berry - All nits are explainable as part that T'Pol made up.
So at the end of the series we'll see an elderly T'Pol telling her grandson Spock all about her adventures on the NX-01 Enterprise?
S - I wonder if anybody has speculated on the concept of gay Vulcans?
Just thousands of Slash Fiction writers from the 1960s onward.
The stars in the captain’s dining room windows are motionless, even though the opening shot of the episode showed it in motion. - Luigi
It depends where the Captain's Mess is located on the ship. - Darth
:: No, no, no! The stars will not "move" even if you're looking out a side window. I explained it above; Aflac explained it; and Mikey explained it in Cold Front Board 2 (though apparently not to Luigi's satisfaction).
But don't just take our word for it. Go driving some night on a north-south road and look out the side window. Is the moon "moving" backwards or staying in one spot? ("Following you" as Mikey put it.) The principle applies in greater force here because the ratio of impulse speed to interstellar distances is far less than vehicular speed to lunar distance.
KAM - LOL!
KAM: Since TV was a fad that ended in the 2040s how would Trip be familiar with The Twilight Zone?
TomM: Maybe the Twighlight Zone movie survived and was recently shown in the ship's "theatre."
Luigi Novi: But Trip said, "It sounds like an old episode of the Twilight Zone."
(Of course, that doesn't make it a continuity problem; Trip could've seen reruns of the show when he was a kid, right up until 12 years ago. If Trip is around the same age as Connor Trinneer, than he could've been as old as 21 when he last saw it.)
Luigi, that would be 112 years ago, not 12 years ago.
Well, what exactly did say about the death of TV- did he say it died out completely? Or did he say it ceased to be a form of mass entertainment?
Eh. Again, it's a TNG season 1 reference. The same season one that said, "Oh look how perfect we are. We don't get headaches! We don't get sick!"
The Neutral Zone(TNG), to be specific.
Luigi:
Regarding your post of a couple of days ago (noting the proliferation of pine tree imagery in SF films); in Back to the Future, not only is the mall from which Marty departs called the Twin Pines Mall...did you ever notice that when he returns to 1985, having run over a pine sapling in 1955, it's now called the Lone Pine Mall? It may be an obvious thing to everybody here, but I'm often surprised at how many people never noticed that nifty little touch (granted, it's not mentioned in the film; you have to look for it).
He mentioned that
A gag that was revisited in BTTF3 when Clayton Ravine became Eastwood Ravine.
ScottN: Luigi, that would be 112 years ago, not 12 years ago.
Luigi Novi: Oh yeah. Thanks, Scott. (I hate it when I get my centuries mixed up!)
Sparrow47: Well, what exactly did say about the death of TV- did he say it died out completely? Or did he say it ceased to be a form of mass entertainment?
Luigi Novi: Data told Sonny Clemonds that television "did not last much" beyond the year 2040.
Data told Sonny Clemonds that television "did not last much" beyond the year 2040.Luigi Novi
Well, I guess my point in asking is that it's possible that there's a "TV cult" still existing that likes to watch even though it's not uber-popular anymore. But that's a stretch.
We still read Sharkperian (sp?) plays and books, and even ones from Ancient Greese so it's certainly possible copies of popular TV shows still exist in the 22nd or even 24th centry in electronic format
I knew about slash fiction writers writing about a gay Spock, but they aren't to be taken seriously, and they probably didn't write much about any other Vulcans. I wondered if it's plausible gay male Vulcans might not have pon far at all.
About TV not lasting much beyond 2040. Then what would they do for the mass distribution of video documentaries, entertainment and recreations of famous plays?
Maybe what Data meant was that what we think of, the commercial networks with their sitcoms, commercials, celebrities hawking their wares, silly network programmers and Nielsen ratings, were all replaced by a different system, with a future version of cable TV. Over-the-air broadcast of TV like we had before cable, wasn't done any more.
Thanks, Luigi, for answering my question--I haven't read the New Frontier series.
Some TV episodes with flashbacks have the entire cast playing dual roles. It might have been nice to have the entire cast here playing various roles in the flashback scenes. I didn't see any blacks or Asians in town, did you?
I thought Bakula and Trinneer could have played Mestral and Stron. But would that have been too:
silly, funny, distracting, annoying, or other?
"Say when!"
"When!"
I think TPTB made some mistakes with the nuclear explosion shown on TV in the bar. The footage came probably from the wellknown Grable test but that occured already in 1953 and at the Nevade test site. The Trinity test in 1945 was IIRC the only one fired at the later White Sands Missile Range.
Forgot something:
Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4th 1957, beeped for 21 days and went down on January 4th 1958. When the Vulcan ship crashed Sputnik was still "alive". I think too that the Vulcans had a surveillance satellit somewhere in the system positioned and warped in some days after the launch.
A number of years ago, I read a Star Trek novel called Strangers From the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonnano. The framing story takings place after the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but before The Wrath of Khan, while Kirk is an Admiral posted at Star Fleet Command. Kirk begins reading book (called "Strangers from the Sky") which details the previously unrecorded first contact between humans and Vulcans. In 2048, before humans had any extraterrestrial contact, a Vulcan survey craft craft crashed near a remote research station in the South Pacific. As Kirk reads on, the book awakens a repressed memory about his own participation in those events.
The plot of Carbon Creek reminded me of Strangers from the Sky. For the most part, I enjoyed this episode, but I did catch some of the things which have been mentioned above. However, the framing device - T'Pol's story - does explain some of them. First, I initially reacted to the fact that, as the survey craft was going down, all the Vulcans were speaking English, and using the metric system as well. Enterprise has done pretty well with language up to this point, but subtitles might have been appropriate (or at least throwing in a Vulcan unit of measure).
Again, this might be chalked up to part of T'Pol's story, except the Vulcans have no problem speaking English once they get to Carbon Creek.
It also occurred to me that the 1950's-era townspeople have no suspicion of three vaguely oriental-looking people who wander into town with no visible means of support. Even Mestral comments later how welcoming they have been. I appreciated the writers avoiding the cliche of "villagers with pitchforks attacking anything they don't understand", but their complete openness seemed to go a bit too far the other way.
There has been some question about how much humans know about Vulcan mating practices. It appears that Vulcans do share the fact that they mate once every seven years (Droxine knew this much in the TOS episode The Cloud Minders), but they don't talk about ponn far. In telling the story, T'Pol conveniently omitted any discussion between T'Mir and Mestral about the problems with his staying on Earth. Furthermore, it may not be a "life or death" issue. In Amok Time, when Spock thinks that he won't be able to return to Vulcan, he starts turning on the charm with Christine Chapel. Who knows? Mestral might have lied to T'Mir and planned to stay with Maggie all along.
This said, what about the rescue party? They were carrying sensors. Didn't they pick up the extra Vulcan bio-sign in the area?
i{So at the end of the series we'll see an elderly T'Pol telling her grandson Spock all about her adventures on the NX-01 Enterprise? } -- KAM
And the Barkley says, "Computer, end program." and they all disappear to show the yellow grid lines. Then Kirk wakes up in a cold sweat and says to the woman next to him, "Whoa, what a dream." Then we here a woman voice saying, "TJ! TJ! Earth to TJ."
Somebody, why would being gay affect pon farr at all? The same basic situation would exist to create it, repression of emotions & an overwhelming urge to mate. The fact that they might be attracted to their own sex wouldn't change that.
BTW as the discussion of gay Vulcans is a little off-topic for this board, we should probably take it to the Vulcans board under Races in the Classic Trek Sink.
Assuming that there is much more on the subject to be discussed, of course.
Blue, and then we see William Shatner as his Barbary Coast character and Cash Conover is asking him about his head injury.
Chris Booton, it's Shakespearian, not Sharkperian, and Greece, not Greese or even Grease unless you were talking about an ancient John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John film.
Ancient? That movie only came out 24 years ago?
24 years? That is soooooo last century.
Mestral and Pon Farr? A Voyager episode indicated that Vulcans can meditate until the time passes. Although it's surprising that the Vulcan Science Academy never came up with a chemical suppression method. (Spock thought it would not happen to a half-Vulcan and so didn't take his pill or learn the proper meditation techniques.)
But I think Mestral did undergo Pon Farr and did father a son. He named him Zephram . . . :-)
I don't think anyone mentionned this yet: When the Vulcans started losing altitude, the captain said "If we get any lower, we'll be detected" (or something along those lines). Now, I'm not American or old enough to remember anything before the early 80's, but after WWII, wasn't the US a little paranoid about the Russian threat of nuclear attack? Didn't they have most of the country under radar watch? How did the ship's crash avoid military detection?
When was that whole era of McCarthyism again? Wouldn't three strangers in a small town with no real answers to any questions raise suspicions about potential spies?
Also...about T'Mir not using any precious metals from the ship...the Vulcans don't have replicators yet...so it's likely that precious metals are still precious metals (as in rare)...even to them.
The guy that Mestral played pool against must've been loaded for them to buy all those groceries with the winnings. Even in the fifties that looked like a couple of dollars worth or groceries. That would be a lot of games for a quarter a win.
"I didn't see any blacks or Asians in town, did you?"
I remember seeing a black man wearing a suit walking down the road.
"But I think Mestral did undergo Pon Farr and did father a son. He named him Zephram . . . :-)"
I kept expecting them to say Maggie's last name was Greyson
Electron's quoting the "Say when..." "When." business reminds me that Archer didn't seem to stop pouring for a while after T'Pol told him to stop. What was that all about?
When was that whole era of McCarthyism again? Wouldn't three strangers in a small town with no real answers to any questions raise suspicions about potential spies?ClaytonRumley
Well, rumors, probably, but I doubt that they would have ever amounted to much. I mean, the Vulcans never really did much of anything suspicious, and as long as everyone realized that the strategic value of spies in Carbon Creek would be pretty much nil.
The guy that Mestral played pool against must've been loaded for them to buy all those groceries with the winnings. Even in the fifties that looked like a couple of dollars worth or groceries. That would be a lot of games for a quarter a win.ClaytonRumley
I thought I remembered them playing for a quarter a ball... but I could be mistaken.
Oh, here's one I didn't come on to for a while, but once I realized it, I thought, "D'oh!": If T'Mir was using advanced technology to repair Mrs. What's-Her-Name's sink, why did it keep breaking?
I think TPTB made some mistakes with the nuclear explosion shown on TV in the bar. The footage came probably from the wellknown Grable test but that occured already in 1953 and at the Nevade test site. The Trinity test in 1945 was IIRC the only one fired at the later White Sands Missile Range.Electron
I've been trying to research this but I can't get any definitive answers... although I do know that the White Sands Missile Range was established in 1945, thus the word "later" would not apply. (nit, nit, nit)
And it ended with a variation on the "it was all a dream" anti-nit by having T'Pol do
her "it was all a story" bit.
Except for the scene at the end in T'Pol's quarters with the purse.
Continuation...
Except for the scene at the end in T'Pol's quarters with the purse.
A purse which seemed remarkable well preserved (no fading, etc...) for a 200 year old off-the-shelf purse.
"If T'Mir was using advanced technology to repair Mrs. What's-Her-Name's sink, why did it keep breaking?"
The other male Vulcan answered this. She wanted him to keep comming to her house, so she arranged for it to keep breaking
TrekGrrl commented to me that Archer kept refilling T'Pol's glass, even though she only wanted a small amount of wine.
And T'Pol gave him a dirty look at least once while he was doing it
That's why T'Pol told the story. It kep Archer entertained and away from her wine glass. Just because you are (supposedly) logical and emotionless does not mean you can't be devious.
Although she seemed to have some emotional reactions (starting to leave when they questioned the truth of the story). Of course, those could be feigned to make those emotional humans happy.
Since Mir crashed a while ago, maybe they should have named her "T'Iss" or "T'Alpha"
Sparrow47, according to the official site the WSMR got this name in 1958.
Well, there’s always the captain who died in the crash…
David Sluss, in his review of the episode at http://www.cynicscorner.org/ent_2/ent_202.html, didn’t think it a good idea to have only five days worth of emergency rations in their ship, even given Vulcans’ tendency to fast.
But when the Jackson family came into town, it freaked EVERYONE out
David Sluss found it odd that in a Pennsylvania mining town in 1957, no one seemed to think it unusual or improper for a woman to be living in a house/apartment with two "business acquaintances." I personally thought that when first introducing themselves, T’Mir should’ve said that they were brothers and sister, which would make it more possible to come up with an genetic explanation if someone discovered their ears.
Shades of Chinese rice pickers
Tim Lynch, in his review of the epiosde at http://enterprise.psiphi.org/frames/episodes/s2/127/review.html, noticed that while Mestral wears a knit cap to cover his pointed ears, T’Mir and Stron simply cover their ears with their hair. Given that they’re in Pennsylvania in autumn and winter for three months, Tim argued, a good strong wind would expose them to everyone.
Err….someone knocked it out of my hands and right out of the ball park, T’Mir…
Tim Lynch, noticing how inexperienced Mestral is in lying, pointed out that he might’ve been found out even if T’Mir did not witness him leaving with Maggie, because he tells her that he’s going to the ship to get a waveform discriminator, but obviously doesn’t have one when he comes back.
Velcro. The Vulcan equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Although I already mentioned the timeline oddities in T’Mir inventing Velcro, I didn’t have a specific date for the patent. David Sluss mentioned that it was patented in 1955, two years too earlier for T’Mir to do so. Of course, something else occurs to me that didn’t before: Although the episode seems to depict Velcro originating from T’Mir’s pouch, the fact that George de Mestral did so earlier doesn’t mean this has to be a nit: It may simply mean that the business who bought T’Mir’s pouch, not familiar with Velcro, or the fact that it had already been patented, may simply have paid T’Mir for the pouch, but not been able to claim credit for it or benefit from it. Does anyone know if Velcro was a household name in ’57? Is it possible that guy (and T’Mir, for that matter) simply didn’t know it had already been invented, and that therefore, he paid T’Mir for it unwittingly?
Sparrow47, according to the official site the WSMR got this name in 1958.Electron
Uh... where on the site did you find that info? I haven't been able to find any historical information at all!
Oh, here's one I didn't come on to for a while, but once I realized it, I thought, "D'oh!": If T'Mir was using advanced technology to repair Mrs. What's-Her-Name's sink, why did it keep breaking?
Because she kept doing stuff on purpose to make it need repair. Maybe she has her own toolkit to do stuff to the pipes. (That makes her just a bit *too* odd, but oh, well. As long as it's a valid explanation. )
Strange how the kid never sneaks a peek and catches him using his advanced tech.
ScottN wondered why the purse was so well-preserved? Because those terribly efficient Vulcans have really good synthetic materials that withstand the test of time. That gives an anti-nit--if Vulcans aren't sentimental, why does T'Pol bring the purse along? Because it's still in useable condition.
ScottN wondered why the purse was so well-preserved? Because those terribly efficient Vulcans have really good synthetic materials that withstand the test of time.
Except that it's an Earth purse, circa 1958.
Gee, I hadn't thought of that...
Um, so they coated it with preservative, or something. Don't they do that with furniture? They could do that with fabrics, too. How's that?
Or how about the possibility that T'Pol got it from Mestral or one of his descendants (you'd think in a couple hundred years he'd Pon Far at least once...or given his penchant for sitcoms, Pon Farr during the 70's!) when she visited Carbon Creek. Of course, that means that someone there saved the purse for who knows how long...and who that might be, we could only speculate.
In fact, there's another acronym: WCOS. For those times when we as a collective group launch into flights of fancy discussing a nit, alledged or otherwise.
Tonight on "That 70s Show! A Visiting Vulcan undergoes Pon Farr with Donna!"
Sparrow47, yes, it's hidden deeply (and even now I had difficulties to find it again): "Visitors" - "Introduction" - "Intro. Brochure". Somewhere in the 5+ MB PDF is a chapter on the WSMR history.
Richie, this board is up to 142k.