"Court-Martial"--I don't have a problem with Kirk working as an ensign in space and then teaching as a lieutenant a few years later. Doesn't that seem like one logical career track?

"Space Seed"--This doesn't deflate the nit or anything, but I just found it interesting as sort of a testament to Ricardo Montalban's inability to age. Phil says that Khan looks "about 35." At the time, Montalban was 46 years old.

"Amok Time"--Phil asks if Starfleet wouldn't have some sort of regulation to prevent acquisition of command by assassination. This isn't really assassination--it's a deeply held ceremony that is a tradition of one of the founding members of the Federation. Kirk accepted (naively but willingly). It is indeed strange, but to not have the first officer as captain would be wrong.

"Who Mourns for Adonais?"--Phil wonders why the creators didn't use Scotty's electrical shock incident as an excuse to write in the missing finger. Do you really think that the censors of the '60s would be up for fingers being electrically zapped off on network television?

Moderator? This entire board, IMO, would probably be more appropriate for the Amoke Time board. Mike's first post that starts off the board should remain, but a copy of it should also go to the Amok Time board for context because the subsequent post by me is responding to one of the nits therein.

This post copied here by the moderator so my reply to it makes sense.

Good idea, Luigi. Everyone please take further discussion on this subject (Spock killing Kirk during Ponn Farr) to the Amok Time Board. It is a 2nd season episode.

Phil says that until the movies, the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" is always accompanied by the hand signal. This is not true. In one of the episodes I viewed recently (I THINK it's the one with the female Romulan commander), Spock says the phrase w/o the hand motion.

Under ruminations for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", Phil says it reminded him of Star Wars because there were huge long shots of the Enterprise doing not much at all. I assume this was a typo or editing error, and he meant 2001, which was far more renowned for that sort of thing than Star Wars.

Is this still in print? Amazon.com is still selling it.

Are you sure they aren't linking to places selling used copies? If not, I assume they just still have some in stock, as I believe they're all long out of print.

Here's the link. As of now, there are "more on the way", leading me to believe that this book is back in print. I thought it was taken out of print, as the publisher was running scared.

On page 378 in the "Intergalatic Trek Awards"

In the category "Fastest leap from behind a Transporter Console", Phil lists:

Mr. Scott in STVI
Lt. Kyle in "Mirror, Mirror"
John B. Watson in "That Which Survives"

Phil said, "Scotty was the winner"

With all due respect to The Chief, I believe we have a NEW WINNER:

Mr. Leslie in "The Squire of Gothos" with his
MIRACULOUS leap from behind the Transporter Console to the Command Chair all the way up on the Bridge

Phil's statements from the Plot Oversights section of Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ...

At one point, Spock tells Kirk that Cheron is on course between 403 mark 7 and 403 mark 9. Is this another way to say Cheron is on a course 403 mark 8?

Not necessarily. Cheron just might be on a course 403 mark 8.333... which would make Spock's remark a valid one, since .8333... is a repeating decimal and can't be "exactly" located.

"Charlie X"
Phil states that Charlie melted what he first thought was Spock's black pieces after Spock checkmated him in only two moves, but then realized Charlie melted the white pieces that were his all along.

Actually, there is a vein of logic in this line of reasoning ... why Charlie melted his own pieces ...

There is only ONE sequence of moves on a chessboard that can allow a checknmate in only two moves, and that is Charlie MUST be the white peices and Spock the black pieces. Charlie would have had to have opened with "pawn to king's bishop 4", followed by Spock's move "pawn to king 6"; THEN Charlie would have to make the fatal blunderous move of "pawn to king's knight 4". in which Spock can then move his Queen to king's rook 4 for checkmate, because Charlie has moved BOTH of his protecting pawns out of range.

It's no wonder Charlie melted his own pieces after that poor display of chess!

In case you're wondering, IF Charlie were the black pieces, Spock could have checkmated him after two and one-half moves if Charlie made the same blunderous moves while being black.

(However ... since it has been quite a while since I've viewed this episode, I cannot verify if only two moves were played on the board that was seen being melted by Charlie ... perhaps another nit may be in order if it can be proved that more than two moves were present when Charlie melted the pieces.)

You've also got to remember that this is "three-dimensional chess" that Charlie and Spock are playing, and not the standard game. Although the rules for the game were never established in the show, one would guess that this variation of the game is even more complex and has more intricaces than the standard chess game we know. It is possible that there are more ways to quickly mate in just a few moves.

On the Intergalactic Trek Awards on page 378 of the original Classic Guide, Phil lists the category of "Fastest Leap from Behind a Transporter Control Console." One of the entries is "John B. Watson from 'That Which Survives'."
Three things wrong here. First, there was no character named John B. Watson in TWS, although there was a John B. Watkins.
Second, the character John B. Watkins was not the transporter operator in TWS. That was a crewman named Wyatt.
Third, Wyatt does not leap from behind the transporter console. He falls after Losira kills him, though.

I can't believe no-one's mentioned this from the Intragalactic Trek Awards:

One of the categories is "Humanoid Male With The Best Pick-Up Line"... Phil emphasises the "humanoid" because he claims that "If we let the Horta in on this one, they would easily sweep the category". The Horta is the creature from "The Devil in the Dark", and not only is it female, but never utters a pick-up line. Who was Phil referring to here?

"No Kill I"

I'll have to use that one next time. I gotta admit: It is attention-grabbing, sensitive, and respectful at the same time.

Is the Horta female? I thought they were both? Just because she plays mother to hundreds of rock eggs doesn't automatically mean she's female

Since I haven't seen most of TOS I decided not to get the Classic Guide, but am now having second thoughts because of the movies. If TOS movies are in this guide, is it worth buying just for those?

The movies are in this Guide. I don't know how much the Classic Guide is running these days, but I've read my copy several times and consider it a good investment. Not having seen all of TOS is not necessarily a reason to ignore the first 80% of the book if you have (or might have) any interest in the series at all. I doubt that I would get it for just the movies, though.

Thanks for the input TWS. I'm pretty sure I can get it used on amazon or ebay dirt-cheap, I'm talking a couple bucks, but I would of course have to pay shipping. I do have an interest in TOS, I've seen the well known eps, but at this point I doubt I'll see many more of them.

If you liked the other Guides, you'll probably like this one. I hadn't seen much of TOS when I bought it and it was still a good read.

This is arguably the best of the Guides, actually.

I finally purchased the Classic Guide, thanks to all of the comments I received here, but unfortunately it's preveious owner was a library so it had stamps and stickers all over it.

It took me a single afternoon to read through the episodes I've seen, which is around twenty, and all the movies but I am not dissatisfied. The Guide reminded me of how terrible ST-V was but Phil caught many-a-nit that I missed, as usual.

No nitpicks for the Nitpicker's Guide come to mind at the moment but I'd like to expand on something Phil mentioned on TMP. In the ruminations section he points out some parallels between the movie and TNG and one of them is the new vertical warp core that we see from this point on, aside from ENT. I would like to add that the core on this Enterprise is very similar to the one on Voyager with its skinny shape and swirling colors. Also, since he publised this Guide after his first TNG one, I sorta expected him to mention something about the huge cargo bay and recreation hall we see on the 1701 refit, but I don't doubt it was discussed on the website.

I have no doubt the movies have already been picked to death but a couple more things I noticed from the Guide under ST:TMP:

Phil: Kirk claims that they must risk engaging warp while still in the solar system to intercept V'ger... (If you require a specific example, Scott tells Kirk that they will be "warping out of orbit" [...] in "The Naked Time."
Another example comes at the very end of this movie. After V'ger disappears, and the quick discussion of a proper shake-down, Kirk tells Sulu to go to warp one while still in orbit of Earth.

The Chief: They must have new bulb technology in the 23rd century, because present-day floodlights would dim and then go out.
Those big floodlights do dim and then go out. Sure it's a tad more rapidly than present-day ones but they do not "click off instantly."

Has anybody ever mentioned a possible connection to the race of machines V'ger encounters and the Borg? I would be surprised if that's never come up but perhaps one reason why the Borg have such a tough time assimilating the Federation is because its first biological/technological being was a human. Of course then there would be no reason the Borg wouldn't know of humans until the Hansen's.

Has anybody ever mentioned a possible connection to the race of machines V'ger encounters and the Borg?

Yep. Shatner did, in The Return, cowritten with J&GRS.

Thank you ScottN, any conclusions or hypotheses worth mentioning from there, assuming you've read it that is?

In the Guide Phil writes that he was told Kirk changes firing hands when melting the lock where the doctors and nurses were being held but I watched that scene three times and didn't see it.

Simply that it's a Borg variant. They use it to find the Borg "Homeworld".

"The Doomsday Machine"

In the Syndication Cuts section, Phil writes that the initial landing party has five members: Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Wasburn, and one other. It actually has six members with our three regulars, Washburn, and two gold-shirted crew members.

In the book, Phil comments about how, when Earth history is changed, the Federation disappears. He takes Trek to task for suggesting that Earth played a key role in the creation of the Federation, rather than just joining it when humanity came of age.

Well, I guess I can't fault Phil for that, he wrote this in the early 1990's.

It would not be until Enterprise, a decade later, that it was revealed that Earth DID play a key role in getting the ball rolling in the creation of the Federation. Archer and his crew managed to get the Vulcans and Andorians to stop fighting and make peace (after Archer's actions on Vulcan caused the Syrrantite reforms), they got the Tellarites to join in.

I think it's safe to say that, no Earth, no humans, no Federation.