[net.startrek] Episodic commentary and Cloaking device

wix@bergil.DEC (Jack Wickwire) (07/16/84)

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"City on the Edge of Forever"
 
Scott W. Collins asks why, if McCoy's action in the past wiped
out the future that had produced the *Enterprise*, the landing
party from the *Enterprise* did not also disappear.  I've never
found any clue in the episode itself to explain this.  However,
in the copy of the final shooting script that I obtained from
Lincoln Enterprises when I was young and foolish, the Guardian
remarks, "Your vessel, your beginning, all that you knew is
gone.  You exist only because you are in my shadow of no time."
Sounds good, huh?  Wonder why they cut the line?
 
Cloakng Devices Again
 
Just when you thought it was safe to read net.startrek, I
went to see "The Search for Spock" again.  It's damned
peculiar, as somebody would say, to see the movie having
read net.startrek for months.  Small matters that have
been discussed take on an unnatural emphasis and the
whole movie feels lopsided.
 
In any case, I noticed something I hadn't noticed before,
and that I don't believe anybody mentioned in the discussion
of why only Kirk could see the distortion in space produced
by the Klingons' cloaking device.  The Genesis planet is
already on the main viewing screen.  Chekov says, "Short range
scan, sir", and Kirk says, "Put it on visual."  The screen
wavers a bit, and then the distortion is visible.  I don't
know what they normally feed into that viewscreen, but if
it isn't the short-range scan results, perhaps in a muddy
way this explains the anomaly.
 
"What am I, a doctor, or a moon-shuttle conductor?"
--------
PDDB