No, they are not the same. There is nothing in the Chekov situation that needs to be retconned. There is nothing in the Star Trek series prior to The Wrath of Khan that implies that Chekov was not on the Enterprise when Khan was there during “Space Seed.” And in the dialogue between Khan and Chekov, it is explicitly established that they recognized each other. Period. Nothing to explain. Wrath of Khan establishes that Chekov was there. There’s nothing in any of the shows up to that point that contradicts that. No discontinuity. No retconning required, because no continuity was ever broken.
It doesn’t matter that Walter Koenig wasn’t in the cast during “Space Seed.” It doesn’t matter that Chekov doesn’t appear on screen until Season 2. There is nothing within the confines of the show that says that Chekov was not somewhere there for Khan to encounter him.
There is something to be explained, perhaps, in Star Wars, because we are shown a budding love triangle among Han-Leia-Luke, and we are shown a kiss between Luke and Leia, and some on-screen lusting after Leia by Luke. Then we are explicitly shown that Darth Vader is the father of Luke and Leia. That creates the situation. It’s creepy because the movie shows explicitly that they are siblings and shows explicitly some romantic connection between them.
The two aren’t remotely comparable. Fiction is informed only by what appears within the four corners of the story, not by external knowledge of casting.
If you’re 100% satisfied with the “Chekov was on board the *Enterprise *at the same time Khan was, we just didn’t see him until the start of the second season” explanation, fine, so be it. I’ll not debate the issue.
To my mind, however, it’s just lame fanwanking to cover up lazy scriptwriting. The **real **reason Chekov was in that landing party was so we could see him be tortured and hear him scream once again.
It’s not a matter of “being satisfied.” It’s that there’s nothing in the text of the story that is contradictory.
Imagine you could read the mind of the scriptwriter, and know for sure whether (1) they knew that Walter Koenig was not in the cast during “Space Seed,” (2) they did not bother to find out whether Walter Koenig was not in the cast during “Space Seed.”
Either way, it makes no difference, because the text of the story itself—which is all that exists in a fictional world—doesn’t say one way or the other, until the scene in “Wrath of Khan” where Chekov and Khan recognize each other. That’s it, the fictional fact is established, and there’s nothing in the preceding text that contradicts it. So there’s nothing to explain.
No “fanwanking” is needed, because there was never anything in the show that required this to be explained.
You tell me. What, in the text of the show itself, creates discontinuity or any contradiction with “Wrath of Khan”?
As I said, if there was some dialogue in Season 2 that established that Chekov was new to the crew, that’s a different story, but there isn’t. So where is this information coming from in the show that you think is contradicted by “Wrath of Khan”?
You could say something like that about anything in any script. It is irrelevant to any claim of discontinuity.
I don’t see what the problem is; there was no “Welcome Aboard, Chekov” episode that was set after Space Seed. Similarly, George Takei missed a number of episodes in the second season because he was off filming The Green Berets, but I’m not aware of any in-universe mention that Sulu was not aboard the Enterprise during those episodes, so there’s no reason to assume the character was absent from the ship just because the actor was absent from the show.
If you don’t want to debate, then you won’t post a reply. That won’t stop me from making my argument. This is a public discussion and there are other people reading it and responding to it. What you decide to do about it isn’t the end-all and be-all of the conversation
The fact is that your stance on this issue represents a false reading of a fictional text, so if you keep posting on this position, it’s legitimate for me to contradict you.
That’s not to say I won’t get bored at some point, but your declaring an intent not to debate doesn’t affect my decision on whether to post or not.
Not all Sikhs in the real world today keep uncut/unshaven beards, especially after 1984. And who knows what changes in Sikh culture have taken place in the fictional world of Star Trek, in which there was a Eugenics War in the 1990s.
You still need some explanation for why Reliant would beam two people down to check the planet out. When Kirk exiles Kahn to Ceti Alpha V in Space Seed, he says something about it being untamed but able to support life. If that were still the case, Reliant (looking for a lifeless planet to test Genesis) would have performed a scan from orbit, seen lots of plants and animals, and proceeded to whatever their next candidate was. That Ceti Alpha VI exploded explains why Chekov didn’t remember, and why the planet was so nearly lifeless that they beamed down to see for themselves.
Wasn’t she also the one insisting that the tales of him being “hunchback” (having scoliosis, really) were just his enemies slander and was really, really upset when it turned out that yes, he did have scoliosis?
I take the point of Ceti Alpha VI exploding to be that Chekov does in fact remember, but that he thinks they are on a different planet than they are. As soon as he hears “Ceti Alpha V,” he seems to realize what happened.
So all of that would still work if they think they’re looking at Ceti Alpha IV.
I just also think that they could have done it with exploding a planet at all. Since Chekov wasn’t in Space Seed, he’s the one crew member unlikely to remember. There are plenty of ways to make CA5 lifeless without exploding a planet and somehow moving the orbit of all the rest.
And I thought it was spelled “Ceti Alpha V,” but I deferred to everyone else.
Google search says Koenig’s first episode of Star Trek was Amok Time or Catspaw, depending on if you’re looking at film date or air date.
If someone feels like researching stardates for those episodes, maybe we can nail down once and for all if they were concurrent with Space Seed and that Chekov was on the Enterprise. (Yes, I know the stardates meant little on TOS, but at least we can get some sort of idea.)
My head canon is the info go buggered up when Memory Alpha bit it. Kirk DID pass the info up the ladder but it got lost or rerouted or whatever…but Kirk DID do the paperwork.
Maybe Ceti Alpha 4 (or whatever ) didnt blow up?? Maybe Section 31 blew it up as part of some byzantine plan.
