Funny how it was usually Sulu left in charge if Scotty was part of the away party.
How many times though where Uhura was still on the ship?
I feel like she beamed down more often than Sulu.
Yes, that’s it. Do you know which book that was from? I flipped through my copy of Whitfield’s book very briefly but didn’t see it. My copy of Gerrold’s book got lent out and never returned about 30 years ago.
Must have been Gerrold’s, as I did not read the other but I recognized “…but comely”
As did Nimoy, alas.
Yeah, yeah, I’m almost finished.
It is from one of Gerrold’s. Whether his first or his second, I don’t recall.
There was another funny Uhura moment that came while they were filming “The Squire of Gothos.” William Campbell as Treylane inadvertently referred to her as a “Nubian slave” instead of a “Nubian maid.” To which Nichelle replied “I’ll kick you in the ankle!”
No disrespect to Nichelle, but I’ve never bought the “She’s fourth in the chain of command” line, even if it did come from Dorothy Fontana. It makes no sense to have a junior Communications Officer take command of the ship when there’s an experienced helmsman and senior TO/WO (Sulu) already on the bridge.
Beverly Crusher taking command in TNG made even less sense, but then so did a great many other things that time around.
Alexa would replace Uhura. 
Alexa, open hailing frequencies.
But Uhura brings more personality to the job.
I loved it when she said “If I have to open hailing frequencies one more time, I’m going to blow up this goddamned panel!”
Considering how often they blew up, that’s not much of a threat.
Yeah I never got that either. If she was 4th in line they should have written in some connection to Spock and the science station. It’s not like they spent money on props. They had Spock calculating stuff with an E6B aviation slide rule.
I always wondered why they didn’t exploit her looks. She was quite the heartthrob for young boys and they clearly decided to add eye candy to the versions that followed.
Her blackness was quite a big obstacle in those days. Easy to forget just how far we’ve come. Roddenberry had quite a struggle getting the studios to even accept a black person in a role as large as that. Despite the fact her role was actually very circumscribed.
That’s very possible but she would have trended high in any focus group. As I recall there were a lot of camera shots of her looking UP when was sitting at her station on the Enterprise.
They knew she was hot.
George Takei on Twitter said, “For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend.”
Anybody who doubts this should watch “Mirror, Mirror.” Either Takei was genuinely aroused or he’s an even better actor than I thought.
Decent chance you are underselling his acting. He is gay.
In the episode where she’s working on the communications system (“Who Mourns for Adonais,” I think), there’s a brief moment (Unless it’s been edited out in the remastered version) when she looks straight into the camera after Spock tells her no one’s better for the job.
What happened next should have gone into the blooper reel: She said “He loves me!” and started singing. Nimoy reacted by saying “Carry on, Lieutenant.”
[VOICE OF ZERO MOSTEL]: No kidding.
All Bridge Officers are capable of command. It’s necessary.
60s were still quite misogynistic. All females on the show are called “girl,” and are often portrayed as quite helpless. Nurse Chapel gets to babysit any kids on the show.
And the position/rank of “yeoman” is always ASSUMED to be a woman, generally one assigned to a messy male officer, to clean up his cabin, bring him refreshments, and be otherwise subservient.
We’ve come a long way, Baby!
~VOW
She was certainly more necessary than Troi. I’d never buy Deanna in command.