I can see where the shuttles would be handy for, say, getting scientific observations from a point separate from the Enterprise, or as a base of operations if a team was going to be on a planet’s surface for awhile.
According to a mimeo fanzine ish I just read, the show is basically the creation of a guy named Gene Roddenberry. Supposedly he’s retired from the Air Force, but I have to wonder how much respect for the chain of command he had, because they seem to constantly question it on the show. (And when are we going to meet some of the other officers? There are three daily shifts on the bridge, right? Nothing ever seems to happen except when the same group of characters are there. I guess they don’t want to hire a dozen more actors!)
I did like the shuttlecraft itself – a neat prop. Does it have the same power source as the big ship? And a detail I missed while I was making Jiffy Pop on the stove – did the pilot use a yoke, or a joystick? I wish I could record the program and watch it when I have time to really pay attention. (Right; all I have to do is plunk down thousands of dollars for a videotape console, like they use at the tv station! Man, that would be pretty groovy, though – you could even run the tape fast when they have the commercial break. On the other hand, sometimes it bugs me that the break they have every quarter-hour is only a minute long – hardly enough time to go to the bathroom.)
Anyway – I’ll keep watching the show as long as Lt. Uhura keeps wearing that miniskirt! (Seriously, it’s good to see people of different colors working together on tv. I bet twenty years from now, people will look back and laugh at all the racial strife we used to have.)
I don’t understand why jettisoning the fuel was an emotional decision. Seems to me like Spock exercised logic and took the risk since there was nothing left but death otherwise.
[2005] Seriously. This has bugged me for over 30 some odd years. I blame poor writing. It wasn’t desperation. It was last ditch effort in a doomed situation. [/2005]
I suppose an argument could be made that it would be equally logical to attempt survival on the planet, in the hope of future rescue efforts, as opposed to squashing their only hope of a safe landing.
And yeah, kingpengvin , I guess it makes sense to have a back-up to the transporter. That still doesn’t explain why they were using it in this particular instance, though.
It was a gamble, Spock himself even admits that it would never work after he did it. To risk a safe landing and a chance for later pick up for the minimal chance that someone might see your flare from millions of miles away seems more like a human emotional crapshoot rather than a logical choice. Because it worked did not change the higher odds that it would have failed.
Yeah I think Mr Spock’s “emotional” action of burning the remaining fuel was serioulsly overplayed at the end. The Galileo seven wouldn’t have survived the landing so there weren’t many pleasant outcomes:
Wait til the orbit decays
Burn the fuel in the hope that someone on the Enterprise might see it.
Pray that it was all just a bad dream.
A crewmember mentioned they had seen similar lifeforms on Hansen’s Planet. Did I miss an episode or do they just throw out random references like this?
And my God, that laugh-fest at the conclusion. I hope that’s something that will wear out really fast.
Hey, it is just a TV show… You might as well ask why the captain goes down on the planet whenever there’s something interesting to explore, instead of doing the intelligent thing and stay in the ship, where it’s safer.
Yeah, imagine watching a different show - like say for example, Bewitched - and all of a sudden there were different actors than the ones you were used to… how weird would that be?
Really. The landing party should be some sort of “not here team” or “away group” or something like that that does’t include the captain. If I were in charge I’d make it so.