If anyone was fourth in command, it was Sulu. There was at least one episode where Kirk and Spock were offship and Sulu, at the conn, asked Scott if he’d like to assume command, but Scott preferred to stay in Engineering and let Sulu carry on.
I recall an issue of the DC Star Trek series (set around the time of the third film) where Kirk turns the conn over to Uhura, who takes it while muttering “Better late than never.”
Sulu was both Helmsman and Weapons Officer. In addition, we were told he was “an experienced combat officer.” Of course he’s going to be fourth in command instead of some junior communications officer.
Since childhood she had been interested in communications and was already a highly proficient communications professional at eighteen years of age when her sense of adventure led her into the Space Service. … Uhura is torn between the idea of someday becoming a wife and mother, and a desire to remain in the service as a career officer.
One would hope that by the time of the movies (or even TAS) she had risen higher, but in ***TOS ***she was definitely junior to Sulu.
Isn’t that the episode where he asks Riley if he’d like to join him for a “workout session” in the ship’s gym? (All hot and sweaty, no doubt.) :dubious:
I don’t have a cite, I’ll concede I’m wrong as I also don’t care that much.
Oddly she started as bridge crew and Sulu as a Science, I believe maybe botany. In one of the earliest episodes he had active plant that detected the salt monster. Possible botany/gardening was just a hobby, but he wasn’t on the bridge the first few episodes was he?
Even though The Orville has far greater latitude by virtue of being broadcast fifty years later, I doubt it can match this line for adult-level wit and even if it tried, somebody would freak out and call it racist.
Believe it or not, I don’t think I ever caught the significance of “fair” until just now. I always assumed she was being modest about her beauty, not commenting on her color. :smack:
Of course, the line is delivered so smoothly and quickly, I don’t think I even apprehended it until the third or fourth time I saw that episode. (Actually, I first learned what she was saying when I read Blish’s adaptation of “The Naked Time.”)
I’m pretty sure I also read material citing the line long before I actually noticed it during a broadcast, but to me the smoothness/quickness makes it even funnier - its not some big windup/punchline/pause-for-audience-laugh moment, just a bit of dry (seemingly) off-the-cuff adult humour, which we don’t get nearly enough of, these days.
On reflection, I suppose it was meant to be funny when the gelatinous character says Charlize Theron’s character is the first attractive white woman he’s ever seen. I think it would have been funnier still if he was indifferent to Theron because he specifically likes black women, though it still makes little sense that he (if “he” as a pronoun even applies) would find any human sexually attractive.