Let’s say you’re a junior bridge officer on the starship Enterprise. Happily your tunic is gold, not red, and you don’t go on landing parties. You’re the guy or gal who takes over for Chekov when Chekov takes over for Spock. What episode’s events cause you, at the end of your shift, to grab a pad, scribble out a resignation letter, and ask the captain to let you off at the first starbase?
(Feel free to to change the setting from the original series to Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Stargate, or Babylon 5, as needed.)
For me it’s the TOS episode “Who Mourns for Adonais.” I could handle Klingon invasions, Romulan duplicity, even tribbles. But a giant energy hand appearing out of nowhere, grabbing the saucer section, and holding the ship immobile? Screw that. That’s the point whenthe galaxy has revealed itself as too weird for me. If I have to take a job as a busboy at Ben Sisko’s grandfather’s bistro, I’m still quitting.
“By Any Other Name.” Aliens hijack the ship and turn everyone but the stars into blocks of Styrofoam. Sorry, I don’t care that I was eventually turned back. Screw you guys, I’m going home.
There’s several references to money in TOS. Kirk at least once tells Scotty that he’s earned his pay for the month, and obviously the likes of Cyrano Jones & Harry Mudd were not running scams for yuks.
Yeah, but I’m looking for actual episodes, such as Loach mentioned.
I wouldn’t last long on the bridge crew because I’d get involuntarily transferred (in lieu of court-martial) for making lewd and suggestive remarks to Lt. Uhura and Yeoman Rand.
Look besides TOS, the movies, cameos in later series, all the convention work and I get to make an album with Ben Folds. I am going to ride this puppy til I die.
In the ST:TNG episode *Q Who? *when Q gets miffed, throws the Enterprise halfway across the universe where they meet the Borg for the first time. Picard gets his ass kicked and begs Q to save the ship.
A great moment of personal development for the Captain, but if I’m the ship’s librarian or something, I’m out of there as fast as I can get to a shuttle bay.
I was going to say that that’s not how I remember it, but then I realized I don’t actually remember what happened to make everybody go nuts–just that even the seven-year-old me was unimpressed by their environmental protection suits.
The episode where the monster killed people by sucking the salt out of them would have probably done it for me. I mean, screw that, I want off this tub. Or that really weird episode where hippies hijacked the Enterprise and flew it to what they thought was a paradise planet only to discover that everything on the planet was poisonous or acidic. Good grief, hippies took over the Enterprise?? You clowns are on your own!
-Loup Garou
Your argument hasn’t got a leg to stand on because, well, I just ate it.
Or worse, transfer to a ship that the Borg slices apart.
In TOS - never. Did any member of the bridge crew without a red shirt ever buy it? I can’t recall one. (Besides Gary Lockwood, that is, and that’s different.) They guy who bought it in Balance of Terror worked in the phaser room.
TNG: right away. Picard is a real pussy, and I’d get tired of being changed into a hamster from time to time. And my promotion possibilities are limited, not being a Klingon, blind, or an android. And Riker is clearly never going to leave.
If I were SECURITY, I’d retire after Day of the Dove.
As Command? I’m there for the long haul. A bit of excitement never hurt anybody, and my chances of death or injury are only slightly higher than those of somebody planetside. Not that I’d actually be involved with most of the excitement since almost all of that takes place during the Captain’s shift, and I’d be on downtime and thus wouldn’t notice anything that wasn’t threatening to knock the ship out of the sky.
