Enterprise Review – “Carbon Creek”

For those that dare, click Read More for the full review.

Enterprise LogoCarbon
Creek

Cast & Crew

Director: James Contner
Story By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Teleplay By: Chris Black

Starring
Scott Bakula as Captain
Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief
Engineer Charles Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as Sub-commander
T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Lt.
Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery
as Ensign Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi
Sato
John Billingsley
as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast
J. Paul Boehmer as Mestral
Michael Krawic as Stron
Ann Cusack as Maggie
Clay Wilcox as Billy
David Selburg as Vulcan Captain
Ron Marasco as Vulcan Officer
Hank Harris as Jack
Paul Hayes as Businessman

Airdate Information

Originally Aired: Sept. 25, 2002
Season: Two
Episode: Two
Production: 027

Shockwave, Part IIWhat
Happened

T’Pol corrects Archer and Trip’s perception that first contact between humans and vulcans occurred in Boseman, MT. T’Pol tells them the story of T’Mir, her great-grandmother and first officer of a survey mission to Earth in the year 1957, shortly after Sputnik is launched. After suffering engine failure, the ship crash lands in Carbon Creek, PA. The crash leaves the captain dead, but T’Mir, and the two remaining crewmen, Mestral and and Stron, unharmed.

Unable to hail a rescue ship, the Vulcans soon make themselves a part of the Carbon Creek community and find jobs and a home. Stron and T’Mir manage to keep a clinical distance between themselves and the human occupants of the small mining town, but Mestral finds them far too fascinating to be an observer.

After finally contacting a rescue ship (and saving the miners with their advanced technology), T’Mir allows Mestral to stay on Earth, informing her superiors that he died in the crash along with the captain.

Review

Berman and Braga must think Star Trek fans have no memory. This same trick of storytelling was used (and badly so) with Voyager’s fifth season 11:59. Heck it was also set in a run-down town, this time called Portage Creek. This was also spun in the second “giant” Star Trek novel Strangers from the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno.

The episode had its moments, but those were few and far between. Everything else seemed really predictable and implausible. I know you Tuvok-Two-Step fans probably liked this one, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Vulcans acting out of character does not equal instant humor. Stop trying it!

A tip to Mr. Berman and Braga: Leave the show writing to the writers. You guys stick to producing.

High Point

While the backwards dress bit was cute, the high point would have to be the
focus on how Mestral could understand human’s capacity for kindness, despite
our ability for mass destruction. It’s a key principle on which Star Trek is
founded.

Low Point

Could it be the painfully predictable pool match? The forced and poorly acted
kiss? Perhaps the silly velcro bit? You make your own call.

The Scores

Originality: Not a shred. 1

Effects: One of the reasons for episodes like these is to trim the FX budget.
The crash sequence was OK, but not spectacular. 4

Story: Blech. 2

Acting: Not too bad for guest actors, but not that good either. 3

Emotional Response: Boring. I had to fight to keep interested. 2

Production: Period stuff is hard to do. I’ll give credit where due for this
one. 5

Overall: Bah! And we were off to such a good start last week! 2

Total: 19 out of 42

Episode Media

From StarTrek.com

Featured Web Sites

Vulcan’s inventing Velcro®? I
think not!

Completely Useless Trivia

This was actually the first episode filmed for Season Two. My guess is the lack
of the main cast and numerous on-site scenes contributed to the out-of-sequence
filming.

Next Time on Enterprise (Oct. 1, 2002)

Next Time on EnterpriseMinefield

After unwittingly wandering into a minefield in Romulan territory, Enterprise
becomes trapped when struck by an undetonated mine. When Reed takes a space
walk to try to defuse the mine, he inadvertently gets pinned to the outer hull
and Archer must choose between saving Reed or abiding by the Romulans’ orders
to depart immediately. [No video preview available at the time of writing]

29 replies on “Enterprise Review – “Carbon Creek””

  1. My take
    The episode wasn’t so bad. I stayed away from Voyager a lot after season 2, so I don’t really remember being inflicted with the Tuvok Two-Step. I do wonder if they’ll add to the story in the future, considering that Mestral was supposedly wondering around on Earth for more than a century.

    While the backwards dress was kinda cute, you gotta love the way they framed Jolene Blalock behind the sheet with the sunlight making a nice shadow. Oh well, I suppose too many rubdowns in the decontamination chamber would become suspicious. At least they’re getting mildly creative in their sexual tones, ala shirtless Hoshi last week. My most hoped for moment in this series is that T’Pol and Hoshi will have to spend some quality decon time with the body gel. :)

    I know others have brought this up, but I have to ask… Is there no Dept. of Starship Safety to mandate seatbelts or airbags? People flinging about may be more dramatic, but does anyone really believe that 4 people standing unsecured in a vesel doing a high velocity impact with a planet are going to walk away from it? I suppose they could use some sort of Anti-Grav modulation to dampen the impact, much like they way they explain how you can go from 0 to C in 2 seconds without becoming Jello, but if that worked wouldn’t they have all survived?

    I saw the previews for the next episode….. am I mistaken or did I see the Romulans use a cloaking device? If so then Berman & Braga had best hide from all the Trekkers who know the cannon better than they know their own relatives. Romulans didn’t have cloaking devices until well into TOS, on the same episode that they learned the Romulans and Vulcans were likely related, if I’m not mistaken.

  2. Carbon Creek – A Cliche Ran Thru It…
    Yeah, this one pretty much sucked. Shadow tease behind the sheets. Ear tease under the sock cap. Nobody finds the crashed ship after the Vulcans abandon it after only six days to avoid starvation (!?!) Vulcans telling lies right and left…to each other no less, and on matters as critical as leaving a crewmember behind in an alien society!!! No wonder they needed to meditate, with such duplicity in their souls. At least they didn’t go for a “red commie” scare angle. And did anybody besides me notice there was a…cave?

  3. The Vulcans of Carbon Creek County
    Where to begin….Vulcans are suppossed to be green toned…and no one in CC notices for months? T’Mir never wears a hat… and with just a comb-over, no one *ever* notices those ears? Then of course there’s the fact that **they left the Vulcan ship’s wreckage on the Pennsylvania countryside(!!)**

    Another B&B sucky episode from the wonderful creators of Boringer :( . Oh well at least *one* thing made sense- that alien they left on earth certainly explains Bill Gates’ rise to power.

    Everything else sucked :(

  4. But was it true?
    I know, you’d think that T’Pol looking at the handbag in the end makes her story true. But how about this: she bought a seuvonier when she visited Carbon Creek, and make the whole thing up around that. Her Big Secret – she likes collecting junk from places she’s visited, just like the rest of us.

    As for the whole clearing the wreckage – that could’ve been done by a different ship at a later date. Assuming it’s really there.

    The velcro thing IS silly – everyone who’s watched Men In Black nows that. (:

  5. Back to the future…future to the past?
    Let’s see… on Voyager there was a story about Janeway’s relative at the turn of the 21st century. There was a similar story (or was that a time travel story) involving Cisco in DS9. Of course the novel strangers from the sky.

    Now as for Tpal’s gggrandma not covering her ears, well she and one of the other Vulcan crew members just combed their hair back, Vulcan hairdo’s seem to resemble the early Beatle’s, long enough to do the job. Vulcans were never shown with a green tint to their skin (more recently they just look a little pale), though you would think that should be the case. On the few episodes where a Vulcan was injured they DID get the blood color green. IIRC it was done right once on TOS where Spock had been injured, and also on a second episode of TOS his wounds bleed red.

    The velcro thing should have been researched and something else substituted. There were enough other things to nitpick at in this episode, but the idea that the Vulcans had been to earth many times before isn’t too out of place. The Vulcan ships DID look rather primative, guess they made some progress since the 20th century. Raises the question as to just how far from earth Vulcan is supposed to be. Probably less than 100 light years, and more likely less than 50.

    • Re: Back to the future…future to the past?

      Raises the question as to just how far from earth Vulcan is supposed to be. Probably less than 100 light years, and more likely less than 50.

      I think Vulcan is supposed to be around the star Epsilon Eridani which is 12 light years from Earth. This is one of the original stars checked for radio signals in the 1960s during Project Ozma. Interestingly, this is also one of the stars which have been found recently to have a Jupiter sized planet – see http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/08/04/new.planet.reut/index.html

      • Re: Back to the future…future to the past?

        I think Vulcan is supposed to be around the star Epsilon Eridani which is 12 light years from Earth.

        Heh! And I thought I was the only Geek who remembered stuff like that. I think that the Vulcan home planet may have been identified as such in one of the Blish short story adaptations of the series.

        Hey….if anyone here happens to to be the one to discover one of the smaller planets around E Erideni…be *sure* to name it Vulcan OK?

        • Re: Back to the future…future to the past?

          I think Vulcan is supposed to be around the star Epsilon Eridani which is 12 light years from Earth.

          Heh! And I thought I was the only Geek who remembered stuff like that.

          Any self-professed female geek that remembers Epsilon Eridani was identified as Vulcan’s home star in the old Blish adaptations and is impressed/surprised/whatever that I remember it too is a potential penpal as far as I’m concerned. Technogirl, you have a standing invite to strike up a friendship with me at [email protected], hope to hear from you. End of sappy, one-time public show of puppy dog eyes. Back to discussion of the SF we both/all know and love.

          • Re: Back to the future…future to the past?

            Technogirl, you have a standing invite to strike up a friendship with me at [email protected], hope to hear from you.

            TechnoGirl knows all. TechnoGirl sees all.
            But most of all TechnoGirl does not coorespond with 46 year old married men who spam Slashdot. :(
            (TechnoGirl knows *much* more but is nothing if not discreet)

            • Re: Back to the future…future to the past?

              46 year old married men who spam Slashdot. :(

              Hey, age happens, my marriage is a solid happy one, and as far as spamming slashdot goes, that was to get word out about a neat RSS program that I had no personal interest in whatsoever after they wouldn’t post it. I re-signed back on as cyberpnk2 and got my karma right back up to 50 /excellent again, thank you very much. BTW, you wouldn’t happen to know how a rejected story idea of mine from Slashdot a while back made it onto Bureau42, wouldja? ;) And ***wow***, I am impressed – TechnoGirl does appear to know and see all, and under those circumstances discression is a *wonderful* trait to have. Best wishes…

            • Re: Back to the future…future to the past?

              Technogirl, you have a standing invite to strike up a friendship with me at [email protected], hope to hear from you.

              TechnoGirl knows all. TechnoGirl sees all.
              But most of all TechnoGirl does not coorespond with 46 year old married men who spam Slashdot. :(
              (TechnoGirl knows *much* more but is nothing if not discreet)

              Damn, I’m Impressed.

              How About A Dorky 24 Year Old?

              telnet://Keep.QuarteredCircle.Net:2305

        • Re: Back to the future…future to the past?
          Vulcan was a trans-Mercurian (inside the orbit of Mercury)planet “discovered” in the 19th Century. After a few early sightings, it disappeared, never to be seen again. If it existed at all, it was probably a large asteroid or it fell into the Sun…or was carted off to serve as a prop in the Star Trek series. ;-) File with the canals of Mars.

  6. Enterprise Failing
    Enterprise is already having trouble with their ratings. This episode probably didn’t help. It’s not enough that we’re thrown into the Trek past just watching Enterprise, but they’ve gone and taken it one step further by having a story set in our real-world past.

    If they don’t fix their formula and get some good shows on the air I may quit watching it. And I’m a die-hard fan. So far I’ve been bored by Enterprise 30% of the time. If TNG reruns were on at the same time as Enterprise it’s entirely possible that I’d watch the TNG reruns. Or the Discovery Channel!

    I’ll wait until next week to banter more. Romulans have always made for a good episode, let’s hope that remains true.

  7. I agree
    While there were “ok” moments, (at best) I really thought this episode sucked. The teases IMHO are just BS. Trek doesn’t/shouldn’t need sex to sell it, it just proves that their writers are so old and stale that they have to rely on the busty vulcan to improve the ratings.

    I wish they would FIRE the whole lot of writers, ban the owners/producers from writing and hire some writers who’v never done trek before.

    There were too many holes in this story. the green skin the hair over the ears (people just aren’t that dumb and un-observant), the particle weapon scene… lol gimme a break. in the 60’s we had some cool tech and people would have seen a nicely burnt hole in rock and checked it out.

    Plastic surgery wouldn’t have been very advanced back then, so Maggie would’v been asking the vulcan in 1 year or less. “Hey buddy, why do you ALWAYS wear that stocking cap??”

    • Re: I agree

      I wish they would FIRE the whole lot of writers, ban the owners/producers from writing and hire some writers who’v never done trek before.

      Here you’ve reached the heart of the problem. In TOS each show was written by a whole slew of different vibrant scifi writers: Ellison, Blish, Gerrold, Wolfe and though you did certainly get a good deal of sucky episodes you also got wonderfuly imiginitive slightly diferent takes on the star trek universe. By and large you got maybe 3 or four episodes each season that were just utterly memorable. Good writing, good television, good science fiction.

      Then Roddenberry died in the middle of TNG – well first he lapsed in to alcoholism and let the show get taken over by the Brannon and Braga “twins” – then he died – and welcome to the Corp-World of the late 20th century where you *never* f*ck with a “winning” formula.

      The B&B team, joined at the mid-brain, began wirting *all* of Startrek’s scripts because it was cheaper than paying and negotiating with individual writers to do so *plus* they got all the writing cash. Bye-bye new ideas. Bye-bye different takes. Bye-bye creativity. B&B played their Trek formula for all it was worth – *NOTHING EVER CHANGES* is Rile #1 of the B&B formula. They made a mint with it during TNG, bored us to tears with it during the soap-operaish DS9 and finally ground it into the dust with Boringer.

      ‘Ta DA! Now they’re writing Enterprise – wanna guess how much better writers they’ve become while shoveling coke up their noses from the profits of the other three??

      Trek ceased becomming a brave and exciting new UNiverse full of humane and (more importantly – germane!) ideas by the end of TNG – now it’s a f*cking franchise! Really – that’s what they call it – they Star Trek franchise. Ugggh!

      Trek will never ever ever get back to the brave new world of ideas and future hope and poiniency that it once (briefly) was as long as two freaking people, people who are ***more interested in not f*cking with the money-making formula than putting out some good writing***, are in total control of the storyline. Never. Unless you put a Roddenberry or a Stravinsky in charge of the storyline – someone with actual *vision* then my prediction is – and I WISH I was wrong – is that Enterprise will suck as much dick as Boringer did. I give it one more season maybe at best.

      Parting thought – On the first season of Boringer I remember this episode where Felix The Cook (sic) had brought some piece of infected piece of food into the ship and it was screwing up the ships bio-computer nodes. SO you have these three main characters standing around this piece of cheese in a bell jar looking all serious and concerned-like and then the Doctor says, “We’ve got to get this cheese to sick-bay right away!” THAT’S the moment I KNEW that Star-Trek had been well and truly Fucked!

      • Then Came Seven Of Nine

        …the Doctor says, “We’ve got to get this cheese to sick-bay right away!” THAT’S the moment I KNEW that Star-Trek had been well and truly Fucked!

        Then came the Babe of Borg, which B&B hoped would get the rest of the fans into the mentality of f*cking Star Trek along with them…a tradition that lives on in T’Pol’s catsuit today. I was so embarrassed when Hoshi lost her shirt last week…a cultural icon like ST reduced to mere sex drivel. Phasers on kill to put this angle out of commission before it does irreparable damage to something that still (tho less and less) matters….

        • Re: Then Came Seven Of Nine

          …the Doctor says, “We’ve got to get this cheese to sick-bay right away!” THAT’S the moment I KNEW that Star-Trek had been well and truly Fucked!

          Then came the Babe of Borg, which B&B hoped would get the rest of the fans into the mentality of f*cking Star Trek along with them…a tradition that lives on in T’Pol’s catsuit today. I was so embarrassed when Hoshi lost her shirt last week…a cultural icon like ST reduced to mere sex drivel. Phasers on kill to put this angle out of commission before it does irreparable damage to something that still (tho less and less) matters….

          I hate to burst your bubble but sex, blatant or implied has always been a part of Star Trek. I suppose most people who whistfully long for TOS have forgotten about the Orion Animal Girls, Kirk’s blue babe o’ the week, the short-short skirts on all the female crew, etc.

          Many of the female costumes on TOS were downright risque for their time period.

          T’Pol’s Vulcan breast implants and Hoshi’s topless bit may be a little more blatant, but not utterly out of Trek’s character.

          • Re: Then Came Seven Of Nine
            //snipped quotes

            True. But in TOS, the sex was a statement to a time when high school girls had to kneel before the principal to prove that their skirts weren’t too short. It was controversy for the audaciousness of it; the daring display. It was something different.

            The sex being used in Enterprise is modern pre-pubescent T&A teasing. It’s done for the perceived ratings boost from some marketdroid’s file of statistics, not to make any particular statement or provide something different.

  8. “Carbon Creek,” the keystone of Star Trek
    The episode “Carbon Creek” had problems, sure. That doesn’t stop it from being the greatest episode ever. Here’s why.

    What do you suppose was the look on the face of T’Mir when she turned on the TV in 1966, flipped to NBC, and saw one of her own kind starting back at her from the TV? You might say, she must have turned green. Nope, she was just glad that her friend had finally made it big.

    You guys just don’t get it, so I’ll have to spill the beans. This episode is the KEYSTONE of all Trekdom. This episode is the prelude to the important story of how an unemployed screenwriter met a beautiful, wonderfully eccentric woman from Pennsylvania with pointed ears, and went on to create the greatest science fiction tales of all time, eventually leading to friendly interstellar relations between Vulcans and humans.

    T’Mir was chilling in her Pennsylvania crib with a friend late one night sometime in the mid-1960s when the doorbell rang. At the door was a Klingon. The Klingon, as it turned out, was a “terminator.” He had been sent from the future—Kirk’s time—to kill the famous Pennsylvania Vulcan in order to prevent a long chain of events from occurring that would result in the destruction of the Klingon Empire. The Klingon saboteur brought with him a phaser and a portable time machine, stolen from the Ferengi.

    Thinking it was a neighbor who wanted to borrow a cup of sugar, T’Mir opened the door. The Klingon terminator tried to use his phaser to blow her away. Recognizing that the phaser must be some kind of advanced weapon, T’Mir immedidately ducked out of sight, and then quickly used her hand-to-hand fighting skills to subdue and kill the Klingon.

    Fortunately, T’Mir’s friend, an unemployed but talented screenwriter, a human who we’ll just call Gene, had been visiting T’Mir in her home that late evening when the Klingon showed up. Gene was a fun guy to hang around with because he was an artful conversationalist, into sci-fi, and was a superb chess player, just like T’Mir. Gene had the further advantage of not asking her why she always wore her hair long. That night they were just chilling, watching the Twilight Zone. Gene freaked out when he saw the Klingon at the door, and he jumped behind the couch in T’Mir’s living room.

    After T’Mir finished off the Klingon, she decided to check out the weird looking contraption that, unbeknownst to her, was a time machine. She started playing with the dials and levers on the time machine, mumbling words like “fascinating,” and “highly advanced,” but then the thing went off.

    The time machine made a huge whooshing sound, miniature lightning bolts crackled, and colorful gas filled the room, swirling around. The time machine had created a wormhole right behind the couch. Gene got sucked into it. Gene was teleported into the future to the bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D. Back on Earth, the time machine exploded, leaving T’Mir unharmed but not quite knowing what to do.

    On the Enterprise, Gene soon got to know all the bridge crew, including an android, Data, who told him all about the glorious adventures of Admiral James Tiberius Kirk, Ambassador Spock, and the heroic crew of the forerunner of the Enterprise. All during Data’s lectures, which lasted for days, Gene scribbled notes in the steno pad he always kept in his back pocket.

    Meanwhile, trouble was brewing. The Borg were trying to ally with the Romulans, an event that would cause the annihilation of the Federation. As a last-gasp effort to stop the alliance, Captain Picard decided to create a space-time vortex, as proposed to him by Data and Geordi. The vortex would create a huge exposion, taking out a large chunk of the Romulan fleet. Picard hoped that would trick the Romulans into thinking that the Borg had double-crossed them. The Borg-Romulan alliance would be shattered and the Federation would be saved.

    Unfortunately, there were only two ways to do that. The first was to set the Enterprise on self-destruct. All hands would be lost. As for the civilians on board, including spouses, children, and Gene, there were just enough shuttlecraft to get them to safety first.

    The other way to do it was to beam Gene back to where he came from, planet Earth in the mid-1960s. His appearance had created a minor rift in space-time, and by sending him back, the energy of the reverse probability wave could be channelled partially into the Enterprise‘s warp drives, propelling it to safety, and partially into a huge explosion. Sending Gene back was the only way to exploit the rift, reversing the probability flux, and thus generating the energy release. The only problem, as noted by Data, was that the odds were 76,378 to 1 that Gene would not make it through alive.

    The Klingon had scared Gene, but this time Gene was very scared. Either the ship he had come to know and love would be destroyed, or he would himself face almost certain death inside the weird bubble-looking contraption so quickly assembled by Data, Geordi the engineer, and a certain young gearhead Ensign by the name of Crusher. Gene didn’t want to get inside the bubble machine and risk his life. True, he was homsesick, but he also wanted to see the amazing universe that Data had been lecturing him on. Taking a shuttlecraft to safety would allow him to do that.

    Captain Picard gave Gene the choice. He wouldn’t have to go. Picard said, “Gene, if it were possible, to save my ship and my crew, I would send only myself on this venture into the unknown and an almost certain demise, but only you can choose to go. If you will take this risk on my behalf, I shall urge you to go boldly—where no man has gone before.”

    Looking on, Troi was quizzical, and said, “Captain, don’t you mean, ‘Where no one has gone before?'”

    Gene still was frightened. Geordi tilted his head to one side and said in his reassuring way, “Gene, if you go, you will die very paintfully, or, if you survive, it will be like a long trek that takes only a second.”

    Listening to these words, and thinking about his choice in silence for a moment, he became convinced of what he must do. Gene pointed out the window of the ready room to the star-filled void, and said, “No matter what happens, I save lives. And if I make it, won’t I go out there with all the stars all the way back home?”

    “That’s right, Gene,” Geordi said. “It would be a star trek.”

    And so it came to pass. Gene got into the bubble device, and was transported back to Earth by the vortex. As luck would have it, he made it through alive. The plan went perfectly. With a large chunk of their fleet suddenly destroyed, the Romulans believed that the Borg had double-crossed and attacked them. The Federation and the Enterprise were saved.

    Back on Earth in the mid-60s, T’Mir was surprised and secretly overjoyed to hear the whooshing noise again and then see Gene suddenly re-appear in her living room, right behind the couch. It had been two weeks. After Gene told her all about his adventures, including how Vulcans and humans had made a great alliance in the future, T’Mir decided not to mind-meld with him to give him amnesia, though she had planned to do that after he re-appeared. What Gene was not prepared for, though, was to see his old chess buddy lift up her long hair to reveal—pointy ears!

    After Gene realized it had all not been a dream, he cried with joy, and embraced T’Mir. Soon, T’Mir taught him all of the Vulcan customs and culture, including the holding up of the right hand with the split between the third and fourth fingers, while giving the blessing, “Live long and prosper.” She decided not to teach him how to perform the nerve grip, however, a decision that set a precedent for Vulcan and human interactions forever. Humans were not ready for such power.

    Gene was T’Mir’s closest and most trusted friend from then on. So when the first episode of Star Trek was broadcast by NBC, T’Mir was not at all surprised to see an actor playing a Vulcan, rather skillfully, as she noted. She was inwardly thrilled for Gene and his screenwriting career.

    Gene always kept in touch with his old friends, and sometimes with old friends who didn’t even know who he was. Thus it came to pass that one of Kirk’s ancestors received an unexpected gift in 1987—right after Star Trek IV came out—a shiny pair of antique eyeglasses.

    Eventually, Gene died. He had indeed lived long and prospered. A few decades after his passing, the legions of Star Trek fans began to slowly dwindle, until only a small, cult fan base remained. One of those fans was the young, very geeky Jonathan Archer, who prized his TrekDVD collection, always a private pleasure even as he grew into an athletic, outgoing adult. Thus, when it came to pass that humans and Vulcans finally met offically, Jonathan Archer was the right man at the right place at the right time. He already knew who the Vulcans were, and was not scared of them. He decided to form a Vulcan-human pact. Had Archer not done all of the things he eventually did do to improve Vulcan-human relations, the two races would have eventually entered into a war so cataclysmic that the Federation would have died out long before the time of Kirk and Spock. Indeed, that was what the Klingons were banking on when they had sent their terminator to the 1960s to kill the Pennsylvania Vulcan, T’Mir.

    “Carbon Creek” is a great Star Trek episode. Without “Carbon Creek” there would be no star trek, real or imagined.

    P.S. In case you are still wondering, this explains why DS9 and Voyager have that slightly unreal feeling to them. Unlike the rest of Star Trek they were fictional. They never happened. Gene obviously could not have heard about those stories from Data, because they would have been after Data’s time. So no one could have told stories about those times or characters, except by making it up themselves.

    P.P.S. Furthermore, the scene where Kirk dies by falling off a bridge never happened. That supposedly occurred after Gene’s trip to the future, and so Data wouldn’t have known about it. Kirk actually died peacefully at home in Iowa, surrounded by his friends, relatives, and loved ones, at the ripe old age of 147.

    P.P.P.S. I have no information on whether the rumor is true that T’Mir took the human name “Majel.” Some secrets are better left unturned.

    P.P.P.P.S. Live long and prosper.

    • Re: “Carbon Creek,” the keystone of Star Trek
      Did you even WATCH the Carbon Creek episode? It was Mastral, not T’Mir, that stayed on Earth into the 1960s…other than that minor detail, cute tangent…

      • Re: “Carbon Creek,” the keystone of Star Trek

        Did you even WATCH the Carbon Creek episode? It was Mastral, not T’Mir, that stayed on Earth into the 1960s…other than that minor detail, cute tangent…

        Aargh. Caught.

        • Re: “Carbon Creek,” the keystone of Star Trek

          Aargh. Caught.

          T’sk, t’sk…..

          Actually T’sk T’sk was T’Mir’s third foremother on her father’s side as will be brought out in a forthcoming episode entitled, “Those Wacky Vulcans”

    • Re: “Carbon Creek,” the keystone of Star Trek
      Dear GOD, what are you smoking, and where can I avoid it?

  9. (de) Mestral
    Did anybody notice that the actual inventor of Velcro(tm) was a certain Georges de Mestral (Swiss) in 1948?

    Fscodave

  10. Anyone ever notice…

    …when an episode is good, no one cares, but when it sucks, all of B42 goes berzerk commenting on it?

    I’m not complaining mind you. Comment counts into the teens and twenties (for whatever reason), makes me smile.

    • Re: Anyone ever notice… (The Cook’s Lament)

      …when an episode is good, no one cares, but when it sucks, all of B42 goes berzerk commenting on it

      But isn’t that just human nature, A.M? People tend to get off their butts when they get negatively stimulated. When things are just fine and dandy people are content to be nice little couch potatoes and not “take the time” to go through all the trouble of posting….but when something pokes ’em in the eye …they complain about it.

      Been going on thousands of years….it’s how the Romans maintained their empire for so long…with Bread and Circuses. Now days it’s Budweiser and Jerry Springer…same thing though.

      • Credit Where Credit Is Due

        (TechnoGirl knows *much* more but is nothing if not discreet)

        Yo, TG, I haven’t been able to get your recent clarivoyant act out of my mind and as a result have challenged myself to retrace your steps. After much sweating, I think I have succeeded. Kudos to you. Your discreetness is matched by your abilities.

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