Who’s Who in Star Trek: Volume 2

We conclude this bold new era of WHO'S WHO with Volume 2 of WHO'S WHO IN STAR TREK! Rob and fellow Network All-Stars Chris Franklin and Siskoid are joined by Gene Hendricks (THE HAMMER PODCAST) to talk about The Mirror Universe, Harry Mudd, The Organians, Christopher Pike, Saavik, Sarek, Montgomery Scott, Spock, Hikaru Sulu, Tribbles, Nyota Uhura, and more!

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46 responses to “Who’s Who in Star Trek: Volume 2

  1. Another terrific show, gentlemen! A few items from this episode that I thought were worth noting:

    Marla McGivers—Check out the novel, To Reign in Hell by Greg Cox, for a good look at Marla’s fate on Ceti Alpha V.

    Gary Mitchell—Mitchell was the cause of one of the more infamous bits of non-canon, the Star Trek/X-Men crossover.

    M’Ress—To add to your discussion of the animated Star Trek, Filmation’s original concept featured kids that would be counterparts to members of the Enterprise crew. Gene Roddenberry immediately said no to that idea.

    Harry Mudd—According to the IDW comics, Mudd is a woman in the Kelvin Timeline,

    Organians—Star Trek: Enterprise has their second and only canon appearance in a single episode: Season Four’s “Observer Effect”.

    Orions—It’s revealed on ST: Enterprise that the “slave girls” actually run things. The female pheromones make the male population do their bidding.

    Christopher Pike—Chris is correct about “The Cage” first becoming available in 1986. The original pilot would first air in its entirety in 1988 during the TV special, Star Trek: From One Generation to the Next. This special, hosted by Patrick Stewart, was produced to provide something new for viewers during a particularly long Writer’s Strike.

    Mark Piper—Who’s Who did indeed make up a lot of information, particularly character fates for the minor characters. Although Rob won’t be participating, let alone listening, Who’s Who in the Legion did this as well.

    Romulans—The notion of the Preservers taking Vulcans to another planet was taken from the FASA role-playing game. A year after Who’s Who in Star Trek’s publication, Diane Duane and Peter Morwood’s novel, The Romulan Way, put forth the notion of a Vulcan philosophical schism which was eventually adopted as the Romulans’ true origin.

    Gary Seven—Greg Cox has written a few novels that feature the ongoing adventures of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. My favorites tie Khan’s origins to Gary Seven. John Byrne also wrote/drew an Assignment: Earth mini-series for IDW.

    Spock—If I had to peg any source for the claim of T’Pau being Spock’s aunt, it would be A.C. Crispin’s novel, Yesterday’s Son.

    Starships—Ron Frenz didn’t publish the Technical Manual, that was Franz Joseph (who also drew the first official blueprints).

    Uhura—Siskoid is right about the Spock-Uhura “relationship”. Watch “The Man Trap” and “Charlie X” again.

    Appendix—I’m surprised that the rank of Grand Admiral isn’t mentioned. Grand Admiral Stephen Turner (an invention of William Rotsler for Star Trek II Biographies) was the guy issuing Kirk his orders in the first several issues of DC’s comic series.

      1. You gents had been talking about Ron Frenz earlier. It’s easy to make a slip like that. As penance, read the unnecessary IDW adaptation of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn 😉

  2. What’s this nonsense from some dude named “Franklin” griping over Christian Slater’s appearance in ST6?

    Here’s why we needed the officer with a hearing problem over Gillian:
    1. Exposition – someone needs to let Sulu know Starfleet’s checking in on his and Kirk’s possible involvement.
    2. Sulu moment of badass #2: You bet your ass that the captain is going to dress down his subordinate officer, while simultaneously backing his friend and former captain.
    3. Gillian who?: yes, please, let’s go over an already tight budget with a special appearance of a character present only for fan service.
    4. Slater saved the day: Slater’s mom was the casting director. When an actor didn’t show for the role, Mary Jo called up her son. Think about this quandary. Time is money on a set. And when a character doesn’t show, production scrambles to fill that void. She called in a marquee actor for a small part because she knew he could do it. BONUS: He wore Shatner’s jacket from Khan.
    5. Gillian’s involvement stops the story: Does it propel the narrative? Nope. Would add fat to the story.
    6. Christian Slater is awesome. See every movie and TV show in which he’s appeared. Also, he follows me on twitter.

    Maybe Roy Thomas has a song for “Mr Franklin” too.

  3. Omissions: Easy as anything this week: V’ger, as you mentioned.
    Honorable Mention to Trelane. (Can’t find the list of people who were in the appendix last issue, if Trelane is than he’s the ‘should have been a full entry’ pick.)

    The Empire falling is a necessary thing for the Mirror Universe, becasue to do otherwise makes Mirrror Spock, and thus Spock by extension, a failure. So it makes sense that the DC comic and the DS9 writers went that same way, and the less said about the books by Shatner’s ghostwriter, the better.

    Contenders for more well-known alien species than Vulcans: Wookies, Daleks, Martians (if you conflate all versions, may have it. If talking just the HGW variety, maybe not so much.), Greys (Probably the strongest contender).

    1. I’d love to get a straight answer on who wrote the more outlandish parts of the Shatner Trek novels, but I have a feeling that’s a secret both Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens pair will take to their graves.

  4. The most grievous omission this episode?

    Any one of the hosts dead-panning ‘Captain… David is dead’ when discussing the Saavek page. I mean seriously, I was waiting for you guys to get to her page so I could hear someone say the famous line in the famous wooden style. Any of you could have said it. Anyone!!

    But nooooooo……

  5. Not owning this issues made me think I wouldn’t like this episode. But I must say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was quite entertaining and I realized that I knew more about Trek than I thought.

    When discussing actors who gave up a roll that went on to have lasting appeal, it was ironic that you chose Father Mulcahey, because in the original film he was played by Rene Auberjonois who went on to play Odo in DS9.

    And here’s another Star Trek / Mash coincidence. Like James Doohan, Gary Burghoff had to keep his hand hidden. 3 fingers on his left hand were congenitally deformed.

    I watched every episode of each show multiple times and had no idea until somebody told me. Now I can’t watch either show without trying to catch a glimpse.

    Can’t wait for the next episode/

    1. Wow, I didn’t know either of those MASH/Trek facts. I also didn’t know about Doohan’s hand until years and years later (I think it was when I got my copy of The Nitpickers Guide for Classic Trekkers), but ever since, I can’t help but look and see if they goof and show it on camera. Now I’ll be looking for Radar!

      Chris

  6. One note about Piper being the “Pete Best” of Trek.

    It’s an interesting comparison. Most times I find comparisons to Best are made of laziness, but in this case, it kind of fits. Both Best and Fix (Dr Piper) were found to be ill-suited to their roles. One staggering difference (if true), McCartney was always jealous of the attention Pete Best got from the ladies, so when the chance was offered to give Best the boot, McCartney welcomed it. Best claims he’s never spoken to any of the Beatles since the day he was axed.

    But he received a fat check when Anthology rolled around.

    1. While it’s true that Pete Best was very popular with the ladies, the drumming sounds much better with Ringo.

      It was the right decision to let him go, but it was done in a shitty way. That’s something that John, Paul & George should have done, not have Brian Epstein do it.

      I hope he did get a fat check for Anthology, he deserved it.

  7. I don’t have any specific comments, but just wanted to compliment you gentlemen (and Rob) on an excellent job with these two WHO’S WHO episodes! Thoroughly enjoyable! I had a smile on my face throughout the entire episode! Great discussions and chemistry between the hosts! So good!!

  8. I agree with Rob on the Gary Seven enjoyment. If I might offer a comparison, he was kind of like the Phantom Stranger of the Star Trek universe.

    Any word positive or negative on the series of books about Khan and Gary Seven?

    1. This reply is a bit late, but Greg Cox’s books about Khan and Gary Seven are a lot of fun. Cox weaves in numerous nods from the various TV series (as well as some non-Trek nods) and provides a plausible scenario for the Eugenics Wars to play out.

  9. Great episode! I loved Gene joining the crew as he added nicely to the conversation. Three things;

    1. At one point Gene asked if Curt Swan should have drawn more entries. I don’t know if he was throwing a Molotov cocktail into the conversation but just in case he was seriously asking I would say yes…if he was drawing human characters. I have come to have a great respect for Swan as an artist but the one area I never warmed to was how he drew aliens. They always looked a tad silly for my tastes. So if it’s Kirk or Sulu or Chekov or whoever I’d be down but the more out there aliens just weren’t in the man’s wheelhouse.

    2. It struck me as a bit funny Gene “I WILL CUT YOU OVER STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE” Hendricks seemed so dismissive of STAR TREK V and GENERATIONS. I’m not saying he should like either of those films but maybe some solidarity to the other underdogs of the Star Trek film franchise might be in order. I think V is a bit underrated but then again I like GENERATIONS so what the hell do I know?

    3. Mike Carlin also wrote the six issue STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION mini-series that came out soon after the series premiered. I wonder if that was his love of Trek or the fact that they gave the series to an editor because nobody else wanted to do it.

    Again these were a fantastic pair of episodes. Thank you for helping me reaffirm my Star Trek fandom. I’ve been reacquainting myself with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION thanks to BBC America and one of my Geek Resolutions is to finally watch every episode of TOS. I even tracked down some of the DC books to give those a look.

    1. That was actually me who brought up Swan, and I just did it to give Rob grief.

      No, actually I meant it. I think Swan could have been a great fit for the ongoing Star Trek series. I get the criticisms that his work could be “boring”, but he drew his characters in an incredibly consistent way, so they would stay on model from one panel to the next. I think he’d better served on Trek than say, M.A.S.K.

      And as much as I love Swan, I do agree that sometimes his aliens did look a bit too goofy and Hanna-Barbera-like. See Rob? I admitted it.

      Chris

    2. “Gene “I WILL CUT YOU OVER STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE” Hendricks” I like that. 😀

      As to Star Trek 5, that’s second to last on my list of TOS cast movies. It’s not as horrible as people say, and it does give us some important backstory on Dr. McCoy if nothing else. Generations was … well, none of the TNG movies are very good, IMHO, and there were just too many missed opportunities in this one. Sorry, Mike, but my solidarity only goes so far. 😉

  10. Random thoughts:

    1.) I’ve always really loved the character of Harry Mudd, and I suspect that the actor’s unavailability is probably why the character of Cyrano Jones was created in “the Trouble with Tribbles”, because that episode feels like it was originally written for Mudd.

    2.) I suspect the hardest part Dr. Gillian Taylor had acclimating with the 23rd Century came from having to convert to the Metric system. It probably would have been an easier transition if she were Canadian.

    3.) Taylor also really dodged a bullet by travelling into the future. If she’d stayed, she probably would have lived through the Eugenics Wars and the rise of Khan Noonien Singh, which happen only 10 years after the events of Star Trek IV.

    4.) I also call shenanigans on Uhura not being able to transport herself along with Kirk and crew to the stolen U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek III. In that very same movie, Kirk and the others were able to transport down to the Genesis planet off the soon-to-be-destroyed Enterprise without leaving anyone behind.

  11. Wait, am I hearing this right? Two full issues of Star Trek characters and NO LISTING for the ghost of Jack the Ripper from “Wolf in the Fold”?!?!?!

  12. Super late to this, but a fine show as always. Odd coincidence: I listened to this on a trip from San Antonio to Dallas and just as you got to the entry on Starships, I passed through the city of Italy, that has a roadside attraction called the USS Pegasus that is in the shape of a starship (and apparently for sale: http://www.monolithic.org/commercial/for-sale-or-lease-starship-pegasus ).

    Anyway, just like last month, this podcast inspires me to go back and rewatch the show and movies (TOS, anyway.I have no time for the pretenders that followed). Issue two had some stellar entries.

    1. The surprint for Miramanee and Natira are beautiful, although I completely agree with the flaws on the main figures.

    2. Totally a personal preference, but I would have much more enjoyed seeing the television versions of our major characters be in the limelight over the movie ones. Janice Rand is a prime example, as the surprint version is far superior to the picture that is in the foreground of her entry.

    3. I adore the Gary Seven concept, even if it is a low rent Dr. Who riff. I would absolutely read a comic series based on it, and I enjoyed the one Byrne did for IDW. Of course, George Perez’s art certainly elevated this entry.

    4. Speaking of Byrne, he and Gray Morrow are superstars. Every one of their entries are things of beauty.

    Anyway, on to the Legion!

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