INCONSISTENCIES AND NITPICKING
The Next Generation (seasons 1 - 3)
Anyone familiar with the works of Phil Farrand will be aware of his 'Nitpicking' books, whereby he analyses at great length all things inconsistent within the world of Star Trek. I have my own list of Nitpicks from The Next Generation, those which I have spotted and collected myself, and have not seen in print in his books to my knowledge. So this is my list of discontinuities, blunders and production oversights from TNG....
ENCOUNTER
AT FARPOINT
Q states
that they are in a courtroom of ‘79’. One would suppose that to be from
2079. In Star Trek: First Contact, they visit the moment Humans first
meet an extraterrestrial race, this as they say took place in 2063, 16 years before
the period stated by Riker as being the ‘post atomic horror’. We were led to
believe though that after the first contact incident that Humanity started to
make ‘rapid progress’. It can’t have been that rapid if nearly two decades
later they remain in oppression and anarchy, and what would appear to be a
savage and corrupt police state (judging by the drug sniffing soldiers
arbitrarily firing machine guns).
I noticed a peculiar costume
oddity here. Just as everyone is rushing around prior to the saucer separation,
there is a man, walking down a corridor wearing one of those Starfleet
miniskirts, the type worn by Troi in this first episode. Is this a 24th century
fetish thing!?
THE
NAKED NOW
When
Data is asked to go to engineering to replace the control chips, Riker holds his
arm to guide him to engineering from the Bridge, (due to his quasi-inebriation).
For some reason they head towards the Battle Bridge turbolift.
THE
BATTLE
When
Picard is ‘put to sleep’ by Dr Crusher due to his headaches caused by the
‘thought-maker’, he has a nightmare that relives his experience on
the Stargazer. I don’t know if what is portrayed in this dream is an
actual representation of the real time event, but he definitely appears to be in
the dream as he was then, a decade earlier during the real event, even though
the other Bridge crew members appear in ghost form, and indeed, Picard here is
sweating due to the Bridge fires around him. The ghost forms may be because
those crew members perhaps died in the incident? Whatever the case, if this
is an actual remembrance –a flashback, we can determine that Picard lost his
hair over a very short amount of time. He was clearly bald in 2355 during the
‘Battle of Maxia’ (the date of this incident was established –this being
2364, nine years later), yet in ‘VIOLATIONS’ we see Picard in a flashback at
a morgue, he clearly has a fair amount of hair. The morgue incident supposedly
took place in 2354 when Jack Crusher died. So Picard suffered total hair loss
over a period of 12 months. How embarrassing.
DATALORE
When
Data puts the transparent face mould over his own, a slight smudge of his pale
face paint come off and sticks to the inside of the mould.
11001001
As has been mentioned in Phil's
books, Picard uses his combadge to contact Starbase 74 when
the Enterprise is at Bynaus, light years away. I came up with the same
explanation, whereby his Communicator was somehow patched into the
communications array and sent in the normal way via subspace. Yet we never see
this method of communicating interstellar distances being used again. But my
point regards the time delay. Even in subspace, there has to be a time delay
from sending a message to receiving the reply. Communications with the Sheliak
in ‘THE ENSIGNS OF COMMAND’ is one such example. Another violation to this
law was seen in ‘PAST TENSE’ on DS9. Quark hails the Defiant as
it arrives at Earth. Quark is on the space station, many light years away (Deep
Space Nine has been referred to as one of the most distant Starfleet outposts).
Yet the subspace communication between Quark and Sisko is real time, with no
delay.
Data
states that he can stay on the Bridge constantly, and was negligent to
leave, for he does not require rest and refreshment etc. Yet how many times does
he leave the Bridge for reasons other the duty thereon in the series…….?
COMING
OF AGE
At the
beginning of the episode, Dr Crusher hails Wesley as he chats with a friend in a
corridor. She tells his to "report to Transporter room eight".
Transporter room EIGHT! There are meant to be only six transporter rooms
on the Enterprise, but I suppose at this early stage in the first season
the writers hadn’t yet decided what was what when it came to the Enterprise
specs.
And on
the same point of the hail from Dr Crusher, does one require a Communicator in
respects to communicating whilst on board? For at this point, Wesley wears no
Combadge. So how does Beverley’s message reach him or find him? Does the
computer do it somehow? If so, how does it identify and locate Wesley when he
doesn’t wear, and has not been assigned, a Combadge?
In this
episode, the Holodeck floor appears to be smooth and shiny, as if it were
polished linoleum. I hadn’t noticed it being this way before, or since.
SKIN
OF EVIL
Ok, so
Tasha dies in the episode, no Nitpicks there, although it was a shame to lose
her. But, I noticed that the stardate of this episode is 41601, yet in 'THE
ARSENAL OF FREEDOM' the date is later than that, at 41798, though she
appears in the episode. If that was strange enough, the stardates of episodes
'THE BATTLE' (41723.9), 'THE BIG GOODBYE' (41997.7), and 'ANGEL ONE' (41636.9)
are all set after she supposedly died, yet she
appears in these episodes. And these aren't the only stardate oddities throughout this series'
seven seasons.
THE
NEUTRAL ZONE
This one
raised my eyebrows when I first noticed it. For, at some point in the future,
Federation starships lost the ability to detect cloaked Romulan Warbirds,
or the Romulans improved the technology, because such failures to detect them
occur many times hereon. But in this episode, the Enterprise can somehow
detect and track the movements of the cloaked Romulan vessel. Worf clearly says
that the sensors read "a disturbance, it is large and moving".
When
Troi is asked to help counsel Claire Raymond, from the 20th century, and after
approaching the door to the cabin, she presses the door chime and walks straight
in, without waiting for permission to enter. Rather rude I thought.
THE
CHILD
Wesley
stated to Guinan that various people on board the Enterprise had no idea
who she is or where she came from. Surely Starfleet wouldn’t allow strange
nondescript aliens aboard their ships without any knowledge of their nature or
background. If this isn’t the case, and that there was no real mystery as to
who she is, then why don’t these certain crew members (who are curious enough)
look at her file? There must be some kind of crew manifest or database for those
aboard whether listed crewmen or not.
Surely
the Bridge crew wouldn’t abandon the lethal emergency in the Cargo Bay
just because they receive a communication involving a sick child!
Pulaski
has tricorders and other advanced medical technologies at her disposal, yet she
bothers to feel for Ian’s pulse.
When
Ian’s soul (as a ball of light) hovers in front of Troi she manages to look
way above the location of the superimposed effect. When it flies off through a
bulkhead she doesn’t even bother to watch.
At one
point, Picard says "lay in a course for the Morgana Quadrant".
There are supposed to be four quadrants of the Galaxy: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and
Delta. Again the creators need to be consistent with their technical guide lines
from the start. Perhaps saying "Morgana sector", would
have been better.
WHERE
SILENCE HAS LEASE
A short
while after engaging at warp 2 to escape the ‘void’, Data stated that the Enterprise
had covered a distance of 1.4 parsecs, Wesley then confirms this. 1.4 parsecs is
approximate to 4.5 light years. And according to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, it
would take 6 MONTHS to travel a distance of 5 light years at the said speed of
warp 2!
When
they identify the ship in the void as having a cloaking device, Riker
automatically cries out "Romulans!". The ship could’ve quite
easily been Klingon, or even another race with cloaking capability.
When the Yamato appears, Data hails them from Con. Isn’t hailing usually
Worf’s job?
Riker
somehow reads the registry number ‘NCC 1305-E’ to identify the approaching
vessel as the Yamato. We know that this registry number is incorrect, or
at least different due to conflicting information in ‘CONTAGION’, but the
point here is how does Riker read this visually, off the viewscreen? The ship is
quite distant and the void is dark, so dark in fact that one would have great
difficulty in making out any hull detail at all.
Haskell constantly annoys Picard (and us) by forever stating the blatantly obvious. Such
as "the star fix is almost gone," and "but sir, we can
get out," and again "Captain, it’s almost gone," (as
the Yamato fades from view).
Nagilum
had the arrogance and audacity to judge Humanity as being "hostile and
militant," yet moments earlier he murdered one crew member and
threatened the lives of several hundred others!
ELEMENTARY
DEAR DATA
There
are many problems with the Holodeck, and one in particular I’m not sure has
been touched upon before. And that is in regards to the Holodeck’s actual
interior size and dimensions. Several times (as here with Pulaski) someone gets
lost or is at least out of sight in the Holodeck (Barclay in ‘HOLLOW
PURSUITS’, Alexander in ‘A FISTFUL OF DATA’S’, etc). But the relatively
small size of the Holodeck would suggest that no matter what the program or
setting, one cannot really be more than a few metres from the exit, because even
though the locale or backdrop can change with a few instructions to the
computer, the interior size, ie the four walls, cannot be moved or extended.
Here, Data et al. walk freely around a large Edwardian London set, and due to
the slim interior dimensions of the Holodeck (no matter how large or distant the
holographic projectors and imaging scanners make the environment look), Pulaski and Moriarty
should be somewhere in the visual foreground at all times. Even if they
were enclosed in a room or holographic building, they would still be no more
than a few metres from the exit.
It is a similar situation in ‘ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT’. Riker walks into the Holodeck looking for Data. He calls out for him, yet Data couldn’t hear him. Regardless of how the program is orientated, and how effectively it creates the illusion of size and distance, the actual real dimensions of the Holodeck (length, width and height) stay fixed. So Data and Riker cannot be any further away from each other than the actual distance from the exit to the far wall. But Riker couldn’t see Data, and after calling out could not make him hear him, and this is surprising when you consider this fact of reasonable proximity, and secondly, (and even more peculiar) Data's enhanced qualities and capabilities, ie sensory/auditory.
THE
MEASURE OF A MAN
One
would think that Data had his rights established when he first became a
Federation citizen and joined Starfleet (whether his actual android sentience
had been determined or not). Surely membership as a citizen automatically
guarantees fundamental rights of freedom, protection, individuality and choice.
These should be basic conditions of a Federation that supposedly boasts a
charter of benevolence and philanthropy. So from the outset Data should have
been guaranteed such rights as a citizen of the Federation and employee
of Starfleet –not property. And if so, these issues and questions
shouldn’t have arisen, whether he’s a synthetic lifeform or organic, for
his sentience would have to have been established if he were to become a actual
Starfleet Officer with all the sometimes crucial decisions and responsibilities
that come with the role. Otherwise he would not have been an Officer, but
a piece of technological hardware like Robbie the Robot, but no, he's an actual
Officer with a name, a rank, and his own quarters. Having or not having a soul should perhaps have
been a debate for another time, he certainly shouldn’t have been put through a
trial! All legal contingencies should have been covered from the start, and most
definitely for something as rudimentary as rights and equality. (But I suppose
if that had been so we wouldn’t have had a show …an outstanding one at
that).
When
Data bends the rod of steel, the angle of its kink decreases after Riker places
it on the table. This is obviously because it’s rubber, or something similarly
flexible.
Near the
end of the episode Picard asks Louvois to dinner. She says, "you
buying?"…. I thought they (Starfleet) didn’t use currency in the
24th
century. This has been pointed out several times (Star Trek IV, by Kirk
at dinner, Star Trek: First Contact, Picard to Lilly, and ‘THE
NEUTRAL ZONE’, Picard to Offenhouse, and so forth). Another purchase came in
‘ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT’. When Dr Crusher was exploring the market, she came
across some fabric she fancied, her words were "Send it to our starship,
when it arrives, and charge it to Dr Crusher." Although there has at
times been references to Latinum being used for trading between cultures, I
doubt a roll of fabric, or dinner counts as a trading transaction involving gold
pressed latinum. Do Starfleet officers have some kind of bank account, and
perhaps a salary?
Regarding comments on Bruce Maddox not showing his age -looking 35 when
he claimed to have evaluated Data on entry to Starfleet 26 years earlier. It occurred to me that he could indeed be
older than he looks, being perhaps in is fifties. The
state of medicine in the 24th century has undoubtedly prolonged life,
for Dr McCoy in ‘ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT’ was 137 years old, way older than
life expectancy for today -and Bones didn't look a day over 95 :). Captain Picard, according to Trek lore was born in 2305, which puts
him near the age of 70 by the time the Trek movies came along, when in truth he
only looks in his fifties. So it’s possible Maddox could well be 30 to 40
percent older than he actually looks.
CONTAGION
How can
the control room on Iconia be still powered and operational after being
abandoned 200,000 years previously? Not a cobweb or speck of dust appears to be
present. Is some ancient lonely Iconian cleaner still employed there, unaware
that the rest of their race is long extinct? This wasn’t explained.
In
addition to the stardate irregularities in Varley’s log, it occurred to me how
one records a log. For most of his entries, it starts with Varley saying, "Personal
Log….". I would have thought the words ‘Personal Log’ would serve
as a prompt to the computer, and it would then activate it to start recording, so the actual words ‘Personal Log’ would
not be recorded. So perhaps he taps a button to start it. But on two occasions,
Varley didn’t open with those words, it just went straight into his log, and
this would make more sense as the phrase ‘Personal Log’ wouldn’t have been
recorded due to the reasons above.
An additional problem with Geordi in the lift which
I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere, is
when he flies to the ceiling due to immense velocity, it would suggest that the
lift is travelling at a great speed in a downwards direction. But he would have
to be travelling upwards (from Engineering) to reach the bridge.
When in
the Iconian command centre, Picard asks Worf to keep trying to communicate with
the Enterprise as they had lost contact. At no further point do we see
Worf attempting to hail the ship.
After
the portal appears, Data says "we have established this is not a
holograph." (This is what the word sounded like on my recording). But I’m positive he meant to say hologram.
Not a
Nit here, but watch the performance of Brent Spiner when Data is damaged by the
energy burst. He states that he has suffered damage in several areas including
motor control. At no time throughout the duration of the scene, up to the point
Worf takes him through the portal does he blink. Whether this point was
improvised, scripted or directed I don’t know, but it was admirable.
Why did
Picard risk the safety of the away team by stepping through the portal in order
to get back to the Enterprise? Why not at least check the status of the Enterprise
transporters first?
And why
did Picard order the destruction of the tricorder to prevent it being exploited
by the Romulans? If Worf took it with him through the portal it wouldn’t even
get into Romulan hands, and the data would be saved.
TIME
SQUARED
After
this episode, it seems that no other time travel show involved the similar
characteristics of temporal side effects involving out of phase equipment and
unbalanced metabolisms.
THE
ICARUS FACTOR
On page
319 of The Nitpicker’s guide Volume II, it was stated that common viral
infections had showed up on the show twice, in ‘ANGEL ONE’, and ‘ENSIGN
RO’. I noticed a third such reference. In this episode, whilst Riker’s
father is visiting Pulaski in sickbay, she mentioned that she had just been
treating a crewman suffering from the flu. Amazing it hasn’t been obliterated
by even the 24th century, even when medicine can fashion advanced
artificial eye-pieces, flawless synthetic hearts, and holographic spines!
Kyle
Riker said that Will had been offered his first command. Had he forgotten that
Starfleet had offered him one before –The USS Drake, in ‘THE ARSENAL
OF FREEDOM’? Maybe the rift between father and son was so bad that Will
hadn’t bothered to tell his old man!
PEN
PALS
Picard
orders Pulaski to wipe the memory of the young alien girl. This is ordered in
Data's absence, whilst he is on his way to sickbay. Yet when he arrives he seems to know all about
Picard’s order involving the procedure. Was he listening in?
Q
WHO
When the
Borg drone threatens the Enterprise by interfering with systems in
Engineering, Picard orders Worf to "neutralise the invader," He
then proceeds to take a full 10 seconds to fire at him when the Borg drone is
only a few feet away! Ten bloody seconds!!
When
Guinan goes to activate her viewscreen, it appears that her finger doesn’t
actually make contact with the key pad.
Guinan
stated that the Borg’s bio-mechanical technology had been developing over a
period of "thousands of centuries" –WHAT? That’s hundreds
of thousands of years; older than Homo Sapiens! Yet their so called
technological superiority was amazingly thwarted when the Borg cube suffered
heavy damage and was neutralised after 3 phaser shots! And Humans at this point
had only been a space faring race a mere 400 years!
Referring
to the Enterprise being out of its element, Q said that they "should’ve
stayed where they belonged", I took this to mean there own sectors, or
Federation space. But it wasn’t Picard, or the crew’s fault, nor was it
anyone’s choice as Q’s statement indicated, for it was Q, who, at the snap
of his finger whisked them across the 1000’s of light years of space to meet
this peril.
UP
THE LONG LADDER
Troi
stated that the Bringloidi had been isolated for 300 years, having started off
in the year 2123. Yet this is the year 2365 (due to Data’s reference in ‘THE
NEUTRAL ZONE’), so it in fact makes a total of only 242 years, more than half
a century out. She really is very bad at numbers, she’s again fantastically
incorrect with arithmetic at other times in the series. (See ‘TIMESCAPE’).
Why
should Worf have to worry about people finding out about his childhood Klingon
ailment? Surely Pulaski would have to adhere to some form of physician’s ethic
of patient confidentiality. But the dialogue indicates that Pulaski’s doing him a
favour by staying silent. Medical records are personal, even aboard a starship,
aren’t they?
EVOLUTION
Why does
the Enterprise computer start reciting chess moves when malfunctioning on
the Bridge? What part of it’s program, when it comes to running the ship’s
navigational, tactical and propulsion systems, and the like, involves chess?
Data, in
reference to the various problems on the Enterprise states that there had
been "no systems wide technological failure on a starship for 79
years." Well, what about the Yamato, and the Enterprise -his
own vessel- in ‘CONTAGION’, in only the previous season? There were
problems galore there, which were system wide too. And alien computer virus or
not, were technological.
THE
ENSIGNS OF COMMAND
It may
just be my imagination, but it appears as if the sliding doors aboard the Enterprise
are making a slightly different ‘hissing’ sound in this episode.
THE
ENEMY
If
Geordi was having such a hard time calling for Worf and Riker whilst in the pit,
why did he not fire his phaser high into the air to signal his position? In
reality it should’ve been visible for miles around, not only aiding the away
team at pinpointing his location, but the Enterprise may have been able
to detect a phaser beam in the atmosphere, perhaps allowing them to track the
emission source back to his approximate position on the surface, thus
discovering his whereabouts.
THE
DEFECTOR
When
Data freezes the holodeck program, the camp fire continues to flicker, and you
can still hear insects. (As with similar discrepancies in ‘SHIP IN A
BOTTLE’, it may be a deliberate aspect of the programming whereby only key
elements such as characters and certain other animated objects are required to
be frozen).
With the
Romulan scoutship supposedly still protected inside the Enterprise’s
shields, wouldn’t its (auto-destruct) explosion at such close proximity cause
some damage to the Enterprise, especially when the scoutship is inside
the shields? And isn’t the scoutship warp capable –after crossing the
Neutral Zone and entering Federation space? If so, wouldn’t anti-matter be
part of that explosion too? The Enterprise should’ve been wasted, or at
least heavily damaged.
When the
holodeck program involving the ‘Valley of Chula’ deactivates at Data’s
command, you clearly see Jarok and Data occupying an empty holodeck with its
ubiquitous yellow grid pattern. It appears to be a very large room in the first
shot, at least 15 to 20 grid squares lie between where Jarok is standing and the
far wall. The next scene shows a close up of the two of them from an angle near
the exit. Neither have moved, but the same wall is now only 4 squares away.
It would
have been a nice touch to have Picard and Data deliver Jarok’s letter to his
family when they visit Romulus in ‘UNIFICATION’, (though such a scene
would’ve been impractical, and irrelevant to that show’s plot).
THE
HUNTED
Two
security emergencies occur in a short space of time. Firstly when Danar breaks
out of the transporter beam (somehow –it is never explained) and then escapes
out of the brig. What does Worf, Chief of Security, do? ……casually stroll
off down a corridor to search for him, no rush, no urgency. But one could leap
to his defence and say that he doesn’t yet know which direction to go in order
to look, as he’d have to wait for clarification as to Danar’s position
first, and that does finally come when Riker confirms that he’s in
Engineering. Worf responds by saying that they’re on their way, but again,
walking along the corridor as if it were a tranquil Sunday afternoon stroll !
If a
criminal escaped from a present day cell, would a guard or police officer slowly
stroll off after him?!!!
DEJA
Q
Dr
Crusher said that if she hadn’t seen Q’s ‘back trauma’ with her own eyes
she wouldn’t have believed it. What on earth’s so ‘unbelievable’ about
muscle spasms? Is it so impossible to have this in the 24th century?
Is everyone normally (somehow) protected against it at birth?
YESTERDAY’S
ENTERPRISE
In this
episode, Guinan says something ridiculous, on a par with her ‘thousands of
centuries’ statement in ‘Q WHO’. To Picard she says that 40 billion lives
had been claimed by the war so far. 40 BILLION! in only 22 years!
That’s a tad far fetched, isn’t it? If you say that such a war is
only fought in space (between spaceships) , and the other targets being perhaps
Starbases, with the odd ground attack on planetary colonies when orbital
defences fail. If this is the case, then 40 billion is quite a hefty casualty
list. Let’s say for instance that only 50% of the total losses occurred on
starships (and in reality it would probably be more like 75%), this would still
amount to 20 billion deaths, and if you go on to say that the average crew
compliment, covering starships of varying sizes, would be around 500, it would
mean that about 40 million starships have been destroyed in the
conflict to date! There is something horribly wrong with Guinan’s statement.
The only thing I can think of that would perhaps validate such a death toll, is
if the Klingons had developed a terrible genocidal weapon and were wiping out
planet after planet.
This second inconsistency is a clunker, and a well known one. Right at the end
of the episode, after the timeline has been restored, Guinan and Geordie enjoy a
drink together in Ten Forward, and Guinan asks Geordie to tell her something of
Tasha. Well, the sharp eyed will notice that Geordie is still wearing the
alternate timeline uniform!! Look at the cuffs!
THE
MOST TOYS
What
bothers me here, is when, believing Data is dead, Geordi and Wesley casually
walk into his quarters and start going through his personal effects to
distribute freely amongst the crew, now that the deceased has no need of them.
Being a Starfleet officer is an extremely hazardous occupation, so one would
expect an officer to have a regularly updated audio/visual ‘will’ for want
of a better word. Or at least have a message to his friends and colleagues as
Tasha did in ‘SKIN OF EVIL’. Geordi and Wesley should have checked first
(perhaps they did, off screen), before nonchalantly handing out all
Data’s belongings. A crewman has died in an accident (so they thought), and if
he had died intestate, one would expect such procedures to take place after some
type of
formal hearing. Or, due to Data being an android, is such
procedure relaxed?
SAREK
Right at
the closing shot in the Transporter Room, the camera zooms in to Picard, with
Riker and O’Brien standing behind the transporter console. O’Brien can
clearly be seen to lean to his right until he’s no longer in the picture, so
as not to encroach on the final shot of Picard. Secondly, as O’Brien does
this, he seems to acknowledge the camera by looking far too close to the actual
lens position.
THE
BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, part 1
When the
Enterprise enters the nebula, Picard asks La Forge to reverse engines.
Why not simply ask helm? –that’s its function. (Something like this happens
more than once in the series).
As
Geordi is evacuating Engineering due to a hull breach, you see him look briefly
at the protection screen that is sliding down from the ceiling. He does this
some time before throwing himself under. In other words, the director told him
to watch the descending screen to the very last possible moment before diving
under it. This, one would suppose, conveys a more ‘dramatic’ effect.
Unfortunately Burton’s portrayal in this scene made the effect look unnatural,
and ‘choreographed’.
Why did
it take Troi to tell Riker that "his place is on the Bridge"?
She’s not a command officer and she didn’t even go to the academy, even
though her assertion is obviously correct. Which begs the question: why on earth
didn’t Riker recognise this rudimentary protocol? He’s the XO for God’s
sake!!
Go To Page Two For Continuation
