r/startrek: The Next Generation
Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...
Maybe a little slash fic.
Rules
1 Be constructive
All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.
2 Be welcoming
It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.
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5 Spoilers
Utilize the spoiler system for any and all spoilers relating to the most recently-aired episode. There is no formal spoiler protection for episodes/films after they have been available for approximately one week.
6 Keep on-topic
All submissions must be directly about the Star Trek franchise (the shows, movies, books, etc.). Off-topic discussions are welcome at c/Quarks.
7 Meta
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Upcoming Episodes
| Date | Episode | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 02-19 | SFA 1x07 | "Ko’Zeine" |
| 02-26 | SFA 1x08 | "The Life of the Stars" |
| 03-05 | SFA 1x09 | "300th Night" |
| 03-12 | SFA 1x10 | "Rubincon" |
| TBA | SNW 4x01 | TBA |
Upcoming Trek
Strange New Worlds (TBA)
Starfleet Academy (TBA)
In Development
Untitled comedy series
Wondering where to stream a series? Check here.
It makes so much more sense to send a shuttlecraft in the first place, in every case, even if the mothership isn't going anywhere and transporters are fully operational.
Is there air? You don't know. But you're going to beam me down in nothing but my pajamas? Hell no. I'll take a shuttle with its shields and weapons and life support systems.
well I think the idea is their sensors are so good they know for sure.
Yeah, but what about all the episodes where they didn't detect any danger? That's like half of TOS. By TNG it'd be hubris if they still believed they could know for sure.
They make it out to be like airline travel. It happens but considering the trillions of transports that go fine every day type of thing its barely a blip. Now granted though in tos their primary mission is to go to where no one has gone before I could see your point. You would assume a bit higher caution than going to a colony well within the federations borders.
As far as I recall, the reasons for not being able to beam up the crew would be similar to not being able to retrieve a shuttle.
You also had the issue where the expense of having a shuttle on set and adding the VFX would have been higher than transporting the crew, so the writers kept with transporting.
Starfleet is not good at operational security. Why does the landing party contain half or more department heads? I would start there, either by revamping their guidelines or as viewers suspending disbelief.
I think the shuttle solution is elegant and I'm sure a writers room has discussed it. Today this would be (comparatively) trivially easy to CGI; I suppose during TOS it would have necessitated extra work days for the model unit and a permanent shuttle set, which I don't think we get until TNG.
Why is the captain always beaming down first and no one is in spacesuits? It’s no wonder half the time they beam someone back an alien life form comes along for the ride.
I can understand the budget constraints for TOS but just saying something like “we’re leaving a comms buoy in orbit” would solve this question, build a little model satellite and keep it on the shelf.
Not sure about all the cases, but sometimes the ship has to exit toute de suite, or has to maintain its shields, or sometimes (like in "Gallileo Seven") the shuttle is already launched and is now missing. Or like you say communication is blocked, or Kirk & crew are being spoofed by their captors, or the Enterprise is still powerless to act via semi-weekly Q-like entity of choice.
I'm not sure TOS' show bible has ever been published, but I'm guessing Rodenberry wrote some guidelines about such shuttle-use. Pretty much every single outsider's script had to be cleaned up in accordance with said bible, even when they knew the guidelines going in.
But the bottom line to me is that like 99% of TV fare, TOS was designed to get the most out of it's minutes, its actors, its scripts and so forth. If sending out an extra shuttle(s) didn't work story-wise, then it would have been shut down as a possibility, just like countless other aspects of the show.