Episode 01

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Earth-2.net's long-awaited Star Trek podcast has taken flight! Kicking off the Captain Kirk-era of the franchise, a salt-sucking alien disguises itself as an old flame of Dr. McCoy and wreaks havoc upon The Enterprise ("The Man Trap"), then a young man with impossible powers finds it increasingly difficult to deal with life amongst other humans ("Charlie X"). Wrapping up the debut episode of The Edge of Forever, Dan and Mike answer plenty of e-mails, and run through a few statistics. [ 2:05:10 || 60.5 MB ]

To listen, click here: http://www.earth-2.net/podcasts/theedgeofforever/episodes/theedgeofforever_001.mp3

[Dan]

I love that the first banner is Kirk getting ready to haul off and punch a kid in the face.

[Missy]

Damn straight!

[Gareth]

Didn't you guys initially give scores on Bigger on the Inside? Either way I fine with no scores, you explained it well.

[Missy]

Not that I recall.

[Koete]

Fuck yes, Undiscovered Country.

[Missy]

Had I not needed to turn around this edit, after the recording I would have double-featured The Voyage Home with The Undiscovered Country.

[Koete]

After having the backlog of BOTI, the wait between episodes is going to be a bummer for awhile.

[SteveJRogers]

Just wanted to expand upon my cast appearances "stat" since I just thought it something interesting to look at, since Trek was never an ensemble officially in the way the other shows were when you see only Shatner and Nimoy in the opening credits, and Kelley joins them in Season 3, and my assumption that the reason for the "Gang of Four" being elevated to "starring" status was based on stuff after the fact, like being on the convention circuit, etc.

Granted Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chevkov do comprise the top positions on character appearance charts (there was a site called Deep Space Franchise that looked at that, and this was in the VHS days, but I don't know if it exists or if it can be seen through the Internet Archive), and are pretty much the only ones to be used on an extremely consistent basis, and yeah probably since the 1980s when main casts for dramas did tend to expand like crazy they probably would be in the main credits, but it is interesting that for as much as the Gang of Four tends to be considered part of the main cast of the show (enough so to be major characters in all of the TOS and reboot films), despite the reality bearing out that they were more reoccurring characters (though again that could be me assigning practices used today as opposed to nearly 50 years ago) than actual main cast regulars.

BTW, as an FYI, I honestly don't know if this is real or part of the urban legend of Kirk's romantic escapades, but it was used as a bar trivia question on TOS, but apparently a shot of Kirk lacing up his boots was and indicator that the Captain had just *does Adham Fisher's Bond Shag Count whistle* so I don't know if that was known to Mike as he does his stats on Kirk's getting the girl.

[SteveJRogers]

Oh, and something else hit me during the discussion of Rand. One, I wonder if we won't see a male Yeoman be an assistant for Kirk until a time traveling Ben Sisko steps into the final scene of Mirror, Mirror. And when I thought about that question, it made me ponder about the overall diversity among the Enterprise crew BEYOND Uhura, Sulu and Spock.

Yeah, that would be way too much to keep track of, but I'm suddenly wondering if that was it in terms of other ethnic nationalities and races beyond Caucasian (so that's where Scotty, Finnegan and other European characters would fall in) humans in the TOS era Star Fleet before the movies and the cartoon series.

[Dan]

Just wanted to expand upon my cast appearances "stat" since I just thought it something interesting to look at, since Trek was never an ensemble officially in the way the other shows were when you see only Shatner and Nimoy in the opening credits, and Kelley joins them in Season 3, and my assumption that the reason for the "Gang of Four" being elevated to "starring" status was based on stuff after the fact, like being on the convention circuit, etc.

Basically, a character is a series regular if the production office declares them to be one. Doohan, Nichols, Takei and Koenig were major characters because they got more screen time than other crewmembers, even if they were never in the opening credits. Lt. Leslie, for example, was in more Season Two episodes than Sulu because Takei took a lot of time off while making The Green Berets, but he's never been considered a major character by anyone. He's never had a storyline, a significant scene, barely a memorable conversation. Hell, he died in one episode and was back the next week. Someone like Scott or Chekhov, however, had entire episodes where he was the main focus, even if their names were never credited above the title. Crediting in the 1960s was weird sometimes, especially for dramas. When Kelley's credit went from the end to the opening in Season Three, it was a big damn deal.

BTW, as an FYI, I honestly don't know if this is real or part of the urban legend of Kirk's romantic escapades, but it was used as a bar trivia question on TOS, but apparently a shot of Kirk lacing up his boots was and indicator that the Captain had just *does Adham Fisher's Bond Shag Count whistle* so I don't know if that was known to Mike as he does his stats on Kirk's getting the girl.

I'm not familiar with that legend; we'll have to keep an eye out for it. I do know that *pushing glasses up nose* Starfleet uniforms didn't have laces. Roddenberry was obsessed with futuristic clothing where you couldn't see the joins; hence the uniform tunics having zippers hidden in the seams (those tunics were tight and made of velour that ripped if you looked at them for too long; they were not about to just be pulled over your head). Likewise, the boots had zippers hidden in the inside seams.

[KnightWing]

I do know that *pushing glasses up nose* Starfleet uniforms didn't have laces. Roddenberry was obsessed with futuristic clothing where you couldn't see the joins; hence the uniform tunics having zippers hidden in the seams (those tunics were tight and made of velour that ripped if you looked at them for too long; they were not about to just be pulled over your head). Likewise, the boots had zippers hidden in the inside seams.

I love you so much right now.

[Dan]

I'm pretty great.

[slothian]

[Dan]

[SteveJRogers]

It would help if I said simply putting them on intead of lacing!

Ah well...there is an entry for it in Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Put%20his%20boots%20on

First I heard about it was at a Trek Trivia night at a bar earlier this year. Sent a message to the guy who ran if about where he got it from, haven't heard back yet.

OE: From an interview with Roddenberry himself

[Donomark]

Hell, he died in one episode and was back the next week.

[Dan]

I'm not even kidding.

Leslie has the distinction of being known as the first Star Trek recurring character to return from the dead. This is evident in "Obsession", when he was killed by the cloud creature and listed by Kirk as one of the two unnamed and deceased officers in his log entry. Later in the same episode, he inexplicably appears twice walking by Kirk's quarters, and again walking past sickbay.

According to Paskey, a scene in the script for "Obsession" that had all three victims of the landing party attacked by the creature would have them coming back to life later in sickbay due to a miracle potion. He mentioned that this scene was never filmed. [2] Director Ralph Senensky confirmed that he did not film it. [3]

Paskey continued to appear in subsequent episodes and his character was called "Leslie" by Kirk in "Assignment: Earth", "The Omega Glory", "The Enterprise Incident", and "And the Children Shall Lead".

[Deer Tick]

I found it funny that mention was made of the two fisted punch already.

I wonder how many fistfights in TOS do not have a two handed punch?

[Rjoyadet]

One suggestion I had for what to do before the recap of the episode was have a sound clip of something that either referenced, copied or parodied Star Trek. There are so many, from Dr. Demento's "Star Trekkin" to the Veggie Tales episode "The Gourds Must be Crazy."

I was thinking of changing my E-mail signature from "rick" to "ensign Ricky"

[Missy]

Great idea, however, I don't have the time to find / research clips of that nature. It's hard enough finding appropriate clips for each episode.

[PieMan70]

Just caught up. Great stuff, will try and watch along where possible.

Good to hear you're going to have an "Evil Computer" stat, as a suggestion you could also add the "Evil computer mistaken for a god" and "Evil computer talked to death by Kirk"

Good work so far guys.