Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Star Trek: The Original Series - Episode 1: The Man Trap

Episode 1 - The Man Trap
  • The velour is gone! Zapp Brannigan has Kirk's smugness, but Pike's velour! Already my geek is in high gear.
  • A blue shirt dies...Where are the red shirts?!?! Hanging out on the ship, I guess. Not cool enough to be part of the landing crew? Lots of yellow shirts dying here. Final count is 2 blue and 2 yellow.
  • Sulu: Botanist. Sulu: Bridge
  • Woah.... Swahili spoken on TV? With no subtitles! That was pretty nifty.
  • Truth serum! 
  • Vulcans have green blood. . .I did not know that. Spock explains (is that sarcasm?) it is because of different blood cells due to spawning in a another ocean than Kirk's ancestors. 
  • Blue phaser = kill. Purple phaser = stun.

A conversation that spun off of this episode involved Stardate. Apparently Stardate was chosen at random, to some extent, by the show writers. Stardate is unreliable, but you can still count earth years, which are more reliable. This was further referenced in an episode of Family Guy that was airing on Adult Swim when we had stopped watching Star Trek for the night. In this episode, Peter is watching Star Trek and, in exaggerated fashion, Kirk is saying the Stardate and it is just a bunch of random numbers that aren't even close to the actual rough numbers on the show. It was a proud geek moment for me that was way funnier because, well. . . I never got that tiny bit before.  (NOTE: A question I still want to pinpoint. The origin of the spastic/pausing Captain Kirk?)


The velour conversation also took a turn for the interesting after this episode. We wanted to know what the shirts in this episode were made of. Well, apparently there are different types of velour. It is a fabric or textile, not a material. It can be made from cotton or polyester. So in the pilot episode, it was a "robe velour." We speculate it was made from cotton to be more plush-looking. Season 1 velour is probably "craft velour" to make it more spandexy and breathable.


Wow! Only two episodes in and I'm feeling imbued with relevant and valuable geek knowledge.

No comments:

Post a Comment