Question: When Lieutenant Chang walks into the room, he says that Wesley, Oliana, T'Shanik and Mordock that even though all four of them are top candidates for entry into Starfleet Academy, only one of them will go. Why not just let all four of them go to Starfleet?
raywest
13th Sep 2021
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
29th May 2020
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: In Season 1, Episode 23 "Skin of Evil", Tasha Yar was killed. But in the three following episodes, in the opening credits, Denise Crosby (Lt. Tasha Yar) is still listed. Am I correct in thinking that the producers decided to use the original opening credits for the remaining three episodes of the season, and changed them after Gates McFadden left the series for Season Two?
2nd Feb 2019
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: Since it takes two people (usually the captain and first officer) to arm and disarm the self-destruct sequence what would happen if one were killed and couldn't concur to disarm? I am supposing it would go to the next ranking officer but if they are the only ones on the ship (like in "11001001") what would happen then?
Answer: If one or both commanding officers were incapacitated in some way and unable to disarm the self-destruct, then presumably the ship would explode and they would be killed. That is the inherent risk in such a system. However, being as its a TV series, there is always some technical loophole that saves the ship.
15th Jan 2018
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: What is star station India? is it a space station or a base on a planet?
21st Feb 2015
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: Picard orders the away team to be beamed from the Borg ship directly to the bridge of the Enterprise. If this was possible, why was there ever a need for anyone to go to a transporter room and stand on a transporter platform?
Answer: Several reasons. While it is possible to beam people to and from just about anywhere, for efficiency and safety there needs to be a centralized location. If an away team was being transported at the same time, then they are transported as a group from the platform and not from a random location within the ship. Transporting people to places other than to the transporter platform is risky and it is usually only done in extreme circumstances. Precise coordinates are needed to find and safely beam someone from one place to another. The bridge is an emergency transport site and the those coordinates are already known. It has also been seen that the transport can go awry. In that event, the transporter officer needs to be able to see what is happening in order to make adjustments to safely re-materialize the passengers. It has been mentioned in Star Trek canon that it is possible for someone being transported to re-materialize inside a bulkhead or some other object if the coordinates are incorrect or the surrounding environment had changed, thus injuring or killing them.
15th Nov 2013
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: Whenever I see this episode rerun, they leave out the scene where Picard suddenly appears at Worf's surprise party. This is a somewhat crucial scene, in my opinion, because it is one of the first clues (other than the cake switching flavors) that something isn't quite right. Why is this scene no longer shown? Is it simply due to the desire for more advertising time? Are other episodes cut like this?
Chosen answer: The most common reason rerun TV series are edited is to allow for more advertising time. They can also speed up the show's running time, which is unnoticeable but gives more seconds to be sold to advertisers. Cable TV channels are allowed to have more advertising than network TV channels, and they do whatever they can to increase revenue. It does result in episodes often being choppy and the story line a bit confusing. Now channels are also overlapping the end of one show while showing the start of another one by using a split screen, giving them even more time to sell to advertisers.
3rd Oct 2009
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: I know that this is such a small detail, but it's been bugging me for a while and google has been no help. In the original series, the command uniforms were gold and security was red, but in Next Gen and everything thereafter, it has been reversed to command being red and security being gold. Anyone know why the change was made? I'm looking for a real world explanation, not a continuity one as I already found one of those. Thanks.
Answer: When ST:TNG went into production, television had changed drastically from the time the original series aired in the 1960s. Not only were special effects far more advanced, but editing, camera angles, set design, lighting, color schemes, types of film used, and so on, were all very different. It was likely a decision of what looked best from an artistic-design point-of-view to give the series a fresh, updated look as well as to reflect how much Star Fleet had changed since Captain James T. Kirk's time. Red is also a very prominent color, and it draws the viewer's eye to it, and to the character wearing it. Therefore, that became the command color. Also of note is that the "old" uniforms, as of the Star Trek original series movies, had more or less universally switched to red uniforms with smaller department insignia. Thus, chronologically they removed colour coding in favour of pure red for everyone, and then decided to bring back colour coding - but retained the red for command instead of switching back to the old way.
4th Apr 2006
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: I have a question about the cloaking technology all through the Star Trek universe. Does the cloak actually turn the ship using it invisible, or does it just hide the ship from being "seen" by other ships sensors? In other words, if a ship was cloaked and invisible to the view screen on the bridge, could someone looking out of a porthole still see the ship?
Answer: The cloaking device makes the ship invisible to other ships' sensors and to the naked eye. This was evidenced in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where the Klingon vessel Kirk time travels back to the 20th C. in is hidden from humans while it is in Golden Gate Park and when it hovers over the whaling vessel.
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Answer: At any competitive college, university, academy, etc, there are only so many applicants accepted each year to maintain a program's quality. There would be many other candidates elsewhere who are also applying to Starfleet Academy, in addition to those four. This is also a plot device to showcase Wesley's role on the show and how he deals with competition, rejection, and not always being the smartest person. It's also a reason to explain why someone his age would still be on the Enterprise rather than moving on to higher education. (I just saw this episode again, and Lt. Chang does say only one candidate is being chosen from that specific location, indicating there are other candidates elsewhere who are competing).
raywest ★