What Star Trek Got Wrong

I watched Star Trek when it originally aired on Thursday nights. I was five years old. I hadn't a clue what was going on in that show. My father, on the other hand, was transfixed by the series. I mostly ruined it for him by incessantly asking what was up with that guy's ears. Later when I learned the plots shadowed current events of the day, the warlike Klingons were sometimes said to be the North Koreans and the crafty Romulans were attributed to the former Soviets, I appreciated the edginess of Star Trek. The follow on series never matched the same intellectual level of the original which lasted only three years.

My trekie friends are always espousing what Star Trek got right. In accordance with today's mainstream journalistic standard practices, I would like to concentrate on what Star Trek got wrong.

Squelch

Kirk and Spock

Whenever Captain Kirk whipped out a communicator to hail the Enterprise, he would often twist a knob on the device. He fiddled away with the squelch while saying,

"Come in Enterprise."

Back in the late 1960s and all through to the 80s, electronic devices needed to be manually tuned. Car radios had a knob for tuning. There were a few preset buttons, but you had to acquire the station before you could set your faves.

Televisions had the UHF dial which stood for "ultra high frequency." After school, my sister and I would endlessly adjust that UHF knob trying to get a clear picture of channel 56 so we could watch Speed Racer and other lame cartoons. All the kid shows were on the UHF dial. I thought it stood for "you have fun." When VCRs first came out, you had to manually tune every station as part of the setup. Fortunately for us, we had less than twenty channels so even though it was a tedious task, it wasn't like today in which you have hundreds of stations that you never watch. Auto tuning made the set up and operation of just about any electronic device extraordinarily easy. In the 23rd century, Captain Kirk had to manually tune in the Enterprise.

Transporter

The Transporter

While the feasibility of the transporter is argued by physicists and heavy thinkers all over the globe, let's just assume it would work if they could get all the bugs worked out. The first thing never mentioned in Star Trek is the obvious medical benefits of teleportation. If they can break up your body into a bunch of elementary particles, beam them to another location, and put everything back together, then they certainly could filter out the particles you don't want like cancer, fat, or a cold virus. They could painlessly remove cataracts or a mole. Sure, traveling by teleportation would be wonderfully convenient, but it would be a great way to remove a tumor.

There was some tense scenes when Scottie almost lost crew members in the transporter. He would slide the levers up and down and press buttons trying to do something to the signal. I'm not sure what he was doing, but if that can happen, then forget teleportation. I'll just walk.

Language

It always bothered me that the aliens spoke English. How fortuitous. Imagine traveling light years, beaming down to a planet, running into some aliens, and they spoke French. Eight years of parochial school, and I wouldn't be able to communicate with them unless, of course, the aliens needed to conjugate the French word for "go."

Setting the Phasor to Stun

Crew Member
with a Phasor

Whenever an away party positioned themselves on the transporter, Captain Kirk usually announced the phasor setting. He would say,

"Set phasors to stun."

Everyone would look down at their drawn phasor and turn a little knob. That's it? That's all you have to do to change the setting from "kill" to "stun?" They should've had to pull the knob up a bit to get it on the kill setting. Maybe they should have to punch in a code. I'll bet they had a lot of incidents whereby someone had their phasor on "kill" when it should have been on "stun." Imagine Kirk and his team beaming down to a planet and encountering a menacing alien. They all shoot their phasors, thinking they're going to stun the dude, but one guy has his set incorrectly.

Kirk: "Which one of you assholes has a phasor set to kill?"

Chekov: "It was me, Cap-tin. Sorry."

Phasor Energy Requirement

Years ago, when I was taking a physics class in college, the professor was a big trekie. On a test, he had us calculate the amount of energy needed to separate two carbon atoms which was quite a lot. He then asked us to comment on the feasibility of the Star Trek phasor. The answer he was looking for was the energy requirement made the phasor impractical. My answer was along the lines that although the amount of energy required to separate two carbon atoms was significant, it's not necessary to kill someone. All you need to do is raise the surface temperature sufficiently high enough to burn a hole into their body, preferably through some vital organ or the head.

Set to "stun," the phasor knocked you on your ass. Set to "kill," and the target completely disappeared. However, tidy complete vaporization is, it's not likely that there would be sufficient energy to power a phasor set to "kill."

Everyone Was an Officer

There was 1,014 crew members on the Enterprise. Star Trek often modeled life aboard the starship like that of a sea going vessel. There was "away" parties and pipe calls when hailing someone. What the writers left out was the distinction between enlisted and officers. Chief O'Brien in Next Generation was the only enlisted dude I ever heard referenced. Sulu was a lieutenant although his job as a helmsman is typically performed by an enlisted member. Uhura was a lieutenant in the position of Chief Communication Officer. She was often the one actually running the communication equipment which likely would have been a subordinate. I also thought it was a bit sexist that the biggest roles for women on the show were a phone operator and a nurse, Christine Chapel, also an officer. She had a thing for Spock, the science officer. Even Kirk's yeoman, Janice Rand, was a Lieutenant Junior Grade.

Yeoman Duties

Yeoman Rand often brought food to Captain Kirk. She also made coffee for everyone on the bridge. In one episode, she ingeniously heats a pot of coffee with a phasor during a power outage. I wonder what phasor setting she used? Yeoman in the navy push paper, not food. The latter is the job of a mess specialist, and even so they don't fuss over the Captain's diet.

When I was pushing paper in the navy, I once needed one of those circle things used to repair the hole punched in a sheet of paper. I went into the Admin Department, and asked a first class yeoman for one. She said,

"We call those things paper assholes, sir."

Not to be outdone, I responded, "That's funny. That's what we call yeomen in the Admin Department."

Kirk's occasional interest in Yeoman Rand would have been considered fraternization, being a superior commissioned officer. Kirk got it on with aliens every so often so maybe a little human fraternization will be tolerated in the 23rd century.

Race

Star Trek was ahead of its time in the manner in which the storyline handled race. The bridge was very racially diversified. There was an African American woman, a gay Asian (although we didn't know it back then), a Russian and a Vulcan. Of course, the white male was in charge. The show even broke ground with the first on screen interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura. If I remember the episode correctly, aliens forced them to do it, and Uhura cried. That's not my idea of racial equality, but, hey, it was 1968 so it was groundbreaking.

Combat

For all the advances in the 23rd century, there was an awful lot of hand to hand combat. You would think that superior weaponry would make it unnecessary to smack an alien on the head with something heavy, but don't underestimate the effectiveness of a big rock. Technological advancements also hadn't made much headway in the garment industry either since Kirk lost many a shirt standing his ground with aliens.

Questioning Orders

When things got tense on the bridge of the Enterprise, a lot of people second guessed the orders given by the officer in charge. Kirk commands,

"Lower the shields!"

Sulu spins around in his chair and exclaims,

"But Captain! Lowering the shield will blah, blah, blah..."

In the military, you don't question the orders given to you, especially in a combat scenario on the bridge of a fighting vessel. Sometimes when the Klingons got the upper hand, Kirk would blurt out,

"Evasive maneuvers!"

There is no order for a helmsmen to do whatever they want to get the ship out of danger. Commands are short and to the point, not open ended and subject to interpretation.

Away Teams

Away with You Team

Whenever they beam down to a hostile, alien planet, the away team always includes Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy. This is not very realistic even for the 23rd century. The captain generally stays with the ship, especially when it sinks. The First Officer doesn't leave either because he's there to take over if the Captain hands in his lunch pail. Why they would gun up "Bones" and send his crotchety ass along for a close encounter always puzzled me. The guy in the red shirt isn't long for this world or any others for that matter. He's the extra in the credits listed as "Dumbass Red Shirt Crewmember with a Phasor." He usually buys it shortly after beaming to the surface. Perhaps aliens like bulls are not fond of the color red.

Star Trek still enthralls new generations fifty years later. Movies today are often criticized for too much computer generated imagery and not enough good writing or plot elements. Considering how primitive the special effects were back then, it's a testament to the exemplary skill of the writers that Star Trek remains a relevant classic today.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on November 1, 2016.