'Relics'

[LCARSGFX]

Sigh.... I watched the episode Relics last night.
How much more poignancy does that episode now have.

My eyes welled up slightly at the scene where Scotty is on the holodeck recreation of the TOS bridge, raises his glass of green stuff and says "Here's to ye lads".

The scene has more meaning to it that ever intended, now that Doohan and Kelley are no longer with us.

I had a noticable lump in my throat.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I love this episode. It may very well be on my top ten list.

 

[The Castellan]

Anyone else besides me digged the Jenolin?

 

[Neutral Zone]

I have to agree this is one great episode. I love any of the episodes where TOS crew members turn up. They always remind me of where it all started and that they were the ones that started it

 

[Trekker4747]

I love this episode too.

I do want to point something out as this almost always gets brought up in "Relics" threads:

People often point out that Geordi behaves badly towards Scotty in this episode -dismissing him, yelling at him, kicking him out of engineering, etc.

While Geordi may have handled things poorly, I'm going to speak out in defense of him and against Scotty.

Really, I think Scotty was asking for it.

Let's consider this for a moment:

Say you're at your place of employment and working on some complex project that your boss expects from you soon. You're doing this work and in marches an aquaintence you met earlier.

This guy recently came out of a coma he was in for a couple decades (it's even worse in Trek's case as Scotty was in the transporter loop for 70 years). He used to have your same job and was considered quite good at it. So he's in your place of employment trying to talk with you -while you're trying to do your project- and he proceedes to talk your ear off -which is ok- but then he questions some of your department decisions, starts pressing buttons and even begins physicaly tampering with the equipment. Wouldn't you flip out too?

Geordi, I'm sure, had all good intentions to show Scotty around, bring him up to date with 24th century technology, he just didn't have time at the moment Scotty came in. Scotty's engineering knowledge is seventy years out of date! If you were a IT guy in a office building today and some guy came in whose nowledge of computers is centered around vacuum tubes, you wouldn't consider him much help either.

Geordi, yeah, was a bit needlessly short with Scotty, but Geordi just snapped and it even seems he regrets it the moment Scotty storms out. But, honestly, Scotty was in the way and lecturing Geordi -chief engineer of the flagship, the Enterprise!- on how he should be doing his job was a bit out of line.

 

[Hatchet2k4]

I love this episode, very nostalgic and Scotty pulls through in the end.. but the thing that always bothered me about it was how they ended it. Geordi was supposed to get him a drink in Ten Forward, but instead they just give him a shuttle and just send him on his way? That just always seemed.. cold to me! And he just accepts it and goes on his way without even getting his drink! I dunno, I know they had to get rid of him somehow by the end of the episode but they could have done it a better way.

 

[Prologic9]

Its a fun episode, even though post TOS-Scotty really was never the same.

I do love the TOS reference from Data in ten-forward, "...It is Green."

 

[Trekker4747]

I love this episode, very nostalgic and Scotty pulls through in the end.. but the thing that always bothered me about it was how they ended it. Geordi was supposed to get him a drink in Ten Forward, but instead they just give him a shuttle and just send him on his way? That just always seemed.. cold to me! And he just accepts it and goes on his way without even getting his drink! I dunno, I know they had to get rid of him somehow by the end of the episode but they could have done it a better way.

Yeah, that never sat right with me either. Scotty and Geordi are having a pleasant conversation and then Scotty inquires about being "bought" a drinkin 10-Fwd. Geordi says he has a better idea! Then they go into to the shuttle bay and kick Scotty off the ship.

 

[Alrik]

Well let me think about it for a sec. A drink, or a warp capable shuttle? Hmmm. I'll go with the shuttle and get my own drink from the replicator.

I hear what you all are saying, but I always saw it as Picard and Company giving Scotty a second chance at doing what made him feel good. Keep in mind that he was just hitching a ride on the Jenolin to his retirement destination. I think that between figuring out how to survive in the trasporter combined with finding a way to save Enterprise by using the Jenolin, Scotty realized he wasn't quite ready to be put out to pasture, and I think Picard understood that as well. Scotty sure didn't seem too upset about being given a shuttle.

 

[Tomalak]

It's a good episode, but the last time I saw it I found myself annoyed at the amount of technobabble they gave James Doohan. It was the same in Generations, and sounds absolutely terrible. He's not Data. Even Spock never came out with phrases like that. It was so incongruous.

 

[Finn]

^But there was too little techobabble in TOS when you have to consider it was set centuries into the future on a ship that travels faster than light. The conservations we would expect to hear on a typical navy air carrier today would appear to be nonsensial technobabble for a typical 18th Century man.

Yes, TNG and VOY abused the use of deflector and terms like "inverted" but still.

 

[Tomalak]

^But there was too little techobabble in TOS when you have to consider it was set centuries into the future on a ship that travels faster than light.

I think this is the trap TNG and Voyager writers fell into. They felt to make it a convincing vision of the future, they needed to pack in lots of scientific-sounding language. However, the TOS writers knew that it is a drama series foremost, and got the balance right.

It's strange because the writers hated writing it, the actors hated saying it, and a lot of viewers hated hearing it.

But that's not really what I was getting at. It was more that it was uncharacteristic for Scotty to be using that sort of language, when he had rarely used it in the past. It just feels wrong to me, it's not quite the Scotty I know.

 

[Finn]

Perhaps. But Scotty should have had sprouted out some techobabble besides "She can't take it any longer, Captain!"

 

[Alrik]

I don't know, I think Tomalak has a point. While I very much enjoyed 'Relics', I felt from my very first viewing that Scotty was a little 'off' from his character in TOS and the movies. I never blamed Jimmy D for that. I think that the 'real world' the explaination is simple. These were TNG writers writing for a TOS character and they just got it a little wrong. In later years I came to figure that the 'in universe' reason was that he wasn't quite himself after spending so many years in the transporter.
TOS and the movies did just fine with the limited technobable. I think TNG did, at times, suffer a little from going over board.

 

[buckeyenation]

although i do love the way scotty steers clear of warf when getting in his shuttle

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Perhaps. But Scotty should have had sprouted out some techobabble besides "She can't take it any longer, Captain!"

Why? That's all that we--the audience--needs to know. All that we need for the drama of the story is to know that the engines are at their limits. Does it matter if the Warp Core's magnafoozle is reading 10.9 and if it hits 12 the containment field with collapse and kill us all? No, not really.

 

[Tomalak]

It's also all Kirk needs to know in the heat of the moment.

 

[Alrik]

^

Another valid point. Don't get me wrong, I love TNG, but I grew up on TOS, and the simplicity worked. There's a certain charm to "I'm givin ya all she's got, Sir. She canna take much more.", as opposed to something like, "Captain, I've pushed the anti matter injectors to 27% past safety limits, if I try to push them much further, we could breach the warp core." I guess call me old school.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well let me think about it for a sec. A drink, or a warp capable shuttle? Hmmm. I'll go with the shuttle and get my own drink from the replicator.

I hear what you all are saying, but I always saw it as Picard and Company giving Scotty a second chance at doing what made him feel good. Keep in mind that he was just hitching a ride on the Jenolin to his retirement destination. I think that between figuring out how to survive in the trasporter combined with finding a way to save Enterprise by using the Jenolin, Scotty realized he wasn't quite ready to be put out to pasture, and I think Picard understood that as well. Scotty sure didn't seem too upset about being given a shuttle.

Yeah, but they could've given him the shuttle at another time or in less of way that suggested they were asking him to leave right then and there. But, I guess, at the same time Scotty jumped to conclusions and instead of saying, "Thanks for the shuttle! Let's all share a drink the 10-Fwd!" he pretty much said, "Thanks for the shuttle! I'm taking off now!"

 

[Alrik]

Well let me think about it for a sec. A drink, or a warp capable shuttle? Hmmm. I'll go with the shuttle and get my own drink from the replicator.

I hear what you all are saying, but I always saw it as Picard and Company giving Scotty a second chance at doing what made him feel good. Keep in mind that he was just hitching a ride on the Jenolin to his retirement destination. I think that between figuring out how to survive in the trasporter combined with finding a way to save Enterprise by using the Jenolin, Scotty realized he wasn't quite ready to be put out to pasture, and I think Picard understood that as well. Scotty sure didn't seem too upset about being given a shuttle.

Yeah, but they could've given him the shuttle at another time or in less of way that suggested they were asking him to leave right then and there. But, I guess, at the same time Scotty jumped to conclusions and instead of saying, "Thanks for the shuttle! Let's all share a drink the 10-Fwd!" he pretty much said, "Thanks for the shuttle! I'm taking off now!"

Very true. Plus, what we don't know is perhaps 10 minutes later Scotty could have hailed Picard and asked for permission to return to Enterprise briefly. Maybe have that drink with the senior staff, glow on how well the shuttle handles, thank them again for the gift, and entertain them all with stories from the old days before leaving for good. Ah, but that's the stuff of fan fic. We just never know.