Entertainment
The Single Line Of Dialogue Star Trek Spent Over 50 Years Explaining
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The strength of Star Trek has never been its ambitious special effects or its bevy of exotic aliens. No, the strength of this franchise has always been in its dialogue. Many fans memorize lines like Kirk’s “risk is our business” and turn them into personal mantras, which is no surprise.
These episodes offer such unique insights into the human condition that even a simple line can inspire you to change your life. In the very first Star Trek episode, though, the show’s most popular character had a line of dialogue that has inspired nothing but arguments among fans.
In The Original Series broadcast premiere “The Man Trap,” Spock makes a straightforward statement about his home planet: “Vulcan has no moon.” On paper, it’s a pretty simple statement because nobody really expected a fictional alien planet to have the exact same features as our own.
Unfortunately, since Star Trek: The Animated Series, the franchise has often portrayed Spock’s home planet as having a huge moon that is very visible from the planet below. Audiences have been trying to resolve this discrepancy for over half a century, and an episode of Strange New Worlds quietly made the most popular fan theory into canon.
When Pillow Talk Goes Wrong
When Spock mentions his home planet in “The Man Trap,” he is effectively shutting down some flirtation from Uhura. She playfully tells him to “tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a lazy evening when the moon is full.” Without missing a beat or taking the bait, Spock tells his fellow officer that “Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.” There was no need to question his assertion until the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode “Yesteryear.” In that episode, a large moon was very obviously visible from the surface of the planet Vulcan in multiple shots.
After this, it became weirdly common for Star Trek films and TV shows to feature a moon and other celestial bodies near Vulcan. The theatrical cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for example, originally portrayed four oversized orbs in Vulcan’s sky. It wasn’t clear if these were meant to be moons or planets, but it eventually became a moot point. When the Director’s Edition of that movie came out on DVD, those objects had been removed, and the night sky (distracting since this was a daytime scene) was replaced with an orange one.
Fly Me To The Moon
The “does Vulcan have a moon?” debate calmed down until Star Trek: Discovery. The episodes “Lethe,” “If Memory Serves,” and “Such Sweet Sorrow” showed celestial bodies that were visible from the surface of the planet Vulcan.
Once again, it wasn’t clear if we were looking at moons, planets, or something else entirely. Moreover, fans once more had to wonder why Spock so confidently declared that Vulcan had no moon when so much cosmic crap is clearly visible from the surface of his planet.
However, veteran Star Trek writer D.C. Fontana provided a possible explanation for this conundrum, which was published in a fanzine way back in 1975. She proposed that Vulcan had a sister planet, T’Khut, that had a co-orbital relationship.
This elegantly justified Spock’s statement that Vulcan has no moon by explaining that what we saw in the sky in “Yesteryear” and later episodes wasn’t a lunar body. Instead, it was T’Khut, which was orbiting closely enough to be visible to the naked eye. While this remained only a fan theory for over half a century, it was eventually canonized by Strange New Worlds, which showed T’Khut orbiting Vulcan on a computer console.
There you have it, Trekkers: a simple throwaway line from Spock in the first episode of Star Trek to ever hit the airwaves ignited decades of fan debates. Everyone wanted to explain this seeming discrepancy, but nobody could top the one offered by franchise scribe D.C. Fontana. Paramount agreed, eventually making her popular theory official canon. As a side effect of all this, there’s now one line of dialogue Star Trek and Star Wars fans can quote for completely different reasons: “that’s no moon!”
Entertainment
Get Ankers 14-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 Dock for $60 less at Amazon
SAVE 15%: As of April 22, you can get the Anker Prime 14-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 Dock for $339.99, down from $399.99, at Amazon. That’s a 15% discount or $60 savings.
$339.99
at Amazon
$399.99
Save $60
Working off a laptop is great until you realize you only have two ports and need to plug something in. If you’re hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, you’re pretty much out of luck on the rest. Not only that, but your previously uncluttered desk will most likely look like a Best Buy exploded (a rat’s nest of cords isn’t cute or helpful for anyone getting work done).
If you literally hate mess and cords as much as I do, you need a docking station to hide all that chaos and protect your aesthetic. Right now, Anker’s Prime TB5 Docking Station is on sale for $339.99 at Amazon, down from $399.99. (That’s a $60 price cut.)
Mashable Deals
Are you going to use all 14 ports at the exact same time? Probably not, but you’ll never have to dig through your bag for a specific adapter again. You just plug a single cable into your laptop, and the dock handles the rest. It features a Thunderbolt 5 upstream port, two Thunderbolt 5 downstream ports, two USB-C ports, three USB-A ports, SD and TF card readers, a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, an audio jack, and your choice of HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 2.1. It’s also fast enough to transfer a 150GB file in 25 seconds.
Entertainment
How I scored ad-free Paramount+ Premium for only 99 cents
SAVE $26: As of April 22, returning subscribers can score two months of ad-free Paramount+ Premium for only 99 cents per month with the code N8C27L. Usually $13.99 per month, that’s $26 in savings. Just note that your mileage may vary.
$0.99/month for 2 months (save $13/month) with code N8C27L
If you’re looking to save some money on your streaming lineup, my number one recommendation is to cancel your subscriptions. While it doesn’t work for every streamer, many will offer you a special discount to come back. Not to mention, you’ll be eligible for any new deals that may appear that are marketed to “new and returning customers.” Case in point: as of April 22, returning subscribers can get two months of ad-free Paramount+ Premium for just 99 cents per month.
I’ve tested this out myself, so I can vouch for it. When you navigate to Paramount+ and sign in to your existing account, you’ll be prompted to pick a plan. Select the Paramount+ Premium monthly plan for $13.99 per month. On the “Welcome back!” page, scroll down to the box that says “Have a promo code?” and enter N8C27L. Once you hit “apply” the price should drop to just 99 cents per month.
Credit: Paramount+
That’s all, folks. You can take advantage of two full months of ad-free Paramount+, Showtime, BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, CBS live TV, UFC fights, and more for less than two bucks. That’s $26 total in savings.
Mashable Deals
Paramount+ has a surprisingly hefty library. Subscribers can enjoy Paramount+ Originals like Landman and RuPaul Drag Race All Stars, Showtime series like Dexter Resurrection and Yellowjackets, CBS hits like Survivor and NCIS, and nostalgic shows from Nickelodeon and MTV. Not to mention, there’s a lineup of movies that’ll keep you fully entertained for your two-month promotional period. Just be sure to cancel again before the second month is over if you want to avoid paying full cost. You can always sign up again when another deal arises. I know I will.
Entertainment
How Stargate SG-1 Used A Classic Trope To Emotionally Wreck Its Fans
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Garfield and Friends said it best: “Oh no, we’ve resorted to an evil twin storyline.” Star Trek: The Original Series did it the best with Mirror Universe Spock, and ever since, it’s been a lazy excuse for every series to use when they run out of ideas. The exception is Stargate SG-1’s sixth episode, “Cold Lazarus,” which plays with the trope by making the twin less evil and more confused.
When fans say they skip this episode when rewatching, it’s not because it’s a lazy, poorly written episode. In fact, it’s the opposite. The ending of “Cold Lazarus” is a pivotal character moment for Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and a gut punch to the audience.
Stargate SG-1’s First Evil Twin
“Cold Lazarus” opens with the SG-1 team on a planet that doesn’t look like Vancouver (it was a giant pile of sulfur at the port of Vancouver). The desert landscape is dotted with shattered blue crystals that look like the remnants of a civilization until we see a crystal eye-view of O’Neill, a mysterious light knocks him out, and all of a sudden, a second O’Neill is looking down at the first. Turns out, the crystals are the civilization.
Fake O’Neill is trying to figure out who O’Neill is and what SGC is all about. When he pulls out photos of his family, it takes Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) by surprise. O’Neill’s never mentioned his wife, Sara, or his son, Charlie. Confused, the Fake O’Neill goes to the home, where Sara is disgusted he’d come by and thinks it’s a sick joke that he’s asking about Charlie. If you’re wondering if you missed a key part of O’Neill’s backstory, don’t worry, this is the first time that either Sara or Charlie is mentioned, and tragically, we soon learn why.
No One Ever Dies
Charlie shot himself with O’Neill’s gun. Fake O’Neill starts to piece this together when he goes into Charlie’s old room and breaks down, prompting Sara and him to finally have the conversation about their shared grief. Back in SGC, the crystal’s nature is revealed to be an energy alien calling itself Unity, which accidentally killed a Jaffa, and the Goa’uld shattered them in retribution. That’s when O’Neill stumbles back through the Stargate, and the team realizes the mistake they made.
The Fake O’Neill is soon captured at a local hospital, suffering from Earth’s radiation, where he explains that he sensed O’Neill’s pain after he took his form and wanted to help ease the suffering, as nothing ever truly dies to Unity. To prove its point, Unity transforms into Charlie, giving O’Neill and Sara one last chance to see their child. Fans who haven’t lost a child can understand the emotion, but for fans who have, this scene is emotional torture, in the best way possible.
Jack knows this isn’t Charlie, but he talks to him like he is, and then they walk together through the Stargate back to Unity’s planet. It’s a beautiful moment that explains so much about O’Neill’s throwing himself into work and how even his friendships remain professional. “Cold Lazarus” may have started out with the “evil twin” trope in full effect, but the ending is proof that even early during its run, Stargate SG-1 was going to be the greatest.
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