The Quinessential Trek Episode

[Nate the Great]

Reminds me of when the creators of Friends were choosing their episode titles. They said something along the lines of "let's just call it whatever they're going to be talking about around the water cooler the next day." "The One With the Football," "The One With the Unagi," "The One With the Prom Video," etc. Kinda hard to forget episode titles like that, huh?

Might be time for another thread to "rename" Trek episodes into something easier to remember, just for fun. First off I'd rename all of those DS9 episodes that are Latin phrases. Those tick me off.

[Scooter]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Reminds me of when the creators of Friends were choosing their episode titles. They said something along the lines of "let's just call it whatever they're going to be talking about around the water cooler the next day." "The One With the Football," "The One With the Unagi," "The One With the Prom Video," etc. Kinda hard to forget episode titles like that, huh?

Might be time for another thread to "rename" Trek episodes into something easier to remember, just for fun. First off I'd rename all of those DS9 episodes that are Latin phrases. Those tick me off.

Some people I know habitually rename Trek eps using the "Friends" format -- "The One with the Gorn," "The One with Ricardo Montalban," "The One where the Crew Are Turned into Dodecahedrons," etc. Works great with TOS, because there's usually one thing per episode that jumps out at you like that. But I dunno if it would work as well with later series. Like you'd end up with something like "The One where Janeway Creates a Time Paradox" (...the one?). "The One Where Sisko Glowers a Lot and Avoids Being the Emissary." "The One Where Pulaski Doesn't Die a Horrible Grisly Death."

70s Doctor Who has a similar problem, they all start to sound the same after a while... "City of Death," "Ambassadors of Death," "Robots of Death," "Stones of Blood," "Planet of Evil," "Mind of Evil," "Face of Evil," "Hand of Fear," "Web of Fear" ....

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

First off I'd rename all of those DS9 episodes that are Latin phrases. Those tick me off.

"All" those episodes? Is it just me or is there only one? "Inter arma enim silent leges." The episode "Dramatis Personae" is also Latin words, but it's a technical term relating to story. It's as Latin as "Deus ex machina" is.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, so there is only one, but there's a whole bunch more that look like they were translated from Latin, phrases that may speak for the metaphysical theme of the episode, but don't help one figure out which particular plot they're talking about. "The Dogs of War" comes to mind. The whole last half of the series concerns the war, at least in theory, how does "The Dogs of War" help direct you to that particular plot?

[mudshark]

Got Shakespeare?

[Nate the Great]

Cute, too bad we can't put that web address into the credits of every episode. "Based upon Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry, go to metaphorsexplained.com if the title confuses you."

[Zeke]

Not theobviousexplained.com?

[Edited to fix link. Dammit!]

[Nate the Great]

Beats me.

Oh, and just for the kicks of volleying the topic in a completely new direction (I'm a big ping-pong freak ), I'm suddenly reminded of the list of classic bumper sticker messages. My favorite is "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup," followed by "save the whales; collect the whole set." Input?