short takes

[cellio]

You know it's a bad snow-driving night when you get off the highway and increase your speed. Yup, very cautious people on the parkway tonight. Somewhat cautious people on the local streets.

Silly cats (very funny!) from ian_gunn.

Overheard in the office: "The solar system consists of the sun, Jupiter, and assorted debris".

I finally watched last week's Enterprise tonight. Are we about to get an explanation for the change in Klingon appearance between the original series and the modern shows? Sure looks that way. I also noticed the background music in several places, which I rarely do with this show, and it was effective. Nicely done. I wonder what changed.

Comments

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

I don't watch Enterprise, but if they give an explanation, would you care to pass it on?

[cellio]

Sure.

[cellio]

Spoiler alert. (That's for anyone other than miz_hatbox, who requested the info.)

As I suspected after last week's episode: there is a plague that modifies one's genetic code (ahem -- hey, I just report this stuff) that has gotten loose in the Klingon empire. It specifically resulted from failed attempts to create augments. Anyway, in one of the early stages of the disease, there are physical modifications, including the ridges fading back quite a bit. In later stages bad things happen to you internally and you die.

In this episode, we saw the development of a partial cure. It can't do anything about the first stage, but it stops it from getting worse. The plague has infected "millions", and (we are told) the genetic mutations will be passed down to children.

Um, yeah. Genetic mutation doesn't really work that way, but that's their story. Presumably, at some point between the end of the original series and the time of TNG, someone came up with the the rest of the cure. Either that, or the mutated Klingons were such an embarrassment that the others eventually killed them off in a purge or something. Of course we won't be told in the Enterprise timeframe.