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I was just wondering, for the sake of history, which was the first Star Trek episode to feature the infamous exploding bridge consoles of death? I ask because I just saw Yesterday's Enterprise- which with the exception of the artillery shells of Generations, IMO, is the worst incident of exploding bridge consoles ever seen, in terms of magnitude. I don't recall similar incidents in Season 1 and Season 2 of TNG, though I haven't seen those episodes in a long time (my friend got S1 and S2 on DVD ages ago and I borrowed them, he only got the rest recently).

I was just wondering, for the sake of history, which was the first Star Trek episode to feature the infamous exploding bridge consoles of death?

The second TOS pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before featured the first case of Sparkling Console Syndrome when the Enterprise tries to break through the barrier (pic)

The exploding variety was introduced in The Wrath of Khan.

Initially, sparks and explosions were limited to times when severe damage or imminent destruction were to be shown, but starting with Voyager (and later DS9 and ENT) the FX teams went a bit overboard and started throwing in fireworks every time the ship got midly bumped.

Interestingly, you'll often see consoles continuing to work perfectly after "exploding"...

In the Wrath Of Khan, its worth noting that there actually was a legitimate reason for the explosions on the bridges, and that reason being both ships took direct hits on or bloody near the bridge tower. The on-bridge explosions seemed to be directly correlated to the occurance of such damage. If, however, a phaser strikes an engine nacelle or a meteor bumps into the secondary hull, I see no reason for there to be any damage to the bridge at all, and the exploding consoles so prominently featured in later Trek are emblematic of the overall stupidity that ultimately killed Star Trek as a franchise.

the exploding consoles so prominently featured in later Trek are emblematic of the overall stupidity that ultimately killed Star Trek as a franchise.

Laziness rather the stupidity, I believe. Sparks and explosions are a cheap way of conveying "danger" and making your story look spectacular. You can get the same result by using far more subtle effects (as in Divergence, when the ship started rattling and screens flickered on and off during the reboot sequence), but it takes more effort.

Bounty wrote:
The second TOS pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before featured the first case of Sparkling Console Syndrome when the Enterprise tries to break through the barrier (pic)

The exploding variety was introduced in The Wrath of Khan.

Initially, sparks and explosions were limited to times when severe damage or imminent destruction were to be shown, but starting with Voyager (and later DS9 and ENT) the FX teams went a bit overboard and started throwing in fireworks every time the ship got midly bumped.

Interestingly, you'll often see consoles continuing to work perfectly after "exploding"...

I was only referring to lethal explosions from the consoles, rather than the more harmles sparks- I assumed people had read the brainbugs page on Mike's website, but in any case, the "lethal" consoles in Wrath of Khan were merely an unrealistic training contrivance to kill off the bridge crew for the purposes of the simulator, and we didn't see such lethality displayed when TOS ships were in battle. TWOK was the origin of this brainbug, however.

The actual explosions that killed some of Khan's men (and wounded Khan himself) in TWOK were of course, as RThurmont notes, direct results of near bridge impacts by phaser fire from the Enterprise.

Compare to Generations- immediately after the Enterprise-D fires its phasers at the attacking Bird of Prey, the Bird of Prey returns fire with its disruptors, which strike the battle/engineering section. The result is the entire rear array of consoles on the bridge exploding, sending a hapless goldshirt over the tactical console, tumbling on the (conveniently) empty bridge chairs before slamming on the floor.

Like so: Link

I was only referring to lethal explosions from the consoles, rather than the more harmles sparks

Ah, my mistake.

we didn't see such lethality displayed when TOS ships were in battle

Yes we did. The E-A's helmswoman got fried during the final battle with Chang.

The actual explosions that killed some of Khan's men (and wounded Khan himself) in TWOK were of course, as RThurmont notes, direct results of near bridge impacts by phaser fire from the Enterprise.

Apart from the final shot, which hit the nacelle and caused the ceiling of the bridge to come down

Though granted, the Reliant had at that point been thoroughly shot up, and the bridge had already taken considerable damage.

Compare to Generations- immediately after the Enterprise-D fires its phasers at the attacking Bird of Prey, the Bird of Prey returns fire with its disruptors, which strike the battle/engineering section. The result is the entire rear array of consoles on the bridge exploding, sending a hapless goldshirt over the tactical console, tumbling on the (conveniently) empty bridge chairs before slamming on the floor.

For the longest time I though the Klingons somehow hit the bridge in that shot, if only because of the damage. They didn't, of course, but that was my first impression - why else would an entire wall implode ?

I guess it was cheaper to stuff the set with dynamite then to pull out the Vor'Cha model and make a decent battle...

Bounty wrote:
Yes we did. The E-A's helmswoman got fried during the final battle with Chang.

My mistake- my memory fails me- I guess Star Trek VI was a new enough movie for it to be "infected" with the brainbug.

Apart from the final shot, which hit the nacelle and caused the ceiling of the bridge to come down

Really? I'll have to look at that again.

For the longest time I though the Klingons somehow hit the bridge in that shot, if only because of the damage. They didn't, of course, but that was my first impression - why else would an entire wall implode ?

I guess it was cheaper to stuff the set with dynamite then to pull out the Vor'Cha model and make a decent battle...

Bastards ...

Really? I'll have to look at that again.

Nacelle breaks off, bridge desintegrates.

Bounty wrote:

Really? I'll have to look at that again.

Nacelle breaks off, bridge desintegrates.

The momentum shift of having an entire nacelle fly away at significant speed would probably be sufficient to shake loose something from the roof if it was already weakened from prior damage. But that big chunk falling from the roof always did look stupid, even for people who don't care about technical issues.

Bounty wrote:

Really? I'll have to look at that again.

Nacelle breaks off, bridge desintegrates.

The damage we see on the bridge could have been a continuation of the previous bridge damage or the sudden power surge from the loss of so massive a component, and entire Warp engine I'd call major. In TNG we see minor damage resulting in such consol eruptions.

In this case we have a bridge already in bad shape from a direct hit to it and that engine exploding must have sent shock wave through the hull buckling already damage hull sections. This damage resulted in a pieces of the roof of the bridge landing on those inside.

Darth Wong wrote:

Bounty wrote:

Really? I'll have to look at that again.

Nacelle breaks off, bridge desintegrates.

The momentum shift of having an entire nacelle fly away at significant speed would probably be sufficient to shake loose something from the roof if it was already weakened from prior damage. But that big chunk falling from the roof always did look stupid, even for people who don't care about technical issues.

Said damage to the bridge had already dropped a major structural section of the roof onto Khan's helmsman buddy "i will avenge you!"

that damage was a result of a direct hit to the bridge dome by the Enterprise.

Another early incident of exploding Bridge consoles was in "The City on the Edge of Forever" Sulu gets knocked out when the helm explodes into sparks and Scotty takes over, the station still in working order. Was more of a plot device though to get Sulu injured so McCoy could be in a position to accidentally drug himself. Aside from that and "Where No Man", I dunno of any other cases where this happened in TOS (not counting the films).

Aside from that and "Where No Man", I dunno of any other cases where this happened in TOS (not counting the films).

Like they had the money to damage the set

Interesting to note that every time the bridge consoles erupted in TOS, there was some really weird shit going on outside. Also worth noting that Where No Man Has Gone Before actually had the crew having to replace the damaged bridge consoles.

Yes we did. The E-A's helmswoman got fried during the final battle with Chang.

What? When did this happen? I don't recall seeing anybody getting wounded on the E-A bridge.

I'm reminded of TNG The Survivors, when the last volley between the Ent-D and the Husnock ship resulted in part of the tactical console exploding in someone's face.

Compare to Generations- immediately after the Enterprise-D fires its phasers at the attacking Bird of Prey, the Bird of Prey returns fire with its disruptors, which strike the battle/engineering section. The result is the entire rear array of consoles on the bridge exploding, sending a hapless goldshirt over the tactical console, tumbling on the (conveniently) empty bridge chairs before slamming on the floor.

You've got the sequence of events wrong. The bridge explosion didn't occur until later in the battle... just after Data proposes the "ionic pulse", I think.

Bounty wrote:Laziness rather the stupidity, I believe. Sparks and explosions are a cheap way of conveying "danger" and making your story look spectacular. You can get the same result by using far more subtle effects (as in Divergence, when the ship started rattling and screens flickered on and off during the reboot sequence), but it takes more effort.

How hard would it have been to introduce a "flicker" button into the set, thus having a flicker effect whenever they needed it?

Uraniun235 wrote:

Yes we did. The E-A's helmswoman got fried during the final battle with Chang.

What? When did this happen? I don't recall seeing anybody getting wounded on the E-A bridge.

You don't see the helmswoman get fried, but the helm does blow up into a fury of sparks. Its not terribly clear though where the sparks are coming from when shown though. But, during Kirk's last log entry you can see the helm is scorched and that it looks like someone torched the chair good.

Compare to Generations- immediately after the Enterprise-D fires its phasers at the attacking Bird of Prey, the Bird of Prey returns fire with its disruptors, which strike the battle/engineering section. The result is the entire rear array of consoles on the bridge exploding, sending a hapless goldshirt over the tactical console, tumbling on the (conveniently) empty bridge chairs before slamming on the floor.

There are two bridge explosions during the fight with the BoP. The first is after they fire phasers. When the BoP returns fire a console to the side of the helm explodes taking out the helmsman. It's been noted now when the aft stations go boom.

RThurmont wrote:In the Wrath Of Khan, its worth noting that there actually was a legitimate reason for the explosions on the bridges, and that reason being both ships took direct hits on or bloody near the bridge tower. The on-bridge explosions seemed to be directly correlated to the occurance of such damage.

Yeah, but that still is no excuse or explination for why peices of computer equipment should blow up at all. It sure doesn't happen to real ships hit by real weapons.

Wyrm wrote:

Bounty wrote:Laziness rather the stupidity, I believe. Sparks and explosions are a cheap way of conveying "danger" and making your story look spectacular. You can get the same result by using far more subtle effects (as in Divergence, when the ship started rattling and screens flickered on and off during the reboot sequence), but it takes more effort.

How hard would it have been to introduce a "flicker" button into the set, thus having a flicker effect whenever they needed it?

Not very. I'm fairly certain you could pull off a similar effect even without a flicker button if you had a decent person programming the light board (well, assuming you had good lights and equipment, but by the time TNG was produced, they actually had a budget).

Wyrm wrote:

Bounty wrote:Laziness rather the stupidity, I believe. Sparks and explosions are a cheap way of conveying "danger" and making your story look spectacular. You can get the same result by using far more subtle effects (as in Divergence, when the ship started rattling and screens flickered on and off during the reboot sequence), but it takes more effort.

How hard would it have been to introduce a "flicker" button into the set, thus having a flicker effect whenever they needed it?

Mental effort, not practical. After a while the "something bad happens = get the fireworks" switch became standard, and they didn't even bother looking into alternative effects.

You don't see the helmswoman get fried, but the helm does blow up into a fury of sparks. Its not terribly clear though where the sparks are coming from when shown though. But, during Kirk's last log entry you can see the helm is scorched and that it looks like someone torched the chair good.

The helm side of the console is badly charred, a large bundle of exposed electrical wires is hanging right where the helmswoman's face would have been, and the chair has been burned down to the metal skeleton. (pic of console, the wires are already removed)I'd be very surprised if she walked away from that without at least second-degree burns.

A few days ago I was channel surfing and came to a Voyager episode that has the ship split into different 'time zones', anything from before the ship left space dock, to when Seven was a drone on board to way in the future with a grown up Naomie(sp).

In the final battle, present Chakotey and past Janeway unite all the time zones against Seska and the Kazon who control the engine room. Most of the people simply charge in at the Kazon and go HTH to get their weapons, but Naomie runs in, starts typing on a console and BLOWS UP another console in the engine room with about a dozen keystrokes, taking out two of the Kazon.

I think at this point the Voyager writers were even poking fun at THEMSELVES for how absurdly stupid the brainbug had become.

There was a little nod to this in ENT's Home : while touring the partially finished Columbia, Hernandez remarks that one of the innovations is routing the EPS system straight through the bridge consoles

Whenever I hear people talking about how they have technical advisors on set (which is an exaggeration of the tech advisors' roles anyway), I have to wonder whether these tech advisors ever admonished the writers about this stupid exploding-console thing.

Darth Wong wrote:Whenever I hear people talking about how they have technical advisors on set (which is an exaggeration of the tech advisors' roles anyway), I have to wonder whether these tech advisors ever admonished the writers about this stupid exploding-console thing.

I wonder if it's anything like that episode of SG1. Col. O'Neill is sent to act as a military advisor during the making of a TV series that is very similar to the Star Gate operation on Earth. During his mission he does attempt to offer military advice, but is told that he doesn't really carry any weight whatsoever.

To me a death in a series that isn't a war movie or series should be very personal, in your face. Having a console blow up is akin to having someone kill you away millions of kilometers away pressing a big red button. It's not dramatic. I'm not saying everything should turn into a fist-fight, but consoles blowing up for no reason whatsoever always struck me as a cheap kill.

For example, when that alien being caused an extra to get a heart attack, I felt pretty sad for that extra. Goldshirt of the day number fifty-five dying in a console or worse yet a main dying or getting injured at a console is stupid. It's unpredictable and no sense of danger whatsoever because any console can blow up any time when they get into a fight. It cheapens the danger.

Brian

It's also annoying that battle damage always takes such a disproportionate share of casualties from the bridge crew, not only because it's stupid but because it shows a certain mentality from the writers: that no one will care about regular crewmen dying in battle.

The writers believe that you must show main characters being wounded or at least placed in immediate mortal danger or nobody will perceive any urgency to the situation. So they concoct bullshit mechanisms to show parts of the bridge exploding and killing officers (although the main characters are only close to the lethality).

Look at ST2: they didn't show Enterprise bridge crew dying in the battle with Khan, although a couple of people suffered burns. They showed deaths belowdecks, with crewmen and Scotty's nephew dying as a result of battle damage. And that was sufficiently dramatic; there's no need to have an exploding console for fuck's sake.

Notice, however, that in Star Trek TV shows, regular crewmen may as well not exist. Why cut away from the bridge to show crewmen being killed and bravely fighting to save the ship, when even damage control is handled by fucking touch-screens on the bridge? Why have a crewmen in engineering desperately trying to seal off a blown pipe when you can have O'Brien say "I'll have to reroute the EPS flow around the overloaded conduit" and then punch a couple of buttons?