You probably didn’t recently rewatch the whole show like I did!

It’s one of the affectations she picked up while living in the Vulcan colony on earth. Part of her arc is she’s not a particularly “good” Vulcan and the tea is one of the little tells.

Alright, since someone needs to be the canon pedant: akshully she drank chamomile and occasionally mint tea on the show.

Nope, Pixel 6 running Android 14. It’s highly variable but I’d say it happens… every two or three days, sometimes multiple times a day. To say it’s aggravating is putting it very mildly.

Given for months now I keep randomly experiencing UI hangs requiring me to kill Nova, that day may have finally come…

No, Spock guided him through the back half of the surgery when the effects of the teacher wore off. He literally told him which instruments to use (oh that tri-laser connector!) and how to proceed. Here’s the dialog:

SPOCK: If you will finish reconnecting my speech centre, I might be able to help.

MCCOY: Speech centre.

SPOCK: Yes. That’s correct. One thing at a time. Ah, ah, mmm. (normal voice) That’s better. Now, Doctor. Try the sonic separator.

MCCOY: Sonic separator.

SPOCK: Yes, I believe I already have some sensation of feeling. Please stimulate the nerve endings and observe the physical reactions, one by one. In each case, I shall tell you when the probe is correct. You will then seal using the tri-laser connector.

MCCOY: Tri-laser connector. Ready?

SPOCK: Ready.

Of course, what the text fails to convey is McCoy’s hesitation and confusion, or Spock’s confidence as he instructs him on how to complete the surgery.

I… watch far too much TOS…

Edit:

By the way, there is one bit of headcanon, here, that could explain this specific example, so yes, I’m gonna undermine my own point, but hey, what’s a pedantic conversation about Trek without circling back and contradicting oneself??

So, the one bit of headcanon is: Spock seems to have had access to the knowledge of the people of Sigma Draconis, given that at the end he starts lecturing the group about the history of those people, with knowledge he presumably acquired by being wired up as the Controller. So maybe he also had full access to the knowledge of the teacher, including the knowledge needed to reattach a brain.

Have I mentioned I watch far too much TOS?

It would’ve certainly made a lot more sense! Which, granted, for that episode is a fairly low bar (as much as I love it for it’s campy absurdity).

Now I’m certain you’re just making up reasons to be mad.

Spock is repeatedly depicted as being an established expert across a truly improbable range of topics (including, of all things, brain reattachment surgery). Spock is to basically everything else what Kirk is to “talking computers into killing themselves”.

If you can accept that you can accept Pulaski.

I assume you hated Spock, then. Buddy was literally an expert in everything! McCoy needs help reinstalling Spock’s own brain? Spock is on it! Computer seems to show Kirk killed a guy by accident? Nbd, Spock is a computer expert, he’ll figure it out with chess (did I mention he’s a chess master?). Need to implode the engines to escape from a collapsing planet? Also warp engine specialist! Oh and he can play the piano, that Vulcan guitar thing, and also happens to be deeply knowledgeable in earth history and culture as the needs require (including being able to recognize Brahms handwriting by sight).

You’re right. In the former case it’s utterly implausible that every ship doctor would not be an expert in a thing but still somehow be able to cure that thing. Every. Damn. Time.

At least with Pulaski they gave an excuse (well, assuming I buy your claims; frankly, I think you’re overstating things quite a bit).

LOL you’ve described literally every doctor in Star Trek ever. I mean, Christ, they lampshaded this with McCoy when he exclaimed “By golly, Jim - I’m beginning to think I can cure a rainy day!” when he treated a fucking silicon rock monster.

Honestly at this point this is just making up reasons to be mad.

Yeah but most of the characters on TNG started out as two dimensional caricatures of what they actually became. I don’t think the Pulaski character is any more deserving of criticism than early Picard or Riker or, heck, Data himself (who I’d argue started off as Albino Spock).

And yet we know in Measure of a Man that Pulaski was far from unique in her views, and was in fact a) quite tame about it and b) ended up changing her mind, showing on-screen how a person can change in a positive way. That’s a far more compelling (and realistic) message than everyone just unquestioningly accepting the one and only android in all of Starfleet holding a senior role on the Starfleet flagship.

Think of it like “The Devil in the Dark”. It would’ve been incredibly boring if everyone just immediately accepted the Horta right off the bat instead of seeing it as an unthinking monster. The journey is in the message that you can come to understand something different from you and accept it not just in spite of those differences but for them.

Everyone simply accepting Data on the Enterprise right off the bat without question was, frankly, lazy writing. And they figured that out eventually, hence episodes like Measure of a Man.

So, just like Bones?

I’m with some of the other folks around here: Pulaski was a better character. Conflict between the ship doctor and the captain makes for more interesting narrative opportunities, and Pulaski was great specifically because she was willing to stand up to Picard and be a pain in the ass.

Fans just didn’t like her because she didn’t immediately see Data as a person, but even that was interesting because not everyone would, and giving voice to that again created interesting ways to explore the implications of Data’s existence.

Btw that sexual assault scene is even more fucked up when you learn that Grace Lee Whitney was sexually assaulted by an unnamed executive associated with the series…

But you gotta love the next paragraph:

Two episodes before we shot Hugh’s death [scene], they called me in. They were kind of cagey about it. They said, “Listen, this is Star Trek. Nobody really dies.”

🖖

Same here (well, different model–26k and 87W–but same strategy). Even just as a backup in case of unexpected travel hiccups, a large (airline approved) PD-capable battery back is very handy to have. I never worry about finding an outlet in an aircraft or airport, and I’ve spent my fair share of time stranded in transit.

The focus on drama over logic completely shallows out the allegory until it’s JUST a gay couple being contemporarily gay on screen

Yeah. That’s my point.

Maybe there is no allegory.

Maybe it’s just a gay couple on screen.

Like Nichelle as Uhura was just a black woman in an elevated position on screen.

No message. Just simple representation.

Why is that such a problem?

Because if you ask people in the community, many will tell you they’re kinda sick of the gay experience only be represented in a negative light, always a struggle, always a message, as opposed to just them simply and comfortably existing.

So, putting a gay couple on screen and just having it be a normal aspect of who they are (to be clear: the nature of their relationship was never a plot point on the show) is “blandly doing the cultural issues”?

Was casually putting Uhura, a black woman, on the bridge of a starship on a show airing in the 1960s, without ever calling attention to her race, also “blandly doing the cultural issues”?

The show has one non-binary character and a gay couple and suddenly they’re relying on “cultural hot topics”.

Please.

Disco had a lot of flaws, and most of them were the same flaws we saw in Picard: the writers just couldn’t write full season plot arcs that were satisfying and believable. This is made worse because each season had to raise the stakes, to the point where it just got kinda exhausting. Meanwhile the show just took itself way too seriously, without really earning my emotional investment.