Darmok

NOISES OFF opens in 3 weeks in Elk River Minnesota! I have been in rehearsal for about 3.5 weeks at this point and the show is really coming along! For those of you who don’t know Noises Off is a British farce about a group of actors rehearsing and eventually putting on a play called “Nothing On”. The show is filled with physical humor, hysterical lines and lots of sexual innuendo. If you come to the show you will even get to see me with my pants down for a good chunk of the show! Go to www.erct.org for more information. This all being said I am still not off book, I always tend to put this off until the last minute. I find that I memorize best when I am under a little pressure to do so. My plan is that I will go to a coffee shop tomorrow and sit and memorize all day long. Wish Me Luck!

Elliptical Machine: Calories-657, Miles-3.90

Darmok

The Enterprise has been ordered to rendezvous with the Tamarians at the planet El-Adrel. The Federation has made contact with the Tamarians exactly four times in the past but they have never been able to establish a means of communication. The Tamarians communicate in a very strange way that uses mainly pronouns from what the crew can determine. When communications fail between the two people the Tamarian captain mentions the word Darmok several times and then he and Picard are transported to the surface of El-Adrel. Picard and Dathon, the Tamarian Captain, are now on the planet alone. Dathon has brought two knives with him and Picard assumes this is an attempt to initiate a fight to the death. The two men begin to learn to communicate but there is still a lot of distrust on Picard’s part. The next day the two are attacked by a mysterious force and the Tamarian Captain is injured. It is now that the two begin to really understand one another and they are able to communicate in a limited fashion. Dathon asks to hear one of Picard’s stories and he retells the Legend of Gilgamesh in a limited amount of time. Meanwhile the crew of the Enterprise is trying to figure out how to get to Picard and to communicate with the Tamarians. Troi and Data deduce that Tamarians communicate through a series of visual images and analogies that reference the legends of their past. They do not communicate through a traditional syntax structures that most humanoids in the galaxy use. LaForge and Worf disable the Tamarian ship’s ability to block the transporter and they get the Captain back just in time before he is killed by the Darmok on the planet. The Tamarians begin attacking the Enterprise until Picard can communicate with them. He explains that their captain has died but that the Federation is willing to open communications.

I love this episode for its exploration of language and other grammatical structures in alien species. I know I am a language dork but it was so interesting for me. The show also features a beautiful performance by the late Paul Winfield who is most famous for his role as Captain Terrell in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and his Oscar nominated performance in Sounder. The show also features the acting debut of actress Ashley Judd, who later reprises her role in the episode The Game. The show also features the first appearance of Captain Picard's grey shirt with an open maroon jacket that appears throughout the rest of the series.