#You'll still see O'Brien referred to as an officer a lot--particularly that he was once a Tactical Officer--but we pretend to ignore that.

[jbk405]

I'm taking a guess that you're probably most of the way through season three by now, so I wanted to bring you into the fold on Miles O'Brien. He's the answer to a question you actually asked back when watching TOS: Over the course of season three he gradually transforms from a commissioned officer into an NCO.

Colm Meaney (Actor) was a recurring extra starting in the TNG pilot, and his unnamed character wore a variety of officer rank insignias in different episodes (In the picture above he's a Lieutenant, senior grade). Over the course of the show he got a name and gradually got a more defined character instead of just "Person on screen". And as this developed, they realized it made more sense for the character he was becoming to not be an officer.

They had established at the beginning of TNG that all Starfleet personnel are commissioned officers, so by default he had been presented as an officer all along. The writers didn't really understand what any of it meant, and they wanted to show that there wasn't a "working class" anymore as part of the idea that Humanity Had Evolved. But in season three they realized that it does matter and that it doesn't make sense to have no enlisted personnel at all.

In this timeframe O'Brien works a lot as the Transporter Chief, which is a position not a rank, but as such he was often addressed just as "Chief". So they kinda went with that, and over the course of the season he gradually morphs into a Chief Petty Officer. He still often wears officer insignia, because that was all that they had, but eventually you learn to just ignore that (They do finally make dedicated NCO rank insignia in about six seasons).

Once he showed that enlisted personnel existed they begin showing up more in the show starting in upcoming season four. Never a lot, but at least they're explicitly there. Usually it's represented by the lack of any rank insignia on the collar, so if a character has a blank collar they're meant to be an NCO (Or the costumer thought they were too unimportant to bother with, which actually happened to O'Brien once in season one). Script notes for O'Brien refer to him as everything from 'warrant officer' to 'Ensign, junior grade' (Which doesn't exist elsewhere) so you can tell the writers really struggled with the entire concept.

Chronotrek TNG Part 4

We're sailing through season 2!

2x11- Contagion

Appearing out of nowhere sure sounds like a transporter.

It always amazes me that medical personnel have no medical first aid training outside of their tech. If tech is so automated that anyone can use it, specialists at least should be trained in what to do if an emergency renders tech useless. They don't know what a splint is, FFS.

2x12- The Royale

Beyonce meme: NASA?!?

2033 and 2079- when the flag had 52 stars. Puerto Rico and DC statehood in the next 9? It's possible.

The laugh I laughed when "It was a dark and stormy night... (heavy sigh)"

2x13- Time Squared

In the beginning, they seemed to be establishing a 'time travel always happened' explanation of time travel that seemed to track with Pike in SNW and the red lights in Disco, but by the end of the episode, I'm not so sure anymore.

2x14 The Icarus Factor

Hey, dad's from Liar Liar. Also ew.

Why would Geordi ever believe a Klingon ceremony involved a ballroom and formalwear :joy:

2x15 Pen Pals

They have memory erasing? Did I know that before? Nice to see Pulaski being less of a jerk to Data.

2x16 Q-Who?

Why do they even have a food replicator in engineering if drinks aren't allowed? (Also imagining someone saying you can't have coffee in the plant causing a mutiny lol)

PEE-card or Pih-CARD?

Borg reminds me of Scorpius from Farscape- like who raided the BDSM shops for these costumes?

Picard's point as he says engage is almost comedic and out of place. Almost fan-servicey sometimes.

2x17 Samaritan Snare

Can you make our ship go? (Yes) We look for things to make our ship go.

They're gonna steal him, aren't they?

They stole him.

Why would surgeons wear full red (and no masks!) Of course this is a bloodless show, so they're not gonna show splatter anyway. But apparently they don't have to cut anymore either. How you replace a heart without cutting I do not know.

2x18 Up the Long Ladder

They really softened Pulaski huh? Or was it just towards Data?

This is another abortion analogy- are they allowed to steal DNA to procreate? Riker even says 'the right to exercise control over our own bodies."

They really should have asked the women's opinions about the arrangement first, though. There's like 3 of them and they have to have multiple children via multiple men. That sounds like my nightmare.

2x19 Manhunt

Man. I can't believe she'd snipe her own daughter like that lol

2x20- Emissary

Half-Klingon, huh? Humans really are the sluts of the universe. I usually see this kind of thing (there are half-elves and half-orcs, but always half-human, etc.) explained as humans are naturally more diverse within our race compared to other races which means we're more capable of inter-species breeding. You never see the same diversity of skin tone, size, features, personality, etc. in fantasy/sci-fi races as you do in real humans (partially because they have to be recognizable as Vulcan/elf/Klingon/halfling, etc.)

2x21 Peak Performance

sheds a tear look how far Pulaski's come.

One of my fave TNG gifsets here- It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.

2x22 Shades of Gray

As far as clip shows go... it wasn't the worst I've seen.

3x1 lol Wes's little pimple face in 4k.

The uniforms are certainly thicker! AND collared! Yay!

All due respect to Sir Pat Stew, but Brent Spiner might have been the best actor on that set. The range he had to show.

Nanite civilization. Do we ever check in on them again?

3x2 Hey that voice is recognizable. Oh! Mrs. Doubtfire and Liar Liar (again!)

You don't understand the scope of my crime. I didn't kill just one Husnock or a hundred or a thousand. I killed them all. All Husnock everywhere. Are 11,000 people worth 50 billion? Is the love of a woman worth the destruction of a species?

We are not qualified to be your judges. We have no law to fit your crime.

God what would you even do if you wanted to penalize him for genocide? There's nothing you COULD do to a creature with that power... good thing he's punishing himself.