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From: frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Kirk's tombstone in "where no man has gone before"
Message-ID: <1076@trwrdc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 11:48:06 EST
Article-I.D.: trwrdc.1076
Posted: Thu Oct 24 11:48:06 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Oct-85 04:34:22 EST
References: <313@bcsaic.UUCP> <8942@ritcv.UUCP>
Reply-To: frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith)
Distribution: net
Organization: TRW Advanced Technology Facility, Merrifield VA.
Lines: 21

In article <8942@ritcv.UUCP> pmm1920@ritcv.UUCP writes:
>> 
>> 	I just got the video tape of "where no man has gone before"
>> and the tombstone that Gary Mitchell sets up for kirk has his name
>> as "James R. Kirk" not "James T. Kirk".  The quality of the recording
>> is very good and you can see it clearly when Gray (Gray Lockwood)
>> tries to get out of the grave.
>> 
>
>    For those of you who own the photo novel for "Where No Man Has Gone
> Before", you would easily be able to tell that it read "R."  (Sometimes
> people do everything the hard way.)
> My personal feelings on it is that it was done on purpose to show that
> it truly wasn't Kirk's grave.  Also, it showed the limits on Gary's powers
> at the time.

More than likely it shows that James T. Kirk's middle name changed
between the filming of the pilot and the filming of the remaining
episodes for the first series.  This doesn't sound too unreasonable
to me.  Why must there be such deep significance attached to the every
production element of a narrowly budgeted 1960's television show?