Doctober 15: Petulance

~ lobablanca

Poor Dr. Crusher. All she wants is the chance to sit next to Captain Picard during a staff meeting. Maybe then, she’d finally get to flirt a little…wink every now and then, maybe even play a little footsie. But that damned Riker always beats her to the conference lounge! It’d be easy if she got to sit on the bridge like every other member of the senior staff (minus Geordi, of course).

[Loba Tangent: Hey, waitatick! Why is it that the two crewmembers who were assigned to places other than the bridge are the two who were the least developed on the show? I call occupational discrimination!!]

Regardless of what’s really going on in this scene, I’d call this is one of the greatest screen captures EVAR. I’d also call it the greatest pout moment in the history of Star Trek.

Doctober 14: Random Bevernalia

~ lobablanca

One of the magnificent things about being a lifelong Dr. Crusher fan is the fact that people have often felt compelled to purchase anything pertaining to the good doctor for me. These items are such a rare find, I suppose, that people (even non-Trekkies) get excited for me that finally there’s something Crusherific to be added to my collection!

Here, then, are a few of the random bits of Bevernalia that I have received as presents or purchased for myself, that I found whilst sorting through one of my geek bins (yes, I did say one of them):

What I love most about this collection is that looking at these items, you’d think that only two publicity photos were ever taken of Gates McFadden as Dr. Crusher (minus the Generations pin and the Dixon Hill card). Probably the oddest item here is the “security badge,” which is in between the two postcards. Really? They’d have security badges on lanyards in the future? Okay. And the Generations pin stuck in the lanyard was a gift from a high school friend who actually hated Star Trek, but gave this to me after I jokingly asked her where my graduation present was.

Oh, and the signed card? I was one of those geeks. I actually mailed this card to McFadden and asked if she would please sign it for me. In my defense, I only did this with four trading cards: Dr. Crusher, Data, Captain Picard, and Ro Laren. I received three of the four back. Guess the fourth got lost on its journey to Bajor… (grumble grumble, rhubarb rhubarb, peas and carrots)

Very few people, I think, knew that Playmates released a medical tricorder in addition to the standard one. I own both, but really, I only bought the regular tricorder because I didn’t think they’d actually release one like Dr. Crusher used. They’re both quite cool when all lit up and running their sounds. Playmates did a lot for the Trek geek on a budget, releasing pretty impressive replicas for reasonable prices.

Then there’s this medical tricorder:

Looks a bit odd, eh? That’s because it does this:

Isn’t that one of the greatest things EVAR? It’s a medical tricorder that transforms into Dr. Crusher’s sickbay, complete with little figures of Dr. Crusher, Geordi, and Captain Picard as Locutus of Borg.

Look at how cute Tiny Beverly is!

So, there you go. Random Bevernalia on a dark, rainy (at least in DC) Doctober day.

Doctober 13: Copper Penny Bev

~ lobablanca

I had something completely different (and admittedly less creative) planned, but then I realized that today was Doctober 13! Admittedly not as special as it could have been had today been Friday, but still it is that date that most distresses triskaidekaphobics (triskaidekaphobians?).

So I started thinking of ways to make the day a little more palatable for those who fear unlucky, and I decided what better way than to give you this, the luckiest penny in the galaxy! Originally issued by the United Federation of Planets in 2379, this is a one-of-a-kind Dr. Beverly Crusher copper penny (do you have any idea how rare a material copper is in 2379?).

Of course, it has no actual monetary value, since the UFP runs on a rather questionable credit system that has never really been explained. But think of the collector factor of this piece!! Not even Kivas Fajo had one of these in his collection!

I’m telling you, even if you’re a Red Shirt, you carry one of these around in your uniform pocket and you’re guaranteed to make it home, every away mission.

Doctober 12: Bookish Beverly

~ lobablanca

Not only was Dr. Crusher severely short-changed when it came to TNG screen time, but she was also pretty neglected in the books as well. True, she’s getting far more attention in the post-Nemesis book series since she is one of the few remaining original senior staff (plus, there’s the whole “being with Captain Picard” development that TPTB finally approved now that it really doesn’t matter), but the books that I have read from this run have been, to put it as politely as possible, a bit shit.

Prior to this post-Nemesis interest in her character in the novels, in fact, Dr. Crusher only appeared on the covers of a handful of TNG books: The Children of Hamlin, Chains of Command (which came out well before the similarly titled two-parter “Chain of Command”), Imbalance, Dragon’s Honor, The Death of Princes, and A Hard Rain.

[Loba Tangent: There might be more than this, but these are the only titles that I can immediately recall from the list before the first time I lost interest in the TNG novels.]

[Loba Tangent 2: Dr. Crusher’s silhouette appeared on Death in Winter, which is probably the one book that deals the most with her character. Too bad it was utterly meh. Still, I own it. In hardback. Sigh. I’m such a Crusher geek.]

It’s been years since I read any of these books, so I can only say that I remember liking Children of Hamlin and Chains of Command most of all these. Of course, I was a teenager when I last read them, so admittedly they might be terrifyingly awful to read now. I should add them all to my growing piles of books I want to read, just to see if it’s really worth it to hang on to all of these Trek novels.

However, of all the covers, I have to say that my favorite is the cover of Chains of Command. Not only is Dr. Crusher the obvious focus of the painting, but her pose is taken from one of my favorite publicity shots, of her wearing one of my favorite lab coats. (Yes, I have favorites from Dr. Crusher’s array of lab coats; I happen to like this one because it’s the only one to ever have a groovy black collar. Seriously, if you haven’t realized the depth of my pure dorkery by now, I have to question your ability to comprehend what you’re reading.)

The artist even altered the “Crayola Crusher” hair color from the first season to match the hair color she sported from season three onward. Sadly, I don’t know for certain whether or not this is a Keith Birdsong cover, since there is no signature visible. Regardless of who did this cover, I still love it, even almost 20 years after I first bought this book.

He Has Many Skills

~ lobablanca

So I may or may not have ever mentioned this here at the lair, but I have a HUGE fangirl crush on Keith Birdsong. Not familiar with the name? That’s all right. I bet, if you’re a geek like me, you’re familiar with his work. He’s an extraordinarily talented artist who has done work for almost every major fandom imaginable, including my all-time favorite, Star Trek. In fact, if you ever picked up a TNG or DS9 novel back in those shows’ heydays, more likely than not you were looking at a Birdsong original on the cover. I happily confess that, on several occasions, I bought a novel based solely on the fact that I thought his cover art was gorgeous.

Imagine my delight, then, when I realized that he had done a fantastic piece for Creation Entertainment’s annual Xena convention back in 2007. I immediately fell in love with this one: Not only is it Birdsong’s recognizable style giving life to familiar scenes of Xena and Gabrielle (and Argo, too!), but it’s done on a beautiful abstract backdrop painted by Birdsong as well. Top it all off with the fact that Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor signed each of the limited-release prints of this artwork and you’ve just pushed the geekery over the breaking point for me.

But how could I make this even more special?

Look at the bottom left of the picture and you’ll get the answer to that question (sorry for the lack of detail and glass reflection in this photo, but I kind of wanted to make sure that no one could copy this image). See, my Mirror Universe self knows people, including the amazing Keith Birdsong. My Mirror Universe self rocks…but Keith rocks way more. He very graciously signed this print for me, and I can’t even begin to express how awesome he is for doing so. All I have to do is look at his signature and I’m suddenly 15 again, standing in the aisle of the Crown Books Superstore and looking for the newest TNG book to bear a Birdsong original.

If you’d like to see more of Keith’s artwork, you can visit his online gallery or check out some of his more recent work, sold through Lightspeed Fine Art.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some more squeeing to do…

Doctober 10: Top 10-10-10

~ lobablanca

I don’t often believe in signs, but when I realized that the very unique date of 10-10-10 was going to happen during the great month of Doctober, I took this as a sign that I needed to do something a little extra special on this auspicious occasion. And so I give you not one, not two, but three Top 10 lists associated with Dr. Beverly Crusher. I warn you now: This is more than likely going to be both the longest and most elaborate Doctober post I do. But, again, how often does a perfectly balanced stardate like this come along in a lifetime?

So we start the party with a list that I actually encountered several years ago. The original list was a bit hit-or-miss, so I’ve spiced it up a bit. Hopefully, I’ve made it a little bit funny…

Top 10 Pet Peeves of Dr. Beverly Crusher

10. The way those spandex spacesuits never stay where they should…and always end up bunching where they shouldn’t.

9. Of all the starships in all the quadrants, she had to be put in charge of the one with Reg Barclay, Super Hypochondriac.

8. When Riker has too much synthehol at the weekly poker game, drunk-dials her and asks her to call him “Odan” once more for old times.

7. Just once, she’d like to finish the line, “Jean-Luc, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Just once, dammit!

6. Other mothers get cards or flowers on Mother’s Day from their children. She gets trapped in a collapsing warp bubble by hers.

5. People who expect her to have raging temper to match red hair. She could just KILL THEM!!! OOOOOH!

4. Worf’s annual stool sample.

3. No matter how many rewrites she does, the Enterprise‘s theater troupe keeps rejecting her script for the new musical, Dancing & Diagnosing.

2. Dr. Selar refuses to engage in chummy Sickbay banter.

1. Dammit, she’s a doctor, not a hairstyle model!

Insert rim shot here.

Speaking of hairstyles (and tasty segues), ever notice how often Dr. Crusher’s ‘do changed throughout the course of the show? That’s because throughout most of the series, that wasn’t actually Gates McFadden’s hair. She wore a wig most of the time, because the producers felt that her real hair was a tad bit too long for the Enterprise‘s Chief Medical Officer (which is kind of silly when you realize that some of the wigs that they designed for her were almost as long as her actual hair at the time…but only really HUGE Crusher geeks would know that bit of trivia). Here, then, are 10 of the most interesting ways in which Dr. Crusher’s hair fluctuated throughout the show. Believe me, there were plenty more styles throughout the six seasons that featured Dr. Crusher (everyone always made such a huge deal about Captain Janeway’s hair, but Janeway’s ‘do had nothing on the good doctor’s!).

1. Crayola Crusher. The first season saw the only instance of Dr. Crusher with this somewhat “color not found in nature” red hair. It was deep, dark, and a bit primary color. Then again, this was also the only season during which she wore a deep, dark, somewhat primary color blue uniform. I actually liked the cobalt of the first season medical uniforms and missed them when they disappeared in the third season for the more familiar teal. I didn’t necessarily miss this hair color, but I did miss Dr. Crusher when she disappeared the next season, replaced by a post-sex-change Dr. McCoy Dr. Pulaski.

2. Lil Orphan Beverly. Thankfully, Dr. Crusher returned in the third season after Data shot Dr. Pulaski out of a torpedo tube after finally deciding he’d had enough of her snarky comments about him being an android. This time, Dr. Crusher’s wig more closely matched the color of Gates McFadden’s actual hair. However, I only ever think of one thing when I see short, curly red hair (and it’s not what you rather filthy-minded denizens are thinking right now!): Lil Orphan Annie. Thankfully, the wig stylist decided against the curl as well and straightened the hair soon after this wig’s debut in the third season.

3. Miracle Grow. Star Trek has never been famous for its respect of continuity. However, one of my favorite bits of WTFery is this photo, taken from the third season episode “The Enemy.” This episode occurs six episodes after “Evolution,” which is the episode from which the previous photo was taken. That is some amazing hair growth in that span, no? I’m thinking either Dr. Crusher has a hella good prescription for Rogaine, or she’s somehow learned how to program the replicators to make her hair whatever length she’s in the mood for that day.

4. Somewhere In Between. So by the end of the third season, the stylists had moved to somewhere in between the super short and super long looks and came up with this length. However, I’m not so sure they had really decided yet about the proper length because, correct me if I’m wrong, one side of Dr. Crusher’s hair is noticeably longer than the other side. Which is fine, I suppose. Everyone is entitled to making statements. I mean, Deanna wore a hairstyle in the first season that looked a bit like a toilet plunger stuck to the top of her head. Dr. Crusher’s different lengths is much better in my opinion.

5. When I’m 65. The fourth season brought about a glimpse of an older Dr. Crusher, this time in the episode “Future Imperfect.” I liked how the stylists made her hair a bit darker (which actually often happens to redheads, depending on the type of red), and gave her nice, subtle hints of gray. They modified this look for the appearance of “Captain Beverly Picard” in the final episode of the show, but I think this one’s a little more elaborate.

6. Bangs? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Bangs. Apparently, this particular wig stylist was of two opinions: Less bangs, more curls. I don’t really have much to say about this style other than I really didn’t like it at all.

7. Long and Straight. The highlight of the next season was this scene from “Violations,” which I think shows Dr. Crusher sans wig. I do believe this was McFadden’s actual hair (that is not, however, Patrick Stewart’s actual hair…although it could very well be the toupee that he wore to one of his first auditions for the role of Jean-Luc Picard).

8. Ribbons and Bows. It takes a strong personality to be able to rock a pink hair ribbon with the medical uniform. Either that or a certain degree of eccentricity. I’m not sure which of those Dr. Crusher has more of, but thankfully the pink ribbon never returned after this one appearance in the episode “Cause and Effect.”

9. Almost There. Finally, by TNG’s sixth season, I do believe they were no longer making McFadden wear wigs. I could be wrong, but I’m almost positive that this photo shows McFadden’s real hair. The bangs are slightly shorter than normal, but this was pretty much almost the look that she stuck with for the rest of the series. It’s about time!

10. The Final Frontier Hairstyle. And here, then, is the final style ever seen on Dr. Crusher in the show’s run, and probably my favorite style of them all. Why? Because it looked like her actual hair rather than a wig. Because it was.

When Dr. Crusher wasn’t stressing about her hair, she was busy planning her next big Halloween costume! Yeah, I bet you didn’t know this, but Dr. Crusher actually really loved this ancient Earth holiday. Here, then, are Dr. Crusher’s top 10 Halloween costumes:

10. She started out small, just painting her face like a 20th century mime. However, her staff loved it and so did her patients, so she made the decision to make this an annual tradition.

9. The next year, she decided to wear the costume that Q had left all of them from their adventure in “Sherwood Forest.”

8. Then she went with the outfit that she smuggled back from her away mission to retrieve Data’s severed head from 19th century San Francisco.

7. Liking the medical theme that she’d started the previous year, Dr. Crusher decided to go this time with a more modern medical icon: Nurse Christine Chapel.

6. Counselor Troi wanted in on the festivities the following year, so they dressed up as the sisters from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

5. Not feeling very creative the next year, she worked with Data to rig holoprojectors throughout the ship that would broadcast the image of a traditional Halloween “ghost” at various parts of the ship (which was a far easier PhotoShop task for the wolf in charge of capturing these costumes in images).

4. For some reason, Captain Picard became obsessed with an ancient Terran comic called The X-Men, so Dr. Crusher humored him by dressing as the character known as “Dark Phoenix.” Captain Picard joined her in dressing up that year as the character “Professor Xavier,” but he just wore a suit that looked like one of his Dixon Hill outfits and insisted that sickbay replicate him a wheelchair, which she found bizarre and slightly creepy.

3. By this point, Dr. Crusher was realizing the untapped potential of costumes enhanced by her medical expertise. For her costume as the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, she increased her cranial size and blanched her skin color to an even paler complexion than normal. All in all a great costume, but the bruising she sustained from banging into things or from losing her balance was a bit much.

2. This costume actually got her tossed in the brig for a few days once Captain Picard saw it…but it was totally worth it.

1. And, finally, she went all out to turn herself into a Na’vi. The changes she implemented took about 3 weeks to fully reverse (and she still had a bit of a blue pallor almost 2 months later), but this was by far her favorite costume of them all (and Loba’s favorite PhotoShop trick as well!).

So, there you go: three top 10 lists dedicated to Dr. Beverly Crusher. Was it worth it to wade through all three? I hope so. I definitely had a blast thinking them up. Oh, and special thanks to TrekCore.com. Without their amazing Beverly Crusher theme gallery, I would have had a much more difficult time finding the images I needed for two of these three lists.

Doctober 9: Dr. Prankster

~ lobablanca

I don’t know exactly why, but I get the distinct impression that, of all the Enterprise senior staff, Dr. Crusher would have been quite the prankster. In fact, I think she would have been more of a prankster than Riker could have ever dreamed of being. She had access to medical supplies, after all. Think of the possibilities there!

I actually have thought of the possibilities and even came up with a little series of pranks…a minor competition between the CMO and Number One regarding said pranky, playful fun. I’ve never written it down, but maybe I’ll finally lay down the gauntlet and establish just who is really “Number One” when it comes to on-board jocularity.

Doctober 8: “That’s My Boy…”

~ lobablanca

I know I’ve given Wesley Crusher a good amount of grief here at the lair. Most Trekkies have. He wasn’t quite the popular character that I think Gene Roddenberry assumed he would be. Rather than resonating with fans as the “Everyman” (or rather “Everygeek”) who represented them on the bridge of the NCC-1701-D, he instead became the recipient of nerd ire and disdain (not to mention the focus of admittedly over-the-top online hate groups such as “alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die”). All the poor kid wanted was to fit in and find some father figures, and instead his legacy became summed up in the instantly famous, “quick-print-this-on-a-T-shirt” line, “Shut Up, Wesley!”

But no matter how horribly awkward and geekalicious Wesley Crusher was, his mother loved him. Even when he chose to stay on the Enterprise during her tenure back on earth as head of Starfleet Medical, or later when he chose to leave her behind to join his intergalactic life partner, The Traveler, on a super-duper magical mystery tour of the universe, she always loved him, worried about him, and hoped that he’d packed enough clean skivvies for his journey.

So, of course, the writers decided to give Beverly her one wish at the end of the TNG crew’s cinematic journeys: They brought her boy home. That’s right, Wesley Crusher appears in the final TNG movie, Nemesis. Didn’t see him? That’s because practically every evidence of his appearance was cut from the final movie. If you make sure not to blink throughout the entire wedding reception scene, you might catch a glimpse of him though. I swear he’s there.

Or you can just geek squee over the following photo taken from one of the cut scenes, of Wesley, Beverly, and Jean-Luc sharing a moment. All in their adorable dress whites, all smiling (and all probably just a little bit tipsy on synthehol). It’s a great photo, isn’t it? Makes me wish that they’d left those scenes in the movie (it’s not like they could have in any way made the movie worse than it was).

Oh, and for the record, the cut scenes established that Wesley had returned from his time with The Traveler, gone back to the Academy and finally became a full-fledged Starfleet officer, and was heading for his new assignment as Assistant Chief Engineer for the U.S.S. Titan, with his new captain, William T. Riker. AW! You can see the original post that Wil Wheaton made regarding this photo on his awesome blog.

One more plug: Wheaton’s book Just a Geek is awesome in many ways, but probably my favorite part of the book is what he writes about “returning home” to film his scenes for Nemesis. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it!

Doctober 7: When Words Fall Away

~ lobablanca

Back in late 1997, I received word from the fanzine publishing house I had worked with on my geekalicious TNG novella (there’s a post all unto itself) that Trek novel publisher Pocket Books was holding a writing competition. They were launching a new Trek anthology, which they were hoping would be successful enough to become a long-running series. The anthology, entitled Strange New Worlds, would include short stories written by non-professional fan writers. It was Pocket Books’ attempt, I suppose, to capitalize on the growing popularity of fan fiction being sold at conventions.

Of course, me being the aspiring writer and unstoppable geek that I am, I knew I wanted to enter this competition. Guess who my star character was? Yeah, like you need to guess on this one. The story I wrote was titled “When Words Fall Away,” and focused on what occurred right after Beverly Crusher learned that her husband had been killed. I was intrigued by the idea that, as she went through the expected funereal rituals, all the words that she would say and all the words said to her would fall away in the end, leaving her with nothing but the reality of a loss that defied any words.

Obviously, it did not win, which was admittedly a disappointment to me, not just because the prize money would have been nice (and might have covered one of my ridiculously overpriced college textbooks), but also because I so desperately wanted more Beverly Crusher-themed material available. Looking back, though, I suppose this isn’t really the type of story one looking for a hard-core Trek fix would look forward to reading.

I wish I could post the entire short story here, but sadly I don’t think the original version exists anymore. Once I realized that I didn’t win, I went back and decided that I was going to rework the story as a non-Trek piece. If I saved a backup of the original, I’ve yet to be able to find it in my archives (it was all for naught anyway, because I never finished the revisions either). However, I hadn’t revised the ending. The only thing I had changed at that point were character names. But the sentiments from the original ending are still the same (the overwrought and somewhat maudlin writing style is still the same as well).

Here, then, is the ending of “When Words Fall Away,” written 13 years ago this month:

A slight wind drifted through the open windows and slid its cold fingers across the bed that would never again hold the sleeping form of her husband. Slivers of moonlight fell across his uncreased pillow and down upon his undisturbed covers, and for the first time since she had learned of Jacks