Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 22, 1994 TAG: 9403220060
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JERRY NACHTIGAL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SPRINGFIELD, MO. LENGTH: Medium
How else do you explain watching six years' worth of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes over and over, eight or nine hours a day for months, looking for bloopers, flubs and technical mistakes?
"I have had people write me and ask, `Why did you do this?' " Farrand said with a hearty laugh.
The answer, says this admitted "incredibly die-hard and slightly lunatic" fan of the "Next Generation" TV series, is that many devoted fans of "Star Trek" and its successor are nitpickers at heart, too.
Since Farrand's 433-page book hit the stores last December, he's received as many as 100 letters a week from fans who share his penchant for spotting mistakes.
"Some of them write to say, `Thank you. I've done this, too, and people always look at me weird. It's wonderful to know there's other people who do this,' " Farrand said.
The errors may fly over the heads of casual viewers, but Farrand and his breed apply a Vulcanlike logic to viewing. Their sensors take note when:
A computer tells First Officer Will Riker the holodeck is the next door on his right and he instead enters from the left.
The reflection of a crystal pyramid on a desk reveals a man off camera with curly hair and glasses, chewing gum.
An image on a computer screen, when frozen, turns out to be a parrot dressed in a Federation uniform.
Despite her death in an earlier episode, security officer Tasha Yar is visible in the background waving goodbye to her fans as Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise, and Dr. Beverly Crusher leave a cargo bay.
Nitpicking "gives you an active role to play while you're watching the show," Farrand said. "You can watch it and go, `Aaahhhh! You messed up again!' "
Farrand, 35, became enchanted with Capt. Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and the rest of the "Star Trek" crew growing up in the Philippines, where his parents were Assemblies of God missionaries.
He fondly remembers the first nit he ever picked with the "Next Generation" series. It came in an episode titled "The Offspring" in the show's third season.
Young Wesley Crusher is visiting the android Data in a laboratory when the voice of Dr. Crusher, his mother, cuts in, reminding him he's supposed to be getting a haircut.
Wesley mutters a smart-aleck remark, apparently after his mother had signed off. But he didn't touch his chest badge or a panel somewhere to end the conversation. Why, Farrand wondered, didn't Dr. Crusher hear the remark?
The incident touched off spirited discussion among Farrand and his Trekker friends about just how communicators worked.
"We finally came to the disconcerting conclusion that in fact nobody knew how these things worked, that they just worked however the actors and directors and the writers happened to feel like they should work on that particular day," he said.
Farrand, who formerly worked as a computer programmer and as a desktop music publisher before pursuing a writing career, thought legions of other Trekkers might have similar questions.
A book producer liked his idea for a "Next Generation" nitpicker's guide. Some two years and hundreds of hours of frame-by-frame video analysis later, "The Nitpicker's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers" was born.
Sales have been "phenomenal," says Jeanne Cavelos, a spokeswoman for Dell Publishing in New York. Nearly 80,000 copies have been shipped to bookstores, and a fifth printing is planned, she said.
The book contains a brief summary of all 151 episodes of the show's first six seasons, plus plot oversights, changed premises, equipment oddities and continuity and production problems.
Paramount Pictures has said the current season, the series' seventh, will be its last.
Farrand understands why mistakes and bloopers occur in the show.
"They're scrambling to put out an extremely high quality program that is in essence like a minimovie every week, with all the special effects and costuming and the aliens and stuff," he said.
"I think people just get tired. It's impossible not to make mistakes."
Farrand is at work for Dell on a nitpicker's guide to the original "Star Trek" series and the six movies it spun off.
He urges readers not to take his "Next Generation" book too seriously.
"If you don't keep lighthearted about it and realize that we're all humans and we all make mistakes, it's very easy to get mean-spirited," he said.
"The Nitpicker's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers" is published by Dell with a suggested retail price of $12.95.
by CNB