Obscure characters in TV shows

Steveknj said:

In the Eureka thread someone mentioned a character from Star Trek Enterprise who they compared a character in Eureka to. As I am not a fan of STE, I didn't catch the reference, and I after a few other posts about the character I felt I was missing the inside joke.

So let me ask....does anyone think it would be cool if you mentioned a character from another show in a show or episode thread, that you just say something like "John Doe from Show X' so the rest of us get it (or at least have an idea where the character is from).

I find this a lot in some of the shows with SciFi themes (The Big Bang Theory, Eurkea, Warehouse 13, The Event, etc.). Seems everyone in the SciFi community watches these same shows

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It was The Next Generation, not Enterprise. Two completely different shows.

In the post you refer to, I made a comment: "If [character] saves the day one more time, he'll enter Wesley Crusher territory." Even if I had said "Wesley Crusher from ST:TNG" that wouldn't have helped, would it? In any case, it wasn't an important part of my post... those who were familiar with the character of Wesley Crusher understood the point I was making.

Those who didn't... well, I just sort of expected them to make a sort of mental shrug and move on... either that, or you know, Google it.

(Maybe it's just my innate curiosity, but any time there's something I don't know about or don't know ENOUGH about, I'll google it, or Wikipedia it. I'm CONSTANTLY looking stuff up. I would say I sit with an extra tab open to a Google search or Wikipedia window 90% of the time.)

Oh, and.... Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

Steveknj said:

In the Eureka thread someone mentioned a character from Star Trek Enterprise who they compared a character in Eureka to. As I am not a fan of STE, I didn't catch the reference, and I after a few other posts about the character I felt I was missing the inside joke.

So let me ask....does anyone think it would be cool if you mentioned a character from another show in a show or episode thread, that you just say something like "John Doe from Show X' so the rest of us get it (or at least have an idea where the character is from).

I find this a lot in some of the shows with SciFi themes (The Big Bang Theory, Eurkea, Warehouse 13, The Event, etc.). Seems everyone in the SciFi community watches these same shows

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Shaka, when the walls fell.

LoadStar said:

Oh, and.... Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

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Picard and Dathon... at El-Adrel.

LoadStar said:

Oh, and.... Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

Click to expand...

Shaka, when the walls fell.

D'oh! That'll teach me not to look stuff up to make sure I got it right.

LOL, I am handing in my geek creds and going to bed.

I always preferred Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam

Steveknj said:

In the Eureka thread someone mentioned a character from Star Trek Enterprise who they compared a character in Eureka to. As I am not a fan of STE, I didn't catch the reference, and I after a few other posts about the character I felt I was missing the inside joke.

So let me ask....does anyone think it would be cool if you mentioned a character from another show in a show or episode thread, that you just say something like "John Doe from Show X' so the rest of us get it (or at least have an idea where the character is from).

I find this a lot in some of the shows with SciFi themes (The Big Bang Theory, Eurkea, Warehouse 13, The Event, etc.). Seems everyone in the SciFi community watches these same shows

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Isn't that the point of an Inside Joke? It should have to explain it, you either get it or you don't.

I pretty consistently populate my comments here and elsewhere on the internet with obscure references to other things, often with no attribution. I figure that if people get the reference, they get it. If they don't, they can either look it up or just go on thinking I said something inexplicably weird. I figure most of the people I'm friends with share a common pool of cultural references we draw from. The closer the friend, the more similar the knowledge base. The less close, the less likely they are to get the references, but also the less likely I am to care that they don't get it. I'd rather not annotate my comments, personally.

Come on, guys! Steveknj made a perfectly reasonable suggestion which reflects the thoughts of many more people on these threads. He asked for a minimal bit of info to put things in context for those who are not necessarily "in" on the reference.
I also waste a lot of time looking up stuff just to realize that if I had that extra bit of info I would just move on.

I come across things on a web page everyday that I don't understand/recognize. It takes about 2 seconds to highlight the name/word and do a search. I then have the context and move along. This happens especially if someone refers to a sports figure or country music singer as those are big holes in my knowledge base.

At no time have I ever considered that the person who wrote what I was reading had messed up by not supplying supplemental information. Ignorance of a topic is my problem to deal with or to remedy.

Shaunnick said:

I always preferred Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam

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I had no idea what that meant. Right clicked and the first Google result was:


Easy as could be.

getreal said:

Come on, guys! Steveknj made a perfectly reasonable suggestion which reflects the thoughts of many more people on these threads. He asked for a minimal bit of info to put things in context for those who are not necessarily "in" on the reference.
I also waste a lot of time looking up stuff just to realize that if I had that extra bit of info I would just move on.

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You're right. I take it back. My bad.1

1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/socia...sconsin-national-guard_n_822225_77315672.html

loubob57 said:

Shaka, when the walls fell.

D'oh! That'll teach me not to look stuff up to make sure I got it right.

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Smeak, his eyes covered.

Fish Man said:

Smeak, his eyes covered.

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But it's not a smeek if it wasn't there before I posted. I swear!

If you're really interested here's all the Tamarian phrases.

LoadStar said:

Oh, and.... Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

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Fish Man said:

Shaka, when the walls fell.

Picard and Dathon... at El-Adrel.

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Shaunnick said:

I always preferred Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam

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You guys are just totally cracking me up!!!

LoadStar said:

Oh, and.... Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

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Shaka, when the walls fell.

EDIT: smeek, when the posts duplicated

Fish Man said:

Smeak, his eyes covered.

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busyba said:

Shaka, when the walls fell.

EDIT: smeek, when the posts duplicated

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Ohh - the rare double/meta smeek!

"Darmok and Jalad on the ocean."

That's a Star Trek: TNG ep. reference.

busyba said:

smeek, when the posts duplicated

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Now that made me laugh out loud!

Very, very good.