WEEKLY ROUNDUP

THE YADA-YADA

Don't try to get in my head.
You won't like the mess.
Alan Shore
'Boston Legal'

The Crossover of the Week is between the CBS soap opera 'As The World Turns' and a commercial for Tyson chicken products. We wrote about it yesterday and gave it its own entry in the blog.

This way, we can devote more space to a TV event that's helping to flesh out the TV Universe......

THE GREAT LINK
As part of a plan to link UPN's 'Star Trek: Enterprise' more closely with the original 'Trek' series -- 'Enterprise' is prequel to the 1960s cult favorite -- the current series launched a mini-arc that features characters and actors from across the whole history of the science-fiction franchise.

"Borderland," was the first of three episodes guest-starring Brent Spiner. He played the android Data on the first 'Trek' sequel series, 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' and in several 'Star Trek' feature films, most recently 'Nemesis' in 2002.

From TV Guide:
“Brent Spinder begins a three-episode stint as an unsavory geneticist with ties to Data, his Star Trek The Next Generation character. In keeping with Trek continuity, Spiner’s Arik Soong is an ancestor of Data’s inventor, Noonien Soong.

But Arik is a far more menacing figure. He’s in prison for creating “augments,” physically and intellectually enhanced humanoids first developed during the Eugenics Wars (remember Khan?). Here, Archer tries to avert bloodshed by enlisting Arik’s aid in locating the mutant-eers (led by Alec Newman), who have seized a Klingon vessel."

Soong created Khan-like superhumans 20 years prior to the events of this episode by defrosting a bunch of genetically engineered embryos from the late 20th century and raising them as his own. Ten years later, Soong was captured, tried and imprisoned - but they never found his “kids” until now.

Obviously, the Soong family is particularly enamored of Khan Noonien Singh, as Arik Soong's grandson will name his own child after the genetically enhanced dictator - Noonian Soong.
('Enterprise' & 'Star Trek' & 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' & 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine')

HISTORY, CHANNELLED
The show is sticking to the continuity of the orginal Kirk-Spock-McCoy series, which established that Khan ruled and enslaved a good chunk of Earth between 1992 and 1996.

In our world, the alternate version was that of the ethnic cleansing in the Baltic states and the horrors of Somalia.
('Enterprise' & 'Star Trek')

MISSING LINK
There are three new ads for the California Milk Advisory Board, which continue the "Happy Cows" storyline.

This time around, the cows play a prank on a farmer, try to avoid the shade cast by the single cloud in the sky, and lose interest halfway through a hotly contested foot race.

They are no ordinary cows, but bovines with brains. And although they do not walk upright and wear clothes like humans, they may still be related to the cows that were given an evolutionary boost by a meteor's radiation in 'Cows'.

'Cows' was the failed pilot for a comedy series in the UK, created by comedian and actor Eddie Izzard. If it could be compared to anything, I'd have to use 'Dinosaurs!' as the example since it would have shown the foibles of the human race as seen through the lives of these intelligent, humanoid, happy cows.
('Happy Cows' & 'Cows')

ZONK
From The West Wing Continuity Guide:
"If Bartlet's granddaughter, Annie was 12 six years ago during the pilot of the series, how can she be starting high school the week before The Birnam Wood takes place?"

Tristan Weir emailed us to point this out. We do not have an explanation. Are we to think she has been held back in school or has she been so sick she couldn't keep up with her grade level or is she and or us in some kind of time warp?

Maybe he was so concentrated on getting these people together that Bartlet misspoke and meant to say, "Annie started her last year of high school last week" and he just left out the words "her last year of".

The West Wing Continuity Guide is at:
http://westwing.bewarne.com/default.html

SPLAININ TO DO
Edwin Poole of Crane, Poole, and Schmidt grew up watching Perry Mason. In fact, Perry came to him in a dream to tell him that he should take a murder case pro bono.

Edwin Poole may have been fried mentally (He came to work one morning wearing no pants, no underwear.), but his craziness wasn't presenting him with visions of a TV show that should have been part of the reality in the same universe where he resided.

Poole said he grew up watching Perry Mason. Mason was a very famous lawyer; his exploits in the criminal justice system in Los Angeles were the stuff of legend. He probably appeared often in the newspapers and on early local TV out there.

Nothing so far suggests that Edwin Poole could not have been raised in Los Angeles; maybe he moved to Boston after law school. [He wouldn't have been the first - several of the lawyers in the firm of Cage & Fish were not originally from Beantown. ('Ally McBeal')] So that's probably what he meant when he said he grew up watching Perry Mason. It had nothing to do with any television show.

As to him saying that Perry came to him in a dream..... Well, the guy is nuts, remember.
('Boston Legal' & 'Perry Mason')

THE LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES
Ford’s retro-hip 2005 Mustang debuted in a new commercial this past week. And it resurrected the late icon Steve McQueen in a fashion that's reminiscent of "Field Of Dreams".

“If you build it, he will come,” whispers the voice from Beyond to a corn farmer in Chilliwack, British Columbia. He then carves a racetrack into the crops and pulls the Mustang up to the starting line.

And then McQueen, who famously drove a Mustang in 1968’s "Bullitt", swaggers onto the racetrack to take a spin. The blipvert concludes with a tagline that fits both man and machine; “The legend lives.”
('2005 Mustang')

Apparently, in the TV Universe this would actually be the ghost of the late actor. But it should not be linked with the appearance of a TV character he once played back in the fifties. When Ranger Walker was visited by the ghost of bounty hunter Josh Randall a few years back in celebration of CBS TV's fiftieth anniversary, we were able to splain it away rather than let it become a Zonk.

Walker had been dreaming the encounter with the ghost of the real Josh Randall, not with the actor who portrayed him on TV. Walker must have been reading something on Randall's life and then nodded off at his desk.

So even if Josh Randall and Steve McQueen are two separate people in the TV Landscape, Randall was only the stuff dreams are made of. But McQueen? He's the boogieman, baby!
('Walker, Texas Ranger' & 'Wanted: Dead Or Alive') Plus:

The Donnas performed in San Francisco.
('Charmed')

The Black-Eyed Peas did Ed a favor in 'Las Vegas'.

Stephanie Beacham (ex-Sable, "Dynasty" and "The Colbys") will appear as herself on 'The Bold and the Beautiful' in November.

LA TRIVIATA
An empty city street is steadily filled with a procession of characters from film and real life, beginning with an armor-clad gladiator. He is joined by a cast of thousands including Little Orphan Annie, a father recording his son's first bike ride, and a fearsome but well-behaved creature from Alien. All and sundry, of course, converge on a leafy street and ultimately in the living room of a media-savvy family.
('Digital Joy' - Intel's Pentium 4 technology and Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center)

Dr. Gregory House practices medicine at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey.
('House')

The song that Charlie Pace wrote, and which became a big hit for the band Driveshaft, - "You All Everybody" - was inspired by a comment by made by an audience member on an episode of Maury Povich's "talk" show.
('Lost')

REALI-TV
Just in case you're still not sure of 'Jack & Bobby' 's political sympathies, each episode begins with a montage of 20th-century presidents in their youth: [Franklin] Roosevelt, JFK, etc., but it all stops at Clinton.

This being Hollywood, evidently that's the last president the producers can bear to think about. The argument could be made that in an election year, they didn't want to influence the race. But I'll bet that if Kerry wins, his adolescent mug will be added to the lineup. Don't count on Bush's making it, though, if he's reelected.
— Catherine Seipp is a writer in California who publishes the weblog Cathy's World. She is an NRO contributor.

UNSTUCK IN PRIME TIME
The forensics team in Boston worked under deadline to prove that a man being held in custody for a possible drug bust might in fact be a long-sought serial killer.

They figured out that he struck only during the phases of a "Blue Moon", the second full moon in a month's period, which only happens every couple of years.

But the readout on Nigel's computer placed the date as November 1st of this year, and there was no "Blue Moon" at that time. The last "Blue Moon" was back in July, and the last full moon before that episode was on the 27th of October. There wouldn't be another one until the end of November.

But it's just another example that Toobworld is NOT the Real World, and we shouldn't be expecting events that transpire on TV to accurately reflect what happens here at home.
('Crossing Jordan')

Full Moons in 2004
January 7th Full Wolf Moon 10:40 am
February 6th Full Snow Moon 3:47 am
March 6th Full Worm Moon 6:14 pm
April 5th Full Pink Moon 6:03 am
May 4th Full Flower Moon 3:33 pm
June 2nd Full Strawberry Moon 11:20 pm
July 2nd Full Buck Moon 6:09 am
July 31st Full Sturgeon Moon 1:05 pm
August 29th Full Fruit/Barley Moon 9:23 pm
September 28th Full Harvest Moon 8:09 am
October 27th Full Hunter's Moon 10:07 pm
November 26th Full Beaver Moon 3:07 pm
December 26th Full Cold Moon 10:06 am

CRITIC'S CORNER
From the TV Chat in the Washington Post:
West Coaster: I'm shocked there isn't more outrage that we on the West Coast got an edited (no lip-synch) version of the Ashlee snafu. One of the biggest TV moments of the year, and we missed out -- thank God for the Internet. So I'm wondering if SNL snips skits for the West Coast when other things go awry, and isn't part of being "live" showing everything, warts and all?

Lisa de Moraes: Yes, there are SO many questions for Lorne Michaels, who has been very very quiet. It's outrageous that they edited out the vocal track for the West Coast feed of last week's 'SNL' so that it would look to viewers as if Simpson had become flustered because her "band" started to play the wrong song, instead of the truth, which is that she came unglued because she'd been caught in the act of lip syncing. Shame on 'SNL' and Michaels for doing that...

HALL OF FAME
Hall member Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, added to his roster on the last Friday before the presidential election, by appearing on CNN and debating with Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. The two debate antagonists had already been caught off-guard once earlier in the month by Jon Stewart of 'The Daily Show' who took them to task for the way they conducted their program, so they might have figured that they would fare better against a puppet.

Boy, were they wrong! Triumph got off the best line: "Jon Stewart made you hees beetch!"
('Crossfire')

In case anyone was interested in who the other 'Trek' inductees have been up to this point, here's the rundown of the year so far:
January - Captain James T. Kirk
February - Lt. Uhura
March - Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy
April - Commander Montgomery Scott
May - Yeoman Janice Rand
June - Zephraim Cochrane
Birthday Honors - The Cast Of The Original 'Star Trek':
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichole, Walter Koenig, Majel Barrett, Grace Lee Whitney
July - Ensign Pavel Chekov
August - Helmsman Hikaru Sulu
September - Gene Roddenberry
October - The Tribbles
November - Ambassador Sarek

Well, that's it for another week. Please stay tuned!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

BUZZKILL

A TOOBWORLD THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

In a Bacardi commercial, two flies are sitting in the park; human-sized insects with human faces. The older of the two laments that he has nothing to show for his long life (24 hours), and he wants the younger one to go for the gusto before it's too late.

The old fly kicks the bucket and the Young Buzz flies off to sow his wild oats. He parties at a rooftop disco; he plays blackjack at a casino; he gets chased around a kitchen and swatted on the rump by a seductive temptress wearing a skimpy French maid's uniform; and then he picks up two party girls and flies them off to a hotel suite.

While hanging from the ceiling to watch them have a pillow fight in their negligees, the fly finally expires.

The moral of the story? "Live Life like you mean it."

It's a funny blipvert, utilizing "quantoon physics" for its 30-second storyline. But as outlandish as it may look, that man-fly is firmly rooted in the TV Landscape.

At some point before September 1990, slightly mad scientist Fred Edison transformed his brother-in-law Harry Orkin into a humanoid fly. Harry made the best of his situation, but it was especially troubling for his wife Idella. The hausfrau couldn't... "hug" her housefly hubbie without squashing him like the bug that he was.

Eventually, the lack of conjugal comforts would have afflicted Flyboy as well. And since he couldn't get no satisfaction from a human female because of his diminutive size, Harry must have turned to the only logical alternative - a female fly.

And, inevitably, there would have been a bunch of flybabies.

Although his genetic spunk would have been tainted by elements of Musca domestica, it was still human DNA. Being more advanced on the evolutionary scale, it would have probably been dominant over the fly genomes when producing progeny.

(Hey, don't quibble with the technobabble unless you've been able to transform a human into a fly!)

Therefore, it's possible that the progeny from the union of man-fly and fly would look for the most part like a fly, but with the TV-traditional human face and human intelligence. And perhaps even the size of human once fully grown.

Unfortunately, it would have been fully grown in the space of a few hours, cursed with the fly's 24 hour lifespan. And so it would be, down through the countless generations of descendants, perhaps even crossbreeding with that Spanish man-fly I've seen in some Telemundo comedy show.

But it looks as though the next generation has taken steps to reverse that trend and to bring a fresh influx of human DNA into the sap of the family tree. We may not have seen it actually transpire during that Bacardi blipvert, but my guess is that Flyboy fu-# boinked each of his bosomy buddies.

If there are children (and don't it always seem to go?), they would begin the evolutionary march back to a more humanoid appearance. But they would also possess mutant abilities unforeseen.

We'll just have to wait and see what kind of Eugenic super-kids we'll get in TV Land in about ten years.....

LOU GRANT: You know what? You've got spunk.
MARY RICHARDS: Well.....
LOU GRANT: I HATE SPUNK!
('The Mary Tyler Moore Show')

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

A NUGGET OF A CROSSOVER!

THE TV CROSSOVER OF THE WEEK

Barbara Ryan has drugged cops, hired a hitman, and even pulled off a triple-play kidnapping. She's got five ex-husbands (probably the norm in most soap operas) and more lovers than she can keep track of.

Is it any wonder then that her son was institutionalized for murder? Like mother, like son.

But at least he can be assured of getting Tyson Chicken Nuggets while in prison!

Tyson has been a time-saver for Barbara Ryan. What with surviving explosions and other soap opera dilemmas, it's a wonder Barbara has had time to eat dinner, let alone make it.

As played by Colleen Zenk Pinter, Barbara Ryan has been appearing in a series of Tyson commercials which are only seen on CBS. And back in October, the product was integrated into the storyline on 'Ast The World Turns' when Barbara's son was served Tyson's nuggets while in jail.

My thanks to TV Guide's "The Insider" for bringing this to our attention.
('As The World Turns' & Tyson ads)

NICOLE SCENE FIT

So I've been thinking about the two different endings for the Nicole Wallace storyline on 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'. The East Coast got to see the ending in which she escaped; the West Coast saw the finale where the femme fatale was finished off.

For nearly a week both endings were available for viewing at NBC's web site so that people could vote on whether or not Nicole Wallace should live or die. And after the votes were tallied, it was decided she would be back to bedevil Detectives Goren and Eames another day. So in the official canon and timeline of Toobworld, her heart - or lack thereof - will go on.

However.....The most basic tenet of Toobworld is that if it's broadcast, it's part and parcel of the TV Universe. Both endings were broadcast, so who could they both be part of the same TV Universe?

Easy. Same universe; different dimension.

We can thank 'Sliders', one of the Toobworld essentials, for the escape clause. What the West Coasters witnessed was the alternate version that played out in a parallel dimension. Perhaps it was the 'West Wing' World, so they can be assured that Nicole Wallace will never be a threat to President Jed Bartlet.

Or it could be the evil mirror universe made famous by the 'Star Trek' franchise (and "prequelled" in an episode of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys"). Now, one might think an evil universe might be the place where such a vile character (Nicole was a child-killer!) might flourish. But as every life has a ripple effect in others, perhaps Nicole's death better served Satan's purpose by removing that influence.

But there is yet another theory to splain away both versions of Nicole Wallace's fate; one that would technically keep them both in the same dimension.

We know that the ultimate decision was for her to live. Perhaps originally she did indeed die as seen by the people on the East Coast, but something cosmic intervened to go back in time and change history.

In the version in which she died, Detective Eames shot Nicole twice in the chest. (The pathologist even congratulated her on her shooting skills.)

But what if somebody from the future did a bit of quantum leaping and entered Eames' life; making the choice to miss her target? Somebody with a holographic partner armed with a "Ziggy" computer which worked out the analysis and knew that everything would be better off, surprisingly, if Nicole lived. Once their places were traded back, and the visitor from the future (maybe Sam Beckett, maybe not) leapt out, Alexandra Eames would have not remembered what had transpired.

Well, as Mushrat used to say to Deputy Dawg, "It's pozz'ble, it's pozz'ble."

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

SUSTAINING AN ELECTION

Now that the election is over here in the Real World and George W. Bush has been elected President for the first time, let's turn our attention to presidential politics in the world of 'The West Wing'.

Executive Producer John Wells has said that no decision has been made as to who the next President will be to succeed Jed Bartlet. But it will be the driving force of the plotlines for the next year (and hopefully longer) on the show.

The two main combatants will be Texan Congressman/Mayor Matthew Santos (Dem.) and Senator Arnold Vinick (Rep.). Santos was set on retiring from Congress - probably before the Texan Republicans hunted him down for sport! - but a chance conversation made him consider the possibility of running.

As for Vinick, he's a four-term senator who had been long expected to make a run for the highest office in the land.

And then there's a third option, the one that should have been considered as "traditional" - Vice President "Bingo" Bob Russell. I'm not sure he has much support outisde of his own Chief of Staff, Will Bailey. And even there, doubts have begun to take root.

So it'll be interesting to see where the various campaigns take us as viewers.

It'll certainly be a welcome diversion from thinking about the current state of affairs in our own world.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

RED SOX [TV] NATION

A wise man named Wayne* once said, with regard to baseball:

What an amazing sport with a subtext that reflects a combination of real life, fairy tales (in the lightest and darkest of senses), mythology, filled with tales of redemption, retribution and the always present sense of unlimited possibilities.
He was talking about the Yankee win in the 2003 ALCS, but it better suits the 2004 season of the Boston Red Sox.

Here was a team that overcame being 3 games down against the Yanks to win the next four games to win the playoffs - Something that had never been done before! - to then go on and sweep the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The astounding story of the Bosox would make for a great tale of fantasy: a band of warriors up against a Ghost, a Curse, and an Evil Empire to the South. One of the players might have found his strength in the length of his hair like Samson; another beat the odds against a grievous foot injury better than Achilles ever could. And the final battle was played out in the shadow of the Great Arch under a total lunar eclipse.....

An account of this season has been chronicled by fan Stephen King the best-selling author of horror fiction, but perhaps W.P. Kinsella, well-known for his baseball fantasies, ought to give their mythic moments his flourish.

Baseball has been the basis for several fantasy movies - "Angels In The Outfield", "Damn Yankees", and "Field Of Dreams" (based on Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe"), although the story of the 2004 Red Sox may be more in keeping with the magic realism of "The Natural". But the reality of the Sox success is now entwined in the magic of the movies, thanks to the Farrelly Brothers. As it became evident that the Bosox just might pull off a miracle after all, the filmmakers (responsible for such movies as "There's Something About Mary" and "Stuck On You") had to quickly rewrite the ending for "Fever Pitch", their movie about a rabid Red Sox fan and the woman who loves him.

And that's why you saw Jimmy Fallon in a lip-lock with Drew Barrymore in the center of the celebrations on the infield after Game Four.

But "Fever Pitch" won't be telling the Bosox Story. For that they would need to make a mini-series! Only with a story spun out over successive evenings could the full glory of this season be told.

That way, all the angles could be played - the hiring of Terry Francona, the trade of Nomar, and the visit by fans to the grave of Babe Ruth. All of the players would get their showcase moments dramatized - David Ortiz and his game winning blasts, the chance for Johnny Damon to finally shine, the agony and the ecstasy surrounding Curt Schilling's ankle, and the pathetic bitch-slap by A-Rod.

Even the darkest shadow on their quest must be recounted - the tragic death of Victoria Snelgrave, the fan who was fatally shot through the eye by a police pepper spray bullet.

As to who should play the players - I'll leave that up to casting experts like Lin Stalmaster or Mary Jo Slater. There must be plenty of unknowns out there with passing resemblance to Pedro, Manny, and Baby Face Epstein. Just so long as they let Wally The Green Monster play himself.......

Maybe there will never be a mini-series based on the first Red Sox championship since 1918, so let's give another option a chance to make the play at the plate while a third idea warms up in the bullpen. (There's no analogy or metaphor I won't take a swing at!)

I have to figure David E. Kelley will write an episode that weaves the World Series into his own series, 'Boston Legal' on ABC. He must love the town - three of his series were set in Beantown ('Legal', 'Boston Public', and 'Ally MacBeal'). And since he relies so heavily on quirky courtroom cases, having James Spader as Alan defending Ted Williams' frozen head would be a Shore thing!

Well... maybe dealing with the Sox legend's noggin should be left to Jordan Cavanaugh, the Boston medical examiner of 'Crossing Jordan' over on NBC. And what better place to showcase a storyline about the Red Sox than in an episode of 'Clubhouse' on CBS? You could even get a few players - like Trot Nixon and Bronson Arroyo; even the principal owner, John Henry - to play themselves.

If this was a perfect TV Universe, that mini-series idea would also be an opportunity to revisit some old friends from long-ago shows. The most obvious choice would be Sam Malone - wouldn't he have been invited to join the victory parade through the streets of Boston as did other past Sox players like Yaz and Pesky? If it had been still on the air, 'Cheers' could have even rushed out a quick opening for an episode; in which Norm and Cliff and Carla are standing outside the bar and watching the parade pass them by.

Calista Flockhart as 'Allie MacBeal', Avery Brooks as Hawk ('Spenser: For Hire'), Mariette Hartley as Jennifer Barnes ('Goodnight, Beantown'), Chi McBride as Principal Harper ('Boston Public'), and even coverage by the guys on 'SportsNight'... these are just a few of the fictional cameos that could proudly grace the parade route.

And they could even take the opportunity to explore the secret labyrinth of passageways beneath Fenway Park, which were revealed in an episode of 'Relic Hunter'!

At the very least, I'm sure there are plenty of big name stars who are Bosox boosters (Matt Damon, Matthew Perry, Lenny Clarke, and Seth Myers), and who would be more than happy to lend their faces to such a project, either as one of that bunch of Idiots (Ben Affleck as Varitek?), or as themselves. (Is Denis Leary a fan?)

Music could be provided by Aerosmith, the Cars, and the J. Geils Band. And Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore could even recreate their movie moment yet again to twist all of the parallel dimensions into a pretzel!

And depending on how today's election turns out, perhaps a scene could be written which would utilize either fan and candidate John Kerry, or Curt Schilling out on the stump for Bush.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

*I know Wayne's wise. He married Marsha. (It's an Iddiot thang.)

TV Crossover Hall of Fame (November 2004)

With only a day to go (as I write this) before the polls open so that we can pretend we're electing a president, naturally thoughts turn to politics even for the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

In the last few years, the inductees in November have been someone connected to the great American tragedy of forty years ago last year. President and Mrs. Kennedy were inducted in 2002 as a couple in the year of the doubles; their son JFK, Jr. was inducted last year; and Walter Cronkite, whose announcement of Kennedy's death was perhaps the most memorable, was chosen in November of 2001 when he celebrated his 85th birthday.

November just has the right mien to showcase those inductees who are newsmakers in TV Land, whether real or fictional. (Or - as with the four mentioned earlier, - a combination of both.)

And even though our theme this year is 'Star Trek' (the original series), it still holds true.

There is a character in the galaxy of 'Trek' who was closely tied to the political process in the Federation of Planets. And although Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan was not a regular, he still played an integral role throughout the franchise, especially in fleshing out the dual nature of his son's character; that of Captain Spock of Starfleet.

We were first introduced to the Vulcan Ambassador on the original series, when we got to see the bonds of love between father and son (despite a communications breakdown) while they were en route to a peace conference on Babel.

Sarek revealed how much he loved his son when requesting the Vulcan High Priestess to restore Spock's katra (his soul) to his body. When it came to his son, Logic failed him. It was an admission not easy for a Vulcan to make.

He also came to the defense of the "mutinous" officers of the Enterprise before the Federation, against charges pushed by the Klingons. However, it became something of a "moot court" once Kirk & Company saved the Earth by bringing whales out of the extinct past.

We also learned that Spock was not Sarek's only son, but the only one who was half-human. Sarek had been married before to a Vulcan "princess", but his wife died in childbirth bringing Sybok into the world.

Many years later, long after his Earth-born second wife Amanda Grayson had died and he had remarried another human named Perrin, Sarek contracted Bendii's Syndrome in his old age. (The disease is something akin to a Vulcan version of Alzheimer's disease.

Thanks to the assistance of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Sarek was able to keep his sanity together long enough to mediate potentially explosive negotiations. Because of the mind-meld involved, Picard was later able to share the remnants of that link with Spock after Sarek passed away.

Sort of a cerebral Shiva.

So, with appearances on two of the 'Star Trek series and in at least three of the franchise films, Ambassador Sarek qualifies for this rather dubious "honor". It may not be as illustrious as acquiring the emblem of the IDIC, but 'twill serve.

Live Long And Prosper.
BCnU!
Tele-Toby