In this past week's episode of 'Monk' ("Mr. Monk Falls In Love"), the murder victim turned out to be a notorious war criminal hiding out in America as a cab driver. He was known as "The Butcher of Zemenia", and was accused of ethnic cleansing atrocities in his homeland.In Toobworld, the ethnic cleansing war crimes of the real world fall under the category of atrocities that were committed during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s as established in 'Star Trek'. Whether the Butcher of Zemenia was one of these "supermen" is unknown; more likely, he was working for an enhanced human like Khan Noonian Singh.
Based on the dialect, the customs, and the clothing of those in the episode who were of Zemenian heritage, it's suggested that Zemenia was a Balkan state that probably was long under the domination of the Soviet Republic. But it could be that it was one of several small states that were joined together as the UCR, from an episode of 'Mission Impossible'.
It was never stated as to what "UCR" stood for in the show, but it could have been "United Communist Republics", a small off-shoot of the USSR.
Here are a few other nations that could have been part of such a confederation:
Argonia ("The Adventures Of Superman")
Boldavia ("Night Court")
Boravia ("Danger Man")
Drublegratz ("The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.")
Drublegratz ("The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.")
Povia ("Mission: Impossible")
Tavilia ("The Amazing Spiderman")
Tavilia ("The Amazing Spiderman")
There's always a possibility that Leyla Zlatavich might return in a future episode of 'Monk', even though it seemed as though her heart was hardened against Adrian by the end. If so, perhaps we might learn more about the land of Zemenia, and from there we could conjecture some more about what part it plays on Earth Prime-Time......
BCnU!
Toby O'B
BCnU!
Toby O'B
Zemenia seems to be a big mixture of eastern European cultures. The language they were speaking was Joanna Pacula's native Polish. The Zemenian flag looks like a Croatian flag with the colors changed. The trident in the Zlatavich family crest, found on the hat pin and box, is the one found on the Ukranian coat of arms. The large Zemenian community in San Francisco is much like the large Bosnian community in St. Louis.
ReplyDelete"Mission: Impossible" dealt with tons of fictional countries. Several, like the Eastern European Republic, were Ruritania-style Communist-bloc countries in eastern Europe or on the Balkan Penninsula. I remember one "Mission: Impossible" episode was set in the Republic of Lucarno. They had an Albanian-style coat of arms with a two-headed eagle. However, the Lucarno coat of arms was blue instead of red.
You didn't mention that Jaime Gomez, who played Inspector Evan Cortez on "Nash Bridges," played a San Francisco Police Inspector named Sanchez. Maybe they're related like Pullman and Braithwaite?
LoL That ZEMENIA thing is the funniest thing in Monk for me - maybe because I'm Polish xD (I've watched almost every episode)
ReplyDeleteThat was like "poor people of Zemenia have been fighting for almost 600years" and that lady starts speaking Polish after that, her Mother speaks Russian and those two emmigrants that she was talking with when Monk first came to her were speaking some strange - mixed language - that was like "blablabla" mixed with Polish and Russian xD
I've never seen anything more stupid ^^
Well, seeing it from a Toobworld perspective, that mishmosh of languages is presented as Zemenian. Thus, it is. A splainin could be that it is a mixture of Polish and Russian, or that their combination of syllables may sound like Polish and/or Russian words, but instead mean something entirely different.
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me of that inocuous phrase spoken by Arthur Dent in 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy' which falls through a worm-hole in space to arrive in the middle of an alien summit meeting. And for them, that phrase of English words was a terrible insult to one of the aliens' mothers.
This is just ridiculous! All this! There's no such country as Zemenia, never existed, never will be (maybe in somebody's sick fantasy only)! Nonsense!!!
ReplyDeletePlus FYI: there never was anything like "United Communist Republics" so made-up countries like Argonia ("The Adventures Of Superman"), Boldavia ("Night Court"), Boravia ("Danger Man"), Drublegratz ("The Girl From U.N.C.L.E."), Povia ("Mission: Impossible"), Tavilia ("The Amazing Spiderman")have never been part of it. There're all just movie creators tricks. Or most likely it comes from absolute absence of knowledge about Eastern European countries, Russia and former republics of Soviet Union.
I love "Monk" but it's a second time i'm kinda pissed off: 1)is it really so hard to check the information before putting it in a script? and 2) is it really so hard to find a russian-speaking actor (in episode where Monk paints his masterpiece) so ppl don't have to listen to this obviously struggling man who doesn't even understand what he says.
I know "greatest country in the world" doesn't give a damn about world history and geography, but come on United States! What a shame!
Maria, you do realize it's just TV, right? And at Toobworld Central, we're dealing with it as being an alternate reality not the real world.
ReplyDeleteThere's no Zemenia in our world, but what we see on TV is not our world.....
But I thank you for visiting. I hope you look around some more here!
Toby O'B, ok if they wanted to create a different,new country they should've really created it! Not steal from other countries like we're stupid and usa is oh so cool. -.-but no,they take our,Croatian flag,Polish and Russian and who knows what other language and mix it all up. If they already felt like making stuff up and create new countries, they should've really done it. This way it is just crap. I can see this is so amusing to you,cause you're american, and us natives,we're so "stupid" omg,how come we're not okay with it? Well,it's NOT your country we're talking about here so you can't know how we feel nor you have the right to say anything about it! I wonder how would you feel if we took your flag and color it in blue and green. It has some values too us as well as your flag does to you. And we also fought for our country,it has a meaning to us. I just can't understand why you think you're in the centre of the world. Holly america!-.- self centered idiots! You're america,well canada and mexico are too! British people have accents! No they don't,you do! Damn it,you took their language!! And you dare too mock them! It's just unbelievably pathetic..
ReplyDeleteThe rage over fiction XD
ReplyDelete