"MUST ZONK THURSDAYS"

Once upon a time, NBC dubbed their Thursday night line-up as "Must See TV". Those days are long past, but several of their shows on that night are still enjoyable. For me, that would be 'Parks & Recreation' and sometimes 'The Office'.

Last week, it was "Must Zonk Thursday" from those two shows, both of a sci-fi/fantasy bent. I've covered both specific Zonks in the past in regards to other shows, but blogs are somewhat transient in nature so it's good to refresh the memories of Inner Toob visitors now and again.

First up.....

SHOW: 'Parks & Recreation'

ZONK: 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

Thanks to a re-enactment seen in a TV program about the history of television, everybody knows that Gene Roddenberry was an L.A. motorcycle cop who kept pitching TV show ideas. Eventually he came up with 'Star Trek', which he summarized as "'Wagon Train' to the stars." Although it only lasted three seasons, 'Star Trek' thrived in syndication and spawned it's own industry of movies, TV sequels, publications of books and comic books, and tons of merchandise. It's gone on toe be name-checked in quite a few TV shows that have come along since then.

The splainin from Toobworld Central? Someone from the Future went back in Time to give "The Great Bird Of The Galaxy" all of the information... information... information needed to create a TV show which would then inspire that future history. creating a temporal loop. "I am my own Grandpa" - that sort of thing.

Who could do such a thing? My guess is the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor.

Sound far-fetched? 'Star Trek' fans were responsible in getting the first space shuttle named "Enterprise". The pressure may one day be on for a young couple named Kirk in the town of Riverside, Iowa, to name their son James Tiberius when he is born in March of 2233......

SHOW: 'The Office'

ZONK: 'Game Of Thrones'

Up until now, I've dealt with mentions of 'Game Of Thrones' to be about the book cycle by George R.R. Martin, which was supported by a shot of 'Chuck' actually reading and remarking on one of the novels. So now we just have to expand that view so that Toobworld's HBO is making a TV series from those books, just like in the real world.

But in the real world, everything came from Martin's imagination. In Toobworld, what we see in the TV series is actually what happened millennia ago on Earth's twin planet Mondas which was the home of the original Cybermen (as seen in 'Doctor Who'.)

So how did Martin gain access to the histories of the long-missing planet in order to chronicle the age of ice and fire in the Seven Kingdoms?

Refugees - such as Eve Norta in 'The Twilight Zone' - "Probe 7 - Over And Out" - escaped Mondas before they could be rounded up and turned into Cybermen. Their spaceships crash-landed at various points around Earth Prime-Time and among the belongings they brought with them would have been a history of their people so that Mondasians would never be forgotten. (Among the only things left in their legacy among the mix of human descendants would be their names like Stark, Tully, Robert, Reed, Brandon.....)

Somehow the televersion of George R.R. Martin discovered a copy of this material and was able to translate it.

So those are my splainins and I'm sticking to them.

BCnU!