Today marks the
first anniversary of
That Wacky Redhead, and I wanted to celebrate the occasion, some
282,000 views and
2,076 replies after it had all began. There are so many people to thank for helping this timeline to get where it is today, and I daren't make a list until this thread has completely wrapped, lest I overlook anyone important. But I
will post the results of the two surveys I had sent out, to provide the demographics of my readership...
Poster Demographics
35 posters contributed to this survey. The oldest poster was born in
1950; the youngest was born in
1994. The mean year of birth is
1975; the median is
1974. As for the mode... as no birth year is represented more than twice, we have a whopping
eight of them, and they are:
1964,
1969,
1971,
1973,
1978,
1981,
1984, and
1990. Therefore, we have
ten averages, out of twenty-seven birth years. I'm not going to subject this to withering statistical analysis, partly because any "concrete" facts would have a
massive margin of error attached, but I will predict that, assuming a bell-curve distribution, the average would probably find itself in the early-to-mid-1970s, which pleases me because that is the period of the Mini-Boom ITTL, which increases the size of that cohort in relative
and absolute terms compared to OTL.
Here is a chart showing the birth decades of all our posters. This one was fun to watch changing over time, because the 1970s and the 1980s have continually vied for first place (and were tied, on a number of occasions). As you can see, the 1970s edge out the 1980s with
10 posters over their
9, and the 1960s finish third with
7. The 1990s edge out the 1950s with
5 posters over their
4, for a total of
35. In the long term, I estimate that the 1970s and the 1980s will continue to vie for first place.
Top 10 Star Trek Episodes
We wound up with
13 submissions for this one, ranging in size from
two entries all the way to
twenty. I received ten submissions - including my own - that provided ten entries (along with, in many cases, honourable mentions). The way I decided to rank the episodes was in absolute terms; inclusion on the list merited one point, and number of honourable mentions would then serve as tie-breaker. Most submissions did not rank their chosen episodes, so I'm going to consider that irrelevant for the purposes of this list.
- "The Trouble With Tribbles" - the only episode to appear on every list
- "The City on the Edge of Forever" - appeared on every list but one (please direct all indignation at drakensis )
- "Mirror, Mirror" - a solid third, but fortunately for Thande, far enough back that it wouldn't have tied or beaten "City" if he had included it on his list
- "The Doomsday Machine" - tied with another episode for eight inclusions, but ahead of #5 thanks to one honourable mention
- "Balance of Terror" - eight out of thirteen inclusions, no honourable mention
- "The Devil in the Dark" - the last episode to have been unambiguously selected by a majority of those surveyed (seven out of thirteen)
- A two-way tie: "Amok Time" and "Space Seed", both of which got six votes and one honourable mention, dubiously qualifying them for majority inclusion
- None, due to tie for #7
- "Arena" - the big surprise of this list, IMHO - with a whopping five votes
- "A Piece of the Action" - with four votes, but three honourable mentions - the most of any episode, and crossing the majority threshold
And speaking of honourable mention, it goes to "Journey to Babel", which also received four votes. No other episode finished above three.
42 of the
78 episodes (counting "The Menagerie" as one, rather than two) were mentioned in at least one of our thirteen submissions. Of these 42,
17 merited inclusion on only a single list - and
three did not technically rank at all, but were included only as honourable mentions. Unsurprisingly, the first two seasons dominate the list, no matter
how you break it down; as you can see, the Top 10 was evenly split between them, and only
9 of the 42 chosen episodes are from the Turd Season.
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Thanks to everyone for reading, for commenting, and for participating in these surveys! And thank you all so much for your enthusiastic and overwhelming support, in general! Here's to at least
one more happy anniversary. I hope to have another proper update ready tonight, so keep your eye out for that! Until then...