A Brief Quote from Hamlet in a Sherlock Holmes–Related Episode of Star Trek (and it's Not the Quote You're Thinking of)

“Elementary, Dear Data.” By Brian Alan Lane. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Diana Muldaur, and Brent Spiner. Dir. Rob Bowman. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 2, episode 3. Syndicated television. 3 December 1988. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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I've spent (probably) far more time than I should compiling all the Shakespeare references in Star Trek (for which, q.v.). And every time I think I've reached the end, one more quotation or allusion or reference comes my way.

I recently finished reading Sir Patrick Stewart's Making it So, a fascining memoir that has even more Shakespeare than Star Trek. I also occasionally listen to audiobooks or television shows when I'm having trouble sleeping. The former led me to listening to the latter this week. In other words, I wasn't setting out to re-watch all the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which makes it very serindipitous that I happened to hear a Shakespeare quote that I hadn't noticed before. 

The quote occurs in the first Sherlock Holmes episode—the one where Data quotes Sherlock Holmes quoting Henry V (for which, q.v.). Let's give it a try:

There you have it! A Sherlock Holmes–Related Episode of Star Trek with a brief quote from Hamlet's father's ghost: "Murder most fowl" comes in Act I, scene v, line 27.

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Links: The Episode at IMDB.

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Shakespeare in Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man

Bradbury, Ray. The Illustrated Man. New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2011.

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Since this summer, I've been re-reading (or reading, in some cases) the works of Ray Bradbury. I was amazed anew at The Martian Chronicles. I'm delightedly and agonizingly in the middle of Fahrenheit 451 once more. And I read The Illustrated Man for the first time.

In that volume—which is a loosely-connected series of stories, some previously published—I found some Shakespeare.

In a story entitled "The Exiles" (which had previously been published under the title "The Mad Wizards of Mars"—see below), we switch between two settings: (1) Men on a rocket ship bound for Mars with the purpose of eradicating forever the books that Earth has banned and (2) The inhabitants of Mars itself. In this later group, we find the authors who have been banned and their characters.

The Martians (not really Martians, you understand, but that's a good shorthand term for this story) are putting up a terrific fight. The Weïrd Sisters are there, casting spells against the invaders. Edgar Allen Poe is there, serving as the leader of the Martians. Charles Dickens is there . . . but he's refusing to fight because he doesn't believe his books should have been banned in the first place.

I'm not going to provide any spoilers—you should read this yourself!—but here are the first few pages to entice you into reading it yourself:

Bonus Image: The Story's First Appearance

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