AYE, THERE'S THE RAJSKUB

On Friday, TVTattle.com (link to the left) put up a link to a YouTube video featuring Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Janice Rand of 'Star Trek'.

You can see the video here.

And even though most of us have grown up watching Ms. Whitney as Rand, suddenly people were looking at her in a new perspective:

JennyA12
This woman looks like Chloe from 24!

PirateBooty68
Holy crap it does look like Mary Lynn!

ihatetaft
That blonde chick looks like Chloe on 24.

Having read those comments and seen the video, the temptation was there to declare that Janice Rand was a distant descendant of Chloe O'Brian. But that lasted only a second.

Despite the fact that I'm a proponent for the strength of Toobworld genetics and that an exact DNA combination can "echo" throughout hundreds, even thousands of generations, there is no way Chloe and Janice can be related. That would mean they share the same TV dimension.

But Chloe lives in a world that's had several TV Presidents who will never become POTUS in the main Toobworld, which must follow in the footsteps of the Real World when it comes to the depiction of its major world leaders. And the nuking of Valencia, California, doesn't exactly play into the timeline for 'Star Trek' either.

There's just no way, despite all of the Zonks it has engendered, that I'm ever going to allow 'Star Trek' and the other shows in its franchise (except for the animated series) to ever slip out of Earth Prime-Time to boldly go in some other TV dimension!

However....

Mary Lynn Rajskub does have a series regular in her resume who could be the great-great to the nth power grandmother of Janice Rand.

Mary Lou Collins worked backstage in the offices of 'The Larry Sanders Show' as a talent booker after Paula left. 'The Larry Sanders Show' is also a major pain in the kiester when it comes to Zonks, but at least most of them can be disabled with some logical two-stepping.

Granted, she's not as exciting a character to have in your family tree as Chloe might have been, but not every hero from the future can boast of another hero in their past. That sort of thing only happens in Toobworld if some form of reincarnation is also involved. (See the Simon brothers of 'Simon and Simon'.)

Still it makes for a nice genealogical link between 'Star Trek' and 'The Larry Sanders Show', although it will probably be always considered theoretical.

Besides, Chloe spells her last name wrong anyway.....

Click here for a side-by-side comparison of Grace Lee Whitney and Mary Lynn Rajskub to judge for yourself.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby