6 Completely Pointless Details In TV Shows (That Will Blow Your Mind)
2. The Stardate Logs In Star Trek: The Next Generation
Riding on the back of Futurama, we’ve got another awesome and also completely pointless, science fiction detail hidden away in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
At the beginning of every captain's log, Picard begins with the star date, a seemingly arbitrary run of numbers that in universe presumably relate to the date of the recording. However, hidden in these numbers is information relating to the episode itself.
Every stardate begins with the number 4, which has no value in the trick. And we also need to ignore the digit after the decimal. Once that is done, we can determine the season the current episode of TNG is from using the following method.
The first digit of the remaining four (The second digit of the stardate) indicates which season that particular episode came from. If it's 1, it came from the first season, 2 indicates second season, 3 third season, and so on.
You can even further narrow it down to which part of that season the show came from. The last three digits of the remaining four (the third through fifth digits of the stardate) indicate approximately which part of the season that particular episode came from. The closer to 999 it is, the further along in the season the episode is. Proof of this are the season finales and the season premieres. During a finale the last three digits are always in the upper 900s (Like around 980), and during a premier the last three digits are always less than 100 (Like around 025).
Using the example given above, 46312.7, this means the episode which that stardate came from originated from about 1/3 of the way through the sixth season.
Alternatively, just check to see what episode you're on by googling it. But, you know, cool trick nonetheless.