Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, we're back, and we're in one of your favourite seasons, I
think, of Star Trek, am I right?
If not your favourite season.
One of my favourite seasons of Star Trek of all time, one of my
favourite genres of all time, horror horror.
This should be an absolute banger for me.
So we're right at the end of Deep Size 9 series five.
It's episode 24 and it's called Empoc Noor.
And it's part of the honoured tradition of using our normal sets
to represent somewhere else by turning the lights down.
And...
We have seen a bit of that already, haven't we?
Doomsday machine. absolutely.
Strange new worlds with the fabulous plants everywhere in the
fairy tale kingdom.
Well, that was still the enterprise, but I'm thinking of all those
who wander, which is the 2nd last episode of series one, where the
sets stand in for whatever that chip is that's crashed with a gone
on board.
So it is a thing that the show does fairly regularly, but this is
obviously Deep Space 9's 1st go at it.
Unbelievably, though.
We returned to Empoc Nor in series 7 and that's where Dukata set
up his loony, but you're on Cole.
Yeah, that's right.
In fact, I thought that that was what we were talking about. and
I'd forgotten this one, I think a bit.
So I'm going to lay my cards on the table.
I think this was okay. and there are some bits in it that I liked
a lot, but I think it suffered a bit from the fact that it's part
of a weekly show.
And what that means is I don't think it has enough time, given
everything else it has to do, to build up atmosphere.
So I don't think it's as suspenseful and atmospheric as it could
be, although it is quite suspenseful.
And I think it absolutely does a massive thing and then has no
consequences at all for it.
And that's kind of a bit dumb, I think.
This is one where way back in the day when I wrote reviews for
every single Star Trek episode on Docahoe reviews.
Go check it out.
I do plug in very often on here, so, you know, why not?
And I really liked it back in the day.
And it's one that sort of haemorrhaged interest for me over time.
And I don't know whether that's more exposure to you watching DS9
you know, me figuring all these episodes were gritty drama of the
highest order and you, you know, reminded me that it's all a big
fast or soap, soap in particular.
But I do think on this watch, two-thirds of this, I think, works
really quite well as just a very simple horror story set in a
spooky setting with people dying.
And then it falls off a cliff in the last 3rd where poor Andy
Robinson is asked to play serial killer for the 900th time in his
career and makes some unusual acting choices when he does.
It's almost sort of a camp performance, which he normally does as
Garrick, and that works fine because he's supposed to be funny.
But here he's supposed to be scary and with some of the lines that
he gets, you know, Nathan, you have no idea how badly I want to
kill you right now.
You know, it's all a bit bizarre that last third.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it doesn't work.
Just really because Garrett goes mad for space reasons.
And once that happens, you know, like he picks up a bit of chewing
gum off the...
I thought it was plastic scene.
Blue plaster scene.
I think someone stuck their gum, one of those Cardassian soldiers
stuck his gum on the stairway, the spiral staircase, and he picked
it up, and then he, it's the crazy xenophobe drug that makes him
go crazy.
Oh, I thought you just had an aversion to touching people's gum
and that turned into a serial killer from that point on.
That can happen.
But like, I just think that that's dumb.
So what's the point of that?
And in a way, a version of this where Garrett gets a little bit
too excited about killing the Cardassian soldiers might have been
a bit more interesting and we'll get there in time.
In a way this is sort of rightly and does want to say something
about the 2 characters.
O'Brien and Garak, but DS9 gets in the way.
Or really, the need to do a Star Trek episode gets in the way of
that, I think.
I mean, DS9 does have a good track record of same thing about his
characters in its sort of throwaway episodes like this.
But I thought the only real point this was trying to make was the
line that O'Brien has in the climax, which is, you know, you're
right.
I'm not a soldier.
I'm an engineer.
And I was like, okay, is that the point we've been coming up?
We sort of knew that at the start of the episode.
But, yeah.
I mean, it is it is giving us a bit more background as well.
I learned something interesting reading the Deep Space 9 companion
which I read a little bit earlier today, that there was a 1st
draft of this story, and I didn't realise the actors got to read
the 1st drafts, but Andy Robinson read it and went to Ira Bear and
said, I won't, I'm not doing this.
I won't do this.
And so it was this script with all the character stuff taken out
and Garak was just basically, you know, a berserker killer going
around killing everybody.
I don't even think there was the Kardashians in the tube.
It was just Garak had gone mad.
Yeah.
And he was like, I can't play. took one look at the script and
said, no, we won't do that.
And that's why they added all of that later character stuff in.
But he was still a little bit uneasy.
In the same way that he's uneasy when they do the parallel
universe episodes, because he considers Garak to be quite a
multidimensional character with lots of interesting facets to
him.
And this and the parallel universe, Carac.
It's very one though, you know?
And I'm not sure he knows how to play that note.
Yeah, yeah.
And the O'Brien stuff is the backstory stuff that we get for
O'Brien in The Wounded, which we've done as well.
So Setlick 3, do you remember he says, you know, um, I don't hate
you.
I hate what I became because of you.
And so all of that stuff about war.
Here, it's clearly a little bit of kind of decoration and stuff
and it gives Garak something to talk about.
But it doesn't really go anywhere, I think.
And the episode deliberately avoids, I think, saying anything
about O'Brien as a soldier, because I think he's just not that
anymore.
The original pitch for this was that it was Garak and Worf on an
obsidian order ship and he got and it was sort of like a cat and
mouse game with them going through the ship.
But the idea of this wasn't a character piece.
The idea of this was a horror episode of D-space 9.
And it was pitched by your friend of mine, Brian Fuller, who
pitched earlier in the season, the Darkness in the Light, which is
another horror themed episode with Kira's friend being bumped off
by a serial killer.
Fabulous episode.
What this episode does have.
And I've recently been watching...
You won't know of this, but I'm going to educate you now.
Babylon 5 and I'm just about halfway through the 2nd series and
struggling immensely with it.
But what both Babylon 5 and NPOC Nor have in common is Mike
Vajar.
And I think he's a really good director of science fiction.
And if this is a bit limp and thin in both story and character, it
does have a lot of atmosphere.
I think he likes this really well.
I think the points where it's supposed to scare you.
So the points where people die, they're really affected.
There's one really horrific moment where someone has their neck
snapped and you hear the noise and everything and the poor kid's
screaming his head off.
Yeah.
So I think, I think in terms of a television production, this
actually is above average, the Xbox 9.
Yeah, I would say, too, that J.
Chataway does a very good job creating the atmosphere, too.
Enough a bit of Joe Chatterway, though.
I do.
I think he's very good.
And I did notice that he was on the credits before I watched it
and then just listening to how he does the music is a little bit
reminiscent of the music in Alien, which is obviously the place to
go for sort of scary things happening in Spain.
And I think there are some good beats.
And I have to say, we're going to open with a comedy scene at the
beginning, which I think is absolutely magnificent.
So good.
But we'll talk about how that undermines, I think, what we're
trying to do on the show.
But I think that because this is 90s trek and even at series 5 of
Deep Space 9, this isn't doing serialisation in the same
thoroughgoing way that even enterprise series 4 will do.
And certainly that Battlestar Galactica will do. or even the show
itself in later in the run.
Interestingly, I think this is the tipping point, though, because
in the next episode is in the cars, which has the B plot about Kai
Wynn coming to the station and meeting with Weyoon.
Then it's the season finale, and then it's the 6th episode arc.
So this is like this is like the full stop where DS9 goes from
being, you know, standalones with loose serialisation to being a
properly serialised show.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think this offers as a result of it.
And we can talk about whether the show's wrong to attempt that
given that it can't follow up on the consequences or is it okay?
And I'm not quite sure.
I kind of think we'd be slightly poorer without this, but I do
think that there is a problem where it just has no consequences at
all.
Rocks and shoals accepted.
Well, the course of this episode is already come up in an episode
that we've covered.
And it's not even a big moment, but it's a very funny scene, isn't
it?
where Nog won't walk.
He won't walk in front of Garak, just because they do remember, and
that's what I do like about the DSI writers, and they'll pepper it
with little lines.
Yeah, they've kind of put Nog and Garak together in a scene.
They know that they have to adjust it so they make the scene be
about that.
I think that's really good, but he's basically murdered someone
and we're all fine with that next week.
It says to knock at the end.
Cadets?
There may be hope for you yet.
One last thing before we go in then.
And that is um, the, there is no B plot in this episode, which I
think is a very smart idea because can you imagine going from this
darkened space station to people being killed to say quark
attempting to make a sex program of Kira every 5 minutes?
It would kill the mood completely, wouldn't it?
So I think that's a savvy move.
But it is kind of unusual.
I think you could probably count on 2 hands how many DSI episodes
does not have subplots in it.
And this is one of them, but because it is horror movie of the
week.
It's going for that.
I mean, part of the reason they have a B plot is that everyone has
to have a go, you know, like everyone has to be in the episode
except under very special circumstances.
And so we do have that opening scene where a whole heap of people
are in it that aren't in the rest of the episode at all.
And I think that's a great scene, but I do think that it eats up
valuable time that could if he'd spent building atmosphere.
And it does the trek thing of just having to show us every step of
the way.
We can't start with them arriving on Empoc Nor, for instance, and
then learning why they were there later, which I think would have
worked better.
You know, we have to have a comedy scene so that um, Terry and uh
Nanak get their paycheque this week.
I will say one thing I noticed was that those actors have learned
how to make the one line they've got in the episode count for
something because the bit in Cisco's office where Odo goes.
Well, I suppose we could just start stolt gold to cut if he's got
any spare manifolds lying around.
That's your one line for this entire episode and you've made it
very funny.
Thank you, Renee.
Yeah.
Well, let's go into that because I think that opening seat is
really great.
Amazing.
I count in?
Yes.
All right.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
Yeah, holy crap, this is so funny.
And so it's it's Quark's bar and it's completely deserted except
for Nog.
And so...
I've got more for there, obviously.
Nog Morn.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But, and they notice that no one's here.
And then he goes, let me get your order before, you know, the
noise starts and you all want to go.
And then the noise, what was that?
And then what was what?
Is he slide, but he's shouting it over the noise?
It's just...
Can I tell you?
I stayed in a hotel once, I had drilling like that going on all
day and all night.
It is agonising.
Terry giving the line, like when they got the Klingon restaurant
and Terry giving the line, it would be quieter. perfectly.
Not playing it as a joke.
Do you know what I mean?
Just saying it as a line and letting the line be funny?
is really good.
Did you notice as well the reference to the Tillerman froth, which
is from a T.R.?
They love...
That's one of the drinks in Troubles of Triples that they talk
about.
I'll have a Teleman froth, please.
That's brilliant.
I think that might be wrong more.
He loves throwing in TRX references.
Oh, God.
Nathan, I don't know why, but I just love cameras going into
Jeffrey's tubes like this.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, this is this is lovely. don't you think?
So Knox watching O'Brien do all the work and he's passing into his
tools and then eventually he gets to a point where he just gives
him the tool that he knows he's going to expect.
And he's like, well, I've been paying attention, sir.
Yeah, I think that's probably good, and it is sort of needed
because then it explains why he's on the thing, and it reminds us
of the relationship between the 2 of them, which makes the ending
land, but I still can't help thinking that it's a better episode
if it opens with the writer on the station.
Where the smoke comes out.
The whole bloody Jeffrey Stew fills with smoke.
I mean, that dry ice is going right down their mouths.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so here we have Avery and Renee doing their bit, you know, and
I just think that it takes too long to get started, don't you
think?
Well, we don't reach in Portland until about 5 minutes after the
title music, don't we?
So it's about 10 minutes into the episode.
I don't think we need it.
I think we can do all of this on Empok Nor, but because this is
Star Trek in the 90s, it almost never does that.
Like it almost never starts in the middle and then just lets it
lets us kind of fills in the gaps with Klover Ryan.
They tried to tie it into the ark.
Has there been any dominion activity in the area?
No, I don't think so, no.
But the booby trapping facility before abandoning it.
I would not be... for this mission.
Would you?
It does.
No, no, it does.
Yeah.
Oh, and here we go.
We're going to get all the red shirts coming in now. basically
dead, dead, dead, and dead and dead.
Yeah.
So, I think that's another point against it.
They can't kill a regular.
They can kill a regular.
I mean, they can put them in serious danger, but yes.
Well, yeah, but they can't.
And I wonder what the version of this is like where Garrett gets
killed at the end.
What happens there?
Like, what if that was how it ended?
And you couldn't do it.
The show ends.
You don't have Gary.
Yeah, for the last 2 years.
And that would be no good at all.
So here are our red shirts.
I like I like the Bolian, and I like the fella who is going for
the Cardassian insignia.
But that's all we learn about him.
Yeah, so Bokta is the bowling who has a very baggy, bald wig.
Like, look how baggy he is.
I'm claustrophobic.
Give me some air now.
The actor is not going to shave his head.
He's just going to wear a big bag on his head.
The 2 security people. are their names?
Uh, so Amaro is this bald guy who is a bit of a shithead and the
woman is called Stoltzoff.
I don't really care about those two.
I was quite happy when they both died.
Yeah, yeah, and Pichetti's the sort of...
I do feel that is the way with a horror movie, right?
It's a, you said more group of characters.
Some you like and some you don't.
And sort of, you're rooting for certain people to be bumped off.
I think there's definitely a scene where they make Amaro
unlikeable so that you can cheer when he dies, but again, they're
also thin and like they're going to kill all of them.
Like, it is like, and you know it, like, you know it from the
moment you see 4 red shirts having a conversation among them. 2nd
I saw that, that's DS9, slightly askew hanging in space.
I'm like, they're all dead.
Only the regulars are getting out of this.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
But I think you could probably have guessed.
Do you know what I mean if we've go, if we're going on a dangerous
mission with Cardassian booby traps on a station and then we
suddenly introduce 4 new characters, you think, well, I know why
they're here. you know, they're pretty much here to be killed.
The only thing I'll say in the defence of these 4 characters.
I think they're reasonably well played.
They're not our usual murder she wrote day players.
They're actually quite well active.
And they are as thin as every other red shirt in Star Trek.
Yeah, yeah.
They never really get any characterisation, do they?
You know, the arrow is on their back.
The collector thing, like there's some very kind of crapped
dialogue there with O'Brien where he says we're not here to
indulge your collecting conscience collecting or something.
And it's just like, come on, like, what sort of who's talks like
that?
That's crap.
You could make that point in some other way.
Yeah, yeah.
Can I just say, I haven't said this for a while, but how much I
love that little guy in the spaceship kicking his way through his
face?
I'm not sure what he's carrying and what he's taking to that upper
pile on, but he means it.
I appreciate that he's going to fucking do that job.
It's still somehow worse than the special effect of Lister
painting the side of Red Dwarf from 1987.
Well, it's them trying to do little CG people.
We know how well that goes when Enterprise comes along.
Uh, see our episode on um, in a mirror darkly and the landing on
the moon.
Now, I have to say this game, what's it called?
I have no idea.
I want to say Calto, but that's the wrong game.
We'll go with that.
Calto is the game that we play. that's the game that Tuvok and and
thing I play.
Tuvok and Kess play that game.
I do like the fact that Nog's playing it like a frog.
Kochra. that it.
He's protecting his assets, whereas Garak's going on the attack
and he's getting a bit frustrated with him, but I will say like
every other ball game in existence, it looks very boring indeed.
I love the line about trying to get a Ferengi to play this game
without protecting his assets is like trying to get a Klingon to
chew with his mouth.
What?
That races as well, though.
But it comes from Garak, so it's kind of okay, I think.
But it's so trivial, you know what I mean?
It's like it's not to try, you know, it's, uh, uh, it's just
hilariously trivial, I think.
Can I say something for Colomini very quickly?
Yeah.
I just think he can turn his hand to anything, this show frozen.
Oh, he's good.
He's got a silver bullshit in this episode that he cares about
these idiots that he's going on the mission with and he does.
Yeah, yeah.
So this is, I think, Garrett coming very close to the idea that
Julian and Miles are just having sex on the holodeck.
So getting dressed up as fighter pilots and they're going to have
sex.
Yeah.
Um, but, uh, so this is the set, like 3 stuff uh, that we had in
the wounded.
That is his backstory.
Uh, that Deepstace 9 has it touched on it before?
Have we talked about him being in a Cardassian war much before?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because in the early seasons, there was that episode, Cardassians
where that really...
Well, it's about the Cardassian.
It should have an exclamation mark and it's a musical.
Cardassians that were centifagial and face the prejudice of the
Bajorans because they were just abandoned there.
And O'Brien and Keiko take one in for the episode and O'Brien sort
of prejudices come out for a while and Keiko calls him out in it a
couple of times.
So we do we touch on his his racism a little bit in those early
seasons.
But yeah.
So what's the story?
He was in this fight and he wasn't an engineer at this point, was
he?
He was an officer, but...
No, so he says he was a soldier and he was serving with Maxwell
from the wounded, remember?
Something needed to be repaired in order for the ship to make the
despisive, like the decisive shot that saved them all from the
battle.
Is that right?
Oh, no, no, I think he just goes in there with a big gun and
shoots a whole bunch of people as kind of my understanding what
happened.
They don't go into a lot of detail about it, but I think he just
shoots a lot of people and Garak says 20, 100, you know, what was
it like watching the light guard in their eyes and stuff like
that?
And all of that is all just a bit play.
Do you know what I mean?
Like that, like what?
You know, like, it's just not very interesting.
Well, they're just trying to hang this stuff on something then
aren't they?
Yeah, yeah.
So they're trying to find a way of making the conflict between
Garak and O'Brien Matter.
And so, and that's the other thing that, and that's the other
thing that happens earlier too.
And it happens a couple times in the episode where Garak is a
little bit dismayed that people trust him.
That happens quite a few times during DS9 is wrong.
That's right.
We're 10 episodes away from um, around about 10 episodes away from
in Purgatory Shadow by Inferno's Light.
Remember where we had Martoc and Worf saying what a great hero.
Garak was. you know, overcoming his claustrophobia to save them
all.
He was one of the gang.
He was one of our guys.
Do you know what I mean?
And he'd been pretty much domesticated by this point.
And so there's a sense in which what this episode should be doing
is trying to bray Matt back in again and trying to make him a
little bit more of a loose cannon, a little bit less reliable. is
in 2 episodes time.
He's got no place on the station when the Dominions take over.
He's got to go with the Federation.
So now he's just an ally. on their side.
So all of this conveniently gets forgotten.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, well, he'll be quite useful in this now impending war.
So we'll forget about those transgressions where he murdered those
people.
Can I just say I thought the shots there?
So it was handheld camera work with Garak going through the
airlock to turn the oxygen on and the best bit of trivia I've read
in years was that special effects, man, was like, Mike Pajar came
up to me and said, well, we want things suspended in space because
he's going to turn the oxygen on and then they're going to fall to
the ground.
He's like, well, you're telling me on the day?
Um, so we just went out and bought some very thin wire and hung
some props from it and then on you dropped a lot of them.
And it works.
Oh, yeah.
I never knew that that was how they did it and I thought it was
really good.
And I do think that whenever they emphasise that the gravity is
artificial, I think we need that.
You know, like I think that's really good because that makes this
a bit more scary because this is just home.
Otherwise with the lights turned down, isn't it?
And I think I think it looks too much like the station.
Like, I think that's because it is the station.
Well, yeah, I know, I know, but I think like they don't find an
interesting new way of shooting it, whereas in strange new worlds
I think we were in very familiar sets, but they never felt like
that.
You know, like you never felt that you knew the bit of the ship
that we were in.
Whereas here, I mean, I'm going to make the very facetious comment
that the set designer said about changing the carpet because the
biggest difference she made was that the carpet and the promenade
is all geometric shapes.
She calls it artful in the quote.
And they've done what they've done they put a layer of gray carpet
over the top.
I do think there is, there is enough of a difference for me in
that they have cleared out, obviously, all the people, and usually
DS9 is teeming with people, especially the promenade, and and a
lot of the set dressing, so it feels quite bare.
But yeah, you're right.
It looks like DS9 because it is DS9.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But then again, you know, so we just had him pick up the chewing
gum and now he's going to slowly go mad.
And I think until maybe halfway through the episode, Andy
Robinson's on fairly short territory of how to play Garak, because
it is just Garak a little bit agitated, it's kind.
It's when he's a complete psychopath, that's when things get very
amusing.
I'm going to be doing so much quoting, you better prepare
yourself.
I love this dead Cardassian, I have to say.
That's not bad, is it?
It's really good.
It is really good.
Yeah.
Desiccated.
Is that the word?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I quite like that.
We've got a thing for pichetti, look, and a little badge for
pichetti.
It's covered in dirt, which is flying through the air now.
I do like the light in it.
When they came in this room and it was all lit up from those blue
pods.
Do you know what those blue pods are from, Nathan?
No.
They are the pods created for the colonists in the thor.
Do you remember?
Oh wow.
Oh, okay.
Do you remember when they went in and they put B'lana and Harry
Kim in a pair of those and yeah, yeah, all that fun ensued.
Oh, I love Aaron Eisenberg so much.
I do too.
Do you think the pods are there to remind us of alien as well?
Like, I know that they don't play quite that role that they play
an alien, but they come out of a status point, which is how aliens
start.
The way the camera slid in that room there alongside of me.
It's very light the way it does in aliens.
That opening.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, aliens always the thing that you go to for this stuff. goes
to it for the music.
This scene was well shot as well, that is so good.
The camera so he looks out the window and then it explodes and I
love his line where he just says, that's not right, where he sees
the runabout just drifting off into space.
He's really good.
And then that's a great cliffhanger. the explosion.
They look at his face and just, you know, do an exploding light.
Really effective.
Yeah.
And I was surprised by that too.
I thought that was really good, you know.
Now there's lots of talk about, oh, are you telling me there's 2
Cardassians from the 3rd battalion loose on this station?
Oh my god, yeah.
Death to all.
That was their motto.
Oh my goodness.
Like, I'm really sorry.
You guys were talking about booby trucks before you even left the
station.
You knew you were going to be a situation of extreme Beryl.
Why are you surprised?
Although, yeah, I have to think that they weren't expecting to
lose the runabout.
That was that was a bit of a surprise.
I mean, that does up the stakes as well, doesn't it?
They can't get away now.
Look at this.
This is where we're trying to make a Maro unlikeable.
You know, like he's being a pissy dickhead.
We should finally... say hello.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, we're so tough, you know.
So we do kind of want a Maro killed.
So we'll be happy a little bit later.
I mean, they are so coded with just one beat, aren't they?
The Bolian is a wimp.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The one guy just wants the insignia.
Like you said, Amara's an asshole.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So now we're getting an explanation.
Yeah, see, is this still too lit?
don't know.
Does he have to, you know, write to all their families when they
go back and say, oh, I'm so sorry.
We did get the plasma manifold we were after though.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, I guess so.
And Mrs. Amara does get a mention. so he has a wife, despite being
a pissy dickhead.
But like in, I don't know if you remember the ship. you know, when
they find the crashed Cardassian ship.
And in that, O'Brien's already established secondhand engineer
yeah, is killed in that episode and it's so movingly done because
they've got an established relationship.
They've got shorthand with each other.
When he dies, he's trying to keep him alive throughout the entire
episode and then in the climax, he sort of goes over to see him
and he just flops there.
And the whole sort of ending of that is dealing with the
consequences of that and him contacting the family.
These people, who cares?
That's right.
We've never seen them before.
They're obviously dead, so we never see them again.
Have you noticed Garak scratching his hand.
Oh, legs.
Yeah, something's going on. that's right Like, all of this with
Oprah, no, sorry, with Norgan, the gun going around.
I actually think this is a bit shit.
And I think, well, because...
He's like, ours?
Yeah.
So we've got the dialogue that's happening in the background and
the dialogue's fairly trivial Star Trek episode dialogue.
We can't tell where he is in relation to the Carnassian, although
this shot where the Cardassian's face is immediately revealed out
of the shadows is pretty good.
But we don't get a sense of where everyone is in relation to one
another.
So we don't know how close he is to being under threat.
I think.
I just don't think that that scene works.
I mean, I got the sense there that the Cardassian was right next
to Nog, because the camera sort of swung round and there Nog was.
Yeah, but do you know what I mean?
Like, we're just sort of wandering.
And I don't even know what Nog's doing.
Like he's designed to go in there where the big gun and wave is
coming.
Why is he doing that?
That's why he's...
Is that what he's doing?
Like, I just, I didn't know what was happening there.
Oh, this is not the time to piss around.
You're not on the horse now.
Oh, stupid.
Oh, this is my favourite bit of the whole episode.
So this is straight out of a horror movie now.
So, you know, they hear something in the distance.
They think something's coming down in the lift.
Yeah.
And they get they separate.
Of course they do because they're stupid.
Yeah.
Yes.
I I don't think this is too bad.
I have to say that there's a jump scare in this scene that just
got me both times.
Every time I watch it, I never know when it's coming.
I know it's coming, but I don't know the exact beat where it's
coming.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that's really well done What helps is Jay Chatterway savvy
enough to kill the music?
Mike Pajar very cleverly is putting in bangs and clangs in the
distance.
So you're sort of distracted by the sound effects, and then the
sound for the glass exploding is so loud.
From nothing.
It really makes you jump back.
Yeah.
But I think the episode needs more of that. needs more of that.
Don't just do it once. think it does.
Yeah, I think to really do this effectively you need more time.
And to care about the people.
Yeah, that helps as well.
Um, and um, you know, like more skilled writers can make us care
about people in less time than we've had here, but they don't do a
very good job of that, I think.
But I'll repeat, I do think we have a skilled director putting
this together.
Yes, yeah.
But I just don't think we have enough time.
Oh, it's coming down.
Now, we'll be all right.
Oh, you're a little bit ahead of me.
Thanks for the warming, Nathan.
Oh, and they love shoving people off this promenade, don't they
from the top level?
Yeah, yeah.
Just how many people have we seen thrown from that bridge now?
Oh no.
Quite a few.
And the odd Vedec is...
Lovely old Vedic, hanging herself.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so this isn't enough of a shock, I think, because we've
watched TV before.
And so we kind of knew this was coming.
And I think we could probably guess from this point on, the
remaining characters that will...
Yeah.
Oh, I love the subtitles.
Glass crunching underfoot.
And that shot of Pichetti to take the out to the break is pretty
good too.
Yeah, they're doing pretty good end of...
What are they called?
Yeah. end of act, I guess. yeah, yeah.
I think it did have the regular Star Trek, you know, music coming
in at the end there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. here, he's the ad break coming.
And that probably doesn't help either with the maintaining an
atmosphere.
At this point, right, yeah.
I would probably say, look, let's just get all our resources and
try and go.
But no, he's like, right.
Now, if you go and get the platinum manifolds, you go and get
there.
I'm like, what are you doing?
Like, everyone is gonna die.
Yeah But he does say it.
He does have a great line where he goes, what the hell am I going
to say to their family?
So I've got this fabulous bit of equipment.
And so this, what about this?
This thing here.
So, um, Bokta, the Bolian, uh, doesn't want to just go with
Amaro.
And um, and O'Brien says, oh, would you feel better if you went
with Garrick?
And Garrick says, yeah, I'm flattered, but I don't want to do
that.
I'm actually going to go off and neutralise those.
That's how you haven't got to worry about them anymore.
That's right.
This shot here with the light above Garak.
That was a really nicely done shot because then we know when he's
disarming because the light goes out, but it's just, it's, it's
good shot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think, like, I just wonder, is there a version where we see the
real Garak, like how willing he is to kill, and in a way, how much
he relishes doing that, and that puts us off.
Garak, you know, like, because this doesn't make us uneasy about
Garak, because he does it for space reasons and he's back to
normal in the infirmary at the end of the episode.
What do I say at the end?
Is he going to a holding sale for a bit?
No, no, there will be an inquest.
Oh, so we'll never hear about it again.
That we'll never hear about.
No one will ever mention.
So it's literally a scene saying there will be no consequences to
this episode is the subtext to that final scene.
And you just sort of think, wow, that was a...
You know, enough next adventure where Jake and Nog are trying to
get that baseball card, you know, Garak walked into Dodo's office
and went, what about that inquest?
Is it ever going to happen?
Go away.
Don't mention it.
The paperwork's been lost.
Yeah, that's it.
I've got more to say about that, too, because I think it's truly
terrible.
Yeah, the last word really does think this a lot.
So bad.
But I noticed again there as well, in that scene on the promenade
just saying, just how well lit it was, how the faces were picked
out in really interesting ways, because like DSI is a dark show
but it's not normally this dark.
No, that's right.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I quite like this scene too.
Like the 1st killing, like the 1st Cardassian that he kills is
pretty good.
And he looks like he's vulnerable because he's unaware where you
see the guy advancing on him, but he doesn't.
And look how well lit that is.
We don't see his eyes at all.
We see sort of...
Oh, there's his eyes suddenly appearing out of the darkness, but
we don't...
I mean, the compass your makeup is pretty menacing anyway.
Yeah, yeah.
But having this scene, and I do think it's well done.
It's well shot.
Doesn't this then make the scene where Garak stabs Amaro totally
moot?
We know he's coming.
He says at the end of this scene, I've quite enjoyed that when he
murders the man.
So it's sort of preempting what's coming.
Whereas that moment, it would be shocking, even though I think it
is very predictable the way it's shot.
Yeah, I, I think, like, it is sort of slightly shocking because it
is shocking to see Garrett go there.
Um, but only if you think that actions will have consequences in
the show, because you think, oh, he's murdered someone now, there's
no coming back.
Come on now.
I mean, in this empty room, where the fuck else would he be hiding
except in one of those pulse?
And that felt good is a little bit shit.
I think that's a bit too much.
Let him say, let him act that.
Like, let let's see him act back.
He looked at the gun as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on.
And this was just, I was getting Wesley asking Tasha about why
people take drugs vibes from this scene where...
You used to be so savvy.
When did you become?
It's naive. right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now O'Brien will explain what a soldier is.
The best thing about this scene is how Garak very casually goes, 0
yeah, I killed one of them.
Nogs are cold.
But, like, we really like the Pichetti would have appreciated it.
And it would be unheard of in TNG to have a regular character say
oh, yeah, I murdered someone just off the cuff.
Yeah.
And but the trouble is that because it's thrown away a little
bit.
And because he's still being a bit camped.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's kind of a little bit consequence free at this and it
could have been enough to make us wary of Garak.
Like, if we discover that Garak is a killer and a reasonably
enthusiastic and skilled killer, without him, you know, touching
the chewing gum, you know, not for space reasons, but just because
of his obsidian order training or whatever, his past, we could
have made him properly scary.
But then we don't want to go there.
And that looked like what the episode was trying to do, was trying
to pull it back a bit, make him less cuddly.
O'Brien talks about it in a 2nd, right, about how much work Andy
Robinson is doing with his eyes in this scene to suggest that he's
under the influence.
Losing it, yeah.
Andy Robinson always does a lot of work with his eyes.
It's like Carac's eyes are boggled most of the time.
Well, I think what they do is make him sweatier, don't they?
Like, they make the makeup glisten more, like, as it goes on, he
becomes clammier and sweatier looking.
Which is, and that's clearly makeup.
Well, that's okay, but I think that's okay.
And you could have done that anyway, but I just think, oh, so this
scene, here we go.
Oh, yeah.
See now, I think this is a good death as well.
It's horrible.
Yeah.
Well, what's horrible is that he just turns away for a 2nd and the
guy's dead and like it was this terrible mistake and there's
nothing he can do.
I think that's it's so throwaway. is really quite horrible.
I think the funniest line is here.
I'll show you.
It's not the ADR about the spoonheads, is it?
No.
So I don't buy this, right?
So there's some talk about using a racial slur here and the slur
is spoonheads and we have... because our federation character says
it that the writing team are so appalled that it slipped through
as if you cannot be flawed.
But O'Brien has been being racist for, you know, 10 seasons now.
And Kardassian just killed his friend Amaro and they say, oh, well
it never gets addressed.
And it's like, well, he gets fucking killed.
I mean, I don't know what you want.
You know, like what do you want?
And it's not a real racial slur.
No one's being called a spoonhead in the playground.
It's a pretend made up racial slur.
It just doesn't matter that long.
Did you not hear that in your playground?
Sorry, that was our preferred profanity, that was.
Yeah, that's right.
What I really love is, yeah, is how southern it is, how you
suddenly hear the kids scream.
He turns, and then his neck is just snapped.
And it's just one tiny mistake that he's made.
They go to town on the sound effects.
It's horrible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And of all the 4 of them.
He's the most likeable, I think Napoleon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's the sweet.
I think so too.
Yeah.
Oh, there we go.
A little bit like, do you can't?
Oh here we go.
I all do.
Was that racist?
Yeah, probably.
That's me, though.
I started it.
Now, this be a riot, where Garak takes the flux coupler off him.
He's picked up the wrong tool and stabs him in the stomach with
it.
Um, It is very obvious, but what I love about it is Jay Chataway
goes to town with the, da, da, da.
I actually laughed out loud where he goes, oh, that's a shame.
It's not even a coil span.
The worst part of it is.
It is in a coils manner.
And that is such a funny line.
And then they have to fuck it up with the flux, coupler, and you
kind of go, so why do we have that extra line there?
that's not actually funny at the end of the joke.
Because like...
They have to explain what the technology is.
Of course they do.
Because that is really funny.
The worst thing about it.
Not the fact that...
The Michael Staprophe boy is dead.
He does have an apostrophe by the way.
I imagine all the fans incandescent with rage going, well, what
was it?
What was it?
We'll never know.
Fuck that guy.
What was it?
Oh bless him.
I do still think that is a great scene, though.
Yeah.
Oh, and this is so this is so horror movie.
So the person's dead, but he stays alive just long enough to tell
them who killed him.
Just to deliver.
Yeah, so that we know that Garak did it.
Because otherwise we would just...
He's dead.
That's it.
There he is.
Yep, that's it.
He's gone.
Yes, you should have seen this coming.
But a bit of blood around the mouth there.
Yeah, yeah.
They been a bit more simple?
with the blood, you know, in series 5.
But not liberal enough.
And, you know, again, our gone episode from series one where we
just had boy all over the floor and up the walls and stuff.
And even that episode, it was the felon that got dragged down the
corridor, the trail of blood.
Oh, that was wonderful.
The tardigrade ripping people up in that series one early series
one discovery episode, which again is Star Trek doing this in the
ship.
Do you know what I mean?
It's the Discovery sistership, as usual, you know, dark.
It's on an angle, I think.
On an angle, I'll say.
Are the lights down?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the lights are down.
I think they do a better job because they have more money and
because Nathan, this.
He goes, he literally goes, the psychotropic drug.
He must have been exposed to it.
Well, thanks, I brought it.
He's been scratching his fucking hand for the last 2 acts.
He does need to say that, though, because he didn't see him touch
the drug.
Do you know what I mean?
He didn't see him touch it, and he has to think that this isn't
just Garrick's going crazy and started killing people.
So he does have to deliver that line.
It just feels like it's really bad.
There's a great horror movie line there.
Aaron Eisenberg delivered brilliantly where he went, he's coming
after us, isn't he?
Oh my god.
Aaron's watched TV before as well.
He's great.
Do you know, I heard somebody make an argument the other day on a
YouTube video that Nog had the best character development of
pretty much any other character in Star Trek, and it was a
compelling case.
I think I think they did a great job with him.
Well, he doesn't even get a line in that 1st episode where you see
him robbing somewhere and being captured, don't we?
It's a lieutenant in the... what you leave behind is about to be
promoted.
Yeah, see, he gets promoted in a way that even Harry Kim doesn't.
So now it's a lot of sort of walking around dark rooms with the
guns, you know, all very exiles with the lights going everywhere.
Yeah, I think this is where it gets boring.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think from the 2nd he stabs tomorrow.
That's where this falls off the cliff.
But, yeah, yeah.
And it tries to bring it all together because now he starts
talking about the board game and he starts talking about O'Brien's
backstory and he's trying to use the location to trap them and it
just doesn't come together in the way it wants to.
No, and it's all of the writing things that they've set up.
You know, the board game is there to give Garak a chance to talk
about character and stuff like that, but it doesn't really go
anywhere.
I can see why they're like, oh, yeah, okay.
This all dovetails beautifully.
But he's even saying it.
He's saying, what a perfect metaphor for our current situation
this game is.
It's kind of like, come on.
Anyone would think Britain was game in the shuttlecross would have
provided this perfect metaphor.
What a metaphor.
I've seen many many many a DS9 shot down a corridor like that with
the camera on the floor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Mike for Giles getting bored now as well.
So that's kind of crap.
All of that sort of crap.
There's that line that you pointed to where it's just like, you
might be wondering why I'm not killing you and it's because you're
a regular character, even though I have this big gun.
And like, it's all just a little bit shit.
And, and I actually think that the, the hanging the dead bodies of
the red shirts look stupid.
Oh, it's so funny.
They look like they're in like sexual harnesses in some sauna.
And like Monctar is just standing there.
No, like, what's happening there?
They hang babies from doors.
It looks a bit like that.
It's really bad.
It's not gory.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's not gory.
It just looks good. horror movie, but you would have lopped the
heads off or something.
I have all the heads lying around.
Yeah, that's right.
So this is like it just can't do it because it's PG horror for
children.
And like all horror movies I find.
Yeah.
The 2nd, like the threat is revealed and out in the open.
It just loses all interest for me.
I like all the atmospheric stuff in horror movies in the 1st half
the films.
But the realisation of the antagonist is always pretty dull and it
is here.
Yeah, yeah.
And this is dull because it is like someone doing this for
literally no reason at all.
You know what I mean?
Like, fair to Andy Robinson.
It looks like I've captured your last piece, chief.
Oh my god.
Oh, bless him.
Well, he's trying to have fun.
Oh, this is, I was watching the camera here as he goes around this
set.
He does lots of swooping around Ops.
Yeah, yeah.
Actually, that's okay.
It looks quite nice all this up in the dark.
Yeah, yeah.
I like the those lights that go up the side, which I'm just
noticing.
Yeah, but again, like I'm super bored at this point.
What's happening here?
This is the most exciting game I played in years.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that, like, it brings out the player's true nature.
This is, again, a writer thing.
Do you know what I mean?
Like I'm a killer, you're a killer, blah, blah, blah.
I don't think Garak was ever this person.
I didn't ever foresee Garak in the past as just a cold-blooded
killer. somebody who was a bit of a sadist, you know, who went
into interrogations and subtly, you know, sadistically tortured
people in order to extract information.
That's how I saw Garag.
Yeah, but and all of this doesn't land and doesn't matter.
Like, it's so boring.
You know, you were a soldier and you killed a bunch of people and
how did you feel about it and stuff.
It's just like, come on, how many times have we seen that?
That's really super...
Yeah, you, you, you, you, drain out of their eyes.
Yeah, blah, blah, blah.
It's all boring See, and now it's become now, you know, we had all
those scenes in silence, didn't we, earlier?
Now it's all dialogue. talking.
Yeah.
All talking.
And it's, you know, he's under the influences of some plot drug
and so none of this matters, you know.
Meet me on the promenade and try to avoid the baby growers.
Yeah, for God's sake.
But why?
I mean, like, what if they killed him?
What if, you know, that's how they kill him?
I think that would have been boring, actually, that's not doing
that.
No, I still like my version, which, again, is a little bit less
shocking because it doesn't have Garrett killing anyone.
But Garrett killing someone is only pretend shocking because he's
under the influence of a drug and so no one blames him for having
done it.
And no one feels any the worse about him as a result, except maybe
Mrs. Amaro.
Do you think there's a problem here that, because I think
O'Brien's a great character.
I think Garak's a great character and I think Nog's a great
character in that because we only have these characters.
They're just too good to kill.
So we know they're never going to be in any danger, you know?
Well, no, but I don't think I don't think we have to think
characters are in danger for there to be drama.
You know, like I think that's normal.
We watch TV, which I'm hanging there.
No, aren't they?
That's so bad.
I think they've cleaned tomorrow's face.
Like Amara doesn't have blood all over him anymore.
Garak must have cleaned it off.
The music is...
It's like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
It's very, very, um, What's the word I'm looking for?
Oh, no, no, instead of dramatic and stuff.
I like how this resolves itself, and I love, I love how, you know
it relies on his ability as an engineer.
I think that's pretty good.
You know, that's not bad.
And I did like the line, you know, any closer.
You might have killed me.
And he goes, well, that was the idea.
That was the idea.
We're all friends again in that scene.
Do you know what I mean?
Like he kind of goes, yes, I understand.
So there's that there is that tiny bit of tension between him and
no player, but there's never any tension between him and O'Brien.
No.
No, and they clean it up at the end.
Like, they absolutely, that final scene is there to say, don't
worry, none of this makes any difference.
It was just a fun horror movie for you.
That's right.
Before we get to the good stuff.
But I do think that in a show that is otherwise serialised, you
know, it always happens, doesn't it?
They do things and then they drop them, you know, they don't take
them up and they're making it up as they go along and that's a
good thing. you know.
Until they do, until they do things like inquisition, you know
where ties up 15 plot threats that they've left hanging.
Here we go.
So he's put he's putting his, what, his tricorder on top of his
phaser.
His phaser on top of his strike order.
He's set the tricorder to explode, thus taking the phaser up with
it and hopefully killing Garak.
Yes, that's right.
So he sends a message from his Apple Watch to his iPhone and it
explodes.
That is such a shit line.
Oh, I'm tempted to kill you right now, but I would be depriving
myself of too much enjoyment.
Oh, come on.
I know.
And this... standing there.
What are they standing there like, that's not...
It reminds me of a bit of arena now, you know?
Because the Gordon's got claws.
So again, we've said that there's something slightly cheap, you
know, like a fist fight in a Star Trek episode is a way of doing
action, and we have had a lot of standing around talking.
They're still talking now while they're fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
I expected to see that blood lust in your eyes, cheap.
Oh, I see is fair.
Come on.
Yeah.
Just, it's all a bit shit.
Kick him in the nuts.
You're not a soldier.
I am not a soldier.
I'm an engineer. you.
What a lesson.
That is okay.
I brought an engineer, I never knew.
He's never mentioned it.
To be fair, that explosion does knock Garak stump doubles.
Right back there, doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah, it really does.
It really does.
Yeah, you just remember there's Nog all about.
You all right, Nog?
Yeah, yeah, I'm all right, though.
I'm good.
We'll be hunting that card next week.
Don't worry.
I remember right.
There was a series of reviews in DreamWatch magazine.
And by the time you got to win the cards, because, you know, the
last episode was Blaze of Glory, which had that fabulous subplot
with Nog and Martoc, do you remember?
Yeah, and by the time it got to win the cars, the guy went, enough
nog already.
I mean, you just can't have enough of him.
Come on.
Yeah, shut up.
That's ridiculous.
Enough nog already.
Yeah, okay.
So this scene.
I really, really, I really want, you know, uh, um, yes, uh, Dr
Bashir has brought, you know, with his usual skill.
And so that's it.
If movie ad break is now okay.
He's not the same man who attacked us, blah, blah, blah.
None of this matters.
Brought Amaro back to life with his usual skill.
No, no, no.
We don't really like that guy anyway, so...
Yeah, we didn't.
He was an asshole.
He should be all right in a few days.
Then we go up here and they're smiling at each other.
You know, like it just doesn't go anywhere.
Only in Star Trek, could you be trying to murder somebody in one
scene and then sort of going, well, hope you're all right in the
next scene.
Yeah, look, he's looking, he'd been embarrassed.
I think he's embarrassed by having that enormous contraction on
his forehead.
That's right.
We got the plasma mouth.
I love mission accomplished. actually.
I think he's a pretty funny line giving.
And then I guess it didn't go the way anyone expected.
It's just like, what?
You were talking about booby traps before you left the station.
Yes.
It's so dumb.
And there's going to be an inquest which she never mentioned again
but like it's so terrible.
Oh, yeah, because he says this.
You remember that fella all stabbed?
Would you mind just telling his wife?
I'm very sorry about that.
I feel bad.
I touch some blue passer scene and, well, you know, the rest was
history.
Oh, for God's sake.
Like, it's just absolutely taming him as well.
Andy Robinson was bang on with his instincts about the script.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's a mistake.
I don't think it's a mistake.
And I think there is a way of doing it that does it without space
reasons, but also does it without him murdering a crew member.
You know, which is a bit better.
But it's clearly a direction that they don't want to go in.
Like he does become more a part of the our gang and does become
more reliable and trustworthy, however much he complains about
it.
The admittedly fabulous opening scene of a call to arms in 2
episodes time is Garak showing wedding dresses to Lita and Rome.
And then...
Does anyone remember?
They killed people last week.
Two weeks ago or was it last week?
It was 2 weeks ago.
I've showed you every dress.
I've showed you every dress in my repertoire and you haven't liked
any of them.
I'm gonna kill you.
Oh, God, in the cars has started.
Oh, why don't we do that instead?
So good. so great.
There's always something, Nathan, that will make you smile.
He says at the end, doesn't he?
Such a good episode.
Gorgeous. so great.
A bit more gorgeous than the one we just watched.
But we did have pub with it.
Oh, yeah.
Like, I don't think it's terrible.
I don't feel like I wasted my time and stuff and I do think most
of the problems with it. problems just inherent to kind of 90s
TV.
You know, like it's just a thing.
Oh, I think if you took away Mike Vajar and Jay Chatterway, it
would be a very lousy episode.
I mean, you still have those actors in there and they're good.
But they were in the episode and they're part of the episode and
it's their job to make it good and they do that.
So that's okay.
I think, like, as we said, so the script stuff is a little bit on
the nose and a little bit too much.
And I didn't notice until this time through where Garrick says
this game is a perfect metaphor for our relationship.
Fuck off.
O'Brien should look at the camera and goes, yes, we do this from
time to time on Star Trek, don't we?
That's right.
The trouble is bad.
The trouble is, I don't have that. can't hang a lantern on
anything.
That sort of fear of subtext, you know, what if what if those
nerds miss this?
What if they don't understand that the reason that we're banging
on about Kotra is because it gives us a way to talk about the
characters, it's a bit, that's a little bit cheesy.
Or even worse. is the other things we pointed out as well, you
know, saying what the piece of technology is before he stabs
tomorrow, explicitly telling the audience, you know, he's coming
after us.
And this is why, you know, trust us.
We are watching the episode.
That's right.
So there's that, and there is, of course, the fact that this is
just, you know, Garak has to be selling a wedding dress in a
fortnight's time.
So everything goes back to normal.
I hadn't realised that.
That's really great.
I mean, I'll probably just sum it up as, I don't think this is
great, but kudos for the deaths, because I do think the deaths are
pretty great until they're put in the baby growers.
Yeah, no, that's silly.
All right, it's the end of the episode, and it's time for us to
work out where we're going next, and inspired by Inner Mirror
Darkly, which we just watched a couple of episodes ago.
I'm choosing, no, I'm not really choosing Enterprise again.
I want us to do Star Trek the original series.
A great choice.
I don't think I've watched an episode of Star Trek, the original
series for entire Star Trek project that I haven't really enjoyed
talking about, even when it's been awful.
I know you struggled a few times, but yeah.
No, no, no.
I quite like it even when it's a bit awful.
I have to say.
This is the only time in my Star Trek journey where I have managed
to achieve a real appreciation for those 1st 2 seasons.
So let's do it.
Let's do it.
All right.
Your random Star Trek, the original series episode is Spock's
Brain, which we covered in episode 11 of... that you struggled
with?
Yeah, that's really bad.
Not in a fun way.
Apart from the miniskirts.
Okay, season two, episode nine, metamorphosis.
I have no idea what that's about.
That's such a nothing title, isn't it?
It's like a session.
I'll go to our usual resource.
Jama.
Just so we can see your, how many stars he gave it.
Right, Siri.
How many bams he gave it?
Metamorphosis.
Okay.
Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a Federation negotiator become stranded
when their shuttle is sucked into a celestial body by a mysterious
force that has somehow revitalised Zefram Cochrane.
The man who invented war drive 2 centuries before, 3 stars out of
four.
So just a bit better than Ben.
Slightly.
I think I've seen that a long time ago, I think, because I
certainly remember Zefron Cochrane. who is nowhere near as fun as
James Cromwell.
Is that from Cochrane back in the 60s?
I guess we'll never know because I'm pressing the button in.
It's series two, just 3 episodes later, episode 12.
The deadly years.
Oh that sounds wonderful.
Let's see what it's about.
Um, a disease.
Oh, not a good start.
A disease that causes rapid ageing affects several members of the
enterprise crew, and eventually leaves the captain's senile, oh
latex, and unable to command the ship.
Oh, it sounds...
It's the one like the USS, what is it?
The Britain or something?
What's that one called?
It's going a really boring title.
It's in series 2 of Star Trek, The Next Generation, and it's Poor
Old Pulaski covered in latex.
Oh, okay, yes.
Oh, poor Diana Mulder.
They make her hideous, don't they?
Oh, I mean, I'm just looking at the review on Jammers now and he
says that there is, in fact, a hearing in the middle of it, a bit
like, you know, the Scotty Murder one.
So let's not do that one.
We can't have another 10 minute sequence of people sitting around
the table talking about the episode.
Well, how about this one?
Bread and circuses.
Season 2, episode 25.
Very keen on season 2 right now, aren't you?
Apparently, the Randomisers got a thing for it.
Right, here we go.
A landing party beams down to a parallel earth that resembles 20th
century Rome upon which Kirk Spock and McCoy are taken prisoner.
Oh, that sounds gold. 20th century Rome.
Sounds great.
Lots of lovely pasta people driving Lamborghinis.
Women dressed fabulously.
I think I've seen it and I think it has the cheesiest ending of
any Star Trek, an indefensibly cheesy ending.
And if you haven't seen it, I want to hear your reaction.
I never, ever seen this.
Gemma gets this.
2.5 stars.
So exactly the same.
One Bam.
One, one, one.
And so this is well executed but completely by the numbers.
Well, that's what we've just watched in...
That seems to be the theme.
And it is my role, even though I choose, I've chosen quite a good
series this time to bring the mediocrity, I think, seems to be my
role on the randomiser.
So what do you think?
Bread and circuses?
20th century Rome, bring it on baby.
You've been listening to Untitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford
and Nathan Bottomley, where online at Untitled Star Trek Project
com, where you can find subscription links and links to our social
media accounts.
Our podcast artwork is by Kayla Sisrin, and the theme was composed
by Cameron Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 27th of August 2024 and released
on the 30th of August.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek the original series, Bread
and Circuses.
Oh, it's gonna be terrible, isn't it?
It's, I think it is pretty terrible, and the ending is super
cheesy.
Like terrible.
Kirk's pop and bones are caught and imprisoned and scheduled to
face death if Kirk doesn't agree to turn over the rest of the
Enterprise crew for use in their televised deadly arena games.
Oh god, this sounds glorious.
Yeah, see, it's not 20th century Rome. 20th century ancient Rome
that's the thing.
Like, because 20th century Rome.
I was in 20th century Rome, at least once.
It was lovely, you know.
Televised game.
So is this a bit, a bit, um, Is this a talking about television?
This episode.
Like making television.
Actually, that is kind of interesting, but it is, you know, making
television, but it's gladiatorial games on TV because it's Rome
but it's in the 20th century with present-day technology.
And it's also that thing which Star Trek sort of abandons a little
bit-ish, which is that other planets have parallel development, so
you can go to the Hitler planet and you can go to the, you know
the ancient Rome planet and stuff, the cowboy planet.
Like it kind of abandons that a little bit.
There's a delightful um, Earth colony in the last episode of
series 2 of Strange New Worlds, which it's like, and we've
modelled our colony on a beautiful 20th century kind of village or
something, and it's the design is really wonderful.
It's kind of like, oh, this is Star Trek doing this in 2023 and
I'm so totally here for it.
Yeah, with money.
So that is a very strange thing.
This is one before Simon Earth, obviously.
Okay.
And obviously 2 before series three.
So this is our chance to learn whether Star Trek, in fact, got bad
in series or not.
Or was already bad, which is probably what's going to happen, I
think.
Yeah, I think two's got great episodes in it, but it is a little
hit and miss.
Obsession, you were you were less so about that one.
Well, I thought obsession was good in retrospect, but when I 1st
saw it, I thought, 0 my god, this is barely competent.
You know, like it's just kind of, and it is that thing.
Like, um, my friend Matthew sent me a list of someone's list of
bottom 5 episodes of Star Trek.
And I can't remember which one it was, but they said this is the
only episode of Star Trek that's completely incompetent.
And like we'd already said, I think, sometimes you chewed it
because like dagger of the mind wasn't even on that list, not
dagger of the mind.
Wolf in the fold wasn't even on that.
No, what was what was the one with the man who was just bonkers.
You killed the green woman.
Do you remember?
Yeah, isn't that dagger of the mind?
Or whom God's destroyed?
when God's destroyed?
Barely complicated.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
It's kind of like, what are you doing?
Like, what?
Actually, that did have a Tellerite that didn't look shit in it.
And that woman did explode on that roll.
The exploding green woman.
Which was great.
Awful.
But there are I can see there are some absolute dubs in this
season as well.
Maybe Freiburger wasn't entirely flame.
But the worst thing, like, what were we watching the other day?
Like, what was the last Star Trek TOS one that we did?
Oh, no, no, it was me.
I was watching...
Oh, you did it...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
As for the Enterprise episode and just having them all do the crap
joke at the end of the episode and then having produced by Freddie
Freiberger appear on the bottom of the screen was just so
depressing.
It was so funny. every episode that season.
And every episode coming up in your rubber podcast.
That's right.
That's right, every episode in Space 1999 series 3.
I wonder if, I wonder how the production values stack up between
TOS 3 and, well, I mean, uh, you know, clearly there's a massive
budget cut in Space 1999 between series one and 2 because they
can't erect those big, beautiful sets, which were half of the
reason that I enjoyed watching it as a kid.
I didn't think, oh, I would get past the 1st episode and I was so
impressed by the 1st episode.
I was the 2nd and I really enjoyed it.
I only got about maybe 5 or 6 in, but less further than I thought
I would.
It's weird.
Like, I like it, and it, that's the thing in, in series, one.
It's like kind of weird and philosophical and strange and do you
know what I mean?
It's not just an alien comes along.
Whereas in series 2, It's often just, you know, like rubber
monster. and Cheryl.
Yeah, yeah. turning into a gorilla.
A nylon gorilla.
Like, it's so bad.
Also, we have those.
Barbara Bane.
Glorious.
So great.
She taught Beverly everything she knows.
Oh, God, the similarities.
Oh, there, aren't they?