Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, we are doing Star Trek Prodigy this week, and the last time we
did Star Trek Prodigy, we did a sort of series 2 episode one
although it was episode one and two, it was a 2 barter.
And now we're going back to immediately before then to fill in the
gap, we are watching the series finale or the season finale, at
least, of season one, episodes 19 and 20, and it's supernova part
one and supernova part 2, and I have a confession to make.
As I was watching this, I was worried that you might not like it.
Can you imagine why?
I mean, there was one moment where, you know, it was the purest
Star Trek imaginable of the sort that, you know, we've discussed
lately that you like.
Was it that?
Maybe, what video talking about?
There was the bit where they were saying, you know, oh, we're all
one, and we're all, and everyone's all, yeah, that bit.
No, I love that bit.
In fact, there are 3 bits that I'm worried about because there are
3 big speeches when we come to part two, we'll talk about how it's
paced, and I think it's paced in a really good way, but there's a
hologram Janeway says goodbye to the kids' speech, gorgeous.
Really, really great. absolutely gorgeous.
That whole bit.
The ship going off, all of it was gorgeous.
The wonderful speech that Gwyn gives about the Federation and how
it offers hope for everyone, you know, the way that she persuades
all of the allies to come and help in the battle.
And I think when you take the federation to a precipice like you
do here, you've earned a little bit between us on the back of it
and then the being speech from Janeway at the trial at the end of
part 2 where she talks about how great the kids are and how great
the federation is.
Nathan, I was just so happy that we got a coda on earth.
After Voyages Endgame, you know, all that potential that we were
denied that all these characters have got hit earth.
There were consequences for what happened, and there is a
direction for the future.
No, I didn't object to any of those, mate.
In fact, I've got to say, this was a particularly stunning episode
of Deep Space 9 that I watched this morning.
My screen was full of fabulous spaceships all shooting at each
other.
The Klingons came in at the right point to save the day.
There was the Federation at the, sort of the edge of being
destroyed in some massive calamity.
We were intercutting with genuine scenes of emotion between fully
rounded characters.
I mean, that 1st half of this.
I was like, this is basically tears of the prophets, but 20 years
later with better special effects.
And boy, I bought, I'm on board for all of that.
I freaking loved it.
I mean, I love the whole tea barter and I think it paid off
brilliantly.
Weirdly enough, do you know what, um, papered over a lot of those
Star Trekie moments in episode 2 was the music.
Oh, it was just so move, but the the slow motion, the ship going
and the music during that scene.
I was getting goosebumps out.
Jesus, Joe Chatterway's in a well in the past now, isn't it?
I mean, we quite like J.
Chataway, but.
Oh, no, I think he's the best composer of the 90s, but... this is
this is... a considered beautiful score. and a couple of very good
uses of the original Star Trek theme at just the right moment as
well which I thought was really great.
I do have one question.
No, I have about 120 questions, but we'll get into that when we
talk about the episodes.
My one question is this, yeah.
This is so good.
This finale is better than about 98% of other trek finales.
How the hell did they let this series go when it was delivering
this sort of material?
What is wrong with these people?
It's very strange, isn't it?
And I guess we'll probably never know.
It has something to do, I think, with it being pitched at
children.
It's not.
I'm telling you now, you have to have your wits about you watching
this.
Yeah.
Well, it's quite complex and the serialisation is sort of quite
detailed and, you know, this is paying off stuff that happened 10
episodes earlier.
This is a 20 part season and there's a mid-season break.
There was a substantial break between the 1st 10 and the last 10
episodes.
And the stuff that happens when we return.
That's when we discover the construct, we meet Admiral Janeway.
I think is probably the cliffhanger to episode 10 is the real
Admiral Janeway turns up.
We learn about the construct.
We learn about what the Vanu Kart are doing.
You know, the 100, we learn about Ascensia, we learn about all of
those things that are important here.
That's mostly my questions, if I'm honest.
I'm sure you'll be able to explain as we go along.
It's only because I haven't seen the 2nd half in its entirety.
I'm a few pertinent details missing.
Yeah.
I mean, some of it is stuff that came up in series two, episode
one because one thing that I didn't remember is how thoroughly
this sets up where we start in series two, and in particular with
the rift that's created by the destruction of the protostar, and
you know, then an alternative version of the future, 50 years in
the future, where Chakotay loses the protostar, and it goes back
in time only to be discovered by Gwen's father.
Anyway, the return of the character we were all gagging for
Chakotah.
I'm surprised, actually, given our vocal, he's been about a lot of
things.
What I will say, my one complaint about this, and it is a minor
complaint, and frankly, I'm blaming you rather than prodigy, and
that is that you chose series 2.one.
And so I knew where all these characters were going to end up.
So there was no great suspense for me watching this because I knew
they were all going to be fine.
She was going off to her home world and everyone else was going to
be in the academy by the end because we'd already watched the 1st
of the 2nd season.
But hey, that's the name of the game with untitled Star Trek
Project.
Yeah, yeah.
There are spoilers, there we will be spoilers.
And it's my fault for not watching this previously all the way
through like you have.
So, although that is really enjoyable.
Now, doing these like live, basically, watching it and then
talking about it because you've got somebody there who's done the
run and somebody's and that's that's 2 different perspectives
there.
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that works well.
And we both love it, so I'm saying it works.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I just think this is terrific. enjoyed it enormously
really competent, really well told, visually stunning.
It does things that we've never seen before.
It's absolutely everything that I want.
And I just love those characters.
I love the kids.
I think they're really great. there are lots of other characters
as well.
This is like a fusion of what you like and what I like in Star
Trek.
I like big arcs and dramas and consequences for the federation and
all this stuff and politics and it's all going on in this.
Yeah, you like competent, lovely people working together to, you
know, there's a very big space problem at the Cliffhanger to
episode one to sort out in episode two.
I was like, shit, how are they going to get out of this one?
It's a fantastic lifting app.
We'll get there.
Yeah, so in terms of, yeah, we discussed a lot lately, haven't we
the Star Trek you like and the Star Trek, I like, this is the Star
Trek we like. finally, they fuse the 2 together.
And one last thought because this is going to go by so fast.
They're 20 odd minute episodes.
Yeah, so we'll be talking a lot about what's on the screen.
But I messaged you and said, like, this is making direct
references to Voyager at times.
I think that obviously the counterpoint reference in episode one
but definitely the ship coming over the bridge in episode 2 and
then doing the consequences.
Like they are literally saying this is what Voyager should have
done.
Yep.
This is a lot better than Voyager.
Not just visually, because that's an obvious thing to say, yeah.
But it's doing the thing that Voyager wouldn't allow itself to do
and that is having complex, long-running storylines, you know, big
cast of characters with guest characters coming in as well, which
Voyager just rejected outright.
Proper, sincere relationships between people, which, you know, they
they sort of kind of did, but it was all very sitcommy and not
very realistic.
I want to shit all over Voyager.
We love it.
I know, we love it, and we love the actor saying it, all of that.
But this is like Voyager done really, really well.
This 2 part is a good example of what Voyager could have been if
they'd had the nuts.
And this is what DS9 was doing in the 90s.
I just said earlier, so they could have done it.
This is absolutely in the 1st episode of Voyager we did where I
talked about missing potential.
They didn't reach their potential.
They could have done this and they didn't. and I'm really pleased
they're sort of doing it now, kind of, because there's lots of
Voyager references and they're sort of saying, look, we know you
didn't get this right, but we love you and this is how it could
have been, you know?
Yeah.
Well, we've already seen the beginning of series 2, which
introduces even more...
Voyager, including the doctor and the USS Voyager.
I mean, I said in that one, didn't I?
What a lovely episode of Forager.
We just watched there, Chakotay, the doctor.
Yeah, exactly.
Jane White.
Yeah, yeah.
Yep.
Yep, okay, best Roberts.
We should go in.
All right.
I'm not kidding you.
These animated series.
Oh, my favourite of Kursman Trek. absolutely my favourite.
I'm unapologetically saying that.
So this episode of Untitled Star Trek Project will be released on
the day or around about the time that the 1st episode of the last
series of Lower Decks.
Yeah.
So that's exciting and heartbreaking at the same time.
Yeah.
Let's do it.
I'll count us in.
Five, four, three, two, one.
And we're off.
Here we go.
CBS and Nickelodeon, you don't see that very often at the start of
a Star Trek episode.
No, no.
Oh gosh, let's just talk about those titles again. da, da, da, da
da, da, da, da, da, da.
I love it.
It might be my favourite title sequence, you know, of the Kurtzman
Treks as well.
Just because it's so pretty.
Yeah.
I mean, I think Strange New Worlds is a pretty great title
sequence and does the job of doing an original trek title
sequence.
Maybe sing again.
All right.
Yeah, it does the better version of the Voyager titles, I think.
And having the ship fly past giant versions of the characters is
great, too.
Oh, wonderful.
Wonderful.
My eyes is just a feast.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
I wonder if there was any sort of, you know, is this going to work
as a CGI series?
Can they do Star Trek, you know, through this method?
I can answer that question for you all.
Yes, yes, they can.
There should be more of it.
I mean, it would be great.
That's the thing that I really like, is that, you know, 90s had a
very limited idea of what Star Trek could be.
And this version of Star Trek says, no, it can be a CGI animated
show for children or it can be a comedy cartoon for adults or, you
know, whatever.
And I'm really glad of that.
That's so much more interesting.
And it means we get this.
And it's so just visually stunning.
Beautiful.
I know.
It's like, it's what's so strangers, they sort of do like camera
moves, don't they?
And I'm like, yeah, there are no cameras involved.
Yeah, yeah.
So this scene is absolutely great.
So we come in after last week's episode, which is called Mind
Warp.
Mind walk, whoops.
It's called Mind of Walk, and it's Janeway and Dal Change Bodies.
And so Dal has been on board the Dauntless, uh, in Janeway's body
behaving oddly, which is why she's now in the brig.
And, uh, and that's the only way they could communicate with each
other.
I have no clue why she was in prison, but I just figured she'd
done something very bad indeed.
Yeah, well, Dal actually admits Dal actually admits here, actually
yeah, here it is about that.
I may have, you know, touched her reputation a bit. all think
she's crazy now.
Whoops, and she's our only alloy.
But that's another stunningly exciting and visual episode.
And remember that the construct is on board the protest album.
Admiral Jellicoe.
Is that Jellicoe?
That's Angelico.
I realised that.
Yep, yep.
We've got an Andorian there, look.
I feel like his antennas could wiggle a bit more.
So the Andorian is, of course, David, David Diggs, isn't it?
And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's the 2nd in command. been in it for quite a while.
He's in Hamilton.
I think we talked about it him before.
The same person voicing Jellicoe, is it?
Yes.
Yeah, Ronnie Cox.
No.
Yeah.
Oh, I love Kursman Shrek. they forget nothing That's right Oh, look
it's my favourite zero.
Oh no, sorry.
Murphs my favourite. 0 is my 2nd favourite.
I like the 2 that they could never realise and the rock, but was
it rock talk?
The ones that they could never realise in live action.
They're the ones I really love.
It's like, what's his face, in Aricks, in TAS.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Although I do love, what's this fella's name, the purple guy?
I always forget their names in this.
He's got great.
He's so good.
Like, the way that he's grown, because remember he's kind of
selfish and he decides that he's the captain and he takes the
captain's quarters and he's a bit of a prick and he won't be told
and stuff like that.
And now he's loving and generous and brave and like he's learned
all this stuff.
I know. holy crap.
Look at that battle scene.
It's like watching sacrifice of angels again.
Ships zooming in and out of each other.
Yeah, yeah.
Beams everywhere.
The other thing that struck me is how incredibly beautiful this
bridge is, like just better than any other Star Trek bridge
because it's in that big glass kind of shoe, you know, it's glass
on every side.
It's not the strip of glass that we get, you know, on the
enterprise or discovery.
They've been listening to untitled Star Trek project.
You want reflective surfaces.
It's all gonna be glass.
So good.
Oh, I love I love all these space battles.
It's so love it.
It's so much fun.
I mean, come on.
Surely this reminds you of 6 and 7 DS9.
There's a really funny line here.
Jankam calls that maneuver the slippery dipsy doodle.
That's right.
And he says, great work except for the name.
That's a good one.
I'll tell you a bit I loved here was where they don't tell him
that he won't get into Starfield Academy because he's genetically
engineered and they know it will affect his performance on the
bridge.
So she makes a decision to lie to him and then the payoff to that
at the end is you think he's going to be the one person that
doesn't get in and he does. and it's a lovely tale.
It actually affects the way that he behaves because he then says
all right, my job is now to ensure that the rest of you get into
Starfleet Academy.
And so he's being completely selfless from that point on.
Oh, Starfleet.
Just the way you like it.
It's just beautiful.
Oh, here we go.
Counterpoint.
Oh, we've done this episode.
So there is a little girl among the refugees in Counterpoint, and
the Bernari have that stupid nose made up.
It counterpoint.
Of course they got the detail, right?
Of course they did.
But so she escapes, and the reason that the Federation is saved is
because she helped those refugees to escape. 10 years ago, whatever
in the in the Delta Quadrant.
I mean, I did wonder how likely that it would be that that person
would then end up here in Starfleet.
But you know what?
Don't think about it.
The point is, Jayway made a good call. and now she's being paid in
kind.
Yeah, it was wonderful, isn't it?
Like the Federation is rescued because it's about kindness.
And so this, yeah, so she tells him now, because she thinks that
she might be going, To her death, if anything happens, I want you
to hear this from me.
She wants to be honest.
Yeah.
And then he kisses her.
Oh, God.
What was that?
What are you doing?
She said.
Oh, sorry.
I thought we was having a moment.
That's so cute.
We've all been there, Tom. all been there.
It's adorable And then look, he's crushed.
It's so... because remember we don't, he doesn't know what he is
at the beginning.
That's the big mystery.
Look, he just deflates completely.
And that's when he decides that he's now going to try and get them
into Starfleet, which is just wonderful.
The other thing that I like too, is that it's the same crisis at
the beginning of the end.
Like, this is the problem.
They can't communicate because if they do, the ships will start
destroying one another, and that starts happening quite soon.
It is, yeah.
It is literally doing the sacrifice of angel thing.
It just cut then to the ships, a few blasts, a bit of visual
action, and then straight back to a really heartfelt character
moment.
I love it.
It takes some confidence, you know, to cut between those 2 things
because most people would just do just the battle sequence and
then do all the emotional stuff later.
I love it though.
So this is Jamel Jamil.
That'd be silly.
He literally just chopped the robot, chopped his head.
What is that robot again?
It's dreadnaught.
It just a being scary robot.
St straight out of Star Wars.
That's what he's done.
Yeah, yeah.
So that woman, the trill woman, is, of course, a senseiahu, uh, was
uh, Jamil.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fabulously evil voice she's got, hasn't she?
She's wonderful.
Awfully awfully British.
Awful, hosh.
Ridiculously polish.
I will bring down the entire federation Oh, and so in these giant
spaces on board the proto star.
It's always shocking how small the proto star is compared to the
other ships because just the interior spaces are so big.
They're so generous.
I know he reminds me of, and because I've been watching a lot of
Star Wars.
That robot reminds me of General Grievous.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The asthmatic robot.
Yeah, all those deckadroid things, draw deckers, whatever they
call, the ball ones.
Do you know what?
There's more visual excitement in this than in an entire series of
90s trek.
Oh, yeah.
I don't mean season.
I mean, seven, 7 seasons.
Look how stunning that looks.
See, this reminds me of the end of Favour the Bold.
All the spaceships there waiting to shoot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I love the trap of the ships coming in, because they send out
a, what, oh, good, what am I trying to say?
Yeah, there's some kind of a distress call that the ship's
called.
So more come.
They'll be destroyed.
So more will come and eventually, well, we're in the same position
as we were in series 3 of discovery.
All the ships will be gone.
Yeah.
I love, I love how Dreadnock disables everyone here in a way
that's non-lethal and also kind of slightly funny.
And so having Jankum fall to the ground because suddenly he's a
lot heavier, and then having rock fall on top of him because she's
kind of massive, is kind of cute, later on Murf gets stuck to the
wall.
Like all of that sort of stuff is really good.
Have I just missed the bit where Murph does the karate?
No.
Oh my god, that's my favourite scene.
Thank you.
So cute.
Stupid blob manages to steal every episode is here.
So here he is, there he is.
So he does...
It's like Yoda at the end of at the end.
I mean, just imagine a bogey versus General Grievous.
That's basically what you're seeing.
But this is also doing that trick that Star Wars does of cutting
between a comedy battle and between a serious character battle.
Look where he's about to show him his ass.
No, he went...
Oh, it's so funny.
And because they've established the stakes, you can have fun.
Yeah, you can do it.
Because you know this is a very serious situation.
So that shot from the exterior of the protostar, just seeing the
scale of the bridge from inside it and the fights.
Now we're doing that fabulous scene from the end of Discovery
Series 3 with the 2 ladies with the ruin beating...
And I love watching 2 women going at each other.
So we'll see more of that at the beginning of series 2, of course
because uh, while um, uh, Gwen goes back to solem, so does Asencia
and so she's, you know, trying to persuade them again to avoid 1st
contact.
Do you know why I don't object to it here, but I did object to it
in Discovery Series 3 the last episode?
It's because this is half the length.
This goes by so fast.
You know, like there is a lot of action here.
But I don't know, it doesn't scrimp on the character.
It doesn't scrimp on the stakes.
But it does, it's with such brevity.
Like, this is only 22 minutes long.
I think that was harder because you were coming in on a big epic
finale that was 3 episodes long and you had only seen the last
episode.
No, that fight. off for a start. about 15 minutes, though.
Yeah, it might have seemed like that.
Oh, we go.
So here we go.
This is where she wins.
Don't answer the phone.
There it is.
And so that's the construct now able to send the message.
And the visual of just making all of the ships turn the same red
as the construct and making them kind of blind and evil, you know
like you can't look out the windows, like, and they drift.
Look at how they just start drifting.
There's like a short of all of the ships.
It's got such scope to it.
I mean, that's something I want to bring up with you, though, very
quickly.
Well, why is it?
noticed in Star Wars, and I've noticed it in Farscape, so you
people are not exempt, and now in this, why are all the Brits, the
evil people?
Yeah, yeah, well, just history, I guess.
I can't argue that.
We were a little bit embarrassed by it if that counts, you know?
Or just how, you know, inconsequential we are now.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Oh, this is so good, isn't it?
It does look wrong, doesn't it?
With all the those red lights on the ship.
There's the Defiant, by the way.
I know.
God, that made me hard.
It's exciting, isn't it?
spaceships are blowing.
I didn't see any rocks, though.
They should have done a couple of CGR riders.
I think they do that.
I don't think they do that.
They've got the budget, that's why.
They don't need rocks.
Oh, that fire was so wonderful.
I could have done without being 15 minutes long. out of it, doesn't
she?
So rock takes, um, Jenkins hand, freeze Murph, Murph, freeze, zero
freeze.
You know what I mean?
Yes, of course.
They're a team.
And it isn't twe, though.
It's not we.
It just works.
It's really great.
Oh, Murf.
And I love Let's try that again.
That's a great line.
That's so good, isn't it?
It just, it really does feel as well.
Like, this is the greatest threat the federation I've ever faced
you know?
It's wonderful.
It feels huge.
It feels like a movie.
Well, we do have a similar kind of situation, I think, in uh, at
the end of Star Trek Picard.
Seriously, remember?
Yeah, yeah.
I think there's a sort of similarity there too.
That was just the Borg again though, wasn't it?
Yes, that's true.
That is true.
They didn't have to, they weren't desperate in prodigy.
They had their own their own fabulous.
Yes, it was.
But remember, it was the Borg.
It was the Starfleet, the entire armada under the control of sort
of the Borg and the Changelings, who had, you know, together at
last, and they were going to destroy themselves.
Oh, there was a lot.
Just take the shot there of rocktock holding Murph.
I mean, happen you not love these characters?
Yeah, it's wonderful, isn't it?
I am really sad though.
I am sad because we're not hearing the music.
Listen to it this time.
And it is such a huge strength of this show.
Look at that. beautiful.
Where's he off to?
He's dead.
Apparently they put them to the Velna got caught when they're dead
I suppose.
I don't know.
Oh, geez.
You know we back?
It costs a lot of money to burn somebody, you know, that.
Economic.
He's back at the beginning of next year because of course they go
back, they go into the past.
Oh no, because he's already, he's he's in the present.
Remember, he's old, but he's come back in time in order to be
here.
And so there's a version of him on Solom, who's younger.
I'm going to use this as my evidence now because you've got the
brain size of a planet.
And even if you keep track of it, trying to keep track of all of
this. there's complicated stuff going on.
But it is complicated and I didn't understand everything, but just
scene to scene, I was enjoying everything.
And that's an important difference.
That's it.
You know what people want, and you know, in a given scene, and
that's the important thing.
You know what each scene is doing and it doesn't matter.
You know, the fact that they drop us in to a situation where, you
know, a bunch of stuff that happened last episode is still
relevant, where the stuff that happened 10 episodes ago with a
construct.
You know, we saw the construct in action and it destroyed a
federation outpost, so we know what's happening.
You know, they've been avoiding the Federation for 10 episodes.
All of that stuff.
We don't need to have seen it because we know how everyone feels
and what's going on.
But how light cars when tracked to hang kids something this clever
this emotionally honest, this ambitious.
You know, kids deserve TV discs.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Kids aren't watching telly anymore.
It's because they're usually given a diet of absolute bloody
bilge.
Yeah.
So again, what's happening here too is a hark back to Tas Lamora
where they 1st appeared, the planet where they're from, where the
great diviner didn't let them have universal translators so that
they couldn't communicate and couldn't work together.
And so everyone's scared of rock because they don't realise that
she's a scared little girl.
Tossed Lemora.
It's still Star Trek then.
Is there an apostrophe in there somewhere?
I think between the L and the M. Yes.
Yeah, no, no apostrophe in that.
But the van can't have an apostrophe, so you'll be pleased to...
And the fact that she could speak all the languages was
established.
We're leading up to this cliffhanger now.
What I loved about it was it was a moment of jeopardy, but it was
building to a moment of jeopardy that's going to go on and on
until the Federation is gone.
So it's not that exact moment where it's like, 0 my god, how are
they going to get out of this?
It's anything that's going to happen.
That's a great cliffhanger.
It builds up.
I mean this is exciting now already.
There's huge jeopardy.
And this speech is so good.
It's so good.
But the focal performance of the Klingon.
She's like, I've got to do the real sort of snarling Klingon
voice.
I?
But it is still better than Roxanne Dawson in faces.
Let's let's say that.
What are you talking about?
Yeah, terrible.
And you know what?
I did love the beer where the Klingon ship came in and save
Janeway.
I did love that, but you know, for me, nothing will ever top that
moment in a sacrifice of angels.
Where you cut to Jadzia as the Klingon ships coming in as wharf
and her blue eyes are like, oh, yeah, he's the same.
It's the same sort of thing, but it's great.
It's really good to watching Janeway hear that speech that she's
given.
And she'll say later on in the trial, that a year ago they'd never
even heard of the Federation, and now she knows what it is, and
she's saying, you know, it's about belonging and how different you
are, and it doesn't matter how different you are.
You still belong.
And it's, oh, look at rock holding Murph.
It's so beautiful, isn't it?
Um, Yeah.
Yeah, I just think it's really good.
It's probably good.
Yeah, but this doesn't feel overly sentimental in the way that
Quality of Life did for me.
You know?
I don't know.
I think they just gauge it perfectly.
Because, look, there's still a load of spaceships blowing up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It looks so different.
Look at it.
That one sexy ship.
Yeah, yeah. if I could date a spaceship, it would definitely be
the defiant, you know.
What the hell is that man?
at the end of there.
What is he?
With the bones in his head.
It's a Tellerite.
Ah okay.
There's a Tellerite judge too at the hearing, but he's a Tellerite
but that's Jason Alexander from...
We go, the Klingon.
Save the day.
Wonderful.
You should have seen me washing this downstairs.
I was crying, whooping.
I was having the best time.
I just couldn't get enough.
The shields look like these days. not getting enough of all those
spaceships following on each other.
So good.
So great.
So is this now how, oh, look at all the ships too.
We get introduced, we get to introduce the children watching.
There's some Vulcan ships there.
There's a born ship.
Ferengi ship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's right.
What the hell was that one?
That was sort of a long bit with a ring around it.
Real Vulcan ships.
So what Vulcan ships look like.
I knew you would know.
I knew it.
You didn't study that book of spaceships for nothing.
We survived, yeah.
It's like it's like a moment of my God.
Then another ship arrives.
The USS sovereign just arrived, like just appeared suddenly, and
there we go.
It's another thing.
It's another thing that the DSI did well at that moment of
triumph.
Yes, you know, we're out of this now.
Like when they destroyed that catch so white facility and it's
like, 0 shit, we've got no propulsion engines, it's going to take
us 3 months to get home.
You know, like, I love that, though.
It's like really playing with your emotions because I thought, well
there's another episode.
How the hell, what's danger going to be in?
Yeah, in the last episode.
Yeah.
And it was just so well explained because, you know, you can
handle a lot of technobabble.
I need things explained to me on a more functional level.
And the way they explain the danger that's coming.
Yeah.
It satisfies both of us.
Dal helps, doesn't he?
He says, I know the universal translators are working again, but
what?
You know, like what's happening?
The flame tearing through the ships as they're being destroyed.
Like, this feels apocalyptic. love it.
Yeah, it's really good, isn't it?
There's another sheep arriving in the background of that shot and
another one. and they just arrive and turn red and start being
shot.
It's incredible.
Like, there was a time.
There was a time when, do you remember in Star Trek 6 where you
finally got to see like proper action inside, you know, and the
Klingon shit being blown up from the inside and the Klingon flying
down and that to us was like massively cinematic.
Now they're doing it here on prodigy.
Yeah, yeah.
It just looked like a power away scene.
It's crazy.
Oh my god, that is such a brilliant episode.
Like one of one of my favourite surprises that we've done in
Untitled Star Trek Project so far.
How good this is.
Yeah.
It doesn't have to be this good, I don't think.
Yeah.
It's a great shame.
Look at.
I mean, we don't know if it comes back after series two.
I still haven't watched the end of it.
I still don't know how series 2 ends.
I think 40 episodes is a fair run, though, you know.
It is a fair run, and it does end in a good way.
And you can see like next week's episode, the one we're about to
watch Supernova part 2 is very clearly designed to possibly be the
last episode ever.
Yeah.
And it does a very good job.
As you said before, of doing what Voyager failed to do.
And, and you know, people say, oh, it would have been great if
we'd had 5 episodes or something back on Earth.
And that's ridiculous.
That's not what we're tuning in for and that's not what should
happen.
Excuse me.
I said that.
Yeah, yeah absurd.
And so, um, but what this does is it solves the problem in about
10 minutes around about halfway through and it has more than 10
minutes to wrap things up.
And the thing it does, the trick it does is just as Endgame can
only be saved by having a spare Janeway.
This has a spare Janeway as well.
So we can afford to lose hologram Janeway here.
Even though she's a different character from Janeway, we'll still
have Kate.
We'll still have Janeway for the 2nd season, but it makes us care
about hologram Janeway, because I think that scene is incredibly
moving.
It's gorgeous.
It's really good and it's because often rises will kind of go, oh
can we just not do that scene?
Can we not do the scene where someone discovers someone's dead?
That's really hard and it's kind of heartbreaking.
And this is a kid show.
And like a character who's been with them for 20 episodes dies.
And, you know, the kids at home know that Janeway is still in it
and she's fine.
But the kids cry and they realise that it's happening.
Do you know what I mean?
They sort of learn that it's happening during the course of the
conversation.
They're not immediately short.
Can we see them discover?
The best kids shows.
Press gang, Sarah Jane Adventures, this.
They go to these places because kids feel things like adults, you
know?
And we should not be showing that on TV.
No, I think it was.
There's a massive difference for me, though, between how, because
you know, I wasn't happy with Endgame on pretty much any level
apart from perhaps visually, occasionally, with how Janeway is
handled there and here, here, you've had Janeway in it for most of
the season. this hologram Jayway.
And what's important is what she means to these characters.
She's the one that teaches them.
She's the one that brings them all together.
She is like their mentor.
In Endgame, you just had older Janeway going back.
And she meant nothing to nobody.
But you know, it was basically her story, but we've not been
following her story for 7 years.
It was all very odd in a way that Voyager very often was.
So again, I think they're taking the inspiration, but they're
getting it right.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, because Endgame starts with that fake future that
isn't going to end up happening.
And that's something that we already did in all good things, so we
didn't need to see it again.
And it's not as good as what we saw in all good things.
To be fair.
We did it in timeless as well.
So like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'd already been there.
That's right.
And so you kind of think, well, maybe we have a 2 parter.
We do what this does.
We escalate for the cliffhanger, because even though it was all
shown as one episode in syndication.
It's 2 parts.
We escalated the cliffhanger, just like this one did. 10 minutes
in we resolve the cliffhanger.
We arrive on earth, and then we get some sense of what their
reception is like and what future faces them.
And I think that that works incredibly well here, you know, because
they reach their goal, because they have a more specific goal.
It's not just get to earth that is getting to Starfleet.
And so they reach that goal and then there's something ahead of
them.
And if the writers had had the wit to do that with the characters
or let us get a sense of where they were going next, we wouldn't
have been so disappointed by how that ended.
But do you remember what the Cliffhanger was between Endgame one
and two?
It was the 2 Janeways meeting, wasn't it?
No, it was just cut to Borgship and Susanna Thompson as the ball
queen is revealed.
And she goes, aha.
And she's watching the 2 Jane waves on the screen. cut to
credits.
Something else we've done before, you know?
Yeah, this episode, which is half the length of Endgame part one
comes to an enormous climax.
You know, where the whole of the Federation is a threat, you know
and a plausible threat of that.
I don't think you can really compare the 2 because when you start
doing it.
Unfortunately, for which ends up in the dust.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. easy.
Go with the kids show.
Exactly.
Well, what do you think?
Should we go in?
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
We're doing the traditional, um, part one and part 2 as well from
the old next generation days.
We're not doing the D Space 9 approach of 2 different titles
between episode one and episode two.
Yeah.
Although it is Roman, it is Arabic numerals, though, it's part one
part two.
It's not Roman numerals for change.
Um, not a very interesting observation, but it is a thing that I
noticed.
Always get educated by you on this.
One way or another.
Well, I think we do our bit about how great these titles are again
because they are incredibly great.
Look at those amorphous blobs that the ship's going around.
It's nice gray.
Yeah, the hands.
Ah, so gorgeous.
It's so good.
So it's the only thing, frankly, that could tear me away from your
gorgeous face is looking at these tiles.
But I think looking at the whole show.
I mean, the show looks so beautiful.
I mean, they chose the right time, right?
10, 15 years earlier, it just wouldn't be as polished, so you
couldn't have done it.
Yeah, yeah.
Or they would have had to have been less ambitious, and that would
have been a shame.
Yeah, yeah, it just looks beautiful, doesn't it?
It reminds me of a sort of a fabulous javelin, you know?
Yeah, or good looking sheep.
It is a great looking sheep.
I think we miss it because I think it's a bit like the top of a
you know, like a fountain pen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That sort of arrow.
Yeah, it's gorgeous.
It still has a kind of basic trowel shape that Voyager has, I
think.
You see what they're doing?
They open on this graveyard of spaceships.
It's the it's the money shot from Best of Both Wells part two.
Exactly.
They're opening with it.
We throw it away.
We're still doing the, you know, we do the same speech, but it's
reshot or it's from a different angle because we're going down
onto the bridge and she's still doing the same dialogue.
And that second.
Dal comes up with the solution we have to destroy the protostar.
And so we actually solved the problem.
You know, we come up with the problem, the solution of the problem
almost just immediately.
But the, and this is where they do the, the bravest thing you
could possibly do in a show, that even DS9 wasn't brave enough to
do this.
They flirted with it when they kicked everyone off the station.
But after 6 episodes, they brought them back and it was the status
quo again.
They destroy the ship and fundamentally change what the show is.
We're on earth now, and it's a completely different show in
episode two. same characters.
Different premise.
Yeah.
And we do have a spare proto-star, remember, because we have the
proto-star from the future before it gets destroyed, before
Chakotay sends it off to be discovered at times.
It's like they don't have any power anymore.
They don't have their own ship.
They're cadets in the academy.
Oh, they feel utterly constrained.
They're on a starship with Janeway.
They're just kids now, you know?
They're not in charge anymore.
That's different It works really well for Dow, too, who has
learned to be a generous and brave captain.
Look, he's offering to go down with the ship right now.
Like he's saying, I'll go down with the ship.
She'll help you get into Starfleet.
She can't help me.
That line reading's not quite right.
She can't help me.
She'll let you do it.
And so he's going to sacrifice himself, you know.
And of course, it's Janeway.
Of course she would sacrifice herself.
And you know what?
I was really listening to Kate Mulgrew's line readings now.
Like, her voice has changed because you listen to her in
conventions and it is deeper.
She takes it back.
I think I think she captures her old Janeway voice really well.
I think she may have done a bit of work, you know?
But shit, because this is said like 8 years, I think, after
Voyager gets home or something like that.
So it's she's a bit older, because this is sort of season one
Janeway, in a way, isn't it?
Like Command Janeway.
He's got sort of season one hand.
The bum.
Yeah.
This looks so good.
It's gorgeous, isn't it?
And yeah, the thing the thing this has over sacrifice angels
because they got the money to linger on these shots for a lot
longer than they otherwise would have done in 90s trek.
Yeah that's right.
And it's cheaper to make this stuff and easier to make this stuff
than it was then, you know, like they can make this thing look
stunning on much less money than it would have cost Deep Space
Nine.
And so now we just put the planning to action.
This stuff must take ages to create.
Oh, no, no, I'm not saying they're knocking up. extraordinarily
detailed and beautiful.
They absolutely push it as far as they can.
I mean, I admire these people that put together animated shows.
The patience they must have for a single frame.
Yeah, it's incredible.
So this is the, the, um, the replicator that replicates the
shuttles, um, which we did see very, very early on in series one.
We saw it in action.
So it's already established.
And so it looks...
We've come in handy many a time, you know, in Nighty's trek.
Yes, well, we could assume that they just had one, which is why
they had so many...
Imagine that bit where...
So you just see 1000000s of runabouts spitting out on the
replication.
And of course, it looks like a 3D printer and no one in 90 Strike
knew what that looked like and that's pretty cool too.
So this, she's lying to him now.
In order to get them onto the ship.
Don't know, do they, until it's all happened?
Yeah.
So it is a good boy, but it's not like a, a, a, forgive me.
Discovery series 2 episode.
Yeah, yeah.
Goodbye.
A gloopy, endless goodbye.
It's like a, I'll see you later.
Good luck, you know.
Which I like.
Yeah, me too.
Go figure.
The TV aimed at kids is less gloopy.
Yeah, that's right.
I do love I love how Rock describes it because it's a proto-star
in there doing the proto-star drive.
And so by freeing the proto star, creating a supernova.
That little star gets to be a star, and in a way, that's a
metaphor for what's happening with the kids, isn't it?
You know, they're kids on the ship and something bigger is about
to happen.
Look at this shot of, it's her point of view, seeing them for the
last time and them seeing her for the last time.
And look at Absolutely.
This absolutely kills that argument that people have about
holograms in Star Trek, not being characters that we can care
about.
Screw you people.
This is very moving.
Well, that's right.
We had the doctor do that job as well.
The doctor made it clear to us that holograms were people at this
point.
I think that people just don't like Vic.
Yeah, so that might be an issue.
And they're trying to find out... where it just falls out the back
of the ship.
Oh, the music.
The music during the scene was staggering.
And look at them all holding hands.
They all hold hands and they all have weird alien hands, you know
that they're holding, like they're all holding each other's hands
and then the last of them are those 2 who had that awkward moment
last episode where he kissed her.
And like they're all holding hands with one another.
It's so simple and so beautiful.
And they're all so different.
You know, they're all so weird and different.
It's great.
And he looks up and sees it disappear.
That's so great.
Watching the ship from their point of view going out into before
we lose it.
You are right. such a gorgeous shit.
What a shame.
What a waste.
There had to be a sacrifice, right?
And there is a human, if you'll forgive the term, sacrifice, and
there is a technological sacrifice as well.
And they're both things we've come.
We've become very accustomed to, you know?
Yeah.
But it is also, yeah, I mean, it is beautiful. you have to lose
something in order for these endings to mean something.
Exactly.
Go fast.
No, if they killed one of the kids, I just never would have
forgiven them.
They could never do that.
They could never have done that.
And we saw that, you know, where she goes.
Wow, look at that explosion.
It's all sort of rainbow colours.
It's like a gorgeous supernova.
Yeah, something that you would never have seen in a live action
Star Trek, but something that's stunningly beautiful like that's
what she becomes.
They don't know that she's dead yet too. we're about to see that
aren't we?
Oh, it was like...
The formation of a galaxy. gorgeous.
Yeah.
Back to the action. to the action.
Back to the trailer.
Enough character back to the shoe here.
I do love J.W. streak of gray in her head. you like that?
Sorry?
A streak of gray in her hair.
Yeah, yeah, it looks great.
Just to denote the age a little bit.
Yeah, it's really good.
And so now now they're back.
Do you know what I mean?
The problem is solved.
That's it. 10 minutes in?
Where are we?
Yeah, not quite 10 minutes in. a wonderful episode of problem.
Star Trek prodigy that was Q credits and the end.
What do you mean, we've still got 10 minutes left.
We've got over 10 minutes. like, you know, 12 minutes, more than
half the episode.
Can I speak to the lawyers, please?
We don't do this sort of thing in Star Trek, okay?
This is where we end.
That's right.
And so now here's Janeway.
Oh, my God.
And I just think the scene is beautiful because of the kids
reaction.
It's why is Janeway tiny.
And doesn't he poker?
Like it's...
He does.
But it really, it really justifies the relationship as well
between the kids and the hologram.
Yeah, yeah.
But just remember that Down was really resistant to her as well.
Oh, look at Murph.
Murph's touching up.
Yeah, Murph's touching it.
That's so good.
I want a Murph toy so badly.
Oh, he's so adorable.
Oh, look. you know what?
I love you.
I said this to you, every time we've done one of these, that, uh
what the light in size zero.
It's hypnotic, isn't it?
You can meditate to that.
Yeah.
Oh.
She stayed on the shit.
Yeah.
Oh my god, someone give that rock a hug.
Oh, Murph did it.
Oh, yeah, look.
Oh, oh, no, Murf is stroking her face.
That's just, and look, and Jankum.
Jenkins.
I'm understated, though.
It isn't too much.
It is...
No, it isn't too much. stricken, aren't they?
Like there's...
And that's really good.
Like having them actually tell us in dialogue that they've worked
out what's happened to her.
Um, And just seeing their reactions, just seeing how strict and
they all are.
I love a beautiful speech.
You think you need me.
I think you grow.
I know you're capable of doing this off you go.
Yeah, no, go boldly.
And then she goes, oh, it's lovely.
It's really, see, I can like this stuff.
Yeah I love that.
I just think that's really sweet.
And I think go boldly is perfect.
Like absolutely the perfect thing for her to say to them.
Whoa, it's very Star Trek.
Yeah, of course.
It's wonderful.
That's exactly why.
Look at that.
Fabulous.
Beautiful Sean.
Oh, and earth has never looked more beautiful. than in these last
days.
Yeah, yeah.
So we're in San Francisco.
We're not having to go to that hideous water reclamation plant to
show the academy.
That's right.
They get when they go up the stairs, it's a wonderful moment and
it's a huge building towering over them. like, this is what we
wanted to see all along.
Yeah exactly.
Time for a trial?
Well, no, 1st we've got this scene where we're setting up what's
going to happen in series two.
So we get the message from Chakotay in the future.
So...
And obviously he'll be back.
Yeah, so we got the message from Chakotay. and we get the idea
that we're gonna go and rescue him in the future.
Maybe, you know, in this series, at the end of series two.
Maybe Jane Wench, Kotay, can actually get it on.
If they do that as well.
They are finally rectifying all of Voyager's mistakes.
Yeah, yeah.
Ah I mean, you know, the facing the consequences at the end of the
big epic.
I mean, what was the Star Trek film that did that?
Was it three?
when they destroyed the Enterprise into four?
No.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Was it forward to faster down to captain?
Yeah.
It's very like that though, isn't it?
It's like, okay.
But these two, hologram Janeway creates the rift in order to
rescue Chakotay for real Janeway's benefit.
Which I think is good.
Could have been any other character.
Yeah, but you know, we'll get the doctor in person and then we'll
get the medium of it.
I mean, at least she's not trying to... starship.
We've got to go and save the doctor.
I would have been all over it, yeah?
Oh, look, it just says on the subtitles, Hopeful Music.
Yeah.
Oh here we go.
This is Voyager Return.
I can see you returning him, which?
No, it's not.
It's a load of runabout.
Oh, look how gorgeous the runabouts look.
But I'm also getting a sort of end of Star Trek 4 vibe as well, you
know, where they're on the shuttle in the in San Francisco Bay.
Oh, I love that so much.
Yeah.
Look at them smiling as their list of crimes is being read out
because these are all the fun adventures they had.
Well, she goes, you've done.
This, this, this, this, and this, all in the effort to warn us.
I then look straight at the judge.
Oh, man.
I really love Janeway.
Yeah.
It was a great call. putting her in this show.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, if you can get it, you know, and it was that thing where she
read the script, wasn't it?
She said, no, I'm not doing any more Star Trek.
No, she had the reaction that we all did.
Oh, kids show.
Star Trek kids show.
I never read the script and went, get my Asian on the phone. do
it.
Yeah, this is really terrific, isn't it?
And it's just the perplexity of it.
Get my agent on the phone.
I'll do it Is there more exploration of zero in series two?
No, I don't know.
Like I said, I haven't gone that far. haven't gone that far
ahead.
I need to actually sit down and watch the rest of it.
We're gonna have to wait a bit.
Before we randomise it again. absolutely.
There we go.
What they're talking about now?
So they're talking about the protest star and doing that, which I
didn't realise they explicitly do that metaphor that I thought it
was, where, you know, the protest star is a ship with a star, a
baby star in it, and they send it off, and look who, you know, this
is the, um, here are the, uh, new life forms that we were
searching for, and they've come back and founders, um, which
actually great.
That line there.
She goes, interviews don't hold a candle to what these kids have
been through.
Yeah.
What a great line.
I do too.
Like the stuff.
I'd love this line.
I love this.
Was he enhanced in everyone?
Look at him, of course.
But his heart is bigger than anyone in this room.
Anyone in this room?
And the great thing is that we saw that.
Like, we actually saw that development of those 20 episodes, that
he does get better.
And in the final episode, in last week's episode, he was going to
well, this week he was going to go down with the ship.
He was going to go down with the ship.
I've got to say, I'm sure that they could get into Starfleet.
I know you said that is one of those moments that you feared that
I wouldn't like, yeah.
But see, that, to me, is the antithesis of the, we're Starfleet.
We're Starfleet moment from Discovery, which I really hated.
I just think it's so well judged here.
It doesn't ever tip over to it being too self-congratulatory.
Yeah, I think, I think, I think it is, like, I certainly think
Gwen's speech, you know, and maybe because it comes from the
outside, and because her view of the Federation is somewhere where
even sort of strange aliens like them, with all their complex
backgrounds can belong.
Do you know what I mean?
And that's a lovely take on it that you don't get from inside
maybe.
Do you know what I've just realised as well, another reason why I
might love this show in the same sort of way that I do with DS9?
It's a lot of non Starfleet characters.
Yeah, yeah. much like DS9, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's an outsider's viewer, but it's not a cynical outside as
you.
No, it's so interesting.
Yeah.
It wasn't always cynical.
I'm going to show you some episodes, right?
Kira goes at one point, he made me a believer, you know.
Actually, I wouldn't mind a pulk toy as well, you know.
Very cute.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
In fact, you have all the regular splitting for Christmas.
But prioritise Murf, please.
Murph, obviously.
Yeah.
Pre-Christal Murph and...
This is so sad, isn't it?
she's going home.
It's cute when they pick it up next episode.
Remember where he's on his iPad chatting to her and she's heading
to Solem.
And of course, they're pretty soon.
I just remember those scenes Those scenes on the planet and not
having a clue what was going on in any room.
This kid show keeps tying me in knots, you know.
That beautiful planet.
It was gorgeous yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just, I love, it's kind of an obvious thing to do, but I love
the one of you didn't make it.
And obviously you all think it's, it's Dal, and he thinks it's him
too, which is really good.
So we've had sacrifice.
There's a surprise there.
They're all going off into a hopeful new future.
She's going home.
In fact, it's a bit like what you leave behind, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, again, well, that gets it right, because it sends them all
off in a different direction and talks about the future.
And this too, where she's getting, you know, some science to study
um, uh, we get, she looks great in a uniform.
She does look really good, doesn't she?
coming out, please.
That is such a great design.
Mind you, that's a brilliant vocal performance.
Oh yeah, she's really good.
And just getting a little girl to play.
Her is just tremendous rather than a, you know, like an adult
doing a kid's voice.
And Paul as well.
The comedy.
He does it. so good.
He's so great.
And it look at 0 in his new master.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look at that.
Does he look great?
And he said, stalking that outfit.
Look at that scanner screamer.
It's like a constellation of stars.
This is so nice, isn't it?
And this is calling back to their very 1st conversation.
That thing about cat boots instead of cahoots is a joke from not a
great joke, but it's a joke from the 1st episode.
Do you remember how many jokes we've endured from Voyager?
is a good joke, right?
Yeah, yeah.
But, um, you know, we're, we're hiking back to the beginning and
just seeing how they've changed and grown.
And, like, this is very sweet.
It is very sweet.
There is more carrot to growth in these regulars.
I'm telling you now that in 7 seasons of most trade shows.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look at that.
From where they started.
She just said there, I know where my home is now.
She didn't know where she was from. the start of the series.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, neither of them knew who they were, you know, and this
look at them together.
That's so cute.
We have that, we paid back that kiss from the previous episode.
I'm sorry, look at that lazy sunshine over the bridge.
And the cityscape in the background.
The ports that the ships come up from.
I mean, it's just Star Trek, how I've always wanted to see it.
Wonderful.
All right.
Now here's your job.
Look at zero's legs.
In these scenes.
Okay?
I want you to keep an eye on zero's legs.
Obviously pay attention to what's happening.
Um, but so Zero stood up and that ship and it's the new proto-star
class ship. and we're going to see that.
It's not going to play a big part next season unless it...
Oh, they're there.
Oh, they found exploding.
So, and now they're back in the reverse shot.
What is that going on?
Is that just the continuity era?
So from behind, you just have the legs.
I complained about that in into the breach, because it did happen
there and I wondered what was happening to his legs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they've gone there?
They're gone in the show. nobody noticed.
I was so obsessed at looking at that fabulous behemoth building.
I didn't even notice the 1st time.
It looks great, doesn't it?
And now they're back.
I think he can, like, depending on what angle you look at him, the
refraction of the light, it means that they vanish.
Absolutely.
Look at this last shot of the going off in the ship.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
Just so good.
Just 10 out of 10.
I have no notes.
I mean, I had lots of notes.
I talked a lot there, but yeah, just wonderful.
That is basically what I want from Star Trek.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It's just really fun.
The kids are all great.
You know, um, you've got Kate Mulgrew, which is just tremendous
and it just looks stunning.
You know, it just looks so exciting, so thrilling.
Yeah, I'm here for it too.
I think the only thing I can really add. is much like lower
decks.
I cannot wait to get back to this series and discover some more
but I am going to keep up my annoying tradition of not watching it
through and discovering it as we watch it.
All right, that sounds like a plan.
All right, it's the end of the episode and it is time for us to
work out where we're going next time.
This was my choice, a rare win for me.
And so maybe you'll even things up by picking something terrible
Joe. I think you might be turning a corner now, you know, does
your increments.
Your choices are getting better.
And that was a massive win.
But unfortunately, my eyeballs have been tessellated far too much
by all the visual splendour, prodigy.
So I am going to take us back to the...
The brainer back to the 90s. of 90s.
I'll put them all in.
Next generation, DS9 Voyager and Enterprise.
Oh, brilliant.
Okay.
Okay?
So let's just see what we get now.
Okay.
Oh, we may have to do it.
He's a code of honour?
No, but if I say this, I might just skip it because you'll just go
we'll do it.
No, you have to say it. the rules.
Your random Star Trek, the next generation episode is...
Season six, episode three, man of the people.
Oh my god, they're doing it.
Oh, yeah, absolutely doing it.
Of course we do.
This is literally crazy.
This is literally the Dr. Crusher has repaired Troy with her usual
skill episode.
That's so great.
It's so crazy.
Now, look, Sean Luke, I can only kill her for 3 minutes.
I have to bring her back to life again.
Oh my god.
Well, that's the quickest choice ever.
We're done.
Yeah, yeah.
You're done. absolutely.
It may be...
Now, you did say recently an episode of Untitled Star Trek. you
know, Marina's not allowed to sort of let her hair down.
She's a good girl.
She's behaving herself for one week.
That's all out the window.
One of my favourite marina episodes.
Just remember the bit where she comes into the, um, they've put
her in this hideous old age makeup is before she saw the vamp.
She's got loads of latex on her face and a massive knife in her
hand.
She comes to the transporter room and goes, I won't let you take
him from me to Picard.
She tries to stab him.
Oh, it's just gold.
Let's do it.
Yeah, absolutely we're doing it.
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.
Now, podcast artwork is by Kayla Ciceran, and the theme was
composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 22nd of October 2024 and released
on the 25th of October.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek the Next Generation, Man of
the People.
Did you see what I'll tell you about that?
And then, of course, all of the, of course, we watched the last
Jedi this Sunday.
It was incredible and easily.
Oh, you're going to think, oh, mad, but easily my favourite is
since Revenge of the Sith, with the...
I like my favourite altogether.
It might be my favourite Star Wars.
I had like Revenge of the Swift because it's got that mad evil
emperor in it, given the most insane performance. you've ever
seen.
But, um, God, it was so beautiful.
So, I can't believe these effects.
I cannot believe the face all the way through.
The red of the red and the white and the black.
The bleeding planet.
Yep.
I don't care if you say it's salt, it's a bleeding planet.
No, it's beautiful.
It's just stunning. so good.
And but just, I love, I, sorry, I know, I put the, I put the tweet
out, saying, I love this, and then I wrote just to sort of, you
know, stir the pot a bit with the people that hate it, which seems
to be pretty much everyone, was to say, and as for Leia, space
walking, I put hilarious.
I said, because raising a spaceship out of a swamp with magical
powers is so naturalistic.
And then everyone jumped on it like, man.
It's like, it's like suddenly it's just like, I don't know what
the force can do anymore.
What can it do?
Like, it just opened the force up.
And it's just like, do anything?
Astounding.
What can it do?
What are the rules now?
I think it's really great.
And I think too, the thing about 7 and A, the thing that is so
good about those 2 films is that they are properly funny.
The, the, the, the Force Awakens is the funniest Star Wars film.
Like, it's Super Trad.
It needed to be tried, but fuck, it's funny.
That's so funny.
She's in the cockpit, the Millennium Falcon, and stepping all over
was he stepping all over it?
No, he's stepping all over her.
Do you remember that bit where Finn's stepping all over right?
She's going, get off, get off me.
And they're just like normal people.
When he wakes up, he's knocked out.
He wakes up and goes, are you all right?
Like, and there's one moment, like, really, really early on in the
in the last Jedi, where Finn wakes up and, you know, like, he's in
his sort of comedy back to tank suit thing with water spurting out
everywhere, and he looks sort of ridiculous, and Poe comes up to
him and says, you must have a 1000000 questions.
He just says, where's Ray?
And it, like, it's so beautiful.
It breaks my heart because, you know, like just the relationship
he has with her and how much it's not a romantic relationship or
anything, but just how much he loves her and how much he wants to
protect her.
And of course, he doesn't have a 1000000 questions because he's
Finn.
And I think that's beautiful.
And like the essay that I wrote was about the, the, the Monte
Carlo planet, the, oh my god, gorgeous.
It's so good.
Absolutely. like there was a sequence.
Do you remember that?
Um, do you remember that very old camera shot that goes through
the, the lounge?
It's a very old one.
It's like a tracking shot that goes over all the tables.
Do you remember that?
It's really famous.
It was like the 1st one of it's called it. a continuous shot.
Okay, right, right.
And they're doing...
He does that in the thing.
He goes across all the poker table and I found it afterwards.
I was like, yeah he's doing it.
B to B. But with crazy aliens in it.
It's great.
But there was 3 bits right.
And if Mark laughs, then it's a win for him.
And there was 3 bits.
The bit where...
I don't know what they were.
The people that clean up Luke's place.
We're going along with their car and the rock...
And they just go, little Lizard Mans.
That bit made him howl.
And then the bit in the...
There's a massive action sequence in the middle of the casino and
it suddenly cuts on this woman who goes...
He pissed himself then, and then the little creature in with Chewy
when they're in a moment of extreme danger, and it just goes...
The ball.
It's so...
It's so good.
What about when he wants to eat the pork?
Chewy's trying to eat the pork. making it sad.
I'm going, oh, he doesn't want to have that chicken and Mark's
going, no, that's one of them.
I was like, oh.
Also, it looks delicious, aren't it?
It is so good.
But then, and then Rod came at me right, and he, because he hates
that movie.
Um, you know, he's been a fan of Star Wars since the beginning.
I saw the 1st film in the cinema.
And he's going to like a portrayal of the logic.
And I was like, what are you talking about?
is a logic of magic.
Okay.
Oh, no, I think I mean, I thought that was beautiful.
This is astounding.
I love the bit too, where, um, where she says what the force is
and she says, you know, it's a thing that makes you able to leap
and lift rocks and stuff like, she's got like a dumb explanation
for it.
And then there's that beautiful explanation of how it's life, you
know, and it's never been done better with all of those quick
shots of things being born and dying and stuff like that.
It's so good.
And, and, and just...
But then doesn't he say at the end?
And you can pick up rocks.
Well, no, she ends up beating the day by picking up a big fucking
bunch of rocks at the end of the film.
Exactly.
You know what?
My only complaint about it, and I did love.
I loved all the stuff on the planet was it felt like it had hit
its climax, a 3rd in, and then that whole bit on the planet feels
like like the start of another film.
Yeah, and I think it's partly because it, that's how the 1st
trilogy structured. you know what I mean?
Like the 1st trilogy ends at that and then you have a whole other
film.
And so I found it really off-putting the 1st time, but the 2nd
time once I knew that that was how it was paid.
It was gorgeous.
And a twist of him not being a mess.
When they shoot and shoot and shoot.
It's the same thing, you know, the thing that I hate about nine.
The thing that I hate about 9 is that Ray wins because she has
better space for lightning than Palpatine, whereas in Return of
the Jedi, Luke wins because he says, I'm not going to find you.
You know, I don't know if I'm going to watch nine.
I don't want to see that in the pictures.
I think I'm going to end it there.
That's my end of them going, right.
There's only a few ragtag of us left on this ship.
Let's go and find new rebellion. child. as a child with...
That was great as well.
Yeah.
What is wrong with these people?
it's just so gorgeous.
I was like, how could you even object to it?
It's just so beautiful.
It's a 9's an apology tour for it as well.
It's like, I'm sorry we allowed someone talented near your shitty
franchise. you nerds.
And here's something incredibly unimaginative and that makes no
sense and plus Finn and Poe are definitely not gay because we'll
give them each boyfriends and wait them and yell at each other
throughout the entire thing.
And we'll put we'll make that bird-faced lady from last Jedi.
She can be a lesbian for 2 seconds and we'll cut that out for
release in Malaysia.
His favourite is that woman with the goggles, you know, the one
who goes over the table.
What's her name?
No, from Force Awakens.
She's got a...
I just like all the crazy aliens.
I'm just going.
Yeah, I'm glad he liked...
I'm sending my essay because I'm really proud of it and it
says...
I mean, I'm actually the 1st Chuck Shanahan absolutely was raven
about the last Jedi.
So he made me watch it with him.
And I loved it.
But I was like, okay, coming back to it.
I've watched them all in order.
Am I going to see this huge portrayal of the Star Wars universe
you know, betraying the characters.
It's the 1st thing.
It's the 1st thing that actually has something to say about the
Star Wars universe.
You know, there's a big pointless battle with lots of hardware and
shit.
And then it critiques that and it says, actually, maybe you should
be off making people's lives better and saving them from
oppression.
The character work was so on point as well.
The woman with the purple hair.
You know, the woman, the movie.
Yeah, it was like such a King Dern, can I say?
Such a cow.
And then shut that moment with Leia.
And I was like, okay, I get it.
I get it.
I know what he's doing with his character.
Until that point I was like, oh, she's awful.
Like, and then she obviously she sacrificed herself and you
absolutely love her.
Yeah, in a beautiful scene too.
Yeah, it was great.
So good.
These crazy people.
They don't deserve these multi-billion.
Look at these...
Ryan Johnson and they don't deserve Laura Dern, for God's sake.
It's Laura Dern, her majesty Laura Dern.
But I've heard like the reaction was so bad that they accredited
the response to the last Jedi to the failure of solo, like the box
office failure of solo, and nobody went to go and see it.
It's outrageous.
And like Kelly Marie Tran, who was so gorgeous in that film, like
just...
Oh, was that the Asian girl?
Yeah, Fritz or something?
Yeah, oh, like she and she was on Instagram and stuff.
She was adorable, just like absolutely wonderful on Instagram.
I said that to him, and I was like, right, I'm going to watch this
movie now and see what she does are so offensive.
And by the end, I was like, tremendous.
So what was the issue?
She's an Asian woman and she teaches a man a thing because in that
film, all of the men learn a valuable lesson from a woman.
And so, you know, you get a layout schooling Poe after the
Dreadnaught attack.
You get, um, you get rose teaching Finn, what it is that is, it
means to be a rebel.
You know, he's not sold at all and he's sold by her.
She tells him, um, What it means, and you get Luke, who has
retired.
You know, everyone blames Ryan Johnson for making Luke into a
hermit, but JJ Abrams did that.
That was what the 1st film was about, you know, where's Luke?
And she, you know, she brings Luke back into the battle.
She teaches him, you know, just as he teaches her.
To me, while I was watching those scenes of him teaching her
yeah.
Do you know what I was seeing?
I was seeing Yoda teaching Luke in Empire.
I was saying exactly the same thing.
I'm like, you all love Empire Strike Back.
What is the way?
Okay, so we've got a character.
If you watch the prequels, you know, Yoda's massive in in the
fight against the dark side coming in, and then he goes, right
fuck me, I'm out.
I was like, we've lost and I'm just going to go and chew a card
over it.
Yes.
And it goes to the swamp planet.
That's what Jedi do.
They just fuck off.
I'm like, well, you don't mind it with Yoda.
And that's why that scene between Yoda and Luke is so great. when
he just burns all the books.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you really think that's important?
No, that's important.
Like, God's sakes.
Oh, dear.
Well, but you know what?
I'm just not invested in it enough to really care.
As an exercise of watching it to see what was so good and mad
about it.
It was quite interesting.
Yeah.
No, I've never had the passion of it because I just didn't watch
them when I was younger.
So, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I went I saw Star Wars in the cinema, uh, when I was 8 or
whatever, and I had, um, uh, um, Empire Strikes Back bedsheets
when I was a kid, which were great.
They were so good.
But it's like had little figures and the whole thing. hugely into
it.
You know how we sort of look at 90s trek now on this?
That's how I look at those Star Wars films, those original Star
Wars, those three.
Yeah?
And so everyone goes, oh, they're the best thing ever, blah, blah
blah.
Well, when you look at them out, actually, they have dated a bit
and they are quite slow and they're a bit embarrassing and the
dialogue's a bit clunky and I know it means a lot to you because
it's a seminal part of your childhood.
You can't look at this objectively because it was a seminal bar of
your childhood.
That's right And then you get bored in Empire strikes back in the
cinema.
I mean, I love Empire Strikes Back, but it is slow.
It's super slow.
And it does the same weird time dilation thing, the witch one.
A creature in the snow.
But we're not, you know, that, what was that?
Oh, it was...
I've ever seen.
Terrible.
They took out I was watching like deleted scenes.
They took out loads of scenes of that creature. because it just
looks so awful.
Oh, there's a scene with the, you know, the, the, do you mean the
big white ice creature that hits in the face?
They add stuff in there that wasn't in there because there's a
wonderful shot in the in the special edition of it kind of chewing
through something, chewing through a guy.
But it's basically a face and a hand and that's it in the original
film because that's all we could do.
And then they put more of it in a bit later.
You remember that podcast?
I said, I was, sorry, we should start a second.
We should never go.
Um, that podcast I was listening to, and they're going through all
of the souls, movies, and it's somebody who, like you, who's
watched them since they were a kid and somebody who was watching
them for the very 1st time.
And um, when they got to the sequels, the one who, he hated them
so much, and he hated the last Jedi so much, right?
And the fellow with him, it's just such a brilliant recording.
And he's pointing out all the things that he's watched in these
movies over the last couple of weeks that are more ridiculous than
layer space walking.
And he's going, you just don't understand.
He's going, you don't get it. like that.
He goes, no, he goes, I don't.
He goes, that is patently more ridiculous than her flying through
space using the force.
He goes, and you will just find any excuse because you just don't
like this.
You know, like the creative choices that they've made.
But it's so great.
It's really, I love listening to those.
People don't want it to do new things.
They don't want to see things that they've never seen before.
And that's the one where it's got its identity, isn't it?
Like Force Awakens very much feels like a love letter to those 1st
three.
Yep.
This is where you exciting people, I think.
But this is where we're embracing our new people and our new
Zealand and our new order and it's our thing now and we're going
to really lean into it and be fabulous.
Yeah, yeah.
I love it.
Just love it.
Anyway, come on.
Let's watch something. don't you reckon?
For the whole conversation.
Oh maybe.
Yeah, go on, but yeah.
Will upset everybody.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You listen to me everyone.
The last Jedi, the best Star Wars movie of all time.
All right?
It's pretty good.
It's a bleeding planet.
All right.