Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, we're back in the 1960s, and it's an episode of Star Trek, the
original series from the 3rd season.
It's season three, episode 20, The Way to Eden.
What gave away the fact that we were in the 60s watching the way
Sweden?
I thought I would mention that that straight up.
This is one that is very widely disliked.
I think jammer gives it no stars.
Everyone kind of really hates it.
I have to say that I don't think it's the worst episode of series
3 that we've done.
It might be the 3rd worst because I do think whom gods destroy and
Spock's brain are both worse than this.
But there is something really unpleasant about it, which I will
get into, I think, as we go along.
You didn't have fun.
No, and it was one of the 1st times ever, I considered not rewatch
because we was going to do this last week, and then I thought, well
I should rewatch it for this, and I had to actively force myself
to sit in front of the TV this morning and press play again.
I think the 2nd time around, I liked it even less because I knew
what was coming this time, you know?
So there was no surprises whatsoever.
It's just even by TOS standards, this is slow.
Like really slow, devoid of incident for the most part, lots of
tedious conversations, horrible songs. like we did.
His way recently, which was packed full of the most gorgeous
songs.
I mean, this is the 60s.
They knew how to sing back then.
What is happening, Nathan?
Well, I'm going to talk about the songs and why I don't think
they're quite as bad as you think they are.
But they are still quite bad, obviously.
This is an episode that I feel like we've done already, and one of
the reasons that I can't hate this is because it has a functional
plot where things happen, and it's an episode that's about
something in a way that neither Spock's brain, nor whom Gods
destroy manage.
Not about something very nice though, is it?
It's about anything very pleasant.
No, no, I think it's quite nasty in all sorts of ways, but it is
doing something.
And what I think it's like is an episode of enterprise from series
3 chosen realm.
Oh, you're going to have to remind me of what that was.
So in that, enterprise is taken over by a group of people who
demand to be taken to a particular planet, which has religious
significance for them.
I think it might be the planet they were from or the planet that
they were promised by the Sphere Builders or something like that.
We examine their motivations and stuff.
There's some sort of, you know, there's some conflict among them
but we examine their motivations and stuff and then we take them
to the planet and it ends up being a disaster that tells us
something about their desire to reach the planet in the 1st
place.
And it seems to me that the writers of chosen realm could well
have been literally inspired by this episode because it is so very
similar.
But I do seem to recall that we found the antagonist in Chosen
Realm because of the performance really quite interesting, quite
engaging.
And the 1st half of the episode, it was doing that sort of equinox
thing of these people are pretending for a while to be, you know
oh, hi.
Yeah, but it's a bit more blatant.
I saw a new, very early on what was happening in this episode and
it takes the Enterprise queue.
A little while to figure out what's occurring.
Whereas in Chosen Realm.
That's only about 10 minutes in when he finally, you know, decides
to blow up the Enterprise or whatever he does to make his move.
I do think that was a better episode.
And certainly in terms of visual interest, it was a better
episode.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's a better episode in all sorts of ways.
But there was something facile.
I thought about the way that it dealt with their motivation.
You know, they're just religious maniacs and that's how religious
maniacs might be expected to behave.
And coming so soon after 9-11.
I guess it wasn't the time for Americans to be introspective about
their position in the world or the history of their interventions
in the Middle East or whatever.
But this, as well, I think, presents a caricature of a group of
people and doesn't properly examine their motivations.
And in fact, is astoundingly nasty.
So I think it's a functional bit of drama.
I think it actually does some things, there's reversals.
It has those beats that chosen realm has.
But dismissive of the concerns of young people, and it caricatures
them.
And a lot of what we don't like about it is how dopey the young
people are.
And that's because this episode goes out of its way to make them
seem dopey, you know.
One example I can think of is the slang, you know, the way that
they talk.
I think the slang is quite well done, because we understand what
they mean, and it does sound kind of like the slang that kids used
in the 60s and early 70s without being that.
And it reminded me more than anything of, you know, those jokes
that they would have on the, Brady Bunch about how Mike and Carol
couldn't understand what the kids were saying these days.
So it seems to me to be really reactionary and dismissive in a way
that I think is extremely nasty and unpleasant.
And that's, I think, at the root of the problem with the episode.
It's also very boring as well.
Just very dull.
There's very little entertainment value here.
There's a fine line though, isn't it, between being very well done
sort of slang and utter cringe.
And I feel as if this... slingshots between the 2 on a regular
basis.
Also, what the hell do these writers in the 60s have against the
hippies?
There's a Doctor Who story called The Dominators, which does
exactly the same thing as this.
It's like the reactionary young people of the time are so stupid
that they all deserve to be dead, you know, which is the
conclusion that this, you know, at the end of the story, they're
so stupid.
They go down to this planet and start eating poison fruit without
even thinking about the fact that it might be lethal.
Yeah.
So what's everyone got against the hippies?
And remember what they had to protest about?
So this is taking place in 1969, you know, Nixon is president, but
America has been in Vietnam for much longer than that, and
dropping like 1000000s of tons of explosives on Laos, and, you
know, like being incredibly dreadful.
Like the, and the young people who protested with their protest
songs and their sit ins and all of the things that these kids do
on board the Enterprise, those kids were right.
You know, they had Vietnam.
They had the civil rights movement.
Those kids were on the right side of history, and so to have an
episode of Star Trek saying, aren't kids stupid with all their
protest songs and all of their sit ins, and aren't they arrogant
and privileged and kind of disgusting?
Nurse Chappell refers to them as animals at some point.
Like, it's so brutal, and then it decides to kill them or to kill
2 of them at the end.
It's it's shockingly bad.
They basically go, don't they?
Oh, well, never mind.
Let's go. yeah Yeah.
And, and, and, you know, there's Dr. Severn, who is clearly just
sort of Timothy Leary, who, you know, is a psychologist at Harvard
who, who, um, advocates using hallucinogenic drugs, who's
described by Nixon as the most dangerous man in America.
And this, there's an, I don't want to go into it in too much
detail because we've got to talk about it and it is very slow.
We've got, you know, 50 minutes to feel.
But, you know, he's just insane and that's the description he's
just dismissed.
Doctor Severin is insane.
And so he's got nothing valid to tell anyone.
And there's just all of these sort of indications that these kids
are a threat to galactic peace.
You know, the fact that we're heading into the neutral zone, kind
of makes them by association communists.
You know, we had balance of terror where the Romulans are
positioned.
Does the USSR?
We're heading off to see the Romulans. kind of people, these
hippies, aren't they?
It's really bad.
Like, I think that that's really bad.
And I think I think otherwise, in a way, it's a functional piece
of drama in the way that chosen realm is, but there's a real
incredible kind of depth of nastiness to it, which I think makes
it sort of unforgivably bad.
But I also want to give the world sort of slowest hand clap, I
could possibly give, because, you know, if they want to make these
kids, you know, hideously unlikeable and pricks, and utterly
arrogant and loathsome to watch. congratulations because they're
all just terrible.
I just hated all of these guest characters this week.
And so, you know, to say, well, yes, well, they were supposed to
be annoying.
Well, thank you very much.
You've made me hang out with annoying people for 40 minutes.
That's not an enjoyable television experience, even if you have a
point to make.
Well, and but it's a bad point.
And the episode was so determined to make me hate them that I
refused to do that.
And so there were moments where I thought I was determined to find
them quite sweet and I managed it in places.
I wish I was you, honestly.
I mean, they could have eaten those poison apples in the 2nd scene
and I would have been happy.
Well, look, you know, you've got Eden behind you there.
Fabulous mountainous vista.
Should we head there now?
I think we should.
We didn't even get into the religious stuff, did we?
We'll get there.
We'll get there All right.
I'll count us in. 5, 4, 2, one, and we're off.
Now, this ship, we're watching the new version with the new
special effects, and so that's not the ship from the original
story.
Originally, what they did was they took a Tholian ship, you know
one of those triangle ones and put a couple of Nasselles on it and
said, all right, that's the ship that's been stolen.
So they're just...
Are they running out of money at this point?
I think they just could be.
Just had a few pipe cleaners sort of models we've already got.
We'll be all right.
Yeah exactly.
I mean, to be fair, do you look like that, though, because that
was a really terrible bit of CGI.
Yeah, no, it didn't look like that.
Like I said, it looked like a wedge shaped folian ship.
I actually quite like it.
I think it's sort of fairly sympathetic to the design. you know
aesthetic that they have.
It looks very 60s and a bit crummy, which I think is actually
pretty good.
Oh boy, wait till we get to talking about Chekhov in this episode
as well.
I really mischaracterize him in this, don't they?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, so, I mean, again, this is pretty great, and I don't know if
this is the 1st time it happens where we see the explosion, but we
don't know if the people have been beamed off.
And that's the correct Star Trek order in which to do these.
The only one be the last time. right.
A shuttle explodes.
Then we discover that they've been beamed off successfully.
It never happens the other way.
The amount of actors we've seen with a panic look on their face
you get them?
Did you get them?
That's basically all of 90s track, isn't it?
That's it.
I mean, even now, can I just very quickly say, because people may
not have listened to our last episode, but I do have borrowed
hatred for the way to Eden, because back in the day, when I was a
huge TNG fan and lover of Wesley Crusher, you know, age 13, I did
ask for a VHS for Christmas, and I unwrapped it because the
present was clearly a VHS.
It was the right shape.
You give it a little shape, you could hear the plastic rattling
inside.
My god, it must be lonelier among us and justice or something
amazing like that.
And I tore open the paper and fuck me, it was TOS, the way to Eden
and whatever was on that, and I burst into tears.
Well, I did force myself to watch it, right?
And I never, ever watched it again.
I was like, what is this fucking shit?
And so now when the hippies beam in.
I just automatically 13 again going, where's Wesley Crusher?
So immediately, immediately Scotty says, oh, and there are nice
lot too.
And everyone's response to them is so disgracefully over the top.
You know, it's like it's, they're so, um, they're so conservative
and so backward.
It's so awful.
You know, like, like they're out here meeting alien cultures and
stuff and forging relationships with people utterly unlike them.
But, you know, give someone a midrift top and a sort of fancy
fan.
Even the aesthetics, even the, they've given ridiculous clothes.
Someone's got a stupid purple wig on their head.
One of them's got an enormous prosthetic ear for some reason.
Like they all just look stupid.
Yeah, they go really stupid.
Again, though, like Irina doesn't look stupid and there's girl one
and girl two.
Please don't tell me that's a name in the cast list.
Is it really their name?
Girl, what a girl too.
Right.
From heads forth, they can only be referred to as that when
they're on screen, okay?
Is their official names?
It's their official name.
It's it's pretty bad.
And of course, you know, the hippie movement was just as sexist as
everyone else.
So I guess that's sort of fair enough.
Why are they sort of holding their hands in that sort of
triangular fashion?
So that's the one, you know, they and and this is the one thing
right?
This is the one thing.
So they're doing a city.
Look, they're doing a sit in. and this is the poor behaviour.
They're sitting, they're refusing to be moved.
And that's what university students would do.
People would occupy offices.
It was a form of protest.
Are they reject are they rejecting being saved then?
What are they complaining about?
Yeah, yeah, but they're not, I don't know.
I don't know. like they're not going to cooperate.
They've just got to be immediately seem to being rebellious.
Well, they were being chased.
You know, they stole a thing.
They've been caught.
It's like being caught by the cops and so they're not going to
cooperate.
Oh actually, no, you're right.
Irina does look quite sexy, doesn't she?
Yeah, I think that's actually quite a good outfit.
And what's going on with the fellow with the purple eyebrows
though?
So he's a Catullan, and he just looks like a gay Klingon to me.
Do you know what I mean?
Did you notice?
He's sort of got a petticoat on as well under his costume. yeah
conforming.
So again, disgusting for that reason.
And they've got sort of flowery tattoos on their arms as well.
It's very clear what's going on here, isn't it, visually?
Yeah, yeah.
And so and so the hippies are not sort of proper grown-ups and the
grown-ups are doing politics and stuff and they're imperilling
that. and they're threatening the peace between the Romulans and
the Federation as well. that comes later.
Obviously.
Chehov's quite young, isn't he?
He's the youngest guy, certainly of the bridge crew.
So surely this would be much more interesting if he was
sympathetic with the hippies rather than he's the complete reverse
isn't he, actually, which is very strange.
In fact, there's a moment where Sulu is a bit sympathetic to them
which is a thing.
But the one thing, the one redeeming feature this episode has is
Spock, because Spock actually, and Spock is right generally.
Do you know what I mean?
If there's an argument between him and anyone else, Spock is in
the right, generally speaking, and Spock is open-minded and
thoughtful, and he is the one who is sympathetic to them.
And there's a moment which I think is actually really very sweet
at the end where he says, I want you to continue looking for
Eden.
He says it to Irina.
I want you to continue looking for Eden, and I have no doubt that
you will be able to make your own if you can't find it.
And I thought that was really properly positive in an episode
that's generally nasty to these people.
It should have said some, take this tricorder and just scan the
fruit, though.
All right, when you get there.
I like that.
And there was a bit later on when they're singing one of their
interminable songs where Spot grabs his Vulcan instrument, you
know, and sort of goes in there and joins them.
I think he's thinking, look, I can only make this better.
I can't make it worse, you know?
But yeah, you're right.
He is very welcoming and he's trying to understand them.
Yeah, because he's an outsider as well and he even makes that
point, doesn't he?
He says something later about how these people regard themselves
as sort of aliens, you know, that they don't belong somewhere and
he feels the same thing.
And I think that that's the one redeeming feature.
I think, you know, the episode lands on the fact that these people
will murder you if they get the chance and they're terrible people
but Spock's sympathy for them does weigh in on the other column, I
think.
Do you know, I've been wanting to say this to you for a long time
Nathan.
And now, given we're in this episode with this slang, I finally
have the opportunity to do it.
Oh, no, you are stiff.
I thought it was very now.
Oh, you're very now. especially when you're stiff.
Hang on.
Move us on.
All that dialogue's dreadful.
Sorry.
I actually think I actually think it's good.
Because in the way that in what they're trying to do.
Yes.
I get it.
And they're trying to give them an identity with language.
I absolutely get it.
But it's just so embarrassing.
But that's the, but that is kind of the point.
Like, that's the episode succeeding on its own terms.
It wants the children to look to be, you know, children talk
weird.
And remember these are university students.
Do you know what I mean?
These are smart people who all have degrees.
Arena was at Starfleet Academy.
The term dropped out, Chekhov just described Arena as having
dropped out of Starfleet Academy.
Like that's a very loaded term, you know, um, So, you know, these
are sort of middle class kids from university and stuff.
I dont know where I was going with that.
I don't think Kerk makes sense in this episode either.
Because even though he has absolutely been, you know, revealed
over 3 seasons to be a Starfleet man through and through.
He's sort of relaxed.
He's quite a loose bloke.
And we've said it many times in episodes like, yeah, do you know
what?
He gets on board with people that come on.
So the fact that he is so baffled by them in this.
I was like, have they just forgotten how to ride these
characters?
They come across as really nasty because they're being put in the
position of of hating the young people of the 1960s, you know, and
so they just seem stupid.
There's one moment where I think Kirk is slightly redeemed where
he says to Scotty, I don't know when I was a kid, when I was their
age, I got in a fair amount of trouble, didn't you?
And so there is a moment where he has some sympathy for them as
kids, which I thought was pretty good, but this stuff where we're
sort of disgusted by them.
No, go on.
Well, I think I put my finger on it then.
I think my issue with this character, I don't like anyone in this
episode.
They're all stuck up and horrible to their guests and the others
are irritatingly reactionary.
So I'm just not enjoying being around anyone.
No, no, no, that's right.
No, you are, yeah, you're right.
Like, it is succeeding on its own terms, but that doesn't stop it
being an annoying bit of telly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I have to say that I watched it 3 times.
By the 3rd time.
I think I was probably a bit taken in by it because we have had
Star Trek episodes, original series episodes where like nothing
happens.
And all I could think of was how superior this was to whom gods
destroy, which is not a huge achievement.
Um, but, and it's kind of less stupid than...
If the couple on the hippies were put on rocks and forced to
explode, it might have helped.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, there is a lot of sort of claptrap in Star Trek. and
sometimes Star Trek, you know, sometimes original Star Trek is
brilliant.
Sometimes it just fails even to be sort of a competent TV.
I don't think this fails to be competent TV.
I think it is slow, but I don't dislike the music.
Some of the music numbers I'm actually happy, maps not this one.
Um, but, um, uh, you know, things happen in it.
I think it's it's being a Star Trek episode in a sort of
successful way, I think.
I just, I can't remember any of the songs of this.
I don't want to remember any of the songs on this because whilst I
were like playing out, I wasn't having a good time, you know, I
kept looking at this fella, Adam, and I was going, I recognise you
from somewhere.
Where have I seen you before?
and bugger me if he isn't the cigar chomping general from little
green men.
A completely different performers.
And interestingly, there's a great quote on memory alpha where
apparently for the 30th anniversary.
They were determined to get that actor back because he was in the
way to Eden.
It's like, I have one more remember him.
I mean, you're not going to forget him.
Oh, you look him.
And he said, I'll do it, but please put me in less ridiculous
clothes this time.
There is something where he, he sort of, they comment on the fact
that Chekhov is wearing a lot of clothes.
I actually, I actually quite like...
Lucky, sexy sort of thigh height boots as well he's got on.
I mean, I don't mind seeing a flash of chess. quite nice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think there's something kind of sweet about Adam.
He looks too old.
Like if he'd been a little bit more, you know, kind of
convincingly young.
I don't know how old the actor is at this point.
No, struggle.
She just walks in and soighed straight away.
Well, she actually says, I thought the animals were all meant to
be in cages, which one.
No, animals are not meant to be in cages.
Why are you saying that?
Like, 16, remember, to say?
The less progressive times.
Yeah, and and why are these people animals?
Why are you referring to people like that?
Because they're not conforming.
That's why.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
I reckon the new Nurse Chappel would never say that.
They shouldn't be.
They shouldn't be happy and sing songs.
They should be miserable as the rest of the enterprise crew.
Yeah, but that's the other thing.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, in a way, so this, how could you do this?
She hasn't had a tattoo.
She doesn't have any facial piercings.
She's got a lovely 60s hairstyle and her midriff is showing.
Like, what is going on?
Why is he reacting like that?
This?
He just seems like a prick.
Oh, she's doing is sitting on the floor and singing dreadful
songs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I just, like, I just think that's awful.
Everyone reacts so badly.
And in fact, the last scene between these two, I think, is
wonderful and she's quite charming in that final scene where they
say goodbye to one another.
She's hampered by the accent.
And then, of course, there's that terrible scene later on where
she's clearly just kind of getting information out of him and he
doesn't realise it because he's stupid this week.
Look at this.
This fucking tall guy comes in and just looks at her.
Like, it's like, what?
Well, she has got her midriff showing.
Come on, now.
We know how loose they are, sexually speaking, on the enterprise.
She's hampered by her dialogue as well, though.
She just said, we should meet together again.
Enjoy.
Like, please, who talks like that?
Well, hippies, she just looked, she looked off camera in a dreamy
way and she goes, I remember the times we had together.
Oh, please.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
In fact, there's one thing which I think is actually kind of
sweet.
Here.
Like, I dislike the Chekhov thing.
But I get the idea that he, and it's not very well drawn. you know
what I mean?
But this stuff where he says you don't love the way that I do.
I really felt something and you didn't.
You are always somewhere else in our relationship.
And I like that stuff.
He's a little bit hurt, you know.
I think that's kind of sweet and that's young people.
They're weird and annoying, you know, like in a kind of cute way.
Why did you leave me, arena?
Because you disapproved of me, all right?
I'm not sticking around.
But I think that's lovely.
Like, I think there's something about that.
You know, like you disapproved of me.
And she's right about all of these things.
If this is how Chekhov is, and it isn't how it is.
This is completely wrong.
Chekhov was brought into be that sort of little rebel on the
enterprise, you know, and say the awkward things and get them into
bar fights into trouble and triples and all of that stuff.
It's so weird.
It's so weird seeing him.
This stuck up.
Although if you squint, you know, you could see Paul McCartney in
Star Trek for a second.
Yeah, that, yeah.
He's wearing a lot of eyeliner as well.
So I don't know why. fracas occur in here.
Yeah, an end of, we're just leading into the commercial break with
this fracas here.
No, there's chapels there pushing them back.
Get the animals in a cage quick.
What is that ear?
Will you please tell me what that is?
I'm also kept in cages.
Why are you saying that, Christine?
For fuck's sake.
So, again, so this is kind of interesting and it leads to an
interesting thing, which is something that, you know, because it's
still early days.
I know it's near the end of the run of the original series, but
it's early days for Star Trek as a whole.
And the idea that there's something toxic about the environment
that they've created for themselves and that there are people who
rebel against it because they can't live in this sort of managed
environment.
And here you have McCoy saying that, and you also have Spock
saying it.
You know, Spock says that we've created this entire artificial
world for ourselves.
Atmosphere is controlled, all of that sort of stuff.
We get that from Spock.
Here we get it from McCoy, where where he says that this guy has
been infected by a pathogen as a result of the artificial
situation that he lives in.
You know, like that's kind of weird and interesting, but the
episode doesn't go anywhere with it.
You know, they're not justified.
You know, we never sort of say, well, actually, it's fair enough.
You know, maybe if this is the case, maybe they have a point, you
know, but no one ever says that.
So not only are they reactionary and irritating, they're also
diseased as well.
Well, yeah, there's that too.
And that's the other thing too.
And particularly him.
And that's, that's...
Free love.
Yeah, he's not a child.
Do you know what I mean?
Severin isn't a kid.
He's a, he's a, you know, an academic, he's an expert in acoustics
which I just think is hilarious because he's got those massive
ears.
It's a little bit later on where Spock is affected by the sound.
Oh, he's got the ear.
But later on, Spock reacts more badly to the ultrasonics or the
infrasonics or whatever it is that causes them pain because he has
big ears as well.
So he must be...
These the bit you were talking about.
This must have entirely slipped me by.
She goes, come on. you know you've won it. and he goes, oh, it is
tempting.
And then Carlo steps in and goes, no, you'd be a good Starfleet
officer.
Apologise or something.
Yeah, he sort of stiffens up, doesn't he?
Get that bug up your butt.
Yeah, yeah.
So that was gold too.
God, these fucking kids sitting around the place.
Oh, here comes another song.
Marvellous.
Yeah, but again, it's a protest song, isn't it?
Like, it's a protest song.
It goes for like 3 lines.
It goes to the 3 lines. his hand gone or wag his tail.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, it's a proper protest song. works really well.
It ain't a good reasonable.
No, but it's 3 lines long.
And we're presuming that he's just extemporising it.
If only they were all free lines long, though, you know?
I think I could improvise a song about you right now that we've
better than any of these.
So here there, um, Scotty says that they're trying to incite his
team, his crew to disaffect.
And Spock tells Severin that incitement to disaffection is
criminal.
And I'm kind of going, like, what the hell is happening here?
We have court crime now in the Federation.
Did you see the captain's log day, you know?
The arrogance of Dr. Severance.
It's creating an insufferable situation.
Bless you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, poor Captain Kirk, you know, what a day.
They're sitting around on the floor and everything.
And I may have to break Starfleet's rules and mistreat them is
what he's saying in that captain's log.
It's really bad.
No way, is he going to mistreat them?
Well, he says I'm not going to treat them with a sort of tolerance
that I'm required to treat them with.
You know, it's just like, why is he saying that?
They're kids with, you know, playing annoying music and sitting
around and calling him her, but like just man up.
The rise of this episode is happening. really hates the hippies
doesn't he?
Yeah, it hates the kids.
That's what it hates.
Well, it was originally a DC Fontana script, this.
She was going to take it on and it was called Jo Ad.
It was about something completely different about Dr. McCoy and
one of his ex-loves, you know, one of his many... his daughter.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And in the end, it was so rewritten.
She said, take my name off this and I'm...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I don't think there's much of her left in this.
No.
But, you know, it's possible the reason it functions is because
she had some, so I don't know.
Who knows how much is left?
I will say this man, Dr. Sefford.
He is given a bit of welly, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it's a reasonable performance and like he's not a hippie
you know, like he...
And this thing that he says is what Spock was saying earlier.
You know, the stuff you live in the stuff you breathe, all of this
sort of stuff.
This is poison to me.
It's infected me.
He's right.
Like he's making a sound point.
And all of the things that he's saying are reasonable, and then
Spot goes straight back to the bridge and says he's insane.
So even Spock, even Spock is guilty.
No, because he looks up his records and apparently he's insane.
And remember whom God's destroyed didn't have any real sense of
what mental illness was.
It was just mad, mad, mad, and so he's not insane in any
particular way.
There's no word for it.
He's insane.
And so he's going to lead them to do the wrong thing.
So the political point that he seems to be making now, which is a
reasonable position to take, even though, you know, like Spock is
making some inroads here.
You know, and Spock is saying sensible things, but this is a
proper conversation about 2 different viewpoints, but no, he's mad
and therefore, he's a bad guy.
Well, trouble is at the end, he kind of proves that, doesn't he?
When he just runs out the shuttle, realises that the fruit's
killing people and goes right, well, I'm going to sacrifice myself
because here I am on Eden.
No, it doesn't even seem to be that.
He just seems to be acting that way because they need him dead at
the end of the episode, I think.
Yeah, do you know, it is hard to take him seriously, though, with
that grotesque ear.
I'm sorry. is so bad.
Is he supposed to be biology?
Or is that like an artificial where he's put on?
Yeah, he's put latex on.
That's what he's, yeah, his culture.
They wear big latex ears.
They like the Ferengi.
Doctor Severin is insane.
Yeah.
Yeah, Dr. Seven's insane.
It's just like, where did that fucking come from?
Like, why have we got that twist now?
And he goes, I'll have bones check him out.
What, for insanity?
He'll be lying on his back pushing, pushing those boxes from his
legs.
Only an insane man would do it that way.
Actually, that looks quite relaxing, you know, when they get
people to do that.
I'm not going to be good for the back.
But here, look, there's no insanity in what they seek.
He doesn't, you know, he doesn't think the kids are bad.
And I think that that's the, like I said, the redeeming feature of
the episode is that Spock is on the kid's side.
But, okay, what's this, the whole muddy thing about Eden?
What is this all about?
Because at the end, like the depiction of Eden.
I can see it behind you, this sort of lush idyllic land, but it's
utterly toxic to people.
Yeah, yeah.
So what point are they trying to make?
Yeah, well, I mean, it's the same as the point in promised, in
promised land.
Do you know what I mean?
Promised land.
There is no such place as Eden.
Yeah, I think so.
Like, so Eden, it seems to be from the way that that Chekhov is
describing it.
Oh, see, I actually quite like this scene, I have to say.
So we're in Smock's quarters.
Adam comes in, asks, am I crossing you?
Spock doesn't go, what do you mean by that?
Do you mean, are you annoying me?
He just talks to him.
And then Adam shows genuine interest in the instrument and is kind
of excited by it and gives it a go, and then he asks Spock to play
it and Spock plays it, and like they really kind of, like they
connect in a way that I think is actually kind of sweet.
And like I said, because the episode is so determined to make me
hate the kids.
I just don't want to do that And, you know, like, I, like, I liked
this, and then the next thing that we hear is that that's him
stringing Spock along, that none of this childlike stuff about
music and and love and acceptance and stuff is to be taken at face
value.
Uh, these people are, are evil, um, and all of that stuff is a
deception.
See, isn't this nice?
I think this is quite nice.
I don't find his performance likeable in the way you do, though.
And the dialogue.
Wow, that's now.
That's really now.
Oh, shut up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Although you are right.
So, yeah.
So we've had a moment that appeared to be 2 people connecting with
Spock and Sevrin, which was then totally shattered in the next
season.
This happens again.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's not like you can really buy into the relationship set, is
it?
If nobody's really. the same, like, I think there's actually quite
a nice bit, like, the bit of music that I quite like is where
Spock and Girl one.
Um, uh, playing it, he's playing his, whatever it is, he's either
and she's playing a bicycle wheel of some kind of thing.
Um, and, like, I think that's actually quite nice.
And it's, like, them making a connection. girl one.
She's particularly adept with a bicycle wheel.
I like girl one, actually.
She might be my favourite dippy.
You only get that one on Star Trek popcorn.
Girl one is my favourite hippie.
Oh, check off, will you chill out already?
And again, the same thing is happening here, but you see it
happening here because it's so ineptly done, where the 2 of them
like, she comes and apologises for calling him stiff and making
fun of him, and then she shows some genuine interest in what he's
doing, and, you know, they're connecting because he's actually
really finding Eden.
She doesn't believe him when he says it, that's about to happen.
But then it becomes very clear that she's just pressing him for
information and he sort of goes, yes, and here at this at this
desk.
I have the access to access to the sum of human knowledge, and I
could just fly the ship, even if I had no skills at all and stuff
and she's going, hmm, okay, and storing all that away.
It's just not who he is though.
I just was watching this going, who's right in this?
They just haven't got the spec on Chekhov at all.
What's the, what's the better outcome with this episode then?
Say we did this episode, but we came to different conclusions
about the hippies.
Is it that members of the Enterprise crew start to see there is
something in this and there's sort of like a shared learning
throughout the episode and we leave?
That way?
But I mean, yeah, that's a boring episode though, isn't it?
Like, um, it is a boring episode.
It's a drama.
Yeah, it is a boring episode.
But, like, I can't imagine the crew of the Enterprise D reacting
like that.
No, maybe in series one.
If they were taken over by a sex virus, possibly, you know, they'd
all be very relaxed by the end of that.
Maybe, but, you know.
What was the episode where Dr. McCoy?
Remember when he flooded the whole of the Enterprise with a load
of drugs to sort of chill everybody out?
I mean, they could have done with that in this, couldn't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Any episode could be improved by that.
No, even worse, the hippies have flooded the ships with drugs.
They poisoned us to their waves.
You know, I'm quite surprised, you know, she doesn't get the sort
of romantic filter that most women get on original strength.
Because she's in the shot with Chekhov, I think, is the problem.
It's so masculine.
You can't use the mist on him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, that's a horrible kiss, isn't it?
Yeah.
We can't even see their lips.
We just seen the back of his head.
Do you know, I'm actually surprised that we that we see Irina's
belly button.
See, we see it all the time.
There was something about that, wasn't there?
you told me that you weren't supposed to know.
You weren't supposed to show the belly button.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And certainly, you know, like Barbara Eden's belly button is never
visible even though she's wearing a skimpy outfit in I Dream of
Jeanie.
So, yeah, yeah.
So here we are.
We're all meeting up in the quarters and we're all talking about
how we're deceiving the crew, because we are not genuinely like
kids who are enthused by, you know, something and who love music
and stuff, we are here to take over the ship and we will kill
everyone.
Do you know what I mean?
Like we can't be trusted.
So it's being said here.
It just feels to me that this dialogue has been written by
somebody, you know, that serious brain damage.
When will it be soonest?
How can we make them swing?
I know the swingest things they...
Look at this, though.
So we get them all talking, just go out and be friendly and we'll
win the crew over, and then you cut to Severin in his cell smiling
because he's satisfied with how devious they're all being, and now
they're playing music.
So this is the session that's in the rec room.
And everybody on the Enterprise is German.
Enterprise is super into it.
The hot guy who is guarding Severn.
Did you see Hot Guy Guarding?
Was he dancing?
Was it Dad Dancing?
Yeah, you wait.
We'll come back to him because little gay Klingon, little What's
his face?
Tongo will come in and give him a sort of Catullan neck pinch.
Look at that guy in the purple wig with his little drum between
his legs.
It's a whole thing.
Oh my god.
I met a man called Nathan.
He was so fucking hot.
I fell in love immediately.
Like, come on now, that's better than this song.
Uh, yeah, maybe.
Excuse me, it was very complimentary about you.
It was.
I like that part of it.
But I think she's got a beautiful voice.
I think the ADR is really terrible, like they're dubbed, so it
never looks like he's actually seeing, which is kind of terrible.
And they're sort of dorky and awkward and stuff and particularly
by our standards now.
But she's got a nice voice.
Like when she comes in and starts seeing there's a mild, mild wide
emptiness between you and me and she's singing about connection
and all of those things that we love about Star Trek, but it's all
a ploy because they're seriously, deeply evil.
And now here's Spock coming to lend some sort of moral weight to
the thing, you know.
Oh, another devious close-up on Severn.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
We've got you all dancing now.
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
We already did that and we did that shot already.
It's so shit.
Not the most suspenseful threat we've ever had in Star Trek, is
it?
No, no.
Yeah.
But like, you know, like this is, you know, folk music and stuff.
It's kind of embarrassing.
I know, but you know, I was brought up on 60s music, yeah.
I absolutely was brought up.
And it's fantastic.
This is shocking me bad compared to the music I would brought up
on.
Look at the fat guy on the bridge who's getting who's enjoying
it.
They should have just, you know, spent a bit of money and got a
Helen Shapiro song in or something, you know?
They never...
Happiness.
Whoop.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Something like that.
Do you know what?
When you can't even hear the music and you can just see them doing
their sort of free love dancing.
Oh boy, it's even worse.
Oh, I see.
She is.
She's playing a bicycle.
She's genuinely stringing spoke right there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I think this is kind of cute, and it sounds really good, and
like the 2 of them are, you know, into a...
Come on, watch out.
The man with the purple wigs coming up.
He's really hard, isn't he?
Like, he's super hot.
Unusually for original Star Trek.
Super hot, but not particularly observant.
No, but that's it.
These kids, you know, they pretend to be normal people.
Well, that man on the bridge was just having a little jig, right
to the dreadful song, and Scotty gave him a reproaching look, and
he stiffened up immediately and went back to his console.
No, everyone's into it.
Sulu's into it as well.
You know, like everyone's sort of enjoying it.
Ahura's not in this episode.
Maybe she was disgusted.
Maybe Michelle said, fuck this.
She read the script.
Came down with a bowel of laryngitis.
We had Lieutenant Palmer, who is also in the doomsday machine last
season.
So in the same role, I think.
Oh my god, did you notice that?
That bicycle, well, she can spin it as she's going.
Multifunction.
That's how works.
Do you know what, right?
Given that he's the one that has to creep around the ship, having
that purple wig, you know, it's not exactly how easy to hide, is
it?
Well, he's an alien, I think.
Severan and Tongo are aliens, and then the others are...
He naturally looks like you're saying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a less league.
Like I said, he's sort of gay Klingon.
Okay, so now they're taking over the ship.
Um, and he, like, we're heading into Romulan space.
And like I said, the Romulans are set up in a way that the
Klingons are sometimes, but it's more a Romulan thing, I think
after balance of terror.
That's where the, you know, the Cold War is.
And they're taking us into Romulan space and they're going to
inside an incident.
And I just think the fact that these kids get hold of this
starship and head it straight for the USSR.
Well, they trying to do that, though.
I thought they were all peace and free love. are they doing this?
Because all of the peace and free love and acceptance is all a
ruse, all of the money or all of the music, all of the protest, all
of that stuff is hiding, the fact that they are going to kill us
and create a galactic incident.
That's what I think is so horrible about this, that these kids, and
you know, by extension, the 60s kind of counterculture and stuff
that they are a threat to the stability of the planet, that they
are dangerous and they are liars.
And I think it's always...
Hang on a minute.
So these people, they're just like terrible terrorists, yeah, that
want to create destruction and awful things.
And in order to do that, to subdue people into thinking they're
noise, they go around pretending to be free loving hippies.
Yes.
But that just annoys everybody.
It's not exactly a great ruse, but it didn't, yeah, it did annoy
everybody, but the music thing worked, like the the concert
worked.
Only because they are also fucking stupid.
But do you know what I mean?
Like, and there were those moments of connection?
Like between girl one and Spock and between Spock and Adam?
You know, in between Spock and Severan, you know, but all of that
stuff is a lie.
Imagine the marriage.
Do you, Spock, take girl one girl?
I'm only assuming she's girl one.
I didn't actually look them up, but she gets more to do than girl
2 who just gets a couple of lines of dialogue with Sulu.
What's their motive for causing these incidents?
Well, because they want to go to Eden, like they want the ship to
take them to Eden.
And so that's why they stole their.
Unless you take us to paradise, we'll create a diplomatic
incident.
That would be quite basic.
But in fact, they decide that they will kill everyone on board the
ship in order to get to Eden.
The virus has been mentioned again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't it?
It's very confusing.
Well, yeah, again, like the virus doesn't kind of work and doesn't
fit into the episode in a way.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, and in a way, it supports uh, Severance points about Eden, I
don't know.
Probably spare our Spork trying to reach out with hippie speak.
Adam, I know how to reach you.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
God of mine.
I like this.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I like that Spock cares about them.
And doesn't, you know, like he doesn't dismiss them the way that
everyone else does.
You're a very forgiving man, though, from Boston. you know that?
Well, like I said, I think this is a horrible episode in all sorts
of ways, but not for the reason that most people think it's
horrible or many people think it's horrible.
And there are things about it.
You know, like there's there's stuff that doesn't quite work, but
there's things in it and there's ideas in it and that makes a
change from something like wolf in the fold, which was just 50
minutes of tedious bullshit, you know?
Not wolf in the fold, whom gods destroy, although wolf in the fold
was hilarious, bullshit. do I have to keep mentioning that green
woman on the rock exploding?
No, that's whom God's destroyed.
That's right.
We per have a bit during that scene, didn't we?
that was awesome.
I can't say I perked up at all during this.
I think Adam is coming on to Tongo because there's a thing where
he's singing.
So this head now to Eden thing, the music comes in later when they
both die, when Severn and Adam die on the planet, we actually hear
that music queue again, and they all sing it together a little bit
later.
Um, but then there's, he's saying something about, you know
because everyone's brother, that's the other thing, because just
like proper hippies, they're super sexist, because it is still the
1960s.
Um, and, and I just thought he was coming onto Tongo there.
Tongo looked a little bit kind of...
Is that a you reading no?
Or do you think that's in the script?
What's that?
Well, you just said there.
Oh, I've just me reading for shot.
Just a little shot.
We've got a feel 50 minutes somehow, haven't we?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's it.
Oh, can we get down to this fucking planet already, please?
Did you see the maniacal look on Severance face when he realised
they were going to Eden?
There was this whopping great close-up on him.
There's no doubt in my mind that he's truly evil, this man.
Yeah, there's, but that's the that's the point, isn't it?
Like these are dumb children who are being led astray into this
hippie lifestyle by Dr. Timothy Leary.
Do you know what I mean?
Or whatever, enormous ear, with an enormous ear, and a really bad
bald wig.
Look at the joint on that purple wig. terrible.
It's really bad, isn't it?
Yeah, it probably wasn't as visible on a TV in 1969 though.
I might get us both a pair of those purple eyebrows, though, so we
can do a publicity shock, UTSP.
I feel like we need to sort of juice it up again, you know?
But you see, I think this is an interesting moment, right?
So they're going to use ultrasonics or something to disable the
crew so that they can get down to the shuttle bay and steal a
shuttle and 2 of them object.
First arena, and then Tongo object and say, that sound is not
going to just disable them.
It will kill them.
And they both object, but they may do it anyway.
And so, and so what's clear is that he is able to get them to
murder, you know, 400 people in order to get to Eden and that's
how they're depicted.
And there's no consequences because the episode's kind of a mess
but that's where we land with this.
Shut the starts off doing its reaction, sort of noise, like very
over the top, like he spends most of free.
And then decides, nosh, I can't be asking. just falls to the
floor.
But Nemoy is affected.
I watch...
Christine.
Magell, absolutely, guys.
That's so great.
Chepping into Eden.
Yeah, brother, stepping into Eden.
I mean, at this point, awful, I'd lost all sense when everyone was
unconscious and they're singing their hippie songs.
I was like, but that's a good, like, that's good.
Do you know what I mean?
They're singing?
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's not quite as good as like home.
Do you remember when the sheriff gets killed and you get the song
the ironic song, but that's what it is.
It's an ironic song where they've just killed 400 people.
And they're singing this song about how great Eden's going to be.
And then it turns out it doesn't kill him after all.
I just figured that the cast had got to a point where they thought
well, I cannot act in this nonsense anymore and they all just fell
on the floor.
That was their protest to this episode.
But I mean, that's a good moment.
You know, like having them sing their utopian song while the
people that they've harmed, you know, where we get to see them
lying all over the ship.
I'll tell you what was a good moment.
I was super refreshed when we went down to the planet.
I mean, I realised this thing was going to wrap up pretty soon
because we only had 5 minutes left, but it was so nice to get out
of these enterprise sets and somewhere else for just 5 minutes.
And you know, it's quite a nice set, actually.
They put the whole shuttlecraft into the foreign set as well, which
is quite nice.
Yeah.
So I sent you the original picture.
I don't know if you noticed it.
So, um, yeah, later on.
Um, there's a beautiful um, computer generated image, which looks
a little bit like the painting that they do in um, in an early
episode.
It was in the closing credits for a while in series one.
But they had a big map painting that had, you know, mountains and
and a moon.
Oh, with the planets in the sky as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so, yeah, so they're doing something that's sort of
sympathetic to that.
Originally it was just some muddy fucking lake somewhere. just
outside LA, which looked so bad.
Like it was so terrible.
You can't tell me there's an even worse version of this episode
out there somewhere.
I don't believe you.
Well, Eden is not quite as idyllic in the transmitted version.
Oh, you think it gave it away in the original version that it was
a toxic landscape?
Well, no, I think I think they're intending to make it beautiful
but somehow didn't manage it.
Thank God for the restorers, eh?
Oh, I said God ironically then, by the way.
I mean, I do love seeing the Enterprise in CGI.
It is lovely. yeah.
So they beam down now.
Adam, they discover Adam, dead, and the poisonous fruit just out
of his reach.
Oh, you're right. beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, it's an amazing shot, isn't it?
Like, it's really something.
That's really... quite sort of 60s SF paw paw, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's sympathetic with the period.
And even the fruit that Adam and Severn eat, they're visible on
the tree.
Fortunately, it's clearly a still though, because the water's not
moving at all.
There's no movement in the water. not, is it?
Whoops.
Oh, missing check off, what ails you?
Yeah.
They just stop beaming down on the planets.
Things don't go well, do they?
So this, I think this ending is properly good.
And even though it's nasty and mean-spirited in a way that the
rest of the episode is as well.
Like, this would have scared the living daylights out of me when I
was a kid.
Like absolutely terrifying, I think.
This very sort of succulent landscape proving deadly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Where everything is full of acid.
Like everything you touch.
And like the burns look horrible.
Later on when you see Severance feet, because of course they're
all fucking Ippies and they're not wearing...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Like, I think that's really terrifying.
And then this thing with Adam, like, you don't even see his
death.
He's just dead.
Well, his fingers moving there.
But he, um, like we get, um, you know, Spock's a, his name was
Adam.
Do you know what I mean?
He ate from a fruit in Eden and then died.
So biblically, this is saying what?
Well, that sort of makes no sense either.
But, but, um, but, you know, like he's commenting on that thing
that they made up.
I was really confused here.
So they've gone on to display what realises it's toxic and they're
all hiding away in the shuttle.
Or have they not come out?
Yeah, I'm really confused.
No, because they've all been out and they've walked on the grass
because there's a line of dialogue saying everything is full of
acid, even the grass.
And so the kids, because they're hippies, they don't wear shoes
and they've gone out and trodden on the thing and they've burned
themselves.
And so they've somehow made it back into the shuttle.
But Adam has died 1st because he's had an apple.
And then Severn dies because no reason.
Because he's insane.
And insane people who can tell what they do.
They do insane things.
Oh, like...
No, I once went on a date with a really cute bloke, right?
properly gorgeous bloke, he had a terrible case of athlete's foot
looked a bit like that.
Unfortunately, it couldn't last between us.
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm not taking it, she's greater to anyone's feet.
But that is nasty.
Yeah, look at what is going on now?
Yeah, that makes no sense.
We're not leaving.
We're in Eden, even though it's toxic.
I'm going to kill myself the end.
What?
Yeah.
But he they're saying you'll kill yourself.
Do you know what you're doing?
And then he kills himself, then he goes, wow, that's like acid.
And then they really mean to Irina. you know, like, don't be mean
to her like, that's terrible.
Dr. Severin.
I'm sorry, you were too evil to be allowed to stay alive. evil to
live.
Yeah.
I like his pants though.
I was thinking that as well, you know.
It's probably hippie stuff.
Like, I thought that were, you know, like the trousers.
We've got a hippie stall in the market in town.
When you come with it, you can get pants.
We'll go and get some pants.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll have a dress up, wait to Eden day while you're here.
Yeah, absolutely. brilliant.
Okay, so are we going to reach a conclusion on the bridge now?
Like we normally do, look out off the camera and tell us the
moral?
No, but there is what I said before is actually a nice moment
which is Spock validating them, even though they've been
incredibly murderous.
You know, like even though she knew that everyone was going to be
killed.
We've forgotten that.
And we get a moment of generosity from Spock.
And a really cute moment with, um...
My mouth though, is there?
When everyone's been just horrid to them for a hour.
Oh, immediately, they have turned out to be evil, but...
Well, yeah, yeah, Spark hasn't been horrid to them, though.
He's been sympathetic all the way through and that counts for
something.
Except to Dr. Vedrin.
Yeah, yeah, but Jim, that man is insane.
Insane.
I know.
Yeah.
I think this is huge.
Oh, be incorrect.
Occasionally.
I think you say that to me every now and again, you know.
No, it's really cute.
She says be incorrect occasionally and he says you be correct and
she just smiles naughtily and says occasionally, which I just
think is adorable.
That's quite charming, you know.
And then what Spock says to her is, it's my sincere wish that you
do not give up your search for Eden or whatever.
I have no doubt, but then you will find it or make it yourselves.
I think that's beautiful.
You know, like that?
This doesn't work because she was part of the people that knocked
everybody out that was willing to kill everybody.
So why does she get a redemptive ending?
So the so the episode doesn't work.
There's 2 things happening in it.
Do you know what I mean?
And so it's super like hostile and the children are terrible and
all of that.
He's a crap joke at the end.
Produced by Fred Freiburger.
Yeah, we know.
All right.
We realise that.
You didn't have to put off the caption.
Jesus Christ.
Ooh, I don't know what?
The season three, let's see what we get.
We get the, the, is that Home Goss destroy?
No, who mourns for Adonise, I think.
Oh, a nice little sort of space station there with the enterprise
coming away.
Oh yeah, there you go.
Girl one and girl two.
You were right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you know the thing I'll probably take away from this beyond
those horrible scabby feet is girl number one on her bicycle
wheel?
Yeah, I think she is quite good.
I, like, I, that music wasn't terrible.
Like, you know, like I thought that was nice and at least they
weren't singing. she had a beautiful voice as well.
Do you know, in our discussions... girl one and girl two. did get
them right.
You did?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well done.
You won't just be dismissive in our very 1960s way.
You were in fact correct.
I knew that they were called go one and goal too, because I always
copy the cast down into my notes so that I kind of know who I'm
talking about.
And I just assumed that the blonde woman was girl one because she
gets to sing and is in it more, and I was right.
I looked up Deborah Downey on memory Alfred, and that was her.
She's 75 now.
Oh, I bet she's super proud that she...
I hope she strung her bicycle wheel.
No, no, no.
One thing you have revealed to me in our discussions today is, yes
there is the bare bones of something competent having in terms of
plotting in this episode.
But it doesn't, it doesn't really change my opinion that even
though it is deliberately making these people really annoying all
this.
It's still really annoying.
They're still annoying.
And frankly, I would be happy to never watch this episode again.
I think I would watch it again.
I would certainly watch it before I watched, you know, whom gods
destroy again.
But it is so mean-spirited.
That's the thing that I dislike about it.
It's dismissive of kids generally and dismissive of a generation
of kids who protested Vietnam and stuff like that while their
parents were voting for people who were carpet bombing Southeast
Asia and stuff.
It's sort of a famous failure, this episode, isn't it?
Like it is a one that people point at and go, that is a
particularly bad episode.
Jimmy doing.
There's a quote from him in Memory Alpha, Major L. Barrett.
She said this was terrible as well.
And I said to you in the chat.
I said, this is clearly the work of a studio that does not realise
what they have on their hands.
They realise once the show is cancelled and the sets are destroyed
but they've got something that's massively popular and deserves to
have the best, the best writers, the best directors and all of
that pumped into it.
And this is just a show on its dying legs.
No one's really putting much into this.
But I think that, I think the problem is too, that who, who is
this for?
Like, because the people watching Star Trek are not the mums and
dads who think that the hippies are disgusting animals who should
be in cages, their kids are...
Isn't Star Trek angry?
Kids?
So why are we having an episode about how shit kids are and how
they're all communists and they'll kill you given half a chance, no
matter how enthusiastic they are about playing the guitar?
Like that just, that's ridiculous.
But it's like I said, you're in the middle of the episode.
If you're, if you're the sort of serious adult that genuinely has
objections to this, you're not going to see yourself in the
enterprise crew here, they're all pricks.
Yeah, and if you're a kid, you're not going to see yourself in the
hippies here.
So it's just failing to appeal on either side.
It's very odd.
Yeah.
So odd.
It is a failure, but like I wasn't bored as much as...
And, you know, like it did seem to be doing something to be about
something and to have a plot and reversals and things that seemed
like a reasonably competent episode, but I just can't get over how
mean and miserable it is.
I think that's unforgivable.
I mean, I didn't get a huge amount of entertainment from this
aside from talking to you about it, but I did get an enormous
amount of entertainment from those enormous purple eyebrows.
All right, it's the end of the episode and it's time for us to
find out where we're going next.
This was my choice, the way to Eden, up to my usual standard, and
it's time for a course correction.
So it's your turn now.
What series are we choosing from?
I mean, if you want to go and make a cup of tea or something for
the next 5 minutes, because I want a better episode than the Way
to Eden, but I have chosen Star Trek Voyager.
So I may be here sometimes.
I don't know.
Okay, tea in hand, you're back.
Let's go.
Yeah.
Oh god, it's almost on par with the way to Eden.
No, we can't do this one, I'm afraid.
It's season seven, episode 18.
Season seven.
What is it about 90s trek and season seven?
Human error?
This is the great Chakotay 7 romance episode.
Yeah, that is a human era.
Don't do that.
We've already done this one.
We covered this episode on untitled Star Trek Project, episode
87.
That was season six, episode 22, Muse, which was a very good
episode.
Excellent.
Yeah.
Oh, no, we covered this one on title Star Trek Project episode
78.
We haven't done that many voyages.
Jesus.
No, no.
Season 6, episode 16 collective of the famous yellow lighting
gels.
You recall?
Boring.
Okay.
Oh no.
This is sort of infamously. a bit like I move along home
infamously like one of the least popular Voyager episodes.
Season two, episode six, twisted.
It's the one where the anomaly is moving really slowly through the
ship. the ship.
Yeah, less so boring.
No.
Oh what about this?
Season three, episode three, the shoot.
Now, this is the episode where they wanted to suggest there was
something a bit homerotic occurring.
Right.
Not quite, but I mean, we cut away. don't actually know.
It does have the wonderful bit where Kate jumps down the chute
with an enormous fucking gum.
It's kind of wonderful.
Unfortunately, I'll press the button again.
I'm sorry about that. miserable, I think, that one.
Oh, I thought we done this one.
Season three, episode 10 Warlord. we done that one?
Yeah, no, no, I think what happened was that we talked about it or
we would, there was a KS episode or something and I'd watched it
recently and so we did talk about it.
So we have mentioned it on the show, but we haven't done it.
I realise saying this after saying that Harry Kim and Tom Paris
may have got up to something in the shoe.
I could be wrong, but this is the episode that suggests there's an
element of bisexuality to Kez when she's taken over by the evil
Kieron and is having a relationship with both the mistress and the
husband. is amazing.
However, I have rolled again and I would like to do this episode.
I do remember it being great and it does feature Cisca.
So automatic gold star for that.
And she's great in it.
No, it's season two, episode 11, manoeuvres.
Ooh, excellent.
It's a great episode.
I think this is the one where she comes up at the end and goes
hello, Chakoti.
I just wanted to let you know I'm pregnant. wonderful.
Soap conference twist.
It's the one where where the Kazon do a terrorist raid on Voyager
and literally punch a shuttle into Voyager side and steal a load
of technology.
And it was the point where basically they said series 2 isn't
working. we need to up the action and make this show a bit more
exciting.
And this was the 1st one.
You got Deadlock and others coming after this.
But yeah, I think it's an interesting one to talk about.
And it's another season 21 and we do like season two.
That'd be fun.
Excellent, brilliant. lets do that.
Let's do 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.
Our podcast artwork is by Kayla Sisrin, and the theme was composed
by Cameron Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 7th of January 2025 and released
on the 10th of January.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek Voyager, manoeuvres.
Now, he's been watching...
Don't come at me for this, all right?
He's been watching Heartstopper, and I just can't watch it.
I just did that. so sweet. fucking nice.
I hate them all.
I said, this would be the worst friendship group ever possibly for
the same reason.
He just hates it because everything's so nice.
I think the boy, the boy that was in the Agatha show, I just think
he's unbearably twee.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I really like it.
I think it is very sweet. and I think it captures something that
we never got to experience or I never got to experience, which I
kind of like.
I think that's sort of sweet.
And I always love the sort of school thing, but I liked, love
Victor better, which is on Disney.
Yeah, I saw a trailer for that and I thought...
Actually, I enjoyed the, because you know me, I don't really get
on with gay programs very much, but I really enjoyed that
ridiculous film he made me watch, red, white, and...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But they just had such great chemistry in that movie, like hot
chemistry.
Well, so love Victor, like his kids at school and stuff, and there
was a, there was a show called Love Simon, which was based on this
book.
Um, you know, like a young adults book.
And it's like this kid who has an email relationship with this guy
and they eventually kind of fall in love, but he doesn't know who
he is.
They're both anonymous to each other and they know that they both
go to the same school, but they don't know who they are.
Um, and it's really good and it's very sweet and he comes out to
his parents and they're, everyone's sort of very middle class and
very kind of, you know, um, Jennifer Garner is his mother, for
God's sake.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's all fine.
Um, and so love Victor stars. with Victor talking to Simon.
So Simon's left and gone to university and stuff and Victor has
just moved from to Texas from somewhere.
No, they in Georgia.
I can't remember that, the southern state.
But he's family's Latino and he's can't come out and like he's
saying it's all right for you being this sort of white middle
class kid and everything turned out very well for you, but it's
actually harder for the rest of us.
And it's really good.
Like, I think that's really properly good.
And it's, um, got wrecks from, um, Torchwood Miracle Day, is the
father of one of the characters.
Um, what bit?
So one bit of really made me set up.
Because he's had been, what, he's watching series 3 now.
So he's been watching it for a couple of weeks.
I'm sort of in and out the room, but never really watching it. was
the brother.
It was such a prick.
And I was like, oh, finally, someone I can get beyond someone
instead of hosta.
Yeah, there's something.
But, but I mean, I think, like, I think because, like, it's the
1st kind of thing quite like this.
I for me.
It's for kids.
And it needs to be not, we're going to have a terrible time all
the time.
Do you know what I mean?
It's got to be, we will find nice people.
And, like, I even found that, like, he, like, I even found that
there's enough homophobia and stuff directed at him at least in
series one, um, that I actually found that kind of, oh, oh, still
you know, like, still, um, so there was some obstacles to
overcome.
But it is very gentle and very nice.
I like all the animation they put in.
That's really nicely done and it's genuinely emotional.
Obviously, they choose it for the right moments.
There's that, there was that great bit where, oh, God, hated the
speech where we went up to that kid outside the school and went
it's not okay for what you did to me and all that, and it's just
you know, triumphant moment where he finally stands up to this
awful kid.
And then this rainbow sort of road came towards the kids who was
pushing away his sexuality and he just sort of walks away from the
rainbow.
And I thought, that's really, that's very nice.
So it's a graphic series of graphic novels, which I've then read.
Do you know what I mean?
And they're great and um, And like I'm looking forward to the
final one, which is coming out later this year.