Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, we're aboard the Starship Voyager this week for an episode
from series six.
It's series 6, episode five.
Alice.
First broadcast on the 20th of October, 1999.
Teleplay by Brian Fuller and Michael Taylor.
So Brian Fuller, who brought you Discovery and directed by the
ever reliable, um, let me say, David Livingston.
Michael Taylor that gave us counterpoint and in the Power
Moonlight, which regardless of what you might think about that
episode, it is considered an absolute banger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think it's good.
I don't think it's as good as everyone else does.
But Brian Fuller brought us discovery.
I mean, these are proper Star Trek people.
It's based on an idea by a woman called Julianne Delane, and this
is her only writing credit.
Are you sure it wasn't based on an idea by Stephen King?
It was also based on an idea by Stephen King.
I'm at a big Stephen King fan, and so I don't really know about
Christine beyond, you know, a vague idea of what it's about.
It's kind of reputation, but clearly that's what we're going for
here.
How did you find this episode?
It was fucking tedious is what it was.
So incredibly boring.
And I have to watch it twice because in my haste to watch it the
1st time.
I watched it last week and I thought, well, I better refresh
myself.
Maybe it's got better in a week.
Oh boy.
I sent you a message saying that, you know, I woke up, I had a
good sleep.
I had a bath, you know, I did some exercise, I meditated.
So I was prepared for Alice this time.
I was not prepared for Alice this time and it was still fucking
tedious.
Um, the one piece of trivia, I have to give you about this, is a
random, and you know when it's a dog because a memory alpha gives
you nothing.
They will pull quotes out of any old person's or memory alpha, you
know, any bit of data.
There's one quote about Alice.
So clearly everyone's forgotten about this one and that's Brandon
Bragger going, yes, sir.
I think this episode was based on the Stephen King novel
Christine.
Thanks, Brannon.
That's it.
I think it's an episode with absolutely no characteristics, no
positive qualities.
It is on autopilot.
It is the 1st episode.
If we decided that we didn't have an order of 26 episodes to
fulfil this season.
This would be the 1st one to go because it's got nothing
interesting in its premise.
It isn't about anything.
It is just absolute routine voyager stuff done incredibly
boringly.
It has one reasonable guest role and one incredibly boring guest
role, the titular Alice, the eponymous Alice. who I think is
really not very good at all, but as sexy as a flopping wet trout.
But the whole thing was so incredibly boring.
Like, I don't know what I'm supposed to gain out of it.
There's nothing enjoyable about it.
And it also cements the worst Roberts role as kind of the worst
leading man for a Voyager episode, but also as just a complete
asshole.
And it's a big problem with the episode because he behaves really
poorly to Balana all the way through in a way that is consistent
with his character.
She actually sort of talks about how he's kind of like this all
the time.
Janeway says it.
She goes, you've had issues with his hobbies in the past.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is kind of consistent with his normal behaviour.
And then we wipe it all away at the end because he's a white guy
and it's kind of like, oh, it's not my fault.
I was just sleepwalker watching it.
Well, get there.
Shocking.
We're just friends, Nathan.
Just friends.
Why does she put up with this cunt?
I don't understand.
No, that's exactly it.
And so if the episode's about anything, It appears to be about
what a truly awful person Tom Paris is.
There just is no space in Star Trek anymore for a character like
Tom Paris, is there?
He is a specifically 90s character.
This sort of arrogant, obnoxious jock that people seem to admire
in the mid 90s.
Like that now in, you know, masculinity has taken a turn for the
positive, you know, and we're far more open about our feelings now
you know, and we are just better men.
I think in general, not everybody, but in general, where if you
dumped on Paris now in the middle of a, I don't know, discovery
episode or something like, he would just be an anathema, it would
just be outrageous to have somebody behaving like that.
In fact, it made me think a little bit about Erica from Strange
New Worlds, who is also a pilot and someone who revels in being a
pilot, but because she's on, on the Enterprise in Strange New
Worlds.
She's charming, she's funny, like genuinely funny.
She says things that are actually funny, rather than just sort of
bad lines that the scriptwriter thinks might be funny or resemble
funny lines enough to kind of actually stand in for a funny line
which we can't think of.
All right, folks, we will quote those in this episode or as they
go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it got me to thinking about like Julian and Miles in DS9
right?
Of course presented as sort of, well, maybe not Julian.
They're presented as heterosexual men in a bromance, right?
Like Tom and Harry.
Like they love hanging out together.
They say they love each other.
They're tactile with each other.
They get drunk together.
I don't know.
There is just a different vibe.
They're just not obnoxious pricks in the way that Tom Barris is.
Yeah, yeah.
It's really weird actually like having all this dialogue about Tom
and Harry being best friends, but I couldn't say anything about
their friendship at all.
Like, I, you know, like we're constantly told it's a thing and
they do banter, but I don't know what, what do they do?
They go and play Captain Proton together.
I guess that's kind of it.
At one point, someone goes, isn't Tom your best friend?
And Harry goes, oh, yeah, he says that.
I'm not quite sure what it means, though.
Like, no, we don't know what it means either.
No.
Yeah.
So that relationship's not very interesting.
And then the Balana Tom relationship, because when he's possessed
he just says the things that he always says to her.
Yeah, just screams to him and that's what I thought.
Yeah, that's right.
So I think that's really terrible.
I think there is room, like that this episode had it been more
carefully thought through could have been about Tom's behaviour
like could have been a comment.
Tom's behaviour.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And maybe he learned something about not being such a prick, but
of course he doesn't do that because he's a white guy immune to
criticism.
And so in fact, B'Elana is kind of given the job of making sure
he's okay at the end.
She's the one who's been asphyxiated and yelled at, and she's
given the job of making sure that Tom is okay emotionally at the
end of the episode.
And so that fails and craters in a spectacularly bad way.
And then the other version of the episode that's good is where
it's a mood piece where it's well directed and genuinely creepy
where you have a guest star who kind of knows what they're doing.
So this guest star is called Claire Rankin.
She plays Alice.
She is doing it in this sort of wide-eyed way.
There's a little bit of steel there.
She's kind of okay, but mostly she's just sort of doing staring.
I just thought she looked vacant for a hour.
Yeah, yeah.
She's saying the lines, but she's saying them utterly without
passion, and she's supposed to be this sort of, you know, she's
supposed to be the sexy female version of a sports car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And the only thing that I could think of that was like this is an
episode of Deep Space 9 that we've already done called The Muse
where we had Meg Foster.
Jake's face... creative juices out.
And it was about Jake's obsession and the way that Jake's
obsession was harming him in the way, you know, you know, the
thing that he was super interested in, the thing that he did all
the time, and she was draining his lifeblood because of the
obsession and she was fostering the obsession so she could do
that.
That episode seemed like a right winner, didn't it?
Well, I mean, I thought that that episode was much better than
everyone else thinks it is.
And I thought she was magnificent.
She was great.
She was ominous and scary.
She was sexy.
She was really forceful.
You could see why she did whatever she said.
She had those eyes. amazing eyes.
So there's a version of this episode where it's well directed
where it's atmospheric where David Bell is bothering to give a
shit about the score because the score is so bad.
It's so generic.
It feels like it's been procedurally generated.
There's no horror in there.
No, exactly.
No one gets killed.
We have the perfect chance to kill John Flex character off. you
know, so that it's like a horror film.
He just grabs his head and falls sort of off.
He just grabs his head and then wakes up in Sigmay.
In Christine, in the in the book, that car goes round, man, that's
blood flying.
There's organs flying it.
Mashes into people.
It goes into crowds.
What you need is this bloody shuttlecraft, and we will talk about
the design of this Tinker toy shuttlecraft, the sexiest sports car
in the galaxy.
We need that.
Smashing through the walls of the ship, you know, tearing up
people. of it.
It's just this boring woman walking around the corridors with Tom
Paris going, Tom, I need you.
Tom, Nick the reactor coils.
Tom, let's pilot a course out of here.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
It's I mean, it's really, really quite bad.
I think.
It's the dullest version of this story they possibly could have
presented to us.
Yeah, I know, I left me pining for Genesis, which at least, you
know, abysmal episode.
But fuck me, they went for it.
You know, they went for the horror.
You had people's chest burst open and people spitting acid in
people's faces and things like that.
You know, oh boy, even the technology is boring.
You know, when he's in the ship and that thing comes over his
eye.
It's so boring.
The graphics are boring.
The nebula at the end was boring.
I was like, will they show me any visual interest in this
episode?
No, no.
And, you know, partly it's because Voyager can't go that far.
I can't do horror.
It's a sort of network TV show and stuff.
And it can't do real proper body horror, all that.
Much.
You don't know.
But it could go further than that.
Oh, it looked terrible.
But you remember when they did that ball thing with all the heads
in that massive mashup of bodies and things.
They are willing to do it.
They chose not to do it here.
They choke.
I think they were relying on this whoever was cast. to bring this
to life, you know?
And if you had somebody like Jerry Ryan or somebody like that
playing the role, you're like fucking gorgeous and you can
absolutely see why Tom Paris would be seduced by her.
But this was this woman's name?
Claire Rankin.
Claire Rankin, have you had a career after this?
I should check out.
I actually think she has.
And she is in Stargate Atlantis, I think, is a regular.
So he does have a career.
Who the hell would she?
I could have completely misremembered that.
Maybe it was Sequest DSV.
It was something to do with water, but she did have a regular roll
in something, but she isn't doing the right thing here.
And, you know, like it has to be down to David Livingston, I think
because he's got to be saying, don't do it like that.
You need to be doing it like this.
And I will say this until I'm blue in the face.
David Livingstone gave us stuff like crossover and deadlock.
He can put dynamic Star Trek, like action-packed Star Trek on the
screen.
A really exciting episode.
So I think at this point, he's probably done 100 episodes by this
point.
And he's just like, oh, it's point the camera, that boring actress
and let's get out some lunch.
The scene that irritated me most in this whole thing was the bit
where Tom slams B'Elana against the wall and is screaming in her
face.
Because I'll tell you now, right?
If you and me was in a relationship and you, oh, actually, you can
slam me up against the wall.
That could be fun.
But you know what I mean.
I'll be out.
No matter what, whether you are taking over my technology or
what?
I'd be like, do you know what?
You're capable.
I'm done.
And you're also an obnoxious prat most of the time anyway.
It's not you.
Of course not.
No, no, no.
We're talking to Tom, obviously.
I do think, however, you give the Voyager writers too much credit
you know, because I think that if there was a whiteboard of all of
the season 6 episodes of Voyager, you know, up there, and they
were told, look, guys, I'm so sorry, but we've got a coal, half
the season.
We're only putting out 13 episodes this year.
I think they would, they would have gone.
They would spend at least 10 minutes going, Alice, I don't know.
Riddles, the one where Chivot loses his memory.
What about the one on the little dwarf planet where the doctor
said, I'm not sure.
Some cartsy.
I don't know.
Which one should we lose?
No, I don't have the faith, but they would go.
I think they think this is a perfectly competent bit of Star
Trek.
Yeah.
But I mean, in a sense, there's just nothing to it.
And you know what I blame for this.
You know what I blame for, this, for threshold, for any dog turd
of a Tom Paris episode that we've sat through on titled Star Trek
bro?
I blame the 1st duty for this because that's such a good episode
and he gives such a great performance in that episode.
But they, I think because of the reaction to that episode and that
character, which was very favourable, they thought, right, we're
going to plant that character into Star Trek Voyager and it just
isn't sustainable for a long period of time.
It works as a single episode, sort of obnoxious twas, manipulating
manipulating the people at the academy.
But as a as a long-running character in this show, this this
obnoxious twat.
It's just tedious.
I don't know why they can't see it.
No, it's terrible.
Wow.
Actually, I know.
This visually boring, unambitious, terribly active episode.
All right.
Well, we might run out of things to say.
If we just find ourselves staring at one another.
I'm reving up to go, you know.
Okay, all right.
In our last, okay.
All right, in which case I will count it in, five, four, three, two
one, and we're off.
No, if that was the worst joke I've ever told, you shouldn't have
even given me the half little giggle there.
Okay.
I'm going to tell you the answer to this.
We start off on banter.
And it's really boring, banter.
It's not funny.
Like, no one is funny.
And in fact, the only person who comes off looking good is Tuvok
who just says, actually, I'm not going to engage in this, but for
those of you who haven't already looked it up on memory alpha, he
is actually about 112.
Why didn't they just look it up on memory Alpha themselves?
I don't know. don't know.
Of course it exists within the Star Show universe somewhere.
It does.
No, it's in it from an episode.
Come on Although this does remind me of my work.
I've got to be honest.
I'm the Chevok in this situation, and you know, you have to hang
out with these really boring idiots and listen to something, inane
chit chat all day.
So I could feel Chewfog's pain here. of them are listening, do you
think?
Oh, I hope they are.
Finally.
The shrimp is revealed.
No.
I mean, they've got the smarts to listen to a Star Trek podcast, if
I'm honest.
Oh my god, it's K-mole group.
And that's the other thing.
Can I just say Kate is so absent from this episode.
She's in this scene, which is just a completely functional scene
on the bridge.
And then she comes in like 30 minutes or something.
I don't give a shit about Tom Paris.
Why would she be involved in this?
No, no.
All right.
I reckon Kate read the script.
And she went, do you know what?
There's a few more scenes.
Take them out, will you?
right, that's right.
Oh, this week off.
Let Bobby do it.
Oh, here's an appetal.
Yeah, so this is Abaddon.
He is played by John Fleck.
John Fleck has been in every single 90s Star Trek show.
Tell me.
So he is...
I love this corner of USTP.
Who?
Yeah, he's silly, the Sulliban semi-regular in enterprise.
Oh, what, and all that yellow makeup?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, well, no wonder I didn't recognise him there.
He plays tie back.
Tybach in the mind's eye, one of the Romulans in the mind's eye.
He did get to be in one good episode then.
He plays someone called Ornitha or possibly an Ornitha in the
search part one.
He is the Romulan Koval in Interarmor NMC Lent Leges.
Yes, he is.
And that's a great turn. in that episode.
Yeah.
So, and he's also the Krilla ambassador in the Orville.
And he's very camp in Alice.
He's very camp.
And I think he's gay.
Like, I think the actor himself is queer.
He's got a long sort of sheepskin jacket, isn't he?
Yeah, but he looks like he looks like when you tread on a
cockroach.
Do you know what I mean?
Like...
Like, that's all...
I don't see many cockroaches, you know, and given the cleanliness
of my house.
That is a surprise, but...
We have giant ones in the garden in Australia that would take your
leg off.
They're fucking annoying.
Do you step on them, Nathan?
Sometimes.
Do they look like John Flack?
They pretty much do.
These is a good, solid, like 9.7, 9.8 on the Beaumont scale.
It's a very ugly, ugly makeup job.
And but I've got to say I don't know why they do it.
His character in the opening scenes was amiable enough.
I was sort of like, okay, I'm not on board, but this is still very
functional Voyager. because this is exactly how we met Neelix back
in the day, which leads me onto the one thing I like about this
episode.
Oh, Neelix in here.
Surprisingly, isn't Neelix?
Because anything that leans into Neelix's old timer's a trade
out.
So here in a minute when he goes, oh, I want some of this, you
know, whole plating that you've got and chew.
Sorry, Chikoso is very boring going, We haven't got any of that to
spare, I'm afraid.
And Nelix is like, commander, don't we have, and he's sort of
doing his bartering and his trading and that's the Neelix I love.
So this was fun.
This was quite fun.
And the 2 of them kind of hit it off, I think.
Like, I think John Fleck is a very charismatic actor.
I think he's very good generally.
And this is a very boring part, but he is probably the best thing
about it.
I think.
It's nice when he comes in now and goes, oh, I recognised
immediately the demeanour, the sharp clothes.
Yeah, yeah, the 3rd divine.
I just measure walking around the transporter by ready to rip it
up and say, I'll have this and that and the other.
And I like the fact as well that his technology junkyard, you know
is just mostly a load of crap, isn't it?
Seven says it at one point.
She goes, yeah, most of it's utterly useless.
Yeah, yeah.
And isn't there a junkyard?
There is a junkyard, I think, in late TNG?
I can't remember, but they come across a junkyard very similar to
this in a late TNG episode.
I can't remember now.
I mean, it is a very, very nothing premise.
This is the bit now where Tom Paris 1st spots Alice.
He goes, 0 my god.
Look at that, grade 47 or whatever it is, and it is the most
cheapest looking spaceship you have ever seen in your life.
Tom even says, no, sorry.
Harry says it's a bit of junk.
Yeah, yeah.
And you're exactly right.
They can design it to look however it wants, but they make it look
like just the most generic small spaceship that they can find.
It's probably redressed from some other pod that they've used in a
previous episode.
It has all of these design elements that look like, you know, Deep
Space 9 design elements.
But we love the spaceship designs in 90s trade, right?
On the whole, they're pretty great.
But the shuttle pod, the shuttle pod is ugly.
It's got these squat legs that look really ridiculous.
And it looks nothing like a sexy sports car and that's what it's
got to look like, I think.
There's an attempt to make the interior.
By using that teal colour and the upholstery and the way that the
panels...
I mean, I know what you're saying, but the design of it is still
so ten-a-penny Voyager spaceship design.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But there is an attempt, I think, to make it look like a sort of
50s. uh, you know, and it has flashing lights.
There's a scene where we see the flashing lights on the thing
which I kind of like.
But these people are not incompetent designers, right?
And they've seen sports cars. on every street in America.
Like, fucking hell.
Just design something sexy.
I think that I think that probably it was just cost, you know
we're doing one episode.
We just pull out the...
A few fins on it?
Yeah, yeah.
A flame on the side.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry, we can't afford stickers this week, you know.
Why isn't it red as well?
You know, like even as white, why is it green, isn't it?
It's really great.
Yeah.
Yeah. terrible.
Oh, no, at least Tom's throwing in his jukebox, so Belada hasn't
got to put up with that anymore.
He's got a new obsession every year.
Have you noticed?
You know, cartoons one year.
It's Arachnia, Queen of the Spider people, one year.
Trucks, trucks.
But I mean, she calls him out for it.
That's the thing.
And there's actually the one bit of dialogue that I really liked
was the 5 stages of acquisition, which are explained by Harry to
Balana, and it's his best moment in the episode, and I thought it
was a genuinely funny comment.
It was what made me think that this could have been a commentary
on Tom's behaviour.
Like, you know, I really hate all of this sexualising technology
though as well.
It's so tedious Abidon, who, sorry, mate, you are gay.
You're not convincing anybody.
He's walking down there going, you know, you got to treat her like
a lady.
You know, you gotta feather the clutch before you go out and
things like that.
Oh, fuck off.
Yeah, no, that's terrible. my God.
And I know I know if there are any straight men listening.
I wonder.
We're the 2 gayest podcast out there.
They have to.
Sorry, Tom Salinski.
I know you people do sexualise your cars or, you know, at least
personify them and give them girls names and things like that.
Stop doing it.
It's tedious, all right?
It's so boring.
Yeah, I don't know.
I have a, I have a, I had the sexy Italian Siri for a while, which
I enjoy.
A male Siri.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, too, right.
Yeah, like, I don't think, like, it's, there is something sort of
creepy and tedious about, and you can't imagine it happening in a
discovery episode, but it is a feature of Star Trek.
When it comes to stuff.
Oh, absolutely what?
Like personifying the ships and that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.
But this is supposed to be sexy.
So this is sexualising it. that's just shitty.
But also as well, when it comes to like Banana being jealous of a
spaceship.
I'm like what are we doing?
Like this is ridiculous.
Look at this technology with that thing over his head. so boring.
And so, and I'm kind of there going, when does this become more
invasive?
Like, when is it visibly burrowing into him?
Like if he's becoming one with the machine and that's scary and
terrible, we should be able to see it.
And we've done that stuff with the Borg, and their solution to it
is so kind of vanilla and unthreatening.
You know, some coloured wires attach themselves to his outfit and
that's as scary as it gets.
And that could, again, have been a source of horror.
Like, this could have been about horror.
I mean, it wouldn't have made this episode good, but you are right
you know, Ed McFoster appeared in a spaceship and started stroking
his head and making him have orgasms.
At least I get it, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But look how ugly that fucking thing is.
Like, I do like it in silhouette, there's an attempt to make it
look, it looks scary. from behind and then it ends below. lights
up.
But it's got these big fucking legs.
It looks so terrible.
Look a fucking table.
Nathan is that back there of the front of its buck teeth lighting
up.
That's the scariest bit in the episode.
And it's just the reference to the paperback cover of Christine.
Isn't that?
Like, and the posters, they were always the grill of the car
looking like it was sort of an insane mouth.
You know, I knew we was in terrible trouble when she started going
Tom.
Can you hear me, Tom?
Come to Alice.
Has he got cold sauce?
What's happening with his mouth?
It's so gross.
I just don't understand, banana.
She's so pressy and she's so charismatic.
Yeah, which is a good actor.
Why is she good the worst drop?
Oh my god.
Oh, and that's the other thing as well.
They've put her in that horrible gray jumpsuit.
Yeah, yeah. does not accentuate her figure.
And they know how to do this.
Did you see 7 of 9 when she's being on this show?
Like, why have you put her in like mechanics overalls?
I don't understand.
I did think that was quite a good shot of a bum.
Now, I think this is absolutely inexplicable.
So he goes, who are you?
It's me, Alice.
Alex But watch, he goes in.
The door closes and we go to a break, and then we see him come
into the room again.
But this time it's sometimes later because he's used to Alice.
And so we never see him meet Alice.
Why don't we see him meet Alice for the 1st time and react?
Have you seen the actress?
It would have been so disappointed.
It's time for a jaunty montage.
Yeah, yeah, well, he fucking cleaned the car.
What is that?
That's so boring Oh, at least when they did this in Explorers.
Cisco was building, building from scratch, that beautiful
lightship, you know, with a fabulous design.
Why don't want to see him rubbing Alice's pistons?
Yeah, no, it's just so boring.
It looks so terrible in that costume as well.
I know.
Look at his hips.
He's so hippie.
Like, he's like, he's...
But he's... gangly and it hangs off him.
It's such a baffling design. bum or something.
Like, so it's...
I did like Harry's costume here.
I mean, I don't like his shirt tucked into his trousers.
That's always... no, I do.
I think that's really a hot look and I love the fact that he's got
buttons and a collar.
Like he, I think he looks right.
No, you realise that stuff, don't you?
I didn't think he was stocky, but he's a little stocky.
He's adorable.
But don't you think don't you think that he's dressed for playing
Captain Proton?
why he's wearing those clothes?
because it's 1950s?
He looks hot as anything in that outfit.
Oh, you've forgotten 2 days in a row, but oh, day. is
unacceptable.
The web of pain.
Yeah, I'll bet they were going to the web.
That's what he tells me.
We might play the web.
It's a good chapter.
Alice needs me.
So does arangnia.
Oh boy.
Brian Fuller, man.
You are much better at characterising those discovery people.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is so like again, this is so incredibly dull.
Maybe he learned all of the lessons of what not to do by writing
these Voyager episodes.
Yeah, maybe, you know.
Actually, I quite like this scene.
Yeah, it's really quick, but it's quite weird.
But what I like is the way that 7 delivers the line, and it's not
a funny line.
It's not a funny line, but like Jerry delivers it with a real wry
smile, which is kind of a little bit unusual for her performance
and Neelix sees it and reacts to it, and it's actually really
warm.
Like, I really like it.
So this thing is obviously important for the resolution, isn't
it?
The baryllion crystal.
Yeah.
I do like it as well because obviously he's got like a long
history with knickknacks and things and trading.
So he's gotten those, but obviously she's a Borg, so they've
assimilated loads of species.
So she's got that collective knowledge.
Man, these 2 together they could be formidable.
And then she goes, need I remind you, all trades are final.
And she said it really archly.
It's out of smiles.
Unfortunately, he becomes the worst, Robert.
I need some champagne to christen Alice.
I have a girlfriend, you know, everyone here on and we sex each
other sometimes.
Like, I mean, for God's sakes.
Why didn't he look, take one look in the mirror and say, can can I
wear something else?
I not wear that?
Anything?
Can I wear what Harry was wearing in the last thing jeans?
trousers.
Oh, this is quite funny.
See, this is another good Neelix scene where he's talking about
his ship and he goes, oh, what, you fell in love with her at 1st
sight.
No, it was the ugliest thing I've ever seen.
This says Nelix.
All I could think of was the ugly old tree from the word.
So this is like one of these sort of terrible Star Trek backstory
moments, but it's over quite quickly.
There's another shitty one with Alison and Tom talking about the
1st time he ever flew.
And I just wanted to break his arm and say great story, you know
like, like it was so bad.
I'm so pleased that Balada is getting some use out of those
crimpers that Janeway brought her at Christmas, you know.
They're awful.
Why are they doing that to me?
I don't know.
Because they have a little more like a wig now than ever before.
Her hair never, ever looks good, does it on the show?
It's shockingly bad always.
I wonder how much colour is in this in...
So we're in this cargo bay a lot.
It's a boring gray and dark green ship.
He's wearing grey overalls.
The walls are gray.
The bottle is black. like that's just, what the are we doing
monochrome?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And like, why is the sports car green?
I don't get it See, I kind of like this because this actually
looks like it is going to be a little bit more normal, like, and
she's really good.
She's playing it properly.
Do you know what I mean?
Because she's so charming.
Like, she felt champagne, though, on Alice, look.
Yeah, I know.
Mind the upholstery, says.
But the one thing that I like is when it electrocutes her and he
goes, oh, yeah, I should fix that, which I thought was actually
pretty good because it kind of defangs the idea that it's, oh, yeah
don't.
This bit where he goes. we'll go on a trip together.
It would be a tight squeeze.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
It's like when Miles and Keiko, you know, get at it.
I don't want to watch it.
Yeah, I don't want to say that.
In discovery, you know, in Kurtzman Trek, they learned to put, you
know, just unbelievably sexual people on the screen.
So you're just instantly hard no matter what.
So you can all have sex with each other. more flaccid than I am
watching this episode of that one is.
But look at her.
Gosh, she's she, I mean, she's so good.
It's such a shame that they saddle her with this.
Well, no, they gave her the news as a as a payment for the at the
end of the year.
Do you remember that episode?
Yeah, yeah. beautiful.
I think it was just called...
She's just like, they've just sort of remembered...
Yeah.
I think she's wonderful.
I think she's really, really good, and she, like, it just seems a
shame that she's so often paired up with him, so she just gets to
be Tom's girlfriend.
And it's never, it's never like genuine development is always
banter, isn't it?
And bad banter.
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe we don't even see them get married, you know.
You remember when we watched you're quarterly invited, you know, in
every scene, it was just about what the 2 of them mean to each
other, why they get on, why they don't get on.
We were understanding their characters.
Oh, learn nothing about these 2 in this.
And like those characters are not super nuanced and super kind of
subtly drawn.
They're not super complex because it's like a sitcom or a soap
opera.
We know how they're going to behave.
We know what they're like.
But some thought is being given by the writers about how... who
behave like that.
Yes, how they work together.
There's nothing here.
What does Tom C and Bilana?
What does Balana see in Tom?
Who can say nothing?
You know?
Why are Tom and Harry friends?
I don't know.
Because they're stuck on the ship and there's no one else.
That's kind of the answer, isn't it?
That's where the only reason 7 of 9's friends with that wench
Naomi Wildman.
So you get to mention a little bit later.
I've barely seen her, have we?
All the voyages we've done.
She's quite a few, you know.
Plus, she's in the, what is it?
Top 30. 30 under 30, Federation's 30 under 30.
Even Naomi Wildman was I never forgot that.
She's 10.
She's still 10?
Apparently.
She's already 10 at this point.
And this it just goes to show you now how they've just lost
interest in this show because Chakotay now saying to him, oh
you're looking too scruffy, you're not paying attention to your
work, this is exactly what we were doing in season two.
Do you remember when Tom was pretending to be a rebel so we could
get off and get in with Cesca underhandedly.
It's like, God, oh, my. you're not even recycling old TNG cliches
anymore.
You're recycling your own cliches.
Yeah.
I mean, the interesting thing about this scene, the one flicker of
interest I had was, you know, at what point does he start
rebelling?
And like, even though that scene is super boring.
That scene with the 2 Roberts was really, really dull.
Oh, here's the woman.
So, we see her for the 1st time and her face is in shadow, and I
thought that was a really good choice.
Yeah, but unfortunately, we can see it now, yeah.
That's right But that seems really boring, but it is like it's
Chakotay agrees with him.
You know, Tom agrees.
It's not going to go any further.
Everything's going to be fine and he's going to chill out.
And I thought that was something.
You know when they bring together 2 actors, right, that have got
to have chemistry.
How do they test that?
I don't know.
Like, obviously, you can't have people, 2 people going into a room
and snog.
I mean, that would be a nice, easy way of doing it because then
you could go, 0 my god, look how hot they are together, you know?
But like, they must have realised when they brought these 2
together that there's just nothing there.
It just doesn't sizzle.
But I don't know that chemistry, like the sizzling thing is just a
function of those 2 people together.
I think it is a function of both of the actors selling it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I don't think there's an inherent chemistry between Renee
and na.
Do you know what I mean?
Because they're both such good actors, they absolutely properly
sell it.
She's so good.
In his way, she convinced us that she wanted to snog a Burns
victim.
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But this is so unsexy.
She's so uninterested in him It's also mild, you know, like, and
then this, again, the sort of, I'm sitting here thinking some
modifications I made to your flight suit, and it's like, I put
some diamonds on the phone.
I don't even notice the difference.
I was like... shocking.
Like, isn't it in some way meant to be shocking?
They're clearly the things that the wires go into later.
And I'm sort of there going, oh, probably...
Is it sort of an interface with her at all times?
No, it's later on so that he can be properly wired into the ship
and become part of the ship.
These things restructuring his brain in a way that continues, like
John Fleck still has a version of her in Spain.
It's just her body language.
I mean, she stands there so stiff with those crazy eyes.
You know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The crazy eyes, but there's no menace and there's no steel and
it's not sexy and she needs to do all of those things.
Oh, here she is.
Look, right in his face.
I mean, you know, I'm going to say something.
I do like his scruff there, you know.
Maybe you should keep the scruff.
It looks odd.
I think it looks odd.
He should grow a beard, really.
I just think that looks really odd.
If he's not been shaving, then.
Why is his neck clean shaven?
So he's been shaving everything.
Right now, as if she, like, wants to tear his clothes off, right?
But she's looking at as immersive to say, oh, who are you?
You know, like...
Please go and stroke my what's in a car.
What do you have in a car?
I don't know.
Can't stroke my steering wheel. you know, like big end.
That sounds rude.
I don't know.
This velocity of...
Who doesn't like...
I sent you the lost city and freedom.
Nathan, they'll never understand you and me in podcasting velocity
freedom. you know.
Why doesn't she?
Why doesn't she say speed?
People talk about loving speed.
People who love cars, love speed.
It's not a person on each tree.
Velocity is not a person.
She's saying it as if like, this is, we are people of speed.
What?
We are people have veil lot.
No, no, it's what she loves.
Oh, so this, this fucking scene, where it's too boring people.
It's the most Star Trek scene imaginable where he's telling the
story. the 1st time that he flew.
And like it's so boring and so generic.
And what do we learn from it?
We learn that he likes flying.
We knew that, you know, like it's so boring.
This moment of clarity when suddenly everything made sense.
And like it could write itself.
It's just absolute...
And it would make sense if this scene was in caretaker.
So we understood who this person was as a character, but you're
right.
We've been with this fella for 6 years.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, you just don't want those clumsy controls getting in the way.
Oh, yeah.
Just you and the stars.
Alice.
Oh boy.
Yeah, boy.
No, it's terrible.
I was sort of on a little run of podcasts, right?
I was watching Doctor and Star Trek now, and I was seeing lots of
sexy women.
I was starting to wonder about myself, but Alice, you snapped me
right back into homosexuality.
Thank you very much.
Mind you, he's Jerry.
Oh yeah, boy.
You know, not taking head of his shit instantly seeing through
what he's doing.
And I just love the moment where he leaves and then she just goes
up to the console and goes, all right, look up all that dumb shit
that Tom was just doing.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, he didn't even, and then later on she says, oh, I looked it
up later and I think it's this.
It's kind of like, yeah, it was very clear that that's what you
were doing.
She said, you have modified your garment.
I would have gone up to him and went, oh, you put 3 little
diamonds on your garment.
Oh, I was there.
Do you know what names like this?
There's nothing.
Why is that not scary?
Like, why is that...
It should be a great review as well?
Because there was a shot from behind where Alice isn't there.
Then the camera swings around and then suddenly she's there next
to him, giving her weird fish eyes.
Yeah, with no facial expression there, actually.
None at all.
You know what she reminds me of?
You know, when you have those sort of china dolls with a crazy
sorcerer eyes, you know?
That's what she reminds me of.
There's just no emotion in her.
I mean, I suppose she is a car.
Yeah, I know, but like it's got to be sexier than that.
The car is trying to seduce him.
Oh boy.
Bad night.
Bad night sleep?
Bad night with Tom Paris.
Any night. supposed to be his best friend.
Oh, my God.
Did an AI generator.
Chew out and spit this dialogue out.
But I like this.
Infatuation, justification, appropriation, obsession and resale
are the 5 Ferengi stages of, you know, stages of acquisition.
And then obsession.
So you've only got one more stage.
Then he's yours again.
And he says it in quite a relaxed way.
It's very Star Treky.
But did you see that by that .003 feel?
Yeah, check the bubble. some dialogue I can get behind.
So 00.3 parameter check.
Oh, thank God.
Routine power sales.
Lovely.
But I thought that Ferengi stages of acquisition was actually
pretty funny.
And, you know, it does sort of gesture towards what this could
have been about.
I've always said you're easily pleased, but I've never felt in
more.
I'm not really easily pleased, but I did think that that was kind
of nice.
You know, it was an attempt to do something different.
Oh my god, this is boring shit.
Is this the bit where Alice tries to kill her?
direction is so flat.
Yeah.
It should be like the door slamming down, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Smudge everywhere and shadows and maybe Alice comes out and starts
strangling her or something.
No.
She literally just starts going...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why isn't there smoke?
Exactly.
The door gently shuts behind.
She could have got out if she was quick enough.
Fuck's sake.
I think the woman playing Alice is more convincing, you know, when
she's playing the computer.
Yeah.
Yeah, she doesn't have to give any emotion there.
Yeah, no.
You wait till you go to bed tonight.
All you'll see is the eyes coming out of the dark. need you
Nathan.
But was that her trying to be scary.
Oh god.
She's, she's slamming her pip, her hands against the glass.
It's David Livingston saying, I'm out.
Can you just sell this for me, Roxanne?
You do this.
Can you do this?
You know where puts me?
It reminds.
Oh, no, wait.
I'll hold that for.
This is that scene now.
Your ship tried to kill me.
That's ridiculous.
They both just start hysterically screaming. forget how to act
now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, but I mean, she's always good.
When is she ever not good?
You know?
And even for how that pilot?
good here with him.
No.
No, but I mean, she's selling it better than anything else.
I really like that you've been stealing components, Tom.
Like, I really like that accusation.
Watch how he slams against the wall.
You know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's really bad.
Yeah, vicious with us.
Stay out.
Grabs are screams at us.
You know, um...
You're sick, Alice, on me again.
Yeah.
Oh, so she is physical.
He's got hold of her there.
No, no, that's just his point of view.
Oh, okay.
I do like this.
I wish she goes, She goes, keep your voice down because the lips
are your voice down is good, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, come on, the hell are you talking to, Tom Paris?
I wonder whether you should have had a point of view shot from
what they see as they walk past, but we don't really.
I am going to say this again, though, because I do say this a lot
and I know you're going to say to me because it's a Star Trek
episode and things don't work that way.
But the 2nd you start acting out of character like this, why on
earth doesn't somebody just say, pull the plug on the whole thing
and just go, you know what?
Someone's acting out of character again.
Should we get them to sick bay and see if there's anything wrong?
Well, that's what they would do.
That's what they would do on lower decks, right?
Because they're aware of the cliches.
I actually quite like these two.
There is something good about every time he turns around. she's
there.
Yeah, but it's her there.
That's the problem.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, I know, I know.
What's her name again?
Gene Rankin.
No, what was that?
Claire Rankin.
Claire. shot of her.
I'm sorry, I fit.
There's one bit where she stares straight down the camera.
It's terrifying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. really great.
That is quite a good shot.
Give us sort of mild disinterest, all right, but talk with some
panic.
No, more boggle eye than that, please.
Yeah, it's so good.
We're just wandering around the same boring voyager says.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fuck's sake.
Oh my god, Kate Mulgrew.
Thank you.
Finally.
Yeah, but like when?
At like 30 minutes in, you know?
She goes, that doesn't sound like Tom.
Jayway, that sounds exactly lights on. talking about?
The thing that you say about a man as well, like a woman comes to
you and says, I think my boyfriend just assaulted me and her
response is, oh, that doesn't sound like Tom.
You just think, what is that?
Who's behaving?
Do you know what I mean?
That's really bad, Cade.
Why you doing that?
It's not until he tries to take the ship in a second.
Then she goes, then there, maybe something's wrong.
Have you seen Star Trek before, Kate?
Don't you think that's really bad?
Like, that's a really particularly bad message.
And if this is inadvertently about just atrocious male behaviour
and it's excused, you know, here and then at the end.
Because if it is, the message they're putting out is appalling.
No, but it's accidentally about that, isn't it?
Like, it's accidentally about...
Well, that's...
I don't realise it.
Yeah, well I don't think they do.
They're complicit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, dear.
Okay, what exciting things happening now that we finally left
Voyager. and these sort of, you know those sort of curly wirly
straws you used to get around the car?
That's what it looks like, isn't it?
threatening.
Like, if it's turning his body into part of a machine.
Like, I know that we've got the Borg, but what we've got these
sort of, it's like the colour coded XLR cables you have so that
you can tell who's plugged into what machine.
It's so bad.
It's really bad.
You know what?
She's just given him an optronic pulse.
I think that's the sort of spaceship equivalent of an orgasm.
You know, he's got edging.
He now can control the weapons with his mind.
Shacks would be his element.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He would have detonated the warp core in no time at all.
But see, my God, look at her hair.
Yeah, yeah.
Look at her eyes.
I think she's just staring at him.
That's the performance That's the performance into the big eyes
performance.
How is this episode devolved into me just going?
Her eyes.
Because that's the only thing she's doing.
She's our best star.
This is something we'll take away from this, though, right?
There are some episodes we've done, I completely forgot.
I love that.
The effect of going through warp.
Just that shot of it going through warp as an attempt. do you know
what I mean?
The point of view shot of them going into the warp sort of thing.
So he is the speed, you know, he's but he is the spaceship.
I end up selling.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In a way, it's kind of selling the idea that, oh, look.
And now here, do you know, I go down Moss shop a lot and I buy
these sort of long straws, coloured straws, sweets.
That's what it looks like he's covered in right now.
But look, but he's also covered in straps and he's covered in
little LEDs as well.
Do you know what I mean?
Like he's becoming more the machine and his arms are no longer
working, but none of that stuff is as horrible as it should be.
But his arms are not...
And yeah, it's a Borg.
That's part of the problem.
They've already kind of blown their loads with it.
It's hideous when it's the Borg. horrible.
That's right.
Why is it so shit?
Oh, here's Abadon.
Thank God.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No refunds, Nathan.
No, refunds.
No.
That's right.
Oh, now, so he comes in, we find out now that actually he had a
similar relationship with Alice.
Tom Paris did.
And then it actualises as one of his race.
So we've got the female stepped on by, stepped on a cockroach
alien there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Also played by Claire Rankin.
It should be a makeup option, Nick.
Well, I was wondering how this plays if Alice is a man.
What if it had been, like, what, seducing Tom Barris?
Yeah. would have been great.
I would have been all over.
It would have just been a little bit more fucking interesting than
you know, like what we're getting here.
Or it actualises as somebody that you got a hotspot.
So it's Garrett Wang playing it. episode.
But with his sort of season one hair where it flops over his
exactly right.
Yeah it is.
All I can see now is a crushed cockroach when I look at that man.
I mean, is she supposed to be attractive?
That female version.
Well, I think she's attractive to other squashed cockroaches, I
think. don't you?
Like, I think that that's kind of the thing.
But, and she's is struggling, like, she's struggling to do
anything.
Like, she struggles to do anything without all that latex on, but
put half a pound of latex on her head and she's just not giving a
performance at all.
Look at that.
She has no facial expression of any kind.
She's not in any way threatening at all.
She just...
So bored.
And he's alcohol.
Just like Go for it.
Top quality stuff from John.
Yeah.
You know, Nathan, you know how I consider your supreme
intelligence, brain the size of a planet, yeah?
The fact that you come on this podcast and say things like, you
know, I'm sure she seems attractive to other people that look like
squash cockroaches.
I mean, it just makes me always an intelligent thing to say.
I thought that was a pretty fair observation.
What have I done to you?
Once you were a serious podcaster.
That's never true.
Oh my god, I'm dying of boredom.
How long have we got?
She can't fly herself.
She needs a pilot, a biological entity.
Working in tandem with her programming.
Oh really?
What are we learning about?
anybody in this?
What are we taking?
the moral of the story here?
The moral of the story is that sometimes your boyfriend will be
abusive, but it's okay for no one to believe you.
And then at the end of the episode.
You can just say, I think you are probably just hypnotised all
along and it's really nothing to do with what a massive fucking
asshole you are.
And then you can be married and have a kid.
But don't worry, you know, that other sexy spaceship that we've
got, we're just good friends.
Oh my god.
Well, if that is the moral of the story.
This is the most abhorrent episode of Star Trek we have ever
watched.
But am I wrong?
It is kind of that, isn't it?
As you said. inadvertently yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think this is just supposed to be a fun camp horror story.
Yes, but it's not neglected to inject it.
Exactly.
And it's not horror.
Yes.
They may have missed the mark a little bit, yeah.
But there is spousal abuse, so that's on the plus side.
It's really terrible.
Oh my god.
I have no words.
Like he just looks stupider every time he cut back to it.
That nebula looks quite nice.
Look at that.
It's got some sort of stardust coming out of a particle fountain
and there are only 2 particle fountains in Star Trek.
There's this, which is some kind of anomaly.
And then there's the particle fountain in quality of life, which
was mining machinery, remember?
Remember the particle founder?
was that thing, the satellite that fired a beam onto the planet to
do mining?
Wow, I was too busy looking at those cute little exacomps.
So, to be fair.
The technobabble side of it was tedious.
This is a very boring point that I'm making about inconsistent use
of technobabble between episodes.
We that desperate now at this point.
Well, given how boring this episode is, I thought some boring
trivia would be pretty kind of amp, you know, like Tom Paris, I
think the neurogenic interface is impairing your judgement.
I think it may well be far out those stupid wires.
I mean, why is there any suspense here?
Just blow the shit out of the ship and Tom Paris and then we can
all go away and have a nice time.
B'lana can find it.
We're supposed to care about Tom, aren't we?
He's in jeopardy right now.
Got you.
Yes.
And so this kind of makes the right choice about how to resolve
the episode, though, doesn't it?
Like, the one thing it does is it sends B'Elana into whatever the
computer or something and makes her appear so that it's her and
Alice and she persuades him to leave.
Do you know what that means?
It means this episode becomes about 2 women fighting over Tom
Paris.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, hideous.
And also, as I've said to you before, her job is to fix him, he's
been a cunt and her job is to protect him from the consequences of
his poor behaviour.
And yet, do you remember the episodes we've done where she's
having difficulties?
And he's still makes it amazing about him.
Exactly right.
Oh it's so selfish.
It's awful.
Oh, so bad.
I mean, look, if you're that bored, you know, I can always regale
you with stories from threshold of him eating pineapple pizza in
his bedroom, you know.
I have to say that I did like Ella saying no one's ever got me so
close before.
Oh.
Actually, I see nowadays, you know.
Yeah, no, everyone's doing it.
That's what this podcast is for me, it's just an hour long edge in
session.
Oh my god.
So, the other thing that I think is, he said, swiftly changing
this subject.
The other thing that I think is, oh, look at that shot of her face
on staring.
Does that sound like an illusion, Tom?
And then he goes, he goes, leave me alone, both of you.
Yeah, you stupid women.
And she can't shout.
For some reason, she can't shout.
So she just goes sort of, stop them.
It's time to come home, Tom.
But...
God.
All right.
Oh, what a prize full of what were you thinking?
I think it would be interesting and I don't know why, but I want
to like...
You think this would be interesting?
No, but like an, like some alien thing that wants to get into the
particle fountain, but they just blow Alice up because she's bad.
But we've done that, she's a bad lady. times.
For God's sakes, we did that in Star Trek.
In Lonely Among Us in series one, I would have been... was exactly
the same thing.
There's just no new ideas here.
The only new idea is the spaceship coming alive.
So have the fucking spaceship come alive and do things.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, no.
Here we go.
Do you think this, um, this uh, sort of goes back on what we said
about, uh, you know, one shot romances, one episode romances in
Star Trek.
We were so impressed with his way.
Yeah, yeah.
But, I mean, that plays out, you know, like the romances on Deep
Space 9 and there are a lot of them and they work really well.
This one is terrible and it's the only one on the show apart from
the ill-advised romance between the medium Robert and 7 towards
the end.
Oh Christ.
Yeah, before she realised she was a lesbian.
I have a weird ability of putting people together in relationships
with 0 fucking chemistry, don't they?
Do you know the gift?
romance.
You know what romance I'm going to say did work on this show?
Go on.
The one resolution.
Oh, Janeway, in Chicago.
It would have worked like Gangbusters.
Absolutely great.
Although there's enough one I would have liked to have seen
explored.
Do you remember that scene where 7 of 9 comes up to Harry Cumman
says?
You wish to have sex with me. remove your clothes immediately.
Yeah, that would have been a great relationship.
So this awful scene.
The crap joke at the end where he says of the Delta Flyer, we're
just friends, but if this was any good at all, it would be like
yeah, don't.
Did you see that kiss?
Oh no.
What if what if it was left with the idea that maybe the Delta Fly
is the next obsession?
You know, like the next thing that he's going to become obsessed
about and be a massive prick around is going to be the Delta
flyer.
Yeah, but we know, we know, because we've been here before, and we
will be here again.
Do you remember driving series 7, the wedding episode?
He's a prick again.
He's obsessed with the spaceship.
She just puts up with his shit.
Oh, boy, 0 boy.
I can't believe how unsexy that kiss was at the end.
Oh, you know?
Well, no, it was slogging latex.
It was sexier than that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, that was really dreadful, wasn't it?
Ugh.
I think that 90s trek, right, can do can do horror really well in
terms of atmosphere.
Do you remember when we did Nport Nort?
It was kind of shitty, but it had buckets of atmosphere because
they turn the lights down.
It was campus Hill by the end, but Genesis.
Genesis as well is another good example.
The darkness and the light, the one where all of Kira's old
terrorists are being murdered.
That's a really good horror episode.
There's a reasonable horror episode in series 4 called revulsion
with an evil hologram.
And there's a scene where he tries to murdered B'lana, and that's
genuinely creepy.
So he can do it.
So I think if a horror episode fails.
They're just not trying.
But maybe some people are good at pulling it off and others
aren't.
And you said that Livingston can do action.
You said Livingston could do action, but maybe he can't do
atmosphere or something.
Yeah, I'll keep an eye out to see if he doesn't either.
Well, you, he did that enterprise episode with all the Vulcans
going bat shit.
Oh, yeah, that's kind of a lot of atmosphere.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know what's happening.
This is an unloved one that fell between a few stools, but no
one's thought properly about how to make it work. and so it
doesn't. just nothing.
I started, well, we chose Alice last week.
I started with like, 0 my God, Voyager Series 6.
It was on a roll.
I enjoyed the 1st episode.
Survival instinct was a good Ron Moore script for seven, but Arja
the Dead was a good character drama for B'lana, then Tinker Taylor
Tennis Spy is probably the best comedy they ever did with the
emergency.
What's what's he called?
You know, the emergency command hologram.
Then he gets the 4 pits on his thing.
You know, that's a really, really funny episode.
And I was like, my God, DSI is gone and they're really up in their
game.
And I can remember watching Alice and thump coming back to reality
and realising, and then it's followed up with riddles, which is
the Tuvok amnesia one.
And from there on, there are highs.
There's stuff like Parfinder.
There's stuff like Muse that we've done.
But on the whole, it's a series that is sort of leaking
creativity.
But worst of all, I think there's just a weird disinterest in how
it's executed, what they're presenting.
And that's probably the worst crime of all, right?
We can stomach back Star Trek.
But sort of mildly disinterested Star Trek is so boring, you know
and a lot of 6 and 7 is that.
It's really a shame because this was their time to shine.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, no one sets down to create a bad episode and so
sometimes it's hard to explain how it happens and we make up sort
of just those stories to kind of guess at what's going on.
But what we just saw on the screen was just a massive miss.
It was boring and flat and lacking in atmosphere and seemed to
have given no real thought to what the story meant or how it
should be made entertaining or scary or how we were meant to feel
or what we were meant to learn.
And there was just no basic interest shown in any of those things
and those should have been central to kind of what was going on.
I think Voyager has one sort of casualty that both TNG and
DSnoying don't have.
And that is, it has a mixed cast in terms of their ability to act
on the screen.
So if there's a bad TNG episode, or if there's a bad DS9 episode
you'll, in a, the TNG ones, you'll usually find moments of charm
amongst the cast, and in a DS91, even the worst ones we've done
dramatis personae, move along home.
There were things that we said, that was a good character moment.
They've put some thought into that.
There's just something there to make it worth watching.
Whereas if it is a Voyager episode with a duff premise and one of
the regulars that can't act.
There's just nothing.
There's nothing to hold onto to say that was worth watching.
And that's where you are with this one.
And so I think that's one of the reasons why Voyager is probably
the most inconsistent in terms of quality of the 90s trek shows.
And I'm factoring in enterprise there as well.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
But I do think that if you ever need any lessons at all, anyone
who's listening, who needs any lessons at all to be less sexy in
your life, if you're having a sort of a bad effect on people in
your life, please study Claire Rankins performance in Alice.
Yeah, because...
All right, it's the end of the episode and it is time for us to
work out where we're going next.
This one was yours, I'm afraid.
Is that right?
I did say I want to say not good and I think I succeeded.
That's true.
That is true.
You didn't succeed.
Mission accomplished.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Well, in that case, I am going to choose an episode of another 90s
Star Trek series.
Oh, how exciting.
Oh, God.
Oh, another part.
I forget.
So...
I was glad to ditch that cliche.
No, we are going to choose an episode of Star Trek the Next
Generation.
Oh, how exciting.
Okay.
Yeah, that'll be fun.
That will be fun.
At random.
Here we go.
Come on, series one, series one.
Come on.
This is really boring.
So this is season seven, episode 24, preemptive strike.
Oh, it's quite a good episode, actually.
We have done a lot of 7 though.
We have, I actually think it's a little bit boring and it's the
1st one, isn't it, that Patrick Stewart directs?
They give it...
No, he did that Western.
Fifth full of daters.
Oh did he?
That's really boring as well.
Yeah, that is.
No, I actually quite like that one.
Because Deanna's fabulous in that one.
The preemptive star...
Yeah, Councillor Durango.
I'll always say it Yeah, I think it's a bit boring and a bit
worthy.
See if you can find something a bit more exciting.
Weather good or bad.
All right.
Oh, you like this one and I think it's shit.
So season two, episode 13, Times Square.
Oh, the one with 2 Picard.
Yeah.
Maurice Hurley writes that one.
I don't know.
I just think it's got a weird sort of sense of unease about it
Pulaski story, that's fair.
Yeah, as usual.
Yeah, and it is that sort of season 2 thing where things are still
kind of weird and haven't bedded down yet, but I don't know.
I think we could aim higher, you know?
Yeah, all right.
We've kind of done this from the other end.
Season seven, episode seven.
You'll see what I mean.
Season seven, episode 12, the Pegasus.
Fucking season seven.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I'm be throwing anything from season seven.
Only because I really want something from season one.
Your wish is my command.
So this is this is really bad.
Craig, go on.
Not a code of honour.
No, it's too short a season.
Oh, the worst latex.
Oh, my God.
And so when I was a kid, like my 1st encounter with Star Trek
really was the VHS tapes that were released not to buy, not for
kind of buying at home, but for video shops to buy.
And in Australia, the ones that were released omitted 2 episodes.
So they were never released.
And I always just assumed it was because they were the worst too.
And it's possible that they were because they were home soil and
too short a season.
Soil, ugly bags, all mostly water.
That's pretty good.
But yep, no, not watching that.
Oh, have you gone past it?
I was looking forward to that.
Oh, come on, then.
What we doing now, then?
I think I think we might be okay.
It better be better than too short of a season.
It is a bit better. on.
Season six, episode 15 tapestry.
Oh, that's a banger.
That is.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
One of the best top tier.
You have to do that.
Luck Picard. here.
Yeah.
We absolutely, absolutely. and he goes, morning darling. doesn't
he?
Isn't he stroking him?
Like, doesn't he stroke his head and wake him up?
They're quite friendly at this point, Stuart.
Certainly much sexier than Alice and the worst Robert were in that
episode that we just watched.
Has a really visceral stabbing scene in there as well, where
Picard gets stabbed.
And that just glorious scene.
Picard is sent back into the future as a lieutenant. and Riker
says to him, oh, I don't think you're really for command.
You're a no one.
You're nobody. let's watch it sounds really fun.
It's a really good episode. can't wait.
You've been listening to entitled 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 Ciceran, and the theme was
composed by Cameron Lam.
This episode was recorded on the 27th of May 2025 and released on
the 30th of May.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek the Next Generation
Tapestry.
Shall we have there?
Yeah, whatever.
There's nothing else to say.
I can't believe at one point in that episode, I just went...
I still think your most, my most famous, my favourite thing about
your recent performances has been when you were doing the empath's
voice..
I did make myself laugh when I was like, I'm not going to
sacrifice myself.
You do it.
Jesus Christ. so good.
But I mean, that was a bad episode of Star Trek, but it was... like
this.
Yeah.
Although we did laugh a lot in that.
We generally laugh at the worst ones more than we do.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
But I mean, this is there's a sense in which nothing in this apart
from the inadvertent message is terrible.
It's just boring.
It's just mid and boring.
Nathan riddles are started, right?
And the alien of the week has shown up and he could have been more
Beaumarian if he's right.
He wearing a coat hanger?
No, he doesn't, but he sort of looks like he's got jaundice
because he's very sort of yellow and he's sort of got ridges that
go in like this and then sort of come out. with weird lines going
up here and a crazy haircut.
No, that's no good.
Oh, no, you can see the lion where his wig is.
No, dear.
Being this close to the screen does it no favours.
Yeah, no, that's a problem.
And he has got just a little bit of makeup here to suggest that
there's something going on underneath his clothes.
Just a little.
God bless them. anyway.
Oh, please.
Chew sorry. good.
Okay, okay.
I can guarantee that I'll do that.
But...
I'm gonna give it...
I mean, it's miles away from those lower decks we watch this, isn't
it?
Yeah, I know. like chalk and cheese.
All right, it's the end of the episode.