Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, we're back aboard the NXO one this week.
It's Star Trek Enterprise, season four, episode 13, United, which
is actually part 2 of a three-part arc that memory alpha calls the
Romulan Interference Arc.
So in a way, it's a sequel to minefield.
Doesn't that sound boring?
The Romulan?
Interference.
Is that the best they could come up with?
That wasn't an official umbrella term, was it?
No, I don't think so.
But, you know, one of them is called the Augments arc.
You know, like, these are very dreary titles.
Boring titles.
Well, like the Enterprise titles, let's be honest.
United.
So, so last week's was called Babel one, which has the whole sort
of setup of these unmotivated attacks on the Tellorites and the
Andorians, and we are going to Babel, the planet Babel in order to
kind of negotiate around those issues.
And of course, that reminds us of Journey to Babel, which I
actually watch today.
Could you correct me on something?
Because I've got an image in my head in Journeys of Staple of like
a party on the Enterprise with loads of aliens in it, you know
Andorans and Tellerites, but all sorts of other ambassadors and
things like that.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
So how did that fair?
It was actually not too bad.
So they say in dialogue that they've got about 100 sort of
important guests and ambassadors and stuff and there's all sorts
of things.
There's a purple lady and there's 2 very short bronze people and
stuff.
But it's the episode that has Andorians and Tellerides in it.
The only other episode of original Trek that does that is Whom
Gods Destroy, remember, which we saw, and the villains of the
Orion.
So that setup where the Federation is Andorians, Tellerites
Vulcans, and Humans kind of coming together, is a kind of conceit
of original trek.
It isn't a feature of 90s trek at all until this point.
And so this is the 1st time, I think, that we've had Tellerides in
90s trek at all.
And I think Michael Westmore was keen to have a go at the makeup
for them.
Well, no, we're going to disagree on this, but hot off the press
off the Vardoir a couple of weeks ago.
I think this is a similarly ghastly design.
I mean, I refuse to believe a species would grow up looking like
this.
I think the Tellorites never really work at all.
Like they never tend to look good with the exception. of pod.
No, we agree, didn't we?
Polk, yeah, because they sort of went for the, it's either bebop
or rock study.
I can never remember which one's which in teenage root.
It looks like that, basically, doesn't it?
Like a warthawk.
That's it.
Yeah, so I think he looks really good.
Generally, the Tellorites don't look good.
I think these ones don't look too bad, but there is a kind of
problem generally with this setup, which is that all of the aliens
are weird and irrational with their crazy traditions and obnoxious
behaviour.
And only human beings.
It's still not instructed, you know.
Beings are reasonable.
In fact, Babel won, the 1st episode.
Last week's episode starts with this big argument between Hoshi
and Captain Archer, where Archer's really rude and personally kind
of insulting towards her.
And you're kind of going, what's happening here?
What's happening here?
And it turns out she's training him to be as obnoxious as he needs
to be with the Tellerites, who will come on board and complain and
be obnoxious.
Trouble is so.
You couldn't tell the difference between that and the regular
archer.
But yeah, so that's sort of set up a little bit in Journey to
Babel.
I sent you a message saying, you know, how wonderful that they've
taken the Andorians, which have got a bit of a short straight
flight in 90s trade.
I haven't really been touched upon at all.
I think we saw one in the offspring, didn't we, in the holodeck?
and that's it.
So they went, okay, that's a much underutilised race.
We're going to give them some focus and some attention.
And then by the end of this, we're just doing sort of Klingon
stuff, right?
In order to, you know, maintain my honour.
We must have a fight in this room and, you know, and you or my
friend, but I'm going to have to fight you and I'm like, is this
the best they can come up with?
Like we've been doing this now for 15 years.
It's it's really kind of exhausting and in that scene and we'll
get there.
I knew exactly how it was going to play out and the thing is that
Stran doesn't need to be told what's happening because he guesses
it immediately because he's watched a lot of Star Trek over the
last few years as well.
He's by far the best thing about this.
Oh, he's the most interesting.
I said to you, he's more interesting than any of the Enterprise
crew in this episode.
He's giving a better performance than anybody on the regular cast
is giving in this episode.
And frankly, I would be a lot happier if we just ditched the
Enterprise and when it did Star Trek Shran for the rest of the
season, because it might be a bit more engaging.
In fact, he's even better in part three.
So the conclusion to this episode, the big cliffhanger at the end
of this episode is the revelation that the Romulan drone ship is
being remotely piloted by an Andorian.
And that Andorian is white skinned and blind, and we discover the
following week that he's from a subgroup of the Andorians called
the Enar, which is the subgroup that Hammer belongs to in Strange
New World.
Ina, you say.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So that is actually referenced in Stranger Worlds, because that's
where Hemmer comes from.
He's one of those as well, so which is why he's blind and white
skinned as an Andorian.
So that next episode is called the Enar, and we go and visit the
Enar, and Shran meets a young Enar, girl, who is the sister of the
person who's piloting the drone, and his relationship with her.
She's not the girl from the last one, is she?
I don't think so.
Oh, that would have been good. if they were setting that up.
Because that's his daughter, isn't it?
The girl from the last one.
Oh yeah, it is.
I did think about that, though, whether they tried to get her back
and then couldn't and then gave him a daughter.
They could have just said it was her.
They did it with Yow 4 times.
Yeah, no, she's white, though, because she's enough.
Oh, okay.
And she's really good and Shran, like Jeff Coombs is so
magnificently good with her.
So we've got the stuff here with Talis, his girlfriend who dies in
this episode and we get to see that.
And we get to see him play this conflict between the demands of
his culture. his stupid Star Trek culture and the need to work
together against a common enemy and his rationality and his
respect for Archer and all of those things.
And I think there's a complexity to that, that, you know, that
dual motivation.
It's not groundbreakingly brilliant or anything, but it's more
than anyone else has got going on.
And he's really playing it to the hilt.
I think he's really good in this.
You said to me, in a message that, like, he's more interesting
than Waiyud.
And I think he probably is more interesting than way you'd, on
paper, but he's no fun in the way that Wayoon is.
It's hilarious. and so much, and you know what?
This is entertainment, right?
We are supposed to be enjoying this as well as taking something
you know, intelligent away from it.
And the issue with him not being as fun as Yune is that no one on
the Enterprise is fun either.
And it was especially apparent when I was watching this.
We come on the back of Subspace Rhapsody, right?
which obviously is in the future and they've learned how to do
this better, but all those characters are so fun and light and
effervescent and enjoyable to be around.
Then I was back on these dark sets with these people sort of
whispering their lines in a very serious way.
And I was going, how did we ever get here?
Yeah, this is where TNG started.
You know, they're all very over the top of the start of that.
When did we get this subtle?
It's funny.
I think, I mean, I do think that the regulars tend to be a bit
boring here, and like I'm happy to see Jolene do anything.
They unfortunately pair Connor up with Dominic Keating, Malcolm
Reese.
Like, they're just not interesting together in any way because
again, you know.
They keep pairing them up.
They have like 2 or three.
They have a one where the shuttlepod one where they're stuck in
the ship together and it's like the bromance begins and they're
all talking about tits and things and it's just steeply deeply
uncomfortable tedious.
They talk about Dep Paul's bum in this 3 part.
Yeah, it's tits and shut up on one.
They're talking about one of the con officers boobs.
And then in, there's a one where they go down to riser. imagine
how that goes.
I mean, just hideous.
I keep doing this and I'm like, who is this for?
You know, you heterosexual Star Trek fans, are you really enjoying
this stuff?
But like it's clearly, you know, just a male heterosexual
relationship, like Julian and O'Brien, but they're good, they're
interesting.
Well, they're in love with each other as well, they're older.
But they have well-defined characters in a way, you know, and
Malcolm isn't a well-defined character.
Look, I think that they are perfectly serviceable in their subplot
and I think their subplot is reasonably interesting.
Boring.
They were just in a room spout in Technopapol.
I'm like, what's happening?
Please get out of this room.
I like the premise a lot.
And I think they do a reasonable job of sort of selling it where
they've got the Romulans here.
We can't ever see them, right?
Because canonically, uh, they don't get seen until, is it balance
of terror?
I don't know.
A problem that keeps coming up in enterprise.
They want to play with a big boys, but they can't because they
haven't been established.
So they even have to jump through time paradoxes, you know, have
the ball turn up in the past or something like that, you know.
But yeah, it is a problem though.
But but I think I think that they kind of play with it a little
bit because in the in the 1st episode, it's not clear that the
ship is a drone being piloted remotely.
Like, it's not at all clear.
And what happens is in the cliffhanger, the 2 boys come into the
bridge of the ship, and there's no one there, but we thought that
Brian Thompson and his mate and the pilot were there, that they
were on the bridge, and the big reveal is no, they're in this
building on the planet Romulus.
And they're piloting the ship remotely and there's no one on the
ship at all.
And that wasn't at all known to us.
And so that's kind of surprising.
And so what you have is this shape shifting remote drone ship.
And so what I thought was the guy in the helmet is the one that
we'll see, right?
Because we can't see the Romulans.
So the boys will encounter the guy in the helmet and we'll never
get to see that Romulan because they're wearing the helmet, right?
Then it turns out they're not there at all.
And so why is the guy wearing the helmet and obviously that's
resolved in this cliffhanger.
But that idea of the remote thing that's trying to stir up trouble
between these alpha quadrant races.
I don't think that's a terrible idea.
It's something new. something technically new.
It gives us a new thing to do.
I think this might be an occasion where our format. trips me up
because you watched all 3 episodes of this.
So you sort the setup.
And I just had really no idea what was going on from the few clips
I got at the start.
So I didn't really understand the stakes of the episode.
I couldn't really understand how everybody had got to the
positions that they're in.
And then the story didn't move at any great pace.
And then it ended with a cliffhanger, which I didn't understand.
So the whole end was, I was like, what is happening here?
Why the hell doesn't this thing start moving?
My other thing I really want to talk about before we go in, and
this might not make me popular, and they never would have done
this in a 1000000 years because they had a roll call of creatives
in 90s trek, but they just kept going back to the same well.
And they had directors.
They had sort of good faith relationships with.
But I just think for Enterprise.
Yeah, if they really wanted to do something new, they should have
ditched all of the directors that did TNG, DS 9.
Because this is David Livingston's like 180th episode or something
like that, right?
And there comes a point.
There comes a point where you've done everything and you just
point a camera.
And there was points during this episode where I was like, yeah, do
you know, I could me, Joe Forwater, who's not a director, because
I can think of ways of making this more visually dynamic with the
technology they had at the time beyond what David Livingston's
doing here.
It just plotted.
And the sort of the climax where the action started.
It was so boring.
And I was like, okay, they should have taken all of their sort of
actorly directors that have proven themselves.
Robert Duncan McNeil.
Roxanne Dawson, Frakes, Patrick, no, Patrick Stewart.
Leave him on the foot.
Avery Brooks, Renee, all of those people, and maybe just make a
build, a great direction team out of the and showcase that.
But as a result, all you've got in enterprise, on the whole, is
your Les Landos, your David Livingston's, and they've been doing
this a long, long time now.
And I can feel it.
I can feel it in the execution of the episode.
And that's a shame because there's stuff here that could be
dynamic.
This is not as good as the Keshara 3 part of which we did at all
which I think is really terrific.
Did we watch the last one of that?
I think we watched the last one.
There was space battles hand-to-hand battles.
It was all going on in that one.
I reckon if we'd watched the last one of this, you might have come
away having had a better time because excuse me, you made the
rules all right.
We weren't allowed to do 3 episodes together.
No, no way.
No, I'm not watching...
Well, like I watched it on the couch and got up to go for a Wii
and that kind of thing.
I don't think I could talk into a microphone while watching 3
episodes in a row.
I don't think, oh, I could watch 3 episodes about the prize on the
trot, you know.
One every couple of weeks is enough.
I watched episode one and then went and did some stuff and had
lunch and had to lie down and then watched the other two.
But the 3rd one, I think, is the strongest one and it's the one
that's most focussed.
Then you say one and three.
Sorry, I'm waving a pencil.
Didn't you say one and three?
were better than two. think so.
I said you, this absolutely feels like coming after one and before
three.
You know, that doesn't have to be the case because in the DS93
part of the 1st 3 part.
They did, the Bajor Civil War arc at the start of season two.
Big mission statement, you know, season two, episode one.
The 2nd episode there is by far the best of the free.
Right.
It's where all that, where all the twists here and, you know, the
terrorists are heading to the station.
It's all building a momentum to a big rousing finale, whereas this
absolutely feels like the filler between 2 pieces of bread to me.
In a way, at the end of the episode, they kind of defeat or, you
know, they overcome the marauder and it vanishes.
And in a way, this story could have ended there, that would have
been fine.
But what we get to get the 3rd episode happening is to reveal that
the Ina kid is piloting the spaceship.
And then we find out who that is very early on and Strand steal
aboard the ship for that episode and we...
Is there more action in the 3rd one?
bet there is.
No, we actually go to Andoria and we visit the Inar and we learn
about them.
I might have been a bit more interesting.
And we meet the sister and then we go back on board and we have a
confrontation and stuff and it's a lot more kind of focussed and
interesting, I think.
It is the cruel fate of the randomiser then that we landed upon
that we got that episode too.
Well, on that note, should we go watch it?
I think we should.
I mean, I think I think the thing is here, the keyword is united
and this is the birthplace.
This is the very kind of kindling of the United Federation of
planets.
Oh, for sure.
Yes, and they're doing all of that this year, aren't they?
to get to that point.
That's right.
Trouble is, we don't get to that point because the axe comes down
but yeah.
But, I mean, yes, it doesn't happen for another 6 years or
something.
I'll set you into thread and I've set you off, Mike.
I think series 5 of Enterprise would have been pretty
extraordinary because I think in 4 they're absolutely figuring out
what works in this show, how to tell more interesting stories, how
to give everybody something to do.
I mean, I was so happy that how she got a scene in this.
Hurrah.
Get your pen out, love.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you said she got one in the last scene as well.
You're getting greedy now.
But I don't think they're quite there yet, but I think they're
making huge strides this season compared to where we started in
series one.
You remember Strange New World?
We've come a long way. getting from there to here.
Oh boy, please press play.
We do that every single episode.
Okay, I will count in 5, 4, 3, 2, one, and we're off.
So previously.
So, see the big antennas on the front of the ship?
So it's got the big antennas, the big antennas are for the remote
control.
Right?
I did like...
Sorry, go on.
Go on.
No, no.
And then there's hollow emitters on the, those, those sort of
glowing things on the ship, on the outside of the ship, the hollow
emitters.
The, the crazy design of the, what turns out to be the Andorian in
the chair with all the sort of glowy tubes all over him.
I did love that.
That's a bit different.
Yeah.
Well, what was the what was the one that we watched?
Um, uh, it might have been sort of right near the end, but another
sort of enterprise where we had a lot of negative space, um, and a
big fabulous dark set for the villains, which I thought was really
good.
You're not talking about that TOS episode, are you?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, an enterprise episode where we had a set very similar to this
one.
See, so this set, they're on the bridge, right?
Malcolm and and trip on the bridge, and then we're cutting back to
this other thing, which is identical with the bridge, but now
we're starting to see that there's a window, I don't think we saw
the window in episode one that gives out onto the Romulan capital
city, which, it turns out, is lifted from nemesis.
So, um, it's the same model but a different kind of angle.
I'm going to bizarrely say something complimentary about the
execution given I've just write it all over it.
But the decision to light the Romulans from below in this scene
was a great idea because Brian Thompson already looks menacing.
And then you light him from below and he looks terrifying.
He's really great in this.
His physicality used to be his main thing.
You know, he was kind of big and buff and a bit intimidating
physically and now he's a bit older and a little bit kind of, you
know, doughier.
I don't know.
He's a, you know, his face is so... where he's got a double chin
and stuff like that. you know, before he had a very striking
face.
Now he's a little bit rounder faced and stuff.
But I still got that voice, Nathan.
Yeah, I just found him so compelling.
I thought he was really great in this.
You usually think it, because he doesn't ever say anything in the
X-Files, does he ever?
Well, no, no, you ask the old line.
Yeah.
Tell me where he is.
Lines like that, you know, yeah, yeah.
Functional lines.
Oh, can I confess something to you now?
I was like, I can't believe I don't know what came over me, but I
was sort of doing some steps at home whilst I was watching this.
And I pressed fast forward 10 seconds when the music started.
I was like, what am I doing?
Yeah, yeah, I went back 10 seconds.
Obviously, I went back and listened to that.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the only title sequence I watch every time.
Yeah, no, I always watch some.
I love the time. of the heart. my god. beautiful.
Can we have a dance for that when you come here?
You're visiting soon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think so.
I love this.
We'll have a waltz around the room to play for the heart.
Dead core.
Will too.
This keeps very I'm the age of a dad now, all right.
It's perfect You want marketing?
That'll be our market if you and me dancing around the room for
this.
Oh dear.
Okay.
I might have had enough of it. get this song wrapped up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shut up, Russell.
Oh, Rick Berman and Brad and Braga, right?
Our side of quality.
That was once.
It was a sign of a ratings hit back in the day.
What happened?
So, oh, yeah, and we did have that fight.
We did have that fight, which the fight in which Talis got shot
last week, and that was kind of exciting as well.
If only they took Archer, they're seeing and put Tripp into it
you'd have the 3 prettiest people of the crew together.
It'd be lovely, wouldn't it?
It is true.
Look at how serious they all are, though.
But I love this idea where the ship.
So because the ship starts this, the 1st episode starts on trans
ship, which is called the Kumari, and it gets destroyed.
It gets attacked by the Tellerites and destroyed, and they pick up
the survivors.
There's like 19 survivors out of 80 or something.
And, um, And then the Tellerites complain that they're being
attacked by, by Andorians and stuff.
And all of this is lifted from journey to babel, where the Orions
are trying to sow dissension.
I was going to say Doctor Who's frontier in space, but clearly
they'd watch Journey to Babel.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Journey debate was well. that reminds me of that interview
where Jeffrey Coombes was, you know, facing up against Branham Bra
going, how dare you not give me a regular pot?
Well, they sort of did. he gets a lot to do in this season.
He's really...
Brandon, for once, I'm on your side and you should have said, well
we kept giving you work, all right?
Stop complaining.
Fuck, he's good.
He's so good.
So this woman has been on it before, hasn't she, Molly Brink?
Like she has been his sidekick.
I think we might have seen her before, but it's established last
week that they're in a relationship finally.
Can I, um, confess another problem?
Yeah, I know this is Star Trek and we're used to ridiculous
things.
But these twitching appendages during deeply serious scenes.
It is inadvertently hilariously funny.
That's where the fun is. that they don't realise how absolutely
stupid.
I mean, look at it's fucking thing.
I know, it's really funny, isn't it?
It is great.
And it is a proper serious scene as well, isn't it?
Yeah, well, no, in every scene he's serious in this, but he still
has twitching tentacles for what are they called?
antennae.
Yeah, yeah.
I, what do they do?
Do we know?
We do find out because he can't continue fighting once Archer
chops one of his antennae off because he's and he loses balance
crucially at one point next week he can't balance because one of
the antennae's been cut off.
So he's right. when the Klingons came back in TNG.
They said, you know what, we didn't put too much effort during
TOS.
We're going to update them a bit, make them look a bit less stupid
or a bit more stupid.
They look stupider in Journey to Baby.
Really?
Were they moving?
No, no movement.
I'll switch the details.
And then it turned out that the villa, the Andorian villain was
really in Orion, who'd been surgically altered, i.e. painted blue
in order to pass for a, uh, so his antennae weren't even real.
We was talking about the CGI vistas that they're achieving now.
I do think they are incredibly good.
The only thing that lets it down and I can see it on the
background there behind you is this sort of Lego City Sea that
they have going around the edges that looks incredibly fake.
But the rest of it, the detail in the buildings is pretty
impressive.
I'd be surprised if that wasn't a real element, that the, that the
background wasn't like a photo that they'd taken or taken and
adjusted, you know, Oh, no, I'm talking about the sea there.
It's just curling around the edge.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fake.
Yeah, it does.
So this is the same model that they used in Star Trek Nemesis. and
I didn't check any further than the opening minute of Star Trek
Nemesis to establish that.
It's not the same shot, and maybe they just take...
Look, Riemens.
Like, there's Riemens in the background of that show.
I'm going, well, there weren't Riemens in 2154, but of course
there were. just didn't know about them.
Why are they reminding us of nemesis of all things?
Well, the costumes are lying around.
And I did think that they looked pretty good, the the Rimans.
Yeah, you had a certain noferatu thing.
One last thing about the special topics.
I think it's great that they're being this ambitious with their
CGI.
And we were talking about the map paintings in TNG and DS9 and
stuff and how they do those weird sort of sweeps across to suggest
movement.
There's far more dynamism in what they're doing now, but because
CGI is still kind of in its infancy at this point.
I think the match shots are beautiful, yeah?
And they hold up because they're not trying to be too ambitious.
Whereas the CGI hit, whenever I see a person and there's just an
outline of a person walking about, it's, wow, we've come a long
we've come a long way, haven't we?
The little CGI people never work in Enterprise.
I do think these cityscapes look great.
And next week we will see the Ina City under the ice and that's
imaginative and interesting as well.
And I do think that the marauder, the drone looks great.
You know, the little drone and how it moves. at the end was
incredibly good, like, and they did a sort of fly around of that
and yeah, that was really, really great.
I mean, please go back and watch Babylon 5 CGI.
To see how far we've come.
I don't. won't be doing that.
I believe that's a bit of a blank spot in your mind, isn't it?
Babylon 5?
Just slip straight out.
By tomorrow I'll never have heard of it.
Keep it that way.
Okay.
So we did get a mention of minefield, because that was their 1st
encounter with the Romulans, and again, they encounter them in a
ship without ever seeing them, and they encounter their minds and
staff.
And so we think this is a Romulan ship.
The Romulans are very confident that they can't be tracked, but
they're told very definitely that they can be.
We have been doing 2 people stuck in a room with a technobabble
problem for 15 years now, yeah?
What they should be doing here is pumping this scene full of
character moments. as well as doing the Taylor babble.
Like, do you remember when we watched Change of Face of Evil and
we were going around the ship just before they were going off to
war and they were all doing their consoles and bits like this and
everyone had a witty line and everyone was going down. you know
and I was like, yeah, we're there.
They figured out how to do all this boring exposition with a lot
of personality.
So why is this all check the babble?
I think it's awful.
And the one scene at the end of this, at the end that wraps up
this subplot, I think is dreadful, and it's an attempt...
Yeah I think it's awful.
Yeah, but I was just so happy that somebody was smiling and said
like teasing him, you know, in a way that's not funny.
Ah, Psych, I'm not going to report you.
Ha ha, you're easy to fool.
I'm your commanding officer.
It just made Tripp seem like a prick.
And like, that's...
I refuse to believe, Nathan, but anybody would light a room from a
table like this with no other lighting source.
I mean, I realise it's atmospheric.
But that's not really what you go for during diplomatic talks.
I think they discovered in 10 forward that it gave very
traumatic.
Don't you think?
It was like 10 four and they said, fuck, we should need more lit
tables.
I cannot look at those hairy warthogs.
Look at the state of here.
Right.
I think like the teeth, the lower teeth, the fangs on the lower
jaw look really great.
I think they look properly like pigs.
Like they don't work at all in original track and like trying to
recreate them like I looked at photos of them from the movies and
stuff like that and even in discovery, like they just don't look
very good.
I don't want you coming up me, people on social media, all right.
They're not real, okay?
Because I realise I've been very mean about a lot of aliens lately
on this podcast.
God they are hideous.
I think they look they're pretty good.
They might be the best version of them that's been done. better
than Polk.
Yeah, because Pog doesn't really look enough like a Telleride.
They just get away with it because it's a cartoon.
Well, because it's that fabulous CGI, so dynamic.
You see him running around and leaping around rooms and things.
But there is another Tellerite character in, like on Janeway's
ship, on the Dauntless, which doesn't look like Pog at all.
And, oh, yes, they remember to make poke funny.
And that makes him incredibly appealing.
Yeah, not like either of these people in this plot.
Not like anybody in this block.
But like what I like here is the interaction with the Romulans
here, like the interaction with Brian Thompson, where Brian
Thompson talks to them.
I think there's a terrific moment where he calls Reed Malcolm
because that's just what he's heard trip calling him.
And, you know, like, like, I think he's got a really great ominous
voice.
I think they have this weird power over them.
Like it's an odd, it's like an odd twist on what is a fairly kind
of boring thing, I think.
Yeah, but because of the reason you said earlier that we can't see
them, yeah?
It's like can't have a scene together, which means it's all done
over intercoms.
Yeah, but that's that's interesting.
I think that's something that's interesting.
Like, I think, given they're doing it.
And given that they have these constraints, and given that they're
trying to play in the TOS sandbox, which is why we get Romulans
here, um, Look at this, fella, look, he said, trying to say you're
very dramatic, it appears they fail in the main matrix of the warp
coupling.
My god.
The strakes are high now.
But it goes, I'm going to, I'm going to flip through these surplit
couplers.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, he just says, look, we'll just lock him in the room because
we've got something in there to kill him with.
I thought that was really good.
I thought that was great.
Like, I realise I'm not your typical Star Trek fan.
Okay.
I love Star Trek, yeah, but I just can't bear.
This is like 2 Daleks talking to each other.
All of this Tetla babble.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, but I mean, this is about how to kill them, how to get
the ship back off them.
Do you know what I mean?
There's a very clear kind of, uh, he wants these guys want to do
something, they want them not to do it.
You know, like, I don't think, I don't think there's any lack of
clarity in what the episode's about.
Um, I don't think it's primarily techno-babble, but trying to gain
control of the sheep.
Oh, I mean, in the dialogue that I'm reading right now of the
screen, all I'm seeing is Alabama.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Who are you?
Unfortunately, we're not revealed for another 60 years, so I can't
tell you.
But you'll know that I'm very menacing.
So when I turn up in the neutral zone, you'll know I'm bad news.
He does have a very scary voice.
It's like a lameo in the neutral zone, of course.
Yeah, I'll they do choose their representatives.
The actors extremely well.
So I always, this thing shits me right.
So, like, what...
Not that bad of a design enterprise?
What annoys you about?
No, no, no.
The thing about trapping them in the radioactive room and it's
kind of like you'll be dead in a minute.
And so basically the alternative is, if you get out before the
minute, then you're perfectly fine and there's no ill effects at
all, but if you go there for a 2nd longer than that, then you'll
be dead.
You know, like, you know, they're kind of...
Star Trek escape room.
It's like, he probably has a lot of cancer and like burns. you
know, like.
You know, I refuse to believe that they would kill off a regular
honour surprise in a moment like that, you know, a sort of offhand
moment.
Oh, wait, no.
These are the voyages.
I absolutely would do that. was terrible.
I like this scene.
Like, yeah, I do like the relationship between Archer and Shrine
and it's because they've given it some time.
They've let the actors develop the relationship and there is, do
you remember the start?
They didn't get on at all.
Just wait one sec.
Here, Strand suggests that perhaps future vessels will be named
after the Kumari and the Enterprise, that the Kumari Strand ship
was named after the 1st ice cutter to circumnavigate Andoria.
And in the final episode of Star Trek Picard, we have the USS
Kumari, which is named... after this.
As it should be.
Do you know what I mean?
This is the place.
It was Shran that the Andorians and the humans become allies for
the 1st time that they work together and they work together with
the Tailorites.
This important historical moment and so we name the USS Kumari
after it.
Do you wonder if Alex Kurtzman just sat down and watched all of
Star Trek, right?
Every sort of team that wasn't crossed an eye that wasn't died
yeah.
Ooh, did that accent again?
That was well sexy.
Oh, well, have that.
No, like, it does actually mention a memory alpha who suggested
calling it the USS Kumari and that it was a reference to that, but
I think that's pretty terrific.
I mean, they are so good at that, though, aren't they, Kersman
Trek?
I mean, the amount of lip service they pay to enterprise is
astonishing.
Given it was a spectacular flop.
They truly have celebrated enterprise.
For them, too.
Like the, you know, those old scientists, the big key moment is, is
the crew of enterprise geeking out over the crew of the NXO one.
And over time, you know, I mean, even though DS9 is always the
least served in Kurtzman Trek.
Over time, they, you know, the change that came along, that big
statue of O'Brien.
There was enough there.
There was enough.
There's going to be a Gem Hadar in Starfleet Academy.
Have you seen all the Star Trek fans losing their shit?
You cannot have a female gem at all.
They said it into the death.
Oh, please.
She looks amazing.
She looks fantastic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she's teaching at the academy, I hope.
Horrible sort of teefy bones all over the face.
Oh terrific.
A gem dog teacher.
I can't wait.
I cannot wait.
Oh, damn.
Now what's going on?
Back to the escape room now.
Actually, you know, I think this could sell, you know, this escape
room.
All right, get out of there in a minute or you're dying a
radiation poisoning.
Are you any good with an escape room?
I'm not.
I've never done an escape room.
I don't think it would ship me.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, I did one with Marva off and he got so angry.
It was like, what's the logic?
Where's the logic in that?
You know, that doesn't make any sense.
I was like, it's supposed to be fun, you know?
Yeah, love...
Do your duty, Malcolm, save your commander's life.
Like, I'd like him.
I think he's really good in this.
Nathan, they look like Burns victims.
Who?
These Tellerrites.
Look at that.
Are they kind of pigs?
Yeah, pigs that have been burned.
No.
I don't want to look at them on the screwing.
I didn't realise we served the Macos on the ship in series 4.
I wondered about that too.
And there's one hot one here.
Look, not that guy.
Yeah, always fan.
No, not Shrak guy, right?
Like that guy.
Look at that.
He looks like a man.
No, I'm back on the teller right now.
We clearly a few seconds apart.
Please tell me you're not talking about that guy.
Fuck you, hell.
No, no, no.
Oh, actually, there's a very hot personal colour there behind.
That's what I mean.
Yeah, that guy.
Yeah, all that, yeah.
White guy's quite nice as well.
That's why they're mad.
Maybe that's why they catch him around.
Not enough pretty people in the cars.
Have they not ever seen, you know, where the Macos come back from
a deadly planet and they go to the decontamination chamber and
because they're clearly all men.
They have to rub the gel.
Oh, there's one lady.
There's one lady I think.
Oh, they'd all be curing up beyond her, wouldn't they?
So not all of them.
Oh, boy.
I mean, I do like this.
I do like the fact that he brings the blood.
Right.
Is that this bit?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he pours it out for his house.
It's very traumatic and then goes to kill him. this was probably
my favourite part of the because I knew he was going to try and go
for him.
Do you know, do you know what my favourite part is?
And we kind of missed it, but there's a moment where Shran goes to
threaten the doctor, because, you know, Shran arrives to see
Talis's body, he knows that she's dead, and the doctor says I did
everything I can, and he starts to threaten him, and Archer just
says Shran.
And then he goes, yeah, no.
Do you know what I mean?
and just behaves like a normal person.
And it was such a good moment.
Like, it was underplayed by everyone.
Yeah.
Yeah, but you know, that shouldn't be the best moment.
No, but I did think that was pretty good.
And it is that thing because that is the theme here where Shan
respects, Archer, and wants to has a job to do, but can't stop
himself with his Klingon bull, Klingon bullshit.
His Andorian Star Trek.
No shit.
No, that was a good Freudian slip.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, basically...
What are we doing?
Wiggling antennas.
Like, I'm sorry.
I mean, the fact that, you know, you look at his acting, Jeffrey
Coombs.
Yeah, and yet he's got those...
It just poured a load of ink over that ridiculous bird pig's
hand.
I mean what are we watching?
Oh boy, 0 boy.
Oh, back to the escape room.
Okay.
No, it's a good scene.
No, no, I mean, I've taken the piss, but it is a really good
scene.
So for me, I think the problem, I think the problem with that is
that the big thing is just some dumb Star Trek bullshit, where for
the 1000000th time, we have to have a battle to the death between
people and it's so boring.
And like, in a way, I sort of think, well, okay, but it is Star
Trek, maybe, maybe we're tuning in for that.
I think, you know, that David Livingston may have directed code of
honour back in the day.
And, and, you know, because the reason I'm making so many
comparisons with that fight with Code of Honour is because they
both put things on their arms and clash the arm. they joined as
well?
Like are they joined with a role?
I can't remember.
But in code of honour, it's in this fabulous prison cell with
glowing jumble matted into this huge cityscape, it looks
incredible.
Like, don't get me wrong, everything else about code of honour is
hugely problematic.
But that looks amazing.
Whereas this is, it's in a dark room.
The things they've got on their hands.
They certainly don't have big spikes on them. very dull.
It's very hot.
And it is so Klingon, isn't it?
It's so... on my honour.
We have to have this fight with my best friend.
But it's that thing too, where in enterprise, all, like the
Tellorites are obnoxious and you have to be rude back to them.
And that's, you know, the focus of the beginning of the 1st
episode.
The Vulcans are all racist assholes.
I think they've got better by this point.
Have we had Kershara yet or is it later?
I can't remember.
That's earlier.
No, that's earlier.
Yeah, that's right. because we get that line about Vulcan High
Command having been disbanded and stuff. took a long time to make
them anywhere near likeable though.
And so we go out there and we're the reasonable ones.
Americans are normal, reasonable people and everyone else is an
alien with weird customs who should just get off their shit and
behave like Americans. not you were doing a comedy routine in this
episode. don't you think?
what's happening?
Isn't that what this episode is saying?
Like, isn't that what Enterprise is saying?
Yes, yes, yes.
Another huge issue with this show.
Americans are sane people. you mad?
Yeah, that's right.
If everyone could just be more normal the way Americans are
right.
Yeah, if you like volleyball and foosball, you know.
Unbelievable.
Isn't it?
Jesus Christ.
I mean, you know, if he's supposed to be the ultimate American
archer.
Hoshi shouldn't need to teach him how to be arrogant.
Yeah.
So she gets a bit of a scene, doesn't she, a bit later, but this, I
mean, God.
It's called the Ushantor.
It's called a space name.
It's called an Andorian batliff.
No, it's called a nog, double A fight, a nog fight.
Oh, my God. right.
Jesus, those 2 macos.
Did you see them there?
Can they do the fight for Shroud unfortunately?
strip off and do the fine.
And the trouble is, is poor old Scott Bakula and Jeffrey Coombs
they're not, you know, they're not fight artists.
So they just go around the room looking a bit a bit sorry.
Whereas if they, I actually think that that fight is not so badly
directed.
Oh, do you not remember the fights we saw when between Marsok and
the Jem'adar and Wharf in Purgatory Shadow by Those were terrific
fights.
Yeah, but they were more character stuff too.
Like, particularly the wharf stuff.
It was just like, you know, the sound effects were great.
You really felt the punches every time that they were going and
they were getting bloody and and...
What's going on here?
This is so stupid.
Like, he knows that it wasn't the tell right to attack his ship.
Why is he being an idiot about it now?
I have to get revenge.
What sort of racist, that's why.
It's just stupid.
You know, like the Tellrite, that Tellrite killed his and this.
So, so where, um, the moment, like you, I knew going in and I
hadn't seen this before.
Oh, I knew who he was.
Who is combat?
Oh, okay, all right.
So I'm going to fight you.
And, and, and, and Sharan works it out.
Archer doesn't even tell him, look, Archer, Archer just goes, not
the ambassador and smiles, and he goes, you have got to be fucking
kidding me.
Like, like, like, If only said that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So I figured this was the get out.
When he said it, I figured Shroud was going to go, oh, all right.
I'm being ridiculous.
No, we still go.
Because we've got another 10 minutes in this episode to Pat out.
And it would have been too, because that's a great moment where he
says, call it off and Shran says, I can't.
And like, he can't mainly, like, it is for plot reasons as well
but it is because he's conflicted.
And that is something.
Like, that's something.
That's not true.
Oh, dry ice, a shaky camera.
David Livingston, try harder.
You've been doing this since the early Voyager.
So there's one bit of direction here that you haven't commented on
and I am going to absolutely rub your nose in it because it is
shockingly bad.
It's coming up.
Is it a revolving drone shot, something like that?
A camera zooming around a room.
It is.
You know, I, every time I see the fella, you know, you know the
fella in the technology there with all the glowing wires.
It's given me huge lawmower man vibes.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, no, I think it's probably...
I wish we could see from his point of view, though, because they
could do freaky effects and things, you know?
You're supposed to kind of forget about him a bit.
Do you know what I mean?
Which makes the...
He's always there in the shop.
Yeah, I know, but they don't emphasise him too much and it becomes
more of a thing later on.
Oh, God, this is just like, we know Archer is not going to be
killed.
Why are we doing this scene with Tapao who's crossed that he's
going to be fighting him. like, fuck's sake.
Well, I've not seen an egregious, you know, when Dax was going in
Meridian and everyone was coming to say goodbye to her.
It's like that.
It's like, we know this is not going to be the end of this
character.
Except again, this scene is about how aliens are weird and
unreasonable and human beings are properly rational and good at
making decisions.
Do you remember in a night at Sick Bay, whether he reached the
decision.
Well, I'm just going to have to do that weird alien.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's it.
Aliens that are all on their bullshit, you know, and then we just
have to wear them.
That's why I like DS9 so much.
All the aliens think they're humans are irrrational and stupid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's much better.
But, Nathan, I can get behind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So here we actually have these two.
So we've got Travis and Hoshi who actually get to interact with
one another.
Can you see the scratch on, um, what's the fellow's name?
I don't know the actor's name at all.
We never talk about him.
Anthony Montcalm.
Yeah, that's the scratch that she gave him when they were fighting
over the pin to highlight the scrich. because they had a scene
together.
It's quite refreshing.
It is.
Like, and they've given him something to do, and he solves the
problem.
He solves the problem.
So, look, they've got all got their Windows CE phones here on the
table and then they're looking at them and watch the fucking
camera because this is such a boring scene, but the camera never
ever, ever stops moving.
And it keeps going around them as if...
It's going quite slowly, though.
You complained in discovery when there was much less movement than
that.
Why is the camera going around and around this boring scene?
Yeah, like you would do that.
That's why.
That's the.
But you do that, don't you?
Like, if they're interacting between one another quickly and if
there's a lot going on and there's urgency.
Why you doing it here?
I know it means that we're not doing over over 2 shot.
It is a little bit more interesting and stuff.
Oh, actually, well, you're very strange.
But he's not.
He's not going round and around.
He keeps resetting the camera.
I'm starting again.
So it looks even more.
What are we doing?
This is, I'll tell you what, this is the road to hell.
The path to discovery.
No, but discovery, you know, there's some urgency.
It's not we're all standing around reading the rules.
Are you trying to suggest that Discovery is all so uninteresting
that they have to zoom around the rooms all the time?
That is not a gauge of quality.
All right?
saying it's better than this.
Yes.
Oh, my God.
Look at these gloves that they're wearing.
They look so lightweight.
Like, like, in the code of honour, they're burnished gold, method.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, they look a bit like tinfoil, but they go for it.
And they've got these enormous spikes that you got hit with that
thing.
You're going down and they're poison tipped as well.
No, but these are defensive.
You're supposed to be hitting the face with the ice pick or
whatever it is, the ice scraper.
What's that?
I don't even know what it's for.
It's terrible.
Absolute.
They look like bloody trumpets.
All right.
So we've established... you get one on both hands?
Oh, I see, because you've got the ice cream, you've got your
thing.
And see, again, you know, like, again, he's saying, I'm, I have to
do this, but I respect you and, you know, you're doing the right
thing because he's making it possible for the alliance to continue
because trans determined to be a prick about it.
Stupid bloody rule of having them tie it together.
So ridiculous. so that he can unexpectedly choke him with it.
Just terrible.
And so no one can run away.
Oh, because actually, no, I saw some stuntmen in there for a
second.
There are some men in there.
During the more dynamic moments.
Yeah, yeah, there definitely are.
Sorry, Geoffrey, you're much better a bit.
Yeah, you know, over on PS9.
So I'm mincing your way into rooms.
You're much more accomplished at that.
I'm just trying to make you look good in front of your soldiers.
Can you feel the testosterone in the room right now?
everyone's just standing around in this tiny set as well.
Oh, I do like that.
I forgot that there was a bit of blood.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know.
Please don't do a close-up on Shroud in HD that I can see as flaky
makeup.
Or the neck, like the neck, skin on his neck.
Scott, calm down.
I can't breathe But that's not skin.
That's later.
Oh, no, there you go. out to the end break and then we just cut
the thing off.
I mean shouldn't he have killed him?
Why did he just chop his antenna off?
Well, because he doesn't want to kill him because if he kills
Shran, what happens?
That was the thing.
Archer had to die.
If he kills Shran, then the Andorians will all fuck off and not
join in the thing and then they can't detect the drone.
Unfortunately, now he's got half an antennae and that's still
wiggling.
It looks even more ridiculous.
And that will be all there next week as well.
Oh, boy, 0 boy.
Does he grow it back then?
Well, that's what we discover it takes, but it takes 9 months to
grow back, although the doctor says he could make it happen in 4.5
months.
Dr. Beverly could have done it in the ad break, all right, with
her usual skill.
The final ad break.
Quick when he came to McBadden just for one scene.
Oh, boy.
Look, it's got a little sort of plaster on the end of it as well.
Very cute.
So some people would say, I'm not taking this episode too
seriously.
I mean, it's just so cliche.
Like, there is something good about it and Shran is the best
character in the episode as always, but it is just sort of usual
wasting crime.
This was the point.
So the ships start coming in, yeah.
And I was just so aware of the plotty direction.
And it took me back to Azati Prime, where we were swinging around
that ship.
There was people.
I mean, we didn't like it, but there was people in flames. were
coming down the bloody ceiling fell in.
I was like, oh, why are we doing this?
It's because it's David Livingston.
He's given up.
Yeah, I think you're right.
He was so exhausted by planning that very boring scene with Ocean
and Travis. moving the camera around.
He'd run out of feet today.
Oh my god, I've got a great idea to suit this up.
Can you put a camera on a pendulum, right?
There we go.
Yeah, see, that's great.
Now it's a Vulcan ship.
Also, as well, I was very aware as well that the music just was
not doing it in this scene.
And occasionally, they bring in drums and things like that in
enterprise.
The music was not all bad this episode, but I don't think they
managed to land this cliffhanger.
Well, it's not quite the cliffhanger because it is, this scene
this, some plot resolves itself, doesn't it?
We go off and do something different next next week.
I just think as well.
I know you said that like you found some dramatic interest in them
talking over the intercom.
Just keeping the Romulans away from the main action.
It's just so boring.
It's like, how can they make an impact?
I just, I don't...
But but I think it is, it is the toy box.
Do you know what I mean?
The TOS toy box where we have to get all our action figures out
and have them all involved in this sort of seminal moment.
Like, I think it's a good decision. much better versions of this
though, elsewhere this season.
You know, the the toy box they got out in that alternative
universe, 2 parts, the folian web, the gorn.
Yeah, yeah, come on.
That was pretty great.
And they were, because we were in the alternative universe.
They absolutely were part of the main action.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Take the emissions out, don't puncture the whole.
Zoom, zoom, fire, fire.
Yeah.
I mean, it's it's sort of strange, isn't it?
Because you want this to set up, um, like, I think this is the
closest it gets to setting up the Federation, don't you think?
I mean, there's that terrible conference, the 2 part, the real 2
part finale for Enterprise.
Oh, the pitches on the walls.
Do you remember?
And some weird hotel that I went to share. yeah Conference room.
Terrible.
Well, no, we actually saw it, didn't we?
in flash forwards or flashback.
Yeah, yeah.
I still not entirely sure in the last episode.
We did see it in the last episode.
But it was always going to be a flash forward because this is said
in 2154 and the Federation is founded in 2161.
I do like this spinning ship.
I think they take that from Babel one.
Oh really?
Yeah, I think it's a, it's like the... the...
It's sort of a precursor to Discovery, isn't it?
Do it a little spin and then popping off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it looks really cool.
I think it is cool.
But yeah, they have difficulty tracking the...
The camera, we're in an action sequence.
The camera's not moving.
So, like, just we're all just standing around the centre.
No one's even like throwing themselves about the set like they
wouldn't tear off.
Yep, yeah.
Yeah, take the cameras more mobile.
God, that Romulan's wearing a lot of makeup, isn't he, the Romulan
scientist?
We go jumping out into space.
I suppose that's something, I suppose, although we did do that the
other week in minefields.
Well, that was a while ago.
Kind of 2 years ago.
Oh, it was only a month ago for us, though.
Longer than that. 20 seconds to warp, my God, we've got company
alliance ships.
Tell them not to fire.
I mean, the script's trying to do some work to make it exciting.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, look, the camera.
We had a whip pan across there.
You've noticed that?
That was something.
Oh my god, a whole flotilla of ships emerging around them flying
in space.
And in fact, there is an important thing there, isn't it?
Because it's the, it's Vulcan and Dorian and Tellorite chips. and
we'll see them out the window later to establish this new alliance
that we're forming, the united of the title.
Just as a paste bit of television, yeah.
You cannot have 35 minutes of nothing happening.
And then 2.5 minutes of go, go, go.
And the space strips firing, flotillas appearing.
You'd be like, why don't you stagger this stuff from the episode?
That's a pretty good.
No, you want a sort of climax.
That's all right.
With enterprise sort of flying into shot.
No, so this scene here, which is just men bantering with each
other in a way that I just think is unpleasant.
Like, and it does make, and it makes Tripp seem like an asshole.
No, I mean, they were doing that in series one, weren't they?
Well, I'm not going to be...
Blah, blah, blah.
Like, it's just putting you on report.
And look, I saved your life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. disobeyed a direct order, you know.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
No, but jeez, he's got such a lovely smile.
It's so pretty.
He's so pretty, but it's just like, it's, that's just locker room
literally in a locker room, doing banter, and it's just, that's
what they think is funny.
It's like they can't be just not for us, though.
Maybe we need to get straight back.
Maybe it's entertainment for dumb people.
Like, it just strikes me.
Like, see that shot out the window.
I think is really great.
No, it's just like, it's just mean banter.
There's no wit involved.
No one's clever.
Do you see that teller right there?
I think he shampooed his hair.
How lustrous does his hair rack?
It looks great.
I thought it was a woman for a second. show us a teller I want to
play.
Tell her out with him.
I don't look like that, do they?
I can't remember.
Oh boy.
The makeup changes quite a lot with Tellerites.
It's a thing.
Why is Jolene in the scene?
She doesn't have a line.
She just stands there looking decorous.
Yeah.
Well, she's decorative.
I do always love these out the window shots, you know?
Yeah, yeah, coming out.
That's really good.
But out the window and they're all those ships together at last
united.
Like, that's the thing.
And there's a great moment actually in the next episode.
Oh, look at that, Nathan.
Yeah, it's not good.
That pan in on the city.
That's great But to be fair, the only moments I've truly praised
our CGI special effect shots in this.
There's a thing that a Romulan senator comes in and complains next
week that actually all they've managed to achieve so far is
getting the Andorians and Tellorites to work together, which is
literally the opposite of what they were trying to achieve.
Do you know what I would have ended this on?
Because, like, I had such a nonplus reaction to that helmet coming
off.
I would have ended it on the shot of the ships.
I done a hopeful cliffhanger for once.
No, so I think that the episode ends with that shot on the ships
and then this is our, you know, let's go back and see the Romulans
and motivate the next episode.
So I think that it does end.
You know, that episode ends properly in a good way and then just
has a final tag scene as a teaser for the next week.
And I think that's a perfectly reasonable way of doing it.
And it is a cliffhanger where it's like, wait, what?
What have I just seen?
And that's how the episode begins.
What are, you know, like he's an Andorian, but he's white rather
than blue.
He's blind, you know, what is it with that?
And then we discover, you know, what that is.
Maybe again, you know, I said it at the start, I'll say it at the
end, I'm coming in in the middle.
So I'm just not getting the importance of any of it.
And, you know, who does this?
Like, I don't think anybody, when this went out, would just
randomly watch one episode that is, well, maybe they would
actually.
Maybe that's why nobody was watching.
I mean, that's the problem.
I think with series 4 that I think generally series 4 gets the
nearly gets the, um, it nearly gets the serialisation right.
And here, for instance, giving us a story that ends and then
having a cliffhanger to launch into the next episode.
That's good.
So we feel like we've achieved something by watching this
episode.
But generally speaking, when you tune in for a 3rd of a thing, do
you know what I mean?
Like that's not. that's not that satisfying.
And it's not what they've been delivering. for 15 odd years, is
it?
right.
But we, I mean, we have the same problem tuning into an episode of
Discovery or an episode of Picard as well. season-long arc, because
they're season-long arcs rather than 3 weeks.
We've never struggled more than when we did that Picard series 2
episode recently where I was like, where the hell am I in this
thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So like you're in the middle of a thing.
So it is kind of understandable.
I think the problem here isn't that we're watching a 3rd of a
thing, though.
It's just that it's too fairly kind of by the numbers plots
really.
Oh, it is the midest mid I think we've done in some time.
And you know, I said to you, like, I don't think my heart raced
once.
And my heart can race for Star Trek in many, many ways, yeah?
Whether it's an outstanding performance, whether it's a shock
moment, you know, whether it's a terrific piece of writing, whether
it's, you know, a truly ghastly, embarrassing slice of television
but this wasn't even that, it was perfectly competent television.
It would absolutely, you know, if you were going around with a
clipboard and it would, you'd be able to tick off every part of it
without ever sort of giving it more than 5 out of 10.
I have to say that I didn't hate it.
And I did watch all 3 episodes and I had quite a good time.
But when I compare that to my reaction to watching the Keshara 3
parter, which I thought was just vastly better and more
interesting than this or the mirror darkly 2 parter.
Now the augments one.
I don't know if you remember.
Have you seen the three?
Yeah.
So in the middle episode, they put they, I think, cleverly put in
the most striking moment where the man is tortured.
And yeah, and it's unforgettable. there was something like that
here.
At least you'd come away with like something to remember.
I won't remember this in years to come when I look back on
untitled Star Trek project, the completed project of all 5000000
episodes that we do and go, God, you remember United.
What a banger, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm pretty confident that won't happen.
All right, it's the end of the episode and it is time for us to
work out where we're going next.
Naturally enterprise was my choice as always.
I don't think you've ever willingly chosen it, Joe. So that means
we're going somewhere else and perhaps you would like to tell us
which series we're picking this time.
Why don't you tell me which series we're picking this time?
No, not this time, no.
No, no, no, no.
Well, we did a superb episode of Kersman Trek, which we thoroughly
enjoyed, and then just a very average episode... of Enterprise.
So, you know, me, I never want to stray too far from the 90s.
So I put in all 3 of the 90s shows, minus Enterprise.
Okay, that sounds like a great...
We're sort of underrunning in percentage wise.
Whereas I'll never say no to TS9.
So, you know, let's see what happens.
Okay.
Oh, this is a no, I'm afraid.
We can't do all the season 7 episodes of Voyager.
We've got to cover...
Season seven, episode four, repression.
I think that's the one that's the one where they remember there
are marquee on the ship and someone's going around murdering them
all.
Do we bring back someone and kill them?
like Hogan or something?
Yeah, something like that.
And then Tuvox investigating the murder.
And then, of course, it turns out.
It was him and a Bajoran from the Alpha Quadrant is somehow
controlling Tuvok in the Delta Quadrant to kill all the marquee
members.
Okay, that sounds terrible.
And you spoiled it completely for me now.
Sorry about that.
Oh, fuck me. not doing this one either.
Sorry, it's been a while since I pressed the button a lot.
I'm going to do it today.
Season one of Voyager.
Cathexis.
That's the one where, uh, Chakotay has a spirit.
It's flying around the ship inhabiting people.
No, it's terrible.
Oh no, thank you.
I'm like, it's all duds I'm getting.
Your random Star Trek D Space 9 episode of season one, episode
four, A Man Alone.
It's the 1st proper dud.
Yeah, yeah.
Of DS9.
I mean, we will have to...
Your Adam Star Trek D Space 9 episode is a true classic.
Season two, episode 8 necessary evil.
Which is great.
But I don't know if we need to do a few mids.
Do you think?
I don't know.
No, I'll press it again. so sorry.
You're right.
Oh let's do this.
This will be fun.
It's mostly pretty terrible, but good, good.
But it's really fun.
Season two, episode 8 of Voyager.
Persistence of Vision.
It's the one where Carolyn Seymour turns up in Janeway's quarters
with a big knife going, we don't want more trouble.
Okay.
If Carolyn Seymour's in it.
I'm there.
She's awesome.
I didn't know she did Voyager.
I think B'lana and Shakotay fuck in this episode as well.
Well, in her head, because they're all having visions, obviously.
Right, right.
So latent attraction that...
Yeah, well, Lana has.
He's very handsome early on in the run.
What do you think?
It's a sort of like, you know, run of the mill. odd things are
happening.
I'm sure.
I mean, I can't guarantee it, but I'm sure Joe Manosky's in there
somewhere.
Possibly Brannan.
He likes a weird episode doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah, that's a bit Brennan-esque.
No, I'm up for it. absolutely.
Let's see that.
We do like season two, don't we?
We do.
Absolutely.
Okay.
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 Ciceran and the theme was composed
by Cameron Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 5th of August 2025 and released
on the 8th of August.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek Voyager, Persistence of
Vision.
I do think, you know, Voyager is...
Hang on, let me check out the percentages.
Oh, where are they?
It's at the bottom.
Of course it is, of course it is coverage, yeah.
Uh, the percentage.
K. Voyager, Voyager, Voyager.
Yeah, so you probably just quite low, 17.26%.
It's 4 from the bottom.
Yeah, but do you know what's the bottom?
You complain all the time, but do you know what is at the bottom
the one that we've done least of?
I said, I've sat through 16 hours of this thing, all right?
Enterprise.
Why do you insist on her in me?
I thought you liked me.
Well, that hasn't included this week, so it's possible the
discovery is now in last play.
Maybe you should take us to Discovery next time.
Because that's very, very low.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but it's 11 out of 65 episodes.
Look, Australia World, so sad.
Third from the top.
Come on, bring more episodes out so we can watch another one.
Again, there will be another one out in 2 days and say the
percentage will go down.
Um, 955 episodes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's going up every week. week too, of course.
Yeah, we're about to build the academy ones as well, wouldn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There will be 20 next year. 175 though.
It's good work, we've done that.
We're doing okay.
18%.
We're getting towards the massive a 5th of Star Trek.
It would be pretty incredible.
You think?
quite a lot.
Given that when I 1st broached the subject of you and me doing a
style shirt podcast and you went, well, you're 175 episodes deep
now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it wasn't that.
It was, it was, it would have been going through deep say sign in
order.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, with heaven. would have been great, but it would also have
been kind of like the same thing every week.
Oh, no, the formal history, no, but still, do you know what I
mean?
Like, roughly the same thing.
Whereas now we get to do like shockingly terrible things and weird
things and things from a span of 60s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Well, also, as well, I just love the thing that apart from just
being with you.
The thing I love about this. is we get to compare and contrast
television over different decades.
And that means you can examine TV.
And sometimes, sometimes the stuff that comes earlier is getting
things right, and the stuff that comes up, does it?
It's really surprising.
So, yeah, that's it's, it's, I think it's honed whatever critique
ability I have of studying television.
I think doing it this way has honed it quite a bit.
I think it's same here.
And I think too, like I just know Star Trek so much better than I
did when I started.
You know, because you saw the thing, the last frontier, the fake
Star Trek from last week's Strange New World.
A brief clip.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And like kind of the funny thing about that was that Star Trek
itself is so much better than that.
You know, like, like, it's in the past.
It's recognisably Star Trek and sometimes Star Trek is shit.
We've said it before.
Sometimes the original series is just massively incompetent in all
sorts of weird ways.
But at its best, it's so much better than it needed to be and so
much better than that and so much better than its kind of
reputation, I think.
I'm not entirely sure, you know, the best episode of the original
series ever isn't that Black Mirror episode, though.
Oh, that's so upsetting.
It's so upsetting.
Well, Black Mirror often was upsetting, but 0 man, he just got the
aesthetic.
The acting style, all of it.
Just perfect.
But yeah, the, the, it was kind of horrifying. horrible.
Yeah, yeah.
The bit where the she gets turned into a great big alien, doesn't
she?
Oh, God, remember.
The Yahura carrot against her.
I just watched it once and it was just like, I think that might be
as much as I can take of that.
Oh, it might be my favourite of the run, actually.
San Junipero.
That was a goodie.
I mean, I think the hit rate is great.
We watched the, so we finally finished the show.
My god, this is a miracle.
We watched the last episode of Inside, number nine.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Did you watch the last series of that?
No, I've only watched the 1st episode.
It's like, how do you end this anthology show where you did so
many different things where you brought in so many incredible.
They had a roll call of actors.
And they, it was just perfect.
I was so ready to be disappointed.
And the last episode is the premiere of the last episode.
So that's where it's set with all of the actors that they've had
across the run playing themselves.
So it was a room full of the most extraordinary actors.
You know, just throw away shots of Sheridan Smith and Reed, you
know, all these wonderful actors.
And the premise of it was what happens when 2 actors that have
worked together for so long and a project comes to an end and one
potentially gets a very successful job.
And it was all about their relationship.
And I was just like, that's just perfect. given that they...
Who gets this existed job?
gets the job.
He gets a 7 year contract for a show in America.
And yeah, I was just like, wowsers, they're working out their
issues in the show.
It was really, really, and there was no big, the twist at the end
was, um, he hasn't get the job, and, um, and they, they continued
to do this terrible sounding project that they were going to do if
that didn't work out together.
And it's a nice heartwarming ending.
But there's an incredible sequence where the premiere, the
premiere of the episode happens, but there's a preview of the last
9 seasons of the show, like loads of clips, with time to say
goodbye, which is the song from the 12 Days of Christine, which I
think is the best episode of Inside Number 9 by a mile.
And it just cuts to all the different actors.
And it's as a celebration of the show and everything they did.
It was...
I had like goosies watching it.
I thought, yeah, bravo, encore.
And, oh, do you know what was so funny is Catherine Parkinson
right?
So you think at the start.
Do you remember the 1st one, sardines, where they all get into the
cupboard?
So it's the same characters coming into a toilet.
Cubicle.
I thought, oh, God, they're doing the same thing, but it's all the
actors that started stuck in...
And they're all going in to sniff a bit of cocaine.
And Catherine Parkinson comes in and Mark goes, that's not
Catherine Parkinson.
That a man rabbender.
I went, that's Catherine Parkinson.
We're arguing about it, right?
And then Amanda Abington walks into the toilet.
And he goes, he goes to Amanda Rabbington.
Oh, you're right, Catherine.
She goes, I know, I'm Catherine.
Because, oh, I thought you were Amanda Abington.
I was like, 0 my god.
This is perfect. brilliant. genius.
So funny. but the singer was and Reed comes in, sort of toddles
in.
She's quite an old woman at this pocket.
And she goes, come on, I know you're shooting up in here. wears
the stuff?
Oh, yeah, watch it. was fabulous.
At least half half an hour.
And they're only 6 episodes series.
I can just watch it all the way through.
The episode that season, they did an episode, which was entirely
from the point of view of a, you know, those doorbell cameras that
you have?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was a green bulb pretty close.
And they told a whole horror story with the comings and goings of
what was happening in this street.
Wow.
It was so great.
Yeah, what a great show.
There was a few, along the way, there was a few, I think, because
the bar was high, there was a few where you were like, oh, yeah, we
haven't, we seen this and they've done, they were dead all along
before and stuff like that.
But at its best, man, it was terrific. inside number nine.
And so it goes from 2014.
Yeah, 10 years is it?
Yeah. 10 or 2014.
Yeah.
And it's just stylistically, every episode is completely
different.
Yeah, Graham Harper does that wonderful.
They pulled in Graham Harper because they wanted a 70s director to
do the devil at Christmas. you seen that one?
No, no.
So it's shot.
It's an old 70s hammer movie.
And it's shot by a 70s director on 70s cameras.
They pulled in a 70s designer to do it and it's just perfect.
I mean, if you're going to watch Eddie, I'll say watch that one
it's so funny Oh my god, Ruler Lenska's in it.
Jessica Rain.
Derek Jackson.
They do this wonderful crossroads scene where they're all, um, the
scene starts and they're all sort of doing a toast, but no one
said action, and then they just go, But the twist in that one is
the darkest twist I ever did. horrible.
So the devil of Christmas.
And so he was 2016.
And what was the other one?
This one called, there's a live one?
Oh, Deadlaw one?
That's the Stephanie Cole one.
Yeah, deadline.
Yeah.
Where they fooled.
They fooled.
A 3rd of the audience that turned off a 3rd into the episode
because they thought genuinely that the live episode had gone
completely wrong.
It's so right.
And they knew that.
They knew it.
They literally did it.
Yeah.
They said, they said, if the numbers dip, because they had the 5
minute breakdown.
If the numbers dip we've pulled off this twist.
That's brilliant Which is great.
Okay.
Oh my god.
And you must have seen.
Have you seen the 12 days of Christine?
I've only ever seen the 1st episode.
Oh, well, then do me a favour, right?
Devil of Christmas, 12 Days of Christine.
The live one, deadline. 12 days of Christine is series two.
Okay.
Now, I know you can, no, I'm not saying a word.
It's extraordinary that episode.
It gets me every time.
It's extraordinary And it's Sheridan Smith.
It's the best performance in the rum.
Oh, wow, okay.
All right.
Check that as well. if you do watch it, let me know what you
think.
Yeah, yeah, I will.
It might tempt you to do the run, actually, because they're so
easy to watch.
I am tempted.
And I did like the 1st one a lot.
It was pretty great.
It was pretty good.
All right.
Okay, I'm gonna go.