Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, we're on board the USS Voyager this week.
It's series 2, which we quite like on the whole, episode eight
Persistence of Vision, which was 1st broadcast on the 13th of
October, 1995.
It's written by Jerry Taylor and directed, as you predict, and I
think last week, by James L. Conway.
Yeah, but those are the 2 reasons I think this is not particularly
good.
I mean, we do like series 2, but I think we're in troubled waters
at this point.
So we've had the hangovers from series one knocked into series two
you know, such gems as twisted and projections and the 37s.
And, you know, we're about to come up on, you know, delights such
as tattoo and threshold, you know?
So this is sort of in that 1st half of the season.
Somewhere around the middle of two.
The arc starts gathering a bit of momentum. and the episode
qualities.
They even say in the Voyager companions.
Some of it, they, we need to up our game and they do try to start
up in their game.
But yeah, this one.
Well, I mean, I think I've seen every trick they try and pull in
this episode elsewhere in other Star Trek episodes.
I was looking for an original idea somewhere in this and I'm happy
to say I failed.
Yeah, there's a there's a real problem here in that it sort of
does attempt to focus on a character, which is a Jerry Taylor
thing, and she's, you know, largely responsible or partly
responsible for the setup of the show, and so it leans into who
the characters are and what they're doing, and in particular Jane
way.
But she loves Janeway, doesn't she?
She wrote that book, Coda, which deals with all of Joe. I think
she might have had something to do with the autobiography.
Right.
Rito's things, the autobiography of Catherine Janeway.
So yeah, so she's a bit sort of Janeway obsessed, as you should be
if you're right, Voyager.
And, you know, that's a good thing.
The episode does benefit from having her as the focus character, I
think, because we see quite a lot of her.
But it doesn't have anything to say about Janeway and it's a bit
confused and they haven't quite landed on the idea that the actual
space problem could tell us something about the characters that
was sort of interesting.
So here it's a lot of sort of random shit that happens that isn't
real and doesn't actually tell us anything.
And then when it's resolved, it's not a very interesting
resolution, you know, it's an alien did it, and that's it.
And so it's a lot of Star Trek stuff that I think is quite
charming.
Like, I thought for the 1st 15 minutes or so, this was kind of fun
and nice, and, you know, reminded me of what I liked about Voyager
but then, like once the space problem really took hold, I was
totally bored for the last 2 thirds of it, I think.
Not just an alien that comes along at the end, a sort of D-minus
Trek alien.
Yeah, yeah.
He's in silhouette.
Like, it's quite a nice directional flourish.
I mean, you got it behind you on the Zoom call.
He's got the light behind him.
So you can't really see, oh, my God, what terrifying alien will
this turn out to be?
And then when I saw, it was, I mean, it was on level with the
Beaumont, was it?
It was so disappointing.
It just looked like your standard latex alien.
Yeah, yeah.
I think he looked a lot like the aliens who were the adversaries
of the Vandois. in Dragon's teeth. a bit less like a dog poo, but
yes.
Yeah, a bit less the colour of it.
Yeah, that was the guy who looked like he just gone crazy with the
shaving cream, you know, in the morning and just put it all over
his whole head.
I feel so sorry for these aliens, you know, getting to get up and
look in the mirror and see these faces.
So like all of that was really boring.
We didn't know why the alien did what it did.
We didn't know what it wanted.
We didn't learn anything about it.
And I just sort of think...
They should do that. don't they?
They at least do that.
They give the alien a reason and a motive.
But they haven't come up with a reason and so they kind of behave
as if they're doing something clever by leaving it an unexplained
mystery.
But as far as I can see, that's actually not very interesting and
certainly not as interesting as an actual real resolution or us
learning something or the characters learning something about
themselves.
There's almost something where she kisses Lord Burly in the
holodeck.
We will get to that.
And then starts to feel guilty about her relationship with Mark.
But that's stupid and boring, and they don't commit to that.
But it's what you said to me.
It's all in their biogs.
It's all in their single paragraph.
All of this.
Tom Paris and his daddy issues, you know.
But I mean, Bilano wanted to fuck Chakotay.
I don't know what that's all about.
We know they've got a history in the marquee.
That's in her biog.
Janeway obviously left her puppies and her husband behind.
Anyone else?
Oh, poor Harry Kim.
He had to say he isn't a lion.
We didn't even get to see Libby.
He just went, oh, my God, it's Libby.
I didn't want to hire another actress.
But, but, you know, we that's in his biog.
Cheese Vox wife.
Yeah, so none of it is revelatory.
None of it, we can sort of take with us and explore in the
future.
Like, if we learn really interesting things about people here, we
go, 0 my God, I never knew that about that person.
And then we spend the next 5.5 years sort of dealing with that
then fair enough, this had a point to it.
But yeah, no, I didn't learn a thing.
No.
And like, I've been because Strangely Worlds is on at the moment.
I'm comparing it to Strange New Worlds, and the most recent
episode that I saw is called Through the Lens of Time, and it is a
very standard sort of Star Trek plot, which has some things in
common with power play, only it's obviously not as boring as
that.
And a marina being evil, I would just say, that was pretty good
though.
But it hinges on character interactions that are taking place as a
result of things that have been going on since season 2.
And because these characters have more than just their bugs
because they have a history and have relationships that change and
develop as time goes on, then you're able to comment on those
relationships in the plot.
And here, here it wasn't the space problem was reflecting or
emblematic of or a metaphor for what was going on with the
characters, but the character's reaction to the space problems was
informed by how they'd been interacting with each other over the
previous few episodes.
And here there's nothing like that.
There's no possibility of anything like that, because it's a show
that's syndicated, because it is supposed to be able to be watched
in any order, all we have of the characters is their bios or some
characteristics that are made up on the fly.
And so none of it lands. none of it is important.
They can do it though.
Look at the doctor.
Look at 7 and nine.
They absolutely, even though it's syndicated, they can bring in
characters and give them an overarching character story over the
seasons, develop them, have them come to realisations, make
relationships with people.
So I think when they choose not to do it, they're just choosing
like the whole B'Elana and Chakotay thing, yeah?
Never mentioned before, never mentioned again.
It's Jane Wayan, the badge fiddling all over again.
I really hate that sort of lazy, right?
shock you with this. and then, right, okay, maybe that would have
been interesting to explore if she had, I mean, it wouldn't.
But, you know, that's quite a big bombshell that she wants to have
sex with a 1st officer and her ex-marquis terrorist friend.
But you don't even have to go as far as Strange New Worlds, yeah?
We did times often recently, which was a similarly ridiculous
premise to this.
Yeah?
But it was absolutely overloaded with relationship moments telling
you things about the characters, the contractual obligation scenes
that all were thematically tied into this idea of family.
And so I think in 90s, you can do it as well.
So again, if they ain't doing it, it's a choice.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think Deep Space 9 of the 90s tricks is probably
the only one that can really possibly do that sort of thing
because it spends so much time developing the characters and the
characters change over the run quite a lot and they let that
happen and they're allowed to let that happen.
I think you're forgetting vital character moments, such as Troy
with the chocolate sundae in the game, or Beverly getting all hot
and bothered or even a granny's diary extra sub-rosa.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
And also it just seems very much like a product of the 26 episode
season where we just have to do things and we haven't got a very
strong idea of a through line of what we want to achieve.
The idea of Voyager is.
It's in the Delta Quadrant largely so that we stay out of Deep
Space 9's way.
And we just want to do Star Trek things of the kind that people
enjoyed for 7 years.
But this, I think, just turns out to be just a whole people in the
standing sets talking and nothing really very interesting going on
at all.
I'll say this for persistent sufficient.
Yeah, it isn't like the absolute dregs of season two.
It's not like Twisted where there's not even a plot.
They just wander around the corridors as this wave goes through
the ship.
And it's not threshold, which was, you know, ghoulish and
unpleasant in all kinds of ways that we covered in the past.
Like, they were constantly trying to throw stuff at you in this
episode to keep you reasonably diverted.
But, like, in terms of the direction and the writing, like, this
could have been really scary.
Uh, you know, they could have done genuine shocks.
There's one moment which I think does hear, and then immediately
doesn't hear, and we'll get there.
It's in the middle of the episode.
And I think Voyager can do horror, and I think DS9 can do horror
and I think there are really great atmospheric episodes, but I
just, it all feels a bit half-hearted here.
And when you get to the climax of this episode.
Unfortunately, that's where it feels the absolute limpist of all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, let's watch it.
I can hardly wait.
We're on a fun 45 minutes ahead.
Do you think you and me have got some sort of weird kink about
suffering through dreary television together?
We did start a Star Trek podcast. could be watching good
television, you know?
All right.
As of next week, we're doing Andor.
Okay.
I will count us in 5, 4, 32, one, and we're off.
Oh, she looks like she means business.
Look at her going through the corridors there.
And she's a little bit pissy and it makes you seem a little bit
disorganised as well.
Like...
I quite like surfing.
Pissed off at this, you know.
Oh, God, but we're doing this thing, aren't we?
Okay, so she's not had a day off or anytime to rest or any dinner
you know, for like a day and she's not had any time off and
everybody needs her.
We've done this a few times as well.
Star Trek.
There was one thing that I actually really liked about it, which
is, I think that there's a kind of subtext that the others know
that she doesn't look after herself, and they're a little bit
worried about her, and I actually really like that.
And I, do you know what I mean?
That dynamic is actually kind of nice.
It's not a big part of the episode or anything.
You may find this tedious, but I'm going to do this a couple of
times Friday's episode.
Yes, I do agree, but it was done bearing the DSI episode defined
with Kira, who goes through this whole sequence in the pre-tartle
sequence and then Bashir marches her to Quarks and makes her have
a day off and gives her all these treats to enjoy.
It's really wonderful.
Obviously, the Voyager version is just the watered down version as
usual.
I mean, I'm rather loving her hair, you know.
Look at her hair here.
Isn't her best hair?
Not quite her best.
I have to say, boy.
No, I actually quite like this.
And I think the reason is.
Because the doctor is so pompous and prickly.
I mean, we know he's warm and lovely as well.
And because he's sort of a bit arrogant as well, make him appear
small and being annoyed at it, without everyone laughing at him
too much or anything like that, like they don't make fun of it.
And then at the moment in the dialogue where he's getting shrill
with indignation, they kind of bring up the vocal treatment to
remind us that he's little, but they don't overdo that part of
it.
So I have to say that I don't think that this is terrible.
And that 2 shot of her kneeling down.
It's very well done. that was really impressive. yeah.
In fact, this one's great as well, look, when it's from behind
him.
She's approaching.
The trouble is, it's wonderful.
I can't believe I'm doing it twice in the pre-credit segments.
We did this last year.
We did this in the 1st year of Voyager, where his hollow emitter
goes wrong and he's shrunk down to half the size and he's given a
squeaky voice and it's like, are you out of ideas already?
That's boring. didn't know that.
It's more technically competent here because honestly, I'll send
you a screenshot when they did it in series one.
It's so bad They sort of, it's sort of like it's in a hall of
mirrors, you know, when you're talking cosy in line.
Oh, I think I remember that.
I think I do remember.
It's really very bad.
Although, it is amusing that he's now ordering her to take a day
off when he's the size of an inch.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
That's what's great about it too.
Is that he's a hologram?
He aware he's not a doctor.
He's not a real doctor.
He is just part of the ship's software.
But he has said, all right, well, I'm the chief medical officer
and I'm going to order you around.
I outrank you.
And I kind of like that as well.
And of course, it's Bob.
It's the best Robert, you know, he's wonderful.
He is wonderful.
Now, I need to discuss this dismal Lord Burley's manner, romantic
which it's always the Jerry Taylor script.
She's obsessed.
She's clearly read a lot of sort of romantic Gothic novels.
Yeah.
So is this Rebecca, I think, is the idea where the wife's not
really dead?
She's in the attic.
Notice that we get the photo of her and the dog and Mark before
she goes onto the holiday.
Look, I've said to you before that I think that having her do a
romance novel is actually not a bad thing at all and that... though.
I know.
The performance is, the dialogue.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. doesn't work.
I mean, and you know, you were quite nice about the kids last
time.
They are terrible in this movie.
They are pretty bad in this.
He's terrible and he's not very attractive.
He should be like Colin Furr from Pride and Prejudice, you know?
And this should be a really hot kiss.
Instead, it's weird face mushing that's very unpleasant to watch.
When is that pride and prejudice.
It must be about this time. 95, it was.
Yeah, so this is 95 as well.
So my mother was obsessed with it.
She loved Colin Kurtz.
It's one of the best things ever.
You know the bit where he comes out the river and all of his hair
is wet, yeah.
Maybe they should have.
Oh no, they wouldn't have gone outside for this, would they?
So, like, I don't think that's terrible.
I think romance and things like that, as I've said to you before
you know, like it's dismissed by Star Trek fans is something for
women, and I don't think there's a problem with having something
for women in it, and I don't think it is something for women
anyway.
It's just a disfavoured favourite.
I do too.
But when it's done well, this is not done well.
I know.
But I don't I don't mind it as an idea.
I never thought I would say this, yeah, because I think both
Fairhaven episodes are truly, you know, they are in the Drakes of
Voyager.
But in that, you know, she falls for the bewhiskered, slightly
drunk, Irish bartender, Michael O'Sullivan, you know, and he's
sort of hot and a bit grizzled, you know, and you can see why
she'd want to go to the politic and get her rocks off with him.
I mean, this guy...
Oh, Lucy. press on BBC sideburns.
Terrible.
The one thing that's nice about it is what you said when we last
saw Lord Burleigh's manor, and that is Lord Burleigh's manor.
Aesthetically, it's quite nice.
And I also like the idea that the holodeck is, you know, that
there's a culture on the ship, you know, that they, like
saundrines in season one.
We've talked about this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, tiki bar or whatever, that terrible tiki bar.
What's Satan's robot called?
Oh, the...
Chaotic, you know, the...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's good.
Here he is.
The little kitty winks, look.
So we talked about little Thomas Decker as Henry Burley and how he
turned up later in Picard series 3.
Of course, the little girl, uh, Lindsay Horn, Lindsay Horn, as
Beatrice, uh, actually will turn up in a later episode of Star
Trek Voyager in another role as Belle in real life, the doctor's
holographic daughter in real life.
Oh, she was pretty good in that, you know.
I especially like the scene where she died.
I actually think that real life is not as bad as everyone says.
It's quite fun.
Yeah, I don't mind at all.
Klingon rock music, do you remember?
A teenager. absolutely obsessed with Klingon rock.
No, I know, but did you see that?
there?
The plate of cucumber sandwiches, right?
on this set?
They've just taken it from one set to the other, because it's
exactly the same layout when they got it later.
We've got a film this all on the same day.
Why?
Because we can't do 2 plates of cucumber sandwiches, all right?
They spray painted it with shellac or something.
Do you know what I mean?
So that it wouldn't go off.
It's mother's cup.
The flower cup.
Oh, my God.
Oh, no, but the saving grace here is obviously Carolyn Seymour, who
gets the best scene of the entire episode.
And just adds a bit of class to anything, doesn't she?
So she has done 2 Star Trek before this?
and there may be more, but she...
She's definitely in a deep space 9 as a Romulan.
Has she done that one?
Yeah.
No, so she does 2 outings as a Romulan in TNG, which might be what
you're thinking of.
An episode called Contagion in series 2 with the Iconian Gateway
which we talked about recently in Deep Space 9. and in face of the
enemy. one. wonderful because she's up against, you know, she's
someone terrifying and up against Deanna.
She is in 1st contact as well.
Is she?
Not the film, the TNG episode.
Yeah, I did know that.
Oh, yeah, she's got the terrible latex oneration, that one. yeah.
I mean, she's magnificent.
You know who I'm mistaken her for?
Martha Hackett. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She was the Romulan in East Space Nine.
But she's always great.
And, you know, I perked up every time she turned up in this
episode.
Yeah, especially when she turned up with that massive knife. was
great.
So I just finished watching Andor last night and or series 2.
And so this talk of the Bothans, and you might remember in Return
of the Jedi, Monmouth gets up and delivers her speech about the
plans for the 2nd Death Star and tells us that many Bothans died
to give us this information.
Are we doing Star Wars Star Trek crossover here then?
I think so.
I think maybe we are.
Yeah.
Okay.
Is he a Bothan then, this man?
Yes, the alien.
Well, I don't know, because we don't know anything about him or
anything that's going on.
I don't know.
Is he a Bothan?
Maybe.
He's pretending to be. would ever have an alien quite as lazy
looking as that thing. turns up at the end of this episode, you
know.
Why would you ask me a question about Star Wars?
You know I can't answer anything about Star Wars.
I thought you might know the film.
The danger here is, of course, is no one's making a note on the
old board there, of the different names they've given the aliens.
So when the Beau Mar came along later on.
They have an apostolate, though, Joe. Well, that's right.
How do we make this even more exotic?
Okay.
Punctuation?
That'll do.
But and again, the thing is the Voyager thing, and it's like
Enterprise was last time where aliens are just basically assholes
you do know what I mean?
Like they're just obnoxious and objectionable.
I mean, every now and again, I did like it when Voyager would turn
up and it's a load of benevolent aliens, you know, with very soft
makeup, usually as chaise lunges covered in furs and things that
you'd sit on.
Oh, no, I'm thinking of prime factors.
They were all a load of bastards as well, were they?
They did get assimilated by the Borg we discovered in Picard
series one.
What?
That man with the annoying voice.
Pecan pie.
Batman.
They were assimilated by the Borg.
Now, Nathan, I know a little bit about your private life and I
know that you are, you know, have all manner of exotic dishes in
front of you, you know, usually.
Is this sort of what your dinner table looks like at the end.
There's quite a bit of throck.
Settling wood fungus pate?
Yes, yep, yep.
Actually, that looks so good.
Nestles.
That looks quite nice, actually.
What is that?
What you think they actually are?
Does actually look like something that I might eat?
like rice noodles?
What, the tabled wood for?
frock?
Looks like tofu.
Yeah, it does look like.
And then look, there's the English bit.
Cucumber sandwiches.
Boring.
The most dismal dried up looking cucumber sandwiches.
You're coming, all right?
You're gonna...
That's gonna be your staple diet for a week and a half.
When she picks it up and then puts it back on the plane.
You've just touched that.
You have to fucking eat it, Kate.
You can't just put it back on the plane.
You know, when you can't, I'm going to present your tea in a cup
of sauce like that.
I've got one like that.
Yeah.
You can go, Joe, where did you get this cup and saucer from?
Do you know, it's interesting Neelix at this point in Voyager's
Rum because he really does bat between being very sweet and he has
moments in this episode where he's very sweet, like this, where
he's trying to make her eat and really fucking annoying.
And that's all the jealousy stuff with Tom Paris.
And like his performance in engineering at the end of the episode
was really very bad, I thought, where he was trying to be horrible
to kids.
And Phillips just hasn't got it in him to be that horrible to
anybody.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I just wasn't convinced at all.
Everyone has their ceiling, right?
Yeah, I'd forgotten that, actually, that and that's a weird thing
to do as well.
Like, why are they doing that?
What are we learning about Kerce and Neelix from that scene?
Nothing, you know.
So here we are now, chasing the little girl down the corridors
just like Deanna did with Kestra in Dark Page.
Dark Page, which I think might have been written by Jerry Taylor.
She's going to her own well at this point.
Yeah, yeah.
My mother is alive, Nathan.
Look at the carpet on the...
It looks very well hoovered.
It doesn't.
That was the point.
It looked like the crew had dragged some cameras across it.
Oh, and another thing as well, right?
right?
Was all of the weirdness that happens in this episode, they give
boring technobabble explanations for.
And there's a couple of scenes where they're just, I mean, I'll
quote some of the dialogue when we get there.
And I was like, no, is this the best you can do?
Like I know you're trying to make this rational.
But you're taking something that's supposed to be scary and making
it even more boring than it's being presented.
But again, you know, she's looking for a rational explanation, but
the actual explanation isn't a rational one.
It's an alien did it with magic.
And I like the idea that what looks like a little throwaway thing
at the beginning.
It looks like maybe the holodecks or the hollow emitters are out
of control in some way and that's what's going wrong and that's a
reason...
Yeah, yeah.
Because, and because hollow emitters are always in this confined
space and Voyager has this additional thing where there are ones
outside the holodeck, um, and what happens if they are misbehaving
in some ways do they cause hallucinations?
And that's a plausible thing.
It would have been a boring episode, but it ended up being a
boring episode anyway.
You know, like when characters are alone, yeah, in their quarters
or whatever, and suddenly, you know, someone says, Catherine, Jacot
say, you hear like a voice or somebody from the past or a relation
or something like that.
If you did a supercar of how many times that happens in 90s trek
yeah.
You'd get about 5 episodes worth of material.
It all the time.
It's just like, it's just like, if you want to try and be weird
and scary, harder.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's jump out of genre conventions and try a bit harder.
That's why I was pleased, you know, when we did that gone episode
of Strange New Worlds, you know.
They weren't doing none of that bullshit.
They just went straight for the visceral horror, bursting out of
somebody, you know?
Which, I mean, it's not super original, but it is new to Star Trek
and it's a level of horror that Star Trek hadn't been able to
access before.
I've got something nice to say.
Enjoyed us because it's going to be rare this episode.
I think Mulgrew and Phillips have really wonderful chemistry.
And in this scene where she's going, I mean, it's a terribly
written scene.
We had the pate.
He goes delectable.
We had this.
He goes, delicious, you know, and they just bat it back and forth
and there's some fun interplay between the 2 of them.
I think this is a relationship they could have explored a lot more
in the 7 year run as well.
Because there's a wonderful episode where they get to the edge of
Neelix's knowledge.
And then in order to gain a map of the rest of the Delta Quadrant
He does all of this nefarious criminal activities.
And there's a scene at the end.
It's devastating because she's so angry and upset with him.
And his reaction to that of like, oh, disappointing you is like
the last thing.
I was trying to do the complete opposite.
And there's real dramatic potential in that relationship.
Yeah, I mean, I think this up to this point it's pretty
agreeable.
You know, like I have no objections to this.
It's not middling.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, you know, like it just reminded me of why I like these people
and there's been a lot of Cade in it and she's terrific.
So, you know, the bit where I realise, I think it might be now.
The bit where I realise, oh God, they're not going to make a
single scare here in this, was when the little girl turns up in
Sick Bay, right?
And she said, just as like a ghostly figure.
And then she sort of whishes across...
In the limpest imaginable special affair that he's coming.
So bad.
I mean, I did perk up when Carolyn Seymour turned up in the
quarters, but just for like about 5 seconds, just because she's so
great.
But it is the idea.
The most boring idea that an alien came and did it using its magic
powers.
Like, there's no interesting technology. an interesting alien.
It's seeing into their minds, but not seeing anything very
interesting about them.
We actually go to this well again in a few episodes time in Cold
Fire when Suspiria, the 2nd caretaker, comes on the ship, and she
does similarly weird and wonderful things to people.
But it's intercut with a subplot about KES exploring her mental
powers as an accompa and those powers getting out of control.
So there's just like a really riveting character through line in
that episode.
I think I remember the discovery of Suspiria being interesting as
well because, you know, caretaker ends, doesn't it, with us?
Don't you remember how she manifests?
It's a little girl in a blue dress and she, and she has a bad
voice dubbed over her going, did you really think you could defeat
me?
Do you know what I mean?
That's exciting because we knew about the caretaker.
We know the caretaker is why we're here and the caretaker that far
out.
That's so bad.
Kate Mulgruz, a ghost, has just floated into me acting. looks very
like Gates McFadden's.
I'm having an orgasm from a ghost.
She's dancing into a bit of a thing, doesn't she?
Oh, yeah.
And all of this about Kez's pre-cognitive.
I don't know, I'm just getting a sense of somebody in the room.
But why is that shot not from Kate's point of view?
She says the alien rush the little kid rushed towards me.
Why don't we see that from her point of view rather than, you know
like the sort of weird matted on kind of you mentioned?
Don't make it a ghost.
Yeah, if you are a clever director, make it the little girl
running straight at the camera.
Like kids are demonic, you know, make it scary.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
They don't have time. very odd.
And they say now, bloody hell. climaxes with Carol and Seymour, so
I'm happy.
But she wanders around her quarters for about 2 minutes before
anything happens.
I was wondering about her quarters, and again, strangely worlds
where the quarters are all really well lit and also fucking
massive, you know, like everyone has these just giant quarters on
that ship.
Like, I don't know.
I think this is quite comfortable.
Yeah, I was thinking I would quite like it.
I would want to turn the lights up.
And you can just go to the wall and say, give me coffee ice cream
which coffee ice cream is just delicious.
Oh, it's my favourite.
I don't want anything that tastes like coffee that isn't coffee, I
think.
She goes, they get, the director goes, well, you just have a bit
of that ice cream before it melts, please.
We're going to be in this room for about 3 hours.
Oh, dear, okay.
What you been drinking?
What's that in the...
You got to have vegetable bouillon.
Bouillon?
She had soup.
She did say that she had soup.
Vegetable, yeah.
It's just like, you know, that's what she originally asked for.
And then she asked for the coffee ice cream instead, some stock.
Because the night before, remember, she said that she to Neelix
said she just had some soup. and she's decided, no, I'll do
something nice for myself.
She doesn't take advice Well, does she?
They're saying eat something and she wants vegetable water.
Well, but she decides against it because she had had it the night
before and goes for the ice cream.
So Mark is here and again, that's an important part of her
character bio, and this could have been a way of, because it's
called persistence of vision, right?
And so she's still seeing Mark, even though she's lost him forever
as far as she knows at the moment.
Um, and how does she feel about that?
Again, his performance, because it's supposed to be something sort
of evil and threatening.
Yeah, I just don't believe in the relationship because he is
playing it in a slightly mannered way.
Do you remember the bit where she gets the letter from Mark in
Hunter's and she realises that he's moved on and remarried and
it's like a knife in your heart.
It's so well done.
I felt nothing.
No, no.
I don't think you've missed me.
Someone else is in your thoughts now.
Oh, please.
God's sake.
Is this a comment on all those dreadful Gothic romances that she's
obsessed with?
Well, I don't know, because nothing really, is that someone else
is in your thoughts now?
Yes, it would go early.
You've been snogging Lord Burleigh.
Everything was fine before you came here.
I took care of him.
He trusted me, but when you arrived, that all changed.
Nathan, you've done nothing but cause trouble here.
We don't want more trouble in our lives.
And now look, look, she won't look at the camera because it's a
stunt double.
It's so bad.
That'd be a direction.
Did you see?
You're right.
That is quite a shocking thing too.
And she's really selling it.
That's great when we discover she's not in her quarters at all.
She's in Sig Bay.
That's actually really, really well.
When she goes, security, please respond.
Yeah, the panic.
It's real, isn't it?
And when she looks at her hands, that's great.
That's so good.
Like, and she's, you know, you're giving Kate this stuff to do.
She's awesome.
Boy, Joe, why did you waste it for 7 years?
Where it was from, would you be?
You had one of the greatest weapons in American television.
Oh, look, Chakotay's around, look.
Yes, he's still on the show.
He's like the Hoshi, avoid, you know, he gets the odd line.
Yeah.
But even at this point, you know, and he does get a thing here, but
it's, you know, um, it's, uh, Phantom hallucination, uh, Chakotay
obviously.
Oh, God.
The only bit in the climax that really made me perk up when they
was in bed together and she goes, yes.
I was like, oh, please.
Oh, and please keep your, Oh, you can't keep your ears out because
we're not listening with sound, but to Robert Duncan McNeil, when
he's in the corridor and he gets to do some top notch, McNeil
shouting.
No, please.
Just terrible.
In fact, in the 2nd half of the episode.
Essentially, the core cast forget how to act.
Yeah, because there's nothing going on.
Like, you know, okay, it's been great here.
Yeah.
None of that's very interesting, is it?
So this is KS explaining the thing that we just saw.
Why doesn't anyone just go, do you know what?
Should we just leave here?
Ever since we came here, start happening.
Don't they have the Bothans and they have to go through?
Oh okay.
Oh yes, yes, yeah.
We have to go through both in space to get home.
It's a common problem that you can't go around in, in the delta.
The space is quite big, but you can't go around things.
It would add another 100 years to our voice.age. 100 years of
this.
Alright, let's go through.
No, so this guy's being intransigent for no particular reason
because in both in society, they haven't heard of sick leave or
having a deputy, apparently.
And so, you know, all of that's kind of happening.
I think Chakotay is quite good in this scene and I think Chakotay
is quite good in the scene where he says you go and rest.
There are other members of the crew who have, you've trained, we
know what we're doing, you know, because...
I think he's blow dried his hair too much as well, though.
If you know it's sort of how fluffy and sticky up he is.
But don't you think she's being a kind of bad manager if she can't
just say, yes, I'm going on leave. you can all sort this out.
You know, oh, I found all of that so tedious.
Yes, and this thing's doing and that needs to do it.
It's just like, come on.
We've done that a 100 times as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
You know.
I liked it in DS9 when they catch the chase.
So Brian was away and everything broke down the 2nd he left.
Including, you'll be pleased to hear the lift.
It takes you up to ops.
That terrible...
That's a really frick to be chattering, as it were.
So the 2 ships, the 2 illusory ships.
So we think they're real at this point.
One of them's a Kazon ship for some reason.
Uh, another one looks like the Tamarian ship from uh, Darmok, and
I think the 3rd one has been used before as well.
Well, that's all right though, because it's all coming from their
minds, isn't it?
So it seems that we've experienced before.
Somebody must have been reading about Dar Mok that day.
Maybe, yeah, that's right.
But again, you know, like, why, why can't she just stay in the
fucking Sik Bay like she's told that's, that's crazy behaviour
now?
Don't you love as well?
You know, the very unthreatening way that when they're seduced by
the visions that they get, you know?
They sort of stare vacantly at whatever they're seeing.
Yeah.
But, you know, the trouble is, Robert Duncan McNeil, Garrett
Wang.
I can't tell the difference between that and their usual
performances, you know?
Yeah, oh, a bit of, look, they've put a bit of smoke in the ship
you know, they turn the lights down. does this every episode
doesn't it?
Well, it does this.
Yeah, ship going around it, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
We've done some recently. the voyage, you remember?
You know, had a load of ships going around, Voyager.
The one visual, the one visual innovation is the atmosphere on his
ship.
Yes, it's very unlike what you normally do because normally you'll
have a flat behind them immediately, won't you?
They won't be in a space.
It's not quite dark enough though, is it?
I can't just see his features. that's up close. stupid alien.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right mark on the screen, you know, just in the same way
that Abraham Lincoln came floating towards screen in TOS.
Here comes Mark.
Oh, that's all right.
Everybody's seeing somebody different.
So I'd probably see that mother. would not if it was me.
Well, who would you see?
I'd say Mark.
I'd say the dog. actually.
No, you see your dog.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So this is the person that Tom Paris is seeing his father because
that's the only characteristic that he has.
The 1st person to play his father mine.
So he is only in this episode, but he is also, they get him into
do a voiceover in 30 days.
Remember, because 30 days has a sort of hastily reshot, like a
wonderful episode, though.
Great episode.
But it's got the sort of shitty plot where he's in prison
dictating something to his father or something.
And we hear his father's voice.
So they do get him back into play Paris and then obviously they
get a more famous actor, Richard Hurd to play him in the... at
that point, isn't he, at that point?
Well, he's actually only in 4 episodes.
Oh, was he really?
Oh, yeah, but one of them's endgame.
Oh, Nathan, look at this matting of Tuvok into Vulcan.
I don't hate it.
It isn't very good. wrong with you?
But it's something.
They're at least trying something.
I don't think they are trying, do you know?
Because I, there are better examples of matting than that in 90s.
No, no, no, no, no. a bit shitty and terribly cheap and it looks
like a curtain that's been painted and just sort of strung up
behind it.
This is the scene, isn't it?
A psionic field, having a psychoactive effect.
It's all a techno-babble disc.
The shields in the meantime, I'm going to resonance the burst from
the warp court.
Well, good for you.
That'll block the field.
It's going to take a little while to set up.
And oh, it just goes on and on and on.
Yeah, but they don't need any of that.
Like, do you know what I mean?
We can block those things.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
All of that's very far.
If we ever needed a morale officer, now's the time, but he doesn't
do anything.
No.
Yeah, but he goes off to help.
Oh, we don't see him do that, though.
But why is she back on board the ship now?
Yes.
Yeah, see, he says, can't you relax for a minute?
Mark says to he says to her, can't you relax for a minute?
And like as if we're going to address her weird behaviour, or her
kind of obsessive, you know, controlling behaviour.
But as well.
Now, now it's about everybody.
It's so less interesting.
You know, when it was focussing on Janeway.
Exactly.
They could have done a character episode about her.
But now it's just little titbits about everyone that are not
interesting tippets.
No, because we don't have a through line or a proper idea and we
have to eat up 42 minutes of running time.
And so you know, so that's kind of what we do.
You ever had any trouble with psionic fields, maybe?
Not that many, no.
No.
I mean, I have had some hallucinations in the past, but it was
nothing to do with psionic fields.
Some pretty interesting ones like Alana as well.
Oh, here we go.
Here we go.
We're doing the romance now.
We should escape in an escape pods, B'lana.
Come on.
We can have it off in there as well.
No, I have to keep trying.
They're all depending on me Oh boy, oh boy, Nathan.
Oh, no.
I mean, yeah, like this, like now it's gone to hell.
Where are we?
How many minutes are we in?
We are...
We've got...
Yeah, yeah, we've got less than a quarter now.
I'm the one who loves you.
Let me be close to you.
This is the great hand in your throat.
Yeah, look at that.
Yeah, she was into bondage, you know, but I think that's a bit
yeah.
She was a Klingon, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They like pain.
Are we getting into it properly?
Is it like, is she kind of going, oh, you know, I'm getting to
snob.
Oh, here we go. look.
Now this, I did think this was well shot, like in the silhouette
in the dark with the 2 of them romping about in the bed.
But her reaction when he goes, you know, don't you want me?
You really want me.
And she just suddenly goes, yes.
I mean, we know that this is all fake, don't we?
We know this is all fake.
It's not, though.
They pulled out of her mind.
So clearly she does have some lust for him.
So on the memory alpha page, Roxanne says no, she didn't.
The character didn't.
She doesn't think that that was just a male thing.
Why are you playing there?
There's something in her mind, you know, like, but like, it's not
like we learn anything about her.
There is quite a nice scene, I think, there's a kind of, let's
explain what happened and how we feel about it seen at the end
between B'Elana and Kate.
And I thought that was okay.
Go watch prototype in about 3 episodes time where there's a
similar scene at the end, but it's actually very well written.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jerry Taylor as well. like she really wanted Chakotay and Janeway
together as well.
Like she just wants Chakotay with one of the women on the ship
doesn't she?
Yeah.
Yeah, but I mean, as we say it, the Jakotay Janeway Romance in
Resolutions Resolutions is one of the best ones in the history of
the franchise.
You know, the single episode romance.
I think it's probably the one that works the best.
Again, dropped him one episode and then forgotten about.
And I know it ties it up, I know, but there's so much potential
there.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
That's always my whinge about Voyager, isn't it?
Untapped potential.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, their model is Star Trek the Next Generation, which
doesn't do that stuff very much.
Oh, look at Kate's reaction to seeing Robert like that.
You say that though, but then in the same breath, they do start
bringing in character arcs of people and things like that.
So I think they're caught in some weird middle grounds where it's
just not very satisfying.
No.
But I think they want this big high concept thing, but it's just
not enough.
I'm glad Jerry Taylor isn't actually right in proper romances, you
know, this daughter, who used to love it when I kissed you there.
Oh, yeah, yeah, who says that?
And now he's jealous about the holiday thing.
It's just like, come on, I'm having my quiet pawn time.
Your fucking 70,000 light years away.
I vow to stay faithful to you.
No matter how long it takes.
And then look at this.
Now she kisses him and it's another really ugly kiss.
Like, why is no kissing in 90s track sexy?
Oh no.
No, I take it back.
Penny Johnson Gerald, when she grabs hold of Avery Brooks.
That's pretty sexy.
She just goes for it.
Eddie's only barely acting at that point.
She literally says go to her husband, watch this bit.
This bit is great.
Oh, so now we're doing the thing where, you know, everyone
succumbed.
So the doctor and Kez, who has her, you know, she's a pals or
whatever they are, yeah.
I know, she's subject to it.
She'll she'll get it later.
Yeah.
Thank God.
Janeway said in caretaker that Kes could come along, you know, she
was thinking to say no.
Yeah, yeah Well, what about the doctor?
She shapes the ship more off than the Wesley Crusher.
Yeah, so does a doctor, though, for the same reason.
Yeah.
It's up to us now.
And now oh, we're going into this.
Unbelievably flaccid conclusion.
Yeah, so what happens now?
We've got how many more minutes of this?
She has to raise the temperature, or there're radiation levels on
Voyager, and then start the warp or something, there's some tent
of bad points she has to do, and goes to engineering and then
Neelix pops out of nowhere and goes, oh, sweetie.
Hello, let's let's go.
You know, we're needed elsewhere.
And then the 2nd she don't do it.
I like this little interaction, though, where the doctor says, oh
you know, B'lana had a thing and it was this and she says, oh, I
don't know how to do that.
And he goes, oh, it's simple.
And then he admits that he doesn't know how to do it either.
And he just sends her and says, look, I'll try and help you when I
get there. that was kind of good.
I'm clearly about 10 seconds ahead of you because when you said I
love this interaction, she was talking to Paris.
I was like really?
No, I met her in the dark.
I don't mean this terrible scene.
Nobody does hysterical Robert Donald McNeil better than you.
When he she walks away.
Will you just...
Yes, wait.
Come back.
Don't leave me.
It's like, yes, I'm leaving you behind.
God, look at them all.
They're all just sort of around the set looking a bit bored.
Yeah, yeah.
But poor Ethan Phillips now.
He's got to say things like, you know, you're starting to become
really annoying and things like this when she won't do what he
wants.
So the lines aren't good.
His delivery isn't good and it isn't threatening.
So I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
The magnetic plasma, C equals T sub one over theta what?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But doesn't he, he's sort of bluffing or he doesn't understand it
either.
How do I do that?
And he goes, I really have no idea.
That's right.
Like, that's kind of, that's okay.
I don't mind that And he's going to just consult chat GPT to find
out the answer.
Here we go.
Which is what we would all do, right?
Yeah, yeah.
At least something we can buy.
Don't use ChatGPT to find out facts, kids at home.
Or Wikipedia or...
Well, no, that's better.
You can trust memory alpha because those are geeks.
Those details have been quadruple checked.
The geek core. you know?
Thank God for them as well. doing this podcast would be
considerably harder, but it wasn't for the dedicated service of
all of those people.
So we need to get them nerds.
So we don't have to. exactly right Exactly, right.
I mean, I mean, when you're when your dramatic conclusion is, oh
my god. how do I enter the sequencing code?
You know, like, we've gone awry somewhere.
Yeah, look, Paul Reefer, he's trying to be scary, but it just
doesn't convince.
Well, and also everything's just in 2 shots.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, he needs to be like, how is he menacing just standing there
next to her?
Yeah, there really is no tension hero, shall we say?
Do we think that cares will not be able to raise the temperature?
Yeah.
Oh, God.
And now we're getting desperate, so we're going to do puff face
with all of these horrible.
I think it looks terrible though.
Like, why are they doing that?
Why are they doing that?
That's awful.
They're trying to do horror.
A little shock to try and...
But yeah, yeah, but it's it's ugly and unpleasant.
And it's it's just unnecessary.
You know, like better or worse than the tongue coming out in
threshold.
No, that's worse. that's horrible Because it keeps up.
I do like the idea of talking.
You know, she really strains her mental powers and then throws the
pustules onto Neelix or the evil Neelix in front of her.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I didn't think you could make his mask look. uglier, but in a
minute we see it.
No, you can.
But I mean, that's horrible.
Like, what's that?
I mean, she had to sit in the makeup chair and be made to look
like that acting.
It's just awful.
Oh, no, look at Ethan screaming.
Come on.
It's so terrible.
Oh, that's at least shot from below and kind of weird.
I have yet to see a B movie as agonising as this.
Oh, look at his puff.
It's flying all over the car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, my God, the alien reveals himself and it turns out to be...
Oh, that guy.
Just that D-minus slate ex-alien from voyager. so boring.
That was worth sticking around for, wasn't it?
And why was he doing it?
We don't know.
Because we had time to fill.
That's why.
We have 26 episodes that we need to make.
Okay, everyone's awake now.
Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, that's it.
I'm just running down to the end.
There's still 5 minutes.
What the hell happens in the next 5 minutes?
Well, I think there's closing credits and we do have, you know
there's, but there's just one thing I don't understand, we have
that scene.
He looks so harmless.
No, no, no, he looks tedious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He just seemed to have nostrils on his on his knuckles, which is a
thing that we haven't seen before.
Oh, that mouth.
Look at that mouth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How does he smile?
It's just sort of a constant sort of rainbow shape.
Yeah, he's very cross.
He is very cross.
All time, because he looks like that.
And so, so what's happening?
He has done one thing, though.
He's done one thing for the Borger crew.
Well, at least half of them have had it.
No, none of them have for ages, so they might be a bit looser
after this episode.
Yeah, yeah, there's something, but no one will even remember this
or ever mention it again because of course, that's how we roll.
That's right I wonder if B'lana actually came to the conclusion
after romping around with Chakotay.
Maybe not.
Actually, no.
You know.
Sometimes when you, I do have a moment like that with a bloke once
where I really fancied him and then we had a snog and we both
went.
Yeah, actually There you go.
I found an in episode reason.
That's not there at all in the script, but...
At least I can reconcile this with the rest of the series.
But like, what's this confrontation again?
What's happening in this confrontation?
What's it about?
What does he want?
I'm not really here.
Oh, he's not here.
So he was not here.
So there we go.
So, like, it wasn't even an alien.
It was just like the appearance of an alien.
So and those ships are not real and we've learned nothing.
We don't know why this happened.
And it's not an interesting mystery.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, we have no explanation for the mysterious disappearance of
the alien. executed engagingly, either.
No.
I mean, it did successfully feel 45 minutes.
So did Twisted, though.
Like, and it's very nearly that.
Like, I think...
Yeah, but Nathan, when we do twisted.
I mean, they literally just walk the corridors.
I don't know what we're going to say about that episode.
I think I might bring a book.
I'll write up some notes about future podcasts while we're
watching it, yeah.
We could go through the diary for the Oh no, we do this the same
time everywhere.
All spoiler.
Yeah, I don't understand what this whispered conversation between
B'lana and Jane Williams was like, my God.
Do you really think that those are our deepest desires?
Yeah, because I think it's belong.
They're not.
But again, it's not clear what Janeways is Janeway's deepest
desire to be menaced by Carolyn Seymour with a knife because it's
pretty close.
It's my top five.
So what are we actually talking about?
20 if I'm honest, you know.
For me, it would be like you being the Neelix curry, you know
you're being a bit annoying now, Joe, all right?
But there's something here because these 2 are interesting.
Do you know what I mean?
And it's interesting to have 2 women as well?
In a Star Trek in this way?
In prototype, right?
It's about, you know, those terrible robots from Battle Star
Galactica that were in that episode.
Do you remember, the big war?
But it's about, you know, science.
Should we do it?
And it's 2 female scientists at the end, having a conversation
about the moral consequences of what they've done.
Now that's something you can hang a scene on.
This.
Oh, well, maybe these were latent buried, you know, thoughts and
feelings that we have, or maybe not.
Goodbye.
But the 2 of them are playing the hell out of it.
Do you know what I mean?
It's an absolutely nothing scene, but there is something nice
about the energy between these 2 as well, I think.
There's wonderful chemistry between some of the regulars on this
show.
They're just rarely given anything decent to say.
And so she's staring out the window now, thinking about what?
What have we learned?
The puppies?
Lord Burley, the sandwiches.
In fact, I would have been more, if the puppies had come running
out of that cupboard, cuddled up to her, and that had entranced
her.
I think I would have been more convinced.
Wow, there you go.
That was an episode, wasn't it?
It was definitely an episode of Voyager.
That's a true thing.
I mean, so occasionally, you know, we do genuinely use the
randomiser and try and go for something middling, you know, but I
don't think we found anything quite as middling as that before.
That could be the baseline for middling.
It could be.
Like, you know, it was okay.
I was a bit bored in the in the last two thirds of it, but, you
know, I like the characters for some reason.
I like Voyager. you know, like it's okay.
For some reason.
It might be the actors, actually.
Some of the actors are actually...
And Cade in particular is great to watch.
You know, occasionally, you know, they managed to marry up those
great actors, not always because they give the terrible actors on
the regular crew, stuff to do as well, but occasionally they marry
up the great actors with a good script. you know?
those days we rejoice.
This was not one of those days.
No.
All right, it's the end of the episode and it's time for us to
work out where we're going next.
This was your choice, Joe, an uncharacteristically dull one, and I
am going to try and liven things up by moving forward into the
21st century for an episode of the series that we have covered the
smallest percentage of, which is Star Trek discovery.
Ah.
Oh, dear, prepare yourselves, everybody, then, for another episode
where I'm going.
Who's that?
What's her name?
Who are they related to?
Nathan will just be my memory alpha for a week.
You can rest assured it will be a more competently made piece of
television.
I can't promise you it's going to be more interesting.
All right, so I've got my finger on the button of the randomiser
and here we go.
Season 4, episode 4 all is possible.
Now, we've actually rolled this before, and this is an episode
where Tilly is on a shuttlecraft with some cadets, and they are in
an inhospitable environment, they have to learn how to get
together.
It's an absolute Star Trek staple, but it's done quite well.
So, you know, what was that one, good shepherd, and there's
learning curve.
It's a little bit like those only better and sort of shot on
location and stuff like that, I think.
We did Notting Cove quite recently, though, didn't we?
We did.
It is a bit similar.
I'm more sort of enticed by doing an earlier discovery because
we've done a lot of later ones lately.
I mean, I'd love for us to do a series 11 and talk about that.
Let's see.
See if you roll a series one.
Season four, episode 10, the Galactic Barrier.
Is that the finale?
No, no, because there's 13 episodes in that season back then.
So it is heading towards the 10 C.
As I said to you before, I think, that this season of Star Trek
Discovery is the best season of Star Trek Discovery and part of
what it does is it does what series 3 of Enterprise does quite
well, which is telling a continuous coherent story, but still
coming up with episodes that are about a particular thing.
And of course, in Great Kurtzman tradition, it leans into the
ridiculous idea that there's a galactic barrier surrounding the
galaxy that you can't get out of, and it just brings that back.
I'm super tempted, but I am going to give it one more go.
I really want to do season one.
Come on, season one.
Labyrinth season five, episode eight.
Well, I mean, I don't really know much about season five.
So that could be an interesting one to explore.
How about this one?
Season one, episode three, the 1st regular episode?
You remember episodes one and 2 screen on the one night?
and then we go into episode three.
So very, very early on.
Context is for Kings.
It's not the one where she gets eaten by that great tardigrade, is
it?
No, but this is her coming back on board discovery after her kind
of court martial and things and meeting Lorker and kind of and
possibly, I think, even meeting Stammets.
But kind of discovering that there's something wrong with
discovery, that it's a sort of weird, scary, awful place.
And because it was a slow burn formation of the crew, it might be
quite interesting to see the pieces starting to form and come
together.
It takes a long time, doesn't it, for the crew to sort of assemble
and, well, I don't know if it ever gains an overall identity
because it's changing its mind every 2 minutes.
I think that might be quite interesting.
Yeah, I think I like series one quite a lot.
As I've said before, I think one of my objections to series 2 is
that it walks back, a lot of the decisions that are made in series
one that I really enjoy.
I think we meet Tilly for the 1st time, for instance, in this
episode too, because think about it.
It's the Vulcan Hello and then Battle of the Binary Stars for that
1st night, episodes one and two.
So 3 is her coming back aboard Discovery and instead of being the
1st officer being, you know, a prisoner with no rank who's just
there as a specialist.
I want to go back and see if Security Shrief Landry is as much of
a total bitch as I remember her being.
I just remember it being this utterly one note performance of, you
know, she was so great in Battlestar Galactica, that actress.
What's her name, Rakesh Sharma?
brilliant in Battle Star Galactic, and she was given this
thankless role where she was eaten halfway from the season.
It's really awesome.
I think that's great because you do think she's going to be a
regular because you don't know what discovery is yet at all at
this point.
I mean, all of the 90s strike episodes do a big two-part beginning
but it bears some resemblance to what the final show is and spends
its time introducing us to the characters.
This doesn't do that at all.
No, oh, and also Jason Isaacs, you know, hot Captain Hawker as
well. sweaty.
Come on, let's do it.
All right, this is doing it.
We'll be on safe ground for things to talk about, though, won't
we?
Unlike persistence of vision.
But what were we going to say about that?
But this is a show literally in its opening steps.
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay.
Awesome.
You've been listening to untitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford
and Nathan Bottomley.
We're online at untitledstar trekproject.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 12th of August 2025 and released
on the 15th of August.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek Discovery.
Context is for Kings.
There we go, right, both are going, voice recorder, and...
So, I think Strangely Worlds will have finished by the time I come
to your place.
Oh, okay.
Because we've had five.
We are going to do a couple, you know, I may roll in a strange new
world, just so we have to watch one together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
What am I doing?
I may rewatch Andor actually, like while I'm away on my own
because there's 24 episodes of that and fuck, it's great.
Holy shit, it's good.
Guess what I'm watching at the moment.
Tomorrow, my 1st day up, I'm doing an interview with Dylan about
his new book that's coming out, this real-time book.
So like a, he did the downside one, which was BBV.
Now this is all the real-time stuff.
Um, and he sent me 4 of the myth makers interviews, sort of like
really sort of diverse ones.
And we're going to talk about the 4 he sent and the book.
So it's sort of like a nice way of banding between the 2 and
anecdotes like that.
Well, when I was eating that pizza last night, I was watching the
Jacqueline Pierce one.
Oh my god.
Oh my gosh.
I was just amazingly good.
She goes, you're noticed, darling.
You'll notice.
Oh, she's on a chaise lounge, right?
It was sort of Romany caravan and it opens on a like a glass of
champagne and she goes, oh, nectar of the gods, she goes.
It's the only poison I would accept, darling.
And she's got like a cigarilla.
All the Wade.
Oh, no, she talks about that.
She goes, well, what does like a spliff or 2 die, you know?
She tells a wonderful story about how she...
Oh, they said, please, Jacqueline, will you bring some?
And she goes, I didn't realise that you weren't allowed to take it
on planes.
And there I was handcuffed in a cell. she goes, I couldn't stop
laughing.
She said, I said to the man, this is as close as I've come to
being in an episode of the bill.
Oh, boy.
I mean, every anecdote is just gold.
Like, I don't really need to watch anymore because they'll never
be as good as this.
And she talks about her mental health and all of this and in and
out of asylums and all sorts that's happened in her life and her
family and it just sounds very disturbing.
But she goes, yes, she goes, well, darling, I discovered sex
between series 2 and series 3 of Blake 7.
So you'll notice in series one and two, you know, I'm in sort of
dowdy clothes.
I've got this sort of boring haircut, no nails and things.
She goes, have a look at me in the 1st episode of series three. you
know, suddenly I've got huge feminine flowers on me and beautiful
nails.
She goes in, I'm flirting outrageously with that delicious Paul
Darrow.
She goes, because I met this gay man.
She goes, and he introduced me to orgasm.
I'll send it to you because he sent it to me.
It's only an hour, but it is blissful.
Do you remember the, do you remember that when she died in Russell
T. Davis poster on like Instagram about how, what was the kids
show that, like, Moon something?
Oh, dark season.
No, no, she was a villain, wasn't she coming?
She was a villain.
She turns up late.
He's winslet in it, like a young win song.
That's one of his other shows.
So it turns up, he turns up to thing late and saying, oh, darling
darling, I'm so sorry, I'm late.
I was up all night fucking a young priest.
She goes, she goes, um, they go to her, you know, so, so what did
you think of Blake Savage?
She goes, oh, wasn't it boring?
It was so boring.
She goes, I didn't understand.
She goes, well, I have this amazing ability, you know, of being
completely emotionally truthful about scripts.
I have no idea what they're about.
So they tell me I'm incredible in it.
Just that I didn't have a clue what I was saying.
Oh, I'm like, you put every Doctor Who person to show.
Oh, you were in Doctor Who?
She goes, oh, darling, I was. yes She goes, I don't remember much
about the job, if I'm honest.
That script was even more boring.
She goes, but um, I had a wonderful time in, uh, in Spain, she
goes, in the pool with Patrick Troughton, you know, drinking mint
juleps and...
What weeks not turn up or something, so they just had 2 days where
they couldn't do any shootings, so they just hung out by the pool
on the BBC's expense.
I have to send it you.
Oh my god. okay.
You will have nothing but a riot.
You'll be laughing every 2 minutes or so.
Oh, she's just heavy.
I mean, some of it's performative, I'm sure.
Oh, of course.
What a performance.
I just got the big finish audio of her to listen to, which I might
listen to last night.
That's great Yeah, that's great as well.
And the Paul Darrow one's good as well.
She's so awesome.
Anyway boy.
All right.
Shame, we're not doing a Blow 7 podcast.
That could have been the tag, you know, all about orgasms and
things.
It would still be the tag.
God, put it in.
Romany caravans, champagne.
I was going to talk about Stranger Worlds, but fucker.
Let's put them in.
Unfortunately, let's watch something which is in no way as
interesting as Jacqueline Pierce's life story.
More Strange New Worlds to...
Oh, strange.
Pretty much, most of Trek.
All right, here goes.
Hey, Joe. Hi.