Vanishing Point

Hey, Joe. Hi. So, I have a confession to make. I was actually wrong last week, because I said that I thought that this would be realm of fear only shit, and I'm very much afraid that instead, it was, remember me only shit, and possibly the next phase only shit. Admiral were fair, and whispers, and distant voices, and many other Star Trek episodes. I'm less familiar with those, but I do think that this has some incredibly strong beads that are very similar to Remember Me and to the next phase, and it's vastly inferior to both of them, I think. Oh, please, you said that. I thought you meant strong as in they were strong beats in this episode. You only mean strong, as in the connection to previous episodes. Much better episodes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So today we're watching Enterprise, series 2, episode 10, vanishing point. Like, this one sent us on Hoshi, and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to see it because we barely see her do anything. And she's nice, like she's fun to watch, I think. Is she fun to watch? Well, like, you know what? I was so excited that we were going to be watching Ho Sheep. Because we so rarely get to spend. We've done enough enterprise episodes now, and we so rarely get to spend much time with her. If she gets a line or a look, you know, we're lucky usually. So a whole episode with her would be, I kind of came away from this thinking, you're a pleasant character, but in no way engaging in no way do I want to learn more about you. And do you know what? If we didn't have another episode about you, that would be okay. But I mean, this is a show that has Malcolm and Travis in it as well. Do you know I mean? That's even more damning. Yeah. So I think I think she's charming and attractive. Do you know what I mean? And she sort of feels easy-going and stuff. Like, that was something... But I mean, if you think about remember me, which is very, very similar in all sorts of ways to this, and we complain about Gates McFadden's acting, but she's much, much more engaging and much more fun to watching that. But she's got a better episode, a more playful episode, an episode with much better dialogue in it. Like, you know, she's got more weapons in her arsenal, remember me than poor Linda Park has in this. So, so I want to talk about, remember me, because remember me is from the Imperial phase, obviously, of Star Trek, the Next Generation, and it's from that era where Michael Piller has said that it's not enough to have high concept science fiction things they have to happen to someone. And so remember me start with Beverly talking to Dr. Quace, her old friend who talks about mortality and having lost a lot of people. And of course, the one thing that we know about Beverly, even probably before we actually meet her, an encounter at Farpoint is that she's lost her husband. And the world that she gets transported into is a world where people are disappearing around her, and she gets more and more upset about the world getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and people that she loved and cared about disappearing. And so even though it is fun and light and great and all sorts of enjoyable things are happening. There's a sort of character thing that happens, which isn't always a given for Star Trek, the next generation. And not normally what Star Trek the Next Generation is about. Here, there was kind of room for that, and there is sort of an attempt, but in order to do it properly, it would have to admit the show would have to admit that it just routinely sidelines Hoshi, that she gets overlooked, that she doesn't matter, that this is a show that's essentially a boys club, and she just gets talked over through all of it. She's unimportant. And there is an attempt, I think, for the episode to sort of be about that, but it doesn't really want to actually admit to that. There's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called Invisible Girl in the 1st series and is doing what this episode is doing a 100 times better. And that's about a one shot character who's this girl at the school who nobody notices and because they're on the hell mouth you know, the supernatural forces coming and she literally starts turning invisible in some truly like haunting sequences. Um, they're trying to do that here with Hoshi, but, like, they don't take it to its natural conclusion. She doesn't really come to any great realisations about it. At the end, she doesn't go, well, okay, I'm going to try and integrate and get to know people better. The ending literally just wipes out any potential character development by going, none of that was real, folks. It all happened within about 2.5 seconds instead of, I mean, I wish it only happened in 2.5 seconds. 42 minutes. It's really baffling because you're right. There is a bit in the middle where, you know, she's starting to say, you know, nobody ever really notices me here. I thought, okay, we're doing something. something's happening here. We're going to reach some kind of some kind of a conclusion about Hoshi. They were never going to admit though, were they? that they had sidelined that character. The writers, I mean. But also, I want to talk about Strange New World, which we did in series one. which had the nerve to suggest that going to an alien planet was something new and fresh and dynamic and exciting, even though we've been doing it for like 500 seasons before this. We're in season 2 now. And they're pulling the same shit with a transporter beam. Not only is that something we've been doing since original Star Trek in the 60s, right? We've even done people with fear of transporter beans before. We did Pulaski in TNG season two. We did Barclay in realm of fear. So like, why is nothing original happening in this show? And why are they attempting to suggest that the hoariest of cliches? Are something fresh and worth exploring? I just don't understand it. I don't understand who this is for. No. So I think it's for people who thought that Star Trek the Next Generation was very complicated and intersected. That's nobody at all. But I mean, that's the thing. Do you know what I mean? There's a very, very deliberate attempt to get away from Star Trek to make this dumber to have like mediocre white guys in charge of the ship and they're wearing baseball caps and like, did they ever think that was a good idea? I don't understand. I don't know. I don't know. But they clearly... When they were pitching the show, Nathan. Did they say, you know, we need a load of thick jocks. in charge of stock. We going to take Star Trek off the show, you know? And we're going to repackage all of the cliches we've been dealing with for ages as exciting new plot avenues. George W. Bush is in the White House, and this is what we're going for. Last week, right? We did Wear the Warrior, which had, you know, a complicated and sophisticated political manoeuvrings going on, huge space battles both primary and secondary cast all informing the story. You know, it was a substantialist 90s trek gets. How have we stripped back to this? And I mean, it wasn't Thomas Pinchin. Do you know what I mean? Like it wasn't, it wasn't that complicated. It was fairly strange. Compared to this. It was very complicated. Oh my god. But, I mean, it just, it baffles me as well. I think it's a very, very bad episode. And I think it fails at just being a basic hour of television and it could have worked. And it's so obvious what they should have done. Like, even if this was a Twilight Zone episode, or let's get anachronistic, like a Black Mirror episode. Like, it has to be about the character, and it has to be about something, and it's so nearly that, you know, how she doesn't want to be on board the ship. She's inexperienced. She's an ensign. She has a relationship, a good relationship with Jonathan. There's stuff there. But what you would have to do is you would have to take the scene where she goes up to the table in the mess hall and people talk over her and don't notice that she's there. And that would have had to have happened before the incident to establish that this was how she was feeling about herself and then have the thing that happens to her about herself and then her learning something. And we do try and make her learn something she learns to get on the transporter pad at the end. And so her fear is all solved. And that's not a character development that anyone could possibly give a shit about, I think. And the great twist of, obviously, it's all fakes, and this isn't actually the twist. The twist is it never happened at all, which is an even more boring twist than the, what is it? The coils were realigned badly. So that's why the transport, when that's the better twist of the 2 twists. We're in a lot of trouble. But also the internal consistency within this fake dreamscape that she's going through. none of it makes any sense from scene to scene. She can be seen and she can't be seen by various people and there's no kind of rules as to who can see it. And from scene to scene, people are kind to her and other people like to Paul are really sort of mean to her. And so there's no through line with the characters either. So I was like, I don't understand what's happening even, what are the rules here? I don't get it. And then for you to just go, There were no rules. None of it ever happened. It all happened in 2 seconds, the end. I was like, okay, that this is as bad as move along home, you know it's all just a game. It's that again. But I mean, at least move along home is trying to make something interesting appear on screen and something that we haven't seen before and it kind of fails, but it's definitely more entertaining than this. This is so gray and so boring and so unambitious. That is Enterprise one and two. That's the perfect word. It's so unambitious. And just doing these scenes of characters, you know, walking around the ship with the same dismal incidental music playing that we've had for the last 10 years as they look at their hands and go oh, what's happening to me and put their hands through walls and take showers and odd things happen. Man you just can't get away with this stuff anymore. All right? You've been doing this since TNG season one. Like do something new and they get there. They do get, they don't know, we done 4 and they start doing more substantial storytelling and politicking and more interesting characterisation. Fuck me, they have, it's a long way to get there. 2 bloody seasons worth of this. They haven't learnt the most obvious thing, which is that Star Trek, the Next Generation takes off when best of both worlds happens. It gets good. It starts to get good at the beginning of series 3, but it really takes off when a big world shattering political event happens. And they've decided we've had years of world chattering political events. We're going to pair it back completely. We're going to have none of that at all. There's going to be Vulcans on Earth. That's all you need to know. There's no law, there's no backstory, there's no real interesting world for this to take place in, and we're just going to do routine procedural stuff that was pretty tired by series 7 of TNG. But the thing about TNG is that 2 things happened, yeah, at the same time, lightning in a bottle with that cast because they all had great chemistry. And it took them a couple of years, but they realised they've all got great chemistry, right? just make that flourish. At the same time that the storytelling got better and they just started telling really fun, interesting, sophisticated for the time. science fiction stories. But now what they're doing here is they're telling the same stories in a less interesting way with a less charismatic cast. In every way, it feels like a pale shadow of what TNG was doing in its heyday. It's so sad because I think this is a cast with ability. But they just, they needed writers that were willing to take greater risks with them. And Berman and Bragger, they're just so burnt out at this point. They're as misaligned as those transporter coils. All right, let's go in. We've got 42 minutes. We're still gonna talk. Look, we've got an hour in Linda Park. Let's be grateful for that. That's true. All right. Okay. Plus, you know, we got our fake planet set in the 1st scene. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got the song to look forward to. So there's a lot going on. song, yeah, of course. Yeah, lightning storm, like odds, excitement. All right. I will count as in. Please. Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off. Nathan, I knew we was in trouble when the opening shot was a pan in on stock case number one. But I was getting some, you know, most recent season of Strange New Worlds vibes where we had these sort of weird Indiana Jones alien, um, cities and stuff with carvings and things. Oh, really? Yeah, obviously. I jumped in on an episode of Stargate SG1. This is how all their episodes open, you know, for rooms and caves and things. Yeah. I mean, this is... It's not altogether a bad start, is it? You know, ruins in caves. Okay, this could be interesting. And you've got Connor, he's appealing. Do you know what I mean? He creates a joke. he cracks a joke. You know, he does these little tall guys, a popular thing, the little guy on the on the plimp there. He's gotten over his season one. I'm a total prick to everybody face, isn't he? He's just, and they've realised he is charming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which they haven't realised about Bacula, which is just utterly baffling. I got nothing from bachelor at all in this episode. Even when he had to break the news of Hoshi's death. I've just got nothing at all. Because you knew it was fake. You knew that he wasn't dead. You knew that none of this mattered, and you probably suspected by this point because you've watched Star Trek before, that this was all, you know, going to be reset at the end. What's Jolene doing in this episode as well? She was unbelievably soporific in this, wasn't she? Like, there's just no emotion error. And I know she's a Vulcan, but you can still, you know, have a bit alive to your performance. I mean, you know, she's not Jerry. And I do think eventually she's very good. I think she does settle on something. She is actually quite good eventually. Well, yeah, but she gets better writing, you know, and they ask her to go through drug withdrawals and things like that where you have to actually act. Yeah, yeah. You know, the storm reminded me of, Nathan. Do you remember resolutions with J. Wen Jakotay down on the planet? Sort of the wind. Big storm. Dumbing this with the trees, electric storms. Yeah, my God. I mean, I get it, though. I do get it because I actually stopped and thought for a 2nd in the opening scene. If I was asked to go into a transporter beam and you explained to me that was taking apart my entire body and then putting it back together again. I might think twice about that, you know? That's quite a big thing. Yeah, I mean, but maybe this is about 15 seasons too late. I think that's part of the problem. I mean, I understand they say we want to go back in time when space travel was more challenging and, you know, it was a little bit less like, you know, piloting the Pacific princess around the galaxy or whatever, you know. And I get that. I think that makes sense. But what ends up happening is, ooh, it's a transporter. Ooh, it's in a way mission. It just makes everyone look stupid and incompetent, and it means that we're seeing stories that we've seen a lot of times before only more interestingly, and we're having to watch them again. See, like, and all of this as well. I didn't mind all of this, where it's a dangerous situation, she has to use it. There's no other way out of it. It's basically everything after when they when she's back on the ship. That's where I think this just all loses itself. Yeah, but I mean, this is over 35 years after the transporter was invented, wasn't it? Like, we've seen it. Like, we know. It's like going back. I'm watching the big goodbye. Do you remember the 1st Holodeck episode? Picard was like, my God. It was like, actually... But at least that was the 1st time it was you. That's right. That was us getting to see it. You know, that was what was important about it. It's us. Oh, okay, you are right. She's very beautiful. Yeah, yeah. I think she's more beautiful than she generally is allowed to look as well. I think her normal hair is pretty unflattering. Don't you remember her and the alternative? Midrish showing. Well, he's a middling turn in that. Yeah. I mean, it's heaps of bigger if here. Look, and I was trying to think about that. Gates is 41 in Remember Me and pregnant. She's wearing her coat in the whole episode. I don't think she's YouTube. And um, and, um, and, and Linda's 24. Right. And, and, um, yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's a thing. Oh, the highlight of the episode. It's been a long roll. Get them from there to here. It doesn't have Star Trek Enterprise on it. Does your version? Uh, no. No, it just says Enterprise. Yeah, Enterprise. Yeah. I think it's season three, isn't it? where they reinserted the Star Trek and maybe we distance ourselves too much from everything that made Star Trek right in one and two. Yeah. I mean, I actually think it was quite clever. It was the one thing that you could call a Star Trek show that didn't have the word enterprise in it. that didn't have the word Star Trek in it, rather. I thought that that was, you know, that was a clever choice, but you can see it is them very, very deliberately distancing themselves from what they've been doing for the last 14 years. Astonishing, though, this, isn't it? You pointed this out before, that all you see in this title sequence is men achieving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is a woman. Where? I missed her. I think Amelia Earhart's in there, isn't she? I can't remember, but I mean, I think, yeah, but do you know what? It maybe could have been a bit more balance. I mean, I was watching there and I was like, no, man, man, man man. It's primarily men then, all right? I suppose they are advertising what you're getting in the show. Well, that's right. Two-thirds of the people on Enterprise and men, aren't they? Didn't we learn that from Oasis, the last time we came aboard this year? Can I just say, oh, these quarters dismal? This horrible gray colour? I know, I know. I would move in and go, can I paint this room, please? I do like the, and we do, we do do it in 1st contact, don't we where we actually give them a basin with water and tap? and things? And I do like the showers as well rather than salt showers. as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although there's a very funny episode where archers in the shower at the start. Do you remember? And all the all the water freezes in the air. gravity goes out? To be fair, I wasn't really looking at the water freezing in the air during that scene. All right. Scott, back in her, I've been working out. Yeah, it's baffling, isn't it? Do you remember the warmth that we saw from the characters in Way of the Warrior last week? Yeah, yeah. You know, just think of the scene between Penny and Avery. And now look at this. And they're supposed to be friends, like he goes out of his way doesn't he, to find her? She's teaching in South America. you know, she goes to, he goes to find her to get her on board the ship. So they know one another well, but it's still sir and stuff. Do you know what I mean? She doesn't call him Jonathan, even though they've, you know. It is, it's staggering, isn't it, how much a very warm performer like Scott Bakler struggles with that character. And then this here. So this happens early in the episode. And like this is the problem with the show, isn't it? It's men just talking over her. And the other thing about this is she's worried that she's not good at her job. And then it turns out that the most mediocre white man imaginable crewman. No, is it, is it Crewman Baird? Who is it? Some asshole just can come in and do it. like can replace her. Oh, that's right. What, he figured out the syntax in a, just a few moments, you know he ran it, ran it through the universal translator. She said, no, I did that. hang on. Well, that's so obvious, right? of her thinking she's not competent at her job. That's just so the writing is just so one note there. But there's no sense of that throughout the show is the problem. Her 1st individual episode is that one where she imagines herself as a slug, or remember, there's a slug that she wants to set free on the surface of the planet, and the slug's in space, and she feels like the swan, because, like, it's so bad. I should remember that one, but I can't. It's just about her 1st episode. It really bad. It's the last time I seriously attempted to watch Enterprise all the way through. That's the episode that I thought, all right, yeah. Her series 3 episode that she gets. She only gets one a year, right? is the one where the, she sort of gets kidnapped by this bloke, um and and she's sort of trapped with him for the entire episode. She never really gets a great character study, I don't think. The best episode she gets is that 2 part also in the universe episode. as an actress. Yeah, yeah. Where she just gets to be so sexy, doesn't she? Now, this is, we get a mention of Australia. So trip goes to Australia in the 22nd century for his survival thing. He goes to Alice Springs, which is right in the middle, which is where the bus from Priscilla Queen of the Desert eventually ends up. So I've never been to Alice Springs. What we need, Nathan, is for Hoshi to be like Tapo in this scene and say, you know, you go a lot of cunts. Yeah. And then they just all walk off, you know, like and just leave. I'm far prettier than all of you. Why is spotlight not on me? Also, is she going to take the plates back? It's like, is she gonna clean up after it? Oh, can you do to wash it up, love, thanks. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Berman and Bruggeroo, that's what you can tell. Oh, now I did like the Dr. Flock scenes, and that's mostly because he's the one character that does exude any warp towards her. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like it when he says to her later on. Well, you know, the door's open to you and I can see you. Yes. So obviously you're here. Yeah, I do like that. I think he is charming. And because, you know, he's a bit older, he's not one of those, you know, like Malcolm, it was Malcolm Travis and, and, um, and Tripp you know, he's not one of the young. Well, you look at that sick bay bed, it looks more uncomfortable than the Deep Space 9 ones than I would have thought that was impossible. Yeah, it does look like it's made out of Mecano, doesn't it? Although we've said this before, we like that sort of nuts and bolts. Yeah, yeah. The fact that they have, you know, like monitors from 20 years ago it kind of vaulted to the world. I mean, monitors from the present day when they were making it, but these very old-fashioned computer monitors everywhere. look pretty good. You know, you can have nuts and bolts and still make things aesthetically pleasing though, you know? I like this set. It's a very, yeah, I like this set. Because it's quiet, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And those sort of days, they highlight against it. Whenever they're in those greys, say it's everyone just gets lost yeah Yeah. Did they learn nothing from Voyager and all that gun metal gray. And look at the sort of sexy, sexy hipster 70s print that, uh, that every time I think of his packy costume. I think of you going on about his swinger's outfit. Yeah, yeah, it's so great. Right, come on, Tom, everyone, get your keys on the ball. Let's go. I love that trophy. He does have an episode, doesn't he? He actually got several wives and husbands and things. They all share each other. Yeah, I don't I get the impression that Berman and Braga don't want him to be fucking his co-husbands. I think it's a very gender segregated polycule that he belongs to. But now we're going to have her in her pants and then we're going to have her in a meat drift top. And we'll have her in the shower. Oh, she's already been in the shower. I thought it was very tastefully done. There was sort of a screen in the shower, so we could pan up and make a body, but miss all the offending parts. Yeah, and now he slept in and that's the other thing too. Like, there is this sort of dream like quality to it, isn't there where firstly, she's in every scene. And even in scenes later on in the episode where she's disappeared she's still visible to us in the scene. So this entire thing is being told from her point of view. There's not a scene from here on in that she's not in. Well, it has to be, doesn't it? why the episode doesn't work. of them are real. That's right. that's right How can we be following them? Do you think they gave her the script and went, Linda, you're in every scene. in this one. Oh my god. And so, and so that thing where, you know, she wakes up, she slept in, and they, something has developed in the plot, um, that she's not aware of, and there's a language thing to solve, and she fails like, but none of it's off-putting enough or odd enough? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, you're right. The direction isn't strong enough, is it? Like, think of, remember me. and how Twilight's only that was, you know, the weirdness in that. Because, I mean, the issue here is that, that we don't think, like we know that the, it's not going to be, she's just coming to pieces because she's been in the transporter. Do you know what I mean? That's not going to be how it resolves. So we know it's something else. know that this isn't real in some way. And maybe Berman and Braga are imagining a pretend person who's tuned into enterprise because they don't realise it's Star Trek and doesn't know all this shit. Do you know what I mean? Or hasn't watched TV before, possibly, and thinks one of the regulars whose names in the title sequence is likely to be killed at the end. But I think it can. I really thought it was going to go down the invisible girl room though. I thought, like, she'd gone in the transporter bin, then they give you some terrible technobabble reason as to why it didn't work out. She's going to start vanishing before. Yeah, that like vanishing out of existence. And in some way, they would affirm her and bring her back. And then she would feel integrated, which is what happens in the next phase, isn't it? Where the next phase, Geordie and Row actually rematerialize at the funeral at their wake. So great. It's really fun and funny. and they're listening to the people. Who is it? Someone has something really nice to say about Rowan, we never hear what it is. Riker. It's Riker. And she goes, no, I want to hear it. I want to hear it. It's really fun and funny. But in that, they're literally running through room to room, you know? after the Romulan, they're going to chase this. They try and do that here by having those generic lizard people. So boring. Yeah, but she just sort of casually, glacially walks through the walls in that. In the in the TNG one. They are dashing from room to room. That's right, little... Picard is death like, what was that? you're right. There you go. Oh, here we are. In the shower. Here we go. Yeah. I mean, but when the most exciting thing we can say is, 0 my god physical water. I mean the episode's gone awry a bit, hasn't it? And, you know, like, you and me, we're not exactly going to be titillated by as attractive as she is. But, I mean, the physical water thing is actually a thing because that is expensive. more expensive than they could have achieved on Star Trek the Next Generation with its daytime soap opera budget. But I've seen so many 90s Shreks episodes where they do this sort of dreamlike camera work and they use the fish eye lens, you know and stuff like that and it's genuinely very, very creepy. Here, it's just so mundane in how it's all short. He's the director's just sort of doing slow pans across the room very often. He sort of shoots from below. But I don't know. There's just no oomph to it. No spark to it. And there's a real definite choice of having the ceiling in shot which I think, you know, that's okay, because normally those sets water and ceilings, again, I'm getting excited about it. getting desperate. So this is David Stratan, who does 10 episodes of Enterprise including fan favourite, a night in Sick Bay, which is... your fan favourite. No, what else likes it? Or Oasis. What else does he do? anything else? I don't know. the full list. I only paid attention to the fact that it was a 19 Sick Bay because I think that's great. Well, David Straighten, try again, all right. Even like really bad episodes like Dark Page. Do you remember lights on Troy? And she's sort of wandering around the corridors going, get out of my head and it's, but it's shot in a really much more interesting way than this. Yeah. Yeah, it's a ceiling. Yeah, how exciting. Yeah, but I think they're trying to rein it in. Again, yeah, Tapoli's kind of horrible to her for no particular reason. So hang on. All right. Okay. So we've already decided Allison doesn't even pay any attention to her. Allison. Who's Alison? That was her. She gets a credit because she speaks. and she gets her own Wikipedia memory alpha. It's me. Yeah, it's me. Alison, you know me. Do we ever see Alison, where are you? Where'd you go after this? Your one scene wonder. Oh, who's this now in the sober lift? So we can hear someone is saying something, we're hearing voices from the people who are doing the technological thing to get her out of this, and that's, of course, what happens to Beverly. Remember when she sees that riff thing and hears the voices of Wesley and Geordie? It's exactly that same beat. And then, of course, remember me, the episode actually goes outside and tells us what's going on. Oh, it's wonderful. That that bit where you suddenly realise. And then you cut to the real enterprise and you realise she's in the bubble. Yeah, but there, you know, they've got a pregnant woman suspended in the air, blows of lightning and wind attacking her. Yeah, yeah, so exciting. Yeah. I just don't want to walk around these boring sets with ocean, you know? Come on. So this is the point now where she's like, do you see me, you know do I exist? nobody's really acknowledging me. Nobody wants to talk to me. Oh, get over yourself. all right? I wish nobody wanted to talk to me. But again, if this was about something, do you know what I mean? A character thing, it's the sort of thing that could be, but they seem to have ripped out any of the stuff that makes it work. But also as well, right? I refuse to believe that somebody that beautiful would be ignored right? If you talk about casting the wrong person. Like, she's so gorgeous. Nobody would ignore Linda Park. But, you know, she is a young woman and she's on a ship which is mostly male and, you know, the two, I don't know. I don't know. Like, it is, in fact, what happens to her as a character is she's ignored and overlooked and doesn't get to do anything because she's surrounded by mediocre white man. I think it's brutal. their only excuse is, Well, yeah, but you get more to do than the fellow's pilot in the ship. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Oh, yeah. The other person who isn't an American white man. white male yeah. Oh, Burman, what are you doing? I think it's actually genius that they give, like, it's, again, he has his own, um, he has his own memory alpha page. crewman bed, the nobody who doesn't know how the, how the thing works. who is able to do her job better than... Now, this bit here reminded me a little bit of that scene in Moonwalker. You know, where he's going round and round. Moon Raker, sorry, yeah. But obviously on a much smaller budget. This is a thing. So this prop gets taken apart and turned into the Zindi whirly boil thing. Ah. You know, the one, the physical prop in the... on the sands. I don't think that looks very fun. No, I don't think it looks fun. either. But and it's clearly... You're a roller coaster man. No, um, yeah, ish. Yeah, I don't mind it. I mean, look, he's having fun and he's adorable. Look at him. He's so cute. And she just looks like she's, like, she's, I don't know. Why is she working out? Yeah, why is he being so nice to her? And then in a minute to polls being, are we seeing them as she perceived? I don't think there's any sort of clear idea about that. And we wouldn't know that, would we? Because we, there's no relationship. I couldn't describe what Tapol and Hoshi's relationship was like. Could you? It means she perceives Archer as somebody who's extremely cold. Yeah. Obviously, everyone perceives Dr. Flock as being very amiable. Of course, and Tripp as being, you know, a charming southern boy but that's what he is. Is that a word for everybody else? She's doing those incline chess presses. She does one set of 4 of them and now she's done. I have exercise for the day. I do want to ask you this question. Oh, yeah. So you said we were sort of stripping back on the music. You can't have that too exciting anymore. We're stripping back on the sort of concepts of the week. We're not allowing them to be in any way interesting. We're stripping back on the character. I mean, why are we doing? Yeah, yeah. But I think it's a we aiming this 4 year olds. Well, it's an attempt to get away from the law and an attempt to ground it a little bit, to make it. It's the 22nd century, not the 24th century. It's less spacy. It's exactly what they did with Stargate Universe. I don't know if you remember that. So obviously that had got so mired in its own continuity come the end of Stargate SG1 10 seasons in. And they went, right, let's just strip this back to people exploring the universe, we'll send them away a bit like Voyager to a distant part of the universe, trap them there and just tell really simple focussed character stories rather than high concept science fiction. Turns out that's really, really boring. All right. High context, science fiction is interesting. Simple character tales are very dull. Well, I mean, I think that, you know, even deep space 9 is trying to get them out of the way of anything large and geopolitical by putting them on the outskirts, you know, somewhere the frontiers you know, somewhere that's not hugely important. But it used... You couldn't resist it in the end. They couldn't resist it in the end, and obviously it worked really well, and they gave them a more interesting sort of place to be. I mean, there's an attempt to make this be in a sort of interesting 22nd century world, but they, you know, are so quick to get on board the ship. Yeah, see, this has also happened. hand has just gone through a bit of technology. She's looking in the mirror and she's vanishing substantial in the mirror. Like, even the special effects here, I thought, were just really not very good, is it? It's not? Yeah. I mean, it sort of gets the idea across, but it's not visually interesting. No. You know, this is the same people that gave us the smiley face in the walk war breach, you know? Do something interesting. So from now on, she can't be seen. Oh, this bit now. I'm here, everybody. Oh God, you see me. Do you know what I would do? I was her. She's just standing there. I'll be punching them, touching their noses, yeah, grabbing his cock. He's after it. Oh boy. Okay, maybe not the last one. That could be harassment. Yeah, you'd have to have a conversation with Nathan, you'd want to. He is pretty. He is really pretty. Well, so's Jolene. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, all of them. Very attractive. everyone's very attractive. This is what I feared about all the cool kids of school that were very pretty, that they were all very pretty and boring. We had to tell ourselves that. And this is why, look, Dr. Flocks, he's not pretty, but he's really nice. So charming and it's his 3rd outfit. He's the distinct outfit of the episode, bless him. That's right. This is for the more sophisticated swingers party, this outfit. It's got a nice collar. High class. Yeah, boys and girls coming along. Oh, boy. Look, look how bored Scott Pacula looks. Well, again, this is again a narration of something that we saw earlier in the episode. You know, like he's now telling them about the scenes that we already watch. One thing that I did think was very good, right? is that in this scene, Initially, we think this is a conversation between Bacula, you know, like Blaylock and Billingsley, or the 3 Bs, and they're all there in the room, just sort of chatting to one another, and then the camera pans across slowly, and there is Hoshi in the background out of focus. think they think that's interesting enough for this scene, right? And then they do it again and again and again. We have one dialogue scene after another where the camera swings around and eventually she's somewhere unusual in the set, sitting on the console. But, but I think for a second, if you were, if you were thinking oh, this is by Brandon Braga, she's in a sort of fantasy world or something like that, and then she disappears and suddenly we're having scenes without her in it, we'd be kind of going, well, how is that even happening? And that I thought was clever. We are going to do it again, like, right, this 2nd, aren't we? Is she in this corridor somewhere? Yeah, there we go on the floor. Yeah. Linda, you're in every scene, but you're just going to be sitting around whilst everyone else is doing all the dialogue. All the men. Oh, no, Jolene's getting some things. She gets to do some stuff. Oh, boy. I just don't get the sense that there's any energy in the cast at this point. No. I mean, I don't often get much sense that there's any energy in the cast at all throughout enterprises run even in 3 and 4, I'm honest. Yeah. Yeah. But there is more later than this. Well, it's just so plodding. And this too, now is a series of scenes that we definitely know aren't real. Like having to watch Scott Bakula try and do devastated acting when Hoshi's actually there, you know, or the, like, why did we have to have the scene? Like, what enjoyment was there to be had? from having the scene where he FaceTimes her father? Yeah, because we, obviously, we know it's not real. We've seen this from her point of view. So what's that scene for? Is that enjoyable? Unless you're going to really sort of get our heartstrings, you know? And you just don't because it's so flat. That just seems horrible. Do you know what I mean? ringing a random guy and telling him his daughter's dead, but she's not really dead. Like, why is that fun? Like, where's the fun in that? I just think, that's really horrible. Do you do you recognise him? He's not here yet, obviously, but he will be here. He is in a deep space 9 episode. Oh, she's fine. Oh, tell me. He's the baseball player, the imaginary baseball player in... He's fucked the Kai. Yeah. Oh, that was a much more fun. You remember, I was chasing emus around the promenade. And Quark imagines 2 beautiful ladies on his arms. Oh my god. This has one of the stupidest lines of dialogue I've ever seen in Star Trek, which absolutely is. That is against some stiff competition now. So we're in the Jeffreys tube and they have nice big tall Jeffreys tube, so obviously, oh, we're getting... All ceilings? Look, we're shooting up again. Are we getting more? we getting more of the external dialogue? Like we hearing, aren't we hearing what's going on outside for a second? Oh, yeah. Okay, so what do you think? We're looking for her decomposed molecules or something like that. Dilapidates or something? something peptides or something. So like a DNA. We're looking for bits of her. God, I can't wait to find out what this line is. It's really great. And it's like, why would you have come down here? blah, blah, blah. We'll never know. And there she is in the background, out of focus again, which I think is good. Well, Captain Archer will want Hoshi's parents to have this and it's... Willie? Do you think she will? Do you think they will want that? We've got this little part of her left. Very bad. Mr Mrs. Sarto? What are they gonna do? Like goon. It's green. Of course, it's green. Why would you put it between 2 slides and framed it for you? So you might want it on the wall, but that's basically all that's left of her. Oh, bless. My God. But do you know what, right? If I was FaceTiming somebody's parent to tell them that their childhood died, yeah. Would you lead with that? Wouldn't you just I would get to the fucking point. He starts off by going, well, you know, it's very dangerous out here in space and, you know, are you trying to tell me something? So you're telling me that she's all right? Yes, I phoned you to tell you that your daughter's all right. Yes, I'm very sorry, but... And then he goes, he literally has to say, are you telling me how she's dead? It's so bad. I cannot believe Bragger has been writing Star Trek dialogue for this long and that allowed that scene to be written. Yeah, yeah, fucking hell. so bad. And that hasn't even happened yet. You know what, Nathan? do like all these pipes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the Jeffrey tube has pipes as well. Remember the vertical ones in Stranger World? The people now with the bombs. How would you describe these aliens? So there are another alien that you've seen and they're a, um... It's tossed, painted lavender. isn't it? Yeah, but there was only... Oh, no, there was more than one time, wasn't it? They wanted him. Yeah. Okay. So what, they kept them off? This is reused masks. Yeah, yeah. Oh, they must absolutely have. Is it toss someone that we know? Tosk was someone that we've seen. Yeah, Scott McDonald. Do you remember? He played the fabulous Gemadar in rocks and showers. There you go. Yeah. smells like Scott McDonald. I think it's highly appropriate that somebody is great as Scott McDonald's old castle. playing a role in the mosque ends up in vanishing point, yeah. And again, like, compare this to the next phase where you have the Romulan who has been... It's so great. Do you remember the moment where he's just sitting there listening to Roe and Geordie speak and then he gets up and he walks off through a console and he kind of go, oh my god, he's phased as well. I think Braga wrote that one. Yeah, yeah. I think he probably did because he's just reusing his own shit. What happened? Yeah. You used to be so fun. I absolutely remember thinking these episodes, yeah, this awful scene. Oh, it's not a great performance from the dad either, is he? No, but how do you say? He doesn't even know how to play. Is he crossed? Particularly am I, does he? Like, I'm supposed to somehow not already realise that she's dead. Like, why are you burbling on about a transporting device, you stupid man? I mean, I think as well if I was delivering this. I might have tears in my eyes. I might actually express the grief that I'm feeling. But that would spoil it because then why doesn't he pick up on that on the other end of the call? He does have a moment where he does tear up a little bit. You know, like that does happen. He said, can you believe it? He just went, yes, they told us that the transporter beam was safe. So the fellow goes, you're telling me that so she's safe then? You're really, no. No. I'm not. She's dead. Such a terrible conversation. So bad, isn't it? It's a bad scene. It's a really bad scene. And again, remember what ends up happening is that when they, you know, when Roe and Geordie put their hands in the consoles and stuff like that, that's how they get detected. Like people pick up the particles or whatever. Unbelievable. This scene has still got, he's gone, no, no, no, she's part of our family. Why are you phoning me off? Tell me. She's part of your family. How long have we been talking for? Hi, just tell him she's dead. That's right. Oh, you do. Oh, she is dead. Well, in a very long-winded sort of way, yes. Call us back later. Like, is this out this conversation? Listen, I must go and speak to Hoshi's mother. I'll give you a ring back, all right? No you, Tommy. me back. She's down the shops. She deals with this whole thing. And then he literally just, at the end, looked a little bit sort of looked downwards, like, oh, I think I might be feeling an emotion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's tremendous. terrible. You know, I just got a stack of CDs there. Did you notice? Oh, does he? That's not... Literal compact disc. Yeah, well, you know, he's got his Shakespeare's over there, but he couldn't tell you anything about it. No, that's right. They're just on display. The iPod doesn't come out until September 20, 2001, which is when this show starts. So, he didn't have an iPod. More ceilings. That a lot of ceiling polling, yeah. Yeah. So, so we're coming in to notice... Oh, boy. Morse code. And Tapal goes, but that circuit is isolated. So it could only be somebody within this room because she would know that. She would know that. And that would be normal. Yeah. Yeah. It's... You don't need any sort of a brain cell to watch this. So we're doing SOS? Look at it's happening. da da, da, da. It's been used on Earth for centuries. Okay. And even funnier, she goes, HOS, come on, figure it out. Oh, shit. S-H. Oh, my God, it sounds like Morse code. Did she just say the whole words, no? She like the whole hurt and no one picked it up. Oh, because it's not real, right? That no one can hear her. And so that's the thing. No shit, Sherlock. It's not real. Bloody hell. We better hope not. Otherwise, these characters are very stupid indeed. Oh, he goes, I'll have Trip look at it tomorrow. Don't worry. There's no hurry. I'm sure there's nobody trying to communicate with us. Or to blow up the ship. There's no unimaginary trying to blow up the ship. Why are these people trying to blow up the ship? So why within her imaginary thing? Oh, yeah, sorry, you asked me the same question. We're asking each other. That means it's not very clear. No, there's no reason except to have some jeopardy happening and to make it look like this is as good as the next phase, which it isn't. Oh, there's midriff on that alien, I have to say, that's not quite reaction there to what the fellow said. He sort of went, oh, for God's sakes. Let's go. The bombs are planted. The Jeopardy is there. Yeah, but I mean, it is just, like, there's no reason for it to happen from her point of view or anything. Like, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, and like, well, yeah, I mean, is... Are we making a comment on how vacuous these Jeopardy plots normally are? Well, no, but remembering the next phase. There was proper jeopardy. They had to remember they had to push the guy out through the bulkhead. Somehow no one fell through the floor, but you could fall through the bulkhead. It was so great. It was really fun. That's a great episode. You know as well, you remember we said last week when we did Away of the War, just how many interesting sets we got to go around in that. just how many interesting spaces that they had. Now, I do like some of the sets in this, but it's, it's got far less personality to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, even with Deep Space 9 being that muted brown and you know we're seeing the floor here and those sort of textured panels and stuff are all part of the sets on Deep Space 9 as well. But they're just more boring. I just think the sets are much more boring. and deep safe snow had a variety of places, you know. Like, the only place you can hang out here is the mess hole, which is very boring, whereas we can hang out with the promenade and quarks in DS9. Yeah. So they're speaking in their native language as well. So we don't even know what they're talking about. But because they don't matter, they're not real, and this isn't an actual thing that's happening at all. Like, it's just incredibly boring. I just don't know what's happening. But at this point, do we know, we don't know this isn't happening at this point, do we? Not until the end of the episode. Yeah, yeah, maybe this is real, but it's so perfunctory though. It's oh, yeah. Wow, that just reminds me of your standard season two. enterprise episode. I nearly said Voyager. Voyage is never quite as dull as this, I think. Maybe it is. It's moments. Even the bombs look really boring. I think this is really extraordinary bad, extraordinarily bad. I think this is the one scene that Star Trek. Like, I don't think Star Trek fails when it's silly. I think Star Trek fails when it's boring and this is really boring. It's rarely boring. Yeah, yeah. Like, there's usually something in an episode that you, like, what was the last one we did? Oh, God, no, that was really boring as well. Do you remember with Renee? Yeah, shockingly bad. boring too. And the one we did before that was where they were strapped on the bomb. Do you remember Raved an Archer? That was really boring. But I mean, think about something like cogenitor, which got me really cross. That wasn't boring. was interesting. It felt an emotion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it was bad. Yeah, angry. What was the one that got me angry? The HIV one. Stigma. Yeah, that would be really cross. But again, you know, like more interesting. It did get us talking. And so now she's out in the real world and none of this happened. She's been trapped in the patent buffer for 8.3 seconds. And I love Flux's line. I actually do love Fox's line where he says, well, no, would have only been the last 2.5 seconds. So she, within the fake out, yeah, she jumped onto the alien transport, didn't she? And then came out through our transport. And so for a 2nd we think it's been real. Did she have to use a transporter in order to leave the fake out? No, no, no. I think it was just that that's just a coincidence? Yeah, but then they try and make it the well. You did learn a valuable lesson about getting on the transporter if you absolutely have to. You know, and that's the character moment. It's nothing to do about the fact that she's overlooked and sidelined and forgotten and worried about whether she could do her job or any of the things that the episode looks like it might be about. Um, but easy. Oh no, I will say, look, watch Archer here. There is more warmth to his performance here. So maybe he's doing a deliberate choice in the fake out. Yeah, maybe. Maybe everyone's being weird with her in that in that other thing but they're not really weird enough. No, Jolene was just being a cunt. Like, she was just being horrible. Yeah, what was the Ensign's name again? Edson Beard, who did a much better job than you. Go back to your quarters. That's right Alison is even speaking to her. I hope we see Alison again at some point, you know. never again. She's in it for many seconds. You know, there's a few episodes. You remember the one we saw where the ship got blasted to shit and loads of people got flying out into space? Oh, that was probably Allison. Oh, God, we've lost ourselves. Not now. Close up on Hoshi. Not Alison. Everyone loved Alison. Oh, it ended. That was it. Yeah, there we go. Well, um, normally, you know, we have some sort of a wrap up about these episodes and we can sort of bring all the themes to a great rousing conclusion. What have you got to say today? Yeah, I mean, that was nothing. I think that was probably more boring than Oasis, but only a smidge. It's a toss up, really. They were both bad episodes and they were bad for the same reason. They were doing a thing that they'd done a lot of times before, and they weren't doing it particularly interestingly, and nothing was happening to anyone. So it was just a big waste of time, really. I've got a question to ask you then to out this is, do you think Enterprise had a hope? With this creative team behind it, did it have a chance? Because basically, it's after 2 that, it was cancelled after three I think, they wanted it gone after three, but they gave it another year. But I think it was after 2 where they basically said, you know what, you either make this better. Oh, we take it off the air. And they made a stab, as we've talked about before. You know, twice over. I think series 3 is streets ahead of this. And I think it's really bad Star Trek. Like, I think it's a space show that's not very Star Treky at all but it's interesting. It's got serialised things, things are happening to people. There's ongoing plots, and then series 4 ramps that up. Everything is ongoing, things have consequences, all of the things that they're avoiding. They very, very much wanted this to have a very, very light backstory, not much law, and not much happening from episode to episode. It was the sort of thing that you didn't need a big commitment to understand. You didn't need to have watched 100s and 100s of episodes of Star Trek to get it was clearly what they were going for. Is that there, what you just pitched there? Yeah. That's when you take these jobs away from people. When that's your pitch. Yeah. We thought we'd do Star Trek only, we would take everything out of it that was really interesting and then we would have spaceships and stuff and white men would be in charge again. I don't know either. I especially don't know why you keep pressing it on the randomiser but I'm pleased you do. Part of the choice, we'd be stuck doing all of this bullshit at the end of our podcast. All right, it's the end of the episode and it is time for us to work out where we're going next. And I'm hoping, Joe, that you have an excellent episode of the animated series teed up for us to watch. Oh, well, it's a distinct possibility that it could be because, you know, my favourite thing is to throw in all the shows to see what we get. I do love doing that. However, I have taken out the films because we only do those at Christmas. and enterprise because I need a little break, all right. Enterprise. It not you. It's me. Okay. Right, let's go and see what happens now. Your random Star Trek original series episode. is season one episode six, errand of mercy. Ooh, what's that about? So this is this is actually a proper one. This is a law one. This introduces the character of Kor, the Klingon who will, of course, come back in Deep Space 9, one of the 3 TOS Klingons, and it's the Organian treaty and stuff like that. So it's early. It's Gene Coon. So it's creating Star Trek in all sorts of ways, I think. And, you know, I do love TOS. I mean, the rarest of things in Star Trek. 1st season is the best. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, I have already pressed the button again. Sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I mean, this may sway you or I may press it again. Okay, all right. Your random Star Trek. The next generation episode is season one, episodes one and two encounter at Far Boy. Oh, what do you think? We're just soaking up... We're soaking up all of the 2 parties. We're doing all of the big, big episodes. I mean, I am tempted. I am. You are right though, and we don't want to be... I mean, we should have some pilots and finales left. Yeah. Yeah. All right, okay. I say again. Your random Star Trek Voyager episode is season one. Uh-oh. Episode nine, Emanations. I think that's a Harry Kim episode. Isn't that the one where he thinks he's gone to the afterlife? It's got Jerry Harding in it. I think it might be, and I've just very quickly looked up Jammer and edited that bit out, and it is, he thinks he's in the afterlife. So it's an early Harry Kim episode. And it's going to be a little bit like what we just watched where everyone's kind of going, where's Harry? I don't know where Harry is. No, no. I think that's the one where they genuinely, they all think he's dead, and they're all just absolutely heartbroken, you know especially Janeway, who considers him a son. Well, this could be a bit like what we just watched only a lot better enjoyable, even though it's Voyager Series one, which we don't hate, I think. do you reckon? Unfortunately, I have press the button one last time, but I think we should do this one. It's Star Trek Voyager again. All good. It's season six, episode 23. Fury. Oh, okay. excellent. She's back. She's evil and she's back. And either they put a load of latex on Jennifer Leanne's face or she's just had a bad time since she's left Star Trek and I think that might be the case. I think is the case. I mean, that's quite intriguing, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. And I have watched that. I think since we started this, I have actually dipped in and seen Fury and I thought it was terrible. And in a way, in a way that is absolutely enraging. And I will be very happy to talk about it. Oh, I mean, so there you go. We'll have a much more animated conversation next week. I remember it having all these sort of weird time travel shenanigans that make no sense whatsoever and that she has no motivation at all for the things that she does. Yeah, everyone was very nice to her on board shoot for 3 years and... No, she hates them. Well, evil cares. Bring it on. Excellent. 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 6th of January, 2026 and released on the 9th of January. We'll see you next time for Star Trek Voyager, Fury. Nathan, there is nothing else to say about. I can't believe that we spoke about it for so long. It's so bad. Well, we did talk about the ceilings. Yeah, that's true. What a strange back alley, that's his 1st 2 years of enterprise. Good God. thinking. Let me get the red device wrong. It is, it's Star Trek for people who found Star Trek too challenging. No one. No. I just, it just, well, I don't know. Because there's all these people online going how terrible Starfleet Academy is going to be because, you know, it's woke or something. Full of young people. I know, no one's seen it yet, so I don't know what the problem is. But it is that sort of, you know, 90 Star Trek is actually not always that great. I don't know what... I mean, you know me, I've had a sort of mixed reaction to Kosman Trey. The best of it has been fantastic. And for me, the worst of it's been just stuff that hasn't chimed with me. It's not been bad telly. It's just stuff that art doesn't interest me. That's fair enough. Yeah, I mean, yes. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to stuff. Yeah, but there is that. There really is that voice there in Trek fandom now, isn't there? Yeah, that our terrible daytime soap opera where everyone just stood around in standing sets talking to one another with occasional special effect and everyone had massive stick up their ass. Deep Space might accept it. Red tea. All right. I'm ready. All right, it's the end of the episode.