Hey, Joe. Hi.
So this week we're back aboard the original USS Enterprise, no
bloody A, no bloody D, and we are watching the Savage Curtain
which is series 3, episode 22 of the original series, and I
believe that was your choice, Joe. right.
And it was 1st broadcast on the 7th of March 1969, which is just
mere weeks before I come into the world.
This is the 3rd last episode of Star Trek, and they politely delay
the very last episode so that it can air in a world in which I
already exist.
Isn't that wonderful?
May also have had something to do with the death of President
Eisenhower as well.
I said, you didn't know, Nathan.
I said to you, well, we're going to do the original series.
It's going to swing one of 2 ways, so usually they're either very
good indeed or absolutely ghastly.
And this one is absolutely ghastly.
Yeah.
So this falls into the complete failure mode of series 3.
And what series 3 frequently does is it just puts the crew of the
Enterprise under the control of some godlike alien beings and then
just sort of tortures them until sort of 5 minutes before the end
of the episode when it all stops and they go back to the bridge
and end the episode.
And we did the empath, which is largely that and whom God's
destroy is like that.
Which at least the green woman exploding.
That's true.
That true.
It's not as boring as this.
This has the steaming Pooh monster.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
And so these manages to be quite boring and sort of dumb as well.
And like, the thing that it made me think of more than anything
else was arena, which is this premise, but done well and
intelligently, I think, like on location and with a more exciting
monster and just sort of better action and kind of a better idea
of what's going on.
Do you know what I mean?
Like the metrons are doing something sensible, something pretty
similar to this, but much, much less dumb than what the...
God, we didn't rope this, Nathan, when you were here.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, this, I just think this is this is shockingly
terrible.
The other one that it reminds me of is who mourns for adonize.
When is that?
My knowledge of TOS isn't strong enough.
Yeah, mine isn't either.
And of course, Plato's stepchildren is like this too, where it is
just there's an all powerful alien being that just sort of
torments them until it's time to end the episode.
That's why this reminds me so much of Isetu, of Mike.
Height and Q from TNG season one, which is an, oh, you know, a
godlike being, taking people to the dreadful studio backdrop
planetary landscape set, and just weird people.
What is it in that?
It's pig monsters, isn't it?
in revolution costumes and things stabbing Wesley Crussoff through
the chest and things like that.
Well, you know, take out Wesley Crusher and put in Abraham
Lincoln.
It's basically the same story isn't it?
But this is the period where Roddenberry had kind of lost control
of the show, hadn't he?
Freiburger had come in and so I didn't think he'd done that much
in season three.
I know Gene Coon left, but I didn't think Ron and Beer would wrote
that many scripts, but if this is an example of what he's
delivering in the dying throes of TOS, they may I say that the the
axe came down at just the right time.
Because I was like, okay, initially I was on board for 2.5 seconds
when the absurd image of Abraham Lincoln, in its chair, flying
through space, in the orbit of this planet, I was like, that's
really fucking stupid.
But it's weird.
It's different.
Great.
We might be able to do something with this.
But sort of 10 minutes into the episode, we're down on that planet
and it's just a series of protracted and badly staged fights for
40 minutes before the episode just ends with the most generic and
simple homily at the end of the episode.
Well, I didn't think it even, you don't think it even rates as a
homily.
No, I didn't say it's terrible.
It's not about anything.
We don't reach any conclusions at all.
We don't learn anything about good or evil.
Like, it's so nothing.
Like, it's really bad.
But like in arena, we learn something about the difference between
Kirk and the Gorn and that's something that's relevantly different
and you can see what the episode is trying to bring out.
Here, presumably, like, why is it called the Savage Curtain?
Do you know what I mean, rather than the ferocious wallpaper or
something?
I think I saw Juno, you draw back the savage curtain and oh, is
the line between good and evil a lot thinner than we thought?
Is that what they're trying to say?
It's got to be that.
So a curtain conceals something, doesn't it?
And so the idea is that between good and evil, there's not that
much difference.
And it gestures at that a little bit.
There's a time when the X, they're called X-Calbians.
It's not actually set in dialogue, but that's what they're
called.
When the...
No.
This is she apostrophe.
The actual particular X-Calbian here is called Yarnik.
And so when Yarnick stops, thinks, and says, actually, you guys
use the same kind of tricks, you know, good and evil don't seem to
be all that different, uh, you know, what?
What about that statement, though?
What are you trying to say?
I don't know.
Good people are capable of doing bad things of bad people are
capable.
Yeah, we know that.
People are.
Yeah, yeah, but...
But good and bad people both get up in the morning and have
shelves and breakfast and like all of these onto things. produce
their own ex-calibians, then have a shame.
I will never not get intense joy from hearing you saying things
like Yarnik and Excalpions, you know?
You're the smartest man, I know.
The fact that you talk about this once a week is just little
sleep.
Nonsense.
But we don't learn anything about the characters in this either.
And you can at least usually guarantee. you can have some fun with
the 3 main regulars, but McCoy is prickly as hell in this and
really not fun to be around.
I hate Scotty in this episode.
He's just throwing sass left, right, and centre.
There's nothing happening with Kirk and Spock down on the planet
you know?
There's no character through line there at all.
At least in hide and cue, you know, we learned that Tasha Yar
wants to fuck Picard.
Oh, if you weren't a captain, you know, it's terrible, but we
learned something.
I don't want to hear that.
Don't worry, Nathan, it's all right to cry in a penalty box.
Okay.
Okay, good.
Yeah.
I mean, the greatest joy I took from this was that monster.
I mean, every time that, I've quite liked the voice as well, but
that, yeah, great steaming...
We can't call it a poo throughout the entire episode.
What should we call it?
an ex-calbian.
Don't be racing.
Affluent.
So the the Excalbians do appear in a graphic in Caicos classroom
in early deep space.
Yeah.
No way.
Yeah, I've seen a picture.
So there's an Ex-Calvian.
And the Excalbion skeletal structure, it's it's on a, um, original
series on Deep Space 9, you know?
Yeah, yeah, they do.
They do.
And of course, an ex-calbian skeleton is used by Tandy to escape
from a room on a starship in an episode, a very early episode of
Lower Decks.
I'm wondering if the pitch for lower decks was, you know, how many
of the shittest elements of the original Star Trek and TAOS can we
get in this show and actually make fun?
Turns out all of them, it turns out.
I mean, they're all there.
Yeah, so, like, this is this is pretty terrible, and this is Star
Trek when Star Trek fails, I think.
And it doesn't fail because it's ridiculous.
It doesn't fail because, say, it's got Abraham Lincoln in it
because I was actually quite enjoying that bit, but it fails
because it doesn't go anywhere and it's dumb and it isn't about
anything and it's the same thing that we've done over and over
again at this point.
I didn't think it was particularly well executed, however, though
when we're down on the planet, I've seen pretty good fights.
Arena, you know?
We've seen pretty good fights on TOS and we've seen that they can
execute stuff, even on the planetary landscape sometimes.
But there's just a feeling of that will do about all of this.
Yeah.
Like, remember, we said that there were all sorts of dumb things
about obsession and we thought that like I feared going in that
that was actually going to be a bit stupid.
And because it had that good guest character in it.
And because it was well directed and because the dicaronium cloud
monster thing was reasonably interesting.
Um, like that ended up being quite good.
That's certainly a lot better than this.
POV shots off the cloud moving about, approaching and killing
people.
But the thing that it made me think of as well was the Galileo 7.
Because remember that the way that they had just stage hands
throwing spears from off camera onto the set.
I'm not calling them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but not hurling spears.
Do you know what I mean?
Just kind of gently throwing them.
Just, you know, this is all throwing sticks at one another and
throwing rocks and stuff and the fights are really badly and
boringly staged and there's no tension or anything.
Whereas, you know, arena was really quite tense and sort of
interesting, even though that did involve, you know, throwing
giant polystyrene rocks at each other and stuff.
Like, he was dumb as well in all sorts of ways.
But this was sort of dumb and I think you're right, just half
hearted.
No one's really doing their best work here.
You say this was 69?
Yeah, yeah.
So it's the 3rd last episode.
So it's interesting.
Like, I know we occasionally do Star Trek, Doctor Who parallels.
But across the ponds, right?
In 69.
Doctor Who is also all kind of on its last leg.
The ratings are going down.
And there's the very real possibility that it could be cancelled.
But that show's delivering stuff like the invasion, the mind
robber and the war games. you know, some of the very best stories
that they ever did.
Like, yeah, it is disheartening to see a show that was once firing
on all cylinders, kind of just churning out nonsense now, and
assuming that people are going to consume it.
Freiburger.
It was a bad...
It was a bad call, but in that seat, wasn't it?
Well, anytime it happens.
Yeah that's right.
But because I think what he wants is monsters and cheap action and
stuff.
I think, you know, and he must have had some kind of brief to
reduce the budget as well because everything just looks much
crappier than it has in the life.
You know, those people that are celebrating the death of Star Trek
Academy.
Is it Star Trek that they want?
Yeah, this is what they want.
Monsters making Abraham Lincoln and Genghis Khan fight against
each other on a panto set.
Bring back the Excalbians.
Woosh, we go and watch them.
I think we should.
All right.
I will count it in.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
Here we go.
So we have a thrilling new planet in the original.
It's just the red planet that they're always going around.
But this is a thrilling lava planet.
Oh, God, Shatner looks so bored.
You wait, you wait until the last suit.
He's got a wry smile on his face as he's delivering that terrible
dialogue.
Yeah, yeah.
So he doesn't know it's being cancelled, apparently.
As late as this.
Yeah, as late as this, I think they may be actually shooting
turnabout intruder when they discover that they're not making next
week's episode.
So no one knows at this point that it's over.
Nemoy, Nemoy's interviewed. got captain's logs, which I was
flicking through the other day, and in a lot of these season 3
episodes, he said he was just so embarrassed.
He was so embarrassed by the quality of what they were doing and
the things he was being asked to do in half of these episodes.
Yeah, I mean, look at, like, look at, say the devil in the dark
right?
Where he has to unmode over a duvet.
Do you know what I mean?
There are ridiculous things happening there.
But people's hair.
It means something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's right.
Like I've said before, I maintain that Star Trek doesn't fail when
it's ridiculous because it's frequently ridiculous to great
effect.
You know, that works really well.
In a sense, it's often what they're aiming for.
But here, what are they aiming for?
They're just aiming for reaching the closing credits along.
How is McCoy doing it?
He walks in and he goes, for God's sakes, what are these poppycock
orders that they're having us do?
And then he stands there sort of looking really pissed off.
You're the fucking doctor.
Just go and mend somebody's neat.
Train a patient.
Why?
Oh, here we go.
It comes so brown, Lincoln.
Now this is awesome.
Now this is a new effect, isn't it?
The sort of the halo effects.
Yes, yeah.
And I think probably the Starfield is new too.
Look at the reaction shots of everybody like, oh, my God. it be?
Captain Kirk, I believe.
So I think that this is quite a charming performance.
And I do like the idea that he's here.
And I also like, I think the conflict about the way that Kirk
treats him is dumb and just conflict for the sake of conflict, but
I do think it's interesting that Kirk Knott, for a 2nd, doesn't
believe for a 2nd that this is actually Abraham Lincoln, but knows
that he believes that he's Abraham Lincoln and so just goes along
with it.
I know, but it makes that. seems so odd where he goes, I feel as
if I really met him, you know?
And now I know...
Everything, you know, how bad it was when he died in real life.
What are you talking about?
After Spock just said, they pulled him out of our brains, you know
is a version of him.
Only you think of.
But like, do you remember when Samuel Clements was brought on
board TNG in Times Arrow?
right?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, they didn't beam him down to a planet and have him fight in
Genghis Khan.
No, they had him walking around the ship, looking at the future
and going, my God, maybe things are better now, you know, maybe we
were doing things wrong.
And there's an awareness of what Samuel Clements was about, I
think.
And there is a little bit of an awareness here.
In that interaction between him and Ahura, which is very dated and
obviously uses what we would regard as sort of unfortunate
language, but...
I mean, I like the fact she owns it.
She just goes...
But, but, you know, like Lincoln, you know, is most famous for
being the president during the Civil War, you know, and and
fighting on the, you know, against the slavers of the South.
You know, so I thought that that, and you know, this is in the
middle of the civil rights era.
So I think that like Kirk's regard for Lincoln and Nechelle, like
Ahura's regard for him as well, works, you know, and is very
timely.
It's the 1st 10 minutes though, isn't it?
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Also, the other thing that I think is bad is the makeup job, like
they can't just say this is an actor, we'll put a beard on him and
that'll make him look like Lincoln.
So they have to give him this sort of false lip.
You know, like the lower lip has to be sort of palty and produced
because he looks like that in the photos and they have to give him
and it just looks terrible.
Like, it looks as bad as the Klingon maker.
I don't think they've put enough slap on Shatner.
I think he looks quite tired.
It's the end of the season, I suppose.
The only person who doesn't is in the shower, who always looks
beautiful.
Can I also write?
This, this, um, this turd creature, the ex-scalpion, whatever he's
called.
If you sort of pulling these things out of their minds, yeah. and
sort of making them real so then he can fight, you know, have them
fight against each other down on the planet, yeah?
Well, why doesn't he just have Abraham Lincoln appear on the
ship?
Why does he have him flying through space?
Well, he wants a good cliffhanger going into the opening credits, I
think, is probably.
You did message me and say, yeah, the ex-Calpians realise there
was 5 minutes left at the end of the episode and went, well, that's
it.
I suppose that's the end of this.
Ah, I do like that new effect of the planetary surface.
It reminds me a bit of the survivors, you know, where they had
that one patch of the planet.
Yeah, yeah, on that sort of devastated landscape.
The, I mean, there is something in arena, the crew of the
Enterprise are watching the episode that we're watching.
Remember, they're watching it on telly, and they're watching it
here too.
And there's some talk about how other ex-calbians are watching
this.
And our ex-calbion, Yarnex, says something about, and like he
calls this a drama, like he's staging a drama for the ex-calbians
to watch, and there's a moral message, you know, who is which is
stronger, good or evil.
So there's a way in which this is setting itself up, like the, the
the Excalbians are staging this as a TV program to teach them
anywhere. an audience.
No.
Do we maybe need to cut to a couple of turd monsters watching this
on their tellies?
Yeah, eating popcorn.
But I don't want to know what circuses.
Well, do you remember bread and circuses, which was much cleverer
than that because it had TV cameras and stuff.
But there is something better about having them stage it as a TV
show with a moral message.
But it does kind of...
I think you got... wink a bit more of the audience to get that
across, though.
It has a low opinion of the audience.
Do you know what I mean?
Because, like, do we decide that good is better than bad because
good wins.
Like that's kind of the message, you know?
Like, it's, people, one of the reasons that I hated Rise of
Skywalker is that Ray beats Palpatine because she has better force
lightning than he does.
You know, there's, whereas, um, Luke beats Palpatine, because he
throws his lightsaber away and refuses to fight, and he takes a
moral stand.
Two very different creatives there, isn't it?
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
But, but good doesn't, shouldn't win because it shouldn't
shouldn't win because it's stronger.
It should win because it's good.
And it's not just the fact that the good guys are standing at the
end. that means that good is better than evil.
It's that good is better than evil.
The good guys are better than the bad guys.
Yeah, dramatically right, and a better version. this episode.
I mean I would absolutely love it.
If it was, you know, properly, we were seeing the TV show being
beamed to the Excalpions.
I'd love for the director, you know, our Excalpion Yarnick to go
oh, my God. the show's ending in 5 minutes.
Can we wrap this up, please?
Come on.
Yeah.
We need to cut to the adverts soon.
I mean, did you hear Scotty as well?
He's like, what the hell am I doing here in my dress uniform?
Like, when did these people become so fucking opinionated?
There was a time in series one, you know, you bring on a court
martial.
Have you even looked at Kirk in the wrong way?
Yeah.
Oh, God, that eye makeup.
Like the makeup is so bad, isn't it?
I think it looks like he's got a skin disease.
Giving Scotty that. more dominant role in season 3 was a mistake.
He works much better as comic relief, doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you know, since I am here and you can touch me and scan me.
But he's charming, isn't he?
Like, he's quite charming and I really like Kirk's reaction as
well.
Kirk is actually kind of a bit smitten with him.
So his name is Lee Berger, but I don't know anything about him.
I feel like he should have had a career after this, he could do
anything.
He costarred with James Cromwell on something.
He was in Falcon Crest, Perry Mason, the Adams family.
He's a that guy. just everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, he was in North and South.
Oh, with Jonathan Frakes.
Who's the guy at the backu of the gun?
You know, the security officer.
Yeah, yeah.
He gets a name.
He gets introduced to Abraham Lincoln. are we supposed to know
him?
He's wearing red, so I'm assuming this isn't going to wear well
for him.
No, he survives the episode, I think.
Scotty, we're in a kill.
I love that, though.
That's awesome.
That's the nice thing about it.
Do you prefer the dress uniforms from TOS, sort of zip up ones, or
do you prefer the ones from 90s trek, you know, where they were
all sort of wearing skirts?
So they do tone the skirts down a bit after season one of TNG
don't they?
But, like, they're really quite long in season one of TNG, and
they're kind of terrible.
Yeah, I like the I like the white ones that they wear at the
wedding in nemesis, you know, like the late ones.
That's a sexy shot, the planet there.
Did you see you could see all the sort of crust of the planet
glowing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not original Fabulous.
They put they put a lot of effort into making it.
I mean do you remember some of these prints back in the day?
I mean, it's so sharp now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They were really poor.
Some of them were in really bad condition. really remember that.
So is that all he has to do, just turn up and be a bit charming
and then everyone will believe you're Abraham Lincoln?
Yeah, well, no one believes that it's Abraham Lincoln, though. and
that's the thing.
No one's taken in.
Like, people don't think he's Abraham Laken.
And generally is known for flying through space in a chair, you
know?
That's right.
But all of this stuff is actually quite fun.
You know, like, I think that it is a little bit like, it's like a
pointless version. on the consoles.
So one of them is the guy on the left is called Hadley, and he's
in a bunch of episodes, including Mirror, Mirror, like he's in a
few episodes, and he has a name.
Here we go.
Oh, forgive me, my dear. let's not say the word.
Yeah, let's not say the word, but, but there, and like it's a word
he's, you know, he's from a period when the word was used, Sherlock
like a Conan Doyle uses the word inner Sherlock Holmes as a
story.
It's the normal word.
But she's so charming.
Precisely how Samuel Chemist is used in Times Arrow to explain, no
things aren't like that anymore.
We're better.
You know, we're more.
Yeah, this is what the episode should have been.
That's right.
Because Clemence is also politically progressive.
Do you know what I mean?
and tries not to be racist.
I mean, Huckleberry Finn is still problematic, racially speaking
but he's sort of on the side of angels, you know, in a way, you
know, like he's suspicious of religion, he fits into that kind of
that Star Trek kind of ethos, that humanist ethos.
So they understand Clements in a way.
And, you know, Lincoln's a little bit more obvious a character.
It's much funnier, probably, from Jerry Harvey.
Of course, as well.
You're telling me the things aren't like that anymore.
Okay, that's right.
You're right about the makeup, the foundation around his eyes.
Oh, bad.
Around his eyes. different colour to the rest of his face.
But I think that's ageing makeup that they have under his eyes.
Like, I think that it's really quite shockingly bad.
Yeah, why do that?
Like maybe give him the mould.
Do you know what I mean?
don't have to do anything else.
Like, you know, there's no, it's not Abraham Lincoln, all of the
people at home know that Abraham Lincoln's long dead.
The fuck was he doing that?
It was just walking up and down in a sort of 2 metre square.
Oh, he has been there for 2 hours, apparently.
Oh, okay, right.
Walking up and down.
Yeah.
And they have an invented site to site transport or those personal
transporters like they have in discovery where he could just pop
down to lunch and then sort of turn up again immediately.
Or that direction engineer.
That's great.
I love it.
Spock is the only person that comes out is with any dignity at
all.
Well, and Kirk, I think, does too.
I think, you know, Kirk, isn't?
Well, I mean, no, but it's just a way that the seriousness he
takes the stuff on the planet is, it achieves a kitch grandeur, I
think.
Yeah, well, I'm not sure about great.
Oh, but this is, you know, you know when Jama says like, oh, TOS
episodes are about, oh, not a jammer.
No, it's Scotland penalty, remember?
He's right.
I think we probably should be down on the planet by now.
But we're 15 minutes in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We are 15 minutes.
Look, I think this is probably half an hour too long.
Like, I think there's probably enough here. like for a anime
series episode.
Like, this is charming enough, but it is marking time.
And the conflict that is central to it.
Like, why is Kirk treating him as if he's Abraham Lincoln when he
clearly isn't, is just dumb.
Like, you know, he's the captain, shut up and is he doing any
harm?
No.
So what's the problem?
Abraham Lincoln has always been a personal hero of yours.
Since when?
Never been mentioned before.
He's also a big fan of 20th century trucks as well.
Okay, many people know that.
Well, it's on Paris then, wouldn't he?
Does he like cartoons?
He does.
Yep, yep.
B movies.
Look, now, they're having a protracted conversation as to whether
to beam down on our.
We know you're going down there.
Just get on with that.
Just came down.
Can we just do it?
What do you imagine all those little badges are?
You know, they've got on their dress uniform.
And merits for their medals.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
A bit 5 years long.
That's a sort of stitching I did when I was 5 years old, though
you know?
It's, yeah, yeah.
I don't think it was intended to be seen on quite so good screen.
In high definition would be like, yes.
They never imagined this would be a high death.
I mean, the fact that we get to see the Pooh monster in HD is just
delightful.
And like, I think it's like, it's a terrible design and it looks
like a poo and what were they thinking?
No, but it's weird.
I like weird.
Yeah, yeah, weird as well.
It's sort of almost, isn't it?
You know?
That's all weird.
It is like armus.
It's less weird than Armas because Armas is liquid.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's kind of liquid. of evil.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, but the gone, you know, like the gone is so much better
than this, even though it's a rubber lizard wearing a cocktail
dress.
Well done.
We'll boom down immediately.
That took him 5 minutes.
That's not immediately.
Like immediately now that we've had this long conversation.
Oh, dear.
Now watch out, Abraham.
You may end up with a spear on your back if you go down there
okay?
Oh my god.
Oh, I can't wait till we see the fights together.
I mean, they're terrible, aren't they?
They're so bad.
What if they beam into a pool of lava?
I swear we don't see any lava, do we?
No, no, because they're on that big area of the planet, which
doesn't have water on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they've they've terraformed it so that it looks like the set
or paramount.
I think Roddenberry's starting point for this was wouldn't it be
cool if Abraham Linton beamed on to the Enterprise.
Oh yeah, yeah.
And turns out, yes, it would be cool.
That's it.
Did you see that dramatic zoom in on the equipment?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's one of those things.
But it's a still and they've zoomed in on the still. you know what
I mean?
Like they haven't actually zoomed the camera.
And they do that a little bit.
Look at that Mandarin sky, isn't it?
beautiful.
Ah, beautiful.
What weather we having?
Fuck Kurtzman Trek.
I mean, I just believe I'm on an alien planet.
Yes, yes, exactly.
It looks just like all the others, though, weirdly enough.
The same rocks and everything.
Exactly the same.
It's like stock cave set number one.
You know.
What's the last year, Wes, we did Arena.
Was that the last US we did?
Oh, I can't remember.
It might have been.
Might have been. that location.
We do get that.
You know, when he was growing up on all of those rocks with that
enormous polystyrene rock, he was going to throw on the...
So good.
It had scaled, didn't it?
They could do long shots and they could shoot up at the sky and it
was so impressive.
Well, you said at the beginning.
Do you know what I mean?
The set that was left over from something, some film production
and they're shooting on that, remember?
At the beginning of Arena.
Amazing.
Who's the, um, I, sorry, I may have drifted away from the episode
a little bit.
So help me out here.
Who's the sort of witch that appears in this episode?
So her name is Zora.
Zora.
Yeah, same name as the Discovery computer.
Oh, look, here's Surak or Surak, depending on who you are on what
point of the episode we're in.
And this is him appearing for the 1st time.
He will obviously become very important.
We will see him in enterprise, won't we?
And in various other things, like his proper canon.
Yeah, yeah.
Look at Georgia.
He's been left in charge of the Enterprise, Sulu, and he's taken
every 2nd he can for being in that chair.
Oh no, here comes Scotty.
No, don't put Jimmy in the chair.
Get out the chair.
Ive got a better com over than you.
He's McCoy I'm always drawn to Michelle, though.
Gosh, he's stunning.
She's got great hair this episode.
No, this season, I think... season 3, yeah.
Yeah.
It is not logical.
It is wearing a lovely dress.
That you are sirak.
Yes, very.
You can do that, can't you?
Oh, the makeup on Lincoln's even worse down on the planet.
Oh, yeah, I can do the spot salute.
Oh, hang on.
Okay we go.
Well, no, sorry.
Eventually.
After a couple of goes.
Who would we see then, Nathan?
If it was us down on this planet?
Who would be your great hero?
Oh, I don't know.
Who would be my great hero?
We come down to the planet to be Tom Baker..
Nowadays, Jesus Christ.
Yeah, poor old Tom.
At least he's still with us.
Yeah, it's very period dress, isn't it, that Surak is wearing.
So Surak is in, is he in or is it's his Kartra in that enterprise
episode that we did, I can't even remember.
Do we actually meet him?
you honestly expect me to remember Enterprise episodes?
Now I'll never forget this.
This is a pretty good one.
Look at how he starts as a rock and then unfolds himself.
Yeah.
I love his little claws.
I like his sort of overhanging belly as well.
I do empathise, yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm like when I'm getting up in the morning.
Oh, my God.
Our world is called Excalbion.
There you go.
Excalpions from Excalpia, is it?
It is used in dialogue.
Well, the Romulans are from Romulus. makes sense.
No, I understand that they've made him smoke to make it more
visually interesting.
I mean, it's quite interesting already.
But because he does look like something that has...
Thank you. was trying to be diplomatic.
Why is that?
Adding the smoke.
Adding the smoke is just, well, the finishing touch, isn't it?
Maybe the actor is actually allowed to smoke in the costume.
You know, you know how in Doctor Who, the actors used to hide in
the Dalek shells, because you weren't allowed to smoke in the
studio, so you could smoke in the Dalek shells be unseen.
That does look like the actor's smoking in there, doesn't it?
He's got 5 fabulous eyes that glow every time he talks.
So I think the idea was that he was going to be an insect monster
of some kind, but we couldn't have afforded that.
Is that Genghis Khan?
Of the 4 evil people, 2 of them are in blackface.
Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan is like Asian, clearly, but he's
painted much darker.
You can see that there.
Colonel Green would come back to him in a minute.
She is, I don't know, what the hell is this?
Somewhat of tiger.
Yeah, she needs... a good night's sleep.
And this is Kayless.
Nobody has good mate Kayla.
Look at look at the Excalpion.
Oh, he's going.
Oh, that Kayless, that's Kayless, right?
From Sword of K-S from Forgotten Air or whatever, rightfully. that
what it's called?
Yeah.
So that's Kayles.
But he's a white guy in blackface, right?
Because he's he's he's in other Star Trek episodes.
And I think he's a body double for the original pike.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So they're all blacked up to look evil, right?
where we have some nice white people over here.
Green, who is a bit swarthy, but not blacked up, is actually, so
Colonel Green, who leads a genocidal war in the, I think the early
21st century, in, we've actually seen him before, because in
demons, which is the 3rd last episode of Enterprise, Paul Weller's
character is watching a recording of Colonel Green, played by
someone different.
Ah, giving a speech after the 3rd 3rd World War, saying that we
can't tolerate mutants and genetically impure people. and he's
giving that speech on...
When Enterprise does kiss his sort of pass.
It's never as fun as Kersman Trek, is it?
It's sort of boring, actually.
That's right.
That's so boring.
Did you see what the Excalpion said, there he goes. you know, the
confrontation of 2 opposing philosophies.
Good and evil.
Why are we doing?
It's so complex.
And we're going to boil it down to blacks versus whites on this
dreadful studio backdrop.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it is, I mean, I think it is making fun of itself as a TV
show.
Do you know what I mean?
Because the good people will win at the end because being good is
good and the characters that we like to watch on telly are good
and they're going to be in it next week.
So they'll survive. you know what I mean?
Like, it's as complex as that.
And if it was commenting on telly and how kind of shit it was.
Yeah, I could get behind doing that.
Well, I mean, this is doing quite a good job of demonstrating how
shit can be.
Like...
But it is almost having some aspiration to actually do that
deliberately.
Oh, I mean, if they'd made that really apparent, I would have
given this 5 stars.
Yeah, yeah, but it's too boring and stupid.
Like it's it's only kind of vaguely hinted at.
Look at these people Oh, good and evil. is strange to them.
Oh, thank you, Spock.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I love watch telly.
Look at her hands on hips. straight from the latest panto.
Oh my god.
Lincoln's makeup is so hideous.
It's so bad, isn't it?
It's really, really, very bad.
Are they sort of shining an orange light on here as well to
suggest there's a sort of dawn light on the planet.
Or is it like, because it's a lava planet.
Ah, yeah.
So the other thing, and I don't know how true this is, but memory
alpha suggests that the outfit that Colonel Green is wearing is
redressed and made up to be the outfit that, um, Robin Williams
wears as more, uh, in Mork and Mindy.
They put, you know, they put the silver triangle, the upside down
silver triangle on the front of it and stuff.
But it seems to have the same collar and stuff.
Oh, nice.
I bloody love Malcolm Mindy when I was younger.
Oh, are we doing a podcast about that?
Every episode was at least entertaining.
I'd love to see... a random collection of characters.
That's right.
All just standing around incredibly undramatically looking Super
Bowl.
But this is where just throwing in sort of disparate elements
isn't fun.
You know?
Because you haven't given something to do.
Now what do we do?
Well, what we're going to do is we get them to limply throw spears
at one another in a boring way.
And now we're watching him on telling...
Well, we watching that on the screen as well. as a TV show.
I think we were.
I don't think the people on the Enterprise were, were they?
Like, I think that that's an arena that introduces that as an
idea.
I don't know. and listen to our unstyled Star Trek.
I won't watch the episode But I'll go back and listen to it and
say, I'm sure we'll comment.
I don't think that's a terrible episode either, like Bread and
Circuses.
Like, it's not...
No, I think that whole idea of it being a TV show was obviously
more explicit because you saw the cameras.
Yeah, but I think we did cut to people watching it so we could see
people's reactions.
Whereas, I mean, here.
What the fuck is going on here?
Fuck, man, stop wrestling with that poor woman.
She needs a good night's sleep. leave her alone.
I like to think, you know, that there's a small subset of Star
Trek fans that turn up at their conventions dressed as scalpions.
You know, they sort of waddle in with the claws in a big doodle.
Can I tell you a very funny story that I heard William Shatner?
William Shatner say on an interview I was watching this week.
He was going, so it was after Star Trek, and he was at a funfair
with his kids, and this big muscly bloke started giving them grief
and he had 2 mates with him, and he thought to himself, this is
probably all a lie, but it's a great story.
He thought, no way.
I can still remember all the stunts from Star Trek.
I could take them, apparently, grab the bar and try to do that
kick he just did there, you know, where you sort of throw them
away from you.
Wait, but he face palmed in front of them both and embarrassed
himself so much that they all just went, oh, you're right.
Well...
Actually, maybe that is fun.
I just love the idea of him doing kirk style stunts at a fun
thing.
Oh, say, did you see Shatner gave him a little like a push?
Don't way. you're mean.
Well, to the Excalpion.
Yeah, well, you don't want to touch somebody made out of lava.
No, I know.
Don't wash your hands.
Oh, I thought it made up of poo.
Like, I wash your hands.
The more I look at it, the more I like it, actually, that
monster.
So it was going to be, did I say it was going to be an insectoid
which kind of works with the extra eyes, like a, like a spider and
the little claw thing, like that.
Yeah.
Why did they go for poo?
instead then.
Cheaper.
Oh, fair.
I think, you know, like that.
I want to hear the conversation between the special effects team
as they're putting that together.
So what is it we're going for?
What sort of molten lava with arms and claws?
We want a sort of spinning head with lights and it can smoke, you
know?
Why isn't it orange is the problem?
Why is it brown?
That's the problem.
Who's orange?
devil in the dog.
It had all sort of orange seams running through it, didn't it?
Like it was lava.
Yeah, yeah, like it was wrong.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. swim through rock.
Yeah.
Oh, I feel so sorry for everyone on the ship.
They've just got nothing to do, but stand around.
Yeah, yeah.
They're not even getting to watch the telly all that much.
Oh my god, this is so bad.
And again, like the stakes are just so pretend, you know, like, oh
we'll blow the ship up unless you play our game.
Is that cool enough to fight?
Come on now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know. says Captain Kirk, really.
And then so Kirk says, yeah, you know, like I can't let all these
people die, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, they're trying to add, you know, disengaged on the sales, you
know, would be marooned in space.
So you could always separate the Nacelles. like discovery where
the Nasselles are just sort of travelling along near the ship, you
know, like in the 32nd century.
Why is it these godlike aliens, yeah, X scalpions and people like
that?
They always seem to have powers. that allow us to just make the
episode last sort of 10, 15 minutes longer all the time.
Your communications equipment no longer works because I say so
Captain Kirk, you know?
Okay.
You couldn't beam your stuff over.
It looks like the Shellyac.
Do you remember the Shelliac?
Who are they?
It's in series two.
They're sort of aliens that look like a big black shape in a black
sequined ball gown.
Sounds marvellous. semi-darkness.
The Shelleyac corporate.
I can't even it's season two, I think.
I don't know what it is, but they're intransigent aliens of some
kind.
You know, obviously, I would never, ever advocate for blackface.
If you are going to do it, you need to do it better than that.
Various parts of his face are various shades of dark, aren't
they?
It's just so slap down.
Why have they done that?
I mean, like they give darker skin, don't they, to some of the
Klingons.
They want to make the Clons look foreign and they want to make the
alien races racialized.
Do you know what I mean?
They want to give them human racial characteristics.
I mean, I think, I think because they racialize data because they
see data, you know, as possibly being someone who could be on the
receiving end of racism in the 24th century, and so they give him
different skin colour and eye colour.
Do you know what I mean?
like to make it like a race.
And so they're doing that with the Klingons, but like, is it
because this is the most evil of the Klingons.
Trouble of triples.
They sort of orange in now, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They don't really settle on a look.
I mean, I know we moan about the pasties on their forehead in 90s
trek, but at least they all had a look.
It was uniform.
Yeah.
You know, it's this sort of forest glade that we've come to now on
the lava planet.
There's just a few potted plants about the place.
Well, no, they had that.
They did have that.
Sometimes they wheel in the aspadistras from the production office
and dot them around the scene.
Can't we have lush, aggressive vegetation in there, shit?
Oh my god.
I'm just dying of boredom here at this point.
Where are we?
How long have we got?
I don't think so.
So that'd be loads of fights, but nothing's happened for 15
minutes.
No, they're all standing around.
They're all standing around.
Like, again, we're just sort of talking and talking.
So Surak or Surak, like this is all important backstory that we
didn't know or did we know?
Like, I don't know.
Like, it is kind of interesting.
It comes in very late and doesn't really get picked up up on
properly until later, but the idea that the Vulcans were really
passionate and just learn to rein it in and that Vulcans aren't
emotionless.
They're controlled.
And the reason they are is because Surak's philosophy came and
taught them logic and taught them to control their emotions and
that makes them more interesting.
Okay, important to the story?
Is that where we're going to land at the end if we use logic, then
we won't succumb to our, you know, animalistic tendencies.
No, and it's really boring, and then, and then like, I don't know
like Surak goes off and gets himself killed or whatever, and Spot
goes, oh, well...
That's the best scene in the whole episode.
No, he says...
He knew what he was getting into.
Yeah, bless him.
Yeah, but is there something here?
Because we're having a conversation between like what we should do
and like the thing that separated Kirk from the Gorn in arena was
that he wasn't desperate to kill the Gorn necessarily.
And like he does fight to disable him and stuff like that, but he
doesn't he doesn't do the killing blow.
You know, when he's given the chance to kill him, he refuses.
Um, whereas here, he is happy to kind of kill because the ship's
at stake.
But there's on the good side, there's some sort of conversation
about whether that's the right course of action.
And then we are going to get the ex-calpion saying, good and evil
are the same, turns out, but then we're just all going to, like...
He did just suggest that.
He said, well, maybe it's our working towards peace that's being
tested.
So he's made a suggestion of what the episode might be about, but
actually, and then it immediately cuts to a shot of the
turdballster going, hmm, no.
Maybe that is what this is about.
Oh, God like that, Klingon.
Look at him.
That's all I'm trying to make defences, but they've got this pokey
corner of the studio and a few sticks.
Yeah, yeah.
But they haven't learned too that like a spear can't be just sort
of tossed gently onto the set because it looks really shit.
Like, you've really got to hurt her.
Oh, dear OT.
She looks like she's come straight out of Hansel and Krow, that
woman, doesn't she?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She's a witch.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, she's not a bat.
She's not a fighter.
She kills people with poison, which is also a very, you know
traditionally female way of killing people, whereas it would have
been more interesting if she'd been a warrior.
Who are the real people on the planet?
Just Kirk and Spock?
Yes.
And everybody else is just a figment of imagination. yeah?
Yeah, I don't know where Zora and Kayles come from, though.
Do you know what I mean?
made out of then.
They're made out of X-Calpions.
Oh, they are ex-scalpions. in the shape of serac and all the
rest.
I think so.
Right.
Okay.
What, made to think that they genuinely are those people, because
they were just having conversations, if they genuinely were those
people.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Oh, Gene, you didn't think this one through, did you?
No one's thinking it through.
No wonder he ended up in that corner office, you know, with
nothing to do.
Yeah, I have to say that I would soon have the conversation about
Surax, philosophy and Vulcan history, then the conversation about
are they really, you know, who they think they are, which is super
boring.
You might think at this point, that Star Trek has sort of run out
of ideas, right?
That like we, maybe we covered the, the gamut of what this show
can do creatively.
What's astonishing is.
It's gone on for another 60 years and all of those different shows
that have shown all of those different sides.
So I think the lesson to be learnt, really, is they just weren't
trying hard enough here.
Yeah, or it might be a Freiburger problem, I think, and it might
be a production team problem as well.
Well, when, what about Day of the Dove?
What about the one in the western town, the stuff that peaks
through that is actually competent and watchable.
Yeah, Spectre of the Ghani series 3, and it's great, you know, and
it is also like weird aliens pitting them against each other.
Do you know what I mean?
In a fake world?
That season three, isn't it?
Yep, yep.
I think so.
Yeah, so like there's a lot of decent stuff here.
And I think even like even turnabout intruder, which is the final
episode, which is a horrific reactionary episode about how
terrible women are and how they should return to the kitchen and
stop trying to do proper people's jobs.
Like an awful, you know, episode.
Did I ever acknowledge that in later tracks?
No, no, they just...
No, because Captain Giorgio is a decorated Starfleet captain 10
years before this, remember?
So they just ignore it.
Which is exactly what they should do.
But even that episode is better.
Do you know what I mean?
than this, which is just retreading something that we've done a
100 times before only more boringly.
I just think they think by putting these random elements together
in this setting where they fight against each other, that's a good
hour telly.
That's a fun hour, telly, but it's just, I mean, because there's
no laughs in it either.
Everyone's making this absurd situation so seriously.
Yeah, yeah.
Where's Shatner's sort of laconic smile of like, oh, please, what's
happening here?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, I mean this.
Oh, and so what, he's gonna go?
Who's gonna go?
Like, like, um, Spock's not going to go.
Kirk is because Kirk cares and Spock's kind of going, oh, yeah
he's not even real.
And so I don't care.
I am not sensitive to it, Captain.
Oh, because he's being tortured now, isn't he?
Yeah, but he doesn't believe in Surak, though.
Because he says that at Surak, you know, Vocal wouldn't scream
like that.
And he's right, you know, like it isn't Surak.
I don't know.
But Kirk knows he's not real.
Why is he going to rescue him?
He knows he's an ex scalpion.
Yeah, no, what?
Yeah, does he?
I don't know.
Whatever.
If he doesn't play the game, I don't know.
We're literally bleeding IQ points, the more we watch this.
Oh, look at that makeup.
Look at that fucking makeup.
Like, they've blanked up his, like, it's old, isn't it?
He does now look.
Black.
He looks like a Klingon.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like it's terrible.
Look at that massive lip.
I know.
It's so bad Nobody has a bottom lip that big and a top lip that
small.
Yeah.
You know, he does have that jutting bottom leap in the photos.
Do you know what I mean?
They're the big things is that mole on his cheek and the lip.
But it's just like, just cast a fucking actor and get him to
pretend to be.
Like, it's not even Abraham Lincoln anybody.
I can't let you risk it, Mr. President.
I'm no longer the president.
Let me go and get a spear in the back, okay?
Yeah.
I mean, you do call, you do call former presidents, Mr. President
in the United States.
Oh, with areas, if you don't stop calling them.
Relax, every time I see the monster.
He's reassuring presence.
Well, he's left boring than the rest of it.
I wish he sort of got up, though, and sort of waddled about a bit
you know?
Yeah, no, he can't.
I wonder if they've ever interviewed at a convention, the man who
played the Excalpion.
Imagine the poor person inside that costume.
So we think he's called Yanos Prohaska.
Yanos.
Absolutely, sir.
He doesn't do the voice.
Does he do anything else?
He is.
He is a monster in he's a monster in the cave.
Oh my gosh.
What is the monster in the cage?
Anyway, he's a monster in the cage.
He's like a giant chicken of some kind.
Uh, yeah.
To be fair, right, as ineptly executed as all this is.
There was an attempt there.
Look, to show some depth in the set.
There's several relators to the set there.
Yeah.
I feel sorry for that. woman, she don't get a line, does she?
No, but neither does um, there's, I don't think um, Finger gets a
line, does he?
There's um...
Sorry, we can't afford to pay you for a line, so.
No, no.
They're just hurling polystarium rocks across the side.
What is going on?
That rock just bounced off the other, off the other polystrone
rock.
And then again, we're gently throwing spears at each other.
God, it's a fight to the death, isn't it?
It's so boring.
What are we doing?
Oh, my God.
Zoom in on Surak dead.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And again, it's not a real zoom in too.
It's like a post.
It's like zooming in on a on a steel on a film still.
So, man.
Do you think drive over in his voice was like, I can see it.
Just cut it together.
It's fine.
We're nearly done.
Space 1999 series 2 and he thinks his stuff's great.
I just imagine him.
I imagine him being like Ed Wood in the film.
Do you know what I mean?
Oh, that's marvellous, you know, terrific.
Well done, everyone.
I like JNT when he saw the Merka.
There's an obscure reference.
Wow, wonderful.
Terrific stuff.
Oh, look at the lip there.
Look at the lip.
It's falling off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh my god.
Jesus Christ.
Oh, never moan about Odo's makeup again.
Oh, I will.
I know you will.
Turns out he's dead.
Help me, Spock.
Please.
He was dead.
I'm sure why we care.
We don't.
Clearly we don't. supposed to.
We're going to rescue him, for God's sakes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
Oh my god.
God, shut up, throw the spear.
Throw it at Kayla.
I'm better than racist.
Oh, is it the bit where Lincoln dies?
Yes.
No.
Oh, no, gentlemen.
I've got a problem There's a spear in my back.
Okay.
Will you ask me this?
Who the fuck walks out of a clearing as if they're just, oh, go
for a stroll and then face palms with a bloody spear in their
back.
He does put his hands out to protect himself as he does.
I like to think that the ex-scalpion has a moment of sort of, you
know, he understands drama, you know.
If I've sort of walk out, and then I fall with the spear. as a
good shock.
Yeah, we would go right now.
We're having a bit of a problem. a sense of occasion.
A really boring brawl, though.
Is it a music like...
The music is pretty good as usual, I think.
The one myself kind of admiring the music, but it isn't the amok
time music, I'm afraid.
What exactly?
You know, um, Yarne Karak Scalpion.
I just can't get over those names.
Was he sort of getting from all of this ultimately?
A TV show.
He's producing a TV show for the other Excalibions to watch, I
think.
Yeah, it's this entertainment for them then.
Yeah, yeah.
Like it is for us, as you can see.
I reckon there's Excalbion podcasts.
Pocometry podcasts.
That's right. podcast about other podcasts.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What do you think of untitled Star Trek project?
Five stars.
So wait, what happened there?
Who did he kill?
The others just ran away.
Oh, yeah.
It's 5 minutes from the end of the episode.
The others ran away.
Apparently, what we've learned from evil is that evil people run
away when they're cornered.
You have failed to demonstrate any difference between your 2
philosophies.
You both achieved the same results.
Do you have an explanation?
No, neither do you.
Oh, well.
Yeah.
Okay, we're done then.
Gestures very emphatically, doesn't he, Yarnack?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just don't understand any of this.
Like, what's the point of this conversation now?
Like, is this guy a bad person?
No, what have we learned?
How many people have you done this to?
What gives you the right to hand out life and death?
We need to know new things.
He goes, oh, okay.
You came in peace?
Well, you can go in peace.
Yeah, goodbye.
So this is an absolute nothing conversation that's about nothing
and he turns into a rock again, and then we go up, do we have a
racist gag at Spock's expense before we...
It'd be funny if we stayed with the Ex-Scalpion as he beamed off.
He went back to his studio and he was like, right, did you get
enough for an episode there?
Okay, good.
All right.
It ain't a great episode.
We've had better, but...
By no means, covered together.
It's just dismal.
And this is just Jim.
Shatner excited that the whole thing's over.
Yeah, it's got a massive grid on his face.
Everything's back to normal.
War power's back.
Yeah.
We were never in any danger of any kind.
No, everything happened.
Everything's just reversed itself for no reason.
What did we learn?
Any explanation?
he says to Mrs. Spark?
Have you got anything for you?
You only got conjecture, he says.
Just conjecture.
I think this episode was about rearranging molecules into whatever
fashion they designed.
There we go.
That's great.
We can do that too.
So you're saying that the sort of representations were, as we
perceive them, yes.
And then what's so interesting.
No.
I feel as if I actually met Lincoln, you know.
Yeah, I feel like it too, just watching this.
Mostly his lower lip, though.
In a sense, they were real in what, perhaps they weren't in the
sense that they were on telly on NBC.
So hard in March, 1969.
So hard for me to watch him die again, you know?
Did he watch him die the 1st time?
everyone went through.
He wasn't born.
And then her account said, oh, sir, we're ready for the next
episode now.
All right, well, everybody will go.
Bye.
It doesn't come to any conclusions at all.
No, nothing.
No it's not about anything.
Like, it's not about anything.
Rotten berry, try harder.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh my god.
It really is just using up running time.
It's just doing the thing that we've done over and over and over
again.
It's nothing.
He even says as if, you know, he's put away a file.
Well, continue to the next assignment.
Let's go.
The next episode.
Off we go.
That's quite a good final shot.
It's a beautiful, yeah, but not the actual final shot.
Not the original.
No.
Oh there he is.
Fred Freiberg.
Hi, Fred.
Well, I did say I was going to talk to you very briefly about the
differences of our Fred and Maurice Hurley from the Next
Generation.
Okay.
Very divisive producers.
The difference between the 2 of them is.
I think Hurley genuinely looked at season one of the next
generation and made changes of things that he thought didn't
work.
And I know like he took out gates and he brought in Diana Mulder.
I mean, I think that was a savvy move, but a lot of people don't.
But he didn't think she was working.
He didn't think she was given good performances.
So he said, right, let's replace her with somebody who we know is
a good actor.
You go to the child and suddenly there's a different look to the
show.
Do you know what I mean?
They've added 10 forwards somewhere for everybody to relax in
which was a great move.
And the standard of the episodes are genuinely better.
I know there's some bad ones, but there are some great episodes in
series 2 as well.
Measure of a Man.
Um, Qhu, you know, some some really great songs.
There's three.
I like peak performance as well.
Don't you like peak performance?
Yeah.
No, it's terrible.
Wow.
It's quite fun.
Where was Freiburger comes in?
Freitburger comes in and says, God, everything that made Star Trek
great.
I don't want to do any of that anymore.
No, I don't think that's it.
I think that he genuinely thinks that Star Trek is about
omnipotent alien entities bringing you down to a planet and then
torturing you until it's time for the episode to end.
And it is a lot.
But what he hasn't noticed about it is that it's normally better
than this and certainly better than the other episodes where it
happens in series 3 that there's just something unpleasant about
watching it happen.
Like I thought whom gods destroy. while it did have an exploding
green woman in it.
No, but we said in that as well, nothing happens.
It's boring.
We said the same thing in the empath.
Nothing happens for long...
Like, you need incident in television.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you need some kind of, like, people need to want something and
they need to be proper obstacles.
You don't just, it is just a series of aliens.
And I know that that's where we start with the cage as well, isn't
it?
Where it's, you know, powerful aliens capturing us and making us
play tricks and stuff.
But like, it's just that too often.
And here, they think that that's enough.
There's nothing for us to learn here.
This isn't about anything.
It is just about filling in running time.
And so it's glacially slow.
And no one's really caring at this point.
The fight scenes are terrible.
It's just terribly boring, I think.
Think of the last time the Freiburger doesn't touch the original
series, Assignment Earth, that is packed full of incident.
There's so much story going on.
By the end of it, we're climbing up a fucking rocket with a cat on
his back trying to stay.
We're taking off.
You know, like, and it's also charming and funny as well.
Like, it's charming and funny. you know, those gorgeous sets.
I think there's something very, very sad. about a show that
delivered really good stuff on a regular basis, limping to a
conclusion.
And looking across the shows, I think Voyager ends up there in
season seven, a lot of season 7 is pretty standard stuff.
I think TNG certainly ends there where they just sort of realise
they've got other shows to make and they're not delivering their
best anymore.
But I mean, I think the problem here is that when Star Trek fails
because it's early, when Star Trek fails, it's just not making
acceptable television.
Like, I don't think the best episodes of series...
I don't know.
Well, though, but a magical brick. terrible.
I love I love where there's a mask incident on board the Cerritos
remember?
And what's what is the character called?
Like, Carol Freeman's, it's Mookie or something?
So funny.
The fact it's just a subline.
I don't know even.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just in the beginning.
But, like, at least it's trying to do something weird and it's do
like, yes, I think probably that is kind of just...
This is true, that'd be weird and memorable and all of that.
Lincoln flying through space, all these rando characters fighting
on a planet with a big poo monster is trying to be weird.
It is, but it just ends up just being incredibly boring.
And I don't think anything quite fails in the same way as Star
Trek fails.
And I think because when Star Trek fails, it's not making
competent television at all.
Like sometimes Star Trek makes bad television and sometimes it's
sort of incompetent.
Very often, the bad Star Trek episodes of like 90s trek are some
of the most fun to watch, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm certain to talk about.
Sure, sure.
But I think this is, we've seen this so many times before, I
think.
I think I'll end on what I said I was going to start with, which
is a grand statement about untitled Star Trek project itself.
Had we rolled.
The Savage Curtain as our 1st episode of Untitled Star Trek
Project.
Oh my god.
I fear it may have been our last.
We may have gone life too short.
Fortunately, we rolled yesterday's Enterprise, and here we are, 100
and help me out. 85 episodes later.
You know?
I think that's about the right point that the savage curtain can
turn up and we can still continue.
All right, it's the end of the episode and it's time for us to
work out where we're going next.
It's my turn on the randomiser.
I'm not trusting you with it at all this week, Joe. No, I think
that's wise.
Now, ordinarily, I would head straight to Star Trek Enterprise, but
we desperately need something watchable.
After that.
So let's not do that.
Let's choose from the 3 main 90s Star Trek scene.
It still could be touch and go.
Good, yeah, there's a high chance that it'll be something
terrible.
But let's see what we can do.
So, I've got Star Trek, The Next Generation, Star Trek, Voyager.
Oh, great.
My favourite period.
Come on.
Ooh.
This is not bad.
Your random Star Trek Voyager episode is season five, episode
six.
Timeless.
Oh, that's actually a very, very good episode of always.
Yeah.
All those things I complained about in the series finale done so
much better.
Yeah, the best Harry Kim episode by a country mile.
And I just remember it being visually spectacular as well in a way
that, you know, like enterprise is more ambitious than Voyager
sometimes with its visuals, but I think that, you know, timeless
is pretty stunningly great.
Such a savvy move as well, because it ties into the premise of the
show because they think they're going home because they found all
of these wormholes and it's Harry that has done all the
calculations and all the extra work.
Because he so bad he wants to get home to his mummy.
Yeah.
And so he's responsible for the ship going under the ice and
everyone dying, which makes that older Harry Kim, the best acting
opportunity.
I think Garrett Wang ever had.
Can we can we stop this early?
in our choosings?
Well, look, I have to say that I feel like it's been a while since
I've had control of the randomiser it hasn't really, but I'm
prepared to stop here.
Oh my god.
Okay.
Let's do it Yeah, I'm prepared to stop here.
Let's do that I think, um, one, we need a big win for Voyager
because we've done mostly terrible Voyager episodes lately.
Series 5 is my favourite season of Voyager.
I think that's when they're at their height, but this is a proper
like event episode.
When you're opening up on that scene in engineering.
I can still see it.
It's all in slow motion.
There's sort of bunting and streaming going down in slow mode.
Everyone's clapping.
They're going home because they're going home.
Yeah.
It's massive.
It's directed by Lavar as well.
Okay, wild.
Awesome.
Yeah, okay.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, let's do it for sure.
You've been listening to entitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford
and Nathan Bottomley, where online at untitled Star Trek Project
com where you can find subscription links and links to our social
media accounts.
Our podcast artwork is by Kayla Ciceran, and the theme was
composed by Cameron Lahn.
This episode was recorded on the 24th of March 2026 and released
on the 27th of March.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek Voyager, Timeless.
That's a good choice.
What mind if I got...
I mean, if I, you know, that doesn't even mean anything, I'm gonna
see what happens next.
Dramatis persona.
That's good.
That was episode 31.
We did that so long ago now.
How does it feel that long ago, does it?
So episode 31.
So that is June 2022.
Nearly 4 years ago.
22.
Are you serious?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We talked about that clock.
I was still a manager then for fuck's sake.
Oh my goodness.
I still had hope for the future.
Stop.
So we started recording in late 2021 and we had maybe 5 in the can
by the time we released.
So we recorded episode one on Tuesday the 21st of September 2021.
But I don't know when we recorded ourselves rolling yesterday's
Enterprise because we did that a week earlier.
Yeah, but our 1st...
Those, I think that what we just watched, those are the toughest
ones to talk about.
Yeah, because there's nothing thematic going on, there's no
character journeys going on.
There's no purpose to it.
It's like, what do you talk about beyond literally what is on the
screen?
And like I had to, I had to, um, I had to make up. you know, like
something for the thing to be about.
He's what it could have been about, that wasn't.
So who wants for Adonise, which is just another one where you've
got a godlike entity kind of torturing them until the episode
ends.
Uh, I think it's my Roddenbury.
So he seems to have one idea.
No, it's Gene Coon.
It's Gene Coon.
Oh, it's got the glowing green hand.
The great hand.
Oh...
I love a...
Because it's Apollo.
And he's really tall.
But yeah, it's super weird.
It's not very good.
All right.
Well, it won't take us back to see season 3 of TOS in a heart
rate.
After this.
Yeah.
We still got to do that.
Ghastly one with the children.
Oh god.
The children shall lead.
Oh, is that series three?
Yeah.
With that comedy actor in it, who's not what, he's a comedian. not
an actor.
And he just sort of comes in going, my children.
I don't even know.
Attack everybody on the Enterprise.
Oh, it's just awful.
It's he's huge.
He's a big draw, but he ain't a good actor.
Well, he certainly ain't in that.