Hey, Joe. Hi.
Last time we watched, a charming episode of Star Trek Enterprise
called Dead Stop, which was my choice, and I have to confess it
all fell to pieces a bit at the sort of 25 minute mark.
And so you took the reins of the randomiser in order to make up
for the terrible mistake I'd made.
And so this week we are watching Star Trek Voyager season two
episode six, twisted.
So my question for you is, Joe, what have you got to say for
yourself?
Well, usually on untitled Star Trek project, you know, the
expectation is that we'll come along and watch an episode of Star
Trek and along the franchise and make, hopefully, witty remarks
and, you know, talk about the themes and the character.
I can't be bothered to do that today, you know?
I can't be asked.
Let's not even put the episode on.
Let's just improvise our way through this entire commentary and
talk about whatever we like because twisted.
Could be the episode of Star Trek.
With the least amount of effort. has ever gone into writing a
script.
I mean, I question whether a script existed in the 1st place.
Who the hell wrote this thing?
So, the screenplay for this episode is credited to Kenneth Miller
who has 35 writing credits on Star Trek Voyager.
But it is based on a story by 2 people, Arnold Rudnick and Rich
Hosek, who have no other Star Trek writing credits.
Execute them.
They took this pitch.
What if a wibbly thing ran its way through Voyager and everyone
got lost in the corridors and went, oh my god, that's perfect for
the end of series one.
For God's sake.
So clearly the money's run out.
And the ideas are run out too.
I have to say that I think that this is probably the worst episode
of Star Trek that we've done so far.
And I struggle to think of an episode that we haven't done that is
less ambitious and less interesting than this.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I mean, we've done some shit episodes.
We've done course oblivion.
We've done threshold, done this.
Manhole.
Up the long ladder.
March Faz.
Night, Sick Bay is even better than this.
Wonderful.
That's a great episode.
So, like, we've done a lot of dogs, but this is really, really
unbelievably boring and unambitious, and it's not just the idea
that's bad because you can actually still get an episode out of a
bad idea or out of a really thin basic idea, but it is also just
the execution.
Like everyone, like just every interaction is horrifically bad.
Everyone's not bothering.
This is the best Roberts least favourite episode of Voyager. wise
man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, there's just nothing to this.
You know, like Jammer gave it like a star.
But I mean, he's given things 0 stars, and this is worse than just
about anything I can imagine.
He definitely gave threshold 0 stars.
And as much as that was loathsome to endure.
How awful.
It had an idea in it.
Like, it wasn't a good idea.
It was a bloody stupid idea.
But it had no idea and it ran with it to the point where we had
those salamanders. about the place here. absolutely memorable.
They're just wondering the standing sits going.
How do I get here?
Oh, how do I get there?
Oh, Janeway doesn't seem to have the ability to talk.
Kate, just make something up.
I mean, God's sake.
So terrible.
It came a point half an hour in where I messaged you and went, I
just have Jettisoned so many IQ points at this point that I just
can't watch anymore today.
Like, I fear I may be brain dead at the end of the episode.
So I'm going to wait until the last possible moment before we
record to watch the last 15 minutes and I did achieve that.
I did it just half an hour ago.
So I had had a fairly bad night's sleep the night before last.
And so yesterday when I lay down on the couch to watch it.
I have to admit that I did kind of fall unconscious at that
point.
That was the best thing of the episode, let's be honest.
It was pretty good.
Yeah, it was nice.
But I did go back and look at German's review and I realised that
I missed a crucial interaction between Tuvok and Chakotay.
Which I had seen the kind of follow-up to, but by the time the
follow-up turned up, it was kind of like I'd lost any faith that
anything needed to make any character sense or really be about
anything at all by this point.
So I thought, oh, something's happened, but I've just kind of been
paying attention.
But I did fall asleep during the climactic character battle.
And then I watched that and it was just absolutely the limpest
most miserable thing ever.
I'm active. between Chakotay and Tuvok where they fight. 25
seconds.
Where, yeah, it does.
It lasts 25 seconds.
And I think, you know, those people who say that Star Trek, the
Next Generation is boring because there's never conflict between
the characters, need to be made aware, that conflict between the
characters can be done in such a way that it is also incredibly
boring.
And so amazing.
Don't you remember?
Probably why I'll send to this god-forsaken place.
You know, it can be funny.
So the episode that I want to compare this to is disaster.
Because disaster has the ship hit by the most low effort thing
possible.
We don't even have a special effect representing it.
Is that a is that a cosmic string?
No, is that even...
Oh, I don't know.
It is a contribuent?
Another wibbly thing.
And things happen to the characters and stuff, but the premise
itself is just nothing at all.
Like just nothing.
But even though the characters are not well drawn.
And even though the plot things, you know, Beverly and Geordie's
plot has nothing to do with the characters, Riker and Data's plot
has very little to do with the characters, there's still really
fun, enjoyable things going on.
And it's an absolute banger.
It's a top tier episode.
Oh, shocker.
What does he say to that little moppet?
You're the one in charge of... charge of radishes.
And that terrible joke at the end when they come on the bridge and
she gives him that cute look.
Oh, please.
I mean, we still laugh though, didn't we?
It's wonderful.
It's a great episode.
And so you don't need an inventive premise.
But you'd need to be aware that there are people at home who are
going to watch this and are going to want to enjoy themselves.
Oh, I mean, the so cool premise of Star Trek should be, right?
Yeah.
Your default position at the start of this, right?
I'm really tired and I'm not in the best of moods.
So I want to watch an episode of Star Trek to make me feel better
and divert me, you know, and amuse me a little bit, not have the
opposite effect where you're reaching for bloody antidepressants
at the end of it because you've got so much work.
But the one I want to compare this to is I'm glad you went TNG
because I went, obviously, TS9. is civil defence, which is another
one all on the standing sets with the core cast and a couple of
the semi-regulars, Garak and Dukat, where our usual sets are
basically turned into a trap.
And that's basically what happens here, right?
is that they're is amazed and they can't get out of in that, the
trap is everything's trying to kill them in every scene.
So there's gas coming out.
Gold, you cuts, messages, you've got bloody phase of fire, all
over opts.
You've got Garak, you know, um, coming down and and uh, on Kira
and Ducat and how much they flirt with each other.
Yeah, you've got Ojo and Quarks stuck in the security office.
I mean, it's such a banger.
And it's like this.
The premise is so thin.
The resolution is so easy at the end, you know?
But it's so enjoyable to watch.
And I know this is early, but they have delivered great stuff with
these characters already in series one.
We've done state of flux.
We, uh, either the needle.
You know what I mean?
These characters have huge potential.
I mean, it was all there in caretaker.
So why?
Why in this episode where we're wandering around for 45 minutes
doing nothing?
Are we exploring these characters in some kind of a profound way?
The mystery?
They think the mystery is interesting enough to keep us watching
in this.
Yeah.
I mean, I think they're trying to do character stuff, but the
character stuff is all awful, not entertaining.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
I mean, they realise pretty quickly that Neelix being jealous just
makes him an asshole.
Two years takes him.
Two years.
Yeah, but but like not just an asshole, but like a really, really
loathsome person.
Like someone who's like that is a bad guy.
And that's Ethan Phillips, who, you know, is super likeable as a
performer.
And when they ditch it, Neelix is great, but he's unpleasant to
watch in this.
Well, he's not only sort of trying to be controlling, but he's
sort of peppering that with all of this.
Hello, sweeting and all of this. creepy as well.
And he's pointing out how very young she is in this episode as
well.
So he comes across as a bit as a pedo.
So I just don't really know what they're going forward with this
character at the moment apart from just being ick.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, it's just miserable all around.
And we've talked about Voyager banter and how bad it is.
Here it's, you know, like much worse than usual, I think.
You're going up against the wall as well, right?
It's really really atrocious.
I knew, I knew as soon as it started, then that party here, and
they were all, you know, making agonising jokes.
I could just see you there going, oh God, this is where we're
starting.
And it just gets worse.
Wow, I can't wait.
Let's go as you go in.
I'm sorry.
All right. will count us in.
Vroom, here goes.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we are off.
To be fair, okay.
We did get our knickers in a twist, didn't we?
I said that last week. did.
He did.
Now, here's a corridor, setting the scene for the entire episode.
Can I just say that Kes's boots are fucking magnificent in this.
She has massive thigh high boots that look great.
Can I also say that Shea Sondrine is not a bad setting?
No, it's great.
I mean, it looks very atmospheric.
Look at how nicely it's lit. by the fire and the candles and
everything.
It is great, but they somehow make it boring in this episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I would rather have a party here than in those boring gray
voyager say this, wouldn't you?
Yeah, yeah, like the mess hall or something.
What do you think's in all those presents?
I don't know.
Oh, boring.
So, two. nappies, probably.
Suda cream.
Oh, I'm so sorry if we start off.
Oh, no, I found it exhilarating.
Oh God.
Jesus Christ.
She's got a terrible wig too.
This is funny.
Now, the doctor is the only one who comes out of this not
completely embarrassing himself, I think.
And even he hates the episode.
Yeah, even he hates the episode.
But he is kind of charming, I think.
I'm worried about that punch, you know.
I wonder if there might be something slipped in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Can we just liven this party up a bit with some?
Yeah, but you're giving it to a two-year-old, for God's sake.
And that, you know, that thing, like who thought this was a
fucking good idea?
So you don't look a day over one and you just sort of think, oh
please, I mean, having sex with her.
Stop it.
Who saw that line?
Unfortunately, oh, yeah, that's an amusing guy.
Felix is fucking a two-year-old.
Oh, no, this bit.
You told me you thought this film was pretty good where Harry
Kim's like an excited puppy like, please let me go to the party
Tuvok.
Yeah, so I thought this is sort of early Voyager and stuff and
look how young Garrett looks.
Bless him.
Jesus, sweetie.
And you kind of think, oh, you know, maybe because it hasn't gone
to shit yet, right?
It's just normal crap, Voyager banter.
We had a great moment with the doctor for a 2nd and it was kind of
nice seeing him out of the sick bay at this point in the show.
Good grief.
What's that?
Stranger. to come in towards forward.
That's right It's a sort of gray wibbly cloud.
Actually, no, Wibbly would be too exciting a word, I think.
Yeah.
Well, remember, we mentioned we mentioned Red Dwarf last time and
their famous line, you know, swirly thing alert.
This is a swirly thing alert. is a swirly thing.
This cake is really upsetting.
I think it all takes on Star Trek like this.
I mean, apparently it's 15 layers of Jabalian fudge there, you
know.
But actually, it just looks like a candle to me.
Like if you look, yeah, that's right.
But I think you've said this before about a Star Trek cake.
Two candles.
It's been sprayed like stars, looks.
It looks like...
Oh, God.
But so the cake is then used as a as a character point because Tom
Paris buys, sorry, replicates Kez a necklace.
He goes, well, you may have replicated that necklace, but I have
made... 50 layers of fudge, right?
Oh, shut up.
I mean my red flag.
My warning signs will be going off with Ilix, like, all the time.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
No, what I think, one of my favourite things that Voyager ever
does is they just break them up between episodes so we don't have
to see it and we just learn, oh, yeah, we broke up since last
week's episode and now I'm off to do Warlord and I'm going to be
fucking amazing in it.
What's funny is they break them up and then make her look like a
woman.
Almost immediately afterwards, they give her the long hair and she
looks great.
I mean, I quite like her elfin look, but it's a bad wig.
This wig is bad.
Later on it gets better.
This is about...
If it's Mohawk is a terrible week as well at this point.
I like it.
Well, he's just got the long hair later, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Alright.
Why doesn't Shakotay say to Nilix, Nilix, stop being such a
jealous cunt, all right?
And just let her enjoy her party.
I didn't mind that line where he said, oh, I think he did a lovely
job wrapping it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like I thought, okay, that's trying to do something.
Oh, God.
Will Chevok ever get the word phenomenon out before the titles
kick in?
I dont think he will.
No, no.
But again, that's something that we haven't heard the sound
distort, blah, blah, blah, at least it's something.
I don't know.
You know?
Well, so as a sort of pre-title sequence with Nathan Bottomley's
rule of Star Trek pre-title sequences.
Is that saying what we're getting?
Like, yeah, just a bunch of random shit.
People just standing around.
It already exists.
Yeah. sort of half-assed bizarre things happen.
Well, so that isn't even where we go because I counted and for
more than maybe it's more than half of the run.
What actually happens here is something happens to the ship that
changes its layout, but we as the audience never see it.
And so what happens instead is we see people walking around the
corridors saying that the layout has changed and that they've got
lost.
And so essentially this is a Star Trek episode that the audience
never sees happening, that all that happens is the dialogue.
We're being told that we're getting lost by the characters who are
walking around the standing set.
We don't have the money to show you what's happening.
Just tell you.
Nothing is happening as far as we, the audience are concerned.
There's no attempt by the director to make the space weird or
threatening.
It's all just shot normally, and it is just everyone walking
around the standing set saying we're lost, and nothing fucking
happens.
Like nothing happens.
This is not a Star Trek episode happening at all.
We're being told about a Star Trek episode that's happening off
screen somewhere.
It's like the jackanori of Star.
Put your headphones in, everybody, and listen to all the weird
things that are happening in Twisted today.
Yeah, because you don't need the pictures.
And so that for me is the biggest crime that this commits, that it
doesn't attempt to be a Star Trek episode.
It doesn't attempt to look interesting.
It doesn't attempt to distinguish itself.
It has no ambitions beyond staying alive until the end of the
runtime.
You can usually guarantee that, right?
Like, I don't know, something like, um, do you know, distant
voices where Bashir's in his own head for the whole episode
obviously, represented by the standing seas.
Yeah, as usual.
But they're sort of falling apart as he's getting older and all
you know what I mean?
tennis balls falling out of consoles.
They're showing you stuff all through the episode, you know?
Actually, I didn't think about it like that.
Yeah, because I think that's where I was going, whoa, is this any
different from usual because normally we walk from that corridor
into the turbo lift and normally we walk from the corridor into
engineering.
Exactly.
There's no sense in a Star Trek show.
There's nearly no sense of any of those spaces being related to
one another in any way.
You know, like by the time discovery comes, they can't even be
bothered to walk from place to place.
They just do the side to side transport all over the place.
But, you know, there's a corridor outside a set, and there's
various places, and we never have a sense of how they're
connected.
And so when that's disrupted.
It turns out it makes no difference to us at all because that's an
aspect of the ship that is completely invisible to the audience
and always has been.
And so someone who had a sense of what Star Trek was like should
have actually said, actually, this episode isn't about anything
happening because these places don't have a relationship to each
other.
How can there be such a dearth of ideas in your 1st season?
Like, surely this is the point where you're going, oh, we could
try this and we could do that.
You know, like, yeah, yeah.
This isn't an idea.
Yeah?
This isn't...
It's a load of actors wandering around sets going, oh, I can't get
where I need to be, you know.
Yes, that's it.
So again, this guy, this fucking guy...
They're trying to they're trying to make this guy happen.
He's in eye of the needle.
He's in the 37s and he gets mentioned in the 2nd last episode of
season one of prodigy.
Did he tell him?
No, he is serving aboard the USS Dorkless.
Oh, I love he's in Sick Bay.
Walter Buck, nice to know you are the future.
He did have a future.
So he's only in 3 episodes.
He does make it home to the Alpha Quadrant.
He a bit like Primun in DS 9.
The guy they bring in in series one to sort of rub butt heads with
Odo.
I think he only does 2 episodes and they realise...
Oh, shit, he's terrible. to do him anymore.
Three episodes you got, you say.
I mean, so that's just shows you.
I've watched all those 3 episodes and I couldn't remember him when
I watched this.
Oh, look.
Stop trying to make...
It's his body language.
Now, yeah, it is a beautiful necklace, isn't it?
Yeah.
Oh, how is it you know that men exist on this deck, Kez?
Tell me, see this.
Oh, this is terrible. ugly.
It's really offensive, isn't it?
Why do you know where Hargroves quarters are?
Is it because you're fucking him?
You know, like, and he never comes out.
It's like literally having sex with everyone on this floor, aren't
you?
Should somebody be having this conversation with Dax?
Fair enough.
She probably has.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's awful and she's not like that.
She deserves better than that and he's just a dickhead.
But I feel like it's worse because she is a child and naive and
hasn't had experiences.
She thinks this, this is normal.
It's the best that it gets.
No, I'm glad in series 3 where she goes, actually, do you know
what?
I think there's better, hotter, less jealous men out there than
you.
Who is this fucking guy too?
Don't even start me on the moments they try and make funny in this
episode.
So I mean, it's not this bit.
There is a bit later, isn't it?
Where Torres opens the door and there's a half naked man there and
it's so awkward.
It should be hilarious.
But it's the 1st time that we see any evidence.
Do you know what I mean?
Like she opens the door of engineering and it gives that onto
someone's quarters.
Yeah.
Like she just walked down a corridor and came into the mess hall
and then just went, wow, something incredible's happening.
It's just like, you just turned the corner into a mess hole.
You do that every episode.
Like this episode, the conceit is you get to be surprised by
that.
Now, she's literally wandering this corridor while a camera is
stationary and go going, oh, that no, hang on a minute.
Is that code?
Oh, what?
Just show us something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Baxter again.
He's made it to the transporter bay.
Oh my god.
He looks like the sort of man that will turn up in every show in
America. doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he works out.
That's his one character fit.
He was working out in the gym.
And yeah, it doesn't look like it.
He looks how he works out as much as I do.
Yeah.
To a young leaf, bro.
Like, like, this is just ridiculous.
They are all talking about what they're experiencing, but we don't
get to see it.
It may as well be a radio play.
Like, what's going on?
is a radio play.
I think.
Like, because it's just so staggeringly visually unambitious, isn't
it?
Like, there is no attempt to make this look weird in any way.
And Voyager gets really good at that.
We did the haunted of deck 12, not so long ago, which was as thin
and as shit as this.
But they pumped the sets full of dry ice and red submarine
lighting and weird angles with the cameras.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What's going on here?
So this is Judy Geason.
Sondrine and she does a few episodes here.
And she's English, I think, and she is...
She's an episode.
Look at her.
Yeah, yeah.
I did like her line playing doctor.
Like, what's, what are you, doctor, what are you doing here?
And she turns to Harry and goes playing doctor, which I thought
was pretty good.
All right, Bob.
He's got nowhere left, but what he has got is...
But she is in an episode of Space 1999 called Another Time, Another
Place, which is a pretty good and pretty weird episode of Space
1999.
And in memory of that, I'm going to compare a moment in this
episode that comes later to something that happens in a very good
episode of Space 1999.
It's similar to that, the scene from Space 1999.
Only not good in any way.
Can't we skip over to your Space 1999 podcast and do that this
week instead of this?
What are they talking about now?
Oh, I don't have the time to help you right now, doctor.
Wait a minute.
Where are you going?
I don't know.
I can't get anywhere.
Oh, please.
Oh my god.
I mean, Bob there with lipstick all over his face too is pretty
great.
And we probably haven't done that yet.
Do you know what I mean?
That's something new for Bob.
I was actually kind of surprised and delighted to see him in the
bartender's outfit in the bar, not in his uniform.
I thought that was kind of nice.
I mean, just anything.
I'm sort of scratching my head now for like, okay, we're lost in
the Delta quadrant.
We're lost in the ship.
Could we do something with that?
And that's me giving this 5 seconds fall, you know?
But even just trying to make the thing look odd.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, turn the lights down, do something, like make it weird.
Think about Genesis.
Do you know what I mean?
How atmospheric, the those terrible emperors...
Such a good episode.
I mean, I hate it.
Only a few months before this.
Do you remember the peaks of Meridian?
Oh, wonderful times.
Again, like even episodes that were outright stupid or kind of
offensive, you know, things that made us cross.
This is worse than all of them.
Why does he call her sweeting?
I know, it's all right.?
that I don't know.
It just sounds like grooming. language to me.
A space term of endearment, isn't it?
Oh, is that right?
Oh, boy, boy.
Poor Neelix.
Oh okay.
Oh, we haven't gone up this bit of the corridor.
Let's go that way And that, like he just is obnoxious.
But look, he's...
He's aggressive.
You know what I mean?
I'm going to hurt somebody.
They come near.
Oh god.
Bilana, shouldn't you be an engineering?
Where is he?
But I'm stuck in this one corridor like you are.
I mean, there's a bit later, right?
There's a bit later where they all converge on the same bit of
corridor.
I mean, it's always the same bit of corridor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was like, you should have been running in and out of doors
like a French farce here.
This could be very funny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's one moment.
There is one moment.
One actual moment where they think, and it's like half an hour in
where Tuvok walks off one way and comes in the other way, and you
kind of think, wow, that was fucking cheap to do.
You didn't think of doing that before. you know, snuggering
honestly.
Oh, so boring.
This is so bad.
This is the...
They're all in the same corridor. all there.
Does anyone know how to get to the bridge?
But hang on, they're in the corridor, but they can go back to the
holodeck.
No, everywhere's leading to the holiday because it's in the middle
of the ship, I think.
And so there's a there's a thing.
Yeah.
I mean, how fun would it be?
If, um, you know, they don't have the money to do this, but
imagine avoid a discovery style drone camera, right?
Zoom in around the corridors and we actually get a POV shot of all
the weird spaghetti corridors and rooms and everything, you know
all messed up.
I mean, that would have been a bit expensive, I think, is the
problem.
It would have cost some money.
I mean, there's no special effects in this.
We get a few special effects towards the end where we see that
sort of computer distortion of the ship, which they're also proud
of because it's only 1995 or whatever.
But the thing is, though, even duet was a very, very cheap episode
of Star Trek.
It's a set and 2 actors and it's one of the best.
And again, they just, they're just eating up time here.
Like, what, like, what is happening?
Apple as well.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because the thing is too, because the thing has no
characteristics and no logic to it, because it's a twisty swirly
thing that really does whatever, you know, it does to get the
premise happening.
There's no way of knowing what the right way of dealing with it
is.
And so later on when we have that confrontation between Chakotay
and Tuvok.
It's kind of like, who's right?
Well, it's impossible to tell.
How could you even know?
you know, It's more a twisty, swirly sort of thing that turns the
ship inside out for about 45 minutes and then just goes away, you
know?
Yeah, yeah.
It's very happy.
It doesn't need the running time of this thing.
Let's get a deck by deck picture.
Please show us.
Show us.
Yeah, yeah, but show us.
Don't just tell us about it.
Don't walk around.
So now they're just going to walk around the same fucking corridor
but they're going to have their...
And the next scene, they go, oh, that was an amazing picture.
Now, at least we know what it all looks like.
Oh thank you.
Do we get to see them?
Excuse me, don't you throw shade on the predatory advances of that
woman where Neelix is behaving the way he is.
Yeah, yeah.
At least she's up front.
She wants to fuck you.
She just wants to have sex with an adult man.
Oh, God, Neenix.
My tracking is well famous amongst the whole of the galaxy.
Oh, shut up.
I mean, I, you know, again, there's something here about the idea
that they all have to withdraw to, this is off the ship.
Do you know what I mean?
Because it's the holiday, it's in saundreans.
It a different type of space.
It's not affected by this space and so that's where they meet and
that's a reliable place to be.
And that's a thing in an episode that gave a shit that would be
worth doing.
The next stop should be engineering.
And it is.
Well, there's a twist in Twisted.
We come out of turbo lift, and it's exactly what we expect to
see.
That is a twist.
I mean, this might be, we're 20 minutes in, right?
And I think this is 20 minute door.
So she opens the door and it gives out onto someone's quarters and
he is supposed to be naked.
Like, the script must want him to be naked, right?
And they've just decided they're not going to shoot it.
Because who cares?
Like, he's in his pants.
He's got his shirt off.
So what?
Like what's embarrassing about that?
We are out of wrist, Tommy.
But if he'd been naked, like that scene only works.
Like, why is she so shaken by that?
She saw a man with his shirt off.
He should have been naked What that should have been is that that
door opens and a big wry smile falls on her face and then the door
shuts.
And that's the scene.
She's like, oh, something nice to look at, you know?
It's like, oh, I think you handled that well, lieutenant, and
she's there looking bit awkward.
Yeah, yeah.
No, why are we not adult?
No, we're not having fun.
If we're just going to wander about.
We had some fun.
And now we've paired up Neelix and Chakotay who have nothing in
common and nothing interesting to say.
Why, why doesn't Neelix pluck his eyebrows?
I mean, they're very long in eyebrow hairs?
Yeah, that's a bit disturbing, is it?
Oh, maybe he likes cares to do that, you know, while they're at
it.
Oh, sorry.
And then what's this?
Like, what is this scene for?
Tell me what's going on here.
So Neelix is talking about being in love with Kess and the medium
Roberts talking about being in love and like why am I such an
asshole and jealousy?
And like, what is this?
What stupid?
What is happening?
This is the most basic ladybird discussion of emotions for young
children.
He's going, oh, you're telling me jealousy's natural.
Well, why does it feel so unpleasant then?
What are we doing?
But what if it was like Star Trek the Next Generation and we've
grown beyond jealousy because it's the 24th century.
And do you remember the scene, remember when Deanna and Riker are
talking about the Changeling, who pretended to be Riker back in
series 3 of Picard, and they make a gag about how he's better in
bed than...
But like they make some gag about it because we're so beyond
jealousy and we're so comfortable with each other that they can be
queued together.
But here, like, there's just nothing too that's, like, let's, let
you just, like, that's automatic writing.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, that's just AI slop.
There's nothing there.
It's nothing that you've seen before.
It's not a scene about anything.
Oh, water, off down the corridor then.
I'll try and keep him in my head.
So I remember it next time.
But I've got a feeling that he's got to fall out.
DSI did it one time right?
They had wharf jealous of Dax in one episode.
The reviled.
Let he who is without sin, yeah.
Where she...
I mean, she's in a bikini on like Palm Beach or something.
Like, of course, everyone wants her.
And Dax catches wind of how jealous he is.
And she goes, no, fuck you.
She goes, I'm going to do the scene from Ghost with Vanessa
Williams, all right?
We going to go and play pottery together if you're going to be
jealous over there and then he has to get his act together.
Otherwise he's going to lose her.
Yeah, yeah.
And there you go because Dax says agency and isn't going to put up
with that shit, but because KFC's too.
She doesn't know anything. say it, my heart thinks.
I mean, make her too fine.
That was just an idea.
Make her in a relationship with one of the characters who is an
adult.
Bye, bye, bye.
Oh, do you know what, Nathan?
I've been down this corridor for a while, you know.
Well, it's just disappeared.
And look how cheaply they realised it.
They made Ethan walk off the set.
The other guy's locked down the door.
The camera goes around the corner.
Oh my god.
He's good.
He's not there.
How did that happen?
Maybe he went somewhere.
And the people sometimes do.
Do you know, it's much funnier when you're talking about it. you
know, than watching it.
Do you know what I mean?
It's so much worse than you even suspected because like absolutely
nothing is happening.
The thing that changes on board Voyager is the thing that we as
the audience aren't even aware of.
And so it just doesn't matter.
As long as they're telling me, all right.
I know it's happening.
That's right.
What is this Voyager for the heart of seeing or something?
I mean, for God's sucks.
Imagine if in Scorpion part one, it was just scenes of the
characters standing around talking about having seen the board.
Yes.
Or, I don't know, what's that great Hirogen 2 paro?
you know, 0 my god.
It looks just like the sets from a lower low, you know, in the 2nd
World War. in there.
Can't we reimagine all of Star Trek in this way?
Sacrifice of Angels.
There's at least a 1000 ships coming at us.
Do you know what baffles me though, is that Kim Friedman directs
this episode.
Kim Friedman next year, because that would be DS95 next year, yeah
directs the ship, which is that amazing episode with the upside
down Gemadar ship. which is full of gray camera work and
atmosphere and scares and things.
What happened here, Kim?
What happened?
And so now what's going on here?
Wibbly special effect, right?
Which is okay.
I mean, that corridor sort of wibbling off into the distance there
isn't it?
I mean, that's just super unimpressive, isn't it?
They're sort of leaving it to Kate, and I hate to say this, but
she's not up to it.
No, then who would be?
She's staring at her own arm going, ooh.
I mean, I can't believe they gave her the note at the end of this
episode.
Just sort of get up and say something like you've just had a
stroke, all right?
May I say, Kate, you acquit yourself beautifully?
I don't know what she's doing.
Like, what is that?
Oh, don't know.
The sequence of fluctuations and a distortion ring.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But again, all that stuff.
You know, like it's all just bullshit techno babble.
We'll have to regroup and come up with a plan.
You've been doing that for the last 20 five?
Yeah, is it?
Oh my god.
Okay.
Do you know what?
I really don't like it when they waste Kate, you know?
Like, she's so good.
Remember her own prodigy.
She's a bloody amazing actress.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, she's awesome.
Now, this guy here is the guy with the um, checkered head in the
ball in um, cost of living.
Oh, is he?
A much better episode than this.
Oh, the fewer.
And he is the guy who plays Kramer in the sitcom in a sitcom
version of Seinfeld.
Oh, sorry, some good work as well.
That's not a...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think these holodeck characters are supposed to give
this a bit of colour, aren't they?
But they sort of one note.
And the jokes aren't funny.
So it's a bit of a problem.
No, yeah, that's right.
I mean, men are the same, you know, Nathan. break your heart in
the end.
Yeah.
Get out of there, KC is pretty great.
I mean, she, you know, Judy Geason, she's pretty good. she does a
few episodes of this, doesn't she?
Oh gosh.
Janeway started to fade in and out of consciousness.
I wish I was.
No, I was.
By this point, I was actually fading him.
You was asleep at this point.
Oh, is this?
Oh, because you missed this argument, yeah, between Chakotay and
Tuvok.
Uh, yes.
Yes, again, so like this isn't the big argument between Shakotah
and Tuvok.
That's later.
And it just is another one of those scenes where the characters
are assholes.
And it turns out that it's more important to have likeable
characters than to have occasional conflict, I think.
Um, and like, you know, the thing about Star Trek, the Next
Generation was they never had these dumb fights, they did disagree
but they didn't have dumb fights, and that's okay, because they're
nice grown up normal people who aren't dickheads about their
opinions about people.
This isn't conflict. between 2 characters.
This is just killing another minute of this episode.
It doesn't tell that.
What is this?
I mean, I would have more respect for Chevok if Chakoto went, you
know, there's a flaw on your logic, commander, and he just like
excuse me?
Who'd the bloody hell do you think you are telling a Vulcan?
There's a...
Look, he went away one way and he came back the other way.
And now...
It's like...
What if he said...
He said, yeah, whatever he said, no, I just doubled around and
went through the side corridor.
It's kind of amazing.
Yeah.
Tim, the ship's fine.
Tim, about to run round the corner.
So he was there waiting for him, you know, it's like concentric
ring.
Like, why was there no more of the, you know, the door opens onto
a thing where, so things happen that we've never seen before?
That's the thing.
Even though that would be boring.
But it even though it would be boring. it would be less boring
than this.
Do you remember that episode where I can't remember which one it
is now, where Picard leaves the turbo lift and it's in space and
starts screaming.
Do you remember?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There you go.
I think that's lonely among us, isn't it?
Oh, look, no one has gone before.
They've beamed in and they're standing on the pool table.
Again, that should be funny, but it's not.
They just go, well, let's get off this then.
They should have come up with something funny because that was
never going to be funny. like that was stupid.
I do like when the when the pool table gets all warped.
I think that's quite a good effect that happens later.
Oh, God, I love this.
These are the stakes now, right?
The spatial distortion is approaching.
Janeway is unconscious and and we've lost Neelix too.
Oh my god, there's no one else.
Is there anyone else on board the ship or have they all gone as
well?
What's happened to Walter Randall?
That's what I'm concerned about.
Yeah, no, I think he's Walter Baxter.
Oh, sorry.
Randall's an actor, a doctor.
See, it just vanishes from my mind. out of your mind.
That's right.
Yeah, he's a sort of conceptual character that just cannot exist
anyway.
How are we supposed to reverse something we don't understand?
The corridors are realigning. rooms are in the wrong place.
There's no pattern. fucking half an hour in.
Why are you all saying this now?
Wait, so Harry, we could make a map.
Oh, Harry.
Oh, we've been wondering about, now, why don't we just make a map
and then maybe we'll get where we need to go.
Harry, you're a genius.
Like, oh, my God.
Except aren't things moving around?
What did the actors think when they read this script?
I wonder.
I mean, yeah, it's because there's nothing here.
Like, what are you doing?
I like to think that this, because this is the point where Kate
Mulgrew realises that she is going to be away from her children
for 16 hours a day on the standing sets, right?
Because she does tell a story about that, about how she missed 7
years of her children's lives because she was on set for 16 hours
a day for this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that that wobbly thing, that wibbly bent thing.
Why don't we see it from outside?
We can't afford it so we can just see it as a schematic on the
screen?
Oh, wouldn't that be great if we could see Voyager, sort of, like
a load of spaghetti?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or like because they didn't have the imagination or the money for
it.
But if it looked like, you know, those things in Doctor Strange
you know, where things reconfigure themselves and turn around and
stuff.
I don't often say this, but I'm going to say it.
This would be, they could do an amazing Kursman trick version of
this. where it would be visually interesting.
Yeah, and almost like incomprehensibly weird.
But also there would be gags in it as well.
Yeah, they would be funny and the people would be likeable. expect
a base level of entertainment.
Yeah, yeah.
The Strange New Worlds episode of it.
Oh, would be glorious.
Yeah.
And everyone's hot as well.
Oh, yeah.
Can I what?
I mean, if we're all going to, this wibbly thing is going to come
for us.
Let's just have an orgy. our last chance before it comes for us.
That's it.
Oh, the shot pulse of that magnitude.
Some atomic park.
So this is the big argument.
This is the big argument that we're gonna have.
We have a made up thing which behaves according to no rules that
we're aware of.
We're just explaining the sort of things that can happen.
The distortion frequency.
I do this, I match the thing.
It's all just absolute bullshit.
It has no analogue in the real world.
We can have no opinion about whether this is the right course of
action or not.
And so now we're going to have a big fight between Chakotay and 2
Voc about it, but we haven't the faintest fucking idea of whether
who's right or wrong or why.
Does it even count as word peril when we don't understand the
state peril?
We don't understand the words.
We don't understand the solution.
In fact, there is no solution.
The solution is do nothing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, it's sort of anti-word peril.
It's unbelievable.
But it is, I mean, that thing where the first, you know, 25
minutes or something is just everyone standing around talking
about what's going on.
That's the 2nd 25 minutes as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, essentially.
And this, I'm in command.
You're just some dipshit Tuvok.
Yes sir, understood.
Like, fuck off.
Like, what's that?
That just makes him an asshole.
And that's not at all what he's like.
Oh, God, all this technopapel, man, I'm drowning in it.
Yeah.
I could have been really best interested.
My brain just shuts off when they start talking about bloody warp
coils.
And this scene.
This scene is atrocious.
Oh, they're just shouting at each other.
I mean, it's not it's inadvertently funny.
We should get out of here before it hits 50 mega cells.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Megapestals.
I'm reading a micro fracture in the warp core.
No, it's all right.
The fractious figs. there's no one here for no reason It would be
like me in the middle of an episode, Karen.
Nathan, this podcast is going to explode.
You know, just to create some tension.
Oh, you start counting up. fucking hell.
I mean, I mean, give Roxanne and Garrett, they're Jew.
They're trying.
Yeah, they are trying.
Oh, they're moving the camera a bit.
They're under tables in sand dreams.
Do you know what?
We haven't been under the tables before.
Should we do that?
Yeah, we could do that.
Why wouldn't you be drinking yourself to death if you were in
saunderings, for God's sake.
How do you get an implosion ring?
An enclosure ring?
Oh, I don't know, really?
Do you prefer an implosion or an explosion?
Yeah, I don't know.
Can't tell.
But there you go.
There was another special effect, a brief special effect there.
What was that, the door?
Fair, expensive one.
The door going wibbly.
Yep.
Oh, no, here's Kate.
Here's Kate, Emmy Bron.
That's great.
All IQ leaves the building now.
Oh my god.
Talk.
Can't.
They've given up writing lines.
I've just given her single words to do.
It's not the spatial distortions. have damaged her speed shader.
It's the bit where she jumps up.
I just was laughing my head up.
I was like, okay, go be with your kids, please.
Instead of enforcing the explosion hours, it forced the implosion
inwards.
Are you saying it made things worse?
We don't know.
Like, what the fuck is this?
I can say.
It's nothing.
What can we do?
I can't help but notice.
We're 40 minutes in.
Oh, well, I'll tell you what, right?
Let's just stand here, yeah?
And hope once it goes through us, everything's going to be okay
because we've only got 5 minutes left.
I hate to tell you, there's 10 minutes.
Oh no, please.
Anything but that.
Oh, 10 minutes.
You say, okay, all right.
Good great.
So, one of the very best episodes of Space 1999 has the encounter
a thing called a black sun, and they don't know what it is, and
it's deliberately not a black hole.
It's like a black sun, and it's going to destroy the ship, and the
ship, the base, the moon, and they don't know what to do.
And they eventually decide that thing is to just sit there and let
it go through and they don't know whether they're going to live or
die.
And it is so weird and strange and beautiful because it's
stunningly interestingly directed.
It's full of weird half formed ideas about kind of faith and all
sorts of things and it is a thing that they resolve simply by
doing nothing.
And it's beautiful and strange and haunting.
And it's one of the things that I saw when I was 10 and I've never
ever stopped thinking about it.
And this reminded me of that, except that it has no positive
qualities, very kind.
There is so much you can do with an ensemble crew that is
accepting the inevitability of a potential death, right?
And your chance to sort of say all the things that you never
normally say and then sort of go cough cough in a British sort of
way afterwards when they don't die.
But here, it's just them going, well, you know, if anyone can get
out of this, I'm sure Neelix is the person who can.
You know what it is?
It's Nelix doing that.
But we can't decide what to do now because there's nothing to
this.
Here we go.
It's impossible to tell.
It's talking to me.
She goes.
Oh.
Oh, dear.
And because that's the thing that comes in at the end too.
So you remember?
in Star Trek Discovery season two?
Probably not, where they're finding a thing called control.
Or they come across the sphere.
Do you remember the sphere data?
They come across this thing called the sphere. dumps all of this
data into the ship.
And then they take the sphere data into the future because control
wants it or something.
That's why they go into the future.
And that's what makes the ship sentient.
And but there's giga quads of data and it will take the things
100,000 years old, it will take forever to learn something from
it.
And so this is the thing here.
Like heaps and heaps of data ends up in the ship's data banks.
And it's read all of the ship's data and so what?
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's just like, it's just a Star Trek idea that doesn't mean
anything or have anything do with the episode that has no
implications for anything and that doesn't justify the boring shit
that we've had to sit through for like 42 minutes or like.
I genuinely think in the writer's room, right?
Someone said, right.
Okay, how can we run on the spot for 45 minutes and not spend a
penny apart from having the actors in at the same time?
And they went, well, we won't write that.
Oh, just get him in tomorrow.
We'll think of something.
But, I mean, you know, you said duet is not an expensive episode.
It's 2 actors sitting there talking to each other.
You know, they or disaster.
Like I said, disaster maybe is a bit expensive.
It has some special effects in it, but yeah, see, I quite like the
I do like the pool table there going all wibbly. pretty good.
But, you know, like you could write something if you had any kind
of talent or some ideas or something, but...
Oh, are you afraid, says Harry?
Oh, you know, I choose live, says Tom.
No, there you go.
This is what you want.
Do you know, Tom?
I've been thinking about fucking you for some time.
If we get through this, how about it?
Yeah?
I was so worried about Neelix.
I haven't been abused emotionally for at least half an hour
starting to feel like there's another life ahead of me.
Oh my god.
I mean, look, they all just look so bored.
We haven't seen them this board since the end of course oblivion
when they were sitting around also waiting...
At least isn't as ugly as that.
Yeah.
Oh, that's nice.
I do like the hug.
Yeah, I like the hug too.
And again, I think Bob is the one who comes out of this sort of
least badly off. spare me Chakotay's native American praying now.
Yeah, that's right.
I'm just seeking some spiritual enlightenment.
Torres goes, oh, I could do with some of that.
Can I sit down at this table with you?
Can we touch fingers in a way that would be sexy in any other
context except this?
Actually, resolutions was pretty cheap as well, wasn't it?
just a forest set and that was it.
Janeway and Chakotay.
That was an amazing episode.
They had to chant.
They had to play for the monkey.
There was a wrangler. about a monkey.
She goes, this hot man in front of me.
I was obsessed with this monkey.
Just not breathe.
They're so much funnier.
Speed up.
They're so much funnier in the conventions than they ever are on
screen, you know?
But like why, the dialogue is coming at the rate of like one line
every 15 seconds.
What's happening here?
Actually, do you remember the scene in, oh, what was it called?
You know where they were having the visions?
Torres had the vision of her fucking chakotay in her quarters.
Do you remember?
We watched that one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, no, it was better than this.
Come on.
He just put his hand on Harry's shoulder.
Touch his arse, at least if you're going to die.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And now their heads are getting all warped in a way that's really
just not good to look at.
How do they make Roxanne look that ugly?
Look at her.
Yeah, yeah. they doing?
Like, why, why, yeah.
It's not even gaining momentum.
It's so slow this thing.
No, it's so boring.
It's like oh, well.
You know?
Plus they just strike me as a team that can't fix a space problem
now.
Because they just went, oh, well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's your basic function on this show, all right, is to find a
solution.
Who thinks that that shot was a good idea?
Like, who thinks that shot of them all, just looking distorted, was
a good idea. that anyone would want to see that.
We're okay Nathan.
Yeah.
Oh, the subtitles says J. 42 minutes and 40 seconds.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah. moaning as well.
She goes, oh my god, my hair's in disarray.
Things must have got bad.
I've just been lying here.
That's all right.
I can say words forward now.
She goes, no matter how bad my hair looks.
Look at case.
I mean, come on.
The spatial dishaustion.
What happened?
No, it's just gone.
It's gone.
Yeah, no it just went.
Was it trying to communicate with us?
We don't know.
Nothing that we've done today has meant anything.
I like to think Janeway did her log at the end of the day.
It's a bit of funny old day.
We encountered a wibbly space problem, which we couldn't solve, you
know, it's very strange woman.
Don't you think she looks cross?
She's kind of like, fuck, Tom, can you do something about
anything?
I've been stuck here at the console whilst this wibbly thing's
been going through militia in the bar. 20000000 giga quads of new
information.
That's a long DLC pack.
I don't know.
I don't know what quality is.
I think it's one external memory drive.
Extra That's it.
I think I produce a giga quite of audio information from each
episode of USDP, I record.
Fuck off.
Oh, they wanted to learn about us as well.
That's their way of communicating with us What?
What?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what have we learned?
They were just trying to say hello.
Here comes Nelix with the chabalian fire.
With the cake.
Oh my god.
I only have a bit of my wick candle.
Yeah, yuck.
Ew.
Actually, look at all the nuts around the side as well.
I don't really like nuts on cake.
I think they found out that the worst Robert has a nut allergy and
they're trying to kill him.
Oh, fucking hell.
Look at that.
Oh, I've put your picture in the locket, Neelix, all right?
Because you're close to my heart.
Yeah.
Oh, thank you.
Oh, he said, don't worry.
I won't have to use the hypnol next time then.
And off we go into space again.
Other adventures.
Once next week.
No, you can't say other adventures when there wasn't an adventure
here.
What was the following episode?
What's the next episode?
I don't have a...
Let's have a little look now.
It's going to jump straight to it on the on Amazon Prime.
Okay.
It is the 37s.
No, that's not right.
That's all right.
They've got it out of all of the 37...
Season 10. production order.
What's going on here?
Amazon Prime.
Out of the pool.
All right.
You've got the order role.
But you know, because they've put Twisted as episode four.
But at the start of this, you said it was episode six.
Yeah, yeah.
It's episode six, it's all in some weird wrong order.
Do you think they sort of lulled us into our false sense of
security in season 2 and then hit us with this when we were
relaxed?
It's possible, too, that Amazon Counts Caretaker is one episode
and I cared.
That's possible.
It makes a difference Well, whatever came next, yeah.
At least we could say hopefully it was an adventure, unlike this.
Yes.
That unbelievable.
Just unbelievable.
Now, I mean, I did laugh a lot at the sort of the exposure that
the corridor's got in that and, you know, the lack of chemistry
and development and or anything in that episode.
Well, I kind of felt that I would feel a whole lot better if I
just sat down and watched Shades of Grey and say...
Yes, yes, please.
Yes.
It's nice to watch a Star Trek episode with some substance to it.
Exactly.
All right, it's the end of the episode, and it's time for us to
work out where we're going next.
We are in a happy position here at Untitled Star Trek Project in
that.
It is simply impossible for us to roll an episode duller and less
ambitious than the one that we've watched.
So this is going to be an excellent choice for me.
We have had this gauge before, you know, we've said this before.
It would be impossible to find something worse than this.
We said it about manhunt.
We said it about course oblivion, you know, the floor gets ever
lower, the more we explore this stuff.
I'd be surprised if there was anything worse than twisted, to be
honest.
Well, depends whether you're taking us to Enterprise or not.
Well, no, I did that last time.
I'm not going to do that.
So we are instead going to a beloved series of Kurtzman Trek, and
it is Star Trek, Strange New Worlds.
Oh, my word.
Well, yes, I mean, at worst, it'll be entertaining.
Yeah, it always is.
And of course, even though we're slightly ahead with Star Trek
Stranger Worlds.
We're about sort of 23% of the way through Strangely Worlds and
we're bid over 21% of the way through Star Trek as a whole.
Of course, Stranger World season 4 is on its way very soon.
And so we can afford to take time out to do one of them as a
palate cleanser after this, I think we deserve it.
I've not seen any of series 3.
Do you know, the last thing I saw was all system stable.
No, no, because we...
Oh, hang on.
Did we do the 2 par that goes into series three?
Have I seen the 1st episode?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you've seen the 1st episode?
Okay, sorry.
Yeah, but none of the rest.
Okay, all right.
Well, I'm gonna leave it all open because there are only, you know
30 episodes.
So let's choose one of them at random.
Here goes.
Oh, we've done this one.
It's Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, season one, episode one
Strange New Worlds.
So...
Yes.
Yep, that was our episode 30.
Let's try another one.
All right, this, and I can't remember this, embarrassingly enough
it's season one, episode 4, Memento Mori.
Actually, I can just conjure synopses out of my brain.
So while coming to the aid of a colony in distress, the enterprise
is ambushed by an unknown enemy with superior firepower resulting
in a deadly series of pursuits and tactical engagements.
I've seen this one and I remember it being gone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it is a really good episode.
It's really exciting. a good episode.
We have done 3 corn episodes of Stranger Worlds.
It's our kink and we're proud of it.
It is our kink. are pretty great.
In fact, I think we've done four.
So I think we are gonna move on.
Strangely wells, you need to drop a new gone episode, all right?
Otherwise, we'll be out of Gords.
Exactly.
We've done this ones.
The Serene Squall with Angel, who is absolutely superb.
Um, I'll try for another one.
Oh, this is quite good.
This is season three, episode three.
Shuttle to Ken Fory.
It's Pyka Mabenga, this one.
Travelling off to a forbidden planet to retrieve a possible cure.
Yes, for Patel.
It's really gory.
I like a bit of gory.
Gory one way, the blue man got eaten up.
I mean, I loved it.
I wouldn't mind something a little bit lighter than this.
It's a bit heavy, I think.
Okay.
Is this the one that people weren't too sure about?
There was one in episode season three, which garnered some less
than stellar reviews.
Was it that one?
No, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I liked it.
I did like it, but it was a bit rough going, I think, in places
which is something that Stranger Worlds does, fortunately.
It's not all musicals and kind of...
What a shame you didn't get. choose the next one.
It's called a space adventure hour.
That sounds like it entirely what you need. right now.
That is amazing.
That's all we wanted from you, Twisted, a Space Adventure Hour.
Which is the point, I think.
All right, let's try again.
Season three, episode 5 through the lens of time.
Oh, and away mission takes the enterprise landing party to a
mysterious temple that is rumoured to hold the secret of
immortality, but reveals a dangerous presence instead.
I mean, that does sound like a bog standard Star Trek episode.
I'm sure, but it's a really, a really well done bog standard Star
Trek episode, which ends in a really horrifically upsetting way.
It's so wonderful.
You know, I love a better Star Trek, you know, with a cynical
ending.
Yeah, okay, this is, this is not, this is not...
I keep going until I roll a space adventure hour.
I'm not doing it till I get one of those fox sex comedies, for
God's sake.
That's right.
Well, I think we could do it.
It is an important one in the arc of season three.
And it introduces some things that do come in later.
I think it's really well made and super interesting looking and
visually stunning.
It even has some weird experiments with spatial relationships
between rooms, which you might have thought.
We had enough of after this week, but it does show you how it can
actually be done if you have imagination and money.
I've only got one demand, all right?
Does something happen in it?
Yes.
Well, let's do it.
Let's do it.
The only way is up, baby.
You've been listening to untitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford
and Nathan Bottomley.
We're 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 2nd of June 2026 and released on
the 5th of June.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, through
the lens of time.
Okay.
Well, I would be quite in the mood, actually, for TRAD, but very
well done.
Strangely well, very good.
Oh God, I just rolled 4.5 Vulcans.
Is that one of the Spock X comedies?
No, so it's the one, remember, they did a, they did a, you must
have seen the short that they released at Comic-Con or something a
year before where they, 4 of the characters all get Vulcan DNA
injected into them and they turn into Vulcans and like there's
this spaceship, there's this thing they have to go down, but only
Vulcans can do it.
And so they do this Vulcan DNA thing.
And I think it's like it's Chapel, um, maybe Laan, Chapel, An, Pike
and someone else, and they all get maybe, maybe Aurora.
I can't remember.
And they all get turned into Vulcans, right?
And they all have, you know, pike has just massive hair and like
giant falconers and stuff and they're all super scary and kind of
ridiculous.
And then they, they beam down to the planet and they solve the
space problem in about 30 seconds because they're all Falcons and
they're all super confident and stuff.
And then they all come back and then the, the spray, the
hyperspray doesn't turn them back and so it's kind of stuck as
Falcons.
And of course, it's 4.5 Falcons because there's Spock, who is
nowhere near as good a Vulcan as any of them are.
It also has Patton Oswald in it.
Patton Oswald in it as a Vulcan called Doug, who's his parents
where like being fans of human beings, and so they call their son
Doug, and he's very cool, and it's all just just sort of fun
nonsense and larking about on the ship. but the main characters
are Vulcans and stuff and they end up fighting and all sorts of
things happen.
It's pretty funny.
It's a weird position, isn't it?
There is Strange New Wells and Academy to come because Strange New
Wells was a show that was kind of allowed to be a bit safe and
nostalgic.
But when that's all that's coming out, then you can't highlight it
against the other stuff that's being a bit more ambitious.
Yeah, more inventive like discovery or whatever or prodigy.
And I mean, Starfleet Academy does things that Star Trek has never
done before, but it's sort of come down having kind of been
cancelled in the middle of its run.
So that's all a bit kind of sad and stuff.
Okay, academy and prodigy I feel most sorry for.
They just really didn't.
I mean, they're good, but they don't, they don't get a chance to
have a good run, do they?
Like, yeah.
I mean, there's 40 episodes.
And they clearly, I saw all the social media books around
Academy.
They were having the best time making it. they get 20 episodes, you
know?
Yeah, those kids are adorable. like just really sweet and Gina was
really funny and you know.
Yeah.
There's a great moment in 4.5 Falcons where Pelia says, uh
something about taking LSD, and she said, uh, you know, like I
tried that in the 60s, and then in the 80s, and, and, you know
then last July. had no effect on me.
It is like, for me, that's the guarantee that I'm going to at
least like it because I like all the characters on that show.
If discovery falls on the wrong character, then I could be out, you
know?
But also discovery kind of is more ambitious and so it face plants
a little bit more often and because it's... it works or not.
Whereas, um, like, I think the thing that, that, that it does
that's risky is that it has like more comedy episodes than any
other Star Trek, but I really like that, but other people don't
you know, and people who don't understand how much of a comedy
Deep Space 9 is so often.
Oh, so much.
We're just trying to pay a drama sometimes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that's that's what's good, you know?
You recognise the face of your anime.
We would laugh it all the way through that one.
Although, yeah, the other night shows, they just can't do comedy
can they?
They just can't do it.
It is painful.
Every now and again, they'll hit it. tapestry, something like
that.
They'll hit one where, you know, dejo queue we did, which was
quite funny.
High pursuits maybe. has its moments.
I do remember a lot, like, laughing out loud the 1st time, because
said, Mr. Broccoli.
I just remember, like, Marina turning to other Marina going, zip
it.
Like, just...
But Voyager really, really can't do comedy.
I don't know if it's the writers or if it's the actors or a
mixture of the two.
But it's, you know, but they try and do comedy and...
See, Bride of Chaotica might be the most successful.
Yeah.
I think they got their concept there and you've got Kate who can
deliver that beer.
And it is sort of funny. doesn't properly work.
So, isn't she?
She's good in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Let my spider ships through.
So they can pay homage to you.
It's all in the delivery.
But there is a kind of crappiness to that script, though, I
think.
It's a brilliant idea, and it's just well done, but another
voyage.
Oh, someone to watch over me works.
Oh, does that?
Because it's Jerry and Robert Picardo and the best Robert.
Yeah, and I didn't realise that was a comedy.
And it's charming as well as funny, you know.
The Dr. Trotter trained 7 of 9 to be to go on a date.
It's just a, it's a great prowess.
Yeah. more often than not.
Ugh, hideous.
I mean, imagine them trying to do like an Arman Bashir or
something like that, you know, it would just be terrible.
Yeah.