Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, this is going to be fun.
We are watching a Deep Space and Iron episode.
It's series 6 and you had gone to enormous lengths to get a very serious arc episode happening and you failed miserably and instead we're going to watch series 6, episode 14, one little ship, which aired the week after Far Beyond the Stars aired on Valentine's Day, 1998.
Oh, perfect.
Valentine's watch.
Oh, our love story continues.
Do you know, they was going to call this.
Honey, I shrunk the runabout.
Or at least that was what was on the script.
And then they went, maybe not, though.
We can't do that According to Memory Alpha.
That's what they just kept calling it during the shoot.
They've just done it.
Just go for it, all right?
think so.
David, are you sure we're going to have fun with this?
I mean, come on.
I think we are.
So this is Weddell and Thompson, who are reliably funny Riders on Deep Space 9.
Alan Croker, who is an absolute kind of old hand at this sort of stuff.
I think it's really funny, and I think what it does really well is it manages to incorporate the Jem Hadar and the war and all of that sort of stuff, like it makes the threat appropriate to the point in the arc, which we're in, but it's absolutely not really about that.
And it is just about this sort of fun, high concept that they have a great deal of fun with.
They manage to do some really funny, wonderful.
It's sort of wonderful, fun visuals.
Like, it's just solidly good.
It doesn't reach the glorious sitcom heights of take me out to the hollow suite.
And it is very slide.
It is very simple, but it's just an incredibly enjoyable 45 minutes of TV.
And when we went into the opening credits, I thought, I am so excited about this, this episode is going to be great.
Like, it's just so entertaining and fun and well done.
Slight, simple, and enjoyable.
I mean, you're speaking my language here.
Awesome, exactly, exactly.
I mean, what I was going to say was like, you know, are you sure we're going to have fun because, you know, the arc is what's important.
You know, how dare you take a break for a waste?
We're wasting this time.
Shrink a runabout and have tiny little torpedoes shooting into the chest of Jem'Hadars.
What's happened to the magic of Star Trek?
It's what I said to you before, though, about season six, isn't it?
is that every single episode feeds into the running storyline.
Whether it's a line or a scene or a whole storyline within the episode.
In the next story, on or amongst thieves, the O'Brien one, which we did roll, but we didn't choose.
That looks like it's going to be a sort of bromance story between O'Brien and Nick Tate from Space 9299 and then he goes, oh, we're right, we're off to a clandestine meeting in the bar, and a water shows up, and it's an assassination attempt on the Klingon emperor.
And suddenly it's a massive dominion story.
What I loved in this was how we will get there.
We're already taking the piss out of the premise in the 1st couple of minutes.
I mean, in a very sort of buffy knowing way.
Yeah, yeah.
And then all of a sudden, the fun is interrupted with the Gem'adar.
The war arc just punches its way through this silly episode.
But it doesn't undermine it.
No, it doesn't win.
So in the conflict between the arc, which tries to assert it sort of gravity over this very important episode, we decide nevertheless, we're just going to have an enormous amount of fun.
And there are some creative decisions that they make during the course of the episode where they absolutely steer the thing in that direction.
And so this does the arc in a really good way.
It doesn't let it preclude having fun, light entertaining episodes.
And it, in fact, employs a fairly effective element of the arc, which is the Jem'Hadar, but it doesn't make it a Jem'Hadar episode or a Dominion episode or anything like that, and it manages to be really just fun and funny and wonderful, I think.
There's a subtle way that they write and play the Gemadara in this.
I go back to rocks and shoals where we were doing a serious drama, right?
And so those performances had gravity to them.
Here, it's a little bit more comic book.
It's a little bit more silly.
The tension between the Gemadar is a little bit more ridiculous.
And yeah, you're still watching Deep Space Line.
You're still seeing the Jem Hadar.
They're just tweaking it to the tone of the episode in a really effective way.
I just think this is going to be delightful.
I do too.
So I have one bit of trivia about this because I did go to memory alpha this afternoon again just to get some details and check up on a couple of things.
And of course, memory alpha always lists, you know, it's episode number something out of so many Deep Space 9 episodes and so on.
This episode is episode 504 of all of the Star Trek episodes that have been released.
And as we record, memory alpha says that's a 1000 episodes.
So this is just about the halfway point of Star Trek at this point.
What a way to celebrate.
Shrinking down a runabout and flying about the ship.
Oh, that wow, it's the halfway point to where we are now, yeah?
Just about.
Yeah, yeah.
So this week's episode or last week's episode of Strange New Worlds, which was called the Griffin Incident, which is not at all fun like this.
Very scary.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. very scary and unnerving.
Yeah, so that comes in at the 1000th episode and this is episode 504.
Wowsers.
Well, we've got a way to go.
Yeah, they're a bit weird.
Star Trek project.
We've already done how many?
Oh, you know, maybe a bit over 200, actually.
Of a thousand?
I mean, we've done one fifth of the run so far.
A bit more than a fifth, I think, at this point, but yes.
It's worth just quickly noting as well, and I'll probably forget, like, that's what I'll say it now, is that we've already done, you are quarterly invited and we've already done his way.
Obviously, this is somewhere in the middle of the series and we haven't done the magnificent Ferengi yet, but it's very funny.
I am so pleased it's some of you say it again and again and again.
In the midst of the most arc heavy season, I think this is maybe seven, but 6 and seven.
There's just space to make us laugh and stupid premises like this, you know, of the sort we were absolutely loved in the next generation, you know, turning Keiko Young and things like that.
There's still room for a tiny little runabout in Dig Space 9.
Thank God.
Absolutely.
Well, I think we should go in.
Yeah, let's do that.
Sorry, I shouldn't have said all that.
That was very small of me, wasn't it?
So good.
All right.
Here goes.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we are off.
Ah, they're defiant.
Here we go.
Yeah.
So one of the things about the Defiant is that suddenly everyone basically drops their backstory and just becomes people who work on a starship and I've constantly, there's a lot of Kira kind of knowing how to do things in engineering and stuff, which seems to me to be just here because we're on the Defiant this week.
She's been cluing up on those technical manuals.
She has.
Yeah, just go, come on, now.
You're not saying nearly enough technical bubble in these episodes.
Oh boy.
I mean, this is one of my favourite scenes in the whole episode.
Kira can barely keep it together at this absurd experiment that they're doing.
And I think Kira is the right choice.
And I also think what's great about it is Avery's reaction because he comes out with a big smile as well.
Like, he absolutely, everyone else is being very serious and this is proper. you know, I don't see what's so funny about being small.
And then Kira loses it and then Ben nearly loses it as well.
I love it when Cisco goes.
Major, are you taking a piss out of our scientific experiment and he's got a grid on his face the whole time.
Yeah, yeah, huge green, a huge beautiful green.
That's great.
Oh, no, because well, this is how you do banter, isn't it?
This is how you, I mean, the bit where he's like, oh, yeah, I've got to write a poem for Chad Zia.
Suddenly Nog jumps in when they say, can we hear it, please?
Kira goes, to my imagination.
What if the kid just cover for him?
It's no good, isn't it?
Because I didn't expect her to go that way.
Like all of the banter on Boyd Voyager is so dumb.
Twisted signalled, so bad.
And like when when Nog comes in with his little bit of techno babbler, his little announcement and stuff.
It never occurred to me that he was interrupting Worf deliberately.
You know, I thought, oh, they're going to leave the poem to a reveal later, which of course they do.
But then...
The 2nd knock interrupts him.
He's back to his console focussing very hard.
And these two, like these who are like doing the sort of weird noir-ish did the kid cover for him, you know, and then and then he quotes Casablanca.
Like that, the whole thing is just really fun in life, I think.
Oh, this could be the startup at the start of a beautiful friendship.
Yeah.
Oh, boys.
Okay, right now.
We're sort of shrinking now, aren't we?
Very slowly.
Yes.
So there are some budgetary things here, like all of the blast shields are closed for the time.
So we don't have to put any stars out the windows.
And of course, the defiant sets are a bit like that as well.
Like they're pretty light on windows, generally speaking, aren't they?
And later on, I think part of the reason the blast shields are down is so that when we get the, the, the shutters working again.
We get the reveal of the defiant, a close up, I think.
It reminds me so much.
Do you remember that shot at the end of DS9 when the station just pulls the camera pulls away from the station at the very last shot?
Yeah, yeah. pulls away from the runabout.
It just gets smaller and smaller.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a great shot.
Oh, here we go.
And then this, I think that's fantastic that we cut back to this and the Jem'Hadar attacks already in progress, I think is really good.
Like it's time saving.
We didn't need to see it and it's a big surprise.
And that's what I meant when I said earlier.
By the time we reach the end of the opening credits, I thought, this is going to be fucking great.
This is so exciting.
You know, they're under attack and the Gemadar actually board the ship while this sort of nonsense high concept Star Trek premises happening, you know, over on the other set.
If this Wolf Buffy, I mean, somebody would say, can't we just have one light episode, please, without the jeopardy coming in?
Okay, yeah.
Oh, that Dax is trying to, I mean, oh, do you know what, the spark machine's on overdrive?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, they have that guy's gone.
Was there rocks coming out?
No rocks.
Shame, shame.
Oh, the dry ice is coming in from the ceiling, no.
Yeah, yeah.
I have to say that guy gets thrown to the ground.
No one goes and sees if he's okay.
And then Tom gets right to the ground and then bends straight up to make sure she's okay.
What is that guy?
She's a regular.
That's why no one likes the person they put in that chair at the front, all right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who's on the roster today?
What was that man's name from Voyager?
Do you remember?
No.
Just the wonder if they were trying to make happen.
You know, he was wandering around and twisted.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That guy.
Well, let's just say the twisted, man.
The twisted man's on to like...
Walter Baxter.
Right.
Put him in the front seat and pack it full of rocks.
Blow him up.
Yeah, and knives.
Rocks and knives.
Like the one that took out Rachel Garrett.
Brooks and knives.
That's a serious...
Oh, no, sorry.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
But, you know, I mean, there's a lot happening there, right?
We've got both our silly Star Trek episode and a huge action.
Well, huge.
A reasonable size action set piece.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it's really good.
And so, and so what they introduce here, and they say, oh, you know, I don't know where we, why we never went back to it, but I think it's fairly, fairly clear why I never went back to it, which is the idea that we have the Alpha and the Gamma, Herogen, goodness me.
Jem'Hadar.
And I think that that, I think you identified.
I hadn't really thought about it, but I think that you correctly identified what's going on here, is that it gives them some kind of light banter.
Often when the Jem'Hadar are there.
There is conflict.
Do you know what I mean?
The Jemmed are always interesting because they are always put in interesting situations, but it's usually because of the relationship with the vorta, isn't it?
Um, and you do get a bit of that here with the, with the horrible vorder on the viewscreen who, who they speak to.
And because the voter are dismissive and they're not religious in the way that the Jemhadar are, and they seem dismissive of the Jemhadar and arrogant, and the Jemhadar are loyal and still clever.
Do you know what I mean?
They're not stupid.
So that sets up conflict and that's, you know, a standard thing and that's what happens in rocks and shoals, isn't it?
Like that famously what happens in rocks and trolls.
Here you have conflict between the Jemhadar.
The only way you can engineer that is by having the gammas and the alphas, because there's no vorta here.
So it's another purpose as well, though, doesn't it?
Like, we have to delay the Jemhadar finding out that they're running rings around them for the entire episode.
Otherwise, the climax would be 10 minutes in.
So you put that tension in and they're trying to one up each other all the time.
So they're looking at each other and they're not looking at the people they should be.
And in fact, you notice that what they do with the alphas is they make them less loyal and they make them less religious.
And there's the scene where the alpha gets the white out and they start doing the normal ritual they do, which is so great.
You know, like it's so, and they say, no, let's not do that with the alphas, we don't do that shit.
Do you know what I mean?
And so it is on some level, the same sort of coffee.
Yeah, coffee, yeah, with the water.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you notice who was playing one of the Gemadars in this?
No.
John Fleck.
No, it's the same actor.
Vaughan Armstrong.
Who played Warf Son in You Are Quarterly Invited?
The 2nd he opened his mouth, I was like, that is Alexander from your recording.
Yeah, and it was. yeah.
He's the one who gets the um, the hero shot when the uh, little runabout goes up right in front of his face and he's filling the uh, the viewscreen of it with his face.
Oh, okay, excellent.
Excellent, yeah.
Yeah, here we go.
Look, I have declared victory, all right, whether we've won or not.
Yeah.
And so he's he's kind of been, so we have our our Jem'Hadar with the weird nostrils.
Yeah, see, look, like this Vorder guy is not even looking into the camera.
Do you know what I mean?
Like he just doesn't give a shit.
And it is the usual thing, uh, where, you know, he's rude about the Jem'Hadar.
It's a nice touch, though, because the 2nd he talks to the other one, then he does turn to the camera, like he's looking at somebody else on his own view screw.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like the performance of this guy. mean, I guess Jeffrey Cruz wasn't available.
He's the one that turns up in the next episode in honour amongst these.
So he gets 2 episodes.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, no, no, I think they don't want Jeff.
They don't want there to be just one vorta.
And I think that's why Keyvan is there as well.
And at this point, if they hit on Wayoon 9 and 10 and stuff, Maybe not yet.
They're doing it, they have, because he gets killed in his 1st episode.
But I mean, he's a semi-regular now.
Every time we go to Cardassia. you know, Coombs knows is getting work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wish they'd thrown in a few more women, though, you know, they're so camp and fabulous when the water women turn up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The 1st one we see is a woman, isn't it?
Uh, yes, of course.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then there's the one in the ship and then there's Armond Shimmerman's wife who turns up in tacking into the wind. you remember?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kira does an impression of her and does a really camp voice.
Yeah, that's right.
Go ahead.
She goes.
And so these guys are really kind of violent.
Notice what they do too, which I think is hilarious.
So they put all the bridge officers, all of the people whose names are in the opening credits plus Aaron go into the mess hall and then everyone else gets in, gets to be imprisoned in the cargo bay purely for budgetary reasons.
The rest of the queue are over there.
Yeah, they're over there.
We won't see them.
Well, it does do, though.
And I think it was on this watch that I realised is it's a wonderful episode for showing the crew working together.
Um, the sequence where the runabout's watching and you, and they do her like a voiceover of, oh, I say Noggs doing this.
Kira's doing that.
Wolf's doing this. and they've all decided all of this without actually talking to each other.
It's really smart.
Yeah, yeah.
And the fact that they can tell, like I love when they get their external camera happening and then they can kind of tell. look, Kira's looking after Nog again.
She goes, look, she's trying to say, oh, leave him alone, all right?
Big bully.
Worf's being a bit of a sore head, isn't he?
Like, but obviously it's worried about Jadzia.
He does smile a lot in the 2nd half of the episode, though, right?
It's so weird. smile this much.
Yeah.
He's in love, you know, it happens.
He is in love.
Do you know, Nathan, those tables in the mess hall, they don't look very comfortable at all, do they?
No, it's a very small set, isn't it?
I mean, they've got glass over them, so you're not having to lean on that wire mesh or whatever, but yeah, here we go.
Yeah, again, no windows in the mess hall for budgetary reasons.
Escott is supposed to be like a sub, isn't it, the Defiance?
I do kind of get that.
That makes sense.
Yeah, but also budget.
Yes, exactly.
I love the fact.
The 2nd they go in the turbo lift.
Isn't this the bit where he shoves him against the wall?
Cisco, who goes, whatever you're planning, all right?
I'm watching you.
Well, I love how he's much smarter than, you know, the Alfas, like he knows what's going on and he doesn't prevail because of the hierarchy thing and because he's obedient because he's a German art.
There we go.
Now, I don't think they sell this quite well enough.
And it's because they can't get both the runabout and the defiant in shot at the same time.
Which is a shame because they do, they get that shot right in the next season in changing face of evil.
They do a brilliant one ship in front of another, but they're smaller.
But they're not quite there yet.
No.
Oh, look at Brashir.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he's he's like upside down, looking out the window and he sees something, but we don't see what it is.
And then we pull back and I guess, yes, we do get the sense of the scale, but they needed to be in the same shot.
And what you really needed was like that round thing should have been the 0 in the call registry sign.
Do you think that that's what it was meant to be, but they can't actually show it.
I mean, there's there is a bit there where they're in the shop together, but it pulls away quite quickly to the defiant.
Yeah, they can't quite achieve it.
Like, they're doing it there a bit better in the at the beginning once we come back from the ad break.
But look, yeah, I mean, any shot with that little defiant zooming about the play.
I mean, I just, I was watching this just going, whee.
Everything's so good, isn't it?
It's great when it's on like in the sets.
And that's genius.
You know, it's so rare for like, like this is entirely just a set of visual gags.
This just works because they have an excellent idea for how to do the special effect.
They've learnt how to composite the ships using computer stuff.
You know, they're still doing models, aren't they?
But they're they're using computers to like composite the shots in space.
And so why can't they just do it on the sets?
And so that is so much fun.
Like that is so brilliant.
That ship has to look fluid.
It has to look like it can sort of shoot about really easily and it just does.
It looks fantastic.
That line, are you telling me I'm going to be this bloody tall for the rest of my life?
No, this bloody tool.
So, I mean, is this the line that we were talking about before we recorded?
Yes.
So when the when the proposal to go inside and attract the attention of the crew is proposed to Dax and Dax says, I love it, let's do it.
Which I just think is so great.
No question, no balls.
No one would have said, I love it.
Let's do it on Star Trek the Next Generation.
And having Chadzia do it as well.
And so is she's in command here because you've got O'Brien and and I guess you've got Julian for medical reasons, but again, it is just pretty much, let's put all of the regulars who we can plausibly put on board the Defiant there for like whatever reason, the usual no particular reason.
I wonder if...
Did Brenno Sage?
You know what?
I could sit out this one.
It's a bit of fun.
Just give me a great scene at the end and they do.
And they do.
I love that.
But I just think as well.
We're at a point now where these regulars know when they've got a comedic script, how to tinker their performances.
Yeah. because um, Terry and Colin and Sid are all giving sitcom performances in this, you know?
Yeah, absolutely they are.
But like this Jem'Hadar, the second.
The, the, the gamma, the gamma one.
I think he's really good.
And I think the makeup is so good, particularly on him, more so than on the first. that he's able to be really animated and to give a proper performance as well.
I think he's... a little crack on his face.
Guess what Mark said when he walks in the room.
I mean, it's unusual for him to be this witty, if I'm honest, but he walked past and he went, only a mother could love that face.
Yeah, that's true.
They don't really have mothers though.
Well, they don't really have females. isn't that right?
Yeah, that's a...
The problem.
I know.
I mean, I mean, how do, no, let's not think about it.
Let's not think.
No, they're genetically engineered.
They come out of eggs.
I know, but you've got to know that one or 2 experiment with homosexuality, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Or just sexuality, really.
Yeah.
Oh, no, they're boning all the time, I would guess.
Kem sex, right?
Because they're on wide.
Oh, my word, yeah.
First example of Ken Sex in Star Trek.
And we just made it up while watching this episode.
I just love as well.
Like, I mean, they, like I said, earlier, they do run rings around them.
Cisco's going, yeah, well, it's going to take about 6 hours.
We're going to have to do this.
They don't understand any of the technology, don't they?
So they could, it's like when Scotty gives a terrible quote for how long something it's going to take.
Yeah, yeah.
But, but like what they do do is they say, well, it took us a long time to work out how to use the Jem'Hadar ship, which actually did happen, didn't it?
Like they learn to use the ship.
So is this a model?
Uh, that's CGI, surely.
No, I, because I think at this stage, like I think that, is that, did they build a little set and just composite them together in the computer?
Like, I don't know.
IJ, when I 1st watched this, I remember complaining, right?
Going, oh, it's all we're going to do is go around optronic circuits and things like this.
And then now I'm just going, no, this is fucking Star Trek.
Of course you're going to do that.
If you've got a small ship.
You just go around the ship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, but the fun thing is, and like, I think that they rule out that we're going to interact.
You know what I mean?
They just couldn't, there's no way they could achieve that.
And so that doesn't happen.
Um, but I don't know.
Like, I think that, you know, that thing with the, with the isolinear chips is a tremendous set, like an absolutely...
The naked now, you did us a lot of favourites, all right?
Yeah, yeah.
And I think some of it's a miniature as well.
Like, I think some of it sets and some of it's a miniature, but it is a really fun set and I almost never do the Doctor Who references here, but it's like being in the miniscope.
It's just like that, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it does have a sense of scale.
Because there's a short, a sort of long shot where you see where I think they're matching in bits, you know.
I haven't been able to say it that big, but no, no.
It does look impressive.
I like it, I brought I was going, I could see these things in my sleep.
Why can't I figure this out?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It's like an optronic forest, he goes off, please.
You should be writing poetry.
I love this interaction between the 2nd and Ben in the turbo lift though.
And Ben's just talking to him and they, he is drawing him out.
You know, and it is like it is kind of valuable exposition and stuff, but it's also character stuff.
Well, he realises, doesn't he?
And he shuts him down.
I think I've given you information away.
And what do you believe I believe I should stop talking to you at this point, like or something?
Oh, I love the lineup.
Weve gone past it where he goes, like, get these chairs out of here.
Chairs off the bridge.
I wouldn't want to stand up all day, would you?
No, but they clearly do.
Oh, they're off to the dilithium mines somewhere in Federation space.
I don't know if that's important somewhere in the season, maybe.
Is it a reference to something?
Is it a reference to Devil in the Dark?
Oh, maybe.
Like, you know, that's what I thought, but I love TOS.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ron Moore was always there tinkering with everyone else's scripts trying to put in TOS references.
Oh, here we go now.
So actually, I did learn something here about how the sort of plasma ignites in the in the circuits and you know what I mean?
I was like, okay, I don't really need to know this, but it's quite fun when there's a tiny little ship running away from fire.
It, uh, the car editing system does get mentioned in some TOS episodes and in Enterprise episodes, it is actually a thing.
So...
We should call it that...
It does, doesn't it?
so good.
Isn't it?
Yeah, I like it through the windows as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Once they get the windows open, once they can, you know, decide that they can spend the budget, not that the windows are in shot very often, you know, on this set, um, but, you can have 4 effect shots through the windows.
Choose them carefully, all right?
I love this.
So whenever that stupid little runabout has to do something physical, she goes, well, we're going to do it the old-fashioned way and it just pushes its way out of the field.
Yeah, yeah, just smashing through the hatch.
It's so good.
Julian looks really concerned.
It's got to be, this would be, what's the pilot's name in Strange New World?
It's the sort of thing she's doing.
Oh, you know, she'd be like, let's go.
Oh, now we're in the engine room.
I love the fact that the ship just starts sort of exploring around and then that massive Gemadar face is in the winter.
It's so good.
It's so great.
I, you know, I went through this episode shot by shot, trying to find a, say, you know, like a good shot where the 2 scales are merged.
Do you know what I mean?
And memory alpha picks the shot where the runabout is pressing the door.
Oh, I love that door.
Open the door, which is so good.
It's so great because they've been waiting for people to go through the door so they can just follow them.
Um, and there aren't really quite enough of those shots and it is just for budgetary reasons.
There are a couple of pretty good ones.
But, and, you know, like I said, this so depends on the quality of the special effects work.
I think they save their money for that last action scene.
And I think that was money well spent.
Yeah, because if you want to sell this episode, You got to have that runabout. shooting away at things at the climax.
What reminded me of?
Kira talking about the tedious techno babble.
You remember the isolinear co-processors that Riker's selling the Ferengi's about in, what was the episode where the Frankies took over?
Oh, that was the one where they became kids.
Rascals?
Rascals, yeah.
It's the same thing.
Is it sort of baffling them with terrible technobabble?
I mean, this is rascals.
It's DS9 for Rascals, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And I think Rascals gets extra points for being just absurdly ludicrous, you know, for doing stupid transporter technology stuff.
And for, you know, that's a funny and ridiculous episode two, which, you know, plays with, you know, our regulars and stuff and gets them to be funny.
But it is literally that, isn't it?
The ship gets taken over and it's rescued by people who've been made smaller in a bizarre high concept accident.
It is interesting then when you do the same kind of tone on DS night.
It's a bit more muscular.
There's a bit more action.
It's a different show, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that, I mean, they decide to make the Ferengi, the villains there at the point when the Ferengi are already ridiculous and were sort of a failed attempt. the most absurd idea of many absurd ideas in rascals. that the Ferengi could take over the Enterprise.
I love Rascals so much.
It's one of my favourites.
I think it's brilliant.
And this is good for exactly the same reason, I think.
Yeah, this is the bit. they've got their vantage point in engineering.
Yeah, they're now able to see what everybody's doing and they're telling us because we didn't know until this point what everyone's doing.
No, because we don't have a scene where we don't see the scene where they say, you do this, you do this, you do this.
We get a because even the idea that Nog is trying to break through security protocols so that he can control the bridge, he can control the ship from engineering. none of that's said in dialogue in the big people plot.
It's literally these guys finding it out, which I just think is great because it makes them look really smart.
Um, and it's, and it eliminates the need for a tedious scene where they all stand around saying what they're going to do.
I don't know if we've gone past it.
I think it was in that scene where Bashir, they're all talking tetrapabble and he just goes, well, somebody, please let me into this conversation, which is exactly what I say every time I'm watching boring Star Trek take the medal.
Finally.
Although, Bashir, I thought you were supposed to be a very clever mutant, you know, but we'll let it pass. good line.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is so cute, isn't it?
Sorry, I can't help it.
I can't help it.
I know.
He's sort of weaving in and out the Gematar's legs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great shot.
And then the shot where it's there hovering over the tools.
No, it was hiding behind the box and then it sort of just peeked out and went, hello.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. really huge, isn't it?
It's terrific.
Just so good.
I'm so pleased they went for a ship and not a person.
Not people.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, like, that's a much more Star Trek visual.
Oh, yeah, and easier to achieve.
Do you know what I mean?
Suddenly it is weekend just composite the ships into the into the set rather than into the Starfield backgrounds.
I mean, it's just like a day at my work, you know.
You've got people that are very adept at doing what they're doing.
Someone comes along, says, no, you stop doing that.
I'm going to put someone less competent doing it.
Okay, thanks. everyone's work.
Oh, look, Cisco's getting angry now.
Well, you pass me the cushion every time.
He arbitrarily, you know, gets rid of my crew.
I just love it.
Yeah.
So here again we have another one of these threats and he's going to kill Kira and he's going to kill someone every 15 minutes.
And the scene that they had been going to have in there was they were going to let the 1st kill one of the crew and they were going to do it.
And the way they describe it, like they were going to do it where Cisco says, no, don't worry, it's going to be all right.
And then the, and then the Jem'adar says, no, it really isn't, and then just shoots him dead.
Oh, wow.
And then, and they decide, and I think they're right to do that, that that doesn't fit the tone here at all.
Oh, I don't want these gembodols to be competent.
I want them to. tie them up in knots.
And in fact, it is funny, isn't it, that the gammas, the exciting new gammas who that horrible vorta is so, you know, thrilled by are the are the useless ones, you know?
She was talking to us there, Nathan.
Did you say Dax went, if you like that, you better wait till you see what's coming up next.
Q bad break.
Okay, you're getting a bit too knowing now, Thompson and Weddell.
I love all the nog love as well.
Brian went, nogs a smart kid, but even he couldn't do it from engineering.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
He does think he does it when they, when the people on the ride about finally do it, he thinks he's managed. goes, yes.
No, sorry, dog, no.
Oh my god, I'll destroy the ship.
Oh, no, we can't destroy the ship in this city episode.
Come on now.
No.
Keep trying, Nog.
Keep trying.
You've got this.
All right.
You know, Kira, right?
I mean, she doesn't enjoy working.
Remember when she was working on that Kardashian in rocks and shovels?
Now she's working with this Gemadar.
She can get on with it.
But I mean, these, like how, you know, she somehow is now an engineer for the purposes of this episode.
Like she's literally needed.
What is she?
She's a like a civil servant, really, and a former terrorist, but somehow she's um, she's an engineer.
You needed to be Dax, really, don't you?
All right, but you can't take Dax out of the runabout.
You need that sort of high flyer that's willing to go, come on, let's do it.
And that's that as much as I love Kira.
Ain't Kira, right?
She became her, yeah.
Should we?
And I mean, that is part of the premise of the defiant.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, oh, suddenly we're not in ops, just literally everyone in the in the main cast is going to be on this ship this week for no particular reason, you know?
Oh, no, no one wanted to.
Oh, look.
The right about behind that Jebadal's head.
Every time he turns round, they sort of vanished behind him.
It's just a bit where they fly through the door.
No, that's Leia.
I love that bit.
The door sort of opens and just as it's shut in, they go, woo, straight through.
And so is it this, the gem Hadah, that the 1st is sort of...
Alexander Bear.
That's the guy who plays Alexander in you accordly invited. look at this.
Arrogance.
You know, we're much better than them.
Your initiative pleases me.
But they're the ones who are fucking up.
Well, like, it works here, the alpha and the cameras.
I just can't think of another point in the rest of the run where it works.
Yeah, and it's too much.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, I think it's just too many elements, you know, in the Dominion.
We're going to add the brain later.
I mean, like how many different factions do it aid?
God damn it.
I thought that was a bit where it zips through the door.
No, but having it upside down and then having us go inside the set and the set, stuff like that, like the camera's upside down is pretty awesome.
That's really good.
So stupid, isn't it?
So just acting like it's a normal scene, but the whole thing is upside down.
Oh, boy, boy.
I like the fact there's need to do it.
There's a ticking clock now as well, isn't it?
We've got 15 minutes or someone's going to die.
That's the point where we're going to blow up the ship.
So now they've got to get to the bridge and release those controls.
Well, and also, if they don't prevent the Jem'dar from going to warps.
Somehow, Worf, who is a computer programmer now, has some, has introduced a computer virus into the thing to make it explode at warp time.
Don't hit it too hard.
You'll shatter the control panel.
Just try to gently touch the control panel to the door with the nose of the runabout.
But isn't that thing where, um, she says that I've got a very light touch and and, um, and Julian says that's not what Worf says?
Oh, yeah.
That's so naughty, that line.
They love mocking Dax and Walt's sex life, don't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a great source of news of it.
I like some DS9 crew.
Oh, no, so now the running out's sort of hiding underneath Cisco's chair.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, not the chair of a panel because the chair's been taken away from her.
I can think of a 1000 ways that a one centimetre man can get fried inside a circuit housing.
Well, sorry, mate, you're going in anyway.
Yeah.
Oh, that's right.
They have to sort of, they they do a bit of science, don't they, around oxygen and the size of the molecules.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So when they're shrinking, Nogs says that the space within their, you know, atoms is shrinking as well.
Like their subatomic structure is shrinking as well.
And so their atoms are smaller than normal atoms.
And so they can't breathe the air. 20 minutes.
That's how long we've got, 20 minutes if we put a little bubble in.
And of course, you know, when they're there, it takes longer than 20 minutes, the air's running out.
They're trying very hard to put that cheap bit of wire and the housing.
So I think this is a little bit of a shame.
And it is that we cut away from the warp, the, not the warp, the transporter effect.
That's a beautiful shot.
And I think it's mostly miniatures, yeah.
But, and then they get beamed in and then we cut away from the transporter effect before the 2 actors are there.
And I thought that was, do you know what I mean?
Again, it's just like we can't quite do what we would like to do.
I do like the fact that they get the scale of it right, though.
You know, when you 1st see it, it looks vast.
There's lots of chips in there.
It looks beautiful too.
It looks just like the chips from the naked now. wonderful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just terrific.
With the same type typography.
Julian's about to sit on something that's gonna fry him.
Oh, well, I love the fact as well.
You know the actual wire?
Because you see those wires all the time in DSI.
They sort of pull out these fibre optics.
That's what those wires are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. how cheap they look for.
No, don't they?
It looks like someone you'd say or blank 7 for fuck's sake.
Something that you use to illuminate your share house with, you know, like when you're a student or something.
I just think Sid's really selling it as well.
He's like, my God, look how high it is, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, great.
Oh, here we go.
We're doing the white scene.
Yeah, so this is the scene that I said earlier where you get the sense that the um, the alphas are less religious than the gammas.
And I mean, it's sort of there in the name, isn't it?
Alphas.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think they should have been made to look a little bit different.
Maybe.
Even if it was just in the costume or something.
Well, or, you know, like lighten some of the scales.
Do you know what I mean?
Like give it a pattern, some kind of pattern on the face that made it that made it look different without changing the latex or whatever.
You know, like just something that distinguished them.
Because, I mean, they are confusingly similar looking, just sort of generally.
But I think if you've got 2 factions, we need to be able to see that more clearly, I think.
I want to be kind about Alexander Sidig again, right?
Because I really think that since DS9 started, he has properly learned to hone his acting craft, right?
It's somewhere in series 2 where he tones it all down and just starts focussing on the text instead of doing that Hugh Grant thing, don't you do so spectacularly well.
But there's a line reading he gives in a minute where he's trying to get a Brian to remember what the circuit time premise and he just goes, shut your eyes, focus on your memory.
And it's just beautifully active.
I'm like, you don't need to be this good in this scene.
No, it's really funny, isn't it?
Like, I don't quite know what this scene is doing.
I mean, it is kind of eating up running time a bit.
Like, I guess they have to find the right thing. giant isolidia rolls.
That's it.
So it's there for, again, because it is kind of visually impressive and interesting, which is not normally a high priority on these shows in the 90s.
But it does look great and it does play with some law, some well established law.
I mean, even just like the big printing on that chunk thing, the 4 thing.
The big numbers and stuff, but using the same font that they use, you know.
It's right, with these things in Star Trek.
They had, you know, this and Voyager going on at the same time.
So they would reuse props all the time.
What the fuck are you going to reuse those huge isolinear chips for?
How are you going to repurpose those for another show?
It's so good.
It's really great.
It is really rare that you get a set that isn't visibly assembled out of other bits and pieces that they've had lying around.
Where did they end up, Nathan?
Please.
Oh, did they end up on eBay somewhere?
Giant isolineal chips?
I'll get you one.
I don't think they were quite so giant.
The really giant ones that we saw in that opening shot must have been a model I think.
Well, don't spoil it for me now.
Well, you know, I like to think that someone's got one in their garden, you know, with a wind break or something.
Your other half would buy one.
Don't you worry, all right?
2 of that, you assembled in that house.
Oh, dude, that's it. they're all being clandestine now.
Nog, how's he doing?
And then he looks at Noggs and Noggs just goes, and he goes, yeah, it ain't going well, I'm afraid.
But that's what they're doing, isn't it?
They're fixing that. so that nog is able to bypass so that we can connect.
Do you know what I mean?
Like they're getting in there and bypassing whatever security thing makes it impossible for Nog to control to, you know, to control the ship.
Crystal clear, isn't it?
Like, sometimes I can be lost in an episode that has this much technobabble.
But I know exactly what they're trying to do and how they're trying to do it.
Well, because I'm in the fucking circuit right now watching them do it.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, God, that looks so cheap.
I love it.
You and me.
I have a high aptitude for cheap tap when it comes to television.
It's fun.
It just looks so fun.
Like, it just looks so brilliant.
What's so funny is, right?
Crow Echo is usually really sharp on the editing.
Bashir walks away, and obviously the thing has to fall out, but it doesn't quite fall out all the way, and they decide not to go for another take.
I think he grabs it or something. falls down.
Sid's like, really?
I've got to wrestle with that prop again.
Okay.
Turn it round.
It's supposed to turn round.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well done.
And then he seals it with a phaser.
Yeah, yeah, that's really clever.
I thought that was pretty good.
Oh, look at the shit.
Yeah.
Well, they're running out of oxygen.
Yeah, that's fair.
He's leaning against the thing, but he looks quite camped, doesn't he?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, again, he's doing comedy acting, I think.
If this is going to be my dying pose.
It's gonna be a good one.
It's gonna be dramatic.
Yes, right.
This is your bit, not thinks he's done it.
Oh, I'm good.
And then, of course, this is the exact point. the exact point where the Gemma Darko, right?
We're going to start murdering people now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know how, but I released the command codes.
Oh, and then we needed a version.
I wonder what the diversion is going to be.
It's the best.
It is just the best.
It comes in and the trumpet goes...
It's like...
Okay, at this point, all sanity has left the building.
It's got a fucking fanfare when it comes in the room.
Awesome.
So much fun.
Just terrific.
Oh, and then I just think, like, I was really on board with all of this, but then when it starts firing bloody torpedoes, that's when I was like, I love this.
So good.
I mean, who sat there and went, we've got to do that?
Come on, we've got a...
Well, I mean, because we have dialogue, I think, saying that the phases aren't working, and I don't think that we've ever seen runabouts firing torpedoes.
I can't remember, but memory alpha, I think, may have said that.
And so, and so they've just said, nope, the visual of it, firing, like, tiny torpedoes.
That's full-sized shamatar is going to be glorious and it is.
It great.
It just looks...
Just the noise.
It goes...
Doesn't it?
like cute little torpedo noises. funny.
Okay, come on, come on now.
Stop talking.
I want get to the ship coming in.
And the scariest thing of all.
An enormous blow up of wolf's face in the windows.
Do you remember?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's so cute where they're waving at each other through the window.
That's really good Yeah, yeah.
And the only time they interact, like those 2 different plots are operating on different levels and they, yeah, that one there.
Oh, here we go.
Here we go.
Oh my god.
I mean, the pyrotechnics as well. wash.
I mean, there's explosions going off everywhere.
There we go.
Sorry, this is a terrible commentary now.
I'm so sorry.
They're just saying pew pew noises.
Hurrail, get in.
Oh, bloody hell, look, here.
Does someone get their neck snapped?
Oh, yes, Wolf.
What?
Yeah.
No, bless him trying to have a go with a gem at all.
Yeah.
Bless him.
That's it.
Cisco's trying to, what's he doing?
Oh, he's trying to take control.
This guy started to get on my nerves, says Dax.
Then, yeah, then watch.
Off the gantry.
So great.
It's so much work.
Oh, it's just absurd, isn't it?
I love it.
And at the same time, there's some great action going on.
Look at Cisco beating the shit out of that, Gemma doll.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I mean, this is what we used to with the gem Hadai.
You know, like AR 558 and rocks and shoals and all of that sort of thing, like fighting the Jem Hadar.
But this is a really fun fight.
You know, uh, poor old 2nd is, um, gonna die.
Is he your blood on his chest?
He does, doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah.
I see a lot of blood in Star Trek.
He doesn't quite get his dying line out though, does he?
No, he doesn't.
Victory is and he's dead.
That's right.
It was a silly character.
He had to die on a silly line.
Word, no, but I think he's the best German art character in this episode.
I think he's probably good.
Look at Norc with the gun.
I mean that's pretty silly.
Where we go. goes, Mr. Worf, I believe your wife is here.
And then she comes.
Whee!
Isn't it so lovely?
the thing.
So happy.
He's probably thinking, shit, how are we going to have our sex talk when she's that tiny?
What are we going to do?
Oh, here we go back to the station for some gags at the end.
And the, you know, they've been restored to normal, normal size with their usual skill.
We wouldn't have had any other line, would we?
Yeah, that's right.
Well, of course, we're still going to get a gag out of that, though.
Are they at their normal size?
Let's find out I kind of hope that they aren't.
In my head, they are actually a little bit shorter and couldn't do anything about it.
But the way that they emphasise it is something that I thought was really good.
I think this scene is adorable.
And I do like Worf saying, I do not wish to be ridiculed about the poem.
And then he reads out the 1st line and it's clearly just ridiculously shit.
And then he looks to her for approval and she doesn't quite know what to say.
It's, uh, hmm.
Her face is like, that's even worse than I thought it was going to be.
That's right.
And then he's he's he's making fun of her.
Like, he puts her in that awkward position deliberately.
They are so in love at this point. isn't it wonderful?
But to get Warf to be the guy who does the joke instead of being the butt of the joke.
And no, the thing here, the thing in this scene, so this is just absolutely tremendous.
So they're trying to be sort of really manly man and hit on this sort of woman here and talk about their exploits and stuff.
And so naturally, Odo comes up and undermines them by saying, are you sure you've returned to your office?
official joke, Nathan, of her leaning against the farm.
And then she stands up.
She's a fucking behemon.
My over them.
It's so funny.
And then such a good choice.
He's like, I didn't have a nose.
You are a bit on the petite side, you know.
Taking the piss out of them together.
It's wonderful.
No, and the last line is the zinger.
And they say you didn't have a sense of humour.
But also, I just think Odo's laughing, it is so much fun as well.
Like he just says he does.
Yeah, it's great.
Just those 2 together, a proper smile from Renee, it's wonderful.
Why God, every episode of Star Trek ended this fashion.
So good.
Just heaven.
I mean, do you know what?
There's um, there's a few moments, you're right, where it's cheap, but I just think the last, maybe 10 minutes of that is just sublime.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think, you know, like what you said before about them, I mean, they always have to use their money judiciously and sometimes they have a money saving episode, which always blows out and never works properly to save them actual money.
But here, like I do think that they choose to save all of the money for those effect shots because that's what the episode lives or dies on, is the interaction between the 2 scales, and it's clear that it's limited what they can get it to do.
But what they can get it to is really fun and funny, and like having the one stalking the Jem'Hadar, and having it fly between the legs of the other Jem'Hadar, and then shooting the door control.
Yeah, wonderful.
I mean, just terrific stuff.
So good.
I mean, I always suspect it because there is like a lovely, gentle wit lights through this episode and because the actors are playing it more sitcom than usual, that the production team knew, right, what they were doing with this episode.
Like, it has to be light.
It has to be gentle, even though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You telling me that they took out the scene where the Gem'dar murders somebody just proves they know it.
Yeah, that's that's so jarring in the middle of this.
Yeah, well, I think it's that, you know, like people think that if Star Trek's ridiculous, it's failed.
Like it's done something wrong and it's it's tripped and fallen on its face into being ridiculous.
And we've said before that Ridiculous isn't the failure mode.
It's frequently gunning for ridiculous.
And here, with Kira reacting at the way that she does in that opening scene, you know, everyone involved knows that this is silly, and so we're going to have fun.
Like we're going to have fun.
I mean, the line we didn't say it, so let's say it now.
Just because we're shrinking 3 people to the size of coffee cups.
Coffee cups is so good.
Because it's not even true.
They're shrinking them smaller.
They do know their audience, though, and they do know that people think that Star Trek is a failure.
If it is silly.
So what you're getting here is what you also want, which is a bit of Dominion War, a bit of action at the end.
You're getting loads of techla babble and you're getting a problem for the whole crew to solve.
So it's ticking all the Star Trek box whilst it's being absolutely ridiculous.
But it's not doing what we do in other contexts with the Jem'Hadar, whether Jem'Hadar are kind of noble and serious and they're being kind of screwed over both by the founders and the vorta.
And they have a kind of nobility and and we respect them and stuff like that.
This is a much more, as you said before, a much more cartoony, a much more action movie version of the Jamhadar, which works tremendously well for this episode.
When DF Noid does what I call TNG style episodes, and in the latter years, it's quite rare, it goes one or 2 ways, you either get, move along home, stroke, Meridian, and go, oh, boy, thank God they stuck to the politicking later on, or you get stuff like civil defence, which could be a TNG episode, or children of time, which is an amazing character story, but it's absolutely a TNG style premise, even on the colony set and everything.
This, I'm very pleased to say, is absolutely the latter of those two.
It is something they probably could have done on TNG with a few tweaks, but it's got the sort of DS9 magic to it.
Yeah, yeah.
It is very, very similar to rascals in the premise and in the tone and it's just a few years long and they're a bit more assured and they're a bit better at comedy on this show than they were on TNG.
And I think the Jemadara, pretty great adversaries. actually.
I think they're a bit underrated.
And they work really well in this sort of context too.
Well, I suppose we should go and choose something a lot more serious and dull than this then.
Let's do that.
Alright, it's the end of the episode, and it's time for us to work out where we're going next.
This was your choice, Joe, and I have decided not to do what we just said we were going to do and watch something boring and serious.
I think Star Trek does comedy so well that we are going to treat ourselves to an episode of Star Trek Lower Decks.
Oh, well, I mean, we know we're going to laugh at that.
Come on now.
I mean, you know, I went for something serious and we got a great comedy to watch.
It was serendipitous, wouldn't you say, this week?
Yes.
I don't think I think we can get sort of a bit serious with Star Trek Lower Decks, but it will definitely be funny.
There's always a gag in there that makes me howl in every episode, right?
So good.
I love it so much.
All right.
So I'm going to press the button.
I'm you know, selecting all the seasons.
So let's see where we go.
So your random Star Trek Lower Decks episode is season one, episode 8, Veritas.
So it's pretty early.
And I think it's one where they find themselves, they're sort of strung up and they're being interrogated in a room that looks like the courtroom from Star Trek 6.
But it's not by the Klingons.
And I think there's sort of various flashbacks and stuff about what they have been going through.
And there's kind of a bit of a thing about, how they never really properly know what's going on because they're lower deckers because it's still sort of quite early and they're still playing with the premise.
It's pretty good, and I have watched it a bunch of times, but I want to roll again, I think, shall we?
I think we could get something about.
Yeah, go on.
Okay.
Your random Star Trek Lower Decks episode is season four, episode four, something borrowed, something green.
Tandy returns to Orion for her sister's wedding.
Okay, already it starts like gold, only to discover the bride to be has gone missing.
Oh, is it a great wedding comedy?
Yeah, I can't remember.
Actually, I think it's an action thing because there's a whole kind of, you know, like Tandy thing around the turn of the season at one point.
Remember, she has to resign from Starfleet and stuff like that and Rutherford's missing her.
I can't remember exactly where that is.
I am going to roll again.
I love Tandy maybe more than any other character on the show.
She's a science nerd, but she also has that kind of level of just sort of edge of mania about the way that the lines are delivered.
I just think she's tremendous.
Nathan, I'm just looking at these tiles are on the website here.
The inner fight.
I mean, what...
Listen to this.
A farewell to farms.
Instead of a quarter.
The best exotic Nanite hotel.
Listen to this.
What a fucking nerve.
Shades of green.
That's great.
Oh, I love this stupid show.
It's so good.
Come on in. looks like you get one of those.
Okay.
Oh, where pleasant fountains lie.
I actually really like this one.
I should like this.
No way.
Where's that?
So it's season two, episode seven.
Uh, Chief Engineers Billup's mother.
Oh, God, I love the chief engineer. who has long tried to get her son to return home and oh, no, we've got to do this one.
If this is the one where, yeah, it is.
So, so the mother has to, Billips, if Billips ever has sex, he has to take his rightful place. has the captain.
And so the mother keeps tricking him into trying to have sex. because she doesn't approve of him being an engineer.
Poor camp engineer who's trying to avoid having it off, left right.
That's right And she sends a hot guy and a hot girl to his room.
And isn't there a great subplot in this one as well?
they're on a planet.
Well, there's a, because um, the planet that he comes from, it's like a Renaissance fair planet where it's all elves and dragons and stuff.
And so she has a sort of, you know, sort of preposterously kind of mediaeval looking spaceship and things. it's mostly about her.
I think it'd be really fun.
I think we should do it.
Oh, no.
I remember that being a standout of that, yeah, in terms of just giving me a belly laughs.
And, you know, we've been laughing this week.
Let's laugh next week as well. absolutely.
Let's do it.
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 Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 4th of August 2026 and released on the 7th of August.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek Lower Decks, where Pleasant Fountains lie.
Yeah, just absurd.
I love it.
So good.
So much fun.
So good.
Oh, I love stupid.
So it's Renee at Chavaria, apparently.
It was his idea and he'd been pitching it ever since, uh, ever since Star Trek the Next Generation and he tried to get them to do it on Voyager, he tried to get Jerry Taylor to do it.
He tried to get like, like, he'd get going, just go about it.
Oh, come on.
We're not doing a shrinking the sheep thing.
That's stupid And then we do it anyway.
Didn't you know we're doing serious stuff?
We're making Tom Paris a lizard this week.
This is proper science fiction.
Absolutely how DNA works, you know.
Yeah, that's it.
God.
You know, weird Star Trek science.
I mean, it can be truly dismal, can't it?
That's my Star Trek science.
Where they're...
They're not only explaining everything to me, Nathan.
They're also showing me inside the circuits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's so good.
Yeah, I just think that, because I would have loved the scene.
Like for the screen gram for the for the website.
I would have loved the scene with Julian and Miles standing amidst, you know, in that model shot, but they don't really appear.
We cut away.
I'm gonna find out now.
I'm just going to Google.
What?
Happened to.
The giant...
I bet you, I bet you.
How do you spell isolinear?
Linny uh.
I-S-O. Yeah, linear.
So, we were talking about how much we've done of Star Trek, Ryan.
And the, our, um, like the randomiser has 966 episodes of Star Trek because some of the 2 partters are listed as one.
And in fact, on the front page of memory, Alpha, at the moment, they're kind of going, how did you get a thousand?
You know, like I say, you know, like, um, we've done, so we've done 209 episodes, even though this is episode 195, I think, of untitled Star Trek project, because we've done 2 partters as well.
So we've done 209.
So we are currently at 21.64%.
21.5.
I mean, that's a lot, right?
That is a lot.
I don't know, because it's a tag, but honestly, be grateful people, all right?
We're working away through this journey now.
Oh, I can't actually see that it's ever been auctioned.
Do you know how they auctioned off loads of the sets?
I'm going to look at the end of memory alpha because that's where it usually says they auctioned off the scripts and things like that.
I'm sorry, but the people will want to know what's happening. giant isolinear rods.
Uh, hang on.
Go on, in it.
And they don't scrimp on the detail in memory, Alpha, do they?
No.
But I'm grateful for that.
I love those people Nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding special visual effects.
Yeah.
You see, I think it is pretty impressive even like at the time, that is a new thing that the ships can do, like having the ships flying around inside another ship.
You couldn't have achieved that in Star Trek, the next generation.
No, this, yeah.
Nothing auctioned from this episode.
I guess they just jumped them.
Oh, sad.
Sorry, you're not gonna have to have another hideous windbreak in your garden instead for Christmas.
Yeah.