Gambit, Part I
Gambit, Part II
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Series 7, Episodes 4–5
Stardate: 47135.2
First broadcast on Monday 11 October 1993 and Monday 18 October 1993
Episode 205: Gambit, Part I / Gambit, Part II
Recorded on Tuesday 27 October 2026 · Download Episode 205: Gambit, Part I / Gambit, Part II (114.9 MB)
Transcript
Hey, Joe. Hi.
So we're back, and it's Star Trek the Next Generation, and it is an ill-advised late series 2 parter from early season seven.
It's Gambit, part one and Gambit part two, which is season seven, episodes 4 and five, and they screened on the 11th and the 18th of October, 1993.
Joe, do you know what Star Trek episode screened in between those two?
Was it emissary by any chance?
No, it's later.
Not move along home.
No, no, no.
It is early season two.
In fact, it is invasive procedures that the day before part two.
Oh, John Glover. you remember that?
John Glover is the trail that's going on.
Oh, why couldn't we watch that instead?
Sorry, powder dry. powder dry.
It's actually quite interesting because this does share some themes or some ideas at least with the three-part story that preceded invasive procedure.
So that the, I think, what's the last of those called?
The siege.
Yeah, so the siege airs, I think, the day before Gambit Part one airs.
And so there's some something in the air, I think.
And there are certainly DS9 elements or elements that were established on DS9 that appear in episode one and it goes off in a sort of strange direction in a way that Star Trek, the next generation, doesn't really often do.
So I gather that this was not your favourite Star Trek, the next generation episode that we've ever done.
The trouble is, I didn't remember a thing about this 2 parser going in.
And I know I've seen it a couple of times.
I've done the Next Generation Run a couple of times and I promise you, I will not remember a thing about this in about a month's time.
I don't think it's ill advised.
Like when we talked about rise.
I don't think the instinct to tell, you know, space pirates and Captain Picard joins the space pirate gang and goes around firing at the enterprise and they're going after some great artefact that's going to make them all rich.
And I don't think any of that's a bad idea.
I just think it's a bad idea for this show that cannot let its hair down and attack that premise with all the camp and rompiness that it needs.
And the quotes are all there on memory alpha.
Jerry Taylor, a bit embarrassed that they're having to do this.
Branen Bragger saying, I just didn't think this was good from the offset and I didn't really want us to do this at all.
Ron Moore, whose scripts the 2nd episode going, I was sort of making this up.
I was hoping it was going to lead somewhere and actually I don't think it did.
So none of the creatives are sort of on board and given this the sort of thrust that it needs to be like a great episode of Firefly or something like that, you know, cowboys in space.
It's the sort of thing that Doctor Who could probably do extremely well because Doctor Who has a sense of humour on a regular basis.
But TNG doesn't.
And you've told me that there are jokes in this thing, so I can't wait for you to point them out because at no point did I raise a smile, except the very last scene where there is such an obvious joke that I was like, well, they've just gone with that and hallelujah.
I'm smiling.
Yeah, I did think that that the crap joke at the end of part 2 is actually pretty fun.
It's quite funny, yeah.
It's Riker's reaction, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How are you doing?
It's Brent.
I think the way Brent plays it is so perfect.
And you think Brent, I think Brent in particular has served really well here.
And I think I think that Patrick Stewart is having fun.
This is the sort of thing that he asked for when he 1st got Captain's holiday.
He wanted the chance to be a bit more swashbuckling and to do something a little bit different.
There's elements of the chase in this and it even gets kind of explicitly referenced.
And so the people who are wrong.
And I think it's Braga, like the quote there from Braga saying, I thought from the offset. we should never have done this, that's madness.
Obviously they should have done it.
And Berman thought they should do it.
So there had been an edict from Roddenbury, that there were no space pirates in the future, and we weren't to do space pirates, and that's absolutely wrong-headed.
Space pirates are great.
They're really, really fun.
They work really well in Star Trek.
We seen it over and over again.
We did the Serene Squall, which is really terrific.
Shades of Green.
Section.
I do know.
I'm happy to do sex comedies, which is the campus thing you've ever seen.
Harry Mudd.
You know, like, it's very strange, but he doesn't want there to be space pirates.
Did you actually see the story about Berman, that he puts the, uh, the banana around the bust of Gene Roddenbury every time they did an episode just so he couldn't see what they were actually doing.
Yeah, yeah.
And so I actually think it's a brilliant idea, and the problem is that they can't pull it off, and I think it is because they're really half-hearted about it.
And you see, because again, this weird thing with 2 partters in this era where it's a different director and a different writer for the 2 parts.
And the 1st part has some action in it, but is basically pretty kind of ordinary looking.
So, you wait till we talk about that action sequence on location.
I mean, you can see everyone hitting their marks in that same terrible.
So that's Peter Lawrenson.
And then you get Alexander Singer directing the 2nd power.
Who is a better director?
It's substantially better.
And I think, you know, Naran Shanka, it's his story.
It's developed with someone else, he gets the story credit for part 2 and shares the story credit for part one and he writes the teleplay for part one.
But then Ronald D. Moore comes in and absolutely punches the thing up.
So it is better in part two.
You think?
I mean, I was more bored in part 2 than I was in part one.
I think that what we identify in part two, which is sort of present in part one is the idea that this is in some way about what command is like.
And so those sort of weird scenes, there are weird scenes in part one where you kind of wonder what was this for?
Like there's an early scene between Riker and Troy, which doesn't come off.
It's really not very good.
Oh, Marina.
Yeah, yeah.
And Marina hasn't kind of worked out how to do this.
Like, I don't think it's a bad idea, but it doesn't come off, but all of that is about what it's like to command and to be in command of a ship, and you have that, and then you have Baran on board the pirate ship, who is also in command, but he has a space method of being a commander, using the neural servo relays and stuff and torturing his, you know, like running the ship in a dictatorial and punitive way. compared to the collaborative way that things work on the enterprise.
Now, it's all very underdeveloped and stuff like that, but more latches onto both of those things.
And so he gives, he gives data a fairly good role to play.
And the other thing that he does too, well, both of them, I think, both halves do interpersonal conflict between the crew in a way that would have been previously forbidden, and it is, of course, warpapered overall very quickly and in a very pat way compared to the conflict that we have on board Baran's ship.
I just don't buy it.
I don't buy the conflict.
There's 2 scenes. which I do want to point out as we go through.
One is the one between Riker and Troy, and it doesn't come off at all.
I just don't buy the offer they're having.
It's overall, but it's also unconvincing and we kind of know we're not losing Picard in this way. and they're really trying to sell it.
And then it sort of dropped after 5 minutes of the episode where, you know, we're leading up to Picard coming back into the story again.
And then the scene between data and wharf in the 2nd episode, I was even less convinced by that scene.
And I like the fact that it was a bit more genial, that scene, and war apologised.
But I was just like, all the stuff on the bridge where they were sort of bitching at each other.
I'm going, this just isn't this crew.
This isn't what they do.
And I think the writers acknowledge.
I've seen Ronald D. Moore again.
We just can't convincingly do interpersonal conflict with these people because they're so nice and they get on all they're like.
That's why DS9 was created, right?
It was literally a reaction to the things that they couldn't do in the next generation.
I don't buy that Picard's dead, but they want me to believe that for a heartbeat.
They do want me to believe that for at least 10 minutes.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
I don't buy that there would be that bitchiness on the bit.
I don't buy the space pirates because they're just not fun.
They're not violent enough.
They're not silly enough.
And I just don't think they're greedy enough.
You know, our pirates always try to murder each other and get the highest reward.
There's none of that going on.
They're just standing around on a bridge going, oh, well, I think we should go to this sector.
I think we should find this.
Oh please.
And then, finally, I don't buy at all this great artefact that they're going after, this Romulan device, a Vulcan device.
Sorry.
How racist.
This Vulcan device, which turns people's aggression on themselves.
And I'm like, wow, we've gone through the last 90 minutes for this.
And then it winds up being in stockcave set number 52.
Wow, number one.
Under lit with wharf.
Of all people, Wharf having this device used on him who has no aggression and it just sort of go.
So at no point in this episode, all the beats, it's trying to convince me.
I'm never convinced.
And then on top of that, you do have some half-hearted performances and we will talk about that, especially amongst the pirates.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I mean, unbelievably, one of my favourite moments in this 2 part is a Gates McFadden moment.
And I will point that out.
Yeah, it's the bit where she goes in the shuttle in episode two.
It goes, it's so, ooh, no, there doesn't seem to be anything happening in here.
Don't worry.
She seems to be the only one having any fun.
Yeah, she's got the tone more than anybody else.
And then you add on top of that some really limp action and some very stagey direction.
I mean, I'll send you a picture of some blocking of one scene on the bridge where it's a long shot, and all the pirates are in it, and then Picard walks into the scene, just so he can be seen amongfies that spot.
The other pirates.
But the only spot he could possibly stand in, like you can see him looking for that mark.
And I'm like, oh, bit, we don't make TV like we used to do.
Christ.
But I actually think there's there's something in the air in season 7 of the next generation, which wasn't there in 3 to 6.
And that is, we're kind of killing the time now.
The movies are coming and it's there in the scripts and it's a bit there in the performances, but not entirely.
There are still some good performances in season seven.
And I think it's certainly there with the directors that have done a lot of this now and I just sort of pointing and shooting a bit before we get to the movies.
I don't know.
Just a... a half-arse sickness about it all.
I think there's a preparedness in season 7, though, to go a bit further in to push things and to be a bit more high concept, to do stories that are in a way kind of ridiculous or sort of format breaking, things like Genesis, that just push things much further than we've had before, and things like phantasms, things like subrosa, things like masks, masks.
Yeah, all of those things that I think would have been too kind of high concept.
And so this, I think, is like giving us a last chance to do this, they fuck it up, essentially, but I don't think the instinct is wrong.
And I do think that giving us a last chance to see data in command, I think, is absolutely worth doing because I do think that Brent is very good in those scenes and not just the scenes where he kind of tells wharf off, but the fact that he's absolutely on top of things and he's really, really good at it.
And one of the things that Star Trek does, and I know it's not one of the things that you like particularly, but it's that competency porn thing, and seeing data do such a good job of like picking up on Riker's nonverbal signals over the thing, deducing what he's trying to do, you know, having really sort of clear ideas about how to deal with things and tactics and understanding stuff, where in series one, he doesn't understand basic human expressions, now he's like super competent.
And I really liked that.
I really appreciated that and particularly, you know, when we pick him up again in generations, he's going to be a fucking idiot again.
And this is actually one of my favourite Brent performances, I think, outside of, you know, those really classic, you know, Brenti episodes.
I actually think he probably gets the best work in series 7 because thine own self is in series 7, Phantasms that you've already mentioned, which is a great Brent episode.
I think he's the actor that masked.
I mean, they're stretching him in masks.
I don't know if in directions that are advisable. half-hearted, high concept, I would say, though.
Like you said, yeah, we should be doing this, but I just can't do it.
And my big comparison is go and watch Shattered Mirror from season 4 of Deep Space 9.
So it's the Mirror Universe episode, and it's the one where you've got Worf as the head of the great pirate ship with Garak in a choker and is at his knees, and it's the campus thing you've ever seen in your life.
Garak goes, look, the intendant.
She was terrible and snappy and demanding, but at least I was able to please her once in a while and wharf, grabs him by the choker and brings him right up and goes, you are not my type.
And front of all, and then in another scene, in another scene.
He's like, he's stolen the key from his choker.
And Worf goes, Perhaps you swallowed it and stabs him in the gut to try and find.
I mean, it's just ridiculous, but it's camp as hell.
It's hilariously played.
It's everything that this isn't, you know?
That's right.
This could have been that.
You could have thrown Patrick Stewart into the heart of that sort of madness and imagine the fun he could have had.
Because I think, I mean, I do think that Star Trek the Next Generation is capable of being fun and funny, but it doesn't manage it here.
And also, the other thing about it is that it's often a reaction against weird or silly Star Trek.
You know, that's what they want to accidentally make the way to Eden or anything like that.
And so they're so faced about everything. from Brandon, isn't it?
We don't want to look camp or silly.
Why?
Why not?
Yeah.
You wrote the threshold?
Do you not remember?
I know that's in the future.
Maybe you'd given up by that point.
He thinks that's gritty, though, I think, you know, that's not camp.
That's horrible.
That's just embarrassing.
And, you know, we've seen from Strange New Worlds.
I think the serene squall, the pirate episode of Strange New Worlds is so much fun and so superior to this and it has a better aesthetic and better acting and an incredible guest star.
Like Pirates really do work in Star Trek and Star Trek does learn how to do it, but just not, yeah.
Mentioned it.
Sorry, yeah.
Is that what you meant by the link?
Invasive procedures is a load of pirates coming onto Deep Space 9, isn't it?
Sorry, you've already mentioned this.
Tim Ross is there as the Klingon.
And he's having a wonderful time beating the shit out of everybody.
He has a great fight with Cisco, you know, and it's really aggressive and violent.
You know, these 2 big men kicking the shit out of each other in ops.
There's so none of that here.
No, no.
Yeah.
It's a bit unfortunate.
But I have to say that I didn't hate it.
And although I did fall asleep towards the end of part one the 1st time, I watched it.
What a blessed relief.
I was awake for up the entire 2 episodes. since watched it while being awake all the way through.
And, like, I didn't hate it.
And, you know, like, I love Star Trek the Next Generation.
So I was kind of happy watching it, but it isn't very memorable.
I can see why you haven't managed to retain anything very much from it because it's a bit nothing, I think.
Have you noticed where we're at, you and me, with the next generation, in untitled Star Trek project.
You have such a nostalgic affection for it.
And I'm not, I'm not saying that blinkers your critical thinking in any way.
Good grief.
You're above that sort of thing.
But, um, but you will give the next generation a pass if it is limp because you just have warm feelings.
Yeah, for this show.
I don't have it, do I?
I mean, I'm a lot harder on this show than you are.
In a way that I kind of know I'm not even a Voyager.
And maybe I need to get some therapy about that and find out what it's all about.
I'm making afford to be cruel as a voyager.
We've hardly done any of the done shit, have we, this time?
Don't worry.
Well, I suppose we should go watch this thing.
I'll try and be nice as I can.
All right.
Yeah, I'll try and do that as well.
I won't always succeed, but I'll do my best.
I won't succeed at all.
All right.
I will count as it in that case.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we are off.
Oh, straight into this sort of bar.
Smoky, well, not really smoking.
No, I think this bar is terrible.
There's no background music.
Why is there no background music?
Why is the line so boring?
Do you remember that scene we had in alliances where Needix went to the bar and the woman was dancing on the table?
you know?
Yeah.
And why whenever the women, like, why is Deanna a prostitute in this scene?
Why is she a sex worker?
It just seems ridiculous.
Like, isn't she playing it where he calls her a businesswoman and stuff like that?
Someone owes me money.
Like, like...
Well, you know, that terrible episode, that terrible episode.
Oh, it's the the very, very boring one we did with the star crossed lovers, you know, the young people who who were from different planets and they wanted to get married.
It was the outrageous O'Connor, right?
Oh, yes, yes.
And remember, we were talking about how primitive and ridiculous their sexual mores were, their ethics, their morality, and how, in fact, we, as 24th century, people don't understand it.
But here we just kind of lean into it.
And I do think the joke about impregnating his sister is kind of funny.
Like, it is an attempt to be funny, but it's just like, really, because 6 seasons ago, they didn't even know what this was, and now we're doing this sort of limp shit, you know, instead.
I was obsessed by the man's crying.
Clearly he's having a reaction to the makeup.
No, I think it's the makeup.
So he's trying to act his way through the scene, but he's crying.
Unless Marina Service is so beautiful that it brings a tear to his eye.
Although, Marina, that ain't your best hair, love, all right?
Your hair looks better normally.
Yeah, but again, too, like this is, this is preposterous. at that woman's hair.
Did you sing that woman at the bar there would be insane, amazing.
But like this is kind of something.
It's not, you know, like they don't know that Picard is dead at this point or is supposed to be dead.
They're just looking for him and trying to find out what happened.
Literally the entire fucking bridge crew is down here for no reason at all.
Like, why is the bridge crew down here?
There's no interior. anything.
We're just like, oh, what's going on?
Why are they all playing these different parts in this bar?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I quite like the light coming through the window Nathan.
That's not a bad.
Felician Blighs.
But look, when you see the whole set, I mean, it's absolutely...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, Oh, these jokes.
Oh, yes, um, hello, I would like to introduce you to my friend.
This is the man whose sister was impregnated.
I'm like, these are not jokes.
What is happening?
But I do kind of like how embarrassed Warfy is at saying, oh, by the way, I did tell him a thing and he only finds out what the thing is when this Uridian.
So this Eridian, we 1st see Eridian's in birthright, I want to say, and it's one on board Deep Space 9.
Yeah, in fact, that actor in that makeup, he's in a couple of DS9 episodes, I think.
Yeah, so he's he's an Iridian.
His name's Iranak, which is canary backwards.
Vasali.
I seem to notice from the subtitles.
Um, I think that's pretty good makeup, and I do think that that's a pretty good alien design, and they come in different homes.
It's up to HD, doesn't it?
That may help quite well.
Yeah, it's not, it's actually not too bad.
So, and we're talking about gold press latinum here because we've had a year of Deep Space 9.
And so obviously we're trying to do some deep space 90 thing, you know, we're on a bar and, you know, I don't know.
Um, and there's intrigue. people are in disguise and stuff.
Um, I don't know, because...
Can I ask, is he genuinely going to help them because he has a sister and he doesn't want somebody else's sister interfered with or does he just want the moment?
I just couldn't figure out what all that dialogue was about.
It doesn't make sense, but the crying bartender seems to be threatening him, but then he's there listening. to this conversation.
I don't understand how that works.
Oh, do they?
He's got a reputation.
Look at Paul Marina in the back of the, she's got nothing to do at all.
She's just wearing a shower cab.
I did wonder about that, yes.
That's supposed to be low-life headwear.
I think.
It's so bad.
I quite like her in the leather jacket, though.
That's quite weird.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like her delivering these lines about DNA fragments and microcrystalline fractures, this is not good.
No, when she comes in with the garden and goes, you know, don't even think about it or whatever she says.
It's so...
These people are just not mercenaries, are they?
Let's be honest.
They're competent space people.
I did like, I have to say, I did like, you know what he said about the sister.
Jonathan's reaction when he looks at war from to sort of eyebrow raise, as if to say, that's the line.
That's what we're doing.
That's what we're going with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In fact, there are a couple of reaction shots of Riker throughout this episode. pretty great in this.
And I had this...
The bit where his jaw literally drops when Galen, a.k.a.
Picard walks into the scene and it's into the cliffhanger jawdrop is unbelievably good.
It's really great I think he's really funny.
I think he is actually really good in this.
There's moments when he's threatening.
I can't even pronounce his name Uranak.
He's threatening him later, where there are some smiles in there, which I think are really surprising and like interesting choices that make him seem just less like a thug and a bully.
And I also like how when Gates turns up, he says, oh, yeah, that's the sister, that's the impregnated sister, she's really cross.
I just thought, okay, yeah, let's do that.
But because they're not having fun, because no one wants to kind of acknowledge that this is that this is them being silly.
And usually, right?
Even if the script isn't funny, the actors still find a way.
There are scenes in Next Generation that are desperately unfunny as written, but they come in and they're just really charming.
Yeah, yeah, but no one's on board.
I think they're really desperate to rein it back in.
They don't want to do this.
And I don't know.
There was a tone me in Napir where.
Brandon said, now, look, this can be boring.
Don't just be too funny. drama, all right?
Yeah, serious drama.
And Jonathan's like, I'll get a few eyebrow raising, all right?
Yeah, I think that's probably it.
I mean, you wait.
Until we see Gates in episode two.
I mean, she's she's going, fuck you, Brannan.
I'm going to have fun in the shuttlecraft.
But I think Alexander Singer's having fun with the basketball player, he's the Klingon as well, and we're getting there too.
Boy, that bloody mute Klingon.
Oh boy.
Comedy in the next generation, it is an eccentric thing.
It is very odd.
It is very, very strange.
So now we believe that Picard is dead because the Uridion says he saw him shot and Troy's empathic ability is so he's accurate and we... many examples in the past where that's not the case that she believes him.
And so suddenly we're doing a memorial on the strength of that evidence.
Yeah.
And the thing is that, of course, we know that he's not dead.
We know that he isn't going to die between episodes.
So not for a second.
Does anyone who's seen television before think that the captain is dead?
And so none of this lands, because we know that it's all fake, and it's that usual kind of, like, there's that sort of blokey crap about Riker, you know, um, and, and, and Marina, like, I did like the scene, because again, it feeds into the desperate thread that I'm trying to kind of make the theme here, where it's about command and about how different crews interact with each other, where she tells him off, and she has the right to do that.
And then he pulls rank and then he apologises and it does bookend that other scene.
And I do think, like, neither of those scenes quite come off for the reasons that you said, but I do think that it is at least it's an attempt for the two-parter to be about something.
I mean, you say desperately trying to pull that threat together.
I mean, I think you're doing a better job than a script, if I want.
But the other thing is it does give Marina a chance to not be the bad, not be the good girl that she is all the time.
She doesn't convince though.
When she starts hollering in his...
How selfish are you?
You have got a crew of people who are so upset.
It's like, oh, please rein it in.
But because she's like she needs to be crying more like she actually needs to be crying and we know that she can do that.
Like, remember the scene in Nepenthe where she's showing the card into Thaddeus's bedroom.
You know, she's really good.
The sort of shouting conflict.
Yeah, yeah.
Never works.
Because, and it's not because I think they're terrible actors.
Like you said, we have seen her deliver.
Terrific.
But it was also that whole fucking scene.
And here's this blocking again.
The scene where he turns to camera and she's addressing his back for half of that thing.
Like, it's a fucking daytime soap opera.
And then in the next scene, we do that again.
But I think there's a better way of writing this episode.
Sorry, this scene, and that is, no, it's not because Ryker's a twat and doesn't want to go because he loves Picard so much and he can't face it.
It's because he doesn't believe it.
That would be a better way of getting him going, do you know what?
I don't feel we've got enough evidence that Picard is dead.
Let's maybe not do the memorial yet and try and investigate this.
Why don't we, why don't we see it happen?
What, the death?
Isn't that a stronger, isn't that a stronger thing?
They see.
So later on we see Breiker kidnapped by these pirates, right?
But why aren't we there?
Why are we investigating this later and we just get this sort of circumstantial evidence that he's dead?
Why'd like to see it?
I think that they are savvy enough to recognise that they wouldn't be able to pull it off in a way that we would be convinced.
But I think they just think it's more intriguing to start in that bar, looking for Picard, and then the big shock is actually he's dead.
But yeah, I mean, there's no way he'd have an offscreen death, is there?
No.
But if we saw it, like if he was shot and then we saw it and, you know, like then we don't go into memorial service because it's much rarer than that, we just head off and investigate, you know, like, I don't know.
I just...
Yeah, be rude about Paul Roe, Jonathan here.
You've got terrible bags under his eyes in his scene.
Is he supposed to have been crying a lot?
No, I think he's just, you know, 14 hour days, long days, you know, they did.
That's right.
Michael Westmore was too busy on the Uridian to deal with Jonathan.
They've made them all car Hoover the Walls, you know, the carpet on the walls before they started their shift.
I'm joking, aren't you?
So much carpet in this episode.
Yeah.
Behind the Admiral.
Admiral Hugo flea maintained, may I?
Oh, look at those rice cakes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's been taught by Michael Westmore how to eat the food without fucking the makeup.
He's doing coding jobs.
Do you know, I'm not happy with these quarters.
Oh, whoops, these are the best we've got.
I'm sorry.
That's right.
They really impressed Joe when he was a kid, remember?
Oh, players.
I mean, this was like the ultimate hotel for me when I was a nipper.
That's right What is he eating?
That bread cubes?
Yeah, I don't know.
I do really like.
I mean, I mostly like Riker in the scene.
And again, it is kind of foreshadowing about the pirate world that we're meant to enter that we're about to enter because, you know, we've already had Riker and and Worf lying to this guy about what they're looking for and now we have him threatening him and so on.
But, uh, and he's not being sympathetic or anything like that.
It's not a Picard way of dealing with things.
That smile, you know, the smile that he does before turning away, like he's amused by him.
I don't know.
I always like seems like this.
DS9 did it a lot, you know, where they investigate the snivelling criminal and they interrogate them and intimidate them a little bit or charm them.
They're always quite fun.
Well, it's a contrast, isn't it?
Between our goody goody characters and the low lives of the galaxy.
Yeah, but it is also just how amused Riker is playing this.
He's not playing it angry until the surprise kind of comes in.
It's a bit, you remember Greyfon Tola from, in the pale moon, like the blue man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's great.
Or Aberdon from Alice.
You know, they're all sort of the same sort of character, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
This guy's doing great job.
Isn't this what Cisco did with Tolai, throw it against the wall, didn't they?
I'm going to send you back to the Klingon Empire and tell them to execute you.
Well, that's basically what's happening here.
This is no way to commit diplomacy, Riker, please.
He could send him to a Federation pedal colony in New Zealand and he could bunk with the worst, Robert.
Well, Tom Paris.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. that's right Although, now, listen, you said it to me.
See, what have we had?
One dialogue saying after another here.
There's been zilch in terms of pace or action.
Oh, no, it's really a pirate story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the scenes are shorter in part 2 as well.
Like the scenes are much shorter.
We just get through them.
It's not just these sort of standing around.
There's still plenty of standing around talking.
Obviously, it's Star Trek.
But look, that's big smile as he leaves again, you know, like... all he's got to do in a scene, his smile, to please you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's fine.
Yep.
I love Jonathan.
He's charming, you know.
And so he's playing it against the, you know, he's not playing it the way that Archer would have had to play it if he was torturing someone.
Oh, the camera's moving ever so slightly around the table.
Oh, no.
Now they're all in shot.
Yeah, yeah.
There you go.
Why isn't Jonathan Wheeling the camera around?
Like it's a discovery episode.
That's a disorder, disorient question.
What are those sort of bits of marble that are attached to the table?
Did you see it?
Uh, the legs.
They keep the table up off the floor. right up onto the table.
Yeah, yeah.
Usually the legs are underneath the table.
No, then it goes up onto...
I mean it's very dramatic.
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
It's the leg.
We like to show everybody that we can afford marble on this shit.
Yeah, all right.
Yeah, I think it's granite.
Oh I did like this.
Now, look, you're not going down onto that planet, mister.
All right.
You're the captain of the ship now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But again, all of that stuff about command and leadership, and this is him questioning, you know, what we see later, him questioning the commanding officer's decisions in private, that he'll tell Wharf off for not doing the same thing later, even though it's written by someone different.
You know, the scenes kind of backend one another.
All right.
So we're on location here, but the Jabalite rocks are so bad that for a while I was going, maybe it's just, you know, the set from Hollow Pursuits with really good lighting.
Like they actually managed to make the location look worse.
I look.
This is so, but there is no attempt to disguise the fact that they have just gone round the corner from the Paramount lot, is it?
I mean, this is just so 1990s America.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's terrible.
And it's nothing like an archeological side.
And you said things about through the lens of time, which I thought were reasonable, in that it was boring, in the same way that a TNG episode is often boring.
But it made archeological research look sexier and more interesting than this.
Oh, it was epic. those great caverns.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is just a few, like I've been to any number of archeological sites, and this is the shittest one I've ever seen.
Like it's so boring.
It just looks like fabulous.
Just stay in Pompeii, Nathan, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely glorious.
And they obviously can't afford that.
And look, they've just put one pot there.
A single pot.
Yeah.
And this now, I, I, I, notice it more now than I did back in the day of the you shoot, they shoot.
They shoot, they shoot.
And don't get me wrong, DS9 is as guilty of this sometimes.
And so is Voyager.
But it's sort of this infancy period where it's so state.
Oh, what's this?
Tell me about this woman, please.
Ensign Frizzy hair.
So this is Ensign Justy Justy.
Sabrina LeBeuf, who was Sondra Huxtable in the Cosby Show.
So the oldest Huxtable Child in the Cosby Show.
I used to love the Cosby show when I was younger.
She was huge.
Do you know what I mean?
She wasn't eating it all the time.
I think eventually she gets a hot husband.
Oh, I have to tell you about this actor here too.
So there's a woman here, Ensign Kellogg.
She is a security and tactical officer.
You called her ensign hairstyle before.
And her name.
Ensign Kellogg.
Ensign Kellogg.
And she is in 41 episodes of Star Trek 3rd generation.
So you know before.
We have definitely seen her before.
And she's also in generations and 1st contact.
She does play some other minor parts, like as aliens and things as well.
She is a, you know, like common thing.
And she's a transgender woman.
Her name's Cameron.
As far as I can tell, she's a transgender woman.
And so this is our 1st transgender on Starfleet Ensign.
Yeah.
Wow, I mean, I never, ever would have thought that from next generation.
I know, I know.
And she's stealth, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't know that people knew that she was transgender or whatever, but I don't know.
I don't know what happened in the production thing, but when I saw her, I was like, I have definitely seen her in dialogue scenes before without lines given sort of over the top reactions to what's being said.
Yeah.
She's that person.
Yeah, she's great.
She's really good.
Kellogg.
I mean, have you eaten the cereal?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that, I mean, it's named after a guy called Kellogg, you know, like, it's Kellogg's.
I don't think the girl from the Colesby show was horribly stiff.
She has no idea of how to play this.
I don't know how, but season 7 seems to have the very worst bridge lighting of all the seasons.
It's so flat.
Well, it's sort of peach lounge colour.
It's so undramatic.
I don't know what they're going for.
You're right, you're right.
It really is.
It's very warm isn't it?
So imagine going into a wine bar, meeting your friends in there, couldn't you, you know?
But they're trying to do a fucking action sequence, innit?
That must be why they react against and say, right, void is going to be fucking gray.
Like, it's just gonna be gray.
Just practical lighting in the set.
That's all we want.
Yeah.
Oh, she's getting quite a lot of lines, actually.
No, and like, it's a pretty thankless job.
You know, that line from Sigourney Weaver in Galaxy Quest, where it's just, I'm just reading out the things the computer says and that's the only job I've got to do. do it.
So that's her.
She's doing that for her, isn't she that line?
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
That's basically it.
Because we don't see anything.
We don't get to see any of the things that she's narrating.
I mean, she's basically doing a messenger speech at this point.
Do you realise that with the completion of Gambit, we have now done all of the season 7 2 partters?
Well, I mean, we did half, we did descent, didn't we?
and we've done this and we've done the finale.
I think that's all the 2 parters this year. maybe.
Yeah, they didn't do that many.
There's is some...
Homeward.
No, that's just one part.
That's one.
Yeah.
I do think this could have been one episode.
Oh, yeah, there's not going to cut out.
I made it 45 minutes.
Like, why, I don't know.
This is them on holiday.
This is them doing something different.
Birthright, again, doesn't work as an epic 2 parter.
It's got, you know, some stuff about data, which doesn't make it to part two.
It's got the Deep Space 9 crossover and the thing with Julian, which is really charming and great and, you know, really fun.
But it basically goes nowhere.
It's a fairly shitty sort of Klingon story in part two.
Why isn't this epic?
Why don't we keep the 2 parters for something where we have a really epic premise?
And the epic premise isn't everyone thinks John Luke Picardi's dead for the 1st 20 minutes.
Do you know what I mean?
That's because no one's going to buy that.
It's the whole.
Like when when we're committing an hour and a half to this or 2 hours.
Yeah, for the conclusion to be in stockcase set and just about a bit of pottery.
Like, I mean, it's so limp.
Like, you said, we've just had that three-part DS9 season 2 opener, which use that time to have scenes.
Do you remember on the Cardassian camp?
It had scenes on Bajor in the 2nd episode, and then it's a massive sort of action epic in the siege to get the station back.
Yeah, yeah.
So they use that time.
Oh, now, come on.
It's the pirates.
Okay, here are the pirates.
So the pirates are, as usual, in a redressed version of the Battle Bridge, and it's a small set and it's very fucking pastel.
I was just, it was really giving kind of, um, uh, the Nagus's house on Ferengana, you know, with the just pastor.
You want it to be like grungy and greasy with chains hanging.
Do you remember?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. something like that.
This is just like we said in Rise.
This is just sort of redressed.
Well, that's the sets are boring, though, in 90s track.
I mean, it is just they put the Lego together and lighter.
And like the fucking carpet, like the carpet everywhere on the floor is so...
I wish I put a limitation on that.
Pirates should not step off carpet.
Now, I was distracted by the fact that the main guy here.
What's his name?
So this is Baron.
Arcus Baron has a... similarity to Bonnie Tyler.
And I was just thinking about total eclipse on the heart every time he turned up.
Because the only thing that's camp about him is his hair.
He's really not play, he's really not very good.
Is he like, he doesn't look tough.
He looks stupid, like Michael... a strange voice.
That's the one thing I liked about it is he's got this sort of weird, growly, purring sort of voice of the type you don't usually hear in Star Trek.
Oh, this woman here, the redheaded pirate.
She's just there to exclaim dramatically every now.
We're never going to get out of this.
You know, that's great though.
I think she's great.
That's a good look.
She is, of course, in the passenger.
Is that Kajada from the passenger?
Oh, she's fabulous in that.
She's so dramatic.
This thankless guy with that weird nose, like he's got a tiny nose, like he's like a fucking bikey or something with a tiny nose, and he looks stupid. do the passenger before.
Have we covered that?
I don't think we've done the passenger.
That's got, do you remember, it's got the best ever into the advert brake cliffhanger and it's her, the pirate.
They have a dialogue scene and she's waiting outside the infirmary to come in and say her line.
And then she walks in and goes, that's exactly what he used on Verada 3.
And then...
Were you literally waiting to come in?
That, like, could only come in at the end of this dialogue. so funny.
So that is, we just got Riker's reaction.
That is a very good cliffhanger and it is actually worth waiting the 24 minutes for, I guess, like finally...
Picard is not dead.
But, you know, you had kind of long enough to forget.
Obviously, in that tiny fucking room, how did Riker not notice him, he was facing the other direction, but you would have recognised Patrick Stewart from the back, I would have thought.
Just imagine him in a choker, though, Nathan, right?
Mr. Lion mane here, holding the chain.
You know, the whole slave, very different.
So funny.
Oh god.
Yeah, no.
You wouldn't think that Michael Dorn would make a good...
So the other guest star here is actually our real proper villain, and that's Robin Curtis's Telera.
And of course, she is in, is she in 2 Star Trek films as Savik?
Is that Savik?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So not, not, what's a face from cheers.
Mad Margot weirdo.
What was her name?
I loved her so much. she was so horrible at the end.
Kirsty Alley.
Yeah, Kirsty Alley.
Awesome.
Oh, she was great fun.
This is a very boring character, though.
Well, but I think that she actually kind of leans into the part.
She knows how Star Trek is played.
And I think she does do the, I'm a pirate. villain, I'm a Vulcan.
And, you know, like, I do actually like the sparring.
If it's going to be called Gambit, I think it's called Gambit, partly because of the way that he, she and he outwit one another, like it's not, it's not counterpoint standard, but there is some kind of way, what is?
I mean, counterpoints, brilliant.
But it is, it's that sort of thing where in the, God, look at these 2 people.
Holy shit, why did we watch this show?
have crazy hair.
I don't understand.
Can't you just be a pirate with normal air?
It's the 90s, 80s.
They all look like they're going to a Mad Max convention.
Or maybe a rock concert.
Yeah, but the thing about the Orion pirates and stuff in lower decks.
You know, they all seem to have half their head shaved, like Tendi and stuff.
I don't know.
Oh, you remember a size?
Is it because they're well odd?
Is that right?
Yeah I don't know.
Yeah, that's it, because they're well armed.
So they have sort of modern hairstyles.
So these ones have very period sort of October 1993 hairstyles, essentially, or perhaps a bit earlier.
You say like it gives Patrick a chance to play something different.
But all he gets to do really is occasionally be violent and throw around a few threats, but they really could have pushed this.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
But he is, like, he has a different voice for Galen.
It's funny, too, when he suddenly snaps into Picard again and you can tell that you can audibly tell the difference between...
But also, I do think that, and again, they should have lent into this, but the way that Jonathan and Patrick play it in, say, Picard series 3.
You know, the fact that they've just been friends forever.
Like that's this here, you know, it's just the 2 of them.
They're not part of the command structure, particularly no one else is here, and they interact with one another in a fun way.
And I do think the way that they just punch one another in the face is pretty great.
And the, for the time that, that, that Patrick Stewart punches uh, Jonathan in the face and and he just goes, looks so shocked.
It's it's really great.
It is pretty good.
Did you see that cheap arse panel where he was just playing about him?
Oh my god.
It looked like my whole speaking spell I used to have when I was a kid.
That's it.
I mean, I mean, in classic...
I just feel like that's money sort of...
Did they spend it all on descent and all those ball costumes?
No, the sets are always like this in Star Trek, the acceleration.
They're always this fucking cheap.
They spend it on Jabalite rocks on bringing Jabalite rocks.
Did you not be the director, you know, on this location?
Do you not think he said, well, look, it just looks like a forest clearing in California?
Should we add some mist maybe?
Some filter, maybe?
knite it differently or something like that?
No, we're just like, we've had a walk in the park, you know?
place they really do that in TNG is in descent, isn't it?
Like where they use a filter to try and make the planet seem more alien.
It's not something they do very much at this point.
It's definitely something they get better at as 90s trek goes along.
There are some good planetary landscapes in DS9 and in Voyager as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair.
Okay, yeah. what are we doing now?
Why are they stealing the artefacts?
So they're looking for 3 artefacts that together produce a weapon that is less efficient and effective than a big gun.
So is this sort of, are we sort of doing the chase again, you're sort of chasing around some great McGuffin.
Well, I think I think so.
And I think that there's, I think the chase is actually a really successful episode.
I like I was a bit iffy at the time, but I do quite like it.
It's just a direction, again, it's so flat, the direction.
But the idea is good and then having all the aliens in it and then they're all coming together and the big revelation is fabulous.
Yeah, I think it's really fun.
I think it's really good.
It's the basis of the main plot of the final series of discovery.
Oddly, and it's where the name Galen comes from, isn't it?
Like, uh, Professor Galen, isn't that because?
That's Picard's archeology professor.
Archeology professor who appears at the beginning of the chase, remember, and gives him that the statue thing.
That's right.
Yeah, the guy from, is he from...
They remember the continuity point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's another continuity point coming up as well, I think, or may have come up already, where Picard describes Riker as a substandard officer, who was relieved of command during the Cardassian incident on Minos Corva, which is what Captain Jellicoe does to him in chain of command.
Like that's a reference to chain of command, a much better uh 2 part uh mid-season 2 part story from the previous year.
I would have preferred if this scene here between Picard and Riker, actually with, you know, Rikers, with Picard's guys dropped, had come a bit later.
I wouldn't like Riker to have stewed for the whole 1st episode.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but it seems a bit easy now with, oh, actually, I'm playing along and this is the plan and da da da da.
Okay, fine.
So there's no suspense again then.
Well, I mean, there was never going to be suspense.
Like at no point are we ever really genuinely going to think, and no one else on the crew genuinely thinks that Picard or Riker have decided that they're pirates now.
You know, I'm going to be a pirate now.
Like, no one could believe it.
I can't say, do you know what?
I'm quite enjoying it actually.
Yes.
Stop being to show you something fun.
That's what, you know, Anson Mount would have done that in Strange New World.
Yeah, yeah.
I remember that next time, you know.
That scene at the end of the Serene squall where he's talking like a pirate on the bridge and Una's going, no, no, no, please, you have to stop.
Like, like, that is so much fun.
I've just remembered Do you remember in crossover.
Cisco was a pirate, wasn't he?
He popped in to give things for the intendant, and he turned up, grabbed hold of her, and snogged her over the bar, and said, it's good to see you too, intendant, you know, like, he's having a great time.
Oh, Picard, just chill out a bit.
Yeah.
Can I can I take us back to the direction just for a 2nd?
Because I let the next episode play on.
And the next episode is Phantasm.
So I only watched site a couple of scenes and it opens up with this incredible fish eye lens because it's a dream sequence of data looking down.
And then they've taken out part of the wall and they're sort of um, millers banging away in the in the guts of the enterprise and it's really striking and vivid and kind of haunting.
And I'm like, they can direct well.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's the amount of effort the particular director is willing to put in.
And I think about stuff like, um, what's that amazing episode where they all go to the holodeck and they're all having the same nightmare and they are bringing together the nightmare, a bit at a time?
They're insects in the dark.
Schisms.
That one or frame of mind?
Those are astonishing scenes in that.
They can direct really dynamically.
So I just don't get why that isn't the case all the time.
No.
And certainly this episode is worse than the one to come.
We did get that reaction from Riker to being smacked in the face by Picard, which is so great.
And again, like I love Jonathan.
Jonathan is so effortlessly charming. uh, um, in a way that bacular, he's able to match.
I'm not sure you can salvage much of the scripts here, but I think you could salvage the enjoyment factor had somebody like Jeffrey Coombs played the lead pirate.
Because I think everything in this sort of revolves around that character.
Yeah.
So if that was a big funny performance.
I think how the actors are around him would be different, you know, how Picard interacts with him would be really different.
He is a bit like, oh, God, are we pirating again today?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a very low-key performance.
It's very odd.
He's big.
He's a get. you know, he never doesn't work.
He's he's in everything.
Um, this is his only Star Trek, but, but he's really, I just don't think he's very good.
I mean, you know, again, to compare Gene Simmons, you know, we've had guest actors come in.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. who have gone somewhere in the stratosphere and delivered wonderful entertainment.
Well, I was thinking of the guy from the most toys.
Do you know what I mean?
Who is genuinely funny, but also shockingly cruel and evil as well?
You know, like he's...
We found him annoying.
Rasmucin in, you know, it was memorable at least.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
This guy?
What are we going to remember about this man?
Apart from his Bonnie Tyler hair.
Yeah, terrible.
Just that forehead as well.
Yeah.
I think I remember being aware of Robin Curtis at the time because I, by the time I watched this, I had watched all of the original Star Trek films and I did like her a lot and I think I was looking forward to her as a thing.
So I think she's probably a get, you know, like she's probably a, someone that they're excited to have, and they give her the villain's role.
That line there.
I mean, it's the least pirate line you're ever gonna hear.
Do you know, I think we should avoid a battle actually.
And then the headmirate goes, Yeah, good idea, yeah.
Yeah, I hate those.
You should be full steam ahead. and destroy them all and get the riches.
Oh, no, you please justify these scenes of Picard cataloguing archeological finds.
So again, the archeology thing that I quite like as a thing that we've established from Picard and that they, you know, it's there in the chase, is it before then?
Yeah, it happens holiday.
He's been looking at pieces in his quarters quite a few times.
Yeah, yeah.
And, like, I like that again, like, it's not really very much like what archeology is actually like or anything like that.
But it gives him, like, he needs to be plausibly useful and it's a skill that we've been leaning into lately.
And so I don't mind it.
And I think that that makes it, you know, that gives it this.
Again, the sort of capery Indiana Jonesy thing that it should have had.
You know, finding ancient artefacts and assembling them across time is absolutely a thing.
Tomb Raider leans into this, yeah?
Archeological pieces.
There are not prolonged scenes of Lara Kroft.
Cataloguing, wrong.
Archeological vines, because that's really boring.
She's coming into ceilings from ropes and things and grabbing them and running away.
I don't know Yeah, we can't afford that.
This is not the sort of material I expect to see in a pirate romp.
No, no.
And in the past as well, when Picard's talked about, I always say you can listen to anybody talking about any tedious subject as long as they talk about it with passion.
And I know there are episodes where he's going, my God, you know, the ruins oncestors 8.
And they're there.
We discovered a whole new civilisation.
And he's like, here, he's just like, look, if he wants these catalogues, all right?
Tell him I'll take my time and that's that.
I mean it's just so boring.
Yeah.
But I mean, it's essentially here it's just business so that he can talk with Talera for a, you know, a very prolonged scene.
What's astonishing, Nathan, is this scene isn't enough.
There is a 2nd cataloguing scene, Impal 2 with her, where he and her talk, yeah.
Maybe that's where this as a one partter would have helped. could have just got rid of one of those.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I absolutely think that this is prolonged in a way that it absolutely doesn't deserve.
And when you think about Voyager mid-season, um, two-parters, they tend to be epic.
Like they tend to have a big thing.
Oh, they're like TV movies, aren't they?
Doc frontier.
Absolutely.
Also one we did in the in France in the war.
The Hirogan one.
Killing game.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, killing game, I think is incredible.
Things like workforce, I think, is pretty amazing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're big and epic and that they they kind of threaten to change the premise in some way.
But even Next Jane can do it, right?
Chain of command?
Yeah, yeah.
You know, where they go off on that dangerous mission and then it all gets contained in that one room in the 2nd part.
Yeah, yeah.
I was a little bit thing about that at the time, and I'm not super convinced it's as good as everyone says it is, and it kind of operates on the assumption that no one's read 1984, because it rips it off so kind of embarrassingly, just nakedly, in a way. potent scenes in it, though.
David.
It is pretty good.
I think it is pretty good.
Well, I think you've got David Warner and Patrick Stewart, you know, may they rest in peace, both just absolutely nailing it.
Both, you know, incredible titans of ridiculous genre TV.
With DS 9 that they use the 2 parters as massive tent poles to change the direction of the entire show.
So we did, what do we do?
In perpetry shadow and buying phone out. you know, and there was some sweeping change in that.
Yeah, things like paradise and home front or whatever it is.
Is that what we're called?
Home front and Paradise Lost.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the die is cast, you know, like over and over again.
They do these.
So it's less sort of is the content epic, but you know, when you are moving things on.
It just feels epic, doesn't it?
Nothing's the same again.
Yeah, that's not really available to TNG, with the exception, I think, is best to both worlds, but redemption.
Redemption, maybe.
Would the Klingons?
In fact, I was going to mention redemption because redemption part 2 actually has a fair amount in common, you know, the someone challenges data's command style, which is a big element of redemption part two, which I think is done a bit better here.
He's got so much eye makeup.
The problem with that man is, he just doesn't feel dangerous at any point, does he?
He feels like you could sort of just sneeze and blow him over.
Well, he's no, he's fairly hefty and he's using quite a lot of mascara as well.
I mean, I think like he's too easily defeated as well.
It's just like at some point, that theme which is literally always on his fucking belt, somehow Galen gets hold of it and reprograms it so that it kills him when he presses the buttons somehow, you know, and we never see that happen and it's all just he presses the kill Galen button, kill kills himself, and then that's it, you know, it's pretty crap.
I just I just keep coming back to all the other pirates.
Do you remember Bashira as a pirate and shattered mirror?
What do you want me to do with all these torpedoes?
And I, Brian goes, I've got a few ideas.
Do you now?
I mean, he's doing the accent.
They're so fun.
I mean, the outrageous O'Connor is a pirate.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he was great.
Imagine O'Connor and as the head of this pirate gang.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I really like, I mean, I really like data in this.
It doesn't really sort of land.
We're getting quite close to the end of part one to this shitty, shitty cliffhanger.
It's the worst cliffhanger.
TNG ever put out.
I mean, are we ever supposed to believe this was going to be the end of the enterprise?
No.
And like the freeze frame as well.
It's just like, what are you thinking, you know?
What?
steaks here.
But, I mean, this is functionally the same as the Cliffhanger and Best of Both Worlds, part one.
Where the, how do we get out of this?
There was no way.
No, our missing commanding officer is on the on the screen and he's about to shoot at us and what are we going to do?
You know, like it's literally that.
Instead of a giant locutus, we've got giant Jonathan's bonds.
So what's not worth it?
compared to that.
It's really just shitty.
That's like a shitty version.
That, sadly.
I mean, imagine if Bonnie Tyler was the person responsible for bringing down the Enterprise.
It would have been a very limpending to the next generation. right.
And he's like pastel fucking...
I mean, he looks like he's put the volumeizer on 10, doesn't he?
It's so embarrassing.
It's an and it just looks stupid.
I do think this is Michael's best lookers wharf in next year.
Oh, yeah. season seven. tone the hair down a lot.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, they give him the big ponytail, you know, it just looks really good, I think.
And you know, Brent, Bravo, you sell it, you know, like, you know, are we going to attack or not?
The actors are giving it a go, but because the whole thing is built on a card, a house of cards of deception that just don't convince, the cliffhanger doesn't convince at all.
No, it's terrible.
It's terrible.
But I think Brent does a great job.
I mean, this is, as I said before, one of my favourite Brent performances, I think.
Even worse than the Cliffhanger is the resolution.
I mean, I just couldn't believe how, like, we were waiting a whole week for them just to go, oh.
The bridges wobbled a bit.
Yeah.
Did it cause any damage?
No, it is.
Oh, boy, stretcher than a sail as well.
Yeah, yeah.
Are we even going to close up with a big button and then a fucking freeze frame.
And it's got to have looked worse on the original 1993 broadcast because that's the remastered.
That's the remastered special effect, and it's still terrible.
Do you know what I mean about?
Season 7, no.
So I know we're going into the 2nd episode.
There is just a feeling of we're a success and we can kind of put out reasonably competent television and that's all right.
I don't know because I don't know that anyone, you know, who's making a successful TV show has ambitions that low.
Like, I don't think they're deliberately seeking to put out things that are unmemorable.
I think that they're running out of ideas and steam and that because Moore said that.
He said, like, that's why we did so many family episodes in series 7 because we just didn't know what to do with these characters.
Yeah.
We'd exhausted them of anything.
Yeah, and I mean, that's what it's about.
That's not what it's about.
It needs to be about sort of more elaborate space problems and they definitely try and do that.
Like they definitely try and push it in directions that they haven't done before.
But it's just never as tight and never as successful.
And I just remember at the time feeling a bit iffy about 6 in a way that I don't now, and then feeling that 7 was pretty disappointing.
And when I look down that list of episodes in seven, there are a lot of ones that I think are really pretty good.
But there is a kind of overwhelming sense of tiredness and it's a lot of TV, like 726 episode seasons.
You know, it's more than twice the number of original track episodes.
And I don't know why they went for seven, you know, like it just seems to be too many.
I, uh, you know me.
The great comparer of Star Trek.
So, you know, I watched, um, it's only a paper moon after this.
I thought, oh, I'm just going to put on just a quiet episode of DS9 series 7 and just the difference between the two.
I mean, there, the actors are so engaged with what they're doing.
That's Ron Moore again, right?
But you can tell he's pouring his heart and soul.
And it's just about people that convince you on the screen, so when there's conflict between them, It comes across realistically.
And I know, I know they were as exhausted in series 7.
They were ready to stop those actors.
Yeah, yeah.
But there's just no sign of it in the production, I think, in the way that there is here.
Yeah, it's...
Curious thing, series 7, and we have done a lot of it.
And, you know, you are a lot kinder to some of the more dismal experiments than I am, such as Genesis, which is a great episode.
Is there one of my favourites a lot?
Sometimes I listen back to that episode, you know, and here I was arguing.
It was quite fun.
But I suppose we should go and watch something less fun than Genesis now and watch Gambit Part 2.
Inevitably.
So I will count us in.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off, and we're doing the previously on Star Trek, the next generation.
See if I can do my best, Majel.
Last time on Star Trek, the next generation.
I mean, didn't you love hearing those words when the show came back?
so good.
Oh, was it?
And now the conclusion.
The conclusion.
Do they do that?
The start of Best of Both Worlds, part two.
I mean, that was the best word.
Unfortunately.
The cliffhanger resolution was dreadful, but...
I was still excited.
Here we go.
Nice walk in in the park.
Well, I do think that that battle sequence looks really great when it's just like 5 seconds long.
They're finally editing it.
Oh my.
That's right.
I actually was worried that I would run out of time to rewatch this before recording because I'd watch it a week earlier.
And I thought maybe I should just... 25 speed.
Oh, my word.
It would fly great.
It would be the length of a lower deck episode.
How wonderful.
It would have to be twice that to be the length of Lower X episode, but it would still be pretty great.
I mean some people do that with podcasts, don't they?
I'm sorry, I've tried, but I hear the voices sounding like Daffy Duck and I just can't do it.
Oh, here we go.
The cliffhanger.
Fire.
Why?
Press the red button.
I thought the cliffhanger was going to be Picard pressing the button and I thought that's the only way this could be any less dramatic.
It was just the bum.
No, I mean, that could have been okay.
But we did get and now the conclusion.
They just sort of wobbled a bit.
No one else did.
Brad did a great wobble.
That was the effect of our cliffhanger.
Just a bit of wobble.
Okay.
Yeah.
No, in fact, now he has to pretend that the ship is damaged.
And it's this stuff.
Release inertial dampers and cut powder decks, you know, like I just think, yes, give me some orders, Brent.
Show us job.
Show off the damage.
No, they can't.
They can't.
Well, there's no damage.
They didn't do any damage.
They're having to pretend there's damage.
Well, it's not very dramatic then, is it?
This shot, this shot in the battle bridge where we're shooting from the thing is so much better.
It's still shit, but it's so much better than last episode.
Did you see how you had Picard and one pirate at the front of the shot there?
And then the 3 of them in the middle, all at various stages behind.
I mean, that was beautifully...
Everyone was in the shop given a reaction at various parts of the set.
Well done.
Yeah.
So as I said before, this is Alexander Singer, who tends to do a better job and Ronald D. Moore, who is a better rider, I think.
I would even get my fists out.
I so angry.
That pirate captain just said, we've done enough damage.
No pirate captain says that.
You say full steam ahead and give him a bloody nose.
He is no kind of pirate.
I'm sorry.
No, he's terrible.
But you see, I love this.
I'm aware of the tactical situation, lieutenant.
And then Marina comes in with a bit of a look, which was pretty good.
I look at Michael absolutely cheesed off.
Excuse me.
I am the tachco officer around here.
Well, I thought what was good too. was that that you do get these reactions and stuff from Marina to how.
I mean, it's sort of pathetic because as usual, they just don't give, they put Marina on the bridge and don't give her anything to say.
But she is at least kind of underlining the conflict between the 2 of them.
And, and like when, when Worf says, actually, I always do, do that.
I do that all the time.
It's my job on this show to announce a course of action, which is wrong.
You know, it's, it's, that's what Worf does.
Just like that.
Yeah.
It's my job to say something dumb and violent and suggest...
The joke could have been data going, and you do that adeptly, Mr. Haw.
Something like that.
But then it becomes about, you know, being 1st, you know, you know, his 2nd officer or whatever, which whatever, that's fine.
I just, I'm like you.
You said it the other week about conflict in 90s trek, yeah?
Just because there's conflict.
It doesn't mean it's good and it doesn't mean it's convincing.
And we were talking about a Voyager episode there.
I think we were talking about Twisted or something like that. where it was all just very phoney.
But this is a show which is kind of sold on a group of people that get on and work well together.
And that's sort of when they're out there, when they're at 10th forward and they're having a party and they're all, they're Rikers playing his instrument and they're all cracking jokes and guyness there being witty.
That scene in the ready room between wharf and data.
I understand both their positions.
I just don't buy the conflicts.
I just think I think it gives the chance for Brent to do a good job and that's what I liked.
It's nice that he's right here because do you remember when they do him?
what is it?
Ace redemption, isn't it?
where he's in charge of the ship and everyone's against him and the episode comes down on him being wrong.
And him having to apologise, I think.
No, so he's on the Sutherland or something?
He's on a different ship and some guys riding him.
And then there's another one where Geordie, remember Geordie's in command in the Arsenal Arsenal of Freedom?
which also mentions the planet Minos Corva as it happens.
Um, uh, uh, and there's that guy, the guy with 3 names who's an engineer who keeps telling Geordie what a terrible job he's doing.
I can't remember his name, but I can see his face.
The 2nd he said, he announces his 3 names every time he's on the screen.
Leyland T. Lynch.
There you go.
There you go.
It was in there somewhere.
Oh, now watch Marina here.
I don't know if she gets a line, but she's got some good sort of reacting acting.
Yeah, it's too often.
I give it a do.
She a counsellor.
No, I mean, she's, we've all moved up here and that's the other thing that I kind of like, but Data's the commander, but now he sits down and re-sequences the thing because he's obviously better at that than everyone else as well.
I kind of like that.
He should have said, again, it was Charles Richard.
You are a counsellor.
Please come out the seat and I'll actually do my job.
That's right.
I'll do the thing Man, can't there be the lower decks version of this?
would be absolutely full of jokes like that.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so again, see, this is a very standard Star Trek scene, but it's the pirate version of it, right?
How long will it take before we get back on our feed?
And he says 5 hours and then Baran says, you have 3 or I'll kill you.
But that's absolutely a standard Star Trek interaction.
Isn't it between the chief engineer and the captain?
But here's how we do it in pirate world.
So you can see that you can see that more is trying to lean into that, even though it's not a particularly thrilling scene or whatever.
Oh, I've just thought of another episode that is a great...
Oh, hang on.
I've just sort of watched Riker hitting Picard.
It's like, I've been wanting to do that ever since you said it.
Don't let me make an asthma myself with children on the Far Point episode.
It's the moment where Patrick Stewart, it punches Jonathan's stunt double in the face in part one.
Did you know that?
The travelling stone.
Right, again.
What we needed there was somehow for Patrick Stewart to walk off that set and have a wryly amused look on his face that nobody else can see, but he's sharing that moment with us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's none of that, is there?
Again, think of answer some mouth. what you would get.
You'd be going, yeah, yeah.
Soldiers of the Empire.
Ronald D. Moore wrote soldiers of the Empire, and that's about Martoc and his band of Klingon pirates going about the place. and it's literally climaxes on war for Martoc having a fight to the deaf over the command structure and someone getting a knife in the gut. and again, it's all the sort of forgive me. of a pirate story that's lacking here.
Yeah, yeah.
You know what I mean when I say Uarinus?
Yeah, no, I think that's a word.
That's a, it is the only word.
Oh, well, here we go.
Back to scanning archeological pieces.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nathan, did you know that?
The Tecreon profile match is 90%.
I do.
So it's definitely our thing.
It's our thing that we're looking after this, looking for.
This is the Vulcan artefacts that we have been looking for.
It is.
It is a 3rd of it.
But isn't it just that when it's in the last scene?
They don't add anything to it.
No, there's it's got a D8, like a, like a, 8 sided dive.
This is a Dungeons and Dragons reference.
It's got a, it's got a little um, uh, a sort of octahedron thing, um, which, uh, they get off the giant Klingon, uh, and then there's these sort of crab pincers thing, which are apparently on Falcon.
So it's there are 3 bits of it, apparently.
I don't think there are still new things to learn about you.
I didn't know you was a D&D Stan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. when I was a kid.
Yeah, of course.
God, I mean, giant nerd.
Like, best possible kind.
Well, you teach me D&D when you come over here then.
Let's have a game shopping.
Yeah?
In between episodes of Star Trek, of course.
Obviously.
Only the worst ones, though.
I mean, look at the pirate now.
He's got his legs crossed over, sitting on that comfortable chair.
And a giant comfy chair.
Power pyro.
He's got a little kind of lovely things on his on his dining table in the front of the shot as well.
Yeah.
I can't tell you how amusing it is with that choker, right?
Every time Garrett pisses him off.
He literally, he swings the choker and Garrett goes flying around the set.
It's the gayest thing you're ever going to see in. and it's Dawn...
It's funny.
Oh boy.
What's happening here?
This is a very, very boring scene.
It's very static, isn't it?
Look, that camera hasn't moved for a while.
No, no.
He said to Jonathan, will you move towards the camera?
So it looks like there is some movement in this scene.
I know, the camera moves here to get that 2 shot happening.
That's very exciting.
So are they just hoping to sell the artefact then?
Back to the Vulcans.
Yeah, but what they don't realise is the evil Vulcan separatist Savik is on board dressed as a Romulan.
It's always much more fun, you know, when there's a great big treasure chest dripping with jewels that they're going after.
I still think like a Vulcan artefact.
Well, but but you know, like the Vulcan artefact.
It's like the Ark of the Covenant from, you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
It's a, you know, an ancient artefact from mythology that has this power, like I absolutely get it.
And it has a sort of cheesy, like a ludicrously cheesy Star Trek message about peace and things, which I just think, yeah, it's Star Trek.
If you don't have violent thoughts, then they can't be used against you.
But the defence against this, this is peace, the defence against us fighting one another and killing one another.
The defence, the thing that puts a stop to that is deciding not to do it anymore.
You know, like that's fine.
I think that's okay.
If you used to believe on any circumstance, that Worf does not have a violent fault rattling around in his brain.
But I mean, that's the point, isn't it?
The point is that we say it happened to Picard.
We say it happened to the, to what's his name, VCor and Naric.
We see them killed.
Then we see it fail on Riker and on and on wharf.
It even fails on Wharf.
Because although Wharf can be violent.
If he needs to, he's not just, you know, he's not showing any aggression.
The way isn't that no one has any aggressive thoughts or any anger or anything like that.
It's violent impulses, and if no one's being violent, if we're having peace, then we, you know, it doesn't work.
I'm just thinking of like, have you seen the Goonies?
That's another great pirate story.
Where the climax is in that fabulous cavern with that huge pirate ship and loads of jewels and action and fighting and things?
No, no.
This climax is in a very tiny cave set, underlit, 3 actors, and a boring Vulcan artefact.
I mean, is it really, really bad?
It's just not as epic as it might have been.
No.
And I think I remember even thinking that at the time.
I, like, I have a little bit more sympathy with the idea of, you know, assembling this thing assembling this thing.
I mean, again, it's kind of what Discovery season 5 does, is assemble a big artefact, you know, that we find bits of.
I bet that was epic, though, in a way that this isn't.
I bet they were down in casinos and planets and things and having great adventures, you know, it...
You know what I could imagine them doing in Kursman Trek, because I've got the money now and the effects.
Steam punk technology pirates.
Imagine that, robot pirates and things. would be great.
But I still think that big, huge fat, um, green Orion Irish guy, who's the pirate in the serene squall, who cooks for all of the other pirates, and he's really shit at it, and they're really angry about it.
You know, they want to get Anson Mount to cook for them.
Like, he's awesome.
That fellow that was in the bar. you remember?
Um, it was a bar own.
I think it was a Strange New Worlds episode.
It might have been a discovery one.
He would have been, and uh, he was sort of camp and cheesy.
He would have been a great pirate as well.
Yeah Was that in all in?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he was good.
He was good.
Look, did you see that little moment where Data at the end of that episode does the Picard maneuver.
Like...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's really good.
Whilst I don't really like the scene, I do like when Brent has an edge to his voice.
Yeah, throughout that.
It's not quite angry, but it's getting there.
It's a sternness to his voice and it's it's creepy in a way that when he tries to play evil.
That's the sin.
It is in no, it's restraint's always better, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, but I think it's really good because, you know, he's goofy and funny and a silly character and a loveable character and to have him just be sort of super concentrated and competent and stuff.
I think it's really good.
Like, it's always cancer development.
I wonder if this is more looking at dissent and going, we need to salvage this a bit.
Yeah, maybe bad for Brent.
Yeah, yeah.
But I think it's like I said, they do it again and again and again in seven.
And in fact, he gets a nice couple of roles in, um, God, what's the finale called?
All good things.
Trembling, there's the old guy in the library.
Yeah, it's great.
It's wonderful. terrific.
But then they've always loved Brent, haven't they?
And Data, and they've always spotlighted that character.
If only Troy and Beverly Crusher.
Well, they're women though.
If Diana Moldar stayed on, you better believe, come series 6, she'd have been going, oi, I want 10 episodes a year or I'm off.
Yeah, that's right.
But so I do think there is something about these 2 working together in isolation too.
Like, I think that is kind of fun, and I do think that's where we end up with them by series 3 of Picard.
You know, the 2 of them are back together doing this sort of thing.
I'm staggered at how beige this says.
It's just remarkably boring.
The colour of baby sick, isn't it?
It's too bad.
Quite revolting.
Yeah, shocking.
I mean, yes, everything's overlit.
It just looks terrible.
Oh no, here's the fellow with the frizzy hair again.
So his name's Narik.
And he's a bikey with a tiny nose.
That's right.
He's got a nice big bell on though, isn't he?
What's all that hanging down?
Oh, well, he's got treadlocks as well.
He's not only got a massive frizzy poem, but he's got dreadlocks.
Do you remember when, do you remember when...
Did you see her coming in the room there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She's almost as good as Kai Kajada there the way she.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Slipped into that.
I was just waiting outside.
Yeah, Tom's come in.
How'd you finish your dialogue scene?
Oh, good.
Right.
Oh so funny.
But again, that's a pretty good cliffhanger.
You know, she comes in and says, who the hell are you?
I'm going to shoot you with a big gun unless you tell me who you are.
That's pretty good like he's been wrong.
That's very small gun, actually.
Yeah, that is true.
It is pretty bad.
There are some good phases in this, but TNG has shitty guns.
Like those Dustbusters are terrible.
What were they thinking?
The one thing I liked about the action sequence in the 1st episode was when they were firing, it's like, you know what I mean?
It was like constant bolts coming out, whereas, you know, they're very boring Starfleet phases, just, boo, boo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a bit of that light up in the in the scene where we board the Enterprise a bit later on.
I mean, I don't know how to tell you this, but we have just had one, 2, 3, 5 protracted dialogue scenes now.
Like, there is no pace for this.
No, no.
But if we've had 5 scenes in 18 minutes, we've up the pace a bit from that part one.
Is that our game?
Is it faster than the 1st part?
We are doing better than part one.
I think part one is more leisurely and more talky than this.
We did have the big gunfight, but we later on have a fairly standard invade the enterprise thing.
Even this seemed right.
You see how Patrick Stewart is playing this scene.
So he's finding out that she's the mole here on this ship, right?
But now imagine that in Kurtzman Trek, yeah.
I don't know.
I imagine there'd be some flirting going on.
Yeah, it's so stiff.
Yeah.
So originally the idea was that the Vulcan separatists wanted to move Vulcan out of the kind of space-time continuum into a parallel thing so that it would have no alien influence so that it would be completely isolated.
For this story?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, actually quite a fun idea.
And then they said, no, we can't do that.
That's just like a fucking space 1999 episode.
We can't be doing that.
But it is telling that, you know, 2 weeks ago or whatever on Deep Space 9, we had Bajoran separatists who wanted the same thing for Bajor, and now we have the Vulcan ones here and spoiler alert. that's who Robin Curtis is playing.
She's not...
If we're doing sort of pulp, can't we go, what's the big rim around the universal, the galactic barrier?
barrier.
The Romulans want to push themselves out of the galactic barrier into this sort of bubble part where they're just on their own.
But it'd be like blink of an eye or whatever, you know, like a, or, or what was that stupid one in deep state sign meridian?
You know, like the planet, you know?
In a weird, in a weird space thing.
It's kind of, let's do that.
It doesn't all have to be like, because there's a great line later where, um, where she says, I've got the special, terrible Vulcan thing, and you're totally used to dealing with enemies on spaceships, with lasers and and deflect shields and all of that sort of thing.
And this is something different from that.
And like that's so tantalising and so interesting as an idea that they go absolutely nowhere near. interesting for us.
I'm sorry.
But that would have been really interesting.
You know, like this, like, why can't it kill people by the power of the mind no matter what distance they're at or something?
As it turns out, it's a really unwieldy gun that like that takes like several seconds for the beam thing to kind of land on a person and it just kills.
We won't get there.
Because the 2nd pirate whilst the 1st pirate is being destroyed by that gun.
Just stands there waiting for her turn.
Now, if I was a pirate, I'd be like, oh, I think it might be my turn, next.
I'm using 15 seconds. to murder that person.
Oh, murder the person on the track.
Oh, she's really...
This is our mute Klingon, who doesn't want to...
Now you tell me why this is funny.
So this is Corral.
And what I think is funny is like the marina reaction and then his reaction, like Brant's reaction.
And just the fact, like what I think is really funny are the various scenes where they try and be jolly with him.
And so there's 2 of them.
There's a scene with Brent and Marina trying to kind of, you know, butter him up and stuff like that and make everything okay and he doesn't respond.
And then the scene, which is funny as well, with Beverly and Geordie.
No, Beverly and Worf trying to deal with him.
So this is James Worthy, and he was a former professional basketball player, and he played all throughout the 1980s.
So he's known to the audience, you know.
Did he just want a guest spot on telly?
Did he love the next generation?
And his nickname was Big Game James. right?
And he's a huge league.
Well, he's huge.
I mean, you saw him.
He's enormous.
James, James.
I think it's so cute.
And so and so they get him in the big basketball player doing this in a guest thing and just having our characters be silly in a scene in a show, you know, like a very, very long TNG story that's been quite boring in places.
And so to have the gag, there's a wonderful moment where, you know, wharf is looking up at him. like wharf is looking up at him in the background of a scene where Beverly's doing some business.
Like all of that stuff, I think, is kind of funny and silly.
And it's like the problem with the episode isn't that it has that in it.
It's just that that's the funniest thing that they managed to do is what the problem with the episode is, I think.
This is the funniest moment in the whole episode.
Now please watch Beverly Crusher.
Our gates here, tiptoeing through this scene.
Please.
I'm just gonna step in and scan in cycles.
Michael's reaction is really great as well.
I mean, she is having the best time.
She goes, I've got one scene this episode and I'm going to make it count.
That's right That's right.
You know, radiation leaks, biochemical contamination.
Look at Alexander singer shooting from above.
She's absolutely tiny, doesn't she?
So good.
And then she just goes, oh, good.
Excuse me.
I'm just look at her.
Look at her.
She even strokes the top of the ship and she goes in. and then watch her inside.
She goes, uh no, nothing in here.
Look at this shot.
She's scanning.
And Worthy and Michael is standing next to another.
Oh, it's just not long enough, that's saying it needs to be longer.
Why do they always make Gates be serious?
She's really funny I know, she is really funny.
But I also thought the scene where they come up with the idea of the health and safety inspection is actually kind of fun as well, and it's them doing a bit of rule breaking.
You know, it's like, and it looks like, you know, data's going to say, no, no, no, we can't.
We can't search them under these pretences and stuff, and then he goes along with it because we're dealing with pirates and we can break the rules a bit.
You look into this.
There's a scene in the circle, the 2nd episode of DS9 series 2, where they go in and scan a Euridian ship, because they know it's supplying arms to the Cardassians.
It's the same thing again. my god.
I mean, is it the same writers?
I mean, it's different writers, isn't it, at this point, doing T and G and GS9?
It's a little bit of overlap, but I think that, well, like I said, there are elements in part one of Gambit that are lifted from deep space 9 and they're clearly trying to do a deep space 90 sort of thing here.
Do you think they watched Move Along Home, the TNG crew reform?
You know, we could loosen up a bit with our concepts.
You know, have some more fun.
But I think they were running out of things.
And like, you know, all of the memorable Star Trek episodes, all of the ones that aren't the bonding and stuff and fucking booby trap or whatever.
You know, are the weird high concept ones.
Do you imagine Gambit is anyone's favourite?
Maybe, maybe.
If you're out there, will you let us know?
Yeah, I'd love to know.
I mean, like, again, it's a little bit like rise last time, as you said, where it's not a bad idea.
And there's there's things going for it, but it's just no one's really kind of committing to the beard here is the problem.
It should be breezy, but instead it's kind of dull.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's all the kind of, you know, there's that dead man's boots thing.
Remember, in mirror, mirror, originally, you know, suddenly we get on board an enterprise, but it's an enterprise where everyone's fighting, you know, jockeying for a position and stuff and everyone's looking behind their back.
This ship should be like that.
You know, that is a pirate ship, isn't it?
Where he's wearing things split to the waist and the women are all kind of, you know, scantily clad and stuff.
So this is the great carpet moment from part 2 of Gamba, where they give big game, James, some blood wine.
Is he going to spill it on the car?
Oh my god.
He just pours it out onto the carpet.
The cleaners are looking going, what are you doing?
Look at Brent.
Look at Brent react.
He goes, that's worse than insulting my mother, messing up the car here.
All right.
We have a lot of carpet on this ship.
If you get something fun here.
She goes, Mr. Worf, even I'd have a hard time defending that sort of argument now.
Come on.
Oh now watch this.
This should be so dynamic this scene.
But they just come in.
One person's down and then we go straight to the ready room.
I love that guy.
It's not the ready room.
The observation now.
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes.
So shut your mouth, Klingon, for goodness sake.
So, So, again, Gates isn't reacting to Picard being alive here, and that reaction goes to Deanna in the next scene.
Actually...
She's lost all expression in her face as usual, hasn't she?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
She's been asked to act again.
Yeah, she doesn't quite know how to play it because they have to be kind of professional and they have to be like part of the thing, again, is this crew works really well because they're not in competition with one another and because they're simpatico with each other, they can come in and be clearly, you know, they've got some thing that they're doing and everyone goes along with it.
You know, I mean, here, weren't you pleased that they came into the room.
I was like, you a flog this joke to death now.
We need someone to come in with a gun.
Oh, bloody hell, he is massive, isn't he?
Yeah, yeah, it just stood up.
What's his name again?
Big game what?
Big game James.
Big game James.
Looking next to Picard.
Oh, come on, they put him in higher shoes or something.
No one is that tall.
There's the bartender in part one said that he was 2 metres tall with a smooth head, a human 2 metres tall with a smooth head.
Come on.
He's not even one. 8 metres tall. are you talking about?
Can you write me up a bit, please?
Yeah, that's right.
Oh, now I do, I am very, oh, do you see the shock look on Marina's face when Riker got shot there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But she's the one who sells it.
She turns around and says he's dead and Data doesn't even realise that at the time she actually gets it right.
She says, no, he's dead.
Did she say it with the same sort of energy as she said?
He's frozen in Empower?
No, no, she's...
A few years have passed since then.
I could do a supercut of the best merita against Lime readings, you know.
Shut up.
Oh, well acted, Marina.
No, he's only stunned.
Don't worry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks.
I think we worked that out.
Did I care?
Well, it's done for long, look. straight up into the camera.
No, I do like his stand and then Data saying, I have to admit, I'm experiencing a similar sensation, which I thought was pretty good.
Because, you know, he's Picard and he's, um, uh, he's right a bank suddenly.
I've got a feeling, you know, that was our big action set piece for the episode.
That was it.
I mean, what I was pleased about was Gates and Michael and Jonathan were all shot.
So that was quite pleasing to see because we don't normally get Picard doing that sort of thing.
Oh, the guy gets to punch the feeling in the face.
There we go, which is really good.
Riker has turned on us.
That's what he called him in series one.
Do you remember?
Riker.
All time.
He never called him commander, did he?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Everyone was calling him Riker.
Or Bill, for God's sake.
Oh, so now he's taking over the pirate ship.
Yeah, the fellow at the back there, sort of fabulous long hair.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Any lines at all?
No, he's just, there are.
It's not just the main guys.
There are a bunch of other guys on the ship.
There's a ship full of guys.
Only some of whom get to talk.
Look at the car.
I mean, look at the fucking carpet in that shit.
Everybody is in shot, yeah.
Yeah, they're going around. carpet.
All I can see is the fucking carpet.
I'm not looking at the actors It's terrible.
Oh, gyrus have soft pile underfoot.
No.
They have clanking metal.
They have metal.
It's sort of...
Sluicing around their feet, you know, that sort of thing.
Look at that.
Look at that.
Imagine if that was Barge of the Dead.
Oh, this blocking.
I just cannot believe even in 93 that we are shooting television with this sort of blocking with everyone in the show.
They all look like they're about to break into the final number leading into the end of act one.
You look at the other television that's going out in 93 in America.
I mean, it's leagues ahead, direction wise.
Well, I think that that's part of the problem too, that now 7 years doing a show like this on its limited budget, this now, I think, is starting to look tired.
And, you know, it's the same old sets and stuff like that.
I don't know.
Oh, now he's dead.
Suddenly, that was easy, wasn't it?
That was so easy.
Oh, it's that body toilet. dead.
He's dead.
Very undramatic.
Well, like I said, he pressed the kill Galen button on his servo neuro thing and somehow, while he was standing there with it clipped to his belt, Picard had managed to fix it so that it would kill him instead.
I know, I'm absolutely desperate to see Patrick Stewart in a choker, which is probably quite inappropriate given recent events, but imagine if he was.
And then Bonnie Tyler died and he took him down with him.
It would have been very funny.
I'm not sure that would have been that much fun.
So, yes.
So now he's in charge, and he's destroyed the thing.
And again, I guess thematically that's a thing that's happening, isn't it?
Like he is just going to persuade them to do what he says.
You are right, by the way.
Thai Kajada.
She is the best looking pirate.
The laser also, the redhead.
She looks cool.
It's a very DS9 look.
I mean, she's the sort of, you know, you can tell that Michael Westmore also designed the Darbo girls.
I think that might be how she looked, actually, India.
Right.
Yeah.
So again, this scene, fortunately, is quite short, and it does a thing that we need to have done at this point.
So this is where he's doing the bit, the cat and mouse between, um, uh, between Talera and Picard.
So we find...
Is this where he says, actually, there isn't an opportunity.
There isn't one.
So we find out before Picard does, but it does look like Picard suspects something at this point, I think. which is like, it's an okay sort of reversal, a twist, but I mean, it's not really presented in a dramatic way, is it?
No.
No, that's right.
So, so, but this scene now, because we know that, um, like that's sort of, again, that's Ronald D. Moore doing basic script drama one on one.
Yeah, that's right. letting us know that in fact she's not who she says she is.
And so now throughout the scene, we get the sort of her nearly inadvertently revealing it and, you know, kind of tipping him off, I think.
I'll tell you one thing I did realise.
Remember, I said in part one about how Patrick Stewart slips between the pirate and Captain Picard in this episode.
He's absolutely Captain Picard in this scene, and he's talking very passionately about, you know, this Vulcan artefact.
And I realised, because we've recently done a couple of early TNG episodes, how much he softened that part as it went on, because he was so stiff in one and two.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What was it?
Outrage O'Connage. you remember?
It was just so stupid in that episode.
You know, his bag's still packed.
His bags are now unpacked.
He's embraced this role.
It's a huge commercial success and there's so much warmth in his voice.
I think there's an element of, I'm a bit embarrassed by this in one and two, and there's absolutely an element of, I have embraced this in series seven.
And I just, I, I just find him really charming to watch as Captain Picard in the later seasons.
Yeah, but I think, you know, these scenes and the stuff about, you know, archeology and stuff don't happen without Captain Holiday and the chase and masks, you know.
I'm pleased because if we'd have had, we could have had this sort of pirate captain version of Captain Picard, you know?
It's sort of...
The Kirk version of Captain Picard.
Yeah, I do like the outfit.
Like, I think the outfit looks really good.
Don't need that.
That sort of pirate.
Talking bullshit. could be so charming as well.
Yeah, we talked about that.
Yeah, that smiles.
Turk is amazing.
I mean, are they all?
I think all the captains are pretty amazing.
Yeah, uh-oh.
Oh, yeah, sorry.
Except for one who's an asshole.
He is the joker in the pack.
This is going on forever.
Oh, and because she's playing a Vulcan, of course, she doesn't really get to remote much, does she?
Yeah, but she, you know, she created the female Vulcan is a kind of semi-regular character, really.
We had Kirsty Alley, but she does 2 films and maybe a cameo in the next one or something, like she's important, I think.
Do you know, Nathan?
I only just realised there are several layers of carpet on that bridge.
Look.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And there's virtual carpet.
It's so bad.
Whoever got that job must have got a great salary.
I mean, there's so much of it there.
Not as many as the one who did the walls in the Enterprise, but... so much kind of thing.
Is it the worst pirate ship ever?
I think it might be.
I don't think I've seen a worst one.
Or a more couple for one.
It's just terrible.
It's so bad.
And that, all of that thing, that cat and mouse thing lasted one episode, and then that one episode, one scene, and the next scene, she's denouncing it, you know, that whole kind of circling around, one another, will he find out, will we not find out, absolutely goes out the window immediately?
Like there's, you know, that needed to come in much earlier.
And what's weird is like stuff that we started in one has just sort of been abandoned completely.
Like you said, we did all that pretence of Picard being dead.
And then no one had any reactions to it at all when he turned up.
Nobody was actually like, 0 my god, you're alive.
Marina did.
But I mean, they have the discovery happened while, you know, there's a deception so that the crew can't let on.
And so they can never really express surprise.
And I guess, you know, that's a choice.
I've, I, I felt, so about this point, there was a, it felt really improvised a script.
I was like, okay, and now we're going to try that.
Now we'll kill off the head captain.
And now we're going to attack the ship and now we're going to, but like none of it really feels...
I suppose that's not too bad a shot of that cabin.
There's some light coming in from above.
Yeah, it does feel small.
Yeah, it does seem high.
I think is what they're managing.
Like they're managing to look like it doesn't, you know, it's got a high ceiling or something.
And again, the camera barely moves in this set.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's so narrow.
There's no space.
It's like this tiny corridor.
Can you move over there, camera one?
No.
There's no room.
There's no over there.
It's minuscule set.
It's a terrible gone look of it.
I know, it's the worst.
She's just watching her, mate, be killed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right?
About 15 seconds.
And then she turns it on her and instead of just, look, your gun is in your hand.
Yeah, yeah, shoot her.
Oh God.
Now that's something that good editing could have prevented.
Yeah, I could have.
Yeah.
Oh, dear.
Then I don't know why we kill these 2 off.
Why can't we let them leave to fight another day and do other fun pirate things.
Quick, get the clue done, Jean-Luc.
I don't know.
So all the other pirates on the ship.
Did I get to go off on live happily ever after?
The ones that didn't get to talk?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They did more thumb things than this. in the future.
Yes, let's hope so.
Now all the boring characters have gone.
We can have some fun.
Get the orgy going.
Come on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So again, this is unlike anything we've ever faced, but what it is like we don't ever see any of that.
We see her kill people.
Look, that ankle, it looks even smaller, the set, doesn't it?
There's barely room for 4 people to stand there.
Yeah, that's right.
Oh, again, we're blocking beautifully.
Alex, I'll just sing out, they're all in the shop.
You stand a few minutes behind him.
You said a few minutes behind.
TV is just not at all sure like that now, is it?
Like you very rarely get shots where the whole cast is in one shot.
Yeah, yeah.
It's always cutting away to reactions, aren't you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
It's extraordinary.
The more we explore TNG.
I can't wait to see more more of it.
But I actually think there was a bit more, we talked about this risk taking a dynamism in the early seasons with how they, with how they were shooting things anyway.
Yeah, yeah.
They did know what they were doing and that's not such a terrible thing.
It turns out for a change.
Oh, it's got straight through Riker.
Yeah.
And look, it's actually sort of, she shakes.
Why does it affect her?
I don't know.
I don't know.
No I think she's just upset.
It's like, well, actually, she's probably feeling quite aggressive force towards them because it's not working.
Should a more sort of thing turn around and turn her.
No, instead she gets captured and sent to prison.
Never seen again?
Never seen again.
Never seen. show's about to end.
Why she came down on her knees right now?
No, see, it doesn't even work on wharf.
That's how shit she is.
She's so shocked she got down on her knees.
Even a Klingon?
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Well, that's it.
You're useless All of that. and now you're gonna go to prison.
We are such enlightened people that your weapon is wrong.
You can't kill us.
Oh, she does.
Oh, to be fair, she does try and shoot it right in the face there.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a laugh.
He's not having any of it.
I am the purest of all, Tara.
Jesus Christ.
But that's a cheesy Star Trek ending and like I'm there for that.
And that's that's Ron Moore doing a cheesy Star Trek ending. on that planet there.
All those sort of lawyers.
It's that settlements.
Looks great.
What was that sort of volcanic witches?
Well, that's Vulcan, isn't it?
Vulcan?
This was the funniest scene in the whole thing.
So the thing that I like about this scene is like they're both kind of playing off on another, and then data, you know, who has a history of not getting the joke.
Um, uh, you know, like the way that he pushes gates off the sheep into the water, uh, and he doesn't normally get jokes.
And you've got Riker going, you do realise he was joking, right?
And data is just completely impassive.
And you're kind of going, yeah, I think Data knows that this is a joke.
After all, he's been really savvy as the commanding officer of this ship.
He knows what people mean.
He knows what they want.
And I think he is, you know, he's absolutely doing a joke and really... where they're all sort of trying to outdo each other, go, well, you know, actually, technically, you should be this.
And actually, you should be in the brigand.
Where's that been in this script?
Yeah that's right.
It's actually really... actual width.
But again, Brad, you came in right selling it.
Yeah, it's so funny.
Yeah, and it's leaning into their their their relationship as actors as well.
You can see it all there on the screen.
Where's that been in the story?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, look at look at my car.
Look at the smile again, just great reaction shots from Jonathan.
Look, and totally impassive, Brent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just completely failing to have any facial expression at all.
It's funny if you don't know I'm in on the joke.
Exactly.
And just having them walk out of shot and then do the thing.
Like, I think that that's a pretty great idea.
Isn't it nice to laugh at Star Trek?
Wow.
Yeah, let us do that.
I'm telling you now.
Keep it going.
There's a tracking shot here that's, it looks great in going down the corridors.
I don't think that's Fantasms, is it?
Is it emergence?
Is it emergence?
No, it's all season 7, episode 6.
Fantasms.
Yeah.
Okay.
I thinking of emergents, but...
And then you've got the sort of the millers there.
Bashing away inside the wall.
Jack's great.
It's better than anything we've seen in Gambit in 5 seconds.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I do think it's down to the director, you know, whether they want to give it some month or not.
Yeah.
But also whether they're given the chance to.
I think that there is just a kind of failure to commit here.
Isn't that the problem?
I think we identified it early on that, you know, no one really wants to be doing the pirate thing.
No one wants to do Camp Star Trek.
That's a terrible creative decision and the right decision is to do fun camp Star Trek with pirates, as we've subsequently discovered.
But because no one really wants to do it, they just half-ass it and it's just not very good.
The people at the top are saying, don't be silly and fun with this.
Then the M result is not going to be silly and fun.
No.
And it should have been silly and fun.
And they can do it.
They can do it.
As we've identified elsewhere, they can absolutely do it.
Yeah.
They just sort of given up at this point.
All right, it's the end of the episode and it's time for us to find out where we're going next.
It's my turn on the randomiser, and I have pressed the 21st century trek button.
And that means Discovery, Short Treks, Picard, Lower Decks, Strange Worlds, and Starfleet Academy, up for grabs.
So it could be anything.
This is where my knowledge is scant, but I learn an awful lot.
I can't wait.
All right.
So I'm going to press the button.
Your random Star Trek prodigy episode is season one episode 4 Dreamcatcher.
The crew of the protest star lands on an uninhabited lush alien world, where the lines between reality and imagination become blurred.
I mean, it's going to be visually stunning, isn't it?
It's going to be early prodigy as well before it gets too complicated and too many timelines and things.
I imagine that's going to be pretty charming, but I don't want to do the 1st one.
Let's try another one.
Okay, let's go.
Your random Star Trek Picard episode is season three, episode one, the next generation.
Oh, I think we should do it.
Particularly, particularly given that Patrick Diamond.
Yeah, that's right.
So recently.
Um, and because I think, you know, we said this, this time that, well, I did at least that the, the kind of interactions between Jonathan and Patrick in this episode in Gambit, parts one and 2 eventually leads to the kind of interactions that we have in the next generation in Star Trek Picard.
It's so rare.
I saw an interview recently with Jonathan Frakes, where he said, they just didn't let us have like conflict a lot.
Me and Patrick.
And that's what I really loved about that last season of Picard in that we got to play some juicy dramatic scenes together.
But I just remember watching this 1st episode and thinking, oh, there's a, there's a feeling like this is the start of something really epic.
Now, you know, and I know that I didn't quite like where it went.
It wasn't quite as epic as I was hoping for, but the 1st half of this series.
I think there's a real confidence to this.
And you know, we've just lost Patrick.
So let's enjoy him some more.
Absolutely.
Let's do that.
That's gonna be fun.
You've been listening to entitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford and Nathan Bottomley.
You can find us online at untitled Star Trek project.com and wherever you get your podcasts.
Our artwork is by Kayla Ciceran and the theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 10th of November 2026 and released on the 13th of November.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek Picard, the next generation.
This isn't the one we've got in in it, is it?
That's season two, episode one.
It is, yeah, season two. is the one that Kinden's in.
Where they go to the bar, yeah.
Oh, and 7 of nine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. on the captain.
Do we get anything off that fabulous villain in this as well?
Oh, Amanda Plummer.
Sure, actually.
I can't remember.
I can't remember Vatic, remember?
Yeah, oh, Todd Stashwick.
I know, he's so good.
Aw, as well.
Well, already we're looking forward to this more than we were.
Gambit.
And rightly so.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah, I'm glad we showed that.
That's good.
So I did that.
I think it was I was about to get the plane over to Italy.
And I, It's 2023.
So it wasn't last time, it was the 1st time I came to visit you.
And I was in the Holiday Inn at Heathrow Airport and Colin Neal met me for dinner, but I stopped in the hotel and I torrented the episode and then just watched it in the hotel before going out to dinner.
So I remember it really well because I think I was watching that season while I was travelling around Italy.
I can't remember what was happening.
Maybe I was ill.
Maybe I was having a period where I wasn't feeling great, but I was in and I was up late and I watched this one and then I remember I rolled into 2 and then I rolled into 3 and then I rolled into 4 because they were just getting better and better.
And I was up until about 2 or 3 in the morning.
I remember just watching them one after another.
Yeah, I can't remember what was happening at the time.
We were talking about that yesterday, me and Mark, we were like talking about like where we were when we've heard different big finishes because sometimes it's been on trains. sometimes it's been on the beach. sometimes it's been on walks.
Do you know what I mean?
Like sometimes when where you 1st watch something.
Yeah.
Lodges in your head because that, I mean, that's different from anywhere.
You watched everything else, right?
Yeah.
Justice on my sofa, you know.
No, that is not the 1st time I saw it, but maybe the best time.
Upsetting, all that tucking.
Oh boy.
Oh my god.
It was like a clan rally.
I've seen that picture doing the rows lately.
I like, why does everyone keep sharing that picture on that man?
Oh, is it the picture of the way port?
That terrible tucking picture.
It's so funny though.
It's the perfect thing because it is like Marina going like this and it's for old Denise looking off camera and her agent going.
I'm the man.
What do I do?
What do I do?
Moose knuckle.
Just horrible boy.
I think it was in reaction to, you know, these dreadful people that are saying that Kurtzman tricks. too woke and not serious enough, and then people are posting that picture going, oh, back in the days, when it was really...
And also not work because everyone's fucking white and blonde on this planet.
Planet of the Nazis.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Again.
And horribly unsexy.
Just awful.