Hey, Joe. Hi.
So, we're back doing Star Trek, the original series, and we are on
the 3rd episode of series two, and it's fan favourite, the
changeling.
Well, you say fan favourite.
I'll put out to a few friends of mine that are, you know, oriented
this week and they all came back to me just with the hashtag shit
robot.
The robot's great.
I think no man is amazing.
Yeah, yeah, nomads awesome.
I even think the way they realise they were moving about the sets
is incredible as well.
So, well, maybe it's a fan favourite for, you know, Star Trek
obsessives.
If you ask Mark Altman or someone like that, he'll probably give
this one 5 stars.
There is, look, I think it's very standard.
But it goes to show that standard original series Star Trek is
still pretty fun.
I think it suffered a little bit from being very much like the
doomsday machine only not as good.
You know, you've got a strange entity that's sort of inexplicable
in various ways that's heading towards, well, this time Earth
instead of Rigel 3 or 7 or whatever it was that the doomsday
machine was going to destroy that we couldn't possibly care
about.
This one's heading straight for Earth.
It's kind of exciting.
There are some fundamental differences between this and the
doomsday machine.
That was like an unknowable alien threat.
This is absolutely a mystery that's explained, and it becomes, and
it's somewhat something that talks.
So there's like a negotiation and there's this sort of cat and
mouse of like how do we defeat this thing?
And obviously, this is all set in the enterprise sets as well.
So it's a bull show.
Whereas the doomsday machine. look like, you know, even though the
effects could be a bit ropey.
I had a bit of money spent on it, you know?
Yeah.
Also, I think it had an incredible guest turn as well, which this
one doesn't have.
It's just our regulars and whatever voiceover guys doing nomad.
But I said to you, didn't I, before we came on mic, that this
really exposes how bloody good this set of regulars is, because I
think with, I don't know, TNG or Enterprise regulars, this would
be interminable watching them trying to outthink this, you know
floating robot.
Well, I was getting exocomp vibes from it as well because it's
kind of like we have the technology to build a robot prop with
lots of flashing lights that is going to fly around the set on a
string, and that's absolutely what the exocomps do in quality of
life, which I think is from series 6.
And so it's getting a little...
I always felt like at the end of that story.
They should have kept a few around you.
You could have seen them flying around the ship every now and
again, doing little repairs.
You know, a bit like those things they had in fast skate that
scuttled about, you know, just like a quirky visual.
The dots in discovery.
There is, of course.
Oh, they're amazing.
There is, of course, an ex-com, uh, lieutenant or ensign or
something in a lower decks episode who is called Peanut Hamper, uh
which is the name she chose herself.
Is that a robot?
It's an exocomp.
It's a...
Because they're alive.
We discover they're alive in that episode.
This is one of those rare 2S episodes that I actually reviewed on
my...
I know he did about 20 or so because I was literally doing it like
we're doing it randomly and I was I didn't have a fabulous
randomiser online to select the episode.
So I literally wrote out every single episode of Star Trek, across
all the series, tore up the bits of paper, put them in a box, I
would get my other half of the time to select the episodes.
I want to sort some highlight of my week.
It was still the highlight of my week.
But anyway, this one came out and I had the nerve to say at the
end of the review that I wish Nomad had stuck around and been a
regular on the original theory.
That would have been great.
Imagine him floating around in the back of scenes, you know
getting on with it.
Just occasionally disintegrating some white guys and, you know
that sort of thing.
I think it would have added an edge of tension to even the dullest
episode.
You said the doomsday machine had a great guest stop.
I thought the fellow who voiced nomad in this was really fun.
He is pretty great.
He is pretty good because he's got the fabulous robot voice of
every single TOS robot.
Hello, Captain Kirk.
Honestly.
They sound so grand, don't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, like the guy, like the guy in the Corva might maneuver.
Uh, you know, that voice and he's just so great and it's so Star
Trek-y.
Do you remember the, I don't know what the episode is called.
I think it's the Apple, I think, with the big snake cave set, with
the glowing eyes.
And he talks like that as well.
So good.
It's so great.
And so that feels very Star Trek, and just, you know, because
we're with our regulars and just hanging out, the whole thing is
actually...
Well, you like about that, don't you?
You like a bit of hanging out with the regulars.
Yeah, yeah.
But also as well, like the cliche of talking the, you know, talking
the computer out of doing what it's doing, the joke at the end, the
mind mail.
There's there's a lot of digs at McCoy in this.
Like, there's every, every stock tier-ish cliche.
But they are having fun with it.
I felt and we'll talk about this as we go in, but I felt Shatner
especially, was having a lot of fun with his script.
Yeah, yeah.
Look, I think it's fun.
I think it is a little bit disposable, and I have to say I was a
little bit disappointed because this is an episode that I had seen
before, like, I think the Corba Mite maneuver and the doomsday
machine, and watching those 2 episodes for this podcast was a
great experience because I discovered how much better they were
than I remember.
This, I didn't quite have that experience with.
I thought it was perfectly fun, but not superb.
I turned up on this, cool, didn't I?
And I was like, yeah, you were super excited.
I've got to confess to you.
I think TOS, you know, might be my secret guilty pleasure in this
podcast.
Because every time I do that, I freaking love it here.
And I've never really had that relationship with TS before.
So I'm intributing this entirely to you.
Well, I'm I'm actually having a bit of a renewed interest in TOS
just because of strange new worlds as well because it's trying so
hard to kind of recapture that with considerable succeeding.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it just makes me, uh, it makes me remember why I like Star
Trek, you know, discovery and Picard and lower decks.
You know, they're all doing something a bit different from what
TOS or the next generation or Voyager or Enterprise we're doing.
And it's really premise light, isn't it?
Like TOS or TNG.
More so than Voyager Enterprise.
I think Strange New Worlds is the 1st Star Trek series since the
original series to get that kind of tone of adventuring and going
out and just having a fucking laugh out in space.
It's the 1st show.
TNG never did that DS9 certainly didn't do that.
Voyager, didn't do that.
Enterprise was just tedious.
You know, like, this is the 1st one where it's like, let's see
what's out there.
And it's going to be a hell of a rise, you know?
Yeah, well, this is a great thing to recreate and there's, it's
it's no coincidence that this is spawned, you know, currently no
less than 17 new spinoffs or something at this point.
I can't even count that high.
It's a great show.
But it's no surprise to me as well, but a show that's aping, the
tone of the original series is easily the most popular of the
current treks that are out because there's a response to Strangely
Wells has been incredible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right.
So we were talking about Strange Tree Worlds, but let's get back
to the original and some might say the best, not me, but...
But this should be really fun.
So I'll count us in.
I'm ready Five, four, three, two, one and we're off.
Yes, you know, I was very confused, you know, because I can
remember whether we were watching the changeling or the empath.
And there are there are a lot of those in the original series.
That's true.
Now, I am currently watching the original version of this with the
old special effects, but I did watch the Netflix version with the
new special effects.
So I don't imagine it to be fast so different.
No, there wasn't much here that you could, like, they certainly
don't key out the spring on Nomad when he's floating about the
sets.
The string is still present and I'm pleased.
No, it would have been sacrilege too. to mat that out, I think.
Yeah, I mean, like, I I think the big change is the bolt thing
because this is quite special effects light, apart from the
hanging robot and the robot prop, which must have cost a fair
amount of money.
There aren't that many special effects.
There's some great kind of, you know, vaporising security guard
shots. and I'll see what they look like in the original because
but they were pretty contuny.
It's going true, and we'll get there when he turns up, is they
found some very creative ways to shoot that robot, which, you know
moving without actually showing, but it was hanging on a string
going across the street.
I mean, props to these actors because they're all watching this
they wobble across the set and they're giving it a huge sense of
gravitas, aren't they?
So I think this is the point, or is this more or less the point
where we get the music cue, the core of my maneuver music?
It's terrific.
There was every musical queue in this episode, every news.
They even did, you know, the bit at the end of when Nomad
arrives.
It goes, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
It's great.
So this is Mark Daniels, this is Mark Daniels again, who did what
Spock's brain and...
And the doomsday maneuver and stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
We've done it.
We've done a fair amount of episodes so far.
And this is sort of stylishly done, I think.
Oh, yeah.
I think I think if they are doing a bottle show on TOS.
They find interesting ways to realise it.
I can't get over this old version of the opening credits, the one
that you're not watching.
You're watching the new version.
No, I'm seeing fabulous CGI planets, the Enterprises.
It's still pretty damn great.
Do you know, I've got to confess, I'm not that keen on the
original series theme tune.
No, it's...
No, no, it's not really bad.
It's one of the few times I actually press skip intro.
Netflix.
Oh wow, that is sacrilege.
I like to have an excerpt at the very end of Strangely Worlds, I
think, is pretty cute.
Well, we talked about this when we did Strangely Worlds, but the
way they took the bare bones of the original series and then added
to it.
That still gives me goosebumps when I listened to it now.
So the 1st 10 minutes of this episode.
I'm going to put this out there now are pretty interminable.
Not a lot happens.
Until the robot turns up, not a lot happens.
Scott McNulty said that most episodes of TOS could have 10 minutes
shaved off them.
Well he was absolutely right with this one.
Yeah, this is this is sort of fairly standard bridge facing an
external threat kind of gear that we've seen a whole heap of times
by now.
What is that scanner that's spot puts his eyes into?
Does that allow him to see outside the ship?
I have literally no idea and I think probably no one does at all.
It's not the last time, you know, in this episode where he'll be
caressing a piece of equipment like this.
No, that's true.
But even Ethan Peck has a scanner like that.
So uh, it's one of the things that we uh, that we enjoy about
original series.
I love the 2nd series.
Ahura look.
She looks so beautiful in Siri suit.
Yeah, she is pretty stunning, isn't she?
She's fabulous.
Well, we should say something nice about our character now because
there's some problematic things coming out. terrible things to say
about what's happening.
So Warp 15.
That seems quite fast.
Well, I believe in threshold when they hit Walk 10.
Yes, that's interesting.
Tom Harris turned into a lizard person and ended up having sex
with Jayway as an amazing person.
Yeah, who was also a lizard person.
Yeah.
So I, it's a bit like, you know, when we did the animated series
and they were making up the star dates, they're just making up, I
think.
Oh, no, sorry. very big number.
No, this is before Next Generation came along and put a limit on
these things, you know, and said, well, you can't do, you can't go
beyond warp, whatever.
Yeah, because it's some weird logarithmic scale or something and
so the distance between 9.6 and 9.7 is the same as the distance, or
whatever.
Who cares?
Well, didn't they have an episode where every single time they go
to warp, there's an environmental disaster or something?
Yeah, I mean, I kind of like that. and it lasted for about 2
minutes.
I mean, it's a very boring episode, but it's quite a good idea.
It's a tedious episode. full of ten, about like bad.
Really bad.
Oh here we go.
So what's occurring here now?
They've come across the mysterious green light.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's not green, actually, in the original.
It's just in various wobbly white lights that are coming towards
them.
They've just fired a photon torpedo at it and it's absorbed the
photon torpedo.
So...
It's very like a Doomsday machine.
In that, it was the mysterious yellow cube, wasn't it?
No, no, no, that was the Corbamite maneuver, had the mysterious
yellow cube.
Oh, that's right, sorry.
Doom machine.
The mysterious kind of poo shaped leech thing.
Big glowing arsehole, wouldn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. sort of pinched off at the end.
So it's entirely a thing.
So, yeah, like, I get what you mean.
There's not much going on here.
They're making a sort of recent tense.
I think they're kind of doing the same things they were doing in
called Mite maneuver, aren't they?
They're trying to get away from it.
They're trying to fire on it.
Yeah, there's J Random, this guy on the left of the screen
pressing the other buttons and not getting very much to say.
So you really enjoyed the call might maneuver.
Whereas it had lots of lengthy kind of periods of not much
occurring.
So why did you have less of a reaction to this one?
It, it seemed to feel more tense.
And it was assisted by having, you know, lieutenant, a lieutenant
sort of panicky fuckwit at the, at the ops or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, just breakdown.
Yeah, yes.
And that kind of emphasised the threat.
And the threat seemed weird, whereas this is just a sort of
glowing light.
I mean, the threat seemed much weirder for some reason.
With the Corbinite maneuver, you had that character threat, didn't
you, of him pushing that man too far.
I'm being called at it.
With the doomsday machine, you had Decker and so there was...
There's not really anything in this, is there?
It's basically just about the robot and the relationship.
Oh, sorry, the mystery of where that, where the probe has been
and...
And what he's up to now.
But, you know, it is exactly the plot of, um, Star Trek the most.
Motion picture.
Yeah, yeah, except the probe is sexier in Star Trek, the motion
picture because it's that lady with the shaved head.
Well, it's full of beautiful visuals, but I'd say this is a nice
condensed version of that.
Star Trek and the Motion picture. felt like it went on forever.
Oh, I did.
Yeah, it's very slow.
I would really like to watch the new director's cut, actually, and
I need to get round to it at some point.
If we ever get that on the randomiser, then we'll do that
version.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
I've heard more things.
Ahura's getting quite a lot to do and say.
At the beginning of this.
Is that because later on she's going to become like an important
point?
Well, not an important plot point, just something embarrassing
that happens that they should have thought twice about.
We've done a few of these TOS episodes now, Nathan, and this is
the most she's had to do in any of them.
Like, in, do you remember Spock's brain?
I think she appeared in one scene, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so they're trying to they're trying to think or figure out
what on earth this thing is.
Yeah, there are little moments that remind me reminded me weirdly
at the end of Discovery series 4 where they're kind of, you know
it wants them to communicate in a mathematical way and they're
trying to find some kind of shared language, but it all takes
about, you know, a minute or so and then it just starts speaking
to them in English.
I wonder if you literally looked at the franchise as a whole, you
know, how many scenes of some thing, you know, debris floating in
space that they're trying to figure out there is.
I'm willing to bet a lot of episodes.
Oh, yeah, a lot, a lot, I think.
Scary.
I just, like, like for a little while, they think that nomad's a
ship, but they know that it's about a metre long, and so they
think it's full of little guys, which I think is kind of cute
wouldn't be quite fun, wouldn't it?
Yeah, they would never have been able to realise that, would
they?
I guess they've done that one time, haven't they?
That episode I was telling you about the other week.
DS9 is one little ship.
It's that tiny runabout going about, causing mischief.
That was really fun.
There were those little those little tough photon torpedoes that
shoots the... the Gemadal.
I had seen it, but I absolutely don't remember it.
I think you'd like it, you know.
All right.
So what's happening here?
Are we going to the transporter room?
So this is the 10 minutes before the before the thing arrives.
We're kind of...
Yeah, see that, and this is why we're struggling here, because not
a lot is going on in these 1st 10 minutes.
But now, here, now, now, finally arrived.
Oh my god, look at him.
I would love to have one of those hanging in the corner of my room
you know.
Yeah, yeah.
So it recurs obviously all the time.
And as recently as the Picard season 2 episode in the party just
before the launch of the Europa mission, there was a model of the
original probe, apparently in the background, because it was
supposed to have been launched in the early 2000s, like in the
early 21st century.
No, we actually see we actually see a visual of what it looked
like before it crashed into the other and got repaired.
But this is the same thing that happens to Viga.
So Vida is Vida is the Voyager probe, and it crashes into an alien
thing and becomes something that wants to come back to Earth and
destroys us all or something.
We just had, you know, that very dramatic TOS musical sting when
he arrived on the transport bat.
So is he supposed to be quite scary looking?
Um I don't know.
What do you think?
Was he scary looking in the 1960s?
I have a bag shit robots.
I actually think it's a pretty great pro.
I really quite like.
I just think the idea of a robot floating about the set is. is
really fun.
Yeah, yeah.
It's pretty awesome.
Spock says it was a highly sophisticated computer.
Yeah, all right.
Yeah.
So good.
Yeah, I think he's sort of cute.
Like the design is great and all the brushed aluminum on his body
and all of that and the flashing lights.
And they direct him really interestingly as well because he's
often given just reaction shots and stuff, so we cut to nomad to
see what he thinks of it and of course he just looks the same as
he always does. that's kind of slightly hilarious, I think.
Well, let's kind of make no mistake.
The only thing that is stopping from this from being the barest
TOS episode is the fact that that robot's in it, you know. so
great.
Yeah, he is pretty good.
Here he goes.
Look at sadness reaction.
Do you know what?
Scotty goes, I think we've missed the bit where he goes, sir, I
think that's a machine.
In my professional opinion, that's a robot.
I'm like, motion, it's so wobbly.
It's super heavy, but it's just being sort of...
You think they'd make it lightly.
You're gonna be disbelief.
Well, I had to feed all those wires and shit in there, all those
lines, I guess.
I don't know.
Oh, look, even when it's a stationary, it's kind of wobbling.
Oh, no, Matt.
I don't know, I feel like they personify it quite well with that
voice.
Like, yeah, in fact, even the desire. there's an intelligence
there. you know?
But the design of it, right?
Where that sort of weird ass thing at the top of it looks a bit
like a head and it's kind of got lights in the top half of it.
And seeing this guy.
This photo, Mr. Sin, I'll tell you what, not only is he extremely
hot.
But I think his great, great, great, great, great grandfather
turns up in the T-E-N-G episode, Lonely Among Us.
That's the episode where Picard gets infected by the gas cloud and
starts transmitting new electricity overwrapped.
And there's a chief engineer in there called Mr. Sing.
I think they're related.
That is true.
But you see, it looks like a person.
So it's got that head with the sort of weird googly eyes sticking
out of it and then like shoulders and stuff.
So it is kind of personified without having any sort of really
recognisable human features.
It's got a vague shape.
I'll tell you one moment where it's personified and that's when he
hears O'Hara's voice and he has a massive probia erection.
I'm telling you.
It's probe comes straight out.
Yeah, yeah, it's so ridiculous.
Do you know what they're having to do as well?
It's so sad because obviously they normally walk at a certain
speed, but they're having to walk alongside the robot.
So they have to walk.
They're all having to tie their movements very carefully. the
robot and slipping alongside them.
There's some weird.
Cards here too, that are just not very good.
I don't know what's happening.
So Nomad thinks that uh, humanoids are, it's a biological
infestation, doesn't he?
He thinks we're inefficient and he's been sent off the planets
what to just eradicate everybody.
Well, so they recognise the name nomad and so they know that it's
a probe that they sent out, but it's like, why does it want to
destroy biological creatures because we didn't send a probe out
that would do that?
Yeah.
Oh my god, we're quite a great one.
How could you call?
The population of 5 planets of biological infestation.
And what's all this weird thing about Kirk being his creator?
So the person that sent out the original probe, is it, is that a
genuine fact that his name was Kirk?
No, no, his name's Roy Kirk, and we see a picture of him later, and
it's a picture of Mark Daniels.
Mark Daniels.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, which is pretty exciting.
And I was expecting Singh to be killed and I'm kind of delighted
that he wasn't because he's got even more red on him than a normal
red shirt.
And I just thought as a non-white person, he was at risk of
death.
And I'm glad that he survives the episode.
Like McCoy doesn't really have much to do beyond reaction to the
fact that people are being killed.
Oh, yeah, but he does get, I mean, he gets the scenes in Sick Bay
because Sick Bay becomes important because the 2 people who don't
actually get vaporised by a nomad.
Oh, let's not even talk about...
I mean, Scott, he's got to get a blast from Nomad in a minute, and
I felt for a 2nd that Stephen Moffatt was writing the script.
Did, not did.
Yeah, it's going to get better.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, I can see how he thought he might die.
I just thought, oh, Singh was gonna cop it at this point.
Oh, I love how they're all talking to this robot like it's a
person.
Yeah, I know it's wonderful, isn't it?
The highlight of all of their careers.
But sorry, my point was about the sort of the trio of McCoy and
Spock and Kirk is I think Spock used really well in this because
he gets that fabulous moment with the mind mailed.
Plus, he's the one that's correlating all the information and Kirk
gets a great role in this because he gets to have the dialogue
with the robot and use the fact that he thinks he's his creator to
his advantage.
So they're getting fun things to do.
Look at her.
She's got a pencil and I'd love to see them.
I'd love to see more pencils on Star Trek because she's absolutely
a peak receptionist in this episode, isn't she?
She's...
They couldn't have had that probe on nomad, go out in any other
direction.
Could they?
I mean, when he hears her singing.
Honestly, looks like he's got a massive stiffy and then he's
coming out of his nose.
That's his face that's coming out of, for God's sake.
They don't know where I'm going.
He looks very imperious, doesn't he?
He's wearing interesting uniforms. very grand.
Do you know, I don't you love how casual they are when they sit
around talking about problems in the original series.
In next generation, they're all kind of setting up, you know, with
sticks up their butts.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I, it is a peculiarly Star Trek, the Next Generation thing.
Although it is a sort of Berman Trek thing.
You know, like they try and create characters who are a bit more
kind of chill, but because they're so shit at dialogue, it never
really works and they just still end up being space people.
Um, there's, see, there's no, there's, there's no man there before
it's been adapted.
And is that a genuine depiction of...
Is it a real pro?
Is it all fiction real?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No it's not real.
Oh, so, yeah, the original, the motion picture, that was Voyager
Pro, wasn't it?
Yeah, Voyager was real and had just been sent out a couple of
years earlier.
And so that made it more effective as well because Viga was
something that we had just launched into space with our nudes on
it as well.
We did have that golden thing which had 2 nude white people on
it.
I rather like the naivety, Nathan, though, of the fact that they
sent out something that looked like a nomad.
Yeah, civilisation, yeah.
Well, I think it had been changed.
Perhaps whatever it was, the other installed those lights or
whatever or the death ray.
Who knows?
But can you try and explain something to me?
Because later on when Spock has the mind melled with the robot?
He's, he's not talking in spot language.
He talking in robot language.
It's all sort of broken, you know, computer language of the
1960s.
So we're not really getting much of a story of what's occurred.
It's kind of couching computer metaphor.
Yeah, yeah, it's sort of weirdly poetic.
I thought it was kind of weirdly poetic, that language to try and
find out much about who it encountered.
No, and that's okay, I think.
But then we don't really figure out why it's motive for then
wiping out all these people for no reason.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that's the other thing.
But think about, think about Devil in the Dark, which is one of
the best hero episodes, you know, and you've got people being
murdered.
And then he does the mind mailed with the mother, the water, and
then and then there's a proper motive as to why these people are
being killed because she's trying to protect her.
So they can do it.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think this is, there's a sense in which hashtag shit
robot is sort of right.
I think it's a greatly designed robot and the performance is
really great, but it's kind of just here to be super scary.
I'll have you know, across the ocean and 20 years later, they
created that federation security robot in Blake seven, all right?
This is a 1000000 times better than that, actually.
This is the streamlined sexy version.
So this is, you know, what is that, what is this human thing you
call singing and stuff?
and that's super boring and that's something that Star Trek kind
of does all the time.
Um, and then, before I started watching this episode, uh, I said
my Broncos, what series are you doing?
I said, oh, TOS.
He went, oh, so there'll be a scene where, you know, someone says
what is this human thing called love?
Well, that's the equivalent.
Just there, isn't it?
So we just wiped...
We just wiped her as mind and killed Scotty.
And at some point...
And he gets to say, he says, he's dead.
He gets to say it.
There it is.
Woohoo. absolutely superb.
Massive close up on William Shatler's face.
That's for the ad break. what we want.
That's what we want.
I mean, it is literally just to give this episode number 5 minutes
right?
Or is it to show just how dangerous nomad is?
Yeah, but we do see him kill like 2 sets of like 2 pairs of white
guys, security guards.
We don't know those people, Nathan.
We don't care about those people.
We don't give a shit.
That's right But I reckon, I think I've said this before that I
was told as a kid that Star Trek, and this was the only Star Trek
there was back then, that Star Trek was really scary and would
give me nightmares.
And I reckon those people being vaporised by nomad would have
scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.
I didn't know if you remember the direction in like Devil in the
Dark, I was just talking about, but it's really creepy episode.
It's a great episode.
POV shots of the monster killing people and things like that, you
know?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, this is a bit in a minute.
This is the bit of a minute where they choose to shoot handheld
behind Nomad, going into the turbine.
If you have a theory here, don't you?
Well, because because no man couldn't go into the turbo lift
because there's a wire.
He's hanging from a fishing line and the turbo lift has an arched
door thing.
And so he just couldn't have gone in.
Like, he's being operated from above.
It looks so striking.
I'm like, well, why didn't they do that more?
Because it looks really quite good.
It is very good.
Suddenly it's better than the thing than the thing wobbling
across.
I mean, I mean, did you see a minute ago when it came into the
bridge and it took them about 15 seconds to realise this robot was
halfway through the room.
Yeah, it doesn't make a noise, which is kind of cool.
Starfleet training is not what it was.
I'm telling you.
No.
Yeah, no, robot perception training.
Oh, God, look at that.
Scotty's hypocephalogram.
Yeah, it's just like a cephalogram only more hyper.
I think it's probably what that is.
Oh, here we go.
Look, he's wobbly across the set again.
Oh, he's so delightful.
Why didn't they keep him on his list?
I mean, he's really cute.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so, like, they're communicating with him.
They're not like sticking the tapes in him like you do with a
normal computer.
They are playing sound or flashing lights at him.
What was that all about in a minute when they're in Sick Bay?
and she goes, oh, here's another tape ahura. and she's putting
it's like slotting it in like a cassette.
It's just so great.
But they're playing, they're playing this noise to him like, like
a TRS 80 where you stick the, the audio cassette in and the
program is encoded in sort of weird noises.
If they do, I don't know if they've done it yet, but if they do it
straight into well, someone's slotting a cassette into...
It would be amazing.
So good.
It's a shame they know what computers are now, you know, now that
they're shame, isn't it?
It is a little bit of a shame.
Oh, here we go.
Look at this this shot.
And De Forrest Kevin is just looking at the robot, like, the top
of its head is out of shot because someone's holding it, you know
like, or holding it on the end of a thing because there's no way.
Look, it goes into the lift.
We follow it.
There's a bit of a goof there because Sulu was at his console a
minute ago and then he was just coming out with a lift.
He went for a wee, I think, probably.
It's the original Nurse Chapel.
Nurse Chapel.
Yeah.
Played by these fabulous Major Barrett.
Miguel Barrett.
She's, she's, I really like her.
But, you know, I absolutely adore New Nurse Chapel.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it said it before, it takes 22 actors to replace her, I
think. and that's exactly what they have on Strangely Worlds.
So nobody is basically saying I can bring people back to life.
Well, I think he only killed him a little bit, you know, and that
happens a lot, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you remember that TNG episode where Beverly Beverly Crusher
says, you know, right, we can kill Troy, but only for 2 minutes.
And then I've got to bring her back to life.
Magic technical staff.
Yeah, so I'm glad that he's worried.
He's worried, he's worried about Nichelle Nichols, but no one else
is.
No one's actually mentioned her.
And I think that this is incredibly gross and we'll get to it in a
minute.
What's something that nobody cares or just how the whole thing's
handled. how the whole thing's handled.
I mean, it should never have been done or whatever.
I didn't want to kill her, obviously.
Well, they just want to show the impact of what this thing can
do.
That's what it is.
And so they kill one character and they kind of brainwipe another
character.
Yeah, that's scary that bit too when it says think of music, like
it's trying to extract thoughts from her.
So here she is like barely able to speak and this is...
How does that even make sense in plotting terms?
Well, you know, you restore Scott, yeah.
He had more damage.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just whatever they want to do is whatever the rule is, you
know.
I'm assuming in the next episode, Ahura is back to her usual. and
we never mentioned this.
So they have managed to train her up from what, grade one reading
level to sophisticated linguist between store episodes.
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing she was never really a
linguist in the original series, was she?
She did speak Swahili, because she was, you know, that was her
language.
You know, she wasn't African-American, she was African, I think.
There's an interesting bit of trivia about that because Mark
Daniels, the director, did not want her to talk.
So he wanted just a talking broken English.
And Michelle Nichols refused to film the scene and said, and he
goes, well, it doesn't matter, you know, it's like Ahura speaks
English and she goes, yeah, but you know, and you speak, and she
just went, well, I'm Michelle Nichols, and I'm telling you, Ahura
this is where she comes from.
This is her native language and it got so heated that Gene
Roddenbury had to come down onto the set because she refused to
film it and Roddenbury took Michelle Nichols side and said, get a
linguist down here.
Let's give her some lines of dialogue in Swahili.
She's right.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, if it's wiped all of her knowledge, you know, like
and she's sort of lying in bed like a doll.
A zombie.
Awful.
But it will get worse.
You know, there are ways of lighting that string, you know, so
it's not so visible.
Like you can really see it there, can't you, as it's bobbing up
and down?
Well, I think maybe my my window isn't quite big enough or...
Oh, can you not say it?
Well, see, my, I kind of like gave it an excuse and said, that's
just an extra probe coming out the top of his hit and we just
can't see where it ends, you know?
literally a string.
Oh, you can't blame them for that, though.
No, no, no.
Oh, this.
Here we go.
Jesus Christ, this is awful.
It's so bad.
And she's like, she's giving this very weird pouty performers
isn't she?
Yeah, yeah, like she's a child.
It's super gross.
And like, what makes it gross is it's the only regular black
character who we now see, you know, trying to learn to read.
And then at the end of this scene, when she, she's struggling to
get the word blue.
Oh, yeah. and they laugh indulgently at her. they should both be
slapped.
And it's very weird as well because she's kind of doing this sort
of broken language.
And yeah, when Nurse Chapel goes off, she goes, oh, cheers
Christine.
I'm like, what?
There's no real consistency to this performance.
No.
Well, I think it was just a hugely ill advised thing.
And the fact that they give soap. yeah, there we go.
All right, Steve.
Frankly, David, I'm surprised they've even given they've even done
this scene.
You know, I'm surprised they didn't just wipe her mind and then
she was okay again.
Yeah.
So we discovered that by the end she's reading at college age.
So it's taken her one day.
Did you see that line?
Do you think we can re-educate her doctor about the only black
character on this show?
Yeah, it's really super gross.
It is terribly gross.
And then McCoy goes, well, now it's up to us, you know, to
civilise her.
The ball is just hearing.
Bluey. so gross.
But it's not even funny.
No, no, it's not funny.
I don't know what it's for just embarrassing.
Oh my god.
Do you remember?
Oh, look at them.
They laugh.
They're laughing and then she pulls a funny comedy face.
Do you remember when Molly O'Brien fell down a weird anomaly in a
planet and then got her back and shit.
She was an adult.
But she'd been stuck on this planet and they're doing scenes like
going, hello, Molly.
This is a bowl.
Would you like the bowl, Marley?
Well, I'm sorry, I was getting a bit of a, those vibes from that
scene?
Yeah, yeah.
But I think this is more gross than that.
You know, like that was some bullshit time thing and it was
something normal actor who plays Molly and all of that sort of
thing.
So, and there was not the uncomfortable racial thing.
I got a secret love for times orphan, you know, I hope we get it
soon.
It's kind of terrible, but I do know it.
I want to get children of time.
Is it children first?
That's amazingly good.
Don't tell me that's why you don't like.
No, I do, but everyone bitches about 2 vics and no one bitches
about children of time, for God's sake.
Odo just kills someone so he can continue to get laid.
Is this the mind meld now?
Oh, yeah.
And again, I think this is a little bit slow.
It's a little bit light on interest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. prompts to him.
Yeah, that's right.
Look at how he caresses the robot.
No, because it's like its face and then like his...
What, left hand is touching its breasts about...
You know, I do find it very strange because then he starts sort of
walking around it, doesn't he?
And touching it all over the place.
I'm like, well, you don't normally do that.
Normally you just touch someone's head.
Yeah, but there's not a lot of interest to be had.
And like, it's not like nomads giving him much back.
Well, this is this plays out very like that scene in Devil in the
Dark, because that's all done in broken sort of language as well
just like this.
But I don't know, because it's like a biological entity, there's
murdering.
It kind of has a bit more impact, you know?
Yeah, and it's an animal, isn't it?
Like, is it an animal?
How sentient?
Is it?
Like the horter is an animal or sort of an animal or not?
I suppose it's supposed to be like a magma creature?
What it is, actually, is it like a duvet?
The colour of macro.
Yeah, I love it, it's fantastic.
It is pretty incredible.
I watch all this all this weird like ton Rue, these strange...
Yeah, that was the thing that it kind of crashed into and you know
it's rebuilt out of both of them.
The same way that Voyager, the Voyager is, you know, the Voyager
and oh, he's going to kiss it.
It looks very true. waltzing with it. with no man.
I do have a feeling though, like, if you were like a non-Star Trek
fan, yeah, that looked upon the entire Star Trek franchise.
You'd be watching this scene going, this is everything I feared.
A man with a man with shit alien ears, touching a robot, talking
in broken English.
Like this confirms everything.
Actually, it's turning me on now.
I've got a bit.
Um, uh, my partner goes to me.
You say, well, I'll watch it with you.
And I'm really pleased he didn't.
I'm really pleased. never would have heard the end of it.
We are complete.
We are instructed.
It's so strange.
I think too, what happens is we get this, which is is kind of
attempting to be poetic, but not very poetic or trying to kind of
give us a sense of how robots think, but again, it isn't really
anything.
And then... supposed to get from that?
What are we supposed to take away from how robots think?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, it's just something, I don't know, it's colour.
And then...
And then you get, and then you get...
He just explains it to us.
Why is she so rough with him?
He like shoved him against the wall.
But we cut back to Nomad to see how he's reacting and he's just
sort of standing there flashing because he's just a fucking prop.
It's so great.
You know how I love everything furnishing?
What would you imagine that yellow piece of equipment next to them
there is kind of tunes coming out?
I spend a lot of time.
It does worry me that I spent a lot of time thinking about that
thing on the wall.
Why is it?
Because I don't know.
It's sort of, I think it, yeah, channels fluid towards the...
Yeah, the war engine or something. you know?
I like the flashing lights in the background.
Look at that.
They're great.
That's like my keyboard.
Well, you just want to touch them all.
Clicking keyboard.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You probably end up firing a post on torpedo or two, passing
ships.
I sure they don't put the controls to that in a corridor where
just anyone could walk past.
But see, the problem with this is the communicator, isn't it?
They press the button and they talk.
That's right.
Do we get another one where you can just flush something out the
like the eject chamber, you know, where you can stick?
That was the animated series.
I remember.
Get the bomb out.
We've got this ejector button.
But I think the problem here too is that we just have this scene
which basically does what the previous scene did.
And so what was the point of the previous scene?
Like again, they still spend a lot of time showing us and then
telling us what we've seen.
And now this is done with actual dialogue, isn't it?
So he's basically saying, well, this is what's happened.
This is what I just...
Yeah, from that previous scene.
Exactly.
And they don't they talk about why it's called the changing here
as well.
Well, so he brings changing into it as a kind of metaphor that's
that's Kirk's idea.
It's like, uh, you know, fairy steel, your baby, and then replace
it with a sort of weird simulacrum of your baby.
But I think it's a little bit kind of forced.
Like they want to get the title in or they want to justify why
it's called this.
See, look at those lights flashing in a pattern.
Oh, he's got his hands.
Oh, that was so great.
But it just goes straight through the force field and then here we
go.
Yes.
Red shirts.
Thanks, it looks so great.
So good.
Absolutely unchained.
Now we cut to another scene with 2 more red shows there, done for
I'm telling you.
And I think they just have a chat with those guys.
Then it comes in and starts to kind of fix everything.
No, because he's already...
It literally just fall up in the air.
It's amazing.
Oh my god.
But no, no, but if you've not seen, they've kind of realised how
to like that.
I couldn't see the string at all there.
It just looked like it was floating.
No, it didn't.
You couldn't see the string, but it moved exactly like a thing on
the end of a big string, right?
You are unsympathetic, Nathan. mostly.
No, I felt they were really going for it. promised to the guy up
in the gantry or something with the other end of the string, I
reckon, in those scenes.
They were...
And I love the fact that whenever someone's talking to it
obviously it's stationary and sitting on something, but they're
trying to give you the impression that it's still floating in the
air, you know, so they've gone in close on it.
Look at those flashing lights behind there.
I know, it would be so distracting if you're trying to get
anything done.
What the fuck, do you figure out what's going on in that ship with
all those lights going crazy like that?
It looks great though, doesn't it?
Yeah, well, it's only more fun than, you know, TNG engineering
sales.
Yeah.
Although, again, Nathan, I can't see many reflective services in
there.
Um, no, there aren't that many reflective surfaces.
They haven't yet learned how to not have the cameras reflecting
them.
Well, it's quite hard as well to find cardboard that reflects.
Yeah, that's true. paint it silver.
Nomad's got a bit of reflective surface there on his body.
So no man's coming in to improve the ship and it's going to
destroy the ship and then it says, oh, all right, well, I won't do
that then.
So that all seems sort of fairly pointless as well.
So I think that...
Now, look, we've been up a little bit critical here, but it's
worth noting at this point that last week we discussed dramatis
personae, DS9 episode, okay?
And we found nothing of interest or note whatsoever.
No.
And I, like, I think this is a bit dull.
But it's nowhere near as dull as Dramatis Persona.
And you kind of think that it would have been nice to think that
in the 25 years between those 2 episodes or whatever it was, it
might have been nice to, you know, it would have been nice to
think we'd learnt something about making TV drama.
Well, I've got to be honest.
I think Jurathis's no personae would have been improved greatly.
How flash a man had been there.
If a flying robot, flare across the screen every now and again.
Oh, I've been over the moon.
Is there a Star Trek episode that wouldn't have been improved by
that?
The visitor whatsoever?
You could just live.
Oh, the classic night.
Danger, Picard, Danger.
That is so good.
So good.
No, so now we hear he's going back to Earth, which is super
boring.
But less boring than Rygel 7, as I said.
Oh, bloody hell, look, there's our hand now camera work again.
I think that happens less than we think, though, don't we?
Earth's not in danger very often in TOS, is it?
No, no, no, no.
But if you're going to name a populated planet that's how these 2
white guys, they're toast.
Look at them.
Do you know what convinces me that there's robots alive?
Everyone's reactions to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they looked at a robot then.
They looked a bit scared and then they sort of moved aside.
I'm like, okay.
That does actually sell it because the one thing that struck me
when I was watching it that hasn't watched, it hasn't struck me
this time because we're kind of talking all the way through it, but
was the kind of weird arbitrariness of his behaviour, you know, he
wipes her mind.
Maybe that's it.
He has to do a lot of different weird things.
He then comes in and, you know, tries to fix the ship and he
wanders from place to place and then he declares he's going to go
to...
Like consistency to what he's up to, is there?
No, but I think that that's part of what makes him scary is that
he can't be predicted or really reasoned with.
And the way that everyone reacts to him.
Like even when he 1st moves when he 1st moves out of the
transporter room and just the way the actors respond to him, just
to the fact that he moves.
And so maybe that's it.
Is that it?
That's why he's so scared.
All I know is Mark Daniels.
Mark Daniels was doing an incredible tracking shot there.
Yeah, but the reason he's doing it is because the set has a roof.
It's so the guy in the gadry can't...
You know there's someone underneath that...
Oh my god, hurry up.
The fact that it's somehow...
No, we cut before it hits that part of the roof.
Oh, come on.
There's nothing about watching that thing moving about that.
No, it's not a show.
Look at this.
That is so funny.
That is the best bit.
That's really great.
Oh my god, it kept going.
The guy didn't notice.
It's going up the next floor.
That's adorable.
No, man, I love you so much.
Honestly, I could just watch an episode of him flying around
shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, see, this is looking quite scary too.
We... shut up pointing at it.
I'm telling you to stop, all right?
I am no mad.
I stop for no one.
Oh my.
I don't remember us laughing this much last week, you know What
did he do?
What did he do to nurse Chappell?
I think you should have taken all the women.
He's a very sexist robot.
Yeah, what a perv. sexist and racist. needs to go.
Yeah, yeah, it's coming and sexually harassed Migel and she's
fainted.
She does plenty of Latin TNG, you know, sexual harassment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I'd like getting the other direction.
That's fun.
It was fun.
So this is this is the point now where I've got to try and
outthink this thing now, mate.
We heading to earth.
Yeah.
You know, they're going to wipe out all life on earth.
Probably.
It'd be a bit embarrassing if that's how it all comes to an end.
There are a lot of roofs.
There are a lot of ceilings in the buildings on Earth, so that
would restrict its movement.
It would have to get some guide to carry it around.
And like, it's this.
It just, what's it doing?
Oh, it's turned off the life support system.
Mm.
So now that's why there's lots of people slumped all over the set
you know?
But Kirk's all right because he's the hero.
Well, he's the lead, yeah.
Yeah. extra oxygen supply or something.
Yeah, no, superpowers.
So this is this is one of those fabulous James Kirk defeats evil
computer moment.
Yeah, by talking.
I can assure you that somebody on memory alpha has listed every
time that hasn't heard.
There's only 4 instances.
Actually, it's not as much of a cliche as you might think.
Does he does he do it in the motion picture?
I can't remember.
No, I think Decker and Ileah kind of leave stay behind and
sacrifice themselves or something.
It's been such a long time since I saw it.
I saw it in the cinema originally in probably 1979, 1978.
It's amazing.
Oh, I only watched this just before we recorded, you know, I can't
remember how they tricked this thing.
I know they beam it off into space.
But how do they get it to the transport pad?
It's a really low effort kind of paradox.
It's like, you know, I am your creator, but I'm imperfect.
So how did I create you?
And it's all just kind of super tedious and not very interesting.
I mean, and you know, one of the things too is now that we know
about computers and we know that they are better than we are at a
bunch of things, including like playing chess and go.
Like they're, you know, they're not as good as, as, as we are at
recognising, you know, which images contain traffic lights and
shit like that.
But they can do a lot of things better than us.
And so the idea that we could create a computer that could do
better than us at something is kind of impossible, isn't it?
And so, I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with that.
No, but you know what?
You're giving it a lot more context than the episode bothers.
Well...
Yeah.
We can imagine imperfect people creating something that's better
at something than us, but Nomad can't.
He thinks that Kirk must be better than him, to have created him
and that seems to be the paradox.
But I think in the 60s, they just think that in the future
computers are going to be all powerful beings.
With personalities, you know?
It's funny, but it didn't quite end up that way, did it?
Well, no, there were those sort of weird artificial intelligences
that were on Twitter, like the Microsoft one that started being
racist when it respond, like just because Twitter is such a
cesspool.
Oh, I saw a video the other day.
I do apologise for this.
But of a sex bot, the latest sex bot that's been created.
Nathan, it was ghoulish.
Yeah.
So, you've been already coming anywhere near you. don't want
that.
No, no.
Pornhub's free.
Well, you know, when Rusty Davis, as a goer, creating future
robots in years and years, he creates the sex bot, doesn't he?
That the guy's got it in the cupboard.
Oh my god.
I forgot about that.
Oh, no, we're taking a little day because she's about to explode.
Get the magnets either side of him.
Come on.
So it's the antigraph thing and...
Now they're just running with him.
It doesn't weigh half a ton anymore, which is what it weighed
before.
He's actually saying error, error.
Yeah, it's fucking the robot. lost in space.
Faulty, faulty.
So stupid.
It should have a how moment.
It should go like, Kirk.
Why?
Yes, why?
You created me. don't you love me?
Why are you being so critical?
Oh my god.
Although we're heading towards what I think is the best scene of
the whole thing, the lame joke at the end.
Oh God.
It really does look like that, you know, in Strangely Wells, the
transport pad.
It's very similar.
It's got a lot more...
No, it's a lot more sophisticated, but the...
We all exploded.
Oh, yeah.
How did that explosion look in the old effects?
It was like a fabulous purple CGI.
No, no, no, that's great.
Practical explosion, but...
Nathan, I think you're probably watching the superior version if
you've got the shit effects on.
Well, I don't mind the new effects, as I've said before, the
dazzling display of logic. about that?
But this isn't this isn't one where the new effects are really
doing much for the episode.
Well, I know there's hardly any new effects, I think.
Yeah, see, look at who is nearly back to college level.
Within a week.
She'll be fine within a week, ready for the next episode.
Dr. Crusher has repaired her with her usual skill.
It's so shit.
I mean, if you're going to do episodic television.
If you know that it's not going to have any effect and we're going
to syndicate it and it could be shown in any order, don't do this
just don't do it.
Like, I love it.
This is so good.
Do you think I'm up with our feelings?
Yeah, what a cruel mum.
Mr. McCoy?
I'm a proud mother.
That little Jewish joke?
Like, he's excited because he's the Jewish mother of a doctor, you
know, like, like, imagine being.
I know.
Do you know what I love?
is Deforest Kelly and Leonard Nimoy just staring off camera
looking really out of the breast.
Are we doing this?
I didn't think it was like that was how Shatner was playing it.
You know, like he was being a Jewish mother, imagining that her
son's a doctor.
I think it's...
In my mind, yeah.
In my mind, every TOS episode ends on a lame joke and that kind of
flute music.
And when it does that, I can really disappoint it.
Disappointed.
Yeah.
Okay, but that, yeah.
Well, I was going to say, I've got a, I've got a theory, what the
hell is that on the end credits?
a massive cat.
Yeah, I'm seeing the massive cat and I'm seeing the, yeah, I don't
know what that is.
Oh, dead, yeah, they're selling...
I didn't realise in series 2.
They had all these.
In series one, it was just a Baylock, wasn't it?
Hilarious. okay.
Am I the theory about the episode that we've just watched, and
that is, I think it would probably be better, not better realised
but better as an animated series episode.
Condense down to 22 minutes.
You could probably tell the same story without all the flab and it
would be much more enjoyable. a bit less racism.
Yeah, I think probably is always good advice, you know.
Yeah.
There probably isn't...
Yeah, there probably isn't really enough.
Like, this is probably worse than the 10 minutes too much
material.
I think that there isn't really very much here.
Is there like what to what did we learn anything today?
Not really.
Well, I feel like there's a lot kind of missing as well that we
covered, like we don't really learn about the other being that the
probe met.
We don't understand the motive as to why it's wiping people out.
Well, because it's a villain in a Star Trek episode seems to be
puzzle, but we've kind of got all the outside bits and not all the
bits in the middle, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
But it does have a flying robot.
Yeah, and I think that that's it.
I think it's kind of like they're so excited about this hilarious
prop and it is pretty damn great.
And I do think that it had the potential to be really scary at the
time.
I can, like I said, I can imagine being terrified by that as a
child.
Essentially, Nathan, I would like somebody out there listening to
this because there's wonderfully creative people out there on
YouTube and Twitter and all of that.
To create...
The director's car of the changeling.
And I just want all the shots of nomad flying about the ship going
up, Shah.
Never gonna be there.
The going up shafts was absolutely my favourite beer. was so
awesome.
It was so good.
I just love the fact that you thought he was going to go up and
come out and then he just kept going up.
Well, there's no way he could have come out because there's a
thing, there'd be a thing in the way.
They wouldn't have been able to get the fishing line there.
Yeah, so I think this does answer the question.
Can Star Trek justify an entire episode on the basis of a floating
robot?
And my answer is, yes.
Yeah, my answer is nearly.
It is pretty great.
It is a pretty great floating robot.
I will give it that.
And I'm not sorry that it's part of Star Trek Canon.
In fact, I'm on its memory alpha page, even as we speak.
It's time for us to choose our next Star Trek episode, and so Joe
is on Untitled Star Trek project.com slash randomiser because it's
his go and perhaps show you could tell us how you're choosing this
week.
After what I said in this episode.
I also want to say you have rendered my box of little bits of
paper completely useless now.
I've still got it.
Oh, do you really?
in the cupboard.
I think that you should Marie Condo that shit.
Just thank it for its service and, you know, get rid of it.
Get rid of it.
I've got all the doctors as well, you know.
And then I found out you'd made one of those too.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's a sickness.
Okay, so I have decided to select every series because I don't
think we've done that for a little while.
So that would be quite interesting to bounce about a bit.
I also, I want us to talk about something that is a little bit
more substantial than what we've covered in the last couple of
weeks because I'm not saying we struggled, but I'm saying
sometimes, you know, when you've got basically 2 episodes on the
trot where there's about 10 minutes worth of plot.
We'll have to talk about the rest of the franchise quite a bit.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm an episode we can concentrate on.
Yes.
So I'm hoping it's going to be something high calibre as well.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Oh, fucking hell.
You have got it threshold.
Because if it's threshold, we have to do it.
We disregard whatever your plans were and we're doing threshold.
Statistically, I don't know how this is possible. lonely among
us.
I have got another shockingly terrible season 7 episode of TNG
come on.
I'm going to show this to you and you're going to masks.
It is masks.
Yes.
And I'm prisoning it again. never comes up again.
Whoa, then you're going to be very sad. aren't you Okay, so the
2nd episode that came in.
Oh, come on, we can't, I can't rat on season 7 of TNG again.
Why?
I don't know, it's so fun.
That's such a great one So the next episode is, oh, it's
enterprise.
It's season three, episode nine, North Star.
I don't know what that's about.
Oh, I hate series 3.
It would give me something to yell about.
I guess.
No stars.
That's not the cowboy one, is it, where they go to the cowboy
planet?
But it's just so much less fun than the spectrum of the gun.
Oh that's possible.
I think there is one where they do like a Western...
Yeah.
No, I've just found out a memory alpha and it's their Western
episodes.
So it would be like Spectre of the Gun only shit would be my
guess.
Is that cruel?
Is that unfair?
Roll again.
I don't wanna do that one.
Okay, horrible.
Your Deep Space 9 episode is season four.
Oh, yes.
I do love this one.
I do this one.
No, it's looking for Pom Mark in all the wrong places.
So it's come up before.
Has that...
No.
We've rolled before and rejected it.
No, okay.
All right, that sounds like fun.
I'm up for that.
Okay.
So this is DS9's 2nd sex comedy.
It has 4 plots going in it.
You've got Quark attempting to woo Groker, again, via using
Wharf.
He's like the scenario scenario.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
You've also got back hanging around in the background and she's
ready to fuck Wolf. and she's basically waiting to make her move
because she's pissed off that he's not looking at her.
You've also got these agonising scenes between O'Brien and Kira
who's pregnant and living in O'Brien's quarters and giving her
massages and things.
And Geico's got no idea how desperate they want to fuck each
other.
And the whole thing is directed by Andrew Robinson, who plays
Garak.
Oh my goodness, really?
Now, you, well, someone wanted lots to talk about.
I think there's lots to talk about in this one.
Yeah, it sounds like deeply offensive and and very upsetting given
90s trek's track record on sex generally.
I'm going to give you a little spoiler.
I fucking love this.
Okay.
Well, and it's a Laft House of Quark.
It has a beautiful lightness of touch to it.
There are there's a few of these pairings are a bit weird.
But it's very witty and it's a proper like...
It's Ron Moore writing it.
Right, okay, so the dialogue's great.
And it's, you know, you like a hangout episode.
Well, this is one of like the old man.
They just all want to hang out on the station and fuck, basically.
Yep, no space reasons, no special effects.
And speaking as somebody who is often looking for pumok in all the
wrong places.
Maybe I'll learn something as well.
You've been listening to entitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford
and Nathan Bottomley.
We're online at Untitled Star Trek project.com, where you can find
links to our Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube channel.
Our podcast artwork is by Kayla Ciceran, and the theme was
composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode was recorded on the 31st of May 2022 and released on
the 10th of June.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek, Deep Space 9, looking for
Palma in all the wrong places.
And just because I've been watching, um, strangely worlds, uh, and
thinking about how the transporter takes sort of design cues from
this, only it obviously looks much better.
I'm going to watch more of those this week.
I enjoy that. 3 is their sort of standard plague episode and 4 is
what's four?
It's like super comfort wart series, isn't it?
I found that one, which is my 2nd one.
It's Star Trek.
Yeah.
Like, it's just being Star Trek.
Star Trek, absolutely, like, embedded in Star Trek in a way that
some of those other cursements just don't.
No, that's right.
But I mean, there's this thing.
It's like either it's just, you know, we're just doing old Voyager
plots again, or we're doing something so weird that's not properly
Star Trek.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I think I actually think that this gets being Star Trek
really right.
And it had all sorts of interesting things to say about religion
which I thought were really good in that.
What, in the 2nd episode.
Yeah, yeah.
Because the religious people, they roll their eyes at the
religious people.
And when I saw that fellow appear on the screen and that...
He was the intransigent... intransigent, really fuck all about, and
it's just there to basically complicate matters.
I was like, oh, my God, we're in Voyager territory.
It wasn't that.
It wasn't quite that because he was he was religious and they were
rolling their eyes.
Like when the Universal Translator called them Shepherds and
they're kind of going, oh, you know, and they were just kind of
ignoring all of their stuff about sacredness and things like
that.
And then it just turns out they were right about everything, you
know, they were actually right.
Everything that they said about...
I like that when they all just turned, you know, turned out to be
exactly as they said.
And there could be space reasons, you know, maybe at census time
or whatever.
It doesn't have to be magic, but because uh, the, um, enterprise
crew just dismissed religion uh, out of hand.
Stock mind meld with it.
I don't I may I can't remember.
I think he did, you know.
I was just saying, though, because he in mind melts with something
bizarreness as well.
You know?
And when I was watching this, you know, I was watching Leonard
Nemoy really carefully and I'm like, even Pecks watched Leonard
Nemoy and he's like, I absolutely believe he's a younger version
of the same character.
He's prettier.
It was, yeah.
But no, have you not seen Nemoy when he was younger?
Yeah, but he's not younger in these.
No, but he was very pretty when he was younger.
Well, I don't know if even Beck's going to be that pretty when
he's older.
You never know.
I don't know.
I know, look at Pike, grandfather.
His grandfather Gregory was all right.
I'm struggling to remember what episode 4 was.
What was episode four?
I watched episode four.
There's so much Star Trek out these days.
I'm not surprised you have to forget it.
There's a new one week.
It's just a new one every week.
Oh I can't remember.
Okay.
I just saw visually when they were inside the comment.
That was extraordinary.
That looks amazing.
Yeah.
I was watching it on my phone and it was so it felt even crisper
than usual because it was on a small screen.
And then you add in the singing and it just had a kind of lovely
fairy tale sort of quality to it.
It was really nice.
That was so good.
Um, yeah.
It's annoying me actually that I could just give me 12nd.
I'm going to check.
I really need to know.
Strangely world.
Oh.
Oh, it was really good.
Holy shit, it was good.
How did I forget it?
I'm waiting for the day where you...
Okay, it's been trick times, I was really shit, you know.
Oh no, I've said that.
But this was properly good.
It was like really properly tense.
There were some deaths that really landed.
It recreated one of my least favourite scenes from disaster
bizarrely, but I won't tell you which one.
And there was something for everyone to do, and it was properly
tense.
Like it was, it was like an original Star Trek where there's an
unknown alien threat, you know, and it's a, it was so good.
I really liked, um, The characterisation of Ahura in our 2nd
episode.
And the more I thought about it, the more I was like, well, we
didn't really get to know her at TOS.
So they killed actually, as a exceptionist. younger, they could do
anything.
They could do anything with that character and it would make sense
later on because she's a black slate later on.
Well, yeah, after she meets Nomad.
But, um...
But Zoe Saldana Zahura. is also a linguist.
Uh, remember.
Um, you know, and you've had Hoshi.
So.
Enterprise is still canon.
It is.
Just.
Although they keep canonising it in Kersman Track, do they?
USS Archer. the archers waste stock.
Yeah, the...
That'll be the planet Archer, sooner.
Bet you.
Yeah.
The guy from the Hammer, the chief engineer.
Did you, um, have you listened to the Rick Bourbon interview that
Connor Trener and the fellow who plays, what's his name?
You know, they've got their own podcast.
Uh, uh, Mayweather and not Mayweather.
Tripp and Malcolm Reed do, and they've got, Yeah, they've done
what Robert Duncan McNeil and Garrett Wang have done for a boy
show.
They've got an Enterprise podcast that they're doing.
Um, like sort of discussing the merits of it, uh, otherwise and
interview a bit.
They did a two-part interview with Brick Berman, and it's only the
2nd interview he's ever given or of that nature.
And he's really candid.
It's at his house.
And he explains how Enterprise came to be, what they wanted it to
be, then how it got completely beaten out of shape into boring
standard Star Trek. because that's what Paramount wanted. what
they wanted. why it was cancelled.
And, you know, it's really interesting, really, really interesting
because what they wanted to do.
Well, something very different from, like, they wanted, they
wanted the 1st season to be all set on earth.
And the end of the season was going to be Enterprise going there
but they were like, no, end of the 1st episode.
We want, you know, auditioning.
I have to think that Berman Trek doing that would have been
incredibly fucking boring.
Well, maybe.
Maybe.
But it sounds like it was going to be a bit more interesting than
what actually transfired.
It wasn't it wasn't just going to be allowed to stock standard TNG
plots.
Probably worse.
And that, and then you got, he talked a bit about TNG.
He talked about his relationship with Gene Roddenbury.
It's really, I'll send you the links.
It's really interesting.
Yeah, that sounds good.
It adds a lot of context.
What we talk about normally, you know, because I think he made a
lot of bad calls.
But yeah.
I think sometimes his hands were tied as well.
Sure.
Yeah.
No, have Billings Leon. where so you can say it's all a bunch of
fucking crap, you know?
He is the best.
Okay, now genuinely start this thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, red, leather, yellow, leather, red, leather, yellow.
Hey, Joe. Hi.