Hey, Joe. Hi.
So tonight, again, we're doing a completely different series that
we haven't covered before, and I'm very excited.
Are you excited, Joe?
Well, I said to you at the end of our last recording that I had
absolute faith of the heart going into this.
Well, I shall have to tell you after watching this episode one. 5
times, I no longer have faith of the heart. don't have any faith
whatsoever.
It's not great.
I'm just going to put this out before we even start talking about
enterprise.
This is our 1st dud, okay?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't think we've done a really crappy episode before.
I guess, what, the previous, maybe the previous contender is
lineage, which has lots of sort of crummy bits in it.
Tons of positives in there, it's like doctor, 7 of 9, Janeway, you
know, loads of good stuff happening.
But you know what?
This wasn't even like bad.
It was just competently, dreadfully boring.
Yeah, yeah.
So I put on the website Bio, the Enterprise series one was when I
actually stopped kind of watching 90s trek or new 90s trek.
Well, I was trying to think about that today, and it's like 2001
or whenever it came out to Australia, it may have been a little
bit later, and it just wasn't that possible to kind of, you know
catch up.
If I decided I wasn't going to watch it one week or whatever, then
I was kind of out.
With Voyager, I had actually bought it on videotapes, like when it
1st showed.
Like I bought all of the videotapes.
Is that when they were coming out like 2 per tape?
Two?
Yep.
I mean, they're all landfill.
Think about it in this day and age.
Two per tape.
But even when Star Trek, the Next Generation came out on DVD.
I remember paying like 3 or $400 for one season of it.
I mean, it was crazy.
Yeah.
So, you know, I just didn't really have the opportunity, I just
wasn't that inclined.
And I may have said before I have tried to watch series one again
and just never kind of got into it.
And I think there's fun to be had eventually, am I right?
Yeah, well, I said to you last time that I found Enterprise to be
a tailor 2 halves.
No get wrong, there's still some duds in the 2nd half of
Enterprise, but it's more ambitious in its 2nd half and it's more
fun.
Like the 1st 2 seasons are just dreary television.
No, I'm sure you've got some fears.
I don't know what they were going for with this series.
I don't know what they were thinking.
And I said to you before we press record.
It's like, they disregarded everything they learned from the 1st
300 odd episodes of Star Trek.
Like they took none of that knowledge with them and were like, how
can we make this as vanilla as it can possibly be?
And then they created series one of Enterprise.
Yeah, I do have some theories about what's going on and I might
need your help. to tell me a little bit about the sort of key
players involved as well.
Okay.
All right.
So I am, as always, kind of queued up on the very 1st frame, ready
to press play.
Are you ready to go, Joe?
I generally say that I am salivating to get going.
I'll say I am, I'm ready.
Okay, well, in that case, I will count us in, 5, 4, 3, 2, one, and
we're off, and it's the termites of Larakas Prime.
No, what is it?
Is it Laraka's Prime?
Oh, Vulcan.
I have literally no idea.
I'm assuming it's another planet.
Yeah.
Well, no, because she's, she's, um, learning about Vulcans, isn't
she?
Because of the part, and she's eating Vulcan food.
So I figured this was all about her trying to reach out.
Unless the poll has a sort of termite thing going as well and
she's trying to impress her that way.
So this is Cutler and Novokovich, and Cutler will be in 2 more
episodes before her untimely death, the actress's untimely death
in 2003.
So the character doesn't come back.
I didn't know.
Yeah.
And Novokovic was originally going to be killed in this episode
but they decided against it, but he never comes back anyway.
So it might have brightened things up a little bit if he had
been.
Yeah, we'll talk about that when it comes because they certainly
play it like he's dead and there's a reason for that.
So this is kind of Star Trek back to its absolute bare bones, isn't
it?
There's a real attempt to kind of shed all of the Star Trekness
that's accumulated.
So it's not that they've forgotten the lessons that they've
learned.
I think they're actively rejecting them And so this is a version
of...
Why would you do that?
I think that what they're trying to do is be more accessible.
And I think they're trying to be a bit less I think they're trying
to have a bit less latex in the regular cast.
They're literally trying to take the Star Trek out of this because
they take it out of the time.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's more evidence.
Like they call it enterprise for series one and two.
And, you know, that's a reasonable title for a Star Trek series
but it's the 1st time that they've taken Star Trek out of the
title.
So there's a real attempt.
Look at these uniforms.
You know, part of the fun of Star Trek is it's a bunch of people
travelling around the galaxy in their pyjamas and we adore that
you know, like that's delightful.
These people look like plumbers, don't they?
They're like these bizarre own rules.
That's it.
Like, do you know what the most interesting thing about Star Trek
is generally, and the best characters are is are generally the
alien characters, right?
And they take that out of this and have a primarily human crew
most of whom are incredibly tedious.
Yeah, and the return of white men to the centre of the action as
well.
Well, we were definitely going to talk about that, Nathan.
But before we do that, it's been a long time getting from there to
here.
I absolutely...
I have to admit.
No, my time is fun.
All right, I think it's obscene that the Skip intro button is on
Netflix.
And you're not allowed to go.
This is the one this is the one time.
I'm very pleased it's there.
Well, I sing.
I sing every time I watch Enterprise, which is not often, but I do
sing it.
And it is, you know, again, it's a rejection of what we've done in
Star Trek before with the sort of big orchestral sort of things.
And what we have instead is this sort of dad core, you know, kind
of soft.
They have chosen a more dull song.
It's so fucking easy listening.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it...
It was a terrible thing.
It's like, it's like the song itself is terrible, but then the bit
at the end where it's like, oh, God.
Oh my word, it's not beautiful.
But then the other thing is this right.
That there's the HMS Enterprise, which is presumably a colonial
English ship that is being sent out to kind of beat the hell out
of some natives and take their stuff and they're like.
What was doing in series one of next generation?
And then there's a series, I think there's Amelia Earhart, but I'm
not quite sure.
But otherwise it's just all white men doing heroic things in our
history.
And so there's a real proper attempt, I think, to centre them
after having a black man and a white woman as the captains in the
last series, last 2 series.
This is all like pre-federation, isn't it?
Because the whole series was supposed to lead up to the founding
at the Federation.
Because in the last episode, you see Riker and Troy watching
Archer at that ceremony.
So that's where this series was heading like eventually.
And they scale back on all the technology as well, isn't it?
It's like all of this stuff is being like used for the very 1st
time.
Yeah.
They're in space for the 1st time.
So, so it's them kind of trying to adjust to that.
Like, those aren't bad ideas.
But just how it's all executed is.
Well, but maybe they are bad ideas and maybe the reason is that we
have at this point seen no less than 1258 away missions on Star
Trek, which is a number that I just made up.
And so...
I counted them all.
Oh, Porthos, I love Porthos.
No, excuse me, hang on.
We need to talk about that dog.
All right.
I know you're a dog. going where no dog has gone before.
That's my favourite joke.
But you know what, all right?
I'm just sorry, I just can't bear this because they put the dog in
there, right?
Because that's like Archer's one likeable trait.
He's a dog owner, you know?
So automatically we're supposed to think he's a nice guy and he's
just horrid.
Don't you think he's the Neelix of this series?
Poor fox?
Who Archer?
Of course.
The dog's quite cute, but then it's not doing episodes about the
about the bloody dog.
So, but again, he's like a man and his dog, and here they all are
wearing fucking baseball caps and stuff, and it's trying its best
to be...
Yeah.
This is our first.
This is our 1st example of the space racism that we're gonna see
in this story.
And that's the other thing as well.
So, Topol is positioned as being sort of no fun and, you know
she's not relaxed and they're all men and, you know, they won't be
told and she's constantly being belittled and put down and she's
absolutely right literally all of the time.
And I developed a theory while I was watching this.
That this script would be massively improved if every single one
of her lines ended with the words, you fucking idiot.
And you just wait when she's talking to these mediocre white man
how well it fits.
It's incredible.
Oh, they are mediocre, aren't they?
I can't even tell you.
Okay, I've seen half of the Enterprise episodes, okay?
At least half of them, yeah?
I can't tell you what the con officer's name is.
That's Travis Mayweather.
Mate, see, I always call it Merryweather.
See, I don't even know what his name is.
This is how old these people are.
I've forgotten Malcolm's last name until today.
So I'm innocent.
When I watch...
When I watch Broken Bow.
Yeah, how they treated the Vulcans and how aggressive they were
towards them.
And then into the 1st cup of episodes on the ship whipped a pile, I
was like, this is actively unpleasant to watch.
Like, I am not going to watch this show.
And that was the reason why.
Well, I don't think that the writers...
Like, they're not criticising it.
They're actually promoting.
Yeah, I don't think that they think that's bad.
They think that Tapol is uptight and overly cautious.
And even though this episode proves that Tapol was right all along
and that they were foolish to go down here without surveying it
properly because things go wrong, there is never a moment where
Archer acknowledges that and apologises, and there is a scene
we'll get to it, but there's basically nearly no apology from
Tripp. either.
And so it's not here to critique their behaviour at all.
We're supposed to be on their side.
And like this.
Look, this is the same set where B'Elana and her racist father
when camping in that form... went on their mission in DS9, this is
standard stock forest at number five.
And that's the other thing too, because there's nothing going on
in this episode.
It's incredibly thin, but like they don't do anything to make it
visually impressive, you know, they wander around some places in
Southern California.
Which I, you know, I wouldn't even object to that if they were
doing interesting things with the characters or really getting us
to understand the characters.
But they do that thing.
They do all the time in Star Trek.
They did it in DS9.
They did it in the next generation, of them behaving out of
character before we've gotten to know them.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Which again, I think is a very bizarre creative choice.
This could be a nice, intimate character tale where they kind of
you know, where they are at loggerheads with Tabal.
And by the end of it, they've kind of figured out how to work
together.
And, and you know, they're developing those kinds.
There's none of that going on here.
This is about this boring away mission and, you know, like the
atmospherics that happen and someone being possessed.
You know, it's like stock standard cliches number one, 2, and 3.
And it's not even very high concept either.
I mean, it is just they get drugged on hallucinogenic pollen.
You know, like it's not that interesting.
Have you done that before?
I think we've definitely done that before.
We did it in Doctor Who one time, I think.
But, I mean, this, you know, it's so visually uninteresting.
And one of the things that they had the opportunity to do, I think
is, you know, if they're going to scale everything back.
And if they're going to change, you know, if they're moving away
from the 24th century world that they've been in for what, 21
seasons at this point, to do something about the way the show is
produced, but it still looks just like Star Trek.
And we're not going to feel a sense of awe at an away mission that
just looks the same as the away missions we've seen before. that's
the problem.
I think if it had looked visually spectacular, if this planet had
been weird.
You know, like they're just on the planet Southern California.
It's just not that interesting.
You know why?
No, I have a theory why.
Now, this series is the love child of Rick Berman and Bragger, in
series one to three.
They wrote like a prestigious amount of the scripts, 2 of them.
I think it's over half. and that's a lot.
That's like Terry Nation in Blake 7 series one, you know, a lot.
Um, and they've been working on Star Trek since early TNG.
And they're creatively exhausted.
Like they don't have anything else to give, and that really does
show in series one and 2, where they're just knocking out the same
old cliches, and like even when they try and do things, they start
bringing in the Borg and things like that, and it's like, oh, guys
you know, you've been doing this for 21 seasons, you know, like...
I think maybe after Voyager, Trek should have been rested at that
point.
Yeah.
Look, I mean, there are people who love enterprise and and, you
know, eventually some good comes of it, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
I think so.
And and I think, you know, there's been references to enterprising
Kurtzman track. and there are more to come.
No, but I know that they've, well, I mean, there's even a
reference.
I mean, they shoot scenes on the bridge in Star Trek beyond.
There's a character from an Andorian subspecies who's introduced
in Enterprise who is going to be a regular in Strange New Worlds.
So they do reference it.
So it is, you know, it's still Star Trek.
It is still Star Trek, but let's be honest, it is it is like the
back end of, you know, probably the most successful iteration of
Star Trek.
And people kind of talk about it apologetically now, don't they?
They don't, nobody really goes, oh, yeah, enterprise, you know, one
of meteoric success at the end of Berman Trek.
Yeah, yeah.
It does fizzle out.
Enterprise, yeah, that happens.
I didn't know before that series 3 they thought they were being
cancelled.
Yeah, you told me this.
Which is why they went for like this mad season-long arc, which is
hugely one of the most ambitious things, I'd say, that Trek's ever
done.
Maybe until Discovery came along, that 1st season of Discovery.
Um, and they figured that was going to be the end and then they
had a reprieve and a full series.
Um, but like you said to me before, it's like they've forgotten
how to pay Star Trek as well.
Like so many of these season one episodes, and including this one
they're so slow.
It makes original trek look pacy.
Well, I mean, can I just comment here on the blokiness of this, and
the sort of pathetic failure to be blokey as well, because...
This is that Malcolm Reed, the weapons dude guy?
isn't he a terrible character?
Yeah, I know.
He shockingly bad, but there's nothing to him.
But just the sort of sports metaphor thing.
Like he comes in and says something jolly about sports ball and
it's water polo, for God's sake.
Like, you're not playing rugby, so shut up.
And yeah, you're not that much of a man.
Um, and, and just...
Oh, great rugby show, you know. bet you do.
It just seems like a sort of gross bloakey kind of hostile work
environment.
It really is super unpleasant.
Like, I do think everyone's massively unlikeable and
increasingly...
But I think, like, what happened with enterprise, and you're right
is you've got 2 white middle-aged men writing this show.
Yeah, like the creative thoughts behind it.
Now, over at like DS9, even on Voyager, it was there was a lot
more people involved with plotting out the series and there was
like a proper writer's route for both those series.
Whereas this was too, this is like, well, kind of their vision.
And it's their voice, you know?
This is what we're hearing.
It's kind of very heterosexual, very masculine way of exploring
the universe.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's I think that that's it.
And I think the reason that we go back to, you know, the 22nd
century is because the 24th century has been established to be
kind of diverse and peaceful and cosmopolitan.
And we want a sort of George W.
Bush era version of Star Trek at this point.
And so we cast Scott Bacula to look puzzled, you know, like the
the, the, even that is obscene because Scott Bacula is the most
charismatic man.
You go watch him on William Shatner's, the captains.
And he is so he's riding his horse and he's personable and he's
funny and he's got a guitar and he's singing.
And I'm like, well, well, who the hell is this?
Because that's not who we saw an enterprise.
All we saw at Enterprise was this very tedious lecturing bully, you
know?
Yeah.
There's a really, really unpleasant scene, which I'm going to
point out in a minute where I think he's just fucking horrible.
Did you watch Quantum Leap?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not like, how likeable, how likeable he wasn't that?
Like, like, how can you make Scott Bacula unlikeable?
Yeah, yeah.
With some effort is the answer.
Well, yeah, and it's a deliberate creative choice, I think, you
know, it's very strange.
I'm going to say something positive now though.
Oh, I can do that.
I do, I do, no, I don't like him here.
I don't like him early on, but I do quite like who Tripp becomes.
Right, okay.
And the romance that he has with Tapal is really nicely done.
Right.
And we'll get to some of those episodes later on.
I think I think your your bites and and there's like a warmth that
develops between them, which is really, really lovely.
Like, maybe they were going for that.
Maybe they were going for all this antagonism at the start.
So then that's the development is that they, you know, they they
develop friendships, relationships, blah, blah.
You know, we go on that sort of journey with them.
But it's so unlikeable at the start.
I know just tons of people that just flew away from the show
saying, no, I don't want to watch this.
Well, look, I mean, to be fair, if we were watching episode 3 or 4
depending on how you counted of Star Trek, the next generation
we'd be yelling at it as well.
But...
Are you kidding me?
We were watching episodes 23 or 24, the next generation.
We'd be wanting to check out that.
See, this CG is not pretty good, is it?
This rock people.
It's so, oh, excuse me.
It's so been done before, isn't it?
All of it.
It just looks crummy as well.
It looks really crummy.
They're not quite up to doing it yet.
And even though it's sort of...
Do you remember we watched, we watched, forget me not, um, a
couple of episodes back and we were down on true and how visually
engaging that was?
Yeah, yeah.
Like, they had the, they had the effects at this point to not, you
know, it wouldn't be as crisp as it was in forgets or not.
But they, they, if they had the imagination.
You know, the palate to do it, then it could be that exciting to
watch.
There is some sort of computer generated landscapes in this
episode and they look terrible.
Like they look so appallingly fake and we'll laugh at one of them
in a minute.
I mean, even this cliff.
I mean, Jesus Christ, what could be more dull than this?
They go wandering in the night in the storm and suddenly there's a
cliff.
I think this is the cave, you know, that no, I mean, I could list
20 episodes where they feel in this cave.
Are we hiding from the silicon, the silicon entity?
What's it called?
Crystalline entity.
And when, remember when Kira was turning into a massive crystal?
Jesus Christ.
I think that was in this cave.
Heart of Stone?
that what that's called?
Oh, I love that episode. love it.
So ridiculous.
But yeah, so it's just in the same sets that they've been doing
this shit in for like 10 years or whatever or 20 years. like 20
years, 15 years, whatever.
It's just tedious.
You remember we were earlier when we were talking about how
appalling they are towards Tapau.
Yeah. to Paul, to Paul. to Paul.
Yeah, to Paul.
What's even more annoying, yeah, is she is hideously unlikeable at
this point.
It's like lose lose on both sides.
Yeah, yeah, but I sympathise with her because they're such
assholes that that's the demeanour that I would be taking as
well.
I think I have a lot of sympathy for her.
I think I actually kind of like the way she shuts Cutler down when
in that early scene.
She says, oh, I've been drinking plough meat soup or whatever, and
she says, go and phase the oscillators or some damn thing.
I don't want to know you.
You stupid people.
But it's so important because do you remember in the 2nd episode
right, where they're deep doing?
It might have even been in Broken Bow, where they're doing the
decontamination chamber scenes and they have it all get down to
their underwear and they're all massaging gel into each other in
the most unerotic way possible.
Like, it's like, you know, like people rubbing KY jelly
interview.
I mean, it's just obscene.
They're trying to sexualise her from the off, you know?
Yeah, but I mean, the show had been like massively sexless since
sort of Roddenbury started to stand back from it.
And it was always sort of sexy in a sort of incredibly creepy
rotten-bury way when it was sexy, like the naked now.
DS9, you know, on DS9.
They had an episode where everyone turned up at the infirmary and
Bashir kept saying, what happened?
Oh, I'm going to stop asking that question because they've all
been at it and they've all got injuries.
Oh my god, that sounds terrible.
Oh no, it's hilarious.
Dax and Wolf come in. covered in bruises.
Oh, dear idea.
Well, we did have Keiko and Miles banging in the episode that we
did.
No, I can't wait.
They dissolved, crossfaded to avoid it.
So again, now, you know, like we're all in the sets talking and
stuff like that and this brave new era of Star Trek is looking
very much like the most boring bits of the previous era, I think.
But also as well, do you not think it's just fundamentally flawed
to have a prequel series set at this point?
what can they do with this?
But you see, I don't think it matters.
And one of the reasons for that is that I think discovery works
even though it's set 10 years before Star Trek, and they get out
of it, but I think that that series...
They absolutely jumped away from it being a prequel series, didn't
they?
They went into the future.
And in this, they went into the expanse in series three.
Yeah.
I think in both series, they were like, well, we're going to rock
the boat too much if we keep doing this.
Well, you see, I think part of the problem, too, is that it's
cheaper to have a ship-based show and it's sort of promised in a
way a little bit that it would kind of tell us about the 22nd
century and how humanity joins the Federation and stuff.
And it can't deliver on that, can it?
Because we're just a ship travelling through space having
adventures and solving problems.
It's just never, ever going to lead to that.
And so kind of what's the point?
I mean, discovery is using a known time period to comment on the
period in American history kind of starting at 2001 when this goes
out up to the sort of Trump era, but it's doing that in the
context of a war that we know about from Star Trek law.
So that's why it's set there.
I mean, this is set around events that we know happened, but it
turns out that they're not very interesting.
I mean, how do you get a federation together?
A lot of people talking in rooms with, you know, yeah, Star Trek
for you, isn't he?
No, but I mean like conferences and you know, and all of that sort
of thing.
Like it's not fun TV. and they're never going to do that.
Literally, in season four.
It literally comes to that where you've got, what's his name?
The mayor, Harry Gronick from Buffy, as this politician who's
bringing together all these people into this big chamber, and it
is literally just a load of meetings.
So you're like, oh.
That's it.
It's always gonna be that, isn't it?
The most interesting thing they did away from season three. which
is was completely outside of Enterprise's own kind of mythology
that it was building because it was in another region of space.
In season four, they had um a group of extremists that were
systematically trying to remove all aliens from Earth.
They were like xenophobes and they were trying to make, you know
of, I don't know what they were called now, earthists or something
like that.
And but it, but...
It was, and it was done over the season.
So very subtly, they were, you realise that there were less and
less aliens on earth.
And then in the end, obviously, they take down this extremist
group.
And then that's supposed to lead into, you know, we're now we're
going to embrace alien life, create this federation, and, you know
and it was just, and then the, then the act came down and they
said, no, we're not making any more and we're going to end it on a
TNG episode instead.
Yeah, as a farewell to Berman Trek rather than a farewell to
enterprise itself.
Did not go down well, did it?
No, and I can kind of understand that. guess.
Nathan, I can't help but notice we're commenting very little on
the content episode.
So this is a thing that they've done where we don't really have
the transporter.
And so we're transporting Novokovich back up to Enterprise with no
definite article.
And he is, he's covered implants.
They're embedded in him, which I think is actually kind of pretty
cool.
Okay, so this is super unpleasant because now Tucker is under the
influence of the hallucinogenic thing.
And he is absolutely openly racist to Tapol. and he's also as
well.
Look at how this is acted and shot.
Like, I'm watching this with the sound down and he looks like a
like a drunken man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. in an abusive way.
He threatens to split her in half at one point.
Like, he does threaten to get violent with her.
He is pointing a gun at her and it's really, really unpleasant to
watch.
And at this point, Tapol doesn't seem to realise that there's a
drug involved and just sort of thinks that he's, you know, just a
massive asshole, I think at this point.
And then just look at the sort of inept way these other 2
characters are sidelined.
So like Travis and Cutler are just sitting against the, the, you
know, the Jabelite wall, going to sleep or something.
They're overcome with something. his name again?
Meriweather.
Yeah, Travis Merriweather.
Not Mayweather.
Mayweather.
Mayweather, not Mayweather.
See?
You've got me doing it.
It's in it right, but we'll see.
No, we won't, because he never gets to do anything.
This is the most I think he does.
Yeah, they completely sideline him and he's got some backstory.
He's a boomer, which doesn't mean what it means now, but that's
not very interesting character.
I think in the 4 years, you know, he gets one episode, which is
about him.
One episode, which is, whereas, you know, to poll, you know, the 3
who rule, to poll, archer and who's the other trip.
They get tons.
Do you think this scene is kind of considered acceptable because
she's not scared because she's, you know, stony faced and
completely not not bothered by how he's doing.
Yeah, yeah.
I think if she was frightened, it would be worse, but it still
doesn't stop, one of our main characters and the 2nd most
important character on the show, probably, from appearing just
like an absolute, horrible racist asshole.
Now, let's talk about Dr. Flowers.
Well, can I just say a moment for Dr. Fox, who is absolutely the
MVP of Enterprise.
He's really good, isn't he?
He's really great.
Everything he touches.
Every scene he touches is just gold.
Don Billingsley is is charming in a way that none of the other
regulars are.
And guess what?
He's the alien character.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, the other alien character, I guess, but he's someone that
we've never seen before.
And again, you know, he is over against the kind of white
heterosexuality of the kind of crew because he has, does he have
wives and husbands and things?
No, they're like polygamous, doesn't he?
He's got a wife and a husband.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And his wife, in one brilliant episode, his wife comes onto the
ship, right?
And she comes on, she comes on to trip and he's like, 0 my God.
And he's like, I'm going to have to tell Dr. Fox.
And so he goes and tells him and he's like, yes, well, did you
enjoy her?
He's like, right.
Any of his tongue and spice coming out of his head and they just
having they're having fun with that character in a way they don't
with the others, you know?
No, and he's really good.
And there's a there's a scene where he has to do some like proper
serious acting in a minute, which I think is the most interesting
scene there because you can actually see bacula.
You can visibly see Bacula struggling against the script and
trying to make Archer not an asshole.
And, you know, like, it's it's a thing.
Even this scene, right?
Where, where, um, where, uh, Flux has identified the name of the
chemical and Archer can't say it, like, Flux says it, and Archer
like, tries to say it and then has to get flocks to help him.
And that's because he's stupid and that's, do you know what I
mean?
It's kind of like we don't want him to be a threat.
We don't want him to be not relatable because he's very smart.
And so we'll make him like this sort of schlubby half wit.
And, you know, like, I'm sure that this is not the direction the
show, you know, eventually settles on, but it is kind of
disappointing, I think.
Well, do you think of think of DS9?
Think of Voyager, yeah, Cisco and Janeway.
Now, I'm not saying they're perfect characters, but they were
hugely likeable, weren't they?
They were like you wanted to watch them and you wanted to watch
their interactions with the crew.
I don't really want to watch Archer.
And that's a problem.
He's the main character on this show.
Yeah.
I just want to say 2 things about trip.
One, unfortunately, he does make me weak, because I think he's
super hot.
And two, he is acting these, seems really well.
He's a terrific actor, Conor Trinick.
And he generally gets, um, like the big emotional episodes.
Like, do you remember the, did you ever see the one where he
there's a clone of him?
No, who's grown and and falls in love with and it's a really
fantastic episode and basically down to his acting.
So I think I think he is, he becomes a good character, but these
are very humble beginnings for him.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So it takes them a while, I think.
But all of this, you can see it reacting against the previous 21
series of new trek.
I think.
You know what it reminds me?
It reminds me of Stargate Universe where they did exactly the same
thing.
So you had Atlantis and you had SG1, which were great big camp, fun
Stargate shows. and then they decided to make Stargate human.
So we went off into another region of space where were mostly
human cars.
The pace slowed right down and it was supposed to be without the
characters.
And guess what?
They took out all the fun of Stargame and it was really boring.
I mean, one of the things this show does, though, is that it
embraces original trek in a way that the others hadn't quite done
that.
Eventually it does.
Yeah, it does.
It takes until series 4, I think, truly a base to US.
Yeah, I guess at this point it's just a sort of sequel to 1st
contact or something, you know.
But don't you think as well, the technology looks really boring.
Like, like if we could discovery and and, you know, the spore
drive and the weird, you know, frisbee ship that flips around and
things like that, you know, like super, super fun to watch.
I would say be sexy. so boring.
I think this scene here between Archer and Flocks is really good.
And you can see, look, flocks is almost on the verge of tears.
You can just see that in his performance.
He's really, really upset.
And he's blaming himself because Novokovic, who died in the
original draft, looks like he's going to die, right?
And so he's super abashed.
He can't look Archer in the eye.
He's clearly clearly upset and blaming himself.
And Archer does absolutely nothing about it.
Archer doesn't say there was no way you could have known.
He yells, and now here Archer looks back and just thinks, oh, you
know, maybe I'm a bit of a prick and, you know, he feels, he looks
sad, but then he walks off because, because, and I think that that
is bacular, trying to soften the blow, you know, like, flux is
upset, um, Archer's yelling about his stranded crew people, then
he walks out, looks across, looks kind of slightly regretful and
then walks off.
It's...
What an asshole.
Yeah, he's really horrible.
I don't think it was scheduling issues that stopped you from
watching this, you know.
I mean, you took you took one look at some of these characters and
thought, no, I'm out.
Yeah.
In fact, I was a little bit annoyed to Paul because I thought she
was probably just a sort of 7 of 9 knockoff, which essentially
was.
She could have is at this point.
Again, she, again, she does do that.
And in series three, they do what could have been an agonising.
She's like addicted to drugs in series three.
So she experiences a whole range of emotions, which opens out the
performance of, was it Jolene?
Blake Laylock?
Yeah, in innate Blish.
And now that's Shronya.
No, that's not saying that.
But I, again, I just think she's incredibly like mundane to watch
in the 1st couple of years.
I do love that we've got to the point where Tripp now doesn't want
to take an injection because it's not going to do any good and
there's a conspiracy around trying to get him to have an injection
which works really well for a kind of, you know, from a modern
point of view.
It's very timely.
Wouldn't it?
Um, this is completely away from me.
Wouldn't this would have been the ideal trek show to have had a
gay male character in?
But with all these men in the cast, you know?
But that's the point.
The point is it's reacting against the kind of diversity that we
had.
And remember it was a diversity that didn't include gay and
lesbian people because I think that he wants to make the show more
accessible.
They want to make the show more accessible and they want to do it
by making it a bit more all American and a bit less cosmopolitan.
I don't want a French guy as the captain.
They don't want someone who likes classical music.
They want some...
I think they're making it accessible to the wrong people and it is
kind of diametrically opposed to what Star Trek is supposed to be
about. that's right.
And I don't think it sticks and it absolutely doesn't work because
3 years in and they're going to be cancelled because no one's
watching.
Holy crap, that's terrible. looks so shit, don't they?
Sure, they don't lie.
They look like, do you remember that episode where Abraham
Lincoln's floating in space in front of you?
And there's that massive turd monster.
Except the turd monster smoked and had glowing eyes and was
amazing.
The other thing too. is that Star Trek is normally done, I said
before, Star Trek doesn't do sort of German expressionism, what we
see on screen is supposed to be what's happening.
And certainly, you know, that some episodes play with that and
modern track has got completely away from that.
But here, you know, we're supposed to kind of, it's sort of, our
the default setting is if trips these rock monsters, they're
really there, because that's the way stories are normally told on
Star Trek.
And so to discover that they're not real.
I don't know whether that's interesting or not, but it is a
thing.
Do you know as well, right?
Aesthetically, yeah, we watched the Corbin Corbinite maneuver
before this, didn't we?
Which had that like weird floating object in the sky and that
crazy set at the end and that bizarre bald kid with the huge
eyebrows.
And just like weird, fun, crazy stuff, right?
And this is supposed to be set just before that.
And it's enough.
It could look more plain.
Yeah, yeah.
In comparison.
Well, and I think there's a level of embarrassment about just the
nonsense that Star Trek eventually becomes, you know, like if you
think about the way that lower decks looks affectionately at how
silly the whole kind of idea of Star Trek is and and, you know
makes fun of all the sort of crazy crap that goes on.
But that's why we're watching it.
You know, like if you're embarrassed by that.
If you want a show that's more realistic or whatever, I think
you're just watching the wrong thing.
For you and me, right?
I think, like, remember we talked about your list of DS9 episodes
and you went for a lot of like the fun ones, the comedy ones, the
ones where they're a bit silly, yeah?
So I think that's absolutely like you're in for some of Star
Trek.
And there's none of that hits.
So you're going to struggle with this.
My into Star Trek is interesting characters. and their
relationships. and there's really none of that here as well.
And you and I, okay, we're both white, but we're not heterosexual
men, are we?
Yeah.
Like, no wonder we struggle with this.
Do you think there's an audience for this?
Well, it turns out no.
I mean, look, I mean, we're still watching it, and it is Star Trek
and we're interested in Star Trek, not just as a fun thing to
watch.
We are watching this because our randomiser forces to do it.
Well, yeah, okay.
But also, you know, like we love Star Trek and we're interested in
where it goes.
And so it's the same way that you and I watch Doctor Who, like we
love Doctor Who, but there are bits of it we like more than
others.
But also, we're interested in how the show gets made and what's
happening at the time and what it's reacting to and kind of what's
going on.
And I think, you know, this episode has at least given us that to
talk about.
What is interesting is in series 3 where they suddenly go all out
ambitious is they're basically acknowledging that this isn't
working.
Yeah, yeah.
They push, and in series 4, when we go back to, you know, Earth
and the alpha quadrant.
They don't start doing this again, they are doing, you know, big
three-part arc, they're setting up continuity for TOS in a big
way.
It's a weird blind alley series one or 2 of enterprise.
Well, I mean, I think Deep Space 9 reinvents itself sort of fairly
regularly, but I, you know... building blocks with it.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
It doesn't sort of throw stuff out.
And I think it does it more skilfully, perhaps, than this.
But and also we've got the benefit of hindsight and looking at the
whole 7 years and seeing how successful those various reinventions
are.
So, you know, like...
Sorry, I didn't even see how that resolved then.
How did they shoot?
with a gun.
And that's it.
Well, um, so Captain Archer tells him a lie and persuades him to
put his weapon down to trust him and put his weapon down and then
he shoots, she shoots him with a gun and then she...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I do keep using that word.
But this is like the 1st away mission, isn't it?
Yeah, I think so.
And so again, look, here we are.
Southern California.
Super boring looking.
Now back in the standing cave set. that is just, you know, in one
of the hangers.
And so this scene too.
So noticed that he rejected the water that she brought before
because he thought it was poisoned.
Now he's drinking the water to indicate that he's okay.
There's a cute line, which could have been actually played
slightly better, where he says you didn't shoot me last night and
she says, I'm afraid I did, which is kind of fun.
And and like this is the scene where we need some kind of
acknowledgement that she was writing. along.
And also an apology for the racism.
We didn't mention the thing where she's speaking in Vulcan and
Tripp starts threatening her for speaking in Vulcan.
Like some asshole on a bus yelling at, you know, it's like the
woman wearing the hijab or something, you know, like those YouTube
videos of people being racist people speaking Spanish on the train
or something.
You know, it's super horribly uncomfortable to watch.
What's interesting about what happens with her character is it's
she basically goes over to the other side.
She starts behaving like them and rejecting Vulcan culture.
So she's like, she's assimulated into their racism, you know?
Right.
But here, so here Tripp tells her a story about the biology
teacher who was a Vulcan, whom he hallucinated before, and who
scared him when he was a kid at school, and who told him he should
challenge his, you know, uh, his, um, kind of prejudices or
whatever.
And and the 2 actors are playing it as if it was the scene that
needed to be written.
You know, and but it's not that scene.
It's not an apology.
It's nothing.
No one's learned anything.
But and this shocking...
Oh, so bad.
Like, they've done better than that, you know?
They know better than that.
They have done better than that.
That scene of Cutler with the sun on her face is actually quite
nice, bless her.
And then the episode just fizzles out.
We haven't learnt anything, and we're still massive space
racists.
I'm wondering if at this point, because the 2nd episode was a bit
of a nothing episode as well.
I think that was Hoshi learning alien languages and weird stuff
happening there.
Oh, wow.
The 3rd episode has started and arches in the shower.
Immediately my interest has picked up, but that's a different
episode entirely.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
The end of that episode there, it reaches no conclusions about
anyone's behaviour.
So what was the point of it?
Yeah, what's it about?
It's not about anything.
It's just about the 1st away mission, and it's not that
interesting and away mission, and it's not solved in a clever
way.
They're not even learning about like any culture on the planet or
anything like that.
So is this the most insubstantial Star Trek episode?
It's certainly, it's certainly one of them.
It is it's puzzling how little areas to it, I think.
Yeah.
And what there is is often a bit unpleasant.
Well, what I can tell you is this. is I have seen a lot more
enterprise than you, and there are way better episodes of this to
come.
Now, I know we have chats on this episode and the series from a
great height for the last hour.
And if you're a massive enterprise fan, you know, apologies. you're
not still listening.
I will reiterate.
It does get better than this, you know, and they do learn how to
make good telly.
It just takes 2 years.
You know?
So, we are currently on untitled Star Trek project.com slash
randomiser to pick out next Star Trek episode.
And I've come up with the principle that we're going to use to
choose which series we're going to do, but can you explain it to
the listeners at home, Joe?
We have decided that we want to do a 2nd episode of a series that
we've already covered.
Yeah, it's not just that we are trying to avoid Star Trek, the
animated series, is it?
It's not a...
No.
I haven't seen any of that, so I'm intrigued by Star Trek the
animated series.
We'll have to do one soon.
It's really terrible All right.
I reckon as well what we should do for once.
Right, just for once is whatever we get.
Whatever we get. the 1st time. time around is what we do.
Yeah.
Well, let's do that this time.
Well, maybe.
So yeah, the selected series are the all of the Berman tracks.
So TNG DS9 Voyager and Enterprise, the original series and
Discovery, which we've all done an episode of.
Before I push the gun, I've got a question for you.
Yeah.
What's been your favourite series to talk about so far?
Um, I have to say that I enjoyed the Voyager episode because I
thought it was a bit of a crummy episode initially, but it turned
out to be more interesting than I initially thought.
And I think that was kind of fun.
But the episode that we've done that I've enjoyed the most has
been forget me not.
I think it's the best episode of Star Trek that we've done.
Even beating out yesterday's enterprise, I think.
I've been completely thrown because I figured talking about the
original series was going to be a bit of a challenge and I just
adored talking about the court of my maneuver.
That was so, yeah, Kurt with his shirt off and Latronia.
You know, so glorious.
Okay, all right.
So my finger is hovering over the button, if you are ready.
Off you go.
Press the button.
Oh my word.
Oh, what is it?
Is it good?
It's yesterday's Enterprise again.
This was on your top 10 DS9 list.
Oh, what is it?
It's take me out to the hola suite.
Can we do that?
Let's do that. recently, I watched this week.
What do you think?
Oh my god, that was sad.
Wow, how fun would that be to talk about?
I think we do it.
Okay, yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it.
Let's not fool about.
We both on the door.
Just in case anyone isn't aware of what that's about.
That is the DS9 episode that during a long bloody war.
They decide to take time out to play a game of baseball.
Yeah.
Is there racism against the Vulcans again?
Maybe.
Do you know, I think there is, you know.
But they do, they try and give it some context in that.
It's a bit laboured, but...
Yeah, yeah, yeah. a very TV backstory, isn't it?
So it's series 7, is it?
series 7, episode three. and it's our 2nd no, our 3rd episode
written by room more.
Yesterday's Enterprise, he was involved in...
House of War, and this is Rob Moore, you know, completely going
for the comedy jugger.
Brilliant.
And another episode three, which seems to be our pattern as well.
Oh, and it has Cassidy Yates in it as well.
Oh, we love her.
Yeah.
You've been listening to Untitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford
and Nathan Bottomley.
You can find us 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 12th of November 2021 and
released on the 10th of December.
We'll see you next time for Deep Space 9's Take Me Out to the
Hollosweed.