Hey, Joe. Hi.
Perhaps you'd like to tell the listener what it is we're doing
today.
Well, today, Nathan, we will not be watching Star Trek at all, but
we're heading into sports.
We're going to watch a baseball game.
We're both hugely into sport, obviously.
Oh man.
My dad tried very hard when I was younger.
It's the biggest failure of his life that not one of them stuck
definitely not baseball.
So this is baseball, which is the one with the sticks.
And what episode of what show are we watching?
We are watching Deep Space 9, season seven, episode four.
Take me out to the holosuite.
And I'm going to say just off the top of my head because I'm
encyclopaedic when it comes to this sort of stuff.
This is written by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Chip Chalmers.
Chip Chalmers, who only directed 2 episodes of Star Trek, both of
them DS9.
Both of them comedies.
Really?
What's the other one?
It's another fantastic episode.
Magnificent Ferengi from season six.
You know, it's really funny because when I saw his name on the
opening credits, I thought, I'm very familiar with that name, I
wonder where I know it from.
It's kind of like, well, no, I've clearly just made that up.
You know, it's been one of those directions that kind of bounces
around different shows.
Maybe did a lot of X-Files or something.
He has a particularly light touch and it's very apparent in both
of these 2 episodes.
Unusual for DS9, I would say.
And so this comes at a point in Deep Say 9, which is, you know
where things have been a bit overwrought for a while.
So we just have the death of a like a regular cast, not a regular
cast member, a regular, you know, one of the regular characters at
the end of the previous year and then the fallout from that.
And there's other stuff going on.
Well, yeah, obviously, Wharf dealing with that, and Cisco, he
heads to Earth.
He's found out about his mother being part profit.
Ezri's joined the crew and she's very confused.
Like, there's been, you know, Garak's just had a nervous
breakdown.
It's been very, very heavy and interesting.
I was reading this week that I, this was originally supposed to
take place at the tail end of season six.
That's where it was originally placed.
I think the the like the penultimate episode of the season
completely the wrong tone for the tail end of season six, which is
like the episode that's there is the sound of her voice.
Do you remember that one?
Lisa Kusack.
It's beautiful.
Yeah, yeah.
I do remember that.
And it's all very, how is how is everybody dealing with the war
which is, you know, good place for that before Tears of the
Prophets hits.
They'd have done a comedy about baseball.
It would have felt tonally a bit jarring, I think.
So this is kind of like one of a couple of episodes this season
which are almost like kind of hangout episodes.
You know, like this, the fun to be had here and then sort of later
on in the season with better being better bang, is that we're
hanging out with these characters that we've got to know for a
long period of time and it's fun and they're relaxed and kind of
comfortable.
And, you know, it doesn't matter that there aren't massive space
things.
I think maybe maybe more than any other Star Trek series, do you
say 9, can do an episode, which isn't centred on sort of space
things.
I mean, this is our 2nd DS9 episode and there's been no anomalies
hasn't it?
No possession.
No space battles.
And weirdly enough, a show that was considered to be quite dark.
They've both been comedies that we've watched.
I think DS9 is a lot lighter than people suggest.
I do very quickly want to talk about Babylon 5 before we go in.
No, I don't know what that is.
Oh well, let me educate you.
So it's a show which a lot of people would say DS9 in its early
years looked over its shoulder, saw what Babylon 5 was doing
copied it, and I think most people would agree in its latter
seasons, perhaps best in it.
Yeah, certainly in terms of production value and acting.
Perhaps they're so in terms of writing.
I'm not too sure.
But the thing I love about DS9 and the thing I don't like about
Babylon 5 is DS9 will do crazy episodes about a baseball game and
you know, like a heist and a James Bond episode.
It has some diversity to it.
It has shades of light and dark.
And it makes it a much more unpredictable.
I never quite know what I'm going to get with DS Knighton from one
week to next.
And I said to you that this season.
You know, you've had the massive opening 2 parter, then a very
quiet episode about Isari and Garag, then a comedy about baseball
that's followed up by Chrysalis, which is like this very sweet
romance story with like a musical number in the middle of it, which
is followed up with Treasury Faith in the Great River, which is
this treatise on like religious and being considered a religious
figure against your will, with suicide at the end and things like
that.
And Babylon 5, you absolutely know what you're going to get from
week to week.
It has a, it's like very like Battlestar Galactic.
It has a tone to it.
It has running storylines.
That's the show.
I think a massive strength of DS9 is that it can pause for 45
minutes and play baseball.
Yeah, and I think, you know, like, I think probably the fact that
it comes from the tradition of sort of the original series in the
next generation, which are at times kind of camp and at times kind
of silly in a way that very serious fans might find embarrassing
kind of gives it license, you know, the world of Star Trek is not
as serious as the world of Babylon 5 or as serious as the world of
Battlestar Galactica.
And, you know, Deep Space Nine has shown that they can have proper
stakes and do important things and make us care about stuff and
make us care about sort of galactic geopolitics and all sorts of
things.
But we never kind of forget that there's a sort of fundamental
ridiculousness to it.
And that the characters are fun.
Like, at the end of season five, you've got call to arms, which is
this incredible dramatic where they lose the station, massive
space battles, the most brilliant villains you're ever going to
see on TV.
I've got a sneaky feeling that you prefer in the cards, which is
the penultimate episode, and it's a very gentle character comedy
about Jake and Nog trying to find a baseball card for his father.
I think that's a beautiful episode, though.
And it has profound things to say as well.
Like about narrative...
Yeah.
Yeah. and be both.
And I really, really love that.
And the other thing I want to talk about before we go in is
baseball itself because I think a lot of people would probably
consider this episode to be pretty frivolous.
Like, you know, you're in the middle of a war arc and you're off
playing baseball.
But baseball has been one of the founding building blocks of this
show, from emissary going on.
It's, you know, massively important thing to Cisco.
It's the thing that allowed him to explain the concept of time in
emissary.
It's the thing that brought him and Cassidy Yates together.
Her brother's team is called the Pike City Pioneers.
And they go off to listen to an audio recording. of that in her
bedroom.
Yeah.
It's the thing that brings him and Kira close together when he
realises that she just sees him as a riddish icon.
He takes her to a baseball match and that's how they break down
that barrier.
It's the thing that he leaves the baseball for Dukat at the end of
call to arms to let him know he's coming back and then Dukat gives
him the baseball back when he reclaims the station.
Like it's really important to this show.
And Interestingly, Ira Bear says that Michael Piller, in an
episode, Michael Piller is the biggest baseball fan in the world
and he brought baseball to DS9.
In the next generation, he wiped baseball from existence.
I know what episode it is.
He creatively chose to make it a thing of the past.
It doesn't exist anymore.
It's not important anymore.
And this episode is basically a massive love letter to Michael
Pillar.
And I think that's glorious as well. have to look that up.
I, that sounds, that does sound credible that they were talking
about baseball is a thing that never happens.
But what it does, I think, is it takes the edge off because
sometimes when we observed this in our enterprise episode, that
the sports stuff was kind of blokey and almost intentionally a way
of excluding people.
You know, the... softball?
No, it was water polo, for God's sake.
And so making this a niche interest because it's a sport that's
obsolete.
And it's worth remembering too, that baseball is something that is
also massively beloved by stats nerds.
And like, we'll see the way that the scoreboard, like neither of
our countries have baseball as a thing, right?
So, you know, any Americans listening to this can point and laugh
if they like.
But that little grid of numbers, which tells the story of how the
game's been playing, which is presented on screen as if we are
going to understand how the game's going.
Like they used to publish that grid of numbers as the results of a
game and like people can tell how the game went.
And so and baseball is all a game of stats and nerdy and stuff.
And so it's not a 1000000 miles away from, you know, writing
memory alpha articles or having a Star Trek podcast.
One of the best jokes in an episode that's full of great jokes is
the sequence where they're having to learn a whole new wave of
techna babble.
It's basically, you know, sports technobab, and they're all going
oh, God, what's a bunt?
What's those fancy Dan?
You know, like, I think it's brilliant.
Shall we crack out and watch it?
Probably.
But, you know, it's interesting, isn't it?
It is interesting that an episode this potentially sly.
Actually, there's probably quite a fair bit of substance to talk
about.
Yeah, I think it's about something really properly solid too.
There's a proper character arc in it, which I think is really
good.
And as you said to me, the most lower deck style explanation as to
why this rivalry started in the 1st place.
It's so good.
But we'll get there. as you keep saying.
All right.
So I am on the 1st frame.
I'm paused with my finger hovering over the play button and I'll
count us in five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
I'm going to be a big nerd here because this is a nebula class
ship.
And I think they're as cute as hell.
So that's the...
How do you know that's a nebula class ship?
I am a bit of a Star Trek nerd.
I have a podcast, you know.
Do you have, do you have like the technical manual?
No, but I do know what Nambula class ships?
It's like, and it's the Tacumbra.
So it's, you know, crude by Vulcans like the Intrepidies in an
original series.
But I just thought the nebula class ships, and we'll see it again
later.
It's cute as hell.
You know in that, I don't know if I've ever fancied you more than
I do at the 2nd joke.
Okay, so this reminds me of a scene between Cisco and Kai Wynn.
The immediate hostility between them is wonderful.
This, he is like immediately a massive prick.
So this is Captain Sokol.
Soloc.
See, I do anagrams.
Captain Solo.
Captain Space Name.
Yeah, Captain Space name.
And, um, you know, he's kind of doing this sort of dick measuring
contest in this sort of, oh, I've got 2 Christopher Pike medals
medals of valour.
You know.
I'm just reminded here of how far Avery Brooks has come as Cisco
and it's, you remember in those 1st seasons where he's really
quite muted in a lot of ways.
And we talked, you know, the last time we watched Way the Warrior
together, we talked about, we talked about how different he is
immediately.
You know, when you sort of, you know, as gay men come out of the
closet, I mean, he exploded out because in Way of the Warrior
didn't he?
He's so much sexier and so much more dangerous and it's almost
like he was muting his performance so that as the sort of 1st
black lead of a Star Trek program, he wasn't going to scare anyone
at home.
I think they wanted him to do that.
I think they wanted him a little muted.
And, you know, it got to a point where he was like, Raba said, no
we're shaving his hair off.
He's cutting loose, like enough now.
And you've got Avery Brooks.
Why do you not do that?
you know and he's so charismatic.
He's so, so great.
He's beautiful.
He's beautiful, isn't he?
And I love it.
When he gets angry.
Well, the way he's playing this scene, just the way he's
underplaying it, he's clearly furious.
But there's just a little bit of tightness of the jaw.
He's absolutely refusing to give anything away.
He has to be a professional.
Because, you know, he also can't let himself look rattled in front
of Soloc.
You know he can't do that because that was the problem before.
Yeah, look at that.
But his 1st line is him going, have a seat.
And so this scene here, right, this is the wardroom, which is, you
know, the observation lounge of Deep Space 9.
We're here to talk about a serious space issue.
You know, we're all sat around the table.
We're all the senior staff, you know, he's giving a problem, you
know, some...
The latest report of the Dominion War.
No, no, no.
We're going to play a game of baseball.
Yeah, and it's this inspirational speech.
And I do love the fact that that 1st scene ends before Solok says
that it's baseball, like he doesn't say what the game is.
Cisco asks.
Did you hear that?
He's like, we will destroy them.
The day they realised, and it took them a while that Michael Dawn
could deliver comic lines, like in TNG and DS9, man, that's when
that character started flying.
Sir, I am not a merry man.
Yeah, they discovered in, in, and, and I think it's the minute
that they're, that they're comfortable making fun of the Klingons
as well, you know, like making them funny.
He gets the best line in this.
Find him and kill him.
Yeah, yeah, it's so good.
So I always say that the final shot or the final moment of the
teaser has to tell you what the episode's going to be about.
And here, it's the shot of the base.
Yeah, it's the baseball on the table, right?
There's no ambiguity there, isn't there?
No, this is a show of our baseball.
Have a look at what the final shot of the episode is later on
people at home because gorgeous.
Oh my word.
Yep.
It's almost like they've designed DS9. to be like a baseball.
Okay, so we're in we're in the new the new music now. last time
when we watched the House of War.
It was the old slower version.
This is the more up-tempo one with the fabulous shot of the man
repairing the upper pylon floating through space, which I
remember.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's a pack led ship docked there.
Is that a pack led ship?
I'm gonna say it is.
They've just tried to make it look a bit busier, haven't they?
There's a few more ships around.
Yeah, yeah, look, here's the guys welding the thing and a guy
pushing a thing.
Oh, and the defiant replaces a runabout, obviously, from the, yeah
I was thinking about that today. so much.
Yeah, well, this thing where the defiant flies over the model
looks really good.
I mean, you know, it's still stately and stuff, and I'm still
inclined to like the original version of the music a little bit
better because it's a little bit more melancholic, a little bit
more allergic.
Um, but I don't dislike this version.
Yeah.
Going back to Avery Brooks very quickly.
Yeah.
One of the, one of the most glorious thing, of many glorious
things about Penny Johnson, who is absolutely the MVP of this
episode.
Um, is that she fancies the art of Avery Brooks and she's not
afraid to say it.
So in interviews, she goes, oh, you know, they paired me out with
this incredibly sexy.
I got to touch his head and kiss him.
She goes when, and she goes, my husband used to get very jealous
because when I was looking in his eyes, there was no acting
involved at all.
So what's brilliant about this pair of scenes, right?
Here we have 3 aliens discussing the rules of baseball and it may
hear it clear how ridiculous and complicated they are.
Like just...
It'll be you and me.
Well, that's it.
And so it's a woman and you've got 2 people with like huge amounts
of latex on their head and they're kind of discussing this weird
ass earth thing.
And then we have this great, great cart from this scene, which she
says what's a bunt.
And then Julian in the next scene answers the question.
But here we don't have 3 aliens.
We've got we've got Ansri, who is a young woman. you know, um, and
a trill, and then we get 2 people from, uh, you know, an Irish
person and an English person.
So non-Americans, you know, people from countries that don't have
baseball.
And, you know, like America famously has the World Series baseball
but basically it's them and Japan playing it and no one else gives
a shit.
Maybe, does South Korea play baseball, probably.
But it's not something that any of us are interested.
And it just looks super weird.
The only kind of American non-alien characters.
It's just Cisco and Jake, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yep.
And they're the 2 that understand baseball.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you know what?
We said before about, um, I said to sue in, uh, in our Messenger
chat about, you know, hanging out with characters that you love.
I don't give a shit about baseball.
I don't care.
I love these characters.
I don't want to see them having fun and just the energy already.
And you said that, the transition from one scene to another.
It's effortlessly done, you know, and this episode flows with that
kind of energy throughout.
Oh, it's ramen litre.
Oh, Lita is so great.
She is so good in this as well.
Like her confident declaration that you don't kick the ball in
baseball, you idiot.
And then she has to go to Air Street.
Do you don't do you?
And the 2 of them are quite cute.
You know, like they're quite cute together.
Chase Masterson has become something of an ambassador for the
show.
She does a lot of conventions.
And, you know, obviously she's not like the most vivid Star Trek
character there ever was.
I think she's a charismatic and engaging character, though.
I just think that's great, that she's kind of taken the bat and
then said, no, this is a fantastic show I worked on and she's, yeah
really proud to advertise that.
Oh, do you know what's really refreshing?
is we're going outside.
So much of DS9 is set inside space rooms.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In fact, it's really properly enjoyable, but I did spend a lot of
time thinking about how all of the actors in latex heads must be
so incredibly comfortable.
And so this is the 1st time that Rome gets seen.
You know how the Ferengi have, like, from their very 1st
introduction, they have that thing on the back of their head and
it's clearly there to save the makeup artist's time so they don't
have to blend the back of the prosthetic into the back of the neck
and they can afford to do it with Quark, but they can't afford to
do it with anyone else.
But here...
Time to turn the back of their heads into a massive arse.
Because that's what it looks like.
But, you know, like it covers the join between the prosthetic and
the back of the neck.
And so, but Rom here is seen without his for the 1st time
apparently.
What's just so refreshing is we're out in the sunshine, everyone's
relaxed.
Like this is about as far from what people consider DS 9 to B as
you can get.
Yeah.
And this is the captain giving the crew like an inspiring speech.
And the way that Avery Brooks does this with that sort of tenor
voice and just the incredible kind of oratorical sort of skill.
Like he's so animated and so passionate and so good.
Like he's really, really properly good. really sexy as well.
I know, I will keep saying that because...
No, I'm with you.
But you know what?
I mean, I'm gonna say this as well.
So's Jake.
Like, Jake's matured into a very handsome, he is young man, you
know?
Yeah, he's so tall.
He's such a bean pole.
It's so funny.
And we've talked about this before off the podcast that clearly
they cast Aaron Eisenberg because he's a short man.
And then you've got Jake who's a little kid.
And so they both act, you know, like read the same age in the
early seasons.
And then Jake shoots up to the point where it's impossible to have
the 2 of them in the same shot and they play that for comic effect
I think.
You see them throwing this ball back and forth.
Oh, my God.
This is literally me throwing ball.
I can just see my dad with his head in his hands like, oh, God.
What have I birthed, you know?
I want to very quickly talk about Ezri.
Yeah.
Because this is Nicole DeBoa's 3rd episode.
And I don't think there's any sign that this is her 3rd episode.
Like she's gailed into this cast already.
Seamlessly.
And that's that was a tough ask because Jazir was a beloved
character.
Yeah, yeah.
She, I think she's really good in this and I think she is very
charming and she's quite different from Jazeer.
I was a little bit worried at the original, you know, originally
they're casting another white woman who's a brunette and stuff and
like, you know, whatever, but she's physically sort of different
and she has a very different kind of energy, I think.
And she's got the most adorable lisp.
It's adorable.
They would have cast a bloke to follow Jessia.
But boy that would have been brave.
It would have, but the thing is, I think that then you lose a
regular female cast member.
What's interesting as we head into it later into the season.
She develops a fantastic chemistry with Michael Dawn. especially
in the last arc where they have all their sitcom, you know, they
have wonderful scenes and we're like, you know, he's like
considering how many men you have stuck with, that is quite a
statement.
She's like, yes, I've slept with every single person on Deep Space
now, you know, like, oh, man, they're just brilliant together.
But very different from Michael Dorn and Terry Farrell, which was
just sort of kind of sexy.
So this is absolutely brilliant, this scene.
And it's the beginning of, I think, the kind of degeneration of
Cisco's character.
So everyone's horribly injured.
This exchange about, you know, oh, knitting together a couple of
bones isn't major surgery, Quark.
It is if the bones are in the back of your skull.
That's a really properly, properly funny exchange.
The funniest line is at the end where you realise Rob's literally
taken out everybody.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
And it's Worf's head as well.
It's like the it's the bone in his cheek.
So he's clearly smacked Warf in the face with it.
If only we could have seen that.
But it actually ends up being terrifically funny just a little one
line, one word line at the end of the scene that makes it clear
that Rom's hit more than one person with the bat.
He's great.
But what's happening to Cisco?
And what happens to him in this in this episode is that he proves
Solok rights that that he becomes an absolute irrational asshole
in this story.
And it starts here where he doesn't care about, or you know, all
of the injured people.
And he's slightly pissed off with O'Brien, because he is too
injured to continue playing, you know, and and it's just very, tell
him.
I'm sorry.
It just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?
It gets more irrational and more emotional as the episode goes
on.
However, like you and I both have passion projects and you know
what, you know, when you're invested in something like he is in
this, you can be a complete...
I'm not saying you personally, but, you know, if you have a
passion, you can be a complete asshole, you know.
And so this as well.
So this too.
Yeah, yeah.
So there's 2 really great gags here.
And one is that, um, she kind of goes, oh, I don't know why the
bureaucrats have, you know, reassigned my next few missions and he
goes, who knows?
And that's it.
It never goes any further, so it's just sort of strongly implied
that he's the one who's done it.
And then she thinks he's down to fuck, you know, that he's missed
her and now we're going to go and have sex.
And then he asks how's your throwing arm, you know?
So again, he's kind of becoming manipulative and obsessed.
It's really...
Did you see how that scene was lit and the colourful flowers and
their smiles and it's just gorgeous.
Yeah, chemistry.
I think is extraordinary.
And I think she's magnificent.
I mean, I think she's terrific in the Orville as well, but she's
wonderful here.
She's really really good.
Like they, they, they wrote her out because Penny Johnson had
other work to do, but they realised that they had to write her
back in.
And one of the massive strengths of Sirius 7 is, she gets so much
to do in Sirius 7.
Right, okay.
Yeah, no she's really good.
Oh, do you know, seeing and seeing Aaron Eisenberg and Renee
Obaganoi.
It shouldn't have like a touch of sadness to it, but it does.
In fact, that, the one moment that I was reminded that Aaron
Eisenberger died is this scene because, you know, Rom is such a
big kind of comedy doofus character with the voice and all of that
sort of thing in the teeth.
And Nog actually, you know, despite wearing all that latex is
often giving a kind of understated performance and he is there.
Like that sort of, oh, you know, he's missed it 10 times today or
whatever, you know, like it was just delivered so well.
So pleasing.
What's interesting about Aaron Eisenberg?
I don't think anyone expected much of him in series one. and then
in series 7, they gave him It was only a paper moon, the scene
where he breaks down at the end of that episode.
It's one of the best pieces of acting you're ever going to see in
Star Trek.
He is in emissary, isn't he?
He's in the 1st episode, but he gets no lines.
It's like a petty thief just going, come on, come on. you know.
Okay, so this is really interesting because Max Grotonchick is by
far apparently the most prolific baseball player that there is.
He almost chose to play professionally and actually changed his
mind and went into acting instead.
So he had to play with his left hand because he had no way of even
acting that he couldn't play baseball with his right hand.
I think he does a great job because he does look like staggeringly
inept.
This, doesn't he, that fall?
He's so game.
That fall is really great.
It's kind of, like, always really going for a go for it, Max.
Come on.
Yeah. then he throws the back.
You know, right?
I just get the sentence as well with all these.
They love making this show, you know, like it beams off the sky.
Oh, look away.
Do you see that?
I've had someone throw a ball like that at me. kind of under arm.
Well, and I think that that's it too.
Like, there is a sense in which this crew are fun and colourful
and diverse and weird.
And Star Trek is a show that is often about the competence of the
characters, particularly like Star Trek, the Next Generation, where
they're solving space problems and everyone has a particular
competency and all their competencies come together.
And competence is hugely important and we're always being told
this is the best crew in the fleet.
This is the best ship in the fleet, you know, all of that sort of
thing.
And so to have this essentially be about their incompetence, how
shit they are all are.
You know how shit they all are at playing baseball.
That's a big change for Star Trek and a big kind of commentary
like it undermines what Star Trek has been about.
I just love how they celebrate their fucking incompetence at the
end of the episode, you know.
We scored one.
Oh, we'll get that.
We'll go.
And this is great as well.
I think this, I remember, like, I was texting you when I was
watching this through before, and this is beautiful.
You know, they're all going to mutiny against the captain.
You know, this is a mutiny.
They're organising a mutant over a baseball game.
So they won't be court-martialled or anything.
And it's reasonable because Cisco's being a prick, you know, is
throwing him off the thing, you know, like and he's throwing him
off the thing.
Why?
Because Solok got up his nose.
Yeah, that's right.
And so it's exactly what we're going to find out.
You know, we're finding out the Solok's right.
Right.
Um, there's a, there's a sequence and a 2nd apologies for...
There's, well, there's a montage of scenes of them all preparing
which is just so much fun and shows you like, you know, Bashir and
O'Brien, they've got their Scotch gum, Ezri and Bashir are
fighting over the ball.
And it's interesting.
The 2 comedy episodes this season, this embellishing, but both
have a montage in the middle of the episode.
It just shows this ensemble at their brilliant best, you know, like
being super fun.
Oh, I couldn't love it more.
It's so good.
And that so that there's that line.
I think where she says now I remember where Lita says of ROM, when
ROM says, no, no, don't don't throw the game, don't make it about
a big fight.
It doesn't matter.
I wasn't good enough to be on the team.
She says, now I know why you married, why I married.
I mean, you just can't.
That's what I was thinking possible to...
Yeah, it's not possible to not like Rome.
He's adorable.
He's so sweet.
And he puts up with all his shit from Quark for sort of 7 years
and, you know.
Absolutely.
One of the one of the things with DS9 is, is you've got a bunch of
characters here that are essentially like rejects from their own
cultures that have all come together to create like a family.
And it's episodes like this that really stress that.
Yeah, I love that.
Oh, come on, Julian.
Oh, no, look, Rom's been at it again.
Jake's damaged.
Oh, this Kira's reaction to Odo during the umpire movie.
And it is another one.
It's like, now I remember why I love you.
You know, like...
Yeah, but you know what?
We've all had those moments.
We've looked at someone and been like, you're acting like a
complete twat.
I love you so much Get that smile and nothing is more glorious
than none of his is a smile.
I think she's so beautiful.
So here we go with Cisco. and the reason why he hates Solok so
much.
Now, we talked about racism in Enterprise, didn't we?
And it was very one-sided, i.e. to poll was just, you know, being
a bit uptight, but they were being really terrible towards us
really, really bullying her.
Whereas I think this episode, there is an element of racism, but
on both sides.
And so the emphasis is completely different.
So, like, it is a complete arse, is it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that, see, what's great about this is that she says it's
time for me to get the backstory.
Almost as if she's the narrator.
You know, it's like we're this far into the episode, we need the
backstory and you're going to tell me.
You cannot proceed without this information.
Please tell me now.
And it's the day before it's the day before the match, right?
And so we'd better have the backstory.
So we know what?
The stakes are.
I reckon she's been watching inspirational baseball movies.
She's like, right, this is the point.
Oh, she said we need the context.
She's watched some Deep Space 9 episodes.
We're getting the and this is a, you know, this is a classic Star
Trek thing, isn't it, where we get the captain kind of explaining
the thing?
And the, like the original story is sort of pretty reasonable, he's
drunk, he's a cadet, you know, he challenges Solo to a fight and
gets his ass handed to him.
And you kind of think, oh, well, you know, like whatever.
But then it just goes mental, like the story.
Excuse me, if somebody had highlighted, you know, the most
embarrassingly emotional moment in your life, again and again and
again throughout your life.
No, but it's like a little bit pissed, right?
It's riding passive aggressive, you know, psychology treatises. you
know, and like essays and stuff, like going on and on about it in
a sort of academic but utterly Vulcan, passive, aggressive way.
Bronmore has written a lot of Star Trek at this point.
So he knows how these explanations have to work.
And it almost feels like he's taking that PSL a little bit.
Oh, I think it's a joke.
I think it's absolutely hilarious and they're playing it straight
but it's so stupid.
Like he just writes a series of psychology, you know, articles and
gets them published and all of them talk about what a massive
dickhead captain says.
I mean, what, a massive dickhead.
Benjamin Cisco.
You love the fact that basically this whole explanation just turns
him into a petulant child.
Yeah, that's had his that's had his ego bruise.
Because you wouldn't have that in like early TNG, you know, they're
all supposed to be morally superior and perfect people.
Except though, right?
That there's a point where, like, I got my arse handed to me.
I got beaten up, you know, like, and fair enough, you know, I was
an idiot.
But then Soloc took it further and then Soloc kept going on and on
in this sort of passive aggressive way.
And we just kind of getting to it now.
And I think it's ridiculous.
And it gets increasingly ridiculous.
Like there's a moment where you think that this part of the
explanation is going to end and then it continues.
He's still writing treatises.
You know you know what makes it work. is the brilliant gag at the
end where he's like kissing her face going. you can't tell them.
You know, I just want them to, and she's like, I promise, I
promise.
And it comes to her going, okay, so he made me promise not to tell
you.
And this is, like, in, I made a joke of it in the Voyager episode
we watched that, you know, you can't tell when I want nothing
because the gossip spreads around, but they literally make a
fantastic joke out of it here.
But it's also, too, that she is the grown up and he's being a
fucking idiot.
And so she has to kind of take control and she's better at
baseball than him.
She's telling him what he's doing wrong.
He's really annoyed.
She, you know, knows that telling them the stakes is important, but
he doesn't want to do it because he's, and because he is what
Solok says he is.
He's irrational.
He's, um, you know, being an asshole to everyone and he's being
emotional in a way that means that solo can get him.
Like, he's absolutely.
He showed by throwing Romoff the team, that Solok gets under his
skin, that Solok can manipulate him solo can wrongfoot him all the
time.
That's one of the wonderful things about Casti as a character is
that, like, at this point, Cisco is built up as, like, you know
the saviour of the Alpha Quadrant, you know, the head of the
Dominion War, chief strategist, is the most important man in the
entire quadrant.
She don't care about none of that.
There's several episodes in this like where he tries to like
reassign her cargo runs again to protect her from, you know, space
about things.
She's like, I'll tell you what, you go and tell them to put me
back on that road up because I'm not having none of this.
And in another episode, he expects her to do religious ceremonies
because he's the emissary and she goes, no.
She goes, I didn't convert.
I'm not going to suddenly pretend I started believing.
Like, I really like that about her, that she knows her own mind
you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she's not kind of cowed by him.
And she's kind of charming with it though.
Yeah.
Oh, this bit, this is so cheesy.
Niners.
I mean, I love a bit of cheese.
I'm Disney mad, mate, so I love all this stuff.
But it's also the sort of the sports film as well, you know, like
where a sort of crappy team of misfits and stuff gets together and
kind of beats the opposition.
And of course, that's not how it ends. cliche, isn't it?
That they win.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But just, you watch this match with an increasing sense of, oh, my
God. terrible.
So this is the Federation anthem, which was composed especially
for this episode.
So we had...
No.
So it was composed for this episode. and I knew that already.
It wasn't just recent memory alpha stuff like everything else.
I've said this evening.
I actually happen to know that already.
And look at look at Clark's reaction to the Federation anthem.
I think it's really impressed.
I think the music is absolutely spectacularly good.
Yeah.
But then that is, that has been.
And then in fact, that's leaning into Ward's character because
throughout.
Walk has been, you know, a staunch criticizer of the Federation
and everything it stands for.
And one of the ways that the show has critiqued the Federation as
well.
Yeah.
I want to take a quick moment as we head into the game to talk
about David Bell's score.
One, because he says, oh, memory, that absolutely was his
favourite score that he wrote, because he just got to cut loose
and have some fun.
But I love the fact there's a scored like the most, you know
dramatic space battle. dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. you know, like
it's it's super dramatic.
That makes me laugh more than anything.
Because he also got to do sort of comedy haplessness during the
training and stuff like that, you know, like just comedy music
underlying how shit everyone was at everything, but this is played
like a massive space battle.
That special effects shop there of the spectators vanishing behind
Odo.
That's taken some time and some money to get that right.
It looks really good.
And of course, we know that the reason, the real reason that we
don't have, we're deleting the crowd for budgetary reasons.
Yeah.
They'll be back later.
Maybe they filmed some bits without it.
I already got old balls.
We need to get rid of that.
I reckon it's just like, no, we can't have them here for two, 3
days.
We'll get them in for a few hours to it at the beginning of the
end and then get rid of them all.
That whole...
Hey, bada, bada, bada.
Spiderman kill him.
That's so great.
Like Wolf doesn't do an awful lot in this, and in fact, they just
spent him entirely at the last scene and bring in Fake Wolf.
We'll talk about that when we get there.
Fake Odo is in that scene.
We'll get there.
Is there a fake odour as well?
Apparently.
Just shove anyone in the makeup.
No one's going to know.
Yeah.
Oh, here we go.
So yeah, here's the scoreboard.
I have no idea what will this mean?
No, I don't either.
But you can tell that, you know, Ron's are up there and you can
tell who's winning and who's losing.
Um, special uh, props for the design department for using the um
the Star Trek Deep Space 9 logo font for their names on the back
and the...
Oh, no, and the opening credits font for Niners on the front.
Can I just say, right now, the, the, the agony that Nathan went
through it to find the right font for the untitled Star Trek
project?
website.
It's a disease.
It's a labour of love, isn't it?
Oh man, Cisco's going to lose his shit in a minute in the most
spectacular way.
Yeah, yeah.
And I, this is the thing that, I mean, we'll get there because the
way this is resolved is so good because right now, he's playing
into Solok's hands.
You know, there's no way they're going to win. even in a TV show
they're not going to win.
You mentioned very quickly, just how brilliantly?
Odo is using this as well. because he's a stickler for the rules.
That role is perfect for him.
And he gets to do what not many people would have the guts to do
and that would stand up to Avery Brooks when you're talking about
punch you in the face.
Yeah, yeah.
He's he's and he's properly funny.
Like he's properly funny in this with his moves because he just
gets so into the role.
Did you know the only explosion that ever went off between 2
actors in DS9 and the whole seven-year run was between Avery
Brooks and Renier between the one and that was in far beyond the
stars.
Oh wow.
Which, yeah, yeah, apparently it was.
I can imagine.
Blue.
Yeah, I can imagine because everything is sort of super heightened
as well, you know, like...
I mean, Kira, so Kira, former terrorist, you know, athletic.
She's pretty good at this, you know, although apparently famously
Nana Vista was the worst player on the team, the cast.
Oh, there's another terrific line in a minute as well where he
goes, what were you doing?
Regenerating?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we get some, like, yeah.
Like, I don't know why.
Like, this shouldn't be as fun as it is.
I really don't care about baseball, but it's so fun.
No, but I mean, it is always about the characters, you know, like
in baseball, the thing about sport is that there are no stakes.
It doesn't matter.
I mean, professional sports, different.
But like a game of football, you know, it doesn't matter who wins
but it, you know, like it does matter in a way, it's like a safe
way of experiencing success and, you know, like I think that's why
horrible teachers say, you know, it's character building because
it's like, well, you get to experience success and failure and
stuff in a way, a safe way. matter. my work, I'll tell you.
It's...
But in stark contrast to enterprise that we watched last week, that
was potentially a really interesting situation with just the most
mediocre characters imaginable.
So it was so boring.
Whereas this is a situation where I'm not really that invested.
I love characters.
Well, except that I don't want Cisco to be humiliated and I'm
angry at Cisco for being such a prick to everyone, essentially, and
wrong, the most defenceless and loveable character on the show. you
know, in particular.
That's the stakes.
You know, the stakes is that Cisco is being a prick.
He's letting Solot get to him.
You know, he's absolutely losing his shit here in this scene with
Odo.
And...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And that where he just taps him.
Yeah.
Oh, great. is loving it.
But then the 2nd joke there is when he gets to do it to solo, and
he's got a massive smile on his face.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's that's good too, because Solok needs to be brought down
a peg, you know, because not because he, you know, exceeds a run
because he doesn't care about that.
He wins the game.
But because he loses control to the degree.
Because, you know, here he is tipping his hand to see his scope.
Yeah, because Cisco's lost his shit and this is what I've said
about you humans and you in particular ever since we were at the
academy.
And so having him lose it is particularly humiliating.
I think.
Because what's really nice then in the end is, I mean, it's super
cheesy.
But it's like they prove that, you know, having emotions is a
massive strength, you know?
Yeah, yeah, and that's it.
The the thing is, the the being irrational thing is right.
They're being irrational because they care about getting a run.
And the reason that they care is because they love ROM.
And they are happy that ROM gets to enjoy himself.
And rom is such a kind of kicked puppy sometimes.
And it's why Cisco seems like such a...
I was going to say how much...
This is Cisco side eye.
It's so awkward, isn't it?
Because Cisco is being such a bloke-y shithead.
And like poor little, you know, Rom is kind of sitting there
feeling embarrassed.
Oh, Estrin.
Emily's back.
Yeah.
Just a quick moment for, um, is it Renee Aubergonnois?
that how you say it?
I don't think he can give a bad line reading.
And when he said a minute ago, what was it?
Look it up, but do it in the stands?
You're...
That man can deliver any Donald. so good.
It's the way his voice crescendos on just one big trajectory, you
know, like he's in the middle of that sentence but he's going to
stop and say that's wonderful.
And I think we realise at this point that the best they can hope
for is a rum, isn't it?
Like, this is the best they can have got.
And the joy of it is that it's an accident.
Yeah, but it's not just, it's not just a run because essentially
the game doesn't matter at this point.
What matters is that ROM's humiliation gets reversed, that Cisco
stops being a prick, and that Solok loses, and all of those things
happen at the same time, like they're all resolved by the same
thing.
But pushing against what you would expect in this type of story
because in a baseball movie, they would just win, wouldn't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, no, this bit.
The racist bit?
Oh, they all look the same.
You can't tell.
Even though one of them was black earlier on in the scene with the
national anthem, he must be on the field or something, I don't
know how baseball works.
This is, um, this is directly influenced by an episode of Fame, the
Iris Stephen Bear rope, which is about baseball, and this scene
plays out in that.
And I'm not sure I think it might be Asian characters.
And so it's even it's even more problematic.
Yeah, well, yeah.
But apparently there are scenes that are directly lifted from that
fame episode straight into this.
I used to love fame.
Oh, see this.
So Cisco is talking to him and it's so awkward because he hasn't
acknowledged what a prick he's been.
And then...
But then he just goes, he goes, ram. come here Yeah, no, it looks
like it looks like it would have been a lot of fun.
And he's sort of not manipulating him, but he sort of is because
he looks to see how Cisco reacts to that.
And then we get this and it's just glorious.
It's just the best thing ever. whole sequence now where they're
tapping their arms, trying to give the bump signal.
It's like, what?
What?
But but it's also like we bring the we bring the crowd back so
they can cheer him.
You know, we're all...
So what are you saying?
This isn't a celebration of baseball.
This is a celebration of role.
Yeah, yeah.
At this stage, that's what we needed.
But that's it.
It's a celebration of how much they love each other and how they
all kind of work together to ensure ROM accidentally receive some
success.
They're all rooting for him.
You know, even though he's really shit at the game.
Did you ever know, you know the bit of the end where they all pick
him up?
Yeah, yeah.
And someone goes to tussle his hair.
And he ain't got an offset.
So they're just tussling the top of his head.
It's so, so cute.
And you know what?
you know what?
It is like super cheesy, isn't it?
Like it's really cheesy.
Yeah, yeah.
I think they've earned it at this point.
Like, we've had some pretty dark storytelling lately. like, yeah
you know.
But also, you know, we love these characters, you know, by these
times.
You remember, I said in House of Cork, that Max Rogenchik has a
way of looking dents with nuance.
I think this sequence exemplifies that.
Come on, dad, you can do it, I hope.
But again, it is, you know, like Nog doesn't want him to be
embarrassed.
Nog cares about him and doesn't want him to humiliate himself in
front of everyone.
And we've stopped...
Are you saying there's no other character that could play this
role?
Like we love ROM so much.
Oh, yeah, the high stakes come from the fact that we leave...
You don't want it.
You cannot ask.
And the focus has moved off.
Is Cisco going to be embarrassed by losing to Solok?
We're not thinking about that at all.
It is is Rom going to be humiliated here.
Is he going to make a fool of himself because he was, you know
like he's smacked people about the head.
He's thrown the bat at people.
He's been kind of embarrassed. and they're all rooting for him.
And by not caring about what Solok thinks, that's how Ben defeats
him.
You know, it's a rational bit in a good way.
We care.
We don't care about winning, not because, you know, like the
irrational thing was to care so much about winning that you are
going to be mean to Nog, wrong.
Not at all.
Lofton is.
He's somewhere in the atmosphere, isn't he?
Have you seen him now?
Have you seen him lately?
He looks like Avery Brooks is terrifying.
He's really handsome.
He's such a good looking young man.
Oh, yeah, I think he was.
Oh, here we go.
Slow motion.
No, just to throw the point home.
Keep going wrong.
Oh I love it.
Oh, look and he's number 13.
From number 13, which is terribly bad luck.
Oh, look, now Aaron Eisenberg's throwing himself into it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. right.
And that's it.
Yeah.
We're all shit at this Woo!
But no, the game's over.
It's not that we're all shit at this.
It's that ROM, it let there be a home run or something.
You know, like, it was great.
You know, it just wouldn't have rung true had he like taken the
swing and hit it properly.
But the fact that he's distracted and it taps the back.
There would go, this, this, Renee. throwing you off.
And that's it.
That's where solo gets defeated.
He is irrrational.
You know, he gets angry.
Ira Bear says that structurally, he thinks that they kind of lost
so lost character throughout this.
He has a strong scene at the beginning.
And then he just sort of hangs around and he wishes they'd kind of
given him a bit more substance.
Yeah, I don't want to less...
I don't want a thing where he learns a valuable lesson at the end
though.
That would have been tedious.
And I think that I think that this ending is actually the worst
bit.
About it.
You don't like this scene?
Well, I do like the scene.
I like the scene because of the apology.
I think that's just absolutely beautiful.
And having ROM say, oh, you know, if you want to apologise, you
know, like, even better is when he's like, oh, what's a bump?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's when she starts goes in for a kiss.
Oh, you're adorable.
We've seen some we've seen some kisses in this show so far in this
podcast.
I think that might be my favourite one yet.
Yeah, yeah.
Where's fake Odo then?
Apparently he's in this scene.
Fate Wharf is so obvious.
They try and put Bashir in front of him, but he keeps moving.
No, apparently Renee wasn't available here or didn't, you know
they used his stand in.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, but this... you know what?
I been doing this for 70 years.
I'm not getting up in makeup for one line in the last season.
I don't even have a line.
That's it.
I, I don't like this mocking him, you know, because I think the
important lesson they learned is that we don't give a shit what
Solok thinks.
And trying to beat Solok is what turned Ben into a prick.
And so now having them crow.
I just...
Yeah, I just think it's a bit unpleasant.
And and this, where we end the episode on the most appalling
force.
It's like the end of a dreadful Blake 7 episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, this is this is untitled Star Trek Project's 2nd episode
that ends on like an incredibly shit forced laugh because Lineage
did as well. like just super embarrassing.
But this is the only time DS9 does this.
Oh, look, look at Kira really going for an embarrassing way.
And then we throw them...
At least there is an ugly CGI baby to laugh at.
Yeah, that's true.
Oh, the ball.
And, um, it's, they've all signed it.
Cork signed it, but he's got his ears on the camera.
Get on the queue.
You know what?
There's only one thing that could have possibly made that better.
If Morn had been on this team.
Yeah.
Did we say more?
I saw a benz on.
He was in that last scene.
He was hanging out in the last, he's always, he's always at that
bar, isn't he?
Oh, Nathan, that was so much fun.
I love that episode so much.
I really properly enjoyed it.
And even when it's being light and being disposable.
It's about something, you know.
I mean, I've kind of okay, so I've kind of got a question for you
going out then.
Could you understand why people would object to that episode?
Yeah, but terrible people, I think.
You know, like, because I I was going to name a name then, a
mutual friend of ours, but I'm not going to do it now.
It's because it's because I don't want Star Trek to be
relentlessly gone.
I want it to be fun and silly as well, and I want it to remember
that its primary job isn't to depict historical events in the
future that aren't going to happen so that we can write up memory
alpha articles about them.
It's to be entertaining.
And there's no way that that didn't do that.
You know, and it's why it's one of my top 10.
I mean, we've we've watched 2 DS9 episodes now, and I don't think
either of them are entirely representative of the series as a
whole.
Because it is, it is, you know, I'm not going to say it's dark, but
it is darker than your average Star Trek.
Yeah, it's probably not as dark as Discovery season one, but it
is...
Nothing is as dark as Discovery season one.
But it, like, but there's texture to it and there's character
stuff and there's comedy and there's, you know, silliness and and
interplay between the actors and stuff, you know, and that's what
I'm here for.
I can only say again, I love those characters and I will pretty
much watch them doing it.
Anything at all if they're having that much fun.
But what they are having, like while they're having fun there
that's a properly good episode that's actually about something.
And it is also nice hangout time for us because there's only a
limited amount of time we have left with these people at this
point.
Well, I mean, there's a very specific thing that they do in the
middle of the season, and that is, they do better, being better
bang, directly before the last 10 episode arc, as a breather, as
you know, you've got that fabulous slow motion sequence where
they're all dressed up, ready for the highest going down the
promenade, and then Cisco sings the best is yet to come. at the
end of the episode. one of the best scenes ever in Star Trek.
But, you know, you're right, it is absolutely a pause to hang out
with them one last time before, you know, things this shit hits
the fan.
All right, Joe, it's time for us to pick our episode for next
week.
And can you tell the listener at home what the principal is that
underlies our choice of series this time.
The only option I think we have failed to take advantage of is to
select everything that's left.
Uh, which I believe is the animated series that I've never seen.
I know about you.
Um, Picard, which I've watched through once.
Lower decks, which we both adore.
And prodigy.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Now, I'm actually going to take prodigy off the table for one
reason, which is that I've only put episode one in, and there have
been 3 episodes by now.
So I'm going to take that off the table, but I am going to add
short tracks to the table.
So your short tracks.
There's 2 series of short tracks that were made alongside
Discovery and leading up to Picard, and they're sort of 10 minute
they're short, hence the name.
But I think there's some really good stuff in there and I'd be
super interested if we got one of those, some of them, I think, are
great.
And often, often they introduce sort of ideas and themes that end
up in discovery, there's one that introduces the main theme of
Picard, and I think they're sort of interesting and a bit
experimental.
So that would be kind of fun.
So that Star Trek, the animated series, Short Treks, Star Trek
Picard, and Star Trek Lower Decks.
I think it's worth mentioning that we're not going to just allow
the films to happen.
Do you know what I mean?
Like we're not including the films in this because we don't
suddenly want to discover that we're doing a 3 hour episode next
week and sort of kind of know why.
Let's let's make it clear.
We are gonna cover the films.
Yeah, absolutely.
We'll do that at specific times and like perhaps festive specials
and things like that, you know.
Yeah, I wouldn't mind a Christmas special.
Because I've got some things to say about some of those films, I'm
telling you.
Some of them are great though.
Anyway, the crap ones are great.
All right, okay.
So I am on the randomiser now.
I have Star Trek, the animated series, Short Trek, Star Trek, Lower
Decks, and I'm pressing the button.
Push it.
Your random Star Trek lower decks episode is I excretus.
What the hell is that?
Series two, series two, episode eight.
Okay, so I've not seen any of series two.
So that's...
I...
Check.
I think I think this is pretty good.
I mean, they're all pretty good.
It's going to be a sort of challenge doing one of these, but I
guess we'll be spotting like lots of things.
I absolutely adore Star Trek lower decks and sometimes it's my
favourite one.
Actually, I excretency is a particularly good episode for us to
do.
The thing that worries me is in a condensed period of time, there's
a lot of Easter eggs in lower decks.
So there might have to be a little bit of discussion even before
or afterwards.
Otherwise, we will miss out quite a lot.
But I really enjoyed this episode this run through.
I think it is really properly funny and. tell me the premise.
So, um, there's an alien comes on board and she's a consultant who
is training the lower deck people and the bridge crew to kind of
handle each other's kind of situations and stuff.
So she's there to sort of help them and she exposes them to these
simulated situations and stuff.
And I don't want to... sort of like Councillor Troy psychobabble.
No, just you wait.
Just you wait.
Oh, wait.
I cannot wait.
Yeah.
So, I know, I've not met another next episode, I haven't enjoyed.
I think it's really fun.
And I think it's something Star Trek really needs and will talk
more about that next week, I think.
I mean, I'm gonna let you into a little secret.
That's my favourite of the Kursman tricks. by a mile.
Yeah, sometimes it's my favourite as well.
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 Lann.
This episode was recorded on the 24th of November 2021 and
released on the 17th of December.
We'll see you next time for Lower Decks, I excretis.