Preludes

Hey, Joe. Hi. So, this week we are back to Star Trek prodigy, which is kind of, I don't know, it doesn't seem to get anywhere near as attention as the other Star Trek that are on at the moment. But I still really love it. It's been a while. since they finished that 1st 20 episode season and this is the 1st time we've been in the sort of back half of those 20 episodes, which aired a bit later than the 1st set. What did you think? I'm wondering if those sort of keyboard warriors that write for memory alpha are a little bit embarrassed by prodigy because as I went looking for some trivia around the 2nd half of the season. There was very little to be found, just a few scant details about uniforms and ships, but no sort of behind the scenes information at all. No. Which is a shame because I think this is really incredibly good Star Trek. Yeah, I do too. I don't just think this is great TV for kids. I think this is good Star Trek. Like, the episode that we're going to talk about today. It's pretty dense. There's a lot going on in this episode. I think for a young, young child, they'll be going, what the hell? But there's lots of sort of pretty images and there's some real emotion in there as well that you can get involved in. But they aren't just gearing this at what preschoolers. This is this is a properly a proper arc in this season. Yeah, I mean, I always thought that sort of Star Trek. Well, like original Star Trek, when I was a kid, I was told that original Star Trek would be scary and that it would give me nightmares. And so I didn't watch it for a long time. But that sort of, it's a little bit like Doctor Who, where it's the sort of thing that boys 10 to 12 would start watching and then it would be their kind of lifelong obsession. So original Star Trek, because it's sort of spaceships and aliens and it's a bit camp and stuff like that is for kids as well, but it doesn't kind of make any concessions to kids particularly, I think. Whereas this is directed at kids in the sense that the main characters are all kids. All kind of likeable because of it. You know, they had one of that main ensemble, though, I'm not behind. Yeah, me too. But you know, I was I was watching this and I was thinking about the next generation, which I think is kind of geared at older children and adults and sort of narratively speaking, this is more complex than your average TNG episode. Yeah, I mean, there is an ongoing story, and it is sort of split into 2 halves, but there's a through line here, and this is just an episode in what is a continuing ongoing story. And so it doesn't talk down to kids. And certainly they're sort of casting proper people in it. You know, like it's a show that they're putting a lot of effort and care into. Yeah, well, that's right. And we have the medium Robert here guesting in this episode. I'm not sure he said March actually. No, but he does get to be in it. And then 2 of the crew of the Dauntless, one of them is David Diggs from Hamilton and he plays the Andorian guy who is on the crew. He might be Janeway 2nd in command. And then there's Jameila Jamil. is the other person that belongs to the diviners race, who has been disguised as a trill for the 1st half of the 2nd half of season one and then has revealed herself really to be one of the divinest people. Is that Tahani from... Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I recognise her accent. I'm like, that clip British accent, where do I know that from? I could hear her name dropping, you know, all these fabulous stars that she's met in the good place. Yep, yep. David Diggs probably. So it is pretty, you know, like they're proper people in this. They're putting effort in. Of course, Jason Mansukas, who is one of the regulars, Janken Pog was also a semi-regular in the Good Place. God, and he gets the best subplot in this one. I'm telling you, it's that was the press part of the episode. But as well. It annoyed me in so far as this reminded me of what voyager could have been. You had 2 plots taken place, one in the Delta Quadrant, and one in the Alpha Quadrant, and they were sort of tied in together. And when Voyager sort of got in contact with the alpha quadra in their life. Well, then we just sort of said hello to them every now and again. There wasn't really much going on. Whereas this is all, as you say, there's 2 narratives in 2 quadrants taking place side by side, one informing the other. And I'm like, yeah, they're redressing some of the mistakes that Rick Berman and Branan Braga made back in the days. Yeah, so, I mean, what this does is it's long form narrative, which they did attempt eventually in the Burman era, obviously, with varying degrees of success, but there's there's a commitment here to put weird things on screen. And, you know, Strange New Worlds does that. It's in the name of the show, but this did it first, I think. Well, weird and sort of, um, pretty, pretty, I'm just sort of like captured by the wonder of what Star Trek could show me. Now, you and I talked about in progress recently where that was 2 people on a terrible set, you know, just chatting away for an hour and there's, we're doing none of that, are we? None of the spectacle. Whereas this is the other extreme, where it's all animated, so they kind of got their money to throw some magic at you. And there's like a bit in this and we'll get there where um, oh good grief, what are the, what's the light man called in the big ball? zero. Z thank you. I'm going to be doing that a bit as well. When him and all of his people, It's a load of sort of lights dancing about. It's a fabulous planet. And I was like, oh, this is really well Star Trek can show us, you know. Yeah. It's glorious. Like, I don't know. I just can't see. I have not seen a bad episode of Prodigy yet, and I know I've only done sort of 3 or four. I'm getting the impression that actually it's a pretty consistent show in what it's doing. Are there doves? No, it's hard to tell. There's some funny choices and things. and there's some great things like the outrageous O'Connor that is in more than one episode. He's not fucking around like he was in TNG. No, no, he's very well behaved. She's a lot older. Terry Hutchster with him. No, no. dumped her almost immediately. But it's just solidly fun and it's great kids entertainment. And I have always been someone who has watched children's television as an adult. Like, I'm not put off by the fact that it's directed at children at all. And I think this is solid, worthwhile stuff that I'd be happy if I had kids, which I don't. I'd be happy for them to watch it, my imaginary kids. Having explored some of, I mean, Marv is basically a child. So he loves watching sort of the CBBC channel. And so having explore some children's television in the last year. It kind of goes one or 2 ways. There's even a dreadful sort of pantomimic television where they're talking down to you and it's just madly over the top performances and no subtlety in it. Or it's something like the Sarah Jane Adventures or prodigy or press gang, as you and I have talked about recently, which is quite mature and it's sort of dealing with themes that kids are going to start thinking about as they're getting older, you know with good production value. And this is definitely an example of the latter. Yeah, yeah, I agree. What do you think? Should we go in? History. Oh, actually, before we go in, you know, can I just say what a brilliant idea it was. to not have us have individual episodes for all of these backstories, you know, and have them told over half an hour and just give us these wonderful snapshots. This one, this 25 minutes went by in a lick. Yeah. Yeah. If you look, just keep an eye out for the writing credit, like who it's by, because it's a massive list. It's a Magna Carta is what it is. Yeah, and I wonder whether these were sort of based on ideas that they had, but had to be cut from the pilot, and, you know, they decide, well, we'll concentrate on Gwen and Dowl, and we get Dowl's backstory a little bit earlier on in the season. But here, like these are underserved characters who didn't get time for much of a backstory. And that's really fun. But we also get the backstory of the proto star, and we get the backstory of the diviner and his planet, and we get the backstory of, um, is she Ensin Asencia? We get the backstory of how Chakotay wound up time travelling as well, you know. Yeah, I figure there's some mysteries in the series that are unexplained that actually this provides some explanations for. Yeah, and then next season we go back to the action with Janeway knowing who the kids are in charge of the proto star and them trying to kind of make contact because the one thing it's made clear in this episode, I think, but on board the proto star is a thing called the construct and the construct is designed to make federation ships fight one another. Like it's a big super weapon that turns the federation against itself. And we see at the beginning of the 2nd half of the season that that happens to an outpost. It's the outpost that sends that information through to Janeway. She's got, you know, on her iPad. She's got pictures of all of them and stuff like that. It's that that outpost destroys itself because the construct gets in touch with it. And so they can't contact. They, you know, they want to become part of Starfleet. They've learned from hologram Janeway and stuff and they they arrive and they can't communicate with them. And to top that off earlier on this season, Dal has discovered that he is genetically engineered. And so he won't be able to be in Starfleet either. And he's the one, you know, for whom this was a really important dream. So those are all obviously resolved by the end of the season, but they're things that come up in this episode. I just thought it was really clever to let us get to know these people then later on because this is quite near the end of the 2nd series, tell their backstories, but in a way that informs us even more about them, you know, and makes sense of how they've sort of behaved to this point as well. It's just really, really smart writing. Yeah, I think so too. Alright. let's go in Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off. Off we go. I'm going to be a little bit bedazzled, you know, because I'm not usually when we were in 90s trick, you know, I'm not fixed glued to the screen waiting for the next exciting visual. So last week, I think, or the week before, maybe, you said that the Picard theme was your favourite Kurtzman theme. Yeah, I think so, yeah. This is pretty incredible. And so this is Michael Giacchino. I think we might have said this before. He's the one who did the Star Trek 2009 theme. He did the music for that. I think it's stunningly great. And it's such an inventive title sequence. Yeah, as you said for me, it's the only title sequence, which is leaning into every character. you know, and doing something visually interesting to do with each of the regulars. which is great, isn't it? And if you want to know if this show is going to be sort of gorgeous to look at. Well, you just have to watch this title secret, you know? beautiful, isn't it? I look at this Janeway hologram that made up of all those pixels. And all of those like Starfleet L cars panels, you know, like the user interface. It's very cleverly done. I don't want you to tell me anything, but I'm just assuming there's going to be some more Janeway in series too, because she's fabulous in this. Yeah, well, I, you know, we see how it ends, and I haven't heard anything about what's happening in series 2, but I hope they do it because... Maybe it's going to be their, their, um, Star Trek Academy, you know, with all of them. see where they end up. Look, she's got a cup of coffee and around. Yeah, so this is this is real Janeway, who we discovered at the end of the season. the mid-season. Great streak in her hair. Yeah. Yeah. So she was like it was the middle of the season, the mid-season break where we discovered she was after the proto star. And this is obviously David Diggs playing the Andorian 2nd in command, which is pretty great. Or maybe he's the captain. How many pips has he got? He seems to have three. He's got three. come on. Yeah, yeah. Neva, they did the Tao Shia, Nathan. So we're in the neutral zone. like we're in the neutral zone and it's a standoff and they can't communicate. They can't break the standoff. And in fact, next week has the most fantastically thrilling action sequence of Janeway and Dal. Oh my god, Janeway and Dal swap bodies. It's so... Oh, they don't do a body swap episode. And Kate does the most superb version of Dal. It's really great. She absolutely nails the character. It's so much fun The trouble with just being PG-13 with a man turning into a woman. You can't do all the obvious gags, can you? Well, did we do that? We didn't do that in Spock a Mark. So they're all attempting to repair the ship. I'm assuming something has had just happened. Yeah, I can't remember it. It's not just the ship, it's the proto-star drive, you know, like the big special drive that it has that will let them escape. Okay, why is Murph in the shape of a humanoid now? Yeah, I don't like this version of Murph quite as much as the original one, but fucking this blob that slid all about the place. So there's a cliffhanger early on where he kind of turns into a pupa or something, like he's like this sort of horrible sticky thing on the wall. He's like a big, and then he emerges from it looking like that. And he will eventually become, and I'm not sure whether it's happened at this point, the security chief. He's going to be their security officer because he's basically indestructible and because rock talk is the is the obvious choice. And because she doesn't want to do it because she's a scientist and she hates the idea of fighting. you know so this is what we're going into now. This is her backstory here. So it's basically the premise of this character is she looks like a monster. So everyone treats her like a monster, but actually she's just a little girl who, you know, just wants to do science, did you say? Yeah, well, do you remember, it's the episode that we did call Time of Mark from the 1st half of the season where she spends a long time by herself on the ship studying and learning science. And by the end of it, she's basically got a degree, you know? Yeah, that's right. And so that's what she wants to do. And it is this sort of strange, like, I don't quite know what to make of this, but she has a very strange gender presentation. You know, she's massive and scary looking and all of that, but she's really a little girl and she has to deal with being kind of misjudged by everyone who sees her. Instantly tragic. You instantly fall in love with that character for that very reason And look, that's the gloop, that gloop that she was eating which is the horrible gloop that she was by herself eating earlier on in the season. And look, he's occasion, a little location, so a cat person just like, um, Dr. Tana. I like this as well, though, within this situation that she's found herself in. She's the monster in the arena and the fellas, you know vanquishing her. But they build a relationship between them, you know, and they kind of enjoy it. She likes little animals, like having her, having the little cat run away from her. Like that's horrible for her. Do you know what, though? You know, must it you in the 1st couple of the 1st episode we watched? I was getting strong Star Trek vibes. Again, here. I'm like an arena. Star Wars? Star Wars Lots of, lots of alien creatures, all in sort of, this reminds me of some of the Star Wars movies. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Even his armour reminds me a bit of Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it has a very big Star Wars vibe. And I think, you know, Star Wars informs live action Star Trek a bit, you see it a bit in Picard, I think. I don't know why I figure more with the show, though. Yeah, yeah. Well, there is that this is the same kind of animation that you get in sort of clone wars and stuff like that. Rebels. Notice up, among the audience are some Kazon and some Klingons together at last. The rehabilitation of the Caison is by phone. one of our greatest achievements. Yeah, yeah, they're really trying to make the Kazon happen and I love it. I think it sounds good. I don't mind the case on in series one or 2 avoid. No, I like the fact that actually we had an arc running for 2 years with them, even though we should have been out of their space a long time ago. Well, that's right. Prodigy is determined to make them like the villains of the universe, aren't they? Well, they're kind of like the prominent, you know, background artists. doing dodgy deals. Because we're in the delta. Yeah, look, look, see, there's 2Ks on a Klingon. They're laughing. Like, and she tries to do something which is funny rather than pretending to beat the shit out of this guy and then they don't get fed and everything kind of goes wrong. And I think this is where she gets given away. She gets sent, sent away. And this is why we love the fact that she's found her family now you know, people that look after her. Yeah. Yeah, look, so we saw Kazon delivering people, delivering a little cation to, um, I don't know if you noticed, you know, the case on this have got much better hair than they did on Voyager. They had a sort of rocks on their head in Voyager. Yeah, yeah. decided not to go for that. Oh, look at this Murph cuddling up to us. It's got little murph. She really likes Murph. such a funny little toddler. He's a horse. But like this is this is something that they probably have the ability to do in Picard and Discovery, but I still sort of lean away from it a bit and that is just to have some really weird looking regulars. Yeah, yeah. That's expensive. This world looking regulars. I love that about this, though. A giant rock monster, a big eyeball with a light in size, you know? Yeah. So we're about to get his backstory. Yeah, fabulous. So he's a Medusan, and they are from the original, the original series episode. Is there in Truth, No Beauty? What did they look like in that? Are you see them in the box that these are about to be captured? Is it just a lie in a box? A lied in that box. But the box that they're about to capture him in. And, um, the character, that's the one which has Diana Muldar in it. She's in 2 original Star Trek episodes, I think. But she's in that one. terrific then. Oh, look at this. All the lights are dancing around the quarry. And we can't hear it, but the music in this scene. No, it's wonderful. gorgeous. And I mean, this scene really simply exists to be beautiful. Like that's beautiful. This is the, it's very short. And that justifies the call. Just there, just to give me something beautiful to look at. And there's 0 going into the box before he's prisoner 0? And there's the case, though. And so those visors that the Kazon are wearing are the visors that the people in the original series episode where, because they've got an eye for decent, aren't they? they love that stuff. And this ship, so the Medusans have a ship and you don't see it in the original. This is all memory alpha. You don't see it in the original, but in the updated special effects version, that ship also appears as the Medusan ship. Do you remember we said in in Purgatory Shadow when the Jem'Adar punched the audience? Well, they did exactly the same thing there. It was a POV shot. us. We went into the thing was being captured. Yeah, yeah. like that. Really nice. Why she there? She was there, wasn't she? Was she? Because she's the daughter of the diviner, remember, in the 1st episode she was doing... Oh, why was she offoul? Oh, because she was working with the diviner. So she was she wasn't capturing that she was there when he was delivered. And there is a thing where she has to cope with the fact that people were torturing these people who are now her friends and she didn't do anything about it because it was her father. This is her father. He's lost his memory. He lost his memory. And this woman here, this is Tahani El Jamel from the Good Place. Yeah. Oh, yeah, fabulous. So in the early... Sorry, the way this was told for a series of still images. Wonderful. This is how you do backstory. We've been going on backstory for a long time now. But it looks really mid-20th century, doesn't it? Like it looks, it's beautiful. Well, it's a little stunningly 3D. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Primary colours. It's wonderful. But like, instead of just having 2 actors and some 11 actors emoting terribly and telling their tragic backstory. Yeah, this does it in a far more effective and a pullout from his eye as well. Yeah. It's and it's a little bit complicated to the backstory, isn't it? So these 2 are the same age and they were sent out at the same time, but a sense here only arrived 3 years ago, whereas the diviner arrived 20 something years ago, um, and has a daughter and staff. And so... Oh, he's got some dialogue. Is he Is he good in this? Look, look at the bird guy in the background. There's a bird person in the background. He looks like he's from... Look at this, whatever they are. Well, these things... That looks so Star Wars. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Dreadlock always looked really Star Wars, I think. To be sent back in time to destroy Starfleet before they could ever make 1st contact. Yeah. Yeah. We've done that before, you know. Yes, but I think this is sort of super interesting because it yeah look at that guy. It saves his bird friend. Yeah, yeah. I think we're a bird, because we had other bird people in lower decks, didn't we? Oh, I only... Yeah, yeah. But no, I think there are bird people canonically, I think. Can I ask Chakotay sent the pro to star off? Yeah. He travelled, yes, by itself. And this is why it's abandoned in the 1st episode when they discover it because it goes back in time through the time anomaly thing. It's complicated, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But I think they sell it here. And in a sense, it doesn't matter a great deal. What matters is the relationship between these 2 and what it is that the diviner wants to do, like what they're motivated by and why is super important. I love this bit too. These ships, like that, look at that. Look at that ship. That's so well realised, isn't it? And so odd. So unlike what we would normally see on Star Trek. Look, obviously, as we said, this show is kind of geared. It's primary audience is for children, but there's none of that sort of that'll do approach to the animation, isn't it? Exactly. No, no, exactly. In fact, it's after you when we did previous episodes, I think this one might be one of the best looking or the best looking Star Trek episodes. Yeah. Oh, yeah, sorry. series, yeah. Maybe maybe it is. I think Strangely Worlds is doing a pretty great job of looking amazing. I mean, as we go along, they're going to get better and better on that, of course, of course. special effects improve. Yeah. So so that's their flashback, you know, like and it's sort of weird. I hadn't really noticed at the time because we get, you know, we get rock talk's backstory and we get, um, we get Zero's backstory and we're about to get Pog's backstory. But we get this backstory as well. And isn't there a scene where Janeway is, was it the 1st scene or is it later where she's listening to Chopin? and yeah, the 1st scene, yeah. It's the preludes. I like it. She's listening to it. When she says, well, they say, come on, Janeway, hologram. What's your backstory? I was waiting to hear some some dreadful recount of caretaker. No, but did you hear what she did say? She talked about Molly. The dog. Love me, love my dog. And it was quite nice as well for the other regulars to get quite a bit of focus because I'm used to the, is it Dow? I used to him sort being. And he's had holiday episodes about his backstory already. Like we met the woman who brought him up and stuff like that. So that's already been a thing. I quite liked as well, not only were they sort of visually very different all the backstories, but tonally as well. So this next one, it's very funny. And then when it makes a sacrifice at the end. It's really sweet. It's very poignant. Yeah, he's great. It's not a quirk of his species then that they refer to their own name in every centres. It's explained here that basically he has to keep repeating his name to this bloody robot. Yeah, that's why he does it. That's why he does it all the time, which I think is kind of cute. No, it was always only something that he did. Like he always refers to himself as Janko Pogg, which is kind of hilarious and weird. It's not a particularly tell-rite thing. We haven't seen that many Tellerites, have we? We've seen Sam. They're usually rendered as you say in a very embarrassing way. Shit. Even in Kertzman track, like even in Discovery, series one, I think they're in series one of Discovery. YouTube animation, you know. Yeah they look great. And of course, this is Jason Mansukas, who is, you know, he's probably... Such an engaging turn, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's so funny. I love him so much. He's great in Brooklyn 99 and he's brilliant in the good place as well. I think he's got such a distinctive voice. Yeah, glorious. But the character is really fun as well. Yeah. Doesn't this robot look amazing too? I mean, we could literally spend this whole episode, doesn't this look amazing? So it is very Star Wars. Is he like the probe droid on Hoff at the beginning of... Their inspiration is more wars and trek in this show. I think in the design and I kind of think... Star Wars does a lot of great stuff. I think so too. And I think, and it's that sort of old Star Wars kind of thing where everything's a bit run down and everything's a bit sort of rough and industrial looking. I mean, this section looks incredible. you know. There's a whole sequence where it's just one, we've had a sequence like this with Miles O'Brien, you know, where things kept breaking down, then he had to go from one thing to another. But, um, The fact is the toilet and things like that, you know. I'm not repairing the toilet and then he's there with a bloody plunger. You want to sort it out? So she, so the woman who is playing this robot, I think, is also the woman who plays the voice of the computer on the proto star all the time. So and she's not the voice of a computer in the other shows. It's just so like Jesus Grace. The design of the... Crisis in the Arboretum. Yeah, they can do all of these designs where, you know, you couldn't put a fitter person inside. that's what I love about it you know? Back in back in original trek, every robot was sort of man shaped you know. No, no, what about nomad hanging by a string? Well, we could see the string where you could see the string. Well, we could do that with this. We could hang hang this by a string. That was very funny, you know, if they put a visible string on them. They would. That's just the sort of thing they would. The way he's like, well, there's not enough oxygen for everybody. Yeah, just let me go. Yeah, bless him. And I like it when they take comedy characters and give them moments of unexpected depth like this. They do it with Quark every now and again in DS9 as well. And it always hits because they're usually funny. Oh, blessedly. He thinks he's going to have a lie down now. Yeah, that's right. I actually thought that he'd somehow got too fat to fit in the sleeper tube, but that's not what's happening. Oh, yeah. So they're all about to run out of oxygen. Look how expressive that robot is. It's so good. Oh, look. Little pog with his tiny beady eyes. Whilst there's a lot going on in this episode. I don't think it's I don't think a child couldn't watch this because the emotion is always delivered in quite a simple way, you know? Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, I think it's super straightforward. And it is, you know, we had that one scene, that one rather exposition heavy scene, which managed to be visually spectacular. And if you didn't get it all, it was pretty clear what everyone's feeling about things was at the end of it. That was the best joke and the whole thing where he's done all that repair work. She goes, state your name. He comes out, why do I bother? She's waving goodbye to him though. through the winter. so happy. Junken Punk fixed it. You get to sleep, yeah. Now, you get to sleep. That robot boxy. boxy, yeah. So here he is being picked up. Yeah. See, he's a proper grease monkey. our true, you know, lower deck hero. He's a proper engineer, isn't he? Bless him. He's very sweet. You'll never know your noble act. Yeah. Oh, they, yeah, they give him a hug. Oh, that's adorable, isn't it? That is so sweet. I guess we all have a past and together a brighter future. See, it's delivered very simply. Yeah, it's that's kind of cheesy, but that's absolutely right. Oh, Murph. crawls up to Murph who wants to hear his story and he gives a big burp because he's a 2 year old. I mean, look at this lift going down into the pro style. Yeah, well, we talked about that, just the fact that the spaces in the proto star are so massive. It could at least Judda be a larger lift coming up into a list in all... Like we still have sliders in the future. That's pretty awesome See, that looks amazing, doesn't it? So beautiful. And so our jolly team. Where are they off to now then? I don't know, actually. I think they're just heading off, but they need to escape the dauntless because they're just staring at one another across the neutral zone. And the dauntless is much bigger than the proto star, I think. Oh yeah, here we go. He is Molly, the big dog. Do you recall how last week we watched Star Trek Enterprise? Yeah, yeah. I don't want to hang out with none of those people. I'd be very happy to hang out with these people every day of the week. Yeah, I'd hang out with Troop. Only because he's pretty. He really is pretty. But this crew. I think that's half your battle. It's the regulars because you, you're going to have off plot episodes, aren't you? But if the characters are great. I've been there. I said it about DS 9. The characters are great. Then you're just happy to go along with it. Yeah. Yeah, so okay. She's noticed that Gwen looks like the diviner and she met them before on the planet with the outrageous O'Connor. So that's the thing that's already happened. That's just the joy of cherry picking the worst, the caisson, the outrageous. Well, the outrageous O'Connor has also been on lower decks and he was... Is he still outrageous? No, but someone says the word outrageous, like it's O'Connor is DJing and someone says that's outrageous. I love the fact as well. You can still chop someone very gently and they fall unconscious. Exactly. Well, Jay, what happens then? So next week, I think, is where they actually communicate with each other for the 1st time, I think. I've seen a lot of genre TV. And I've seen a lot of series do these episodes with these sort of little vignettes and clip shows and things like that. And you might think that this is a skippable episode because it is just telling little short stories with the backstory. But like you said, it's telling backstories of the main plot of this series as well. So it's absolutely essential that you watch this episode. Well, that's right. You don't understand what's going on with Asencia and the diviner without this episode. So it is important sort of exposition, but it's done in an episode that's all about everyone sort of thinking about their past. And it's not a hugely sort of strong story. like they just learn oh, you know, we all had a past, you know, there's no real kind of incredible discovery or anything. And the vineyards only work in the context of the characters as they're established. But they work really well. They're really cute. And Jacobs one is lovely. Oh, lovely to say to this writing stuff as well. Like, okay, everyone take one character and write a story around them. It's just lovely. And but the thing that I think this show gets right more than anything, and I think it's got is regulars right. It's certainly getting its visuals right. And in terms of like, I mean, you said to me, the overall story is really interesting. I've only seen glimpses. But the thing it really gets right is the emotion. Yeah. And, you know, you care about those people and you care about what they're going through and you feel for them. And for me, that's sort of like my biggest in, you know? Like, spoilers, but it ends beautifully, the 1st season just ends absolutely perfectly, and I was so happy, you know, that they stuck the landing, and I'm really looking forward to hearing news of series 2. Alright, it's the end of the episode, and it's time for us to work out what we're going to be doing next, and it's Joe's turn on the button. So tell us what series we're going to be watching. Well, 2 of the 3 episodes that we have watched recently have been Kurtzman Trek. So I feel as if we've had too much visual interest. So now we're going to head back into a period of where... the dullest looking stuff. The direction and the visuals are... Also, a little primitive. But I'm going to a specific series in 90s trek because I feel as if we've watched some pretty dreary TNGs lately. We've complained about generations, we've complained about the masterpiece society, although you like that woman in it. Um, yeah, even like power play, justice. I know. I mean, we have not... But there is some really strong TNG and I feel as if we should explore some of it. So let's hope that the randomiser is feeling kind. Okay, fingers crossed. It is not feeling kind. Your random Star Trek, the next generation episode, is season one episode 21, the Arsenal of Freedom. Oh, my God. Yeah. Got John Lovett's in it. Oh, Jesus Christ, this might be even worse. Your random Star Trek next generation episode is Galaxy's child. Season four, episode 16. That's the Leah Brahms episode. Yeah, yeah. It's awful. Geordie Romance stories. Oh, really? Yeah, that's embarrassing. Affective. It's the 2nd one, isn't it? Is the booby traps, the 1st one? And Ghost is where I'm still using the hologram and then the real one walks in and walks in while he's having sex with her. No, that's not happening. Let's see what else we've got here. Whole season, ah. Season six, episode 22 suspicions. Do you think the random I've got something against the next generation? Oh my god. I pressed it again, listen to this. Season 6, episode 13. Aquiel. Yeah, that's super boring, isn't it? Come on now. Oh my god. Oh, you're going to do this. It's so terrible. You love it. I hate it Oh, come on. Oh, come on, tell me, tell me, tell me. Season seven, episode 19. Genesis. Oh, yeah. It's so great. It's so good. Without a break. The only episode directed by Gates McFadden. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, she nails it. She's so good. Yeah. pretty sure. Or maybe I'm not sure I can go past that one. No, I don't think you can. I think we have to do. I wanted a good episode. Well, it's good in subway. I mean, and you had like a subgenre of like Star Trek schlock. This is number one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's ridiculous. It's beyond ridiculous. You think I'll be all over this shit because I love B movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think it's it does have things going for it, but it is just ridiculous. Yeah, let's do it. Spider Barkley. It's got Spider Barkley. That's Pip and Troy. Oh my god. Sex with Worf, you know. I think he goes to it and does something terrible to it. Yeah, bites her. Oh, it's awful. And you get some ensign at the console with all of their chest ripped out. Yeah, cool. It's like proper, proper horror. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. Although, I reserve judgement on whether it's good or not, okay? it's not. Oh, such a good show. It's really cute. I really, the sad thing about these cuts when shows that I really really like, is there's not enough of them for us to go back to them very often. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a 90s trick, which we love. It just means 1st love. funny you should say that. Oh, let's do 90s track. Oh, no, we did. No, we did do Enterprise last week. I don't say we did Picard last week, but no, we did Enterprise last week. Yeah. Okay, hang on. I'm going to the randomiser. I think you need to do Star Trek the Next Generation, don't you? So that we can have a 2nd series that goes on to a 2nd page on the website? But also, as well, is, I want to watch a good episode. That's not true. Because we watch some shitty ones. Bad average is not strong. No, but that's the trouble with Star Trek, the next generation. It's really good towards the end, but there's fucking 50 episodes of just shit at the beginning, you know. I don't know, season 7 as well. Three of 4 seasons, three of seven. Yeah, 7 is 7's competent. but not very interesting. I'd rather watch one than seven. Because one is so embarrassingly terrible. Hilarious to watch the show. Well let's see what we get. Okay. That's your turn. But you have to try it. I'm ready. Oh, okay, you're ready. Okay, right. All right, it's the end of the episode.