Remember Me

Hey, Joe. Hi. So, we are back at my 1st love when it comes to Star Trek, which is Star Trek the Next Generation, and we're in series 4, and I was looking at the list and they're all episodes that I know really well. And while they're not all absolute bangers, they are solidly competent and entertaining all the way through. And I think this is the part of Star Trek, the Next Generation that is kind of fondly remembered by people. You know, the kind of one off high concept episodes. It's where they've got the standalones just right, you know? The characters are confident enough to hold up the episodes well more on that later. And they're playing about with fun ideas. You know, they're throwing in, well, we're gonna turn the regulars into children and have them, you know, the Ferengi take over the ship and stuff like that. We're going to throw Dr. Beverly Crusher in a subspace bubble and make everyone else in the universe vanish. Ideas that are just so fun. And, you know what? I do need to make a statement is my pleasure to finally announce to the untitled Star Trek project audience. I finally found an episode of Star Trek, the next generation, which I can fully endorse. And that is remember me. We have done Darmok and yesterday's Enterprise. But that feels like a long time ago now. And we've done quite a few in between. We've done Genesis and we've done... Oh, what was the one Justice. Masterpiece society, you know. Yeah, yeah. And we haven't done it. Not all ones from series 7 and series one. There's also ones we've done in the middle that have been pretty dull as well. Whereas this is just solid. I had a I mean, I watched this not long before we started this recording and I was laughing all the way through. Sometimes at Gates McFadden's performance, but mostly at the story which was quirky and really fun. Yeah, I think it's really good and it seems almost like it was a bit accidental as well. You know, there was a version of the script where we woke up and it was all a dream, which, for God's sake, and... The funniest bit of trivia is that this was originally going to be a part of the episode family. Yeah. After best of both was, because obviously they couldn't do over a whole episode to character bees, you know, in the wake of the best. We need some kind of jeopardy plot in there. So in the midst of Picard dealing with PTSD and, you know, Wesley Crusher finding out about his dad and all this, we were going to have a subplot about people vanishing into a subspace bubble or whatever this is. Thank God they made this call. Because they said that there was too much plot going on in family. So they sort of extracted that and gave it its own episode. And I think it runs to 45 minutes. There's just enough plot in how this is structured to last, you know, the running time, which is not always the way with next generation and high cost. I think it's actually really, really cleverly structured and they fail to make some kind of obvious mistakes that they could have made. And I think the not revealing too early what is going on while not cheating either. Like you have all of the information. available to you. So you can guess what the mystery is. It's very clear and it's very definitely put there in the script. And then to go for 3 acts with just this thing happening and only then to switch to outside the bubble and to the discovery that it's not Dalenquist in the bubble. It's not people in the bubble. It's her in the bubble. And that gets just a... I love them making the suggestion that it was quace in the bubble. So then the idea is there that someone can be in the bubble and vanish. But because the whole story is taking place from Dr. Beverly's point of view. We don't really click for maybe an act and a half. And then when we do, that's when she clicks as well. So we're not ahead of her, we're sort of discovering it alongside her. But we could have been ahead of her because the information was all there. And so they play fair with us, I think, which is a pretty good plan. And I think there's some really sort of fun, odd direction as well which, yeah, yeah, that helps to sell that story very well, I think. Cliff Bowl, and he's fresh off of directing the best of both worlds part one. So he's like our director to go to at the moment. He's delivered the goods time and again. And, you know, he's done. He does. 40 episodes, maybe more and across... a whole alien race named after him. He certainly does DS9 as well. And he's sort of like the definition of a safe pair of hands. Yeah. But within that, and, you know, you look at best of the both worlds, there are some really tense sequences there. I thought, you're right. There's some really, the bit where Picard vanishes and this and the camera pulls away from Dr. Beverly, she's all alone on the bridge. You know, there's some, there's, we don't often say there's a nice direction in... No, there's some clever stuff too. And some shots that look unlike anything else that you've seen in Star Trek, which is something that I'm always here for particularly when, you know, next gen has such a strong house style and doesn't sort of stray into, you know, what, on flight through entirety, we call German expressionism. You know, it is very literal and and here it just shifts away from that a little bit and I like that a lot. Well, the joy of this as well is it's a bottle show, and it's the cheapest bottle show they could do, because from sort of halfway through the episode, it's basically Gates McFadden and the standing sets, they haven't even got or employ any extras at that point. But they really lean into that well because very often with these things. And certainly when you get to Voyager, when they're trying to do a bottle episode, they'll have all the regulars in there and they're just wandering around the ship like in something like Twisted. Whereas here they just use them, oh, you've got to save money, how do we do that? Let's do something really imaginative with it. I think there were one or 2 scenes early on that I thought, wow this is actually really quite visibly cheap. And there's some early stuff where I think the sets are a bit underpopulated and things move a little bit slowly. That would be my only criticism, I think. But otherwise, I just thought this was marvellous stuff. And I thought too, one of the things we're getting the traveller back. And the traveller introduces this idea that there's some kind of subjectivity to space, that space and time and things like that are, um, you know, not quite manipulable by the human mind, but you know, subjectivity, I guess, is it. You know, that they are affected in some way by the human mind. And so we get this little reflection at the beginning, which I think is really nice about loss. And she comes with a loss like in the 1st episode, you know, the their backstory, they don't really evolve much beyond their backstory in Star Trek, the Next Generation, because that's not what the show is about. And so she comes to us as a widow, a single parent with a child and she's kind of defined by the death of her husband, which also plays into her relationship with Picard too. And she's also about to lose her son again, you know, because he's going to leave in a few episodes time. I noticed the one true injection of emotion that Gates McFadden and more on her later that she injected into this was the moment where she figured Wesley was going to vanish and she suddenly like madly panicked and runs to find him. Yeah. Yeah, I think like all of that is really good and that thing that so her thoughts of loss create this world where everything is sort of disappearing where what Dalen Quay says about his life as an old man, where all of these people who are important to him are now gone. And, you know, his wife has just died. Like, I thought that was perfectly done. Yeah, yeah. Remember I told you that I used to do befriending for age concern? I used to go around and visit a man who said those exact words to me, all of my contemporaries are dead. You know, my family don't want to know. He was literally daily and Quace. It's really really sad. Yeah, yeah, I felt all of that was really good. It was just sort of well judged, and it added, like it just added like there's nothing that it has to say about grief and loss, and it's not really about those things. I saw another reading in there as well. And I want to talk about that when we get there. Well, there was parts of this that reminded me of dementia. which is a topic as close to my heart, where from the point of view of the person suffering from dementia. Everything else is acting strangely. Yeah, and there's scenes where Dr. Beverly is just literally going why can't you see what? Like, this is not right. And it reminded me of how, basically, some people will react into my nan when she was suffering direction. And the things that she was saying made no sense. And you just sort of had to go with it. And I know that reading, it's not in there and it's not, but it did give it another layer for me as I was watching it. Sort of like, those things were really fun because you had the enterprise crew saying absurd things like, I've said it a 1000000 times, you and me, Dr. Beverly, we're the only 2 people in the entire universe. We've never needed a crew before. Or like, you know, who on earth is Lieutenant Worf? And she's like, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. The angry man who never smiles or whatever. you know, those scenes were really, really fun. But it did it did remind me of the sort of the madness shown up as normality in someone that's suffering from dementia. Yeah, okay. think that's interesting. So what do you think? Should we go in? I think we probably should. So I will count us in then in that case. Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off. Oh, this is beautiful. Oh, that's... I can't help but notice, though. I think they may have CGI some people walking along a walkway in the new version. Because I that certainly wasn't there in the original. No. And this is footage that they used before, I think, probably in the Binars episode in series one. And why not? No, no. Look at how warm, like, I think Gates is beautiful in this scene. Like, she's really happy to see him. She's gracious. Gates has the most stunning smile. Like, it's really, really very sweet. And like this conversation, I'm sold. I couldn't help but no. So she said to Chief O'Brien, thank you so much. Like he pressed a button. That's his job. But remember, though, it's nice to be nice. But remember though, then it gets renarrated by him later where she comes in, looks around and then says, thank you very much and leave. Oh, there you go. So it is, okay, I miss that. I miss that. That must have been the most fucking boring job standing there. Yeah, you do, like, just take the water pails off. Poke around and... No wonder he was more excited when he went to DS 9. all those problems to solve. Okay, is it too early for me to talk about Gates McFadden's performance? Well, like wait wait until she's given something really hard to do and it doesn't really land, I think, because I think she's quite good here. And like, look at the look on her face. Like that does look weird robotic, but I think it is also wistful because he has awakened something in her and she's got to convey that. She's starting to think about Jack. She mentioned it. And see that shot where she just goes out of shot and she is thinking about something. I think that's actually quite well done. Those people, those people that walk along that window there. No, that was always there. That was what I said. I think so. Imagine, imagine like, right, this is my big break. I'm the person walking past the window in Star Trek. That's it. Yeah, just a few pixels in the distance. I thought George was a bit... so angry in this episode. He's really got the shack. Captain wants to go to war. You're going to have to explain it to him. And this is the whole reason it all goes wrong because he's rushing him. Yes, yes, that's actually important. I look, look at this. See, when she smiles. This is her just sort of playing it naturalistically and she's mom and she's looking at Wesley doing his sort of science experiment. And what I think is really interesting is after that shot, she doesn't appear again in this scene. And it's almost as if the director has forgotten to do any coverage of her. Like, she disappears from this scene completely. So we just had her smiling. I actually missed the flash of light because it's not visible to us. What we see is the flash of light kind of on the monitor, like we the camera's on the monitor, and we see the flash of light just on the monitor. And so she's disappeared from this scene. And they they sort of talk Technobabble for a bit, so we forget about it. And then he goes, Mum? Yes, that's right. So she's disappeared from the scene, but it just looks like he just concludes that she's gone. Yeah, she now now listen to that interminable bloody technobabble. So he doesn't think anything of it because he thinks she's just walked off. But this is the point at which she disappears. And now we won't be back here for the rest of the episode. Yeah. Yeah? And none of that's acknowledged. It's very ugly. No, TNG. Because normally they spell everything out. Yeah, that's right. And now she's in now, this isn't quite a long opening act, isn't it? Isn't this quite a long chase? Do you think it's like... Over 5 over 5 minutes. And this is the sort of thing they do now, isn't it? They'll do the length of the pre-credits to whatever the story needs. Whereas back then it was often sort of a minute or so, wasn't it? A minute and a half . Yeah. And there's lots of lovely shots of these empty sets. Yeah, I mean, I'm always reminded just how cheap they all. I mean, back in the day, I thought this was the most luxurious lavish. If I went to a hotel like this, I would have been absolutely thrilled. And it does look like a hotel that you might go to. instead of 1990 as well. R on the walls. But compare it to the sort of standard cabin set on strangely worlds, which is just massive, you know, and fabulously overdecorated and all of that. Okay, I've got to do it now. Okay, whilst the credits playing out because I've never seen a performance as eccentric as Gates McFadden. Who, you're right. When she's a mother and a friend, she's perfectly naturalistic and there's humour in her performance and she visibly relaxes on the screen. Yeah, yeah. And when she's a doctor or a professional, and in a Star Trek episode where she's having to deliver techno babble or exposition. This glazed look comes over her face, like she's been taken over by someone, which is the possibility it's next generation after all. But it's not the case, where she delivers every line monotonously. Yeah. Like a robot and she swings between those two, sometimes in the same scene. And I just, I don't get it. Like, we've talked about Avery Bruce's performance in the past and where I've said he's a bit of a dangerous actor. Sometimes he'll deliver so much emotion. It goes over an edge a bit and it's a bit embarrassing. But there's always a consistency to how he's playing the part. Whereas it literally feels like she's playing 2 parts. Yeah. Yeah, she does seem super uncomfortable with all the all the sort of Star Trekness. Because like in Picard series 3, she's great, but she's not being the doctor, she's not she's being a mother. In fact, they put her back in that role of being a mother to... There was a few moments or so where she got to deliver some Star Trek exposition and that glazed look came back. I was like, oh, yes. We're back in the 90s. You know, I don't want to shit all over it because I think this is a fun episode and she gets a brilliant role. Um, but she does she does sabotage some scenes. Yeah. Well, so I think this is quite good because again, it's just her kind of being normal. He's, uh... Look at her eyes. There's a deadness to her eyes. It's like a fish that's just been caught. So what do we think we're supposed to think? So it looks like some kind of weird conspiracy, doesn't it? not unusual in a next generation episode. And it's going, it goes for like quite a considerable amount of time before it starts to get ridiculous, you know, before massive numbers of people start disappearing and stuff like that. I think initially when I watched this, I wondered if this was Quace, that he committed suicide or that he was involved in something or he'd been kidnapped or something like that. Yeah. And I think the fingers pointing in that direction for the 1st act that something that he's involved in, that's what he's got missing. Because the whole 1st act is given over to the fact that he's gone. Yeah, do you know what I think is a mistake is that we never see him again, that he doesn't come back at the end of the year. Terrible makeup as usual, but then they can't do old Asia makeup. No, but do you know what I meant? Do you know what I mean? That where's Quace at the end? He clearly didn't disappear but we never see it. He was literally a day player. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just did that one scene. Do you know, my friend Peter had to write 12,000, 1200 words 12,000, that would have been something. 1200 words about Dr. Dalen Quest for the Star Trek Fact files when he was working for it? And, you know, like he's on screen for like 4 minutes. He wasn't allowed to make anything up because it was the fact file so only facts were allowed. Oh, shit. Because what you did in yours with Edson McKnight or what was her name? I just, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he had to write an article about Dale and Quest just based on that one scene. Wow. And he managed to have about 12,000 words. 1200, 1200 words. Oh, okay. But still. that's something I'll go looking for it. I'll regale the next episode. I loved all of this. You know, you know the procedure, Dr. Beverly. If you're going to have somebody on the ship. She's kind of in trouble now. But even so, there's still, there's still sort of a flirtation that says something wrong. Whereas, you know, very quickly we realise something big is wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it looks like it looks like some weird conspiracy is happening. But I do like, like I actually like her disbelief. I'm buying her disbelief at all of this. Later on, she gets a line where she's like, you know, people are telling me that babies that I delivered. Do not exist. She delivered those lines brilliantly. Yeah. But these two, do you know what I mean? it is, I think she's really great. She must have got this one for her. Gates McFatten have been like, oh, finally. It'd be fun to do. Oh, and actually, you know what? We said they were using that coat when she when she fell pregnant. She doesn't know she's pretty at this point. she's still using it She's, yeah, yeah. So her pregnancy plays into this episode as well. So here's Colm. He's so young, doesn't he? He's never looked young. Do you know, he's wonderful. When I saw him in an interview recently, you know, he's a grizzled old Irishman now, you know, too much Guinness. But the way he talks about the behind the scenes crew on Star Trek and the admiration that he had for the hours they did and things like that. He thanks the right people. Right. Bless him. That's pretty great. Because, I mean, he, you know, he is a potentially a bigger deal in Star Trek. And obviously, Star Trek had to work around him a bit because of his availability because of other projects at the time, right? Weird enough, you know, in terms of movies. It's him and his wife, isn't it? Rost and Chow as well. Those 2 are vanishing from the show to get movies. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what? It is lovely as well, to have an episode where we're entirely on the enterprise. and we just get to enjoy the sets because you and I both have a love for these incredibly cheap but nostalgic sets. Yeah, I think they're beautiful. Like, I do think that they're beautiful. I think the bridge is terrible. I love the... I've only just noticed there's carpet on the walls in the turbo. I put on the walls on the turbo lift. One of the turbo lift goes the wrong way. It appears to be going up out of the bridge a bit later on. So they don't always quite get that right. But I think that's... How do you notice things like that? Oh, you'll see. I'll show you. Just like what's happening here? Okay, so Dr. Beverly is like, something is wrong here. I'm going to get to the bottom of this. And she doesn't even do the, she doesn't even do the thing on him. Does she? She never does the examination because what? I think he vanishes, doesn't he? No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. I think it's something interesting. What is it? Oh, making up the story as I go now. Oh, Dr. Hill and Dr. Salah aren't there. Oh, that's right. She calls for Dr. Hill. So there was a scene with Dr. Hill's spouse that was cut, um, where the spouse didn't remember Dr. Hill at all or something. So like some weird thing, like they were on the ship and they didn't recognise, but then that was cut. Dr. Salah is said to have been on the ship for months. They mentioned her all the time. I wish it. if Susie Paxton. I wish they'd have her back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, they do have her back, but not as Dr. Salah obviously. Do you remember the bit where she comes storming on the bridge and goes, where's my sick bay crew, you know? There should be 4 people on duty at all times and they're all looking at her, sconced, like, you're the only, you're the only doctor on the, the way they play, though, all of those scenes. I love. As if she is completely bloody bonkers. So look at that scene is also selling it because Beverly's not present in that scene. So that's not the real Geordie and Wesley in that scene. But we just very briefly, just for one moment to sell it, because most of the time, she's in every scene. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember, she's in a meeting that they have in the observation lounge, I think. And then they have a conversation in the corridor after, I think she persuades them to go back to... Empathic abilities and this, like, something's not right, you know I don't think we will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think it works like that. Well, it probably would have been a bit of a giveaway as well. A very sweet animation there of the bubble. Yeah, yeah, cheap. Yeah, very cheap animation. Is that the new high definition effects, it might be. Oh, is it? Is that the best they can do? Yeah, I can't tell. Well, they don't want to kind of completely, you know, ride over it, I guess. I don't know if I can't ever quite get over the fact of how much I fancied it will be when I was younger. So when I see him now, sort of of age, thank God. And um, with his fabulous haircut, which I'm still mimicking, as you can see, uh, It's not too just similar, isn't it? No, no, that's true. I think he's beautiful. So I was a bit too old for that, I think, when this came out because I'm thinking this is 1990 and I'm kind of 21 and so he's a bit young for me, I think. Perfect age for me though. Remember I took my copy of the book contagion to the hairdresser and said, make me look like him. Give me the will wheat. I thought it was because I was just a fan of his. I didn't quite the hairdresser probably fall. I see. Give you the gayest haircut, go in. All right. So like coming in here and having this completely deserted would have been more, like we could have read this scene a little bit more readily if there had been a lot of people in there before, but they weren't because we're not paying for many extras this week. No, it's a shame. Do you remember the scene at the beginning of Genesis when it was all that, that's all going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to say a word for, I think, I think this might be a J Chataway. Yes, it is. And he brings in a lot of sort of psycho-es strings during the weird scenes and I was very aware of the music in a way that I'm not often aware of the music in that. No, I think the music is pretty good in this episode. I have to say, it is pretty cool. He was on form at this point because he does that sort of da, da da, da, da, you know, when, when the, she's clinging onto the chair and being sucked into the vortex and stuff like that. So this is where it now goes to hell because it can't just be a conspiracy to delete Dalen Quace's information from the files or you know, something, but now there's now 230 people on the ship and everyone thinks that's normal and thinks that she's weird. And one of the things I like in this scene is where Picard says look, you know, I, your word has always been enough for me. I will go back. You know, I'm going to believe you. And then, but there's the scene later where he says, I've indulged you enough now. to Beverly. yeah yeah. That's what really reminded me of dementia because I heard people talking to my nan like that, saying, we've got along with this enough, you know. But then that is nice because it is accelerating then and we've got to a point where the disappearances are so absurd. I think half the crew Spanish at that point. Oh, no, by this point already 900 people have vanished. Like the crew compliment is 230 according to them. But she goes, why would we need this vast shit just for us? And data, doesn't data give an explanation? Colonists, diplomatic people. I don't have a crew. Clue wrote this one. Who is the writer? No, I can't remember. I did have a look. Uh, but it was... I recognise. What were those lines around the disappearance? They are zingers. Well, they have to get it. particularly by the point. So we don't know what's going on yet, do we? Uh, no, we're not there. It's not been spelt out to us yet, no. Yeah. So we did have that scene. We had the scene down in engineering where they talked about Quase's disappearance and the fact that someone could disappear in a bubble. Yeah. So we've got enough information now if we've got our wits about us to know what's going on, but we haven't been told yet. And to confess, I don't have any memory of actually working it out. I suspect I probably didn't. But it was certainly possible, I think. But this, the warmth between the 2 of them is quite nice here. This episode was written by Lee Sheldon. okay? It's the only script he wrote for Star Trek. And he was a producer on the 1st 8 episodes of the 4th season, and that's the only part of Star Trek contouch. That's a solid run of episodes. Maybe Lee Sheldon should have stuck around a bit longer. Oh this is great. This is so Twilight Zone, this isn't it? Yeah. Well, this is a Twilight episode. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a weird thing. It's like another weird thing that doesn't seem to have any connection with what's been going on. Like, what's the effects of the next generation? But the way that light sort of peaks out of the door, sporadically I think so too. It's really great. Okay, you can't just get, you know, fire up a computer and do it in after effects or anything like that. You have to shoot some physical thing and then kind of mad it in there or whatever. I think it's really good. Yeah, so this is, this is where um, Deanna is. She's in this scene and then after it. You've said to me before, like half of the joy of watching the next generation was seeing competent people at work doing their jobs. We have done a number of episodes where that's been boring as hell like the masterpiece society, where there just wasn't enough character to keep us in. But it's so great here because they're always taking a piss out of it, how all of them are misremembering things all the time. But they're still going for all the usual routines of tech, all that we love. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we, I mean, we still don't know what's going on. But yeah, I think because this space problem is so interesting like it's just so much fun and because of the misdirect, because of the way this story has been told, where Beverly's actually disappeared from the real ship and has been on a fake ship ever since that final scene in the in the teaser where she goes to Das's quarters. I'll show you how... how clever they've gotten in the 4th season. Can you imagine it's in season one? It would be so ham fisted. Yeah, the structure of it would be terrible. Yeah. Yeah, so he's the sort of stupid explanation for why all the rooms are empty. And now it's 114 people. Transportation of colonists, diplomatic missions, diplomatic missions, emergency evacuations. Yes, thank you, metadata. That'll do. Yeah, yeah. And so they're still trading, they're still trading her seriously. This line. I want Mr. Watson. I'm sorry. Who did you say? And her delivery. on this line where she goes. What is it she says? The big guy who never smiles. But isn't it? They're doing it kind of weird. That is that weird twilight zone where we get shots of people kind of looking sceptical about her. And like to that moment, I know what you mean because there is that thing where people who are dement who are dementing. Like people have dementia, get these sort of strange ideas and you just... Everyone in that home was trying to poison her, you know. Yeah. Initially, we went, no, they're not. And they went, just go with it because you're never going to convince her otherwise. that's right. And so there is that moment where Picard stops data from explaining what all of the things are. And then we all kind of, so we're all sort of believing her until she refers to Mr. Worf, and then they all go, no, actually she's really lost it at this point. I love this scene between Troy and Oz Beverly because Troy doesn't she doesn't understand what Dr. Beverly's talking about, but she goes, look, let's just, let's just investigate it. If it slows us down a bit. Who cares? We've just got there a little slower, but we'll put your mind at rest. But also the way she delivers So what? You know, like it's, she's, it's her being a good girl. It's her good girl performance. And then she says, so what? We'll be late. Who cares? It'll be all right, you know? The more we watch the next generation, the more I think they missed a trick by not giving these 2 more scenes together. Because when they are together, the chemistry is real, you know? But also making Marina be such a good girl when she's not that at all. And she could have been a funnier, you know, sassier counsellor. Yeah, where she runs in, she's scared about where he's going to be missing. It looks like he has vanished and he just goes, Mom? He just walks in. But the way he leaves the shot as well, because it would spoil it if we ever saw anyone disappear. And so he just doesn't make it into the next shot. So she comes around the corner. There's a new camera angle, like a new shot, and he doesn't make it from the previous shot into the new shot as she's leaving engineering, which I think is just well done. Do you remember the other episode that it's not this premise, but it's the same idea that the one person is behaving in an unusual way and thinks he, so your Brian episode whispers of DS9, where the twist is, he's a dupe. We don't know that, obviously. And so he thinks that everyone's been possessed and is behaving weird because they're all acting weird around him the whole episode. and that actually drops its twist in the very last scene. And I think that's probably the only the only time they've done this again, but bested it. Yeah. But I love I love all this. you don't believe me, do you? And he's trying very hard to be gentle with her. Like he's like, no, I don't, you know? Yes, this look, here we go. Because the joy of it. And there she goes, and now he doesn't make it into that shot. Oh, no, did you say a bunch of fists and Wesley? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the joy of it is they're both right. The universe is contracting. So from their point of view, they're right and she's the outsider looking in and she's right as well. It means you can constantly have these absurd conversations where everyone's right. I think it's good that both of them come up with a Tao Alpha C thing. Oh, this is the best. Do you know what I mean? The whole episode, Nathan. It's so funny, isn't it? It's my most quoted line of Star Trek, the next. Captain, why have we got this enormous ship, just you and me. Oh, she's smiling. I think she's just giving it to the man. Yeah, I think that that's what's happening. I think that that's what's happening. She should have just said, oh, give up. Well, she's learned the rules now. Let me guess. She has learned the rules. You never heard of any of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah. Like, what does he remember then at that point of everything. Do you know what I mean? Because he's not real, it's fine. Um, yeah. And this, like, I think this is a bit overwritten, but she is really good in it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that this speech actually is terrible at BM though. Why, what does she say? Oh, you know, they deserve better than to have their lives pinched out. You know, I will remember them, blah, blah, blah. And also, like it's so cheesy and sort of shockingly bad. Wesley, my son. I want to execute myself. I've been peddling that line out for the last 4 years. When he got zapped off the ship and when the bowel breaks, They've taken my son. Yeah, it's just a little bit cheesy because we know they're not gone as well. They deserve so much more. That's a bit crap. The worst thing is when she's got no one to talk to, and she's having to figure it all out on her own. She can't deliver any of that naturalistically. Well, no one can because you don't do that. If you're on your own, you don't narrate your thought processes. She has to sort of prostrate to her son who's not there. Wesley. What do I do? No, but like she's, we see her thought processes and that is the thing, which is fun, is she's working it out and she's right. She's sort of clever. We've never needed a crew before, Dr Beverly? Yeah. I really actually like how she's delivering this, the disbelief and the he's pretty great. I really like the tempoles with the traveller. So that he's there in season one. He's there in season 4 and then he's there in season seven. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the joy of having a 7 year series where you can play those things out. And even I don't like Journey's End, which is Wesley's last episode. I do like the fact that his character goes on that journey and then goes off with him at the end. Yeah, yep. And then only to reappear in the final episode. Will Wheaton's close. Series 2. in his own clothes. Not out of shave. Star Trek Picard. You've forgotten how to deliver dialogue. So cute. Oh, did you see Patrick Stewart that? He folded his little funny face. cheeky look on his face. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I'll indulge you. So we sit here for a while and we hear, what is it, say his blood pressure and stuff and making sort of wibbly noises in the background and things. You know what? I can see the rushes coming in from this episode and the producers and the accountants going, rubbing their hands together going. This is great stuff, you know. Cheap stuff. Let's get this writer in again. Yeah. He actually went on to this other shows. He went on to do more important things. Well, right. So there he goes. And have we Dewey tease this? She has some, that's a great shot, isn't it? Oh, fuck off. The 2nd he vanishes, she goes like, Jean-Luc, you and I, she's going to say how she feels about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. show. Why can't they ever admit how they feel? Well, they do in Series 7, but they don't want to upset... dealing with the consequence. No, it's exactly right. They don't upset the status quo. The one paragraph treatment of the character in the series Bible is true all the way through and that's deliberate. Now this is the scene. This is the day. So she's this is her doing this. Like rolling around. It's literally being dragged along the floor. Yep. When, when, there's a fantastic shot where they've put the chair on the roof on a wall or something and she's dangling from it there. So that chair's on the wall and she's dangling from it. And then she go home and discover she's pregnant. The doctor, she... No, I don't want you to do anything too strenuous on the Star Trek the next generation because you're having a baby. And then she says, oh, actually, did I tell you what I got up to today? And so this. So this shot, that shot is like nothing that you ever see in Star Trek. The lighting. the way it's directed, all of that sort of thing is super weird, and that's the real world. And that's the moment that we see the real world, that the narrative now split between. Yeah, yeah. It's really good. The director gets the moment right as well. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I have seen twist drop in the next generation, where it's just a reaction shot of someone going, oh, yeah. No, that probably lands, doesn't it? And here's the trifler. bless him. very ill-fitting gray costume. Yeah, he's tucked again because... You always notice that. We don't want visible dick on the show. If we can avoid it. And so he's very carefully tucked and he has those big gloves on. Yes, wonder, you know, people watch back these episodes and go what happened to my dick? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think Jonathan Frank's ever said that. No, I don't think so. Yes. So he is, I think he's, so this is where no one has gone before. And so Kazinski, remember, was sort of a charlatan, that sort of things that he says were nonsense. Yeah, yeah. I don't think we ever meet a character as arrogant as that again. Yeah. Yeah, he's super, super arrogant and it turns out he's not really doing any of it. It's the traveller that's doing it. And in contrast. The traveler's performance is subtle and gentle. He's softly spoken. Actually, I think it's a great performance. Yeah, it's a pretty great character and I do love that idea. You know, I like his funky fingers. Do you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got 3 fingers on each hand. all he's got. Yeah. So Wesley, with his, you know, because obviously he's the star child of the Rottenberry universe. He's the only one that can get Dr. Beverly back. Yeah, but he doesn't stop saying that. I know. That's it. That's because you're in love with her, just like... I think I might be secretly okay. The thing is, is while we're talking over this, right? I can't hear her insanely robotic delivery. So actually, our acting seems pretty good. This, like, I quite like that, you know, like, well, let's start with the assumption that I'm not crazy because if I am, then it doesn't really matter anyway. So, and now she tries to trap the computer in some kind of logical thing. And that's quite good. I do like if this is a bad dream, would you tell me that's not a valid question. Like hell, it's not. It's those throwaway lines where I sent you to know, the scene later on where she's delivering all this exposition terribly and then she just goes, I wasn't talking to you, all right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, to the human being again. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I still think that her, you know, her most classic real person moment is her listening to the man injustice and they're just going, shut up and then leave. There they go. There we go. She's got it right. She's got it right. Why am I the only crew member? Like, so got you there good on her and he... I like that? Did you see what she did then? So the computer says that information's not available. She just sort of waves her hand dismissively as she walks along. It's pretty good. Oh, shut up. She's got no one to impress anymore. She can behave how... In fact, I would have been a bit naughtier if it was me. I stuck my fingers up like that. I'd have taken my pants off. I think I'd be walking around. Don't you think? Absolutely. in that Stargate episode when he realises he's in a time loop and he can get away with whatever he was, he starts snogging people and playing golf into the Stargate and stuff like that. She should have been a bit naughty. It's the women of TNG. They're all that naughty, are they? Well, no, not. The worst she'll do is fuck a ghost. Yeah, yeah. Or some guy. Okay. So what are we doing? We're going back to. Oh, yes, we're going back to Stardate Star Base 133, but now the universe has disappeared. Are we going to towel Alpha C? Okay. Do you think in terms of like the one shot premise, in how this is structured, how the information is delivered, how she figured this out as we go along? Do you think it's like one of the best? I think it might be. Yeah, I think it is really good. Like, I think it's it's solidly good. Like, this is the next generation I remember. The standalone ones with a really funky premise that they really get their teeth into, you know? And it's the sort of thing that DS9 doesn't do. No, you know, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Like, well, this is what this show is for, and I think this is what people remember. And I think, you know, even, you know, it fails sometimes, but, you know, this is very odd, like it is very weird. It is a very Twilight's own premise, isn't it? And it relies on like a weird alternate reality in order to happen. And I got the impression you read the memory alpha article where they seem to be a bit kind of mare about it. Like everyone seemed to be a little bit kind of, this isn't our best episode or maybe this is confusing. impressed with this script. Yeah. Apparently, Cliff Bold didn't thought it was a bit complicated and people wouldn't be able to get their eds around it. I had much faith in the audience back then, you know. No, that's right. Well, he's the man who decided to use the big subtitles for the insectoids indie last week. We're just not spelling things out enough for people. Just in case you have to read too many words. bigger, please. Yeah. It's wonderful. I think he's really sweet, isn't he? The traveller. There something kind of sweet about it. The director has the opportunity because there's no one else in the set to shoot these in. It's not particularly dynamic, but he's getting some wonderful angles of like the whole set around her. He just shot there between the 2 chairs, but he was on the floor. The camera was on the floor, looking up at her at the security station. But that shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome, isn't it? But the shot of just those chairs in the foreground is another one of those. Fuck, this is a weird looking set. It's laid out in such a strange way. What's worth remembering is all the time we spend in these sets for 7 years. Yeah, even though they were pretty terribly designed for the most part. That's what embedded in our heads. Yeah. So when they turn those lights on in Picard series 3. It's magic. And everyone got the chills, you know, it took everyone back to the 90s where we were watching this. It's so funny because I just never expected them to do it. Like it never occurred to me that we would get them back on the Enterprise D. And it's kind of like, oh, of course they had to do this, that this was inevitable. So great. Yes, the universe is a spheroid region 705 metres in diameter. is so good. It's so great. And so the ship is too big to fit in it is kind of what's happening because it's contracting. That I don't. She doesn't really figure a way out, does she? Wesley does it for her. Yeah. It would have been quite nice if she could sort of unlock the puzzle. But I know that's another part of his journey. It's not really about this episode, is it? No. She does work out that they must be trying to do it. Like, so she works out what the vortex is. And given that the ship's contracting, she works out that she has to go to engineering and she works out that that's where the bubble is. She has to go to engineering so he can save. Because remember, I think the traveller says she has to decide to come out. Doesn't he? And so it has to be her choice to leave this reality that she's created. And so I think she contributes to her own rescue. That was me stuck in the bubble. I probably would have just sat down and went, oh, well, that's the end. I can't help it. notice how much my hair looks like Wesley Brushes. I know I brought it up earlier. He's got really bad skin in this episode. I think he really has enough sense on me. Clean his face. I just kept saying, why is he, why does his boy have such a dirty face? He's on television. What's going on? This is the same now that, oh, this is some dreadful acting in a minute where she has to look to the camera or just off camera. Yeah, they fail. And you're right. She's she's a beautiful woman. She's lovely to look at. But she is a variable actress. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she is doing something that's pretty difficult here, I think because we don't, like, she gets to talk to the computer and that's how we get dialogue out of her. But having her verbalise all of the steps that now he is, see this thing, right? Bulkhead 342. That part of the ship isn't accessible because the thing's contracting, right? Now, look at how close the edge of that bubble is to the bridge in this shot. should be gone into the top of the saucer. And yeah, and like it's shrinking at like 15 metres per 2nd or something. And it's just like, why is it still here then? It's like they don't know where the bridge is. Like we go back to the bridge. Oh, it's nearly there. Nope. We could have cleaned that up in the HD restoration, couldn't we? Made it a bit slower. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If that's our only complaint in the whole episode. No, no, but it just sort of is pretty silly. Yeah, so, yeah, so although he's using his magical space powers you know, to influence subspace or whatever, she does, she does the decision. So I think that she doesn't... At this point, though. like most Star Trek episodes, I was like, I don't really care how this ends. This has been such a ride. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fire, tie it up, you know. throw her into the light. She's back. I do, I did Wonderland. You right. The fact that we don't see Quace again. It feels very quick. She sort of steps through the light and they go, oh, I'm back. How many are on the ship? A 1000? We're back when we go. That sort of should be end credits. It's very perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Remember me in future and perfect. It's so weird though, because it's 2 back to back where they're fundamentally changing. Yeah. The crime of the show. It's almost like they're acknowledging, I'm not sure this is working, you know. Let's have some fun with this. Well, it's the, it's, it is a similar thing, isn't it? It's the mystery of what is this apparent weird thing that's happening to me, what's behind it, and next week, the solution will be, a big alien holodeck, which is the 1st thing that Mariner would have guessed, I would think. Oh, shit about a field day in this, was she? She'd be listening off every episode. Right. Well, it's just like the conspiracy in that one and that one. So she's getting it, right? She's absolutely getting it here. That's when I started losing everybody. She's like, and again, this is super hard to act because she is just telling us the staff. I think it might be. She gets it all right. Oh, she's talking to the computer. I'm not talking to you. my ambition to find a scene in Star Trek now where somebody has to talk to themselves, but delivers it in a very powerful way. Oh, no, wait. What about Avery Brooks in the Pal Moonlight? He was talking to himself throughout the whole episode. No, he's talking about us. He's talking, he's dictating a log. That thing, click my heels 3 times together and I'm back in Kansas is such an unusual thing for them to do because they don't do pop culture references at all in Star Trek, the next generation really. No, they don't. And do you know what? It's the 2nd they do it twice as well because when Harry Kim is strapped down to the table in the Thor. The clown says to him, why don't you try clicking your heels together 3 times, right? Oh, okay. Your legs are restrained, aren't they? I can't wait till we get that one. Oh, yeah. Well, Michael McKean is just absolutely superb. And this. Oh, this is the bit. This is this is the scene I sent Nathan on our chat, Fred. How do I find it? Wesley, you know, where do I go? Look at her face. Yeah, it's very strange, isn't it? I love this scene too. When she's going to the bridge. No, to engineering, she runs to engineering, and that sort of purple mist that's outside the ship, that is the region of space you know, full of electromagnetic charge or whatever, like is chasing her down the corridor and erasing the corridor behind her as she runs. And I think that's really good. Don't you think? Now watch the lift go up. Watch lift go up. Take me anywhere on deck 36. Deck 36. Oh, yeah. We're on deck one. Look, look. Are we going up? We haven't got time to reshoot that, all right? It's supposed to be in a cheap episode. Yeah, look, look, look. This is great. And it is just everything turns purple and it's chasing her down the corridor. You can't hear it, but Jay Chataway's doing his best. da, da, da you know, music. And this light, you know, like this lighting is super effective. And them disappearing in that shot. like they're silhouettes with the light shining through. I can always make good. Rick Berman sitting there as a rush is coming in going, this is all a bit visually interesting for me, you know. This is all a bit dramatically staged. Whoa. Go for it, Gates. was great. She really threw herself across. She is a pregnant woman. She should not be throwing herself around a thing like that. She's very early in a pregnancy. So this is the pregnancy that made the host such an unsexy experience for her. And of course, I'm sweaty. huge. Don't give me a romance episode. Say, this is and her son James, who's now in his 30s, of course comes of it. That's how space on Wesley. calls him that in every one of our podcast episodes, Gates McFadden investigates, which I have mentioned before, and I would recommend again. Should you wish to delve into the extraneous lives of Star Trek actors, because I don't really talk about Star Trek match. But the rest of their life is nice, isn't it? Yeah. I think this is nice Well, suddenly she's a mother again, so she's very natural. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure what Wesley Crush is doing. He's not holding it. I think he's supposed to be conveying relief, but he's not quite managing at all. Oh, course. It's like I nearly lost her. I've come to the conclusion, you know, that although it is glorious that we discuss the entirety of Star Trek. I'm not sure we ever have more fun than when we're in the 90s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's good things and bad things. It's uh, just what we want and it's uh, distant enough in the past now. It's obviously more distant to us now than Star Trek, the original series was to it. Right? Yeah, so this is sort of cheesy old TV for us now. Wow, which is fun. As cheesy old TV. Oh, I thought that was so much fun. Really good. Like that, that is doing what Next Generation did better than all the other shows. Oh, I really want to say that very often. I think TOS, what did TOS do better than all the other shows? Do you think it's like the 3 regulars and those dynamics? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next Generation did the premise episode. DS9 did the politicking. Boy, Jack. Who knows what it did? It did a bunch of things sometimes very well, sometimes shockingly. But mostly stuff that the other shows had already done. Yeah that's right. And enterprise was its own thing. was what it was pissing off. People like you and betraying the values of the Star Trek universe. But this was, for me, this was next generation that is high because I don't really want them to be earnest or lecturing me, you know, or stuff like the Masterpiece Society where it's a vaguely interesting premise, but they do nothing with it. Yeah. I wanted to just take out one big juicy idea and just wring it for all it's worth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they do it really well. That was just the solid, fun, high concept Twilight Zone episode which is also the thing that Lower Decks makes fun of, isn't it? Like just that some ludicrously preposterous space thing happens to them every week on the ship. And that's a thing. I think I prefer it even more when they take like uh, absurd premise. like this, this was a, this was like vaguely plausible. But when they take someone like, like, like the game. you know this game that takes over everybody and gives them an orgasm and spreads amongst the ship to the point where this woman in a tiny ship can come along and take over the enterprise because they will be hypnotised by this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But plays it out for real. Like it's a drama. It's really good. All of that stuff is great. The game is superb, I think. You know, I don't know. We're talking about rascals a lot as well. That's another stupid promise taken to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That they just sell it. entertaining degree. And I think that's probably Dr. Beverly's best episode in the run. Yeah, I think it is too. For sure. So it is the end of the episode, and it is time for us, as always to work out what we're going to watch next. I think you chose Remember Me last week, Joe. Oh, wait a minute, I chose as the next generation episode that we'll enjoy. We often gave the promise that we were going to enjoy. Yeah, that's right. We will just roll until a good one turns up. It's become a bit of a cliche in untitled Star Trek project, you know, that I'll say, God, this is a great episode. And then we watch it. It's terrible. So I think we will still do another 90 Star Trek, but I want to do Voyager. Oh, yes, let's do it. Yeah. I just feel hankering for some Voyager, I think, and maybe something that I'm not super familiar with yet. So, I have... Can't we just do a voyager? That's really terrible. Well, probably. Well, we got spirit, we wrote spirit folk once, but when you chose not to do it. Yeah, I was close. I kind of nearly wanted to do it. All right, here goes. Oh, your random Star Trek Voyager episode is the shoot, series three, episode three. So that's the episode where Tom Harris... They go down a slippery dude. And Harry Potter... Well, no, they're just on the prison for the sort of the 1st half of the episode. We don't even see Voyager and it all gets a bit homoerotic between them because they're in an extreme situation and one of them gets stabbed and yeah, they're getting the other one's tending to them. We get some hurt comfort happening. But it's a lot of Tom Paris. So I don't know how much we're going to enjoy that. Yeah, he is still the worst, Robert, despite Robert Beltran's online behaviour in the last couple of weeks. You know, I told my other half about Robert Belgian's behaviour and the things that he said on Twitter. He didn't believe me. He says, there's no way anybody would say that on Twitter nowadays. I'm like, I will show you the tweets. He effectively said that if you are straight Star Trek fan, you're a real fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, crazy stuff. All right, so let's try another one. This is just a few episodes later. Season three, episode 7, sacred ground. Oh boy, that is very boring. It's um of ceremony of some kind. Yeah, it's all, it's about science and religion. And Janeway's relationship with the two. It has some thoughtful moments in it. It's the 1st one that the worst Robert Drex. Oh, okay. He was very proud because he got to do a lot of work with Kate Mulgrew. You were probably contrarian enough to like it, you know. But oh, can't we do something more fun than that? let's do something else. I do remember actually seeing it recently for some reason. I'm not quite sure why. Nemesis. Season four, episode four. spat out my water. Now, that's the Chakotay one on the planet with, we'd have to talk about Robert Beltran for an episode. Yeah, let's give that a miss. Okay, season 6, episode 16, collective. Oh, yes. Let's do that one. Does it have the baby Borg? Does it have a board baby in it? It's the one. It's the one where all the ball children come along. Oh, yeah. So it's kind of like it's kind of like the point where we've just lost all hope with the ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've decided that we're going to cast Robbie Rist as cousin Oliver and just wait out the end of the show. It's sort of like the best of both worlds 90210. Only really terrible. Yeah. So this is Echeb, who will later be seen having his eye torn out in Picard series one, so that's fun. I feel for that. you know, because I feel that that is the best role he's ever been given on television. Certainly. Right, okay. in how he talks on social media and that he feels a bit neglected, given that they brought back. Just to be murdered and they recast him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's also one of 2 seasons where this was the only Star Trek series of the, well, obviously Enterprise afterwards. But in that sort of period of next gen, DS9, in between. Because this is February 2000. This goes out. So at this point, this was the only time for a long time that there was one Star Trek. Yeah, and with very variable results. Right. Right. Yeah, let's do that. You've been listening to entitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford and Nathan Bottomley. We're online at Untitled Star Trek project.com, where you can find subscription links and links to our social media accounts. Our podcast artwork is by Kayla Sisrin, and the theme was composed by Cameron Lamb. This episode was recorded on the 15th of August 2023 and released on the 18th of August. We'll see you next time for Star Trek Voyager Collective. That's right. Collective. I think I gave it a 4 or something when I reviewed it. Okay. Okay. What did Gemma give it? He probably gave it 2.5 stars, like like Bem. Hang on. I bet what he does. I bet you he gives it 2.5 stars. It was quite kind on Stranger Worlds this season. I noticed. Oh, was he? Hegemony here today gone tomorrow. But that, because that new English way of saying gone, gone, like the people on television say gone. I just kept thinking, so Laan says they're gone, and it's just like, no, no, we know they're gone. What are you doing? I saw a picture of the redesign. That's quite fun. Where are we, boys? You don't see anything that you haven't seen before. So it's teenage gone again, so it just looks like that it's gone from whatever it is, Memento, not Memento Mori, the season nine episode 9 series one. Me, Nathan. She wanted to know what the run is, yeah. It's gone from Sankartsy. That's 79 versus Baroccan Rock. Then it's collecting and then it's spirit folk. And then it's a Harry King romance. Oh, this was a bad one. Is it the disease? No, ashes to ashes. He gives in 2 stars. There's groundwork here for some potentially intriguing future material. The episode itself is lacklustre. So just half a star worse than Ben. You're literally going to do every... every rating around that one. M. I am.