The Trouble with Edward

Hey, Joe. Hi. So, we're doing something a little bit different. We've only done one of these before. We're doing an episode of Short Tracks, and it's series 2, episode two, made to accompany series 2 of Discovery, and it's the Trouble with Edward, starring John Benjamin. Short Trek, so good. I've said to you, I wish it was a much longer episode, which is the highest accolade I could possibly give it. Do you know, I really like how short the short treks are. There's something about telling a story within that scope, and there are some that tell more serious stories, but again, within that scope, things, there's one with Saru, which I think is magnificent, and plays into the season a little bit later, there's a magnificent one set on Discovery, 100s of years in the future. Why is discovery, 100 years in the future? We don't know, and it's magnificent as well. and they're just sort of short story length and I really like it. The 1st one we watched the, was it Children of the Revolution? Children of Mars, which has... that was incredible. That was nearly no dialogue. What surprised me watching it was. I figured these were gonna be cheap. And it had the most spectacular effect secret and fight sequences in that one as well. I was like, oh, okay, so they are genuinely pouring some resources into this to trail these shows. Yeah, I think it's about trailing the shows and I think it's also about experimenting in some ways. Do you? Yeah, I do. What struck me about this was, you know, we're in that sort of era of Kurtzman Trek now, where 15 minutes into the episode, that could be where the pre-title sequence ends. Yeah, they're all sort of like pre-title sequences, aren't they? But little stalk is in their own right. You're right. There's enough happening here. like that it tells a narrative. In fact, there was a couple of bits. I was like, why have they included that, but the 1st bit they included because they have to connect it to Strange New World somehow. Otherwise, it is just a random story. They're actually connecting it to Discovery series too. So that's the enterprise set that they make for the end of Discovery Series 2. And of course, and Mount is the captain in Discovery Series 2. So strangely worlds is just a sort of fanboy dream at this point. And in fact, no episode of Lower Decks has aired yet. So they've commissioned lower decks a year before this aired in October 2018. This goes out in October 2019. And so this, I think, is the 1st actual out and out Star Trek comedy. Ah, okay. And it's doing the thing that I'm sure a lot of people were sort of talking about, which was, well, they've got the money now. Can they do the triple episode where you can see them multiplying 1000000s of times. The answer is yes, but they're only going to do it here in this short tricks. Yeah, yeah. So they're having their cake and eating it. not having to do it as a whole episode, but they are sort of getting that talking point out of the way. And John Benjamin is absolutely superb. So he is... He is the Ridge Barclay of new iteration of Star Trek. Well, except he's obnoxious and not likeable, which is really great. An idiot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's in Bob's Burgers and his archer in Archer. And it's Archer? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he always has the same voice. Like he sounds the same as Bob in Bob's Burgers and the same as Sterling Archer does in Archer. But the characterisation is so different that you never think of the other characters. So smooth. Yeah. I mean, he's an idiot as well, sometimes. that's right. And obnoxious, but he's not quite the sort of wallflower jerk that Edward Larkin is in this. Do you know, although weirdly, I was less interested in his character and more interested in this new captain. I thought we were being introduced to. For the, what's her name? the captain? She's Lynn Lucero. And so she's been handed this science vessel and she's going go on to have a glittering career and her own, you know, Star Trek show and have lots of missions and unfortunately she's got this loser on her shift. incompetent loser that basically brings the entire ship down in the 1st week by feeding the tribbles. And it's her, like, at the end where she's facing, you know, the ball. What the hell happened, you know, you had all of this promise? And she just says, doesn't she? He was an idiot. So great. I think I think what is so good about it is that what's hugely important to Star Trek is competence and because it's a show about smart people solving space problems. everyone's kind of super competent at their jobs. And in fact, on this ship, they're kind of ridiculously competent. Like Lean is really competent and there's all these other scientists sort of surrounding them who are all great. And Larkin is very good at his job in the sense that he's a good biologist, but he's just bad at everything else. Not a team player, is he? And so you see all of these things that you see elsewhere, but that you've never seen in Star Trek before. And so the incongruity of that is just really enjoyable. Even just that 1st scene where he can't get his pad to work. Like he refuses to allow the scientist sitting next to him. It still says it's broken, she fixed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, even the last scene with him where he's got this entire tsunami of triples coming up behind him and he's like, you said I was an idiot and I was wrong and I'm not wrong. And then the treble was just all land on him. I'm like, oh, bless him. He was never going to have a glittering career and stuff. No, no. Yeah. All those anonymous messages. I could see it, you know. I mean, we don't get to know this crew too well, but there's potential here, you know, the 1st another little spinoff. Well, I mean, I think the idea of it is that it's supposed to look like that, and it does the thing that the spinoffs always do, that both Deep Space Night and Voyager do, which is including a cameo from the parent show at the beginning. And the hilarious thing about it is that that cameo, which is her and Pike, talking about the new job, and it's all about the difficulties that she's not going to have with the people under her command. And, you know, Pike makes a joke about how, give them an inch and they'll eat you alive and then they both kind of laugh uproariously at that. And then, and then he tries to warn her that some of the scientists under her command won't be as good as her. And she goes, no, no, of course, many of them will be better. And again, we have a sort of joke about that. So there's all of that stuff about how important competence is to Star Trek, and then we drop John Benjamin into the show with hilarious results. Talking about the comedy of this, it leads into my favourite type of comedy as well, because this is very funny, and you and me have talked a lot about Star Trek comedy that hasn't landed. But this is very funny because it is so absurd. But it's also a bit dark in places. very quickly as well. So there's a sequence where there's poor woman's in like a turbo lift and the tribles are filling and she's literally drowning and you're like, did she die, you know, and suddenly the tribles are in all the circuitry and you literally see them eating the ship alive and it's like, I'm not sure they're going to make it out of this, you know. And that, and that sort of, I know, it's still funny, but it's got a bit of an edge to it and I like that. Well, I think Kurtzman trek at this point has been darker generally than 90s trek was. Comedy is to come, Nathan, isn't it? Yeah, well, when the comedy actually kind of happens in lower decks, Like, that's very violent in places and kind of dark in places, but there's a real warmth to that. You know, the thing that we love about that is those 4 characters who we just love and they're adorable. And that's absent from this because Larkin is so fabulously unlikeable. But I feel like for the best comedy in Kersman track. Oh, certainly the best I've seen so far is that mad pantomimic Christina Chong when she was in that princess dressed with her fabulous dog and strange new wells. Actually, it can handle the comedy brilliantly. Yeah. Because it's a lighter show than discovery as a whole. And its characters are all very funny. They're all in that sort of TOS mode, depending on where the episode lands, they can either be very funny or very serious. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, Stranger Wills can be very serious and very dark and very, very... Yeah, yeah, yeah. But everyone is so relaxed. There's no space people in the show and that's something that I really appreciate and something that really harms the way the 90s work. Everyone is a sort of space person. Everyone is a little bit more relaxed in Kurtzman Trek, and even in discovery, which is at times a bit overwrought. that people are a little bit more identifiably human, I think. I'd say discovery is the closest to 90s trek, where people are their jobs. I mean, they are a little more relaxed, but, you know, we have watched one recently where they were just about on a load of technobabble in the last scene. I was going, oh, yeah, here we are back in 90s Shrek again. Good techno babble. Good turnobabble and good character work, but still, they're still their jobs for the most part. Whereas, yeah, you're right. The best thing about Strangers New Worlds is they're just wonderful people to be around. People, not jobs, people. that's right Well, what do you think? Do you think we should go in? Well, it's only 15 minutes long. not going to take us long. All right. I will count as in. 5, 4, 32, one. And we're off. So it's the discovery titles. Well it's discovery titles, isn't it? Is it the one that goes... Oh, no, it's not, is it? That's not in you. No, no, no, that's not here yet, but look at the trouble with Edward, the way the letters all Judder and then reproduce. And look how beautiful this looks. Just this shot of the enterprise. It could be a series of stars flowing passing. Yeah, yeah, no, going past Earth. It's wonderful. So Lynn hasn't been in the show. I thought that perhaps I'd missed her in Discovery series too, but she's... I was trying to picture Marcina as something else. I don't know. Her name's Rosa Salazar. I haven't seen her in anything. Can we talk about the, the, the, the enterprise set? was gorgeous. So they tease the Enterprise set earlier. we haven't seen it yet. We do see it at the end of series 2 of Discovery, and it's very blue and red. And so it's very much them recreating the 60s set, but with, um you know, with a budget and space. But even so when it comes time to making it a show, they kind of go, we need to spend more money and have much bigger sets and so they... People must have been salivated watching this then, given, yeah this is all coming. What impressed me so much was just how smooth that tracking shot was as walking along. I'm like, we're just in a different era from 90s right now. Yeah, yeah. Look, and, and, gorgeous, Captain Mouse. I know. His hair is not quite as tall. Oh, this woman reminds me of. Did you ever watch that episode of, you know, Charlie Brooker series? The Star Trek one. Oh, yeah, yeah. HMS Callister. The woman in that, and sounds very like that woman. That was so grim. Holy crap, that was so dark, wasn't it? Have you heard they're doing a follow-up for that? Yeah. Wow. So here we are at the conference table. And notice that it's got the thing on the on the desk, which is the thing that they have in original trek, you know, the triangular screen, which they actually have like things on. And so here is Edward. He sort of looks the part, doesn't he? It's only when he opens his mouth, then you realise, 0 dear. No, he does sound of look like a bit of a schlubby guy with a sort of gray beard and stuff. I wish I could hear it. his voice now. I want to hear it. Yeah, he's so he's that's just Archer. Yeah, yeah, like the captain's getting the 1st signs there. She's got a hand to my mouth like, oh, yeah. I think the really funny thing about this scene is something that you'd never thought of before, but the thing that he's obsessed with is the prospect of eating them. He goes off skinned a couple to them and fed them to that man. He's the food to know. who's there sitting next to the captain. I told you it was dark, didn't I? Yeah, I said it was dark. But when he says Noel's a foodie, Noel really enjoyed it and Noel looks across at the captain and like shakes his head. So what's he wants to basically make them a food source for another planet. Is that right? He wants to wipe out an entire species. Wait, they don't breed very quickly. Yeah, no, some foodie. They don't breed very quickly and so he has to up their breeding rate, which is why they become a problem. They breed very slowly. There was a great line at the end as well, wasn't it? saying that they've somehow made their way into Klingon space. Yes. And all those jokes and trials and tribulations suddenly makes sense. Time for the great triple... But of course, remember the fact that tribbles don't like Klingons is what... is what reveals the Klingon spy in trouble with tribles. The line. This, a Morse letter me of the Empire. But so this discussion as well. where she's going, are they intelligent, because it would be wrong to eat them because they're intelligent. And he thinks she's asking, are they intelligent because they might be hard to catch? And he says, no, no, they're really easy to catch. And if they are intelligent, we have a problem with that. I can just breathe them so they're brain damaged and that would be fine. And everyone's kind of looking kind of horrified at him because he doesn't get it at all. There is another lane to this though. I know what you're saying is appalling, yeah. And he's fidgety, you know. But like, have you ever been that sort of slightly less competent person surrounded by... And you see the way they're giving each other? That's side that he's giving now. Look at that look where it's just like and then this... all sort of giving sarky slide eye to each other, which is a bit not nice. Oh, they know that. To be fair, some pretty terrible things. Oh, yeah. Now he's doing what I'll do. Well, look, he's standing there next to the food dispenser going Oh, no one really likes her, you know. Yeah, yeah, bath. Terrible captain, stroke manager. Do you think Noel's getting a salad just to kind of emphasise that he doesn't like eating meat? Nothing, you know. Yes. What is it? He gives a triples to eat. It just looks like, so, you know, when he sort of sprinkles something on the twin. No, I think that's the DNA thing that makes them breed. I don't think he's feeding them. I think he's genetically engineering them with that thing. It's like random arm. in the background of the shop. But no reason to make it look science-y. It's so wonderful when they start popping out of that box and then the top pops off, don't it? Yeah, yeah, no, so he just decides that he's going to he's going to make them breed. even though you don't want to. This was a session. where Marv was watching and got very confused. He didn't realise I was watching Star Trek because he doesn't think Star Trek can do comedy was out. He just walked out of the room and I was like, well, you don't like good telly, so off you go. I think it's... The end of this where he refuses to let go of the end of the conversation. Yeah, she's like, no, no, the conversation is over. And just her reaction. She's really funny in this scene because she kind of doesn't want to play along. And just that thing about, well, they're anonymous, which means I you don't know who sent them. You know, like it's... We have this thing at work called Let us know, right, where you have to write about the managers and it's all anonymous, but they know who's written every single one of course they do. Depends on how vile you are. Yeah, and this is this is the sort of um sort of interrupty back and forth conversation that they don't do in 90s trek that feels very believable. This is the sort of conversation you and I have, you know. And he's being insubordinate as well, which is, which is pretty great. You are going. Go. Just go. Yeah, yeah. Because he's just about trying to goad her into saying he's dumb and that's kind of and even just dumb as an insult. It's such a stupid child sort of insult and one that you would never hear on Star Trek. Here we go. Fire them out. We've never seen that before there goes, the lid comes off. Oh, no, is this where he's in his pants? This is where he's in his pants. Again, a thing that you would never see in Star Trek. And he's not pulling his stomach in or anything. He's very generously allowing himself to look as schlubby as possible. Those underpants, aren't they? You don't know this, but Nathan's got a steal of that of him in his pants behind him right now. But fortunately, Nathan's pretty head is right in the middle of the screen covering out. Thank God. So again, I think he's obsessing with eating them as well at this point. They have gauged those triples popping out of those other triples so perfect. Everyone's hilarious. Did you see him? But did you see him? Feel the mate on these. I mean, I would have gone the whole hog and just had him go, boy boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they virtually go boying, don't they? That's so funny. This is the appearance of Bing Crosby singing Johnny Appleseed. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bing Crosby is, of course, the grandfather of Denise Crosby from Star Trek, the Next Generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So his grandfather, her grandfather suddenly appears on the show for the 1st time. And I had no idea. What I think is really fun about this is that you never, ever have a montage set to just a song, you know, and licensing songs, like I don't know about licensing Bing Crosby at this point. But licensing songs is expensive. And I always think that that makes a show seem more expensive. I will say, I will say there is a montage to it's only a paper moon and it's only a paper moon. Yeah, I like it. But it's sung by Jimmy Darren. not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a cover. Yeah. Do you know what? I love, I don't know what the black officer's name is, but at the start of these scenes were, the tribles were multiplied. She's laughing and she's always cute. And then with each subsequent scene. Her reaction is getting more horrified. This where the guy walks in with the vacuum cleaner. The enormous food. That is so perfect. It looks very low tech as well, doesn't it? It's great. But you can hear it go, sort of... But she's also the one who gets to deliver the, I believe they're born pregnant line as well, which is pretty awesome. They've got the shot. Where they come from the overhead ham, you know, yep. Oh, woman in the turbo, if she's banging against the ceiling. Let me out. And then this where they're going through the corridors shooting triples. It's just so trashy. And in every shot. The triples are sort of going over the camera, aren't they? But this shot from outside the window is unbelievably. recovering every window as they arrived. It's what they would have done with the original series episodes if they could have. Yeah, you know, it's finally fulfilling all those fantasies. Well, and it's that thing. Oh, here we go. So this is the big final scene. She's trying to coax Edward off the ship, but he's too much of an idiot and he's too sure that he's right. It's surprised that they're having this sort of slagging off match tsunami of triples coming up. And the way he falls over. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a proper comedy fall. She just goes, oh, well, he's out. Shut the door. Oh, and that shot of the tribles just filling the camera and covering her up. And so here she is before the board. I mean look at that. Oh, yeah. 1000000s for the bloody thing. So good. Oh, good. Oh, this is great as well. Yeah, of course we learn that I wonder whether this set was actually used in Discovery Series 2 at the very end where they're being debriefed. I can't remember, but it's interesting. You know, I'm wondering if with all of these short treks, they just use the resources elsewhere. I said, let's just film this, something extra. Let's just use this. Oh, I think that I think there definitely is that. Yeah, I think it's cheaper. And sometimes like 2 of them, the Saru one and the Tilly one both feed into the later episodes, introduce elements that will come in later, which is kind of interesting. sad, Nathan. is I have actually seen, um, Cuzwanera episodes sort of are far worse than this. Oh, now I think this is genius. I think this is really good. This is great. Oh, yeah. I'm saying the short tracks probably shouldn't be better than the episodes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, they're doing something different and I think that's really super, super fun. And I think playing with, like just getting John Benjamin in, who's a big name, all of that sort of stuff. It does that wonderful thing that really good comedy does. It just paces itself really well, and it starts off with a load of character scenes, and then the triples emerge, and then it gets worse and worse and worse. And suddenly it's furiously paced at the end. And then the cap with that scene where what defence could she possibly give against the fact that she lost her entire ship. Oh, he was an idiot. Boom. And even that gag, that final gag, which is so close to being not a gag, I think, because no one ever talks like that in Star Trek about anyone. And, you know, the nearest we've got, as you said, the nearest we've had to this is Barclay, who is loveable but awkward. You've never had anything like that. And so no one ever calls him an idiot. everyone's super embarrassed about calling him, you know, even giving him a nickname and stuff. And so just that stuff humanises them and makes comedy. Barclay was still composite. And he's one of us. He was extremely good at what he did. He just wasn't good socially. was the thing with him. So he's the reason that Voyager comes home, you know. Oh yeah, what was this all about? It's very strange. And so this is an ad. USS Ravenous. And so you've got these little twin girls adorably and they're eating tribbles from a thing. And what in what you don't properly realise is a special effect shot, I think. That woman is there pouring tribbles out of that box that can't possibly fit in there because they keep breeding in the box. She looks very confused, doesn't she? Oh, they're still coming. But the other thing is too, and you know, everything moves very fast when we were watching it. But he's put his own DNA. Like Edward has put his own DNA and the tribbles and like everyone kind of reacts to that as if he's sort of wanked into the tank or something. Do you know what I mean? into that hype. I wouldn't put it past you. It's my DNA. DNA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the Edward Macronutrient is not currently approved by the Federation Food and Drug Administration. And then this warning here, fur may present choking hazard, and you should shave Syria with Edward Brand triple razor included. The little cartoon tripples are like, oh, we're pregnant. Pop, pop. And they're like Poochie, aren't they? They've got like backward baseball caps and and skateboards. They should be branded as much as badgie was. And it does take the idea. It started off with him saying that triple should be eaten. Now they are being eaten, but just as a brand. You'll be pleased to know that memory alpha suggests that that post-credits sequence, the ad for for the cereal might not be meant to be taken literally. They went to the effort of spelling that out for us. So it might not be canon. It's an invaluable resource memory alpha, yes. I prefer to think it is canon, no. There was a triple breakfast cereal. They probably was in the 60s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It could be a historical document. For all we know. Oh, that was blissful. For 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's wonderful stuff. I wish they would do it again. I wish they would do it again, but I guess there's enough going on. But this was them experimenting. I think and it's wonderful to watch them doing it in public. I've had forgive me, 15 minute wanks that were far less enjoyable than watching that, you know. Yeah, yeah. That's fair. And I think it entirely justifies the exercise of doing these short tracks. One, because it does offer an enticing glimpse of what's coming. The 2 they're just brilliant, tiny bits of television in their own right. Yeah. Yeah, wonderful. I can't wait for us to do more now. We'll see what else you've got to off up. absolutely. All right, it's the end of the episode, and it is time for us to work out what we're going to be watching next. I rolled the trouble with Edward. It's your turn now, Joe. What series are we choosing from? I'm going to do my, what I do every now and again and choose all of them. Yes. Because you never quite know what you're going to get. Yeah. But it will probably, statistically speaking, be a bad episode of Star Trek. Alright, well, let's find out. Your random Star Trek Voyager episode. Oh, right. It's season five, which I do love. I don't love this episode. Episode 4 in the flesh. It's the one where they go to Starfleet Academy, you know, it's the Species 8468 or whatever they're called. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's Species 90210. And the whole sort of this terrifying race. all ends very diplomatically. Yeah, that's kind of boring, isn't it? I think we should do that one. Okay. Well, then, skipping on too. You're, oh, we have done one of these recently. Your random Star Trek Deep Space 9 episode is tacking into the wind. Season 7, of course. Yeah, 22. And that is the one where Kira beats somebody up. I don't know if you remember me mentioning that a couple of weeks ago. I think you did. And this is the one where Worf throws someone through a table. It is. Yeah. It's pretty spectacular. I did say I wanted to go one way or the other. I think we should do it. I think we should definitely do it. I mean, it's another season seven. That means the rest of DS9 is being... Startingly unrepresented, but it's so good. I think we probably should Yeah. Yeah. And that final 10 is great fun. It'll be great to check in on it again and see what it's doing. It's got that scene where Ezri says to Wolf about the Klingon Empire dying. Oh, yeah. Is that it? It's Ron Moore's last DS9 episode. Yeah, so it's his chance to do that, to do the annual speech about how corrupt the Klingon Empire is. But also in the same breath. say, look, I'm gonna leave a mark on this show. If anything takes place after this, Garon ain't going to be in it. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty amazing. Because he did bring him in as well, didn't he? Yeah, brought him in. We saw the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, let's do that. we do that for sure. Fabulous. Brilliant. You've been listening to Untitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford and Nathan Bottomley, where 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 Ciceran and the theme was composed by Cameron Lamb. This episode was recorded on the 27th of February 2024 and released on the 1st of March. We'll see you next time for Star Trek Deep Space 9, tacking into the wind. Yeah, let's get ahead. That's a good idea. Let's get ahead. I was thinking about that today because it was just kind of like this is sort of, we're assumed. Do you know what I mean? We've sort of settled into a routine, which works. It means that we don't have to plan anything, but it means you always have that specific amount of time from Tuesday to Friday. So you always have to put aside the same night. No, that's okay. I don't mind. That's perfectly fine. It's 2 hours. Do you know what I mean? It takes me to do a normal episode. We'll take it takes 2 hours. There's a bit of other stuff that needs doing, but basically that's it. And I'll do the rest of it tonight. Like, you send me the thing. I'll treat the video. I'll find a screen shot. I already have one, which is just a, Steel of book, looking beautiful. Any shot from the episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although, if you find that one where, you know, the bit I pointed out. lighting on him there was... Well, yeah, yellow lighting, he was so stunning, but then he's blue. Like, he's got the blue lighting. They absolutely nail, like something, it is a thing that TV and film has not always been good at, and that's lighting black people. And it, like, he, like, you know, like how many of the leads, like Joanne, Michael and Borker, all black. Kind of lucky in DSN. We got all those weird lighting sources within the sets, haven't we? So Cisco's often lit beautifully. Well, because that's the great thing that they've managed to do with Discovery is to make a Federation ship look as interesting as Deep Space 9 with different. you know what I mean? Like, like, I think... You lost are more stylish. It's more expensive if they've got a lot more money, but what they don't do is the normal boring voyager gray corridors, you know. Or worse. The Enterprise, great corridors. Yeah, yeah. That's all Mac Gray. Listen, I'm going to scoop because you go, you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I'll do is I'm looking at things.