Kevin: Hello and welcome to Subspace Radio.
It's me, Kev.
Rob: And me Rob.
Kevin: and we are here for a very special event.
Rob, it is the first ever musical episode of Star Trek.
Rob: Yes, Kevin, we have reached an episode we've been waiting for some time.
Kevin: And I cannot wait to break it down and see what else we want to talk about.
Rob: Dear listeners, we will not be singing the entire episode.
Kevin: Oh, sadly.
Sadly.
Rob: Sadly.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
Drop that little nugget, that little hint of our musical talent.
Possibly we may do a musical episode of Subspace Radio down the track.
Kevin: We almost should though, Rob, just because this episode
title is so much like our own title.
It's Subspace Radio talks Subspace Rhapsody.
Rob: Look, it's almost eating in on itself.
Like a, a ouroboros.
Yes, the episode that everyone's been talking about is finally here and,
oh you knew it was gonna cause some dissension in the ranks and it has
exploded just as they knew it would.
Kevin: Oh no, Rob, where do you hang out that all of these
angry Star Trek fans hang out?
Rob: Online, Kevin.
And I should, I know I should stop doing it,
Kevin: That was your first mistake.
Rob: Yeah.
Rookie mistake.
So it's always good for me to get an idea of, yeah, just a sense of it.
There's been a lot of positives and there's been some negatives.
Some people have been like going for deep canon cuts and whether they were breaking
canon or not, which they clearly didn't, and I thought they were tantalizing little
treats which I was really excited to hear.
But yeah, and just general opinions on the whole concept of a musical episode.
We talk about it with Strange New Worlds so much about, it's like ticking off the
checklist of the go-to genre episodes.
So we've had the body swap.
We've had the amnesia episode.
We've had the crossover episode.
And it's only a new phenomenon, like since the early noughties really.
But the musical episode has become the new go-to gimmick.
So it was used in Buffy, it was used in the Flash, it was used in Riverdale.
It's been used in
Kevin: The magicians.
Rob: Yes.
Multiple genre shows have done a musical episode.
So this is just adding to that list.
Kevin: The Buffy musical was explicitly referenced in this
episode for anyone paying attention.
The joke about turning into bunnies was, could be nothing other
than a winking acknowledgement.
Rob: To Anya's lovely song, bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies.
Kevin: Yeah.
I went into this with very high expectations.
Rob, I think I talked a couple weeks ago about how, for the crossover
episode I was going in wincing and going, Ooh, this could really suck.
I hope they don't screw it up.
But I was on my guard for that.
For this, I was going in openhearted and give it to me
because the track record is there.
Henry Alonso Myers, who's one of the showrunners for Strange New
Worlds was a showrunner for The Magicians, a show that I watched in
its entirety and had several musical episodes and they were all excellent.
The cast did great work with that strange way of presenting a story.
The songs, importantly, were bangers.
They were so much fun and stuck in your head and ultimately it must have worked
because they did it more than once.
For those who aren't familiar with the show, it was a story
about teen angst in magic land.
It was kind of Harry Potter, if Harry Potter was in university
and making all his mistakes while learning magic at the same time.
So the, the angst, the teen angst would be cranked up to 11 and then released
in a musical episode where everyone sang their hearts to each other.
So having seen those successes from at least the show runner, I thought he
knows how to do a musical genre show.
And I can't wait to see that through a Star Trek lens.
But I'll say maybe my expectations were a little too high because I, I found
this episode somewhat disappointing.
How about you, Rob?
Rob: Yeah, look I, I got on the bandwagon with Once More With
Feeling back in the early noughties.
It was my first ever musical episode.
It's like I'm one of the only few I'm aware of.
It is right smack bang in the early section of season six, which
is notoriously the worst season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
But the musical episode is always heralded as the last great episode of Buffy.
Like you said about The Magicians, all the songs in once
more with feeling are bangers.
It's a difficult one because only two of the cast in Buffy are singers.
Tara, the actress who played Tara's a wonderful singer and Anthony Stewart
Head was a professional singer.
And and all the songs are great, all different styles
of tunes and stuff like that.
That, and plus it was my first one, so my nostalgia of it is really strong.
I went back and listened to a couple of the songs recently coming up
to the musical episode of that, and it still holds up really good.
I love the change of tone.
So my expectations of a musical episode are pretty high.
The last one I saw was for The Flash which was actually directed by the guy
who directed this episode, Dermott Downs.
And The Flash one kind of disappointed me and it became
a bit, oh, it's a bit generic.
The songs, and they had some great singers.
Grant Gustin is an amazing singer.
He did Glee, as did Supergirl uh, Melissa Benoist she was in Glee as well.
Wonderful singers, but the songs didn't really stand out and I got
this sense of, oh all musical episodes just blend into one another now.
They've lost that um, uniqueness and novelty, and
now it's just become a gimmick.
So I was a little bit trepidatious with this one.
I was really excited for the crossover episode, but this one
I was the songs have to be good.
The songs have to be really good for this to be something special.
And yeah, I was, I love it 'cause it's Strange New Worlds and I love the cast
and I love all of it, but it, some of it soared, but most of it, their
choices, the choices they made of how they do the songs was disappointing.
Having so many songs where they reference the fact that they
are singing really got old.
Kevin: It was very self-conscious.
Rob: Very self-conscious.
And also the fact that they incorporate just regular techno babble dialogue
into the songs ate away at me as well.
I don't want to hear them
Kevin: Yeah, I couldn't tell if I liked it or disliked it.
I think when it worked like there were moments where they were using Star Trek
turns of phrase or language where I was like, oh, yeah, what else did I expect?
Star Trek has such a distinctive language.
We're gonna get to see that brought into song.
But there were times where it was, it felt like a gimmick.
And it was there not to keep the songs connected to Star Trek.
It was there to make the songs Star Trekky, if I can
draw that subtle distinction.
It, it bordered on parody.
And my partner turned to me at one point and said, in the middle of
a song, she turned to me and said, Ooh, this feels like a parody.
And I was cringing internally in the same way at that moment.
And you don't want that feeling in the middle of a musical episode.
Rob: Yeah, there were moments when they started breaking into a song and
instead of me going, oh, good, now is the time, a part of me went, oh no.
So there I was quite relieved that the highlight scene for me
in episode was La'an finally,
Kevin: Oh yes,
Rob: talking to Kirk.
And that
Kevin: with not a song in sight.
Rob: a song in sight.
And that was that they're going, that's not a good sign.
When the
Kevin: Yeah.
Your best scene is not a song.
Yeah.
Rob: I mean there are some really solid singers in that group.
I mean, Celia as Uhura is an incredible singer.
Christina Chong, of course, has released albums and she's a wonderful singer.
Ethan Peck is the dark horse.
He has a wonderful, soothing voice and Anson Mount's got
a quite a nice voice as well.
Kevin: Pretty much the only song with a male lead singer in this episode was
Spock's song, and while it was great, it was also a reprise of Chapel's song.
Rob: Yeah, it's very odd hearing, uh, Spock saying, I'm the ex.
The ex for me is a very is, is is a very juvenile teenager type thing.
And
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: to hear Spock say that I'm going um, interesting.
Yeah, Jess Bush, I love that song.
That was a really good song and a really good, self-empowerment number.
She's not the strongest of singers, but I like how well she did.
Kevin: Yeah, the melody has definitely stuck with me.
I personally think the strongest song in the episode is La'an's
song, which she sings by herself.
It is gorgeous.
That, I said, okay, now we're getting somewhere.
uh, The Gilbert and Sullivan number in the hallway with Una, I did not need that.
The status report song I thought was quite awkward.
But La'an's song was the one where this episode took flight, and I thought, okay,
if this is the trend and we're now on a path to orbit here, okay, I'm on board.
This is gonna be great.
But I felt like it peaked at that point and never quite reached that level again.
Rob: Yeah.
And plus it has the um, bonus points of having the word
paradigm in its main chorus.
So getting the word paradigm in a chorus is a big plus for me.
Kevin: Well that that was another example of Star Trek language
kind of used in song, but I thought that one kind of worked.
Rob: Yeah.
Yeah, for me using the whole, yeah.
And saying the phrase that everyone talks about when the musical, when your
emotions build up so much, you can't say it, you have to sing it, to hear
Rebecca Romijn say that was quite cute.
But yeah.
Dealing with relationship type stuff that we thought we've evolved from,
and there seemed to be with Pike and Batel, a bit of a step back.
Kevin: And Chapel and Spock, seeing them torn apart in song
was not very satisfying, I felt.
When that message from Roger Korby came in at the start of
the episode, I was like, Oh no.
I could use another season of them dating before we go here, please.
But uh, no.
And her choice not to even say anything to him until, forced to by the song virus,
it just, it felt kind of outta character.
Rob: I'm kind of relieved that it has become the case of Chapel
and Spock, we hardly knew ye.
'cause if it was a little bit longer, it would stretch the boundaries of… For
me, to have it end so quickly and so abruptly, for me, that kind of works.
Kevin: Yeah.
This is why they never talk about it again.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: And how it still feels unrequited for her.
Rob: Very much so, and that, has to linger when we go into you know, original series.
So there's a lot of easter eggs in there as well.
So we talked about Korby being referenced.
And we mentioned earlier, the big scene is where finally La'an talks to Kirk, and I
think Kirk handled that scene incredibly, was written well and performed well.
And we have a drop of…
Kevin: Freaking Carol Marcus!
Rob: gets the drop!
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: bring in Carol.
I wanna see
Kevin: Bring her in.
Yeah.
Rob: There's been a lot of controversy about, uh, and people just not
watching Wrath of Khan to fully understand it, people going Kirk
didn't know about David and going, did you actually watch the film?
The first thing he says is when he goes, is that David.
'cause the one line going, why didn't you tell me?
'cause No, he was talking about, why didn't you tell me
that David was on the station.
Yeah, so that is brought up.
Girlfriend, pregnant, that this is the point where it happens.
Kevin: Yeah.
Okay.
Well, So yeah, that is the thing that, that you were referencing, that people
are a little uh, perturbed by the canon impact of Carol Marcus and the
Marcuses being introduced at this point.
The thing I was, thinking you might be referencing is just like Jim Kirk paying
another visit to not just the Enterprise, but standing on the bridge and saying, I
learned everything I know from you people, that is, that is stretching it a bit.
Rob: Sitting in a briefing with Pike.
I'm there going, are they gonna lose their memory after this?
Is it, it's gonna be?
Nope?
Okay.
All right.
They've met more than once and Kirk just forgets the musical.
Kevin: Yeah.
Because I believe the line is Kirk is asked whether he ever met Pike,
and this is in The Menagerie.
And Kirk says, we met once when he was promoted to fleet captain.
And so they did that deft thing, the other episode when the Farragut happened
to be around at the deuterium refinery and Pike was made fleet captain.
And so we were like, okay that's the time they met when he was
promoted to fleet captain.
Uh, the fact that it was a temporary promotion is the nice
little magic trick they did there.
Surely they can never meet again, but no.
Rob: Not only do they meet again, they share a bridge, they share a chorus
line of awkwardly linking arms and trying to do some sort of choreography
in a very slippery, confined set.
Kevin: I guess my feeling about it, Rob, is I am definitely up for the
story of early Kirk and his relationship with Carol Marcus, all of that I'm
interested in seeing it, but I don't want it to be at the expense of seeing
the stories of Strange New Worlds and the characters of that show.
Especially when we only have 10 episodes to play with each season, the more Jim
Kirk we get, the less of this show we get.
And this show deserves every minute of screen time it can get.
Rob: Exactly.
Yep.
That's the rub.
I could not agree with you more.
It's, we were sold on the fact this is Strange New Worlds, this
is Pike's crew leading up to that.
So we don't want to, shortchange that.
And especially like I've mentioned before, this is a crew that has a running clock.
We know that they're not all gonna stay.
We don't know where they're gonna go, and we don't know what's gonna happen.
We only know certain things.
We know where Spock is, we know where Pike
Kevin: If anything happens to La'an at this point, I am gonna riot.
She's my favorite character on Strange New Worlds at this point.
Rob: Incredible actress, incredible character.
I love how they've developed her out of the shadows of
her heritage and her lineage.
Kevin: Going back to her scene with Kirk, the thing that I loved about
it, not just how Kirk handled it, but I loved how she handled it, that
it was not a, confession of love.
It was, I met an alternate version of you and felt seen, and I like that distinction
that it takes it from school girl romance to look, when I'm around you, I feel
like a different person for this reason.
Rob: Yeah, and beautiful stuff like they're going be careful what you say
because of timeline stuff and him saying, I know that I feel the connection with
you, but I don't know where it comes from.
That type of really pleasant stuff.
So yeah, for me that was a highlight.
Kevin: Just for the record, I don't need to hear Jim Kirk say, I don't
like rules, but… I don't need to hear them hang a lantern on that anymore.
We all know Kirk is a rule breaker.
You can stop saying it.
Rob: Um, and another bone of contention we got the Klingon singing and it
was K-pop style as opposed to opera.
Your thoughts, Kevin Yank?
Kevin: It was fine.
By that point, by that point I had so given up on the story of this.
Like, for this to be a successful episode for me, it both needed to be a great
Star Trek story and a great musical.
And that those two things would be more than the sum of their parts.
But to me it was by far the weakest story we've gotten in two seasons of
Strange New Worlds, and it was not a particularly great musical either.
And as a result, it was less than the sum of its parts for me.
So by the time the Klingons were K popping, I just went cool.
They didn't do the obvious thing.
That's fine.
But I'm ready for this episode to be over.
Rob: Yeah.
I'm, like I said, I'm trepidatious of musical type episodes and
it, I didn't want it to be disposable, forgettable fluff.
And it was.
It was fun and cute and I'm not gonna, rail against it and be angry,
but I'm just there going, yeah.
It's not gonna be it's a forgettable one
Kevin: Much worse than Klingons singing K-Pop, which actually, like if everything
else about this episode was firing at nine outta 10 or better, that could have
been this ridiculous thing that pushed it over the top into instant classic to me.
I would go there with a good episode.
That was not this episode's biggest sin.
For me the biggest one is setting up the plot need of someone to
sing a song, to rally the crew, to bring them together under a leader.
And then Pike saying, Uhura, you can sing this one.
That that wasn't Pike's song makes no sense to me.
I've heard rumors completely unsubstantiated through fan circles, that
Anson Mount simply did not want to sing, and uh, they had to write around that.
And if that's the case, maybe don't do a musical episode.
If you can't get your captain to sing, maybe don't do a musical episode.
Rob: And if you want to do an episode that highlights the musical talent
of your cast, do like what was done in Deep Space Nine, when you've got
the fabulous work of Benjamin Sisko singing with a hologram some funky
jazz musical numbers from the fifties.
You can have, you can make it a part of the show.
You don't need to structure a whole episode of it and compromise
Kevin: Or going back to the Battle of AR-558 last week, we had rom at
the start of that episode singing That's Why the Lady is a Scamp.
Instant classic, right?
Rob: Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
There's gotta be karaoke in, you know, in the 23rd century.
Come on.
Kevin: But the thing that we wanted to cover based on this week's attempt at a
classic musical uh, was other times that Star Trek has jumped with both feet into
the land of camp, and gone, you know what?
We get accused of being campy now and then, let's show you
what it's like when we get campy.
Why don't you go first and tell us what you got because
mine's fairly late timeline.
Rob: Mine's Voyager.
Is yours Voyager?
Kevin: Oh, mine is also Voyager.
Rob: Mine is Voyager, season five, episode 12, Bride of Chaotica!
Kevin: We've done it again, Rob.
We've done it again.
Yes.
Bride of Chaotica!
Watched it today, knew what I was in for, and it did not disappoint.
Rob: Yeah, I was, I, from my memories of it, I thought it was a lot more fun.
And it was about 40% fun, 60% justification.
And I'm there going, oh, cut out the justification, all right?
Do a Our Man Bashir type thing and just go full Flash Gordon style.
Kevin: I think if they ever try this again in Strange New Worlds or
elsewhere, that's also what I want, is don't have the characters aware that
singing is strange and spend half the episode trying to figure out how to stop
singing because they hate it so much.
Let's just, imagine Star Trek was always a musical, and tell us a story that way.
Rob: So tell us about Bride of Chaotica!
Kevin: Yeah, so this is mid Voyager.
We do have Seven of Nine on board, but she is still pretty grumpy.
Uh, she and uh,
Rob: And surprisingly in the background for this one.
Kevin: Yes, indeed.
And we have a long established Paris Kim man date where they go into the
holodeck and play out these old B-movie plots under the name Captain Proton.
Tom Paris plays Captain Proton, and Harry Kim plays Captain Proton's
sidekick, who has a name; I can't remember what it is right now.
I don't think we're meant to remember what it is.
And the scenes in the holodeck are all in black and white.
This was a fun conceit that Voyager invented, that if you go and play a
black and white holodeck story, you are turned black and white yourself.
And that's
Rob: very cool.
Yeah.
Kevin: I think we had seen snippets of Captain Proton in other stories up
until this point, but this was the one where they were like, we're gonna make
this the setting for the entire episode.
And so Tom and Harry are on their mandate in the holodeck
playing through their story.
Harry is the one playing it for the first time; Tom's played this scenario 10
times and he knows exactly how it goes.
Rob: As always, Tom Paris is the expert of ancient Earth culture.
So he knows how to put a car together.
He knows how to put a, a plane together.
He knows how, how old 1950s serialized space adventure sci-fi works, apparently.
Kevin: Yeah.
And suddenly they see a purple portal in this otherwise
black and white environment.
A kind of creepy purple portal appears in the sky.
And that's the cold open.
The big picture story here is that trans dimensional life forms—
We're getting a lot of trans dimensional life forms in Star Trek,
all of a sudden, it seems like.
—have come into our dimension and, unluckily, the place where they appear
is within the holodeck of Voyager, and the life forms that come through are
photonic lifeform who believe it is normal to be a lifeform made of light.
And so everything in the holodeck seems realistic to them.
And the organic life forms who insist they are real, seem completely
fake and unbelievable to them.
So this whole scenario of Dr.
Chaotica destroying the Captain Proton's planet like that is, they take
that at face value and go after Dr.
Chaotica who wages war on them with his Death Ray, and they start dying off.
The fictional characters on Voyagers, holodeck are waging war with these
real photonic life forms, and Voyager's crew is stuck in the middle
and needs to untangle the situation.
Doctor hologram to the rescue, or as he portrays himself, the President of Earth,
steps in and it explains a version of this that the photonic life forms can believe.
And then the big culmination of this is Janeway stepping into the role
of Queen Arachnia, the Spider Queen.
Uh, And yeah, there is that moment when uh, Tom Paris is laying this
all out where everyone looks to Seven because it seems obvious that she's
gonna be the seductive Spider Queen in the holodeck scenario, but for reasons
that are completely unexplained, Paris goes, no you gotta do this Janeway.
And she's up for it.
Rob: At first she isn't.
She has the double take at first going, oh no, no, no,
Kevin: No, no.
And, if you get into trouble, ma'am, you can always release the pheromones.
I beg your pardon?
It's it's very funny.
That scene or, or or couple of scenes where she is in the holodeck in her full
like Spider Queen outfit, it's something that is often referenced at conventions.
Kate Mulgrew talks about how much fun she had in that episode, and I think
I agree with you that this episode has taken on a larger than life presence
in fandom because of that reason.
And then when we go back and watch the actual episode, it's less than
we've made it out to be in our memory.
But it is still fun to see her play along with Dr.
Chaotica.
Rob: So much so, I wanna see more of it.
The joy of Our Man Bashir is seeing all our regular cast taken over
by these personalities, uh whether Russian spies or drug dealers or, all
this type of man of mystery, and they embrace it for most of the story.
Whereas with this, like I said, it's, 60%, how are we gonna solve this problem?
And sure, it's great to get a scene of Janeway walking in, having Neelix
talk in her ear and she goes, I can't talk until I get my coffee.
And the, the acting of Kate Mulgrew, as she takes that sip and
you see her literally change in front of you to go, alright, now
I'm ready to put up with Neelix.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: That's good.
But I want a full hour of black and white ridiculousness, full body
costume robots and Kate Mulgrew just chewing up every scene.
Kevin: Satan's robot is what they call it in this episode.
And it's funny because they never quite say, I hate you, robot.
But all of the acting that's going on in the scenes when the robot is
there says, I loathe this thing.
Like they, they repair the robot and then immediately the robot gets
itself in trouble and gets itself damaged and goes, Need repair.
Need repair.
And Tuvok and Paris who are in that scene, just very deliberately roll
their eyes and turn away from it.
Like you can repair yourself, you stupid robot.
Uh, It is very funny.
The funniest thing in this episode for me, I agree with you, was not in the holodeck.
It is when Tom Paris is explaining what's going on in the holodeck.
They're in the briefing room and Jane was like, so let me get this straight.
The photonic life forms this, and Dr.
Chaotica that, and now he's waging war on them with his army.
And Paris goes, yes ma'am.
Yes ma'am.
His army of evil.
Yes ma'am.
It is just, it is the perfect kind of self-conscious.
That they like, they just dip their toe into that.
There's another moment in the hallway way where Paris goes
And remember, you are the queen.
And it, it is like they take that one line to go, yes, we are
winking at the audience here.
But then we step back into taking this seriously which I felt like was missing
from Strange New Worlds, is they were way spending way more time over that line,
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: into unbelievability.
Rob: It's very much watching this episode has made me realize, of course
of all the cast of Voyager, of course it would be Tom Paris and Harry Kim
who create their own podcast to review every episode because the actors and
the characters are perfectly that.
Like the moment where he goes full nerd and goes, now remember it's not phaser,
it's called Laser Gun and nah, it's not called transporter, it's Energizer.
Nah.
Kevin: Yes, that's right.
Rob: That's why we need a moment where Boimler meets Paris, 'cause I think
they would just geek out together.
Kevin: Well, so we chose the exact same example of Camp Star Trek, and
I don't think there's anything that comes close to the Bride of Chaotica!
Rob: Not really.
I mean, 'cause I think Bride of Chaotica!, like you said, they returned
to this holosuite a bit in season five.
I think the first episode of season five is where they first
introduced that Paris goes into it.
'cause I think each season they have almost something new like season one when
they go to the holosuite, it's like that Parisian cafe type space that they go to.
And then they kind of go off on their own where Janeway is manipulating her program
to get the perfect man, lose the wife.
Um, but yeah, season five is the the Captain Proton season.
Kevin: The only other one that came to my mind was like from the original
series, season three, episode 20, The Way to Eden, which is the one with
the singing space hippies on board.
And I barely remember the plot of this episode, but it ends with the
space hippies finding the planet that they think is Eden, but it turns out
the fruit is corrosive and poisonous and the leader doesn't believe it.
He climbs a tree and eats one of these fruits and dies on the ground.
It's full of scenes of these hippies on the ship, singing songs in the rec room.
And it is unfortunately, quite cringey.
It's acknowledged to be one of the bad episodes of season
three of the original series.
So I would not class it among the other, these other examples of
like deliberately camp Star Trek.
I would say this is one of those episodes where Star Trek gets its bad
reputation of being camp inadvertently.
Rob: Yeah, a lot of people have called out uh, Trouble with
Tribbles as a little bit of a campy one just because of the inherent
Kevin: The lighthearted.
Rob: Yeah.
Um and we've mentioned it many times before, like baseball episode, Take
Me Out to the Holosuite is quite campy in some ways on Deep Space Nine.
So they are there.
But definitely Bride of Chaotica!
is the one that's leaned into.
And like you said, it's quite surprising, my memories of it, it
was more campy than it actually was.
Kevin: Certainly Dr.
Chaotica and his chewing of the scenery, that is camp at 11 and uh,
he pulls it off like the actor is playing 100% commitment and truth.
Rob: And the henchman as well is great as well.
The henchman
Kevin: The henchman with the helmet that's got room for two heads in.
It is,
Rob: yeah.
Kevin: hilarious.
Rob: So, Yeah, that's us going down the all singing, all dancing, all
camp approach to Star Trek this week.
I'm, I know there's a lot of people who loved it and um, great that Kevin
and I are seeing each other on the same page when it comes to this episode.
Yeah, sadly, not as memorable and a lot more disposable than we would've
hoped, but only one more episode to go.
Kevin: I know.
And it is, unlike every other episode this season, they like, they have
the cloak of secrecy around this one.
There has been very little pre announcing of stuff that will happen here.
I don't wanna say it out loud, but I feel it's pretty clear to me that Pike's
lady friend is gonna get eaten by a gorn.
Like those are the, those are the two dangling plot threads that I've got.
Way back in The Broken Circle, they had the Gorn ship crossing some line on a
map, and that has been left dangling.
So that's clearly to come back.
And her final scene with Pike this episode, I was sitting there
going, oh no, she's gonna die.
It was very much a, aren't we happy that we finally understand each other and
now we can start our lives together?
I've just got one important mission to go on first.
Bye.
And uh, yeah, she's not coming back, I don't think.
Rob: She is not coming back.
And she's great.
She's a really good character, really good actor.
But, things must be sacrificed in the story of Pike.
Kevin: Hey I forgot to mention regarding our hip hopping Klingons,
the captain of the Klingon ship was played by Bruce Horak.
Uh, Hemmer.
Rob: I didn't know that.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: Brought him back again, and this time as a Klingon.
Kevin: He could be the uh, the new Weyoun.
Rob: The new Jeffrey Coombs.
Kevin: Yes.
Rob: Yeah, yeah.
Coombs is there going, don't take my record, man.
Now before we finish up, I've got to, I've gotta bring something to light.
Last night I did something, 'cause I've been watching a lot of videos about the
history of star Trek and stuff like that.
So I went back and I did something that I said I would never watch again, Kevin.
Last night I watched Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Kevin: Why what, what, what possessed you?
Uh, I, I'm not complaining, but of all the times I have implored you to
go back and watch that amazing movie and, and you haven't done so, I'm
wondering what made you do it this time?
Rob: I've been watching these uh, series of retrospectives on Star Trek.
I'm watching them out of order.
So I watched like the Deep Space Nine one first and I'm
going back through the movies.
So I did them out of order.
So I did like Star Trek II first, then I did Star Trek V, then I did
Star Trek VI, and I did Star Trek III.
And just hearing about the process of making the film, shooting the
film, getting the finances for it, where it was within the banner of
things and how they referred to the Genesis Trilogy is a really solid
trilogy within the Star Trek films.
And that consistency we haven't really had within the Star Trek movies.
That is like the gold standard, Star Trek II, III, IV.
Yeah.
And all those little gags that we'd mentioned about how Uhura with the
young cadet wanting to be the adventure boy, and don't call me Tiny, and and
to see Christopher Lloyd again, 'cause I haven't watched it in so long.
And it was great to re-watch.
It's for a first time director of a motion picture, Nimoy it, the pace
just goes at an incredible rate.
Taking those moments to absorb the heavy hitting moments Shatner is in
wonderful form, does really well.
It's heartbreaking.
And the reaction shots of Jimmy Doohan and the other cast looking
at Kirk when he's lost David.
And it's such a, yeah, like it's not shown.
It's a messy, dirty, un heroic, but very heroic death.
And it's just what I remember.
And just his moment of just, he can't even take his boys' body with him.
And he has to leave it there and just cover it with his jacket.
And the final scene just had me in tears.
The final scene went in, like I'd seen, I've seen it a, a couple of times, but to
watch it now and to see just Spock with his mind back and him still trying and
he just turns around, takes off his hood and his scene with Kirk is just amazing.
Kevin: The ship out of danger uh,
Rob: Oh God.
Kevin: When they replay the lines, because the katra that was put in McCoy
is before Spock goes into the radiation chamber, the fact that he would have
the same questions with the same words when he is brought back to life.
I love that writing.
It is it is underwritten in such that subtle way that lets the
performances tell the story.
I agree that is a powerful ending.
Rob: And I knew it was, I knew it was coming, but I, it was interesting
to find out that they pretty much wrote backwards because they knew
that Spock's final line would be, or what the powerful line would be, Jim.
Your name is Jim.
And just watching Nimoy's face and just this is why I, he is incredible.
He just has so much going on.
He's not a robot.
You can see him trying to form and just the, cavalcade of
emotions he has across his face.
From that is just outstanding.
I was just bawling when he was just there going, everything that Kirk has lost,
we've talked about, and to see it again.
His ship gone, the ship that, you know, that Spock saved and the people that he
saved and loss of his son to do all that.
Just to get his, this more than a friend back.
And just and Bones's talk with him as well.
Yeah.
God, it's, yeah, it's powerful stuff.
It's great stuff.
And just the time they take at the end for the whole process
of the katra being swapped over.
So I know it's off topic, but it was very much a you are on my mind
as I was watching it late last night when I couldn't get to sleep.
I chucked it on
Kevin: Oh, very
Rob: and yeah, bawled myself into a state of catharsis.