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Matt and Sean talk about overstaying your welcome in Star Trek: The Original Series’, “Return to Tomorrow.” Omnipotent aliens, androids, and love triangles … oh my.
Matt and Sean talk about overstaying your welcome in Star Trek: The Original Series’, “Return to Tomorrow.” Omnipotent aliens, androids, and love triangles … oh my.
- (00:00) - - Intro
- (08:13) - - Viewer Feedback
- (10:33) - - Today's Episode
- (15:21) - - This Time in History
- (27:25) - - Episode Discussion
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Creators and Guests
What is Trek In Time?
Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.
In this episode of Trek In Time, we're talking about overstaying your welcome. That's right. We're talking about return to tomorrow from Star Trek the Original Series originally broadcast on February 9th, 1968. It's number 51 in shooting order, 49 in broadcast order, twentieth of the second season. Welcome everybody to Trek in Time where we're watching every episode of Star Trek in chronological stardate order.
And we're also taking a look at the world at the time of original broadcast, which means we're talking about the early 1968. We're talking about the early 1968. That doesn't make any sense. This is not how humans talk. Never has a human, walked into a room and said, uh, let's talk about the early 1968. And if they have done that, nobody in the room was like, oh, good finally. My apologies everybody, as apparently my brain is melting out of my ears. Who am I? If you are a new viewer or listener, wow, welcome. Yes.
Strap yourself in.
I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci-fi. I write some stuff for kids and with me as always, is my brother Matt. He is that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging Tech and its impact on our lives.
And yes. I said this, Matt and I record a separate podcast before we record this one, and in that recording I tried to say like, we try not to talk about the weather. People have complained that we talk about the weather, but it's July, 2025. It is hot. It is muggy. I'm in a basement. My dehumidifier is off.
It's uncomfortable. I hear.
Yeah. Sean is struggling.
For anybody watching on YouTube, you can see the ggl, the glisten, the glisten of my five head. We are, we're in, we're in the dog days here. It's not even August yet. So, uh, that's where I am. Matt, where are you? A soundproof, air conditioned studio. Is that what you say?
Oh, you say you're in an air conditioned soundproof studio with all sorts of do hickeys and gadgets, and here I am. I'm literally sitting in front of my back door. See that thing? That, that right there. That's my biggest fan. And I don't mean somebody who enjoys my work. I mean, literally it's a fan with propellers.
That's what I have. Yeah. I got some sneakers back by the door in case I go in the backyard to kill Lantern flies. Welcome to New York City, everybody. Alright. Alright, I'm taking, I've, I'm also wearing a boot because I have a arch problem. I'm taking the boot off because I'm too hot. Too hot. It's too hot isn't it?
I think I just channeled nobody outside of Matthew will understand this. I think I'm channeling our uncle. Yes, you are.
Oh man, Sean heel spurs.
That's all. Oh God. Nobody will get that reference except for me. Sean, this isn't enough. More out. You exhaust.
Yes. This intro, Sean, was quite the rollercoaster.
I hope everybody has enjoyed it as much as I have.
Yes. So, well I, I think in all the hullabaloo. Which is a term I don't think that gets used often enough anymore, I think in all of the hullabaloo. Uh, my question to Matt just floated right by Matt, how are you?
I'm doing great. I'm
I'm doing better than you're Sean, apparently.
Quick tangent. The new season of Foundation started. I don't know if you've watched that show on Apple TV Plus.
I have watched that show. I watched the first season. I did not watch the second, is this the third season now?
Third season. The first season's a little slow. Mm-hmm. Second season I think is way better than the first.
Mm-hmm. And this third season has kind of like, it's like, okay, this is pretty cool. I love where this is going. I don't understand how this show is made. Full stop. It looks like a movie.
Hmm.
Every single episode, it looks like every episode probably costs $200 million to make. I don't know how this show exists.
I just love the fact it does, so I just wanted to throw that out there. If you like hard sci-fi, that looks like a movie. Just watch Foundation. That's all I, that's all I'll say.
I'll throw, uh, we normally do this in Out of Time, which is our spinoff podcast from this, and in out of time it's for subscribers, uh, direct supporters, and in Out of Time we talk about things outside the context of Star Trek.
We talk about other things we're enjoying. So I will throw out something that I enjoyed, which I think is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Foundation, which, you know, the Foundation being a TV series, which is trying to do effectively hard sci-fi that is so far in the future, it effectively looks like magic.
Uh mm-hmm. And, you know, sprawling long epic. And at the other end of the spectrum, I saw the new Superman movie. I'm seeing it next week and you'd like it. It is a hell of a lot of fun. It is a terrific throwback ride in two different ways for me. One is if you close your eyes and say to yourself, this is a sequel to the very first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve.
Mm-hmm. It works. I think it's a better sequel to that movie than Superman two.
Oh, that's heresy. Heresy Sean.
It is spiritually. It spiritually feels like you are watching a natural leap forward in, as they say at the beginning of the movie. They fast forward through like his origin story, they, it's literally bits of text on the screen that say, here's what happened, here's what happened next.
Here's what happened three years ago. Here's what happened three months ago. Here's what happened three weeks ago. Go, here's the movie. So it's like Superman showed up three years ago, and if you think of Christopher Reeve Superman as that three years ago, this makes sense as the follow up. It is understandably contextually a jump forward in decades worth of time because the Daily planet is not depicted as a 1940s style newspaper.
It's depicted as a modern media network. You know, it's, um, they're posting things to the web, you know, so it's not like it's archaic. But that is in place spiritually. I felt like, oh my gosh. James Gunn is really tapped into that. The other thing is James Gunn is about my age, and as I'm watching this movie, I'm like James Gunn and I have the same comic book collection because what he is putting on the screen is beautiful rendering of 1980s, nine early nineties DC comics, and what a breath of fresh air.
Optimistic, fun audience. Full theater had a fantastic time. Uh, and for me, one of the most unintentionally funny moments of the entire thing was when Nathan Fillion appeared on screen for the first time and you could hear all the women of a certain age go, oh,
and then all the men who had accompanied those women go. And it was very funny as the audience responded with, uh, very specific responses to his appearance in, in the movie. Wonderful, wonderful movie. Very happy to have seen it, and I hope it does really, really well because it's a good launching off point for the reboot of the DC Universe.
So I'll leave it at that. Before we get into our conversation about this episode this week, we always like to take a look at what you've had to say in our previous episode. So Matt, what did you find in the mailbag for us this week?
Well, from by any other name, the last episode we talked about. Mark Loveless chimed in and said, 'cause we had talked about how show was a little uneven, first half was better than the second half.
Well, Mark said as the second half was a bit sketchy. But overall, this is a great episode. Scotty and his drinking made the second half worth it. Remember I had said. Does Scotty have a drinking problem? Yes. The way he's squirreling away all that booze. Also note, I took the hidden liquor bottles as more of a hoarding of bottles for those long journeys so that other crew members don't steal them, not signs of an alcoholic.
And having that old bottle of scotch whiskey hidden in the old Scottish armor was handling that. Don't steal this attitude, but emphasized the sacred nature of this particular bottle for Scotty as well. Yeah. To which Dan Sims replied. A real alchy wouldn't let what looked like a decade of dust form on that bottle of scotch, it would be long gone.
Yeah. Fair points guys. Fair points. I agree. And then also, uh, this one just made me laugh. FRBR radio wrote, and once again, the day is saved by Kirk's dot dot dot. Yes.
Yep.
Yes. It's sadly yes. And then for wrong answers only, sorry, Mark, it's not yours, but yours is fantastic. If you wanna read a funny alternate universe, Mark has a great one.
But PaleGhost 69 wrote, Return to Tomorrow is about time loop aboard the Enterprise. But the twist is that we aren't repeating days. We never go get to tomorrow. Every time we do it mysteriously becomes today, and today it became yesterday. It's all one sick twisted loop that's slowly driving me. Wait, hold on.
I've just been told that this is actually just normal time and English is weird. See you next Friday. See you next Friday? Or is it this Friday? Oh no, I thought this was,
that's pretty good.
Well done.
Yeah, well, well done. Thank you for that. That noise, you hear those flashing lights you see? That's not you returning to tomorrow. That is the read alert. It's time for Matt to tackle the Wikipedia description, and I think you'll enjoy the glaring omission of the very first sentence. Take it away, Matt. Okay.
Telepathic aliens take control of Kirk and Spock's bodies with the intention to build new mechanized bodies for themselves. After receiving a distress signal from a planet deep in the galaxy and far from the wait. What? I'm confused, Sean already.
After receiving a distress signal from a planet deep in the galaxy and far from the last charted area, the enterprise is contacted by a life form of pure energy that wishes Kirk Spock, Dr. Mulhall, and Bones to beam down. They meet Sargon, a cons, A conscious mind trapped in a machine. Sargon explains that their civilization traveled space just like Kirk centuries ago and left people in various star systems to colonize.
But this planet suffered war, a war where all but a few people were destroyed themselves. Sargon, his wife and another remain alive like this, and wish to take control of Kirk, Spock and Dr. Mulhall's bodies to make Android bodies for themselves. We already established that, thank you very much for saying that twice. The Enterprise accepts their offer after deliberation and Sargon begins work. To allow the body to sustain this transformation, Henock, yes, a third alien, thanks for introducing him, right at the end, makes a potion. Potion? What is up with this description. This isn't magic. They're not for a cauldron making this stuff. Makes a potion to help but has other plans. Sargon divides.
You have to read that grammatically. You have to read that the way the grammar says it, to allow the body to sustain this transformation.
Henock, the third alien makes a potion to help but has other plans.
Sargon devizes a plan to destroy him, apologizes to the Enterprise, and accepts their fate, thereby ceasing to exist. This is one of the worst descriptions we've ever read. Yeah. Wow, man. My favorite.
It feels like it was written by 20 people who don't know how to write sentences.
It sounds like it was written by 20 people who were fist fighting while they wrote it. No, the comment goes there. Jack. Uh, my favorite part, Sargon Sargon devises a plan to destroy him. Who's the him? Apologizes to the Enterprise. Not the people to ship. Yeah, not the people. Doesn't apologize to the crew.
Doesn't apologize to Kirk. Hey, Enterprise. Sorry about that, as he's, as he's rubbing the console. Yeah. I'm so sorry, baby. Really, really sorry about this baby. I'm so
sorry.
You're one tall drink of water Ship. Return to tomorrow from season two, episode 20, directed by Ralph Senensky, written by John T. Dugan, originally aired on February 9th, 1968.
Get ready for some surprising cast information here Matt. One of the things we will have noticed is amongst the original crew, we see long time missing. Doesn't really have much to do in this episode, but he is there. Yes, it's George Takei back as Sulu. He is on again, off again in season two because of filming The Green Berets appears to possibly be over with just a handful of episodes left in the season.
Who else is here? Well, we get Diana Muldaur, who is playing Dr. Ann Mulhall. And if you're thinking there's something about that face that's familiar, why yes, she is in an episode of season three. No, it's not just that. Yes, it's Dr. Pulaski. Here she is in all her glory. We'll talk about her in more detail. She gets a lot of flack for being Dr. Pulaski, but mm-hmm. She's quite a fine actress and she had quite an impressive career. We also have Cindy Lou as the nurse and find it Interesting. The Cindy Lou. Sounds like she's a Cindy Lou who? Yeah. Yeah. We have Frank DaVinci as Lieutenant Brent, Eddie Pasky as Lieutenant Leslie, William Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley and the Android.
So William Blackburn not only got to wear a red shirt uniform, but also got to lie naked on the table. All greased up. Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemley, and this came as a surprise to me. The voice of Sargon was James Doohan. Did not notice, did not know. I thought that was pretty surprising. Original Air date, February 9th, 1968.
What was the world like at the time of original broadcast? Well, we were talking about this song last week and we're talking about it again this week. Love is Blue by Paul Marette. It was a popular song for about six weeks at number one on the charts. Take it away, Matt, as always a shocking, shocking recreation of the original. And last week we were talking about, look, who's coming to dinner at the number one spot in theaters this week? Well, why don't we go back to Valley of the Dolls? Yes, let's watch that movie about barbituate addiction in Hollywood in the 1960s. That sounds like a good time. And on television we've been talking about a variety of different shows.
Normally what we do is we talk about shows in the rankings of the most popular programs on the air, but a lot of the shows in season two, we already explored in season one. As a result, I started doing deeper dives, looking for interesting angles of programming and how they compared to Star Trek's acceptance, which while it had a pretty stable audience, it was not a big audience in comparison to the number one program of 1968, which was the Andrew Griffith show at a 27.6 in the Nielsen ratings. Star Trek in season two was bouncing along at about an 11.6, so quite a bit lower in the in the ratings. And instead of focusing in on a program from 1968, I ended up stumbling onto a show from 1969, almost a year to the day. After the episode that we're gonna be talking about was a program called Turn On.
This is a program like some of the other programs that we've talked about recently I had never, ever heard of, and it has two episodes that are available on YouTube. What drew my attention to this one is the fact that it was canceled by certain affiliates of ABC. Within the first 15 minutes of it being broadcast, whoa, whoa.
Its second episode was not aired. They had scripts and apparently some recordings of episodes that just never went anywhere because the show was put on hold. It replaced Peyton Place. It broadcast one episode. Was taken off the air during the show in some places, particularly in Ohio. The following week, the network moved the Wednesday night movie, half an hour earlier to replace it, and then by the end of that second week it was fully canceled.
Turn On is an American surreal sketch comedy series created by Digby Wolf and George Schlater that aired once on ABC on Wednesday, February 5th, 1969. Only one episode was shown partially before being pulled from ABC's airing schedule, leaving another episode unaired. The show has since been considered one of the most infamous flops in TV history with significantly low initial ratings and negative critical reception.
Turn on Soul, Turn On's sole Broadcast episode replaced the Wednesday episode of Peyton Place. A fact referenced in the show itself where in the opening Tim Conway, who is the guest host for that week, refers to the show as Peyton replace among the cast, were Theresa Graves, who would join Laugh in later that fall.
Hamilton Camp, Chuck McCann. The writing staff included Albert Brooks. The guest host for the first episode was Tim Conway, who also participated in sketches, Schlater, and Ed Friendly, who had previously been producers of Rowan and Martin's Laughin were contracted by Bristol Myers to develop the show and provided it to ABC for a projected 13 week run.
After it was rejected by NBC and CBS. Laughin had become a highly rated sketch comedy show a year earlier. It very quickly became very, very popular. This show, and I encourage you to look for it on YouTube. Do you watch it? I watched about half of it. I watched about half of it, and then you and I were like, oh, it's time to start recording, so I'm gonna go finish it.
My thumbnail review of it is, I don't know what people thought was so offensive about it, but I think that certain cases, certain ways, it was ahead of its time, and I will admit to being shocked that it was not rebooted by MTV during the eighties when they were doing everything they could to grab old vintage television and reawaken interest in it. MTV at that point was airing Laughin. They were airing the monkeys. I can't believe that they didn't go to somebody and say, let's bring turn on back. Because the setup of this feels like a sketch comedy version of liquid television. Okay? It starts with two. The entire set is nothing but a gigantic white room.
There are no sets. It is just a white expanse, and in the first episode, it starts with a giant computer in the middle of this giant expanse, and two engineers walk up to it and say, well, we've gotta use this computer to program the TV show. So let's get down to it. It is supposed to be a computer simulation.
The sound of Moog synthesizer sci-fi sound effects burs in the background of most scenes. The jokes are laugh in style, rapid fire. Nothing is longer than I would say 25 to 30 seconds. Most everything is set up, punchline, go. Next thing there are setups to certain jokes, which is done 24 style, where the frame of the television.
Turns into four comic book style panels. It starts in one. It moves to the next one. It moves to the next one. Punchline In the last one, it is weirdly jarring to look at. It sounds like Sesame Street for a sketch comedy show it. It feels like you're watching something that is of that vein. There is a tone of, well, this is just laughing.
This is just. Rapid fire jokes. This is just liquid television. This is just as you mentioned, Sesame Street, Electric Company. Mm-hmm. This is, and one of the things about it that was pushed back upon by the affiliates who didn't want to air it is they said it was crude. It does focus on sex as a major component of the humor, the, the name of the show, Sean.
Just the name of the show, but it is not in my memory any different than laughin in the way Laughin pushed sex in part of its humor, and it certainly isn't any more off color than any of the like Dean Martin style roasts, which like. The humor of all of those, which was very popular at this time.
But Sean, this the packaging.
It's the packaging. Laughin, doesn't say it's about sex, wink, wink. It's like the name of the show is Turn On. Like it is straight in. Yeah. We're the entire show's packaging is sex. Yeah. I think that probably was just enough to get people calling into the affiliates going, what is this smut?
Yeah. So if you have any interest in television history and you're interested in looking for this, yeah.
It's easy to find on YouTube. Just look up, turn on full episode. The producer, George Schlater is. It's his YouTube channel that you will find it on, and it's him introducing the episode and saying, here's this show. We were very proud of it, and it had a lot of interest. The sponsors of the first episode included buffering aspirin.
Mm-hmm.AT&T. Like this. Like this was not something that somehow snuck past everybody. This had major interest as far as like a show that could be a hit, and then it just hit the wall. Culturally, for whatever reason at that moment and was canceled before it had even finished its first episode. I found that to be a very interesting nugget of television history, and in the news on this day, February 9th, 1968, some news articles that include President Johnson asking for 3.4 billion more in aid for international aid.
He's trying to send help to South Korea. And other nations that are trying to rebuild as a result of conflict internationally. There's the ongoing echo of the Ted Offensive, which we've talked about, which happened at the end of January, 1968. There is a article about 56 Marines dying in battles in a northern sector.
And beneath that, a analysis, which I find darkly funny. An analysis of the Ted Offensive with the headline War ending victory seen as aim of enemy's drive. I mean, isn't that the point of every battle? Let's see if we can't undo win this thing, enemy's ability to, yeah, win this war and win it ourselves.
Meanwhile, there is the discussion in New York City around a garbage strike. The mediator's garbage strike offer promptly rejected by the Mayor, Union later accepts proposals. This is a moment which looking back from our perspective, is the moment that Mayor Lindsey stopped being an effective mayor from New York.
Because Governor Rockefeller came in, took over negotiations and reading the article connected to this headline. It is the mayor showed up at the governor's office before 9:00 AM, sat down and talked to him for about 20 minutes, then went to another floor in the governor office building where he waited for information that was being brought to him from the governor's office.
And then by the end of the day, as the news was, was declaring what the governor had achieved. Lindsay was at home watching it on television as well. This is a moment in politics where the mayor of New York City goes to Albany, has his legs cut off, and then goes back to New York City to basically be demonstrated as being powerless. I find that just in the history of the city and in the history of politics to be an interesting moment. So a little bit about how power can be used in subtle ways. The governor stepping in to work with a union, cutting the legs out from underneath the mayor. On now to our discussion about this episode.
As Matt read in the Wikipedia description, this is. I've literally lost count. Matt. Episode number X of the crew meets a vastly superior alien life form.
Mm-hmm.
And then has to figure out how to deal with their powers, their omnipotence, their ability to do whatever they want. Yep. When you put it those ways, it really makes you, something happened that allowed that to feel fresh and new when it turned into Q.
By the time we got to the Next Generation and Q was introduced and everybody was just like, yeah, oh, this is fun. Like what happened? Because at this point, season two, it feels like every week has just been, oh, here's another vastly imp, vastly more advanced alien being that can do whatever it wants. Uh, the breath of fresh air in the midst of all this was the giant amoeba, and that was just like a single celled organism.
So, keeping in mind that we've, we've seen this now multiple times this season, including the last episode we talked about. Which was, here are these beings. They're stealing the Enterprise 'cause they want to take it back to their home planet and another galaxy and inform everybody there, Hey, we found a great place to invade. This time, it's not the same actions that are gonna be taken, but it's effectively the same dilemma.
These beings are more impressive than we are. Yeah. So my question to you, Matt, is did this one land better or worse than some of the other similar moments we've had? Where you here comes the omniscient, omnipotent being right, and how will we get out from underneath its foot? Did this one land better or worse than the previous ones?
I feel like you're leading me. No,
no, not at all. It is a legitimate question. I am not trying to lead you in any way.
I recognize that this is a trope they keep doing again and again. But for this one, I liked it. I thought it was, it didn't feel dated to me personally. I thought it, it worked, and the reason it worked was yes, these are super powerful beings.
But they were constrained in a very unique way that they haven't done before. Right. And there was also the aspect of here's these super advanced beings that have evolved beyond needing bodies, and they've gone beyond, but they're trapped inside these orbs and they want to take, some of them wanna take control of human bodies and become basically flesh and blood again.
That was interesting 'cause it raises the question of like, what does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be, you know, sentient and what does it mean, you know, like w is, is, is this ethically or morally wrong for them to do? It's like, it's all those kind of questions. It's raising and swirling around to me I thought was interesting 'cause it wasn't something that they have explored directly before, even though it's repeating the same basic trope of super powerful being.
Can do whatever they want with the crew. Mainly because it was like Sargon, which all I kept thinking every time they said his name was Sargon, take me away. Um, Sargon. I liked the idea of Sargon recognizes with great power comes great responsibility and it's a wrong thing for them to do certain things.
And they're building these Android bodies, all that kind of stuff. And then there's this other side of it, which is, I can't remember the other character's name, but he was the one that was just like, Hey, let's take these bodies. We're basically gods, let's just do it anyway. And it was a kind of a fun way to kind of explore this is why the species died.
Like we're, it's just like their, their sins are perpetuating forward and continuing. And so this is why it didn't bother me, because it was a fun exploration to see, to learn about this alien species, learn a little bit about their history, and learn why they did what they did. Why they're continuing to make the same mistake again and again.
It's kind of like a, trying to teach us like, don't repeat your past mistakes again and again. Right. You gotta learn from those mistakes. So there was, there was a, like a, a lesson that came outta this one that was I think told in a stronger way than some of the previous episodes that have just done this trope again and again.
So for me, this felt interesting, fresh, kept me engaged. I even have a note that was like, this is the kind of story I like on Star Trek, and it wasn't specific about this trope. It was more about the, I like the heady episodes, you know what I mean? Like yeah. Not the, you know, PPPP, like kind of running around doing really bad, you know, karate chops and stuff like that, even though it's fun.
I tend to enjoy the ones that are ethical and moral dilemmas. You know, drumhead, you know, those kind of episodes. It's like, I love the episodes that are dealing with weighty issues. There are four lights, you know, those really get me going. And so this was in that vein, and I think that's part of the reason why I liked it.
On now to my discussion about this episode.
I, I agree with everything you've said about this one. For me, it did feel a little. It felt a little old simply because we've had the concept of Yeah. And I, of, of greater beings showing up again and again and again. And to me it, it was just a little bit of like maybe just plot weariness while recognizing, I think of all of them, this is one of the better done and some of the things that stood out for me first, uh, Diana Muldaur.
Whether you like or don't like, um, Dr. Pulaski, when she returned to Next Generation, and in approximately 17 years, we'll get to Next Generation and we'll start talking about those episodes. And I say that jokingly, but we're actually not that far away. We're like, we're not that far. We're like a little more than a year probably.
Um, it's probably about a year.
Yep. Yeah. So a year from now, tune back in and find out how we feel about season one of Next Generation. But anyway, whether you like her as Pulaski or not, is more of a question I've always thought, not of her as an actress, but of the writing around the character. And her success in her career.
She was an Emmy nominated actress. She was in, she had a long, long list of shows that she had appeared in. Very, um, highly respected actress in Hollywood. And so I, I think that she is one of the standouts for me in this episode of how good she is, like Shatner at depicting and I, and I like Shatner's acting in this one as well.
Mm-hmm. Between him being the captain of the Enterprise and recognizing I want to help these beings, and he depicts those two beings that are within the body, in ways that are subtly different and when she goes through the same transformation and goes from being a subordinate to Kirk to being the wife of Sargon.
Mm-hmm. It is some wonderful acting on their part. There's also, for me, one of the standout moments in this episode is how easily malevolent and Leonard Nimoy does good job acting in this episode as well. A very different type of acting than we normally see from him in this program because he is fully showing all these different emotions, and it struck me how wonderfully, easily malevolent Spock becomes the moment he leers and smiles.
In the very first moment where his body is taken over, Hanock takes over his body and sits up and looks Nurse Chapel and says, well, you're beautiful. And does it in a way that you just like keep her away from him? Yes, exactly. Get away from that man.
Yeah.
Uh, and then later on, the simplicity of him, I, I actually really, really enjoyed.
Hanock gleefully giving away his entire plan to Chapel because he also knows he's going to mind wipe her and hypnotize her in like he's recognized. No. What this body can do. I liked that. No, I liked the, like, I'm going to the toy with the fact that these humans can't do anything to stop me. You didn't like that?
No, I that, that was one of my notes. I hated that scene. Hated it. Again, Sean, here's why. Yes, it was fun to watch him have that power and abuse it, but at the same time, it's kinda like you're only doing this to tell me the viewer what's actually happening, and it makes me feel like you think I'm stupid and can't pick up on what you're putting down.
And so I found it kind of like offensive to me as a viewer. It comes across as writing and producing, like when TV shows and movies, explain it you like you're an idiot. Of what? What's happening? I gotta put it right in front of your face. I'm gonna turn everybody upside down and kill the captain. It's like it was obvious before he even spoke a word that this guy is different.
This guy has something going on. And it was good acting from Leonard Nimoy. 'cause like you picked up immediately, like this guy's got some shenanigans going on. He's not, he's not liking what Sargon is putting down. Sargon is not gonna take him away. And it was like very clear that there's a tension there.
Yeah. And, and because of that, it was like, why are you like explaining to me like I'm a 2-year-old, like in the face? So it's like, it wasn't necessarily, it didn't feel natural to the character in that moment. It felt as an exposition dump to the viewer to understand the danger. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. So it's like I do
get what you mean. Yeah. I think it might have been a byproduct of, I think it might have been a byproduct of two things. One thing that I think is about the broadcast itself, and one thing that is to my mind a weakness of the episode, which is I think that they were aware of the fact that they were having to kind of spoonfeed part of the audience.
'cause this is on Friday nights at 10. Or Friday nights at eight. So I think that they, but there's, I think that they were, I think it's the remnants of something we've mentioned before, which is sometimes the episodes feel like they don't know whether they're treating it as an audience of adults or an audience of children.
And I feel like that is a nugget of, part of our audience might not get this, and so they kind of talk down to the audience in that moment. I don't disagree that it is talking down. I though also had enjoyment of the kind of mustache twirling element from Yeah, yeah. Hanock at that moment I was like, I was like, oh, it kind of like, he's like a cat and mouse game.
He is relishing his power, and I could lean into that. But the other part of it that I think connects to what you mentioned is they talk about. When it came to saving the last of us, we saved those. We saved some from each side. And I'm like, what? Why? Like it's, they've saved somebody from the opposite side of a conflict.
And I was sitting there thinking, okay, what was the conflict about? And yeah. Why would you save somebody from the other side? It felt very cloudy and it felt disingenuine, and it was like, I found myself thinking, wouldn't there have been greater, uh, dramatic tension to come out of? We all did this because the war was destroying the entire planet and our side won, but we had the disastrous result.
That meant we had to trap ourselves in these orbs, and my lieutenant is one of my most trusted advisors, and then have that trusted advisor turn malevolent. Yes. Yes. I think there's more dramatic tension there as opposed to a very weird, like, we decided to save people from both sides and the only ones left other than me are my wife and my enemy, and so let's bring them both out and put them both into bodies.
And it just like, but you're what?
You, you're kind of hitting on why I didn't like that scene with. When he's laying on his plans. That's my point is like, it was, it was the mustache pulling aspect of it was like it felt tacked on, but at the same time, if you take that scene out, what I took away from when they first went down into the cavern and they, he showed them all the orbs, Sargon, showed all the orbs and explained some of it.
I took it at as this, this division basically destroyed their species and there were so few of them left. It didn't matter who they were, they're saving them all. And they all kind of were in agreement of like, oops, well we gotta, you know, save ourselves in some fashion. And so that's why they did it. And so it was kind of like a, we're the three last ones in existence.
We gotta resurrect 'em all. So it's like. To me, it didn't bother me as much as it did you. 'cause in my head, I made connections that made it work. But that mustache twirling scene with with Spock, right? It's just like, oh, come on. Why? Why would you resurrect this guy? Yeah. If he's this, if he's this evil, you would know that he's this evil.
Come on.
Yeah. Yeah. And it felt a little bit like, they're so advanced and they try to play with the idea of that, oh, they could only, they needed everybody to do these things, to build these robot bodies, but it seems like Sargon and his wife could have done all of that by themselves and or just Sargon and it's never Yeah, or just Sargon.
And it's, and it's like, and the idea that, okay, well Henoch has to make the potion as the Wikipedia description calls it, the serum. Like, uh, like, okay, like so is it. It just feels very kind of loose as to why there mm-hmm. Have to be three of them, but there have to be three of them for there to be this tension and this conflict and the relationship.
And I will also say that Muldaur's depiction of the conflicted version of this type of being, I thought was well rendered. She's got this moment of. Let's talk about the scene in which she tortures McCoy, and that's her turning point. Mm-hmm. Of like, oh my God, what have I done? And I felt like that moment, the simplicity of it, really stands out as the kind of, you mentioned you like it when Star Trek gets heady and I feel like this is the moment where.
Star Trek is demonstrating this episode is demonstrating that Star Trek is not only heady, but is really deft at its playing with ethics and morality and this scene where she tortures McCoy is such a simple way of demonstrating how ultimate power can corrupt ultimately. It's absolute power can corrupt absolutely. She could do anything she wants. In that moment, that anger toward this lesser being turns into torturing it. It's a little bit like if the scene was a pet owner coming home and being upset at what their pet has done and then abusing the pet as a result. Mm-hmm. And I found it extremely powerful and it's rendered in such a simple way.
And it's ultimately just like some superimposed lights Yeah. On the screen, and DeForrest Kelly writhing. But I found it very, very effective. In the same way as like the torture booths that have been depicted Yes. In the mirror universe. Like, yes, the simplicity of, of showing somebody using their power in that way, and then second guessing themselves to demonstrate holy cow, the, the pivot moment for her.
A similar thing happens later on when. They trick Henock in another scene I liked very much. Where Henock in Spock's body goes to the bridge is absolutely in control. It's his ship now, but they convince everybody that this toxin will kill Spock, and as a result, Henock flees the body. And it's the mirror version of the torture scene because yes, they were not going to kill anybody, but they knew they needed to convince Henock of that. So how did you feel about that depiction of like how you measure morality in those moments with these two extremes? One is we're gonna pretend to kill, but we're just gonna put to sleep.
And the other being in a flash of a moment, I'm hurting you. And realizing that moment, how terrible that makes me as a yardstick for measuring the ethics of these characters.
It was, this is part Sean, this is why I like this episode. This is the heady side of this is why I liked it. There's another scene I'd wanna add to the ones that you just highlighted.
Mm-hmm. And it's the scene where they're, they're in the ready room. Kirk is making his sales pitch for why they need to help these species. Mm-hmm. And Bones is saying, are you nuts? And Kirk is saying, I'm only gonna do this if all of you agree. We all have to agree. Yeah. That scene was like, that felt like that belonged a Next Generation card.
You know what I mean? It felt. Like that to me, and it was like this, this entire debate is fantastic. It's like they're hitting it from every angle. They're talking about it all from these really ethical, philosophical points of view. You can tell that Bones is, he gets the, he gets the sales pitch. He doesn't like it.
He'll go along with it, but he doesn't like it, but he gets it. Yeah. And so it's like, it was just this wonderful scene that kind of pulls you along and so these other scenes that you just brought up, they perpetuate that. They keep it going. They're dealing with the ethical dilemma behind absolute power corrupts Absolutely.
And having to, how do you trick a being like this? Well, we have to believe it ourselves to make him believe it. It's like all of those, like machinations and discussions. Again, this is what I love about Star Trek. And so yes, it's a trope that they've overused this season and they need to stop, but it's one of those, they did it well.
It was like there were such really good scenes in here that were like meaty and performed well and worked well, that it made up for the deficiencies of the trope and deficiencies of some of these mustache twirling scenes and sequences.
Yeah. One quick comment before we close out the episode. I found the depiction of the Android lying on the table very reminiscent of Data.
Yes, because the previous androids that we've seen, like what are little girls, what little girls are made of is, uh, androids that look identical to humans or the one where they find Mudd's planet. And it is populated by all these various Android women that Mudd has designed himself, and they all look like real people.
Here we have a glistening, it looks kind of wet, synthetic looking humanoid that is being built by the powerful aliens and I find myself thinking like, wow, this looks like they're building Data. And I found myself really compelled by that thinking
or, or Data is building his, his child. Remember that episode?
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, get reminded of that. You know, that too. There is one last thing I wanna bring up about this episode. Yeah. That was just again, one of those, God bless you Strange New Worlds. Spock inside of sh uh, nurse Chapels brain. Yeah. They stashed him away in Nurse Chapel to protect him during all this subterfuge.
And then when he comes back out, the whole understanding between the two of them, because they have basically shared a body. Yeah. And I was like, for the time, no strange new worlds, just this, this show. It's like, oh, that's, that's cool. She's got a crush on 'em and like this is gonna strengthen that bond.
That's really, that's kind of sweet. Yeah. And it's kind of nice that they had this little moment, but then it's like the depth of this with the history that we know from Strange New Worlds is just like, I was just like, oh hell yeah. That is. Yeah. Awesome.
So cool. Yeah, so as always. Please jump into the comments.
Let us know what you thought about our conversation. Was there anything about this episode that you thought we'd missed? Was there anything you were hoping we'd talk about and we didn't? Is there anything you have to say about Dr. Pulaski that can't wait until Star Trek Next Generation in a year and wrong answers only?
Well, we're not gonna do wrong answers only because we don't have a title for the next episode. And why don't we have a title for the next episode? You're wondering. Well, it's because. We've just in the midst of our conversation just now, we jumped online, we looked it up. Strange New Worlds is coming back this coming week, which means next week we're gonna be talking about the first episode of Season three of Strange New Worlds.
And we're gonna watch those episodes. And then when we're done with season three, we'll return to Patterns of Force, the Original Series. Season two. We hope you'll join us in examining Strange New Worlds and jumping into the conversation as close to live as we can possibly do it. Yep. It's gonna be fun.
Thank you so much everybody, for taking the time to watch or listen. We'll talk to you next time.