Rob: It's that time again.
Welcome back.
Welcome back to the Subspace Radio channel.
I am Rob.
Kevin: Coming through loud and clear.
Rob, it's Kevin here.
Rob: Yes.
Here on the intergalactic wireless, we are here to talk about another Star
Trek episode that has just dropped.
It is Lower Decks season three, episode six, "Hear All, Trust
Nothing" and, "O frabjous day!
Callooh!
Callay!"
as Lewis Carroll has said, they have dedicated an entire episode to the
greatest Star Trek series of all time.
Yes, the Cerritos has finally gone to Deep Space Nine.
Kevin: I feel a little ashamed making you introduce this episode
cuz I feel like you are going to do most of the talking as it is.
And rightly so.
You are by far the biggest Deep Space Nine fan here, though I acknowledge
its greatness and supremacy.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: This was an episode that caught me by surprise, even though— I'm very good
at watching trailers and then forgetting what I've seen, because as soon as uh,
Deep Space Nine appeared on the screen, I was like, Oh yeah, we're doing this.
Rob: Oh, yeah.
Kevin: The "continue circling" line was one that was in a trailer early
in the lead up to this season.
So I should have known it was coming,
Rob: It was a great cold opener, and it was one of the most Lower Decksian
cold openers I have ever seen.
It was pretty much just going, here's some Star Trek stuff.
Here's us commenting on it in a meta cool way.
Bang, welcome to Lower Decks.
Kevin: Yeah, exactly.
Rob: And yeah, just to have the classic music kick in as they,
got outta hyperspace into Deep Space Nine, it looked beautiful.
That glorious music from the first couple of seasons before they changed
it up and added a bit more oomph to it.
And yeah, classic gag of sort of like, yeah, just circle around
as if we're in awe of the pylons.
And then as they go past, the music comes and yes, the wormhole opens,
and then the poor ensign at the front going, Uh… Just go around
again and then buh-buh-buh-buhhh!
Great.
Kevin: I dare say that station has never looked better.
Deep Space Nine is one of the series of Star Trek that has
yet to be remastered for HD.
And so every time I watch it, I admit to myself the effects
looked better in my memory.
Rob: Yeah, it is the best that Deep Space Nine has looked, and sadly will ever look.
You know, from what we've heard, all the original footage and
stuff like that is lost to time.
So going back to the originals to update that and all this type of stuff,
it's a mess, and it'll never get done.
Kevin: Name your price.
I will pay it.
Rob: Oh, me too.
That is a price that I'll be willing to pay.
There's some glorious battle scenes in the later seasons that
would just kill to be updated.
But yes.
Our episode focuses on the Cerritos being dragged in for a trade negotiation
with a mercantile species – I love it when they use terminology like that
– from the Gamma Quadrant coming in.
The crew who were meant to be doing it, were looking after an emergency
of a brown hole and the captain says, that's not even a thing.
Hilarious.
Um, it's given to the Cerritos to deal with the negotiations and yes, what
better place to have trade negotiations and diplomatic chat at Deep Space Nine?
And look, right off the bat, it is great to come back to a place that is so iconic
within Star Trek, and they're doing okay.
Kira is looking after Deep Space Nine, working hard.
Quark's doing well.
The years have been good.
You know, Kira went through a lot of crap within her seven years on Deep
Space Nine, even beforehand as well.
And it ended in a heartbreaking way.
So to come back, couple of years later and, you know, she's working hard,
doing well, got the respect and it's a great place to come in when we come
back to a place that, especially for me, holds such a special place in my heart.
Kevin: I feel like they made a list of things that they
needed to do with this episode.
I feel like they wanted to reassure us that everyone is fine.
We knew Quark was doing great for himself as we saw his bars peppered across the
episodes of Star Trek Picard and beyond.
But seeing that he is still right back here on Terok Nor, where it
all started, still running his bar, still serving drinks to Morn
and trading barbs with Kira Nerys.
Everything is as it should be, reassuring to see it that way.
Rob: And it goes to show that the sacrifice that Sisko made and the whole
essence of what the show ended on, there is a positive spin to it, which is great.
You know, Star Trek is okay with being positive.
You hear me, Picard?
You hear me?
So yes.
Unlike our usual Lower Decks, instead of being an A plot, B
plot, we've got A, B, C, and D.
We've got four plots going on.
Kevin: There is an entire episode of Deep Space Nine buried inside
this episode of Lower Decks, and it all in half an hour somehow.
Rob: Beautifully well.
So we have all the different levels of this diplomatic meeting.
So you have the captain and the higher decks working on the negotiations.
You've then got the Lower Decks, Tendi and Rutherford working on transporting
the supplies from one ship to the other.
You've got Boimler just, working on his Dabo skills.
And you've got some crucial developments for Mariner with her finally meeting
the friends of her girlfriend.
A big step, big step in their relationship.
We've got Shaxs and, Kira reconnecting.
It's a great moment.
I haven't even mentioned the part when we finally see Deep Space Nine, the
first sight of it, and of course the Bajoran on the ship just goes, Urrr
Cardassian fascist architecture, rrrrrr!
Kevin: Yeah, it is amazing.
Like when they met and they knew each other, I went, Of
course they knew each other.
They're old war buddies.
Never even occurred to me like these obvious, satisfying connections.
Uh, so good.
Rob: And again, I'm finding out the hidden gem of this series, because
some of my favorite lines in the whole show are coming from the captain.
While Shaxs and Kira are trading, I saved you, I saved you.
The captain says in a beautiful tone.
Well, that I'm sure that was all very … rebellious.
Such an incredibly diplomatic way of going, well, this is
awkward, let's just move on,
Kevin: Yeah, the dry wit.
Rob: Tendi is in particularly fine form this episode.
Kevin: She is.
Getting to see the extra layer to Tendi.
Getting to see the extra layer to Rutherford last week.
It seems like this is the season of fleshing out the characters and
making them more than skin deep.
Rob: Yes, especially cuz Ruthford was so very much one note.
Oh no, he was two notes: shock and awe.
Kevin: Yes.
Rob: So much so that he's there going, Oh, Bajoran food court!
Oh, this!
Oh, gotta tone it down a bit.
Kevin: We had seen Tendi among her people previously when she and Mariner visited
an Orion colony to try and repair Dr.
T'Ana's scratching post last season.
And there was a bit of a, there was a something, there was a dynamic there.
It was obvious she was uncomfortable among her people.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: Also obvious that her people looked at her in a way that she didn't see
herself anymore, but it was not addressed.
And in this episode, I feel like we're closing that loop, now.
We're understanding a bit more of what the deal was there.
Rob: Definitely, definitely.
And her interacting with another Orion, uh, Mesk who is… He was very much a
creation of a bygone era of comedy.
Sorta like late nineties, early noughties type stuff.
He's very much had a sense of a character from like the American
Office or those frat squad type films, like Old School and stuff like that.
Kevin: We've seen, some Orions in the flesh, in Star Trek Discovery,
recently, in the far future.
And they cast actors in that— I don't know if they are wearing a prosthetic
or if they are just the square jawed football player sort of stature, but
it seems like they have decided that's what the modern interpretation of
a male Orion is, is intimidatingly large, ridiculously square jaw to the
point where you wonder if there's some CG enhancement of the jaw going on.
And that is represented delightfully in the animation here.
Rob: And with all this going on, you also have a rather intimate moment of
Mariner being taken out of her comfort zone and actually having to be in a
situation that she has no control over.
Kevin: Mm.
Rob: With another one of my favorite moments, when Jennifer appears, and all
three of them just go, Hiii, Jennifer.
Kevin: She appears out of Mariner's bunk as far as I can tell.
So apparently they have been bunking together in their hallway bunks.
She appears fully clothed, which is unusual for that
area of the ship, apparently.
Rob: Well, they, there's the one guy who shows you with just the towel…
Kevin: Yeah, that's right.
Rob: Barely a towel.
Like a hand flannel.
Kevin: So I love the cartoon version of the scandalous morning after of
like she just pops outta the bunk and everyone goes, Hi, Jennifer.
Rob: And then they're going, Oh, no, no, no, no.
You go and play with your girlfriend's friends.
And then she goes, I'm not bossy.
And all three of them, Rutherford, Tendi and Boimler just go Ha-ha-ha!
This is what endears me to Mariner even more.
She's great.
She's kickass.
She's amazing.
She knows everybody.
Of course she knows everybody.
But, you know, I don't like her being untouchable.
I love to see how she deals with this situation.
Kevin: So you like Mariner when she's having chunks torn out of
her by her well-meaning friends.
Rob: Diamonds are created when they're put under pressure.
And she has become a beautiful diamond, because we get to see her under pressure.
And, you know, when in doubt and they're losing oxygen and just phaser all of
Jennifer's friends, which is hilarious.
Kevin: The salon… a salon, right?
Rob: It is a salon.
They're making candles.
I love the moment when the girls are wanting to talk about Boimler, and she
goes, Yeah, I'm gonna need all of this and pours the entire glass of, I'm
assuming it's Romulan Ale or something,
Kevin: What kind of salon do you make candles in?
I mean, I know it's not supposed to make sense, but
Rob: What type of salon do you have a dance, an interpretive
dance called the Kobayashi Maroon?
Kevin: Random small thing that stood out to me, I think this is
the first time anyone in Star Trek history has ever pointed a phaser
at themselves on stun and fired.
Rob: Yeah, I can't remember seeing that in anything before.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: So the main thrust of the story is negotiating with the Karemma
who are very on edge, and if they don't get things exactly their way
they like to cause a bit of a fuss.
Kevin: This whole thing feels to me just like Quark's greatest hits.
Rob: And look, we can't go further without mentioning it is so great to have Nana
Visitor back as Kira and especially the legend, the icon, the myth, the man
himself, Armin Shimerman, to do Quark.
Some people are just born into roles.
It was just so great, even in animated form.
And he was in his prime Quark outfit, the patchwork jacket that he wears.
Kevin: Yeah, so amazing.
Rob: And yeah, just the level of performance.
I love Starfleet.
Kevin: I love nothing more than Quark pretending to be
humble for selfish reasons.
When he is behind the counter and Kira is like, Tell us about
your amazing bar franchise.
And he is like, Nope, no.
I, it's, it's fine.
I'd rather not, I'd rather not talk about…
Rob: I keep my trade secrets.
Kevin: So good.
Rob: So great.
So great.
We've got the special replicator.
And of course Ransom just goes, Couldn't you just use a replicator?
No, no, no.
Not the special ones we have.
Kevin: It's got algorithms.
Rob: Algorithms that he stole, of course.
Kevin: I love the reveal that it's just a cardboard cut-out pasted
on the front of their technology.
Rob: Which you kind of get the impression of going, that's just
something cardboard— of course it is.
Yeah, that's fine.
Kevin: The low tech deception.
Rob: He is kidnapped, he is gonna be taken into the Gamma quadrant.
Tendi, who was trapped on the ship with Rutherford and saves the day.
They turn to the Orion Mesk and go, All right, use all your pirating skills.
And he just crumbles under pressure.
He goes, I don't know, I've never pirated before.
And what's my favorite line?
I've never even been to Orion.
I'm from Cincinnati!
And Tendi's great, Are you freaking serious?
Kevin: I learned everything I know about Pirating from bad holonovels,
the one with the boobs on the cover.
Rob: That's just like classic early noughties type of flip around
comedy that you saw in a lot of the TV shows that were huge at that
time and the movies of the time.
And then Tendi is… Oh my Lord, my heart and my lower regions skipped a beat.
That was impressive stuff.
Like removing a tooth to use…
Kevin: It can remove teeth?!
Rob: Yeah.
You took the ship!
Kevin: And another like tick the box moment of our return to DS9 is seeing
the wormhole up close in all its glory.
And there's no better way to look at the wormhole than stuck
stationary in the opening while awaiting rescue by the station.
Rob: And I'm sure the prophets and Sisko were there with their opera
glasses and their popcorn watching going, This is a great show.
We haven't had a show…
Kevin: …applauding.
Slow clap.
Rob: My favorite shots of Deep Space Nine on the outside is when it's
actually a thriving space port.
Kevin: Bustling traffic.
Rob: Yeah, when there's ships coming and going.
It's very haunting and beautiful to see this lone station out in the middle of
nothing, but for me, it should always be a thriving base of people coming and going.
Kevin: And you get the impression it only, the only reason it, often wasn't
was just the cost of the practical effects that many models or mixing the
CG ships with the models of the station.
like that would always have been expensive at the time.
Rob: Exactly.
Kevin: They were limited in their ability to portray it that way.
Rob: And of course, one of my… one of my favorite moments is when Boimler's
winning Dabo over and over again, and the Ferengi comes up and goes,
Surprising for a man with a coin purse.
And he goes, Actually, it's clutch.
Kevin: Knocking down barriers left and…
Rob: Knocking down the, knocking down those walls.
So, yeah, for unfair reasons, this is just one of my favorite episodes.
Kevin: They can stop now.
They have done your favorite episode of Lower Decks.
Rob: That'll do pig.
That'll do.
How'd you find it?
Kevin: It was magnificent.
I said afterwards, my immediate review was I now want Deep
Space Nine, the animated series.
Rob: Yes,
Kevin: They've proven they can do it well.
Let's just bring 'em all back and tell some stories from between the stories.
Rob: Exactly.
So that led us to discussing, what would we talk about?
What has inspired
Kevin: The cold opening of this episode spoke to my heart, continue circling.
I circle that station all day, gazing at it beautifully.
I am a sucker for a great fly-by in Star Trek.
I appreciate the ships as much as I appreciate the characters and the stories.
Rob: There's not enough said about the design of ships that are very
unique to Star Trek, and also how they've evolved what Federation
tech looks like, what a Klingon ship compared to Cardassian ships as well.
So to have those long, slow, in awe of the pylons shots to see what
Cardassian technology looks like, and architecture, whether it is fascist
or not, is a fascinating sight to see.
Kevin: Yeah.
So as the Cerritos slowly orbits the station, I thought we could look back
on other times that we have been given a long, good look at a beautiful Starship
as it slow panned across the screen.
Rob: Oh yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, once again, I'd like to start at the beginning and work
our way towards the present day.
Rob: It's a very good place to start.
Kevin, are you going all the way back to the original?
Kevin: No, I will not.
And I think that is just a limitation of the technology
and the budgets of the time.
The Original Series, certainly the ship was iconic, but it was never beautiful.
It never took your breath away.
And so I will skip the Original Series.
You must have something from the movies though.
Rob: Are we thinking of the famous shot that everyone talks
about and everyone makes fun of from a certain Motion Picture?
Kevin: Yes.
Yes I am.
And that's not just shot.
That is 20 minutes of shots, my friend.
Rob: Well I just recently picked up on 4K the Director's Cut, and so
I've watched that and it was great to re-watch it again because even as a kid,
I loved Star Trek The Motion Picture cuz it didn't feel completely the,
you know, Star Trek II, where Nicholas Meyer just went, It's Navy in space.
It's Hornblower in space.
We're doing it, baby.
We're leaning into that.
Kevin: The Motion Picture was a step back to the original vision of Star Trek,
where they were back into the muted colors before the TV network asked them
to make it more colorful to sell TV sets.
Rob: Exactly.
But that concept of V'Ger being figured out to be Voyager, and so to have in the
23rd century, them talking about something from the 20th century, me as a young
sci-fi nerd went, Oh, that's so exciting.
Kevin: It's real.
It's the real thing.
Rob: That's a real thing.
That stuff I loved.
And of course there's the iconic, 20 minute sequence of, You haven't
seen this on the big screen.
Kevin: That's right.
So, for people who haven't seen the Motion Picture, it is a slow burn
at the start, as our characters are slowly pulled out of retirement and
reunited onboard the Enterprise.
And when Kirk, Admiral Kirk makes his way to the Enterprise, he is
ostensibly going there to tour the Enterprise being run by Decker, but
he comes on board and takes command.
Before he does though, he has Scotty fly him up there in a slow, looping path
around the ship that is in spacedock.
It is a good, long, sequence that is really designed to show off the
Enterprise in her newly reimagined form.
Rob: And her newly realized big screen adventure as well.
It really is that beautiful moment of going, We are not on the small screen.
This is a truly cinematic experience.
And even me watching it on my big screen here at home, I'm there
going, Ah, I want to see this Director's Cut on the big screen.
I want to see that 20 minutes, William Shatner just going, Yep, yep, again.
Let's go for it again and again, and again and every angle.
Kevin: Yeah, there's lots of shots of them just gazing at the
ship in pride and thinking, Yep.
It's a nice ship, isn't it?
What stands out to me is the scale of the ship.
This is the first time, ever, that the Enterprise looked huge.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: And the thing that makes the difference is what became
known as the Aztecing, which is the visible plating of the hull.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: The light plays over it, and it's not a uniform surface.
You can see the squares of metal that form the hull and they each reflect
light in a slightly different way.
The model makers manage to find some phosphorescent paint of slightly
different colors and they laboriously painted this thing in this pattern
that creates a sense of scale.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: It is that that takes my breath away more than anything else about
this, that it feels like a thing that hundreds of people could be inhabiting.
Rob: Oh, and especially with the new Directors Cut with the enhanced
special features, you see the scale of it so much more with the amount of
ships flying by or the people nearby.
And again, like we talked about last week about, this is the end point
of a journey that's taken years.
So like with one gag about Data going, You know, sometimes I envy you.
That's taken us years to get to that point.
But for this particular shot, this has taken years of those people who watched
the Original Series that was meant to be five seasons, only went for three,
but they stuck at it and they found it in syndication and they rallied
and they wanted this to come out.
And they had only seen this ship, this iconic ship, either as a
small little recreation, or on this small, crappy analog TV.
To finally see it on the big screen and go, this is the scale that we want.
This is what we can achieve.
Kevin: …how we imagined it all along.
Rob: Yeah, it's a beautiful shot and it's a beautiful statement
about we are here, we are relevant.
They're claiming the cinematic world for themselves.
Kevin: This sequence of the Enterprise being seen in dry dock and then
setting out amongst the stars was so good, they reused it in Star Trek II.
They cut down to a much more, uh, curt moment.
But just like in Star Trek I, Star Trek II begins by Kirk taking a shuttle
trip to the Enterprise, and, uh, then it heading out on its merry way.
And it's the exact same shots.
Rob: Yes.
Yes it is.
Kevin: So we won't revisit it the second time, but I'm not gonna take us far,
because I want to make another stop in Star Trek movie land with Star Trek III.
Rob: Oh, oh, the film that dare not speak Lloyd's name.
Kevin: This is in the good starting bit of Star Trek III, so you may wanna give it
another watch, at least up to this point.
Battered and bruised from their battle with Khan in Star Trek II, the start
of Star Trek III is the Enterprise limping home to space dock, with the
repairs completed and its side patched with metal panels on it, the new
cadet on the bridge asking if they're gonna get a parade when they get home.
But the shot that stands out to me here is, it goes from close up on the
Enterprise and pulls out as the Enterprise flies over the earth towards space
dock, this giant structure in space.
Rob: I can only imagine how huge that dock is.
They use it a lot in Star Trek III and IV it a lot as well.
And I think VI as well.
It's, yeah, epic.
Kevin: This zoom out from this ship that we now appreciate the scale of,
to see something that dwarfs it, to me was a moment of the world of Star
Trek and the Federation taking shape and you feeling for the first time
that the Enterprise is a small part of the Federation and Starfleet.
It's a tiny little dot dwarfed against the fleet assembled in earth orbit.
Those moments that make you feel small, when you're used to feeling large.
That is the sense I get from this shot.
As soon as my computer let me choose a desktop background, this shot
of the Enterprise flying towards Spacedock was my background for years.
Um, I love it.
Rob: Look at you.
You're tempting me to go back and do the thing that I never said I would do, and
I've got it on 4K, just sitting there.
Kevin: It's so good.
Rob: It's calling out.
Well, I'm gonna jump ahead to the very next film, Kevin.
As we all know, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,
Kevin: Is gonna be a flyby of a Klingon Bird of Prey?
Rob: It is not!
It is the welcome return, the final sequence, where Kirk has faced trial
for his insubordination to go save Spock, and Spock has stood by with
his crewmates, who have all been put on trial as well, which they are let
off because they saved the planet.
But Kirk is demoted from Admiral and back to the position he always
should be, the captain of a starship.
I love how the president, that old, bald, white haired man just delivers
the line, the captain of a starship.
And the beautiful sequence, all the crew are in the shuttle going
through Spacedock and they're going, Oh, it's gonna be this ship.
It's gonna be this ship.
Kevin: They fly towards the Excelsior and everyone grits their teeth…
Rob: Cuz Sulu goes I'm planning on Excelsior, and Scotty goes, Why
do you want that bucket of bolts?
And of course Kirk, in his magnanimous way, he goes, a ships a ship.
Aye captain, thy will be done.
And they go towards the Excelsior, which we've seen in
Star Trek III the previous film.
And it goes over, and the music crescendos, and there it is: a
completely rebuilt Enterprise.
Kevin: The reveal of the Enterprise A.
Rob: The Enterprise A.
Now this is before, well before we get to the era of the Chris Pine Star
Trek, where they destroy the Enterprise pretty much every frigging movie.
And this is a beautiful moment where the crew and us as an audience
look at this beautiful ship.
You look at it from below, above panning around all that beautiful stuff.
Yes, it's there.
It's the exact same design, but it's an all new ship and a beautiful line
from the man himself, William Shatner going, My friends, we've come home.
Kevin: I never thought of it this way before, but Star Trek III is the
movie where Spock comes back to life.
Star Trek IV is the movie where the Enterprise comes back to life.
Rob: And that's what the real Voyage Home is.
It's not the voyage home back to earth.
It's the voyage home back to the Enterprise because we've
been flying around in a Klingon ship for the entire movie.
Kevin: I'm gonna move us beyond these big budget, cinematic spectacles,
because of course when you've got a movie budget, you can make a ship look
amazing, but do it on a TV budget.
I challenge you, Rob Lloyd.
You can't, you can't do it.
Rob: Oh really?
Can't you?
Kevin: Well, Star Trek The Next Generation did it.
And it is my favorite ship, the Enterprise D.
Rob: Now D is the one from The Next Generation TV series and the one
that was destroyed in Generations.
Kevin: Yes.
It looked beautiful in the TV series, but it was always limited by the fact
that it was a physical model being shot on motion capture rigs on a TV budget.
So they were limited to a set of stock shots that they filmed
at the start of the series.
They could maybe top it up with a couple more each season, but
they had to be pretty generic
Rob: Let's shoot it from…
Kevin: …reused a lot, yeah.
Rob: Let's shoot it from below.
Let's shoot it from the front.
Kevin: The one that stands out to me, from Star Trek The Next Generation season
six, episode 16, Birthright Part I, is one of the memorable times where there
is a bespoke shot of the Enterprise D.
It appears only in this episode, as far as I can tell, and was designed specifically
for the story of this episode.
And this is the episode, we talked about it last week, in
which Data learns to dream.
He's hit by an electric shock.
Dr.
Bashir is on board and trying to help figure out why he had a vision
while he was unconscious, and he ends up unlocking his dream subroutines.
And when he finally at the end of the episode, is able to have a full
length dream, one of the things that he dreams is this amazing swooping shot.
It starts from the same sun that we see in the opening credits
at the start of every episode.
And we see the lens flare as the camera pans away from the
sun towards the Enterprise.
We see something very similar.
But what we pan to is not the Enterprise coming at us, but
looking down on the Enterprise from above, which is a rare angle.
You see the whole thing top down, and we swoop down over the saucer,
turn around, dipping over it past the nacelle into a nebula.
And it's over in, I'm gonna say less than 10 seconds.
But for me was the first time the ship felt real, in that it was something that
you could maneuver around and see from any angle rather than something that was
sitting there posed for you to look at.
Having revisited it before watching this, it is underwhelming now, by
today's standards, but at the time it seemed magical and it stuck with me.
Rob: Wonderful.
Well, I'm gonna push the boundaries of what we're defining.
It's not so much a one track sweeping shot of the ship, but
it is in many ways a showcase.
A showcase of what this ship can do.
It is displayed in many different angles, but this is a statement.
The ship is the name of the show, and there's a lot riding on it.
So much so that they brought back the maestro, who we haven't talked about
yet, but his work on the Motion Picture with sound and music is incredible.
The often overlooked Jerry Goldsmith is one of the greatest, film composers
of all time and his iconic work in the Motion Picture was brought
back for The Next Generation theme.
And he was brought back specially to do the music for Voyager.
And those opening credits for me are a great showcase of showing off this ship.
This ship is called Voyager.
This is a different class to the Enterprise.
You're gonna see how it flies, how it angles, you look at every part of it.
You get to see all aspects of the ship in any type of terrain within space.
And it's beautiful.
It glides, it soars, it powers through.
It's a great showcase of a rather streamlined design of a ship.
It's not technically a shot, but it's definitely a showcase
of every aspect of that ship.
Kevin: It is a banner day here on Subspace Radio, because for the first
time we have matched, Rob Lloyd.
This was on my list as well, the opening credit sequence for Star Trek Voyager.
Rob: If we were on an FM radio show, we'd have a horn going.
Kevin: Yeah.
I was talking about the Enterprise D feeling real for the first time.
The opening credits to Star Trek Voyager, it won an Emmy for outstanding
individual achievement in graphic design.
Rob: The graphics are incredible.
Kevin: It is the first time that they combined a CG ship with a
physical model in Star Trek history.
Every shot of this sequence is designed to show us something we have never
seen a starship do on screen before.
We have Voyager reflected in the rings of a planet with icy rings around it.
And in that shot, the Voyager above the rings is the physical model,
but the Voyager reflected is the CG.
Rob: Incredible.
Kevin: We have Voyager flying through a clouded nebula and
it pushing aside the clouds.
Rob: The ripples it creates is glorious, beautiful.
Kevin: The effects artists who worked on it said they were told when they
wanted to do that, it was not gonna work.
And they set out to prove it could work.
And sure enough, it works.
Rob: Look, if Jurassic Park has shown us anything, don't tell computer
programmers it's impossible or you can't do it cuz they will go, Oh, we'll…
Kevin: We'll show you.
Voyager comes towards us with an eclipse passing in the background.
So the sun is coming out from behind a moon and it casts rays
of light so that you can see the shadow cast by the ship, in space.
That is something we'd never seen before.
Rob: This beautiful shot of like planet view, and you've
got the shot of Voyager coming…
Kevin: The frozen moon, that is the opening shot.
Yeah, I skipped one.
Uh, obviously, uh, referenced in lower decks when the Cerritos crashes
into the ice at the every episode.
I don't wanna miss the final shot of this opening credit sequence where
Voyager comes to a pause and then its engines tilt up and it warps out.
The articulated engines.
It is such a gimmick, but my umpteen year old self seeing this for the
first time in the premiere of Voyager, I am sure I screamed in delight.
Rob: Look, it is white boy nerd version of Pimp My Ride.
It's there going, Oh, you want a new ship?
Oh yeah?
You know what?
Before we go to warp?
Our parts move, baby.
Kevin: Flip up the spoiler, we're going for a ride.
Rob: What a happy accident.
I thought I was pushing the boundaries by using that, but not
only was I not, we agreed on that.
That's amazing.
Kevin: Totally with you.
Rob: Well, look at us.
We're uh, how many episodes into this thing are we?
Kevin: We're finally in sync.
Rob: Finally in sync.