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Matt and Sean talk about avoiding acid reflux and enjoying some laughs in Star Trek Starfleet Academy Season 1, Episode 3, “Vitus Reflux.”
Matt and Sean talk about avoiding acid reflux and enjoying some laughs in Star Trek Starfleet Academy Season 1, Episode 3, “Vitus Reflux.”
- (00:00) - - Intro
- (01:29) - - Viewer feedback
- (12:56) - - Today's episode
- (14:25) - - This time in history
- (17:14) - - 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.
Sean Ferrell: In this episode of Trek in Time, we're going to be talking about laser tag. Yes, you heard me correctly, laser tag. Is it 1987? No. No, it's not. Welcome, everybody, to Trek in Time. This is the podcast where we take a look at all of Star Trek in chronological stardate order, or at least that's what we normally do. Right now, we're taking a pause. We are in the middle of our rewatch of the original series, but we are pausing so that we can visit new episodes of the brand new show Starfleet Academy, which is currently airing brand new on the Paramount app. And we will return to the original series once this new series reaches the conclusion of its first season. And who are we? Well, I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I wrote some sci fi, I write some horror. 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. Matt, how are you today?
Matt Ferrell: I'm doing well, how about you?
Sean Ferrell: I'm doing okay. I'm looking forward to talking about this episode. I think we're going to have. I'm not going to make a prognostication about what kind of conversation we're going to have. I'm not going to do it. Instead, I'm just going to say, what was the world like? No, I'm not. That's not what I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say, before we get into our conversation, we always like to visit the mailbag. See what you had to say about our previous episode. So, Matt, what did you find for us this week?
Matt Ferrell: Okay, so this is from the episode Kids these Days, episode two of Starfleet Academy, which both Sean and I were like, it's not good. Yeah, it's like, oh, man. There was a lot of very passionate, wow, this is not good. And the most succinct comment was from Badger1981. Let's call it what it is. It's garbage. Complete garbage.
Sean Ferrell: Okay, tell us how you really feel, Badger.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, I know. Don't. Don't hold back, Badger. That I think summarizes a bunch of comments. But there were some, I don't know, more tolerant comments. Some comments that seem to be a little more open minded about the show. Not necessarily as great, but like, a little more open minded about it. So we had Geocon that wrote Nhala's half lanthanite accent is actually perfect. She took Pelia's lanthanite accent that Carol devised herself and made it lighter to fit her ancestry. Yep. I didn't pick up on that, but now I can. That's all I heard. I'm like, wow. And you wrote as a response, great actress. Chef's kiss, Sean. I agree.
Sean Ferrell: Yes.
Matt Ferrell: I didn't know that. The fact that she did that, it's like, wow, she is really dialed in on who's.
Sean Ferrell: They're doing some really. She's doing some really cool things with this character, including in the second episode and including in today's episode that I. You know, we've reached a point where we say things like, oh, this episode's too heavy on exposition, or they spend all their time talking about these things. I feel like the pilot episode in particular, is this a good place for me to, like, share the pitch you and I talked about after.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah. Okay, so let me jump into that. I feel like they missed an opportunity in the pilot to. They put out a lot of characters with a lot of exposition so that we get to know these characters. That's very pilot y, and it's understandable that they do that. It's frustrating sometimes when you wish maybe the pilot episode could be maybe 90 minutes long instead of just one hour so that you could have the introductions and actual story. But in this case, I feel like the one character they didn't do enough with was the. Arguably the main character, the Chancellor, because some of the subtle things that she is doing around her lanthanite ancestry are lost in the wash. Like, she's supposed to be very, very old. And her introduction and the enticement to get her to be a Chancellor of this school should have included. Okay, but I have some conditions, like, I'm done with Starfleet decorum. I'm going to be a more relaxed person than you might normally want to put up with. There is an Admiral character who has been in. He was in the second episode. He's the actor who voiced the character of Osiris from the Destiny video game. I don't know if you picked up on that, Matt. I spent the first 15 minutes going, like, how do I know this voice so well? What do I know this guy from? I've never seen his face. And I looked it up and I'm like, oh, he's Osiris.
That's nice. That's nice to see. Having a scene with him where she says, I don't want to do this job, but I have some conditions, and if you meet my conditions, I will do them. Could have included, I've been alive long enough that Starfleet decorum is really starting to be exhausting to me. I want to be a little looser with how I present myself. And you need to be comfortable with that. Because when she's around him, he didn't really respond to the fact that she was barefoot or her hair is unkempt or she's sitting down and lounging. And it's like an explanation like that would have informed us in a really neat way and a direct way to say, oh, yeah, we're picking up on these things. She's not just weird, she's not quirky. There's been a lot of feedback online pushing back against her character as, what the heck is this? Well, it's somebody who's a thousand years old. So, like, you try and wear a bow tie every day for 1000 years and see what point you finally say, I've had enough of this thing. You rip it off. The other thing, and this is where Matt and I had our conversation last week about an episode we did not like. And then we hit the stop button on the recording and then we continued to talk. And I started to suggest a path they could have taken and we were both like, oh, we should have been recording this. So here is what I suggested. What if this show had started off with enticing her to come to the school to be the Chancellor? And she says, I would do that. But the problem with Starfleet Academy, one of the problems that led to its downfall, was it became so rigid in its response to anything outside of the norm that it had no flexibility. It was not able to respond in the moment with creativity and energy and new thinking.
So if you want me to be a part of this school, I have one demand, which is I get to pick a handful of cadets who did not make the cut for whatever reason, and I get to give them a seat in the school. You can't say no. And I get to shepherd them through the Academy. And I need to be given the flexibility to treat them with kids gloves occasionally, maybe let them bend the rules a bit in order to prove that they can become a component of Starfleet that adds that creativity and that energy that we are so sorely missing. And then who does she pick? She picks the main crew of this show. So these should be the kids who almost made it, but didn't, which includes the complete outsider, Caleb, who's been on the run from the law for his entire life. She brings him into the fold. She brings into the fold the overly the overachiever alpha male who wants to prove that he's worth his parents attention. But he actually failed the entrance exam and he's now been kicked out of his family. And she brings him in. She brings in the Admiral's daughter, who the Admiral warned people, don't let her in. She's not ready for this. She brings her in, you bring in all these people under her direct tutelage, and then it becomes not only a show about Starfleet Academy, it's effectively the Dirty Dozen. I think that would have put parameters around these characters in a way that would have made us understand why are we watching their stories, why are we rooting for them and why are they getting away with the stuff they're getting away with. Because when you have a character like Caleb, who the outsider kid in the strict environment and him pushing back, it's the Fresh Prince. We've seen this story a thousand times. I'm fine with that as a model, but you need to make the logic of the world work in a way where why wouldn't this kid be drummed out in the first 15 minutes? Make it.
She's got her favorites. And then make that a problem for some of the other people in the school. Make her have to explain herself to her number two, her Klingon headmistress, who is just like a Jem’Hadar Klingon, showing up and saying like, these are not Starfleet material. And the two of them butting heads over that. That becomes an ongoing arc. The Admiral coming in and questioning his own wisdom of I shouldn't have given you this job because these people are not good. That becomes an ongoing arc. It gives you parameters that the show feels like it's missing. Because the way that they've jumped off initially has been very much in the Just accept that these kids are at the Academy and don't question why there's no comeuppance for anything. And that'll come up a bit in this episode. The discussion around this episode, I think. But that was the pitch I had at the end where I was like, okay, I'm going to put on my rewriter hat, right?
Matt Ferrell: That sprang up because one of the things I was saying to you, Sean, was like the thing that this show needed was they're basically trying to create a live action Lower decks is essentially what they're creating. And so it's also kind of like the TV show Community. It's that core group of quirky characters that you're following. But why the hell would these quirky characters be in Starfleet? And in your story explanation it makes perfect sense for why they would be there. And it allows comedy to ensue. It allows you a lot of creative freedom and, and it makes it feel a part of the universe where right now it's like missing those that connective tissue. Yeah. So I, I, I love that pitch. I wish they had done it. They didn't, but I wish they had done it. Yeah, but, yeah, but to, to go back to the comments, that kind of relates to what you just talked about from Scooteroo. He wrote, I really hope they flesh out Sam, the photonic character and the pacifist Klingon is a great subversion for the planet of hats problem Trek likes to have with the species. Breaking the trope is what made DS9 so good, in my opinion. Yeah, the second in command I find hilarious every time she's on screen. 100%. She's one of my favorite characters in the show right now. Holly Hunter is a fun captain and I'm also liking what Paul Giamatti is turning out to be and hope he's around more later. Oh, he's 100% gonna be around later. Overall, I'm cautiously optimistic on the show as a whole. I was liking it a lot more when I had seen just the first episode and, and episodes two and three were not as good to me. Still hoping it finds its legs and gets us some good trek. So I think that is kind of the most balanced of the comments we got. So thank you. Scooteroo.
It kind of mimics a lot of my things and it talks like what Sean just talked about, how if they had explained why you have this core group of six wackos in Starfleet, it's like it gives them the opportunity to flesh out Sam and the photonic character and the Klingon. I'm hoping they do more with the whole group because I look at this show as an ensemble and so far the first two episodes were heavily focused on basically one or two people. And episode three, it does start to get out of those two, gets into some new characters a little bit more, which I'm happy to see, which we'll talk about. But the last comment I wanted to bring up was from AJ Chan. I'm surprised you did Starfleet Academy this week. I was going to comment that you should take notes on today's headlines from when you get to the 32nd century show in 14 plus year.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, AJ, you're not wrong. It's going to take us 14 plus years. But the good news is you're going to be with us every step of the way. That light you see, those sounds you hear, that's the read alert. It's time for Matt to tackle the. It's a Wikipedia description. It's the Wikipedia. I don't know if you've taken a look at Wikipedia, Matt, around this show. Wikipedia is a living document. People go in and they revise and they add things. And for this show, even episodes that have aired, there is either nothing or the show summary is literally an essay of a scene by scene breakdown. I don't know who did that. I'm like, that's. Who writes a summary. That's not just like a one sentence. Like the school has a laser tag competition. Like, ultimately that would. That would cover it, but instead it's either all or nothing. So I kind of have to throw these together and throw them at you. So take it away.
Matt Ferrell: While our cadets compete to join an elite team at the Academy, a battle of escalating pranks breaks out between Starfleet Academy and a rival school. Tensions rise fast, threatening the newly emerging bonds and a blossoming romance.
Sean Ferrell: That's right, we are looking at Starfleet Academy with Holly Hunter, Sandro Rosta, Karim Diane, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Bella Shepard, Zoe Steiner, Robert Picardo, Tig Notaro and Oded Fehr. When we get into the looking at what the world is like at the time of original broadcast and it's today, confusion can ensue. So what you're going to see me talking about today is exactly what we talked about last week. Because in preparing my show notes last week, I put in things that applied not to last week's episode, but to this week's episode. So what's the world like at the time of original broadcast? Well, it's identical to what it was last time around. That's right. We're talking about the number one film. Well, that would be depending on who you look at. It's either Mercy, which last week we talked about this very briefly and I said, I'm not even sure what this is, is Mercy. Are you aware of what Mercy is, Matt?
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, really bad looking sci fi movie.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, really bad looking sci fi movie with Chris Pratt. And I read a very amusing takedown of it saying, this is a terrible pro AI Minority Report, like pro AI. And like, I know that the point of it is that the main character gets captured by the AI that he design. I'm not sure how it could be pro AI coming out of that, but there you have it. Also doing well in the theaters. The continuing reign of the most recent Avatar film and the Bone temple from the 28 Days later franchise. And on television, people are continuing to stream the new HBO program, a spin off of Game of Thrones, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Ponies is doing well as well in streaming and in the news at the time of this recording. Major headline is America at a boiling point. Deaths, threats, protests and a town hall attack. It's covering all the turmoil that's going on as we have here in the United States, protests that are leading to violence with federal agents killing protesters. And we also have an attack at a town hall where with a US Congresswoman being sprayed with a mysterious substance by a man who rushed her at her podium. Things are charged, things are difficult. And we find ourselves as we record this, thinking about all the people across the country who are trying to exercise their free speech rights. And we hope everybody stays safe, we hope everything stays calm and we hope better days are ahead. On now to our discussion of this newest episode we are talking about. Let me get back to the top. We're talking about Vitus Reflux. This was directed by Doug Aarniokoski. It was written by Alex Taub and Kiley Rossetter, and it focuses on, as Matt read from the synopsis, it is a, a plot with a B plot where the two of them are effectively so intertwined as to be one major story.
It is a, it riffs on the budding romance that we saw in episode two between Caleb and the young woman from Betazoid, or Betazed, who is enrolled not at the Academy, but at the War College. And at the same time, we are seeing the rivalry between Starfleet Academy and the War College as pranks from the War College begin to unsettle and push the Starfleet Academy students to a breaking point. And the question is, will the school administrators step in, cool the pranking, and keep the peace between the two schools before something that can't be undone is done? I want to ask you, Matt, for you to lead us off with your big picture response. Two step question, did this one land better than episode two? Did it land second part of the question, did it land in good territory? Those are two. There's two zones here, two different things. Did you get out of bad, but did you make it to good? So what did you think overall about how this one landed?
Matt Ferrell: For me, it was unquestionably better than episode two. Like, this is my big complaint about episode two. Well, the pilot was, I gotta say, it was kind of dissonant. It was like it didn't seem to know Am I a comedy? Am I an action drama? Like, what am I? But the humor was still there. And the humor was pretty good. So it got a flavor of like, oh, I could see that this could be a funny show. Episode two was like, what is happening?
Sean Ferrell: They spent how much money on this? Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: I almost feel like they were trying to gaslight us into, like, giving us, like, one of the worst episodes so that whatever they did next looked better.
Sean Ferrell: Right.
Matt Ferrell: Which is kind of what you're getting at. This was absolutely better than the second episode. I think this was my first take was better than the pilot. I thought it held together better. This was the closest yet to a Lower decks. It was far funnier from start to finish. I actually laughed out loud at times. I watched this with my wife. She actually laughed out loud at times. Where in episode two, there was no laughing happening, it was not good. This one, we had a good time watching it, and it felt like when you're watching it, it's like there's, like, nothing. There's, like, nothing happening. But it's like watching an episode of Community. It's like watching an episode of any comedy where it's like, the stakes of what's happening aren't important. It's the character development. It's the humor between those characters. Whatever. The important thing is just like a MacGuffin. It's like, you know what I mean? Laser tag. We're going to make a laser tag, and we're going to make it pranking. It's like, okay, this is a high school show. You know, it's about high school or college students, and they're going to prank each other, and they're going to be kids and they're going to be reckless. I thought this was honestly good. I liked it. I want them to lean into this more. I'm hoping episode four takes this another step closer to lower decks. I hope they keep doing this because they weren't focused on Caleb and the. I'm blanking on her name. The Betazed character. They didn't. They were in it. And they clearly were important characters, but, like, they focused more on the Admiral's Daughter and they focused more on the. The other guy that's blanking on all their names. What are the names?
Sean Ferrell: She was Genesis Lythe, who is the Admiral's Daughter played by Bella Shepard. And Zoe Steiner plays Tarima Sadal, who is the Betazoid, who is at the war college. And the growing interest and romance between her and Sandro Rosta, who plays Caleb Mir, was arguably the B Plot.
Matt Ferrell: Right.
Sean Ferrell: But also, arguably, the A plot, because those are the. As you mentioned, like, what are the stakes? The stakes that actually mattered here were all kind of at the same level. And as you mentioned, they're all very personal to the characters as a team. They wanted to not only do well in the direct competition with their rival school, they wanted to get back for the pranks. So as a. Like, Captain Picard is just like, he's been turned into a Borg. How are we going to get him back? And meanwhile, in Starfleet Academy, it's like, we want to win this game and get them back. And I'm like, okay, you got to make that work. You got to meet that goal. As you mentioned, MacGuffin, like, you got to meet that goal where it is. And I felt like, as you said, I felt they did that. I came into this episode, to be honest, the only way I could think to describe it, I came into it feeling like I was hungover from episode two. I came into it already kind of jaundiced.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: And spent about 10 minutes thinking, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. And then I stopped myself and I was just like, wait, what are they trying to tell me? What are they? What are the stakes here? And as soon as I clicked into what you pointed out, the stakes are MacGuffin, like, because they are personal to the characters. The one kid who cares so deeply about his relationship to his parents, George Hawkins playing Darem. And he's got this, I mean, clearly shitty relationship to these bad parents who are just like. When he tells the little anecdote at the end where he's like, I was practicing a very expensive Bajoran instrument while children across the galaxy were starving. And I was like, whoo. They've let this kid, who, for the most part of the episode, felt like he is the arrogant jock. And in that one line, I was just like, holy cow, did they figure out a way to make him three dimensional in an instant. I'm an overachiever because I'm trying to get my parents to pay attention to me. The heartbreak of him going to Jet Reno to get her assistance. Tig Notaro as the engineering expert and say, I think there might be something wrong with my subspace communications because I'm not getting any messages back. And she spots very quickly, it's all letters home. And she sees it and he sees her see it, and he immediately starts to backtrack. And I'm like, this. This as a starting point for this character, really kind of intriguing, surprising. And I'm Just like, oh, they needed a bit more of that in the pilot to get, you know, like, humanize him a little bit earlier. It would have been nice. We get some nice stuff between him and Genesis. Her saying, like, I got these daddy issues because I'm trying to make my dad proud. And like, so all of that. I agree completely with what you just said about. About all that.
How did you feel about the collective effort around. Let's separate it into two camps. There's the pranking, and then there's the scene that takes a bigger portion than I anticipated. It taking the sports competition around, the training. Like, where did you land on. Let's start with the first one. The whole pranking competition. The war college at one point, pranks people who are in states of undressed by transporting them to public places. Something. Let's all be honest. We haven't seen that in Star Trek before. We've seen nudity before. We've seen Deanna Troi was prone to disrobing and going out in public and saying, huzzah, let's get married. But this kind of intended to be funny, played for laughs, very sitcom. Like, the guy getting the. One woman gets transported into the pond with the lily pads. The. Another guy gets transported and his towel falls off. And so it's like very clearly, like, this is humiliation, kind of almost Porky's like, like, oh, nudity. And I found myself, like.
Like, at that moment, I was just like, well, this is working in a way I didn't anticipate so.
Matt Ferrell: Well, that's. I was gonna say, of these two kind of plot lines, how you're breaking them up, I was the most concerned at the beginning of, like, when they did the beaming. I was like, oh, like, I thought it was funny, but at the same time, I was like, oh, if this is gonna get annoying.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: But by the end of the episode, the pranking plotline was my favorite of the two plot lines. It was funny and it got funnier, especially with the plants that talk and repeat what you're saying, like a little parrot and people walking through the hallways, whispering, whispering. And. And they were all whispering back. And it was like, that is object. It's funny. It is funny. And it's so weird. It's like, why are those plants here? Oh, they're a protected species and you can't do anything with them. There was an aspect that also had me a little concerned, though, on both plot lines where it was like, they were. It's like the Chekhov's gun thing. You show something and you know it's going to be important later because they're going to have to do something with it. And so there was a lot of that stuff happening in the show where you could see the seams and you can. It's like, okay, when is that plant going to become an important plot line to this? When is that thing going to happen? But at the end, it subverted me.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Because her involvement, I was like, yes. Yeah, it was. You could see that all that stuff was going to come. You. You knew that they were going to prank the other kids back by taking those talking plants and putting it into the room somehow. So when they started doing it, you're like, okay, obvious thing happening here. But by the end, the captain's involvement in all of it and how she is pushing the kids and nudging them to do this plan of hers, not just for themselves, but to undercut the head of the War College. Like, she's playing, like, seventh dimensional chess.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Against everybody. At the end of the episode when she basically says to Caleb, she says. She brings up multiple times of like, even to the head of the War College. And empathy is important. You have to know. Like, if you know and you understand your enemy, you can use things against them. You can.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Change things. You can avoid conflict. You can empathy.
Sean Ferrell: Change the dynamic. If you have empathy, you.
Matt Ferrell: Otherwise, she knows how to read. She knows how to read the other students. She knows how to read the head of the War College. She knows how to read her own kids. And she manipulates that entire situation so that they find. They think they're finding their own solution. And it's this wonderful, like, holy crap. That it was the best learning lesson that she taught them and what they get out of it at the end. And it was funny all along the way, and it subverted my expectations because I didn't see that aspect of it coming. Even though there were little hints. It was just like, I loved it. I just thought that was so well constructed.
Sean Ferrell: It was well constructed. It was well constructed. I think from a writing angle, I could almost hear the writers in the writing room saying, well, in order for them to play a prank, we have to give the elements of their prank through the episode. And the moment we do those things, it's going to be Chekhov's guns all over the place. The audience is going to be too sophisticated. They're going to see it all coming. So what is the real twist? What is the real element? And the fact that it was her and having a kind of, I found myself thinking of, like, the usual suspects. Of like, holy cow. If you watch this episode again, everything she says is important.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, she was Kaiser Soze. Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: It's like she has those moments where she's just like, I want to see growth. And she's like, I literally yelled at you. I wanted to see growth and having it be. I feel like you and I talked about this in the pilot conversation and in last week's conversation. With such brief seasons, this is a recurring theme with these newer programs where they only have 10 or 12 episodes. They fast forward things in this certain way, and it's a real trick to fast forward it without it feeling unnaturally fast. And I feel like they caught a genie in a bottle in this one and the first two episodes in the relationship between the chancellor and Caleb. Because by this one, you can start to see, okay, this. She's the spicy apple. The him at the end saying, like, I realized you were pulling our strings. You were doing all of this. He's not telling the kids that. Yeah, he's a part of their group. They have the nice moment with the Letterman jacket where it's like, I hate being a part of the group. I hate organized activities. I hate all of this. But he's there. It's his first go around of being a part of a group. So he is pushing back and everybody's reading it properly and saying, we know we can't push him too far. All of his friends are like, we know we can't push him too far, but he wants to be here. So he gets that Letterman's jacket. But he doesn't go to them and say, the chancellor pearled our strings. She did all of this. He talks to her. He's the guy in the know who understands where the power actually lies. And he's willing to hold it in, keep it in his vest, because his relationship with her is the mother son relationship he's missed his entire life. So it's this nice dynamic. I really enjoyed all that. The spicy apple was one of the best.
One of the best moments when he eats that apple and immediately just like, what is that? And what is that? And she's just like, I don't have any taste buds anymore because I've burned him out. And at the end, for him to challenge her with the staring at her in the eye, biting of the bite, and just being like, I'm out of here. And he wanders out. I loved it. I thought it was great.
Matt Ferrell: I think you're right about the genie in the bottle. And that's part of what made that whole part charming to me by the end, which was he's one of the smartest people in the room, and he knows he's one of the smartest people in the room, and he's got a chip on his shoulder. He's a hard life. So it's like that's. It's kind of part of the character. The reason that he's kind of going along with her is he does recognize something in her, and there's that missing mother figure. But I think it was this episode that solidified it for me of he respects her. Like him telling her, I see what you did here. He's recognizing, she's crazy smart. She's really good at teaching lessons. She's gonna let the kids be kids, but she's gonna try to look out for their best interest. He's seeing all those things in her, and that's him saying to you, I see you. It's just him going, I see you, and I respect you, and biting into the apple. It's like, I want to be like you kind of a thing. It's like, I thought that was just very charming and sweet. It's kind of like the way their relationship now has just tightened in this episode. Again, hats off to the writers room for it.
Sean Ferrell: A similar relationship, which, again, that kind of. How do you pace it? There's an easier relationship to put into the series right off the bat where you don't have to worry about the speed of advancement. But they've done. Again, I was watching it, and I'm like, from a writer perspective, I was just like, they did a really smart thing here. Lura Thok, played by Gina Yashere, the number two at the school, she was already in the Chancellor's. She was already backing her because she is a good number one. So she's already on her side. She's already following her orders. She's doing everything she's being told to do. And like a good number one, she's challenging when she thinks a mistake is being made. So there are some nice scenes early in the episode of her saying, I don't agree with your approach here. We should be coming down on these kids. This is not appropriate behavior that we should be allowing. And then the end of the episode, there is between Nahla and Lura. There is the colleague conversation. That is the colleague version of what she has with Caleb, which is the headmaster, student, mother, son conversation. I liked that Laura came to her and was just like, I didn't understand what you were doing, and now I see it and I get it and I have respect for it, you were playing a game beyond what I could understand. And for me, one of the things that resonated the most, that message being said, I'm like, this is a Klingon Jem’Hadar person. This is somebody for whom both sides of the ancestry are, you do what you are told the Klingon side is, but if you don't agree with it enough, you can kill them and take their spot. The Jem’Hadar side is, you follow the orders till death. And watching as she is the marriage of those two ideas where, as she said, every day is your opportunity to earn your life through battle, and it is also a good day to die.
She is the marriage of these two incredibly violent and seemingly antithetical viewpoints. And in her conversation at the end of the episode, I was like, this is the perfect representation of those two, where she is like, you've got me now. I will. Now I understand you are playing a higher level game than I was aware. And now that I realize that I'm yours, I will do whatever you need. I'm yours. I will. I will fall on whatever sword you need covered. So don't worry about me. I'm good. It was like, wow, they managed to hit two home runs for those two characters. I loved it.
Matt Ferrell: They also did it with the War College. The head of the War College. Yeah. At the end when he comes out, he's like, you were the best. I got outplayed. And it's like, it's. He wasn't just saying I got outplayed. There's an acknowledgment there in what he was saying to her. And the look on his face, it was just this acknowledgment of he's got more respect for her now. Yeah. Like, he's looked down on her because she's this wacko woman wearing no shoes and coming into his room and laying on his couch, and he's all fastidious and he's like, what the hell are you doing? And now he's kind of like, her line. Yeah, yeah.
Sean Ferrell: Her line that he didn't understand at the time. When she's leaving, she's like, what you don't understand is your 12 to 6 is my 6 to 12. And then walks away. And he's just like, what the hell does that mean? And like, oh. At the end, he's like, oh, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are as good as I am. You just do things in your own way. And he has to, like. He has to own that. It. As you. As you said, it was like, I came into this with a bit of a hangover and initially was very sensitive to what I was seeing on screen and questioning it for about 10 minutes. And then I caught myself and I was like, wait, you're prejudging this. Everything is being filtered through the. I didn't like, episode two lens. What's actually happening? What's at stake here? And then I started like you. I was laughing at the jokes. Tarima Sadal's brother, who is their third roommate. Yes.
Matt Ferrell: As the mascot.
Sean Ferrell: Introducing him as the mascot. And the mascot effectively looks like the Geico gecko. He is dressed as this goofy lizard. And the introduction of the character of that mascot by Tig Notaro's character, when she's like, what does she say? Like, cute, like a targ, which is historically in Star Trek, not a cute animal. And just like, she's him in that costume as the very clear comedic relief. He is supposed to be the bumbler. He's supposed to be, I can't touch a thing without breaking it. And in all the competition, they're like, oh, this is finding the best of the best to be a part of this laser tag squad. And you're here because you fit the suit. And I was like, I found myself in the 30 seconds before they were going to give him that suit, thinking.
Matt Ferrell: Why is he here?
Sean Ferrell: He was being shown as being awful at all these things. And then they give us that suit and they give us. I loved the other mascot, the fact that it was a costume ripped right from original Trek, where you get that gorilla with a spike on its head and you just get a guy in there and he's like, cheering. And then when they use that costume as the Caleb's gonna sneak in and he's running through the hallways in that thing, I've like, very funny. I'm like, this is very. This is very funny. This is like, okay, it's.
Matt Ferrell: It's.
Sean Ferrell: It felt. I will give it credit. It felt like Star Trek. It felt like a comedy. And I give it credit for having those two things. I liked it for both of those reasons.
Matt Ferrell: But there's also that Family Guy lore decks kind of sometimes Smash cuts. They did a couple times in that sequence, like when Tig Notaro and the second in command are describing. It's laser tag. Yeah, laser tag. Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: When Tig Notaro was like, oh, yeah, it's exactly like laser tag.
Matt Ferrell: The smash cut of, like, saving Private Ryan thing are exploding. Somebody's behind a rock just screaming at the top of their lungs. I was like. I was like, that's great. That's great. It's. It's like more of that, please. It's like, yeah, that kind of humor. I love it.
Sean Ferrell: I also, I mean, I don't know how you felt about this, but that as what they were doing, I just. That as an activity. The smash cut was one thing. The comedy of that, the screaming, like Caleb running around and, you know, shooting things and them going like, he's really good at this. And then he can't stop himself and he leaps into the air, grabs one of the drones out of the air and punches it to get himself disqualified. I'm like, like, okay, all of that comedic stuff is fine, but the idea that these students would be doing that kind of training, I was like, that's remarkably interesting. Like that. This is the kind of intense, harsh. It's representative, I think, of older Trek. And by older Trek I mean everything from the original series. But also all of Next Generation presented Starfleet as barely military. And this show is really kind of leaning into not only is there like, it is a military operation to a very large degree. Post burn, post burn, without knowing what exactly that means, but knowing like, Starfleet is no longer in the business of saying, like, we're not ready for this kind of environment or this kind of conflict, but they're going toe to toe with a war college. This is a quasi military operation that has a sister school that is straight up military. And seeing that put into action in that kind of combat scenario where they were training in that way, I found it really interest interesting from a. From a meta perspective of what it says about where they are as a. Where is the Federation? Where is Starfleet? The Federation is trying to rebuild.
Starfleet is constantly preparing itself in this way for something that seems like a much more extreme version that we didn't see until it was Deep Space Nine, when there is the Jem’Hadar War, where you've started to see conflict between the Federation and you saw it between them and the Cardassians and the Klingons and the Jem’Hadar, where you were seeing Starfleet actively engaging in something that we weren't accustomed to as an audience. And this show has a flavor of that that I find really interesting.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, I agree.
Sean Ferrell: One of the things we have, we touched on everything. Of all the character arcs from this is I wanted to swing back to something that we talked about in the pilot and you called it and you were like, oh, I like Genesis as a character because it feels like she's the natural born leader. And when things go down. Do you want to talk a little bit about her character arc and what they did with her in this one? Which, again, was a thing that I was just like, this was really well handled. I thought the writing was really strong for her.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, it's like the rivalry she had with the other character about how he was just bossing everybody around, how he was kind of. I don't say duplicitous, but he used personal knowledge of her against her in the competition to throw her off her game so he could win. The character development between those two, I thought was really strong, as well as just showing who they truly are. And she got knocked out. She didn't get what she wanted, but she still stuck with it. She still was, like, showing up for the team. I didn't get what I wanted, but I'm still gonna show up for the team. And it's like, okay, this is, again, going back to that character that I saw in the first episode. She's gonna do what she's required to do. She's not gonna be happy about it, but she'll do it. But I just love the whole aspect during the laser tag of her basically trying to make suggestions of like, I think we should try this. I think we should try that. He's just barking, do what I say. Do what I say. And he kept repeating the same mistake over and over again, which was causing them to lose. So, again, it wasn't. I would argue it's not the best storytelling they did right here.
Sean Ferrell: It was a little.
Matt Ferrell: It's not as good as the gag, the pranking stuff, but it still was good enough to kind of illustrate you understood why he was making the decisions. He was. Because they explained it all over the course of the episode. But I think it was more of his story than hers. Sean, when you think about it, because he's the one that then turns around and says, you need to be captain, not me, because he recognizes she was making suggestions that would have won them the game. And he was just not listening to other feedback. And so he recognized she's the better leader here, gave it to her, and then she took the team to win that one round. So it's like, the character arcs of both are really interesting, but I think he's the one that had the bigger growth of the two of them.
Sean Ferrell: I agree that he did have the bigger growth. And yes, it was a moment of him turning to Her. I think that what they handled well was giving her. She had already said things about her family history earlier in the series. We'd seen it in episode one, so she didn't need to repeat those things. But what they gave her, from a writer perspective, is they gave the actor the opportunity to demonstrate competencies in a way that she did a really good job portraying of the little looks, the disappointment, the frustration, but the willingness to lead from behind. She was in the position to be like, I don't have to be in the front in order to be a part of this. Whereas he had the attitude of, if I'm not in the front, I'm not here. And I felt like this is an episode that is born of, like, showing these relationships between these various characters. And one of the things it did was demonstrate that her relationship with him seems to be a mini version of the Chancellor to her Number one, where he's come around to, not only should you be wearing this? I got the sense. By the end of the episode, I got the sense that he was basically like, I will always have your back. I got the sense that it was that kind of like, I'll be there when you need me because you're the leader. I'm really good. I can do all these things. I can beat you on the field, but you're the leader. And so I felt like there was this kind of camaraderie promised that I hope to see spelled out more clearly as the season moves forward. And then the two more things that I wanted to ask you about, a little tiny relationship that I was just like, I'm really happy to see them toying with this. The medical student Klingon, Kareem Diane playing Jay-Den, his relationship to Caleb, like, the two of them, it's just kind of like they're both outsiders in this environment.
And I just got a kick out of the fact that they're walking to class together and that Caleb is like, okay, stall them. Like, just give me a few minutes. And he's just like, I'm gonna tell you jokes.
Matt Ferrell: I have two jokes.
Sean Ferrell: I'll tell you jokes. And I'm just like. I'm like. I like the. It's like he tries to have his friends back. He's like. He's like, I don't know what to do, but I've got Klingon jokes. And the other thing that I wanted to ask you about was they did more with the relationship between the love interest between Caleb and Tarima. How did you feel about how they paced that out. And what occurred between the two of them. Particularly the basketball court scene.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, the basketball court scene. I'm torn because, like, there was. There was an aspect to that scene that I really liked. The way they handled it from her perspective of, like, he's kind of, like, challenging her. Like, he's making assumptions about why she did what she did and how she turns the tables on him and says, you have no clue what you're talking about. And kind of gives a hint as to, like, what's actually going on and leaves him kind of speechless in a way. Like, making him feel kind of ashamed for how he made those assumptions. So there was some aspect of it I liked. It felt, I don't know about you, but a little shoehorned in. To me, it didn't feel like it flowed well. It felt like it was written well. But it was kind of tacked on the second part at the end where he's doing. He's trying to escape in that costume, and she corners him knowing it's him. That scene, I thought, was stronger of those two. And it was just as impactful because it flowed. It felt like it was part of what was actually happening. It didn't feel tacked on. And again, it was her basically totally disarming him, taking him down to his core of, I see you. I know what's going on. Like, you pretend to be the loner, but you're actually liking it here. Like, calling them out on it. I thought that was really, really nice. So for those two scenes, I thought the second one was better and less tacked on the first.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, I don't disagree with that assessment. Although I did like the basketball sequence. I like the fact that she didn't miss a shot. I like the fact that she's, like, he's not throwing her off her game, literally is what's happening in the scene as she is saying, you're not going to throw me off my game. You're trying to destabilize me because you think I should feel a certain way. You're making assumptions. That's not fair. You're not treating me like a person. All that kind of stuff I thought was. Well, it was a deserved moment. Maybe not as tightly written as other scenes in the episode, but it needed to be there. Whether it was shoehorned in or not. It needed to be there so that the second scene had deeper resonance.
Matt Ferrell: Like, for me, Sean, it's like a nitpick. It's like, why basketball? It's like, why couldn't she have been on the laser tag court, practicing shots. And he comes in there and he's gonna do the same thing, and he's trying to throw her off her game, and it's not working. And then she does some kind of crazy trick shot and walks out. So you could have the same basic thing, but it would have been thematically.
Sean Ferrell: Part of the whole.
Matt Ferrell: Right. It wouldn't feel tack. Like, why the hell should do what the bat.
Sean Ferrell: What.
Matt Ferrell: Why is she doing basketball? It's like that. That's the part that was kind of like, throwing me off.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: And it's.
Sean Ferrell: I mean, it's. I agree with that. I think that's a good suggestion. And I really like the fact that he keeps forgetting that she can read emotions.
Matt Ferrell: Yep.
Sean Ferrell: It's. It's great because he's. He is supposed to be this loner. He takes care of himself. He thinks about things from a solo perspective, and he's got this attraction. He doesn't quite know how to manage it yet. He's playing the overly aggressive guy who's like, I'm gonna go tease her. I'm gonna go neg her until she caves to my charm. And she's just like, none of this is working. And then later on, she's just like, I can read you. I knew that was you. And I was just like. Because when he ran by and she called him out by name, I found myself as a viewer going, like, how did she recognize his. What was his walk? And then she's like. She's like, I could feel it was you. And I'm just like. So I was like, that's great. I loved it. Forgetting that she's a Betazoid and with just a little hint of something dangerous might happen if her sensor turns the wrong color. And I like that, too. It was just this moment of it changes. He doesn't know what it means. She does. And he still leaned in, and she leaned back, and they kissed, and I was just like, that's cool. That's like. That's that moment of, like, he's not scared off. And she sees and feels that he's not scared off, that he's seeing her for who she is, and he's not scared. So I'm looking forward to the episode. Who knows when it'll be? Maybe next week. But, like, the episode where it's like, oh, something happens. The little sensor gets knocked off her neck, and suddenly she's gonna be doing stuff, and everybody's gonna be. I don't know either. Everybody's gonna be in love with Caleb or everybody's gonna be angry with everybody or like, terrible things will ensue. But that I'm. In that moment of that kiss, I found myself thinking, like, I'm ready for that to be a new layer to it. I'm going to ask you a real quick question.
This came up for me in a kind of surprising moment of like, okay, this tastes like Star Trek, but there's a flavor in there. There's something in there that I'm like, I can't really place it. Like, is it Star Wars? No, no, it's not Star Wars. Are you getting a little tiny whiff of Farscape?
Matt Ferrell: Oh, my God.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: No, I didn't have a. Like, hadn't put a thing on it. But yeah, there is a whiff of something that is mixed in. And I keep coming to the. It's a little Community. I keep coming back to the sitcoms. Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: When you mentioned Community, I really like that reference. But I also can't help but feel like as I was watching it, I'm like, what is this odor I'm getting? What is. Oh, oh. It's like, yeah, it's a little zany. It's a little weird. And when things went bad, they could get dark. And I'm like, are they setting us up? I think they are because we know Paul Giamatti is lurking in the background and he's going to want stuff. And when he shows up, he's already demonstrated he's not afraid. So I think when he shows up, he's going to be bad, he's going to be dark. And I'm wondering, are they setting us up for some light episodes? And then the adult world is going to intrude in a really unexpected way where they, as a group are going to be like, it's not McGuffiny. I want to win that game. Or, let's go prank those guys as the goal. There's going to be something where it's going to be like, oh, we've got something else that's more important and it's real and it's dangerous. And I'm looking forward to that. I hope that that's where that's going because I feel like I think it is too. The show will need that at a certain point. We can only. Unless it's a full blown sitcom, it can't bounce at this level for the entirety of the season. So I'm anticipating we're going to see the. The screws get tightened a bit in a few episodes or so. But that is for the future. So that's our discussion about Vitus reflux, and we hope, I find myself really hoping that our viewers and listeners enjoyed this as much as we did. But if you didn't jump into the comments, let us know what you thought, let us know where you think it didn't work for you. We'd love to hear from you and we will talk about it next time when we talk about they gave us Vitus reflux. So what do they follow that up with Vox in Excelso. Thanks for all the Latin.
Matt Ferrell: Well, it is a school, Sean.
Sean Ferrell: It is a school, it is a school. But come on, like, give me a little something here. We'll be talking about that next week. Jump into the comments. Wrong answers only. What is Vox in Excelso about? I look forward to hearing what you think it's going to be about. As I look at the Wikipedia description and for some reason the wiki editors gave us a paragraph about the first, a paragraph about the second, completely skipped the third episode, and then gave us a full paragraph about the fourth. Bad sign, Matt, that you and I really like an episode that the wiki editors wouldn't even give a summary of. Uh oh. Jump into the comments like subscribe, share with your friends. Those are all very easy ways for you to support the podcast. He said in a monotone voice. If you'd like to support us more directly, you can go to trekintime.show. Click the join button there. It allows you to throw some coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts and we will also as a result of that, not only will we be making this podcast, but we will be making our spin off podcast Out of Time, in which we talk about things that don't fit within the context of this show. And as he said that he thought, wow, it's been a while since we recorded one of those, Matt. We should really do that soon. So let's do that next week.
Matt Ferrell: Yes.
Sean Ferrell: Thank you everybody for taking the time to watch or listen and we'll talk to you next time.