163: Star Trek TOS Season 1, “A Taste of Armageddon”

https://youtu.be/iXE3-4rPCdQ

Matt and Sean talk about backless outfits and nuclear disasters in Star Trek: The Original Series. Warfare by computer? Are we living in the Matrix?

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Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Ferrell

Host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Still TBD, and Trek in Time podcasts

Host

Sean Ferrell 🐨

Co-host of Still TBD and Trek in Time Podcasts

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, we're talking about the costs of war. That sounds fun. That's right, everybody. It's Star Trek Season 1, A Taste of Armageddon. This is episode number 23 in shooting order, but number 23 in broadcast order. What happened? Are we at the nexus of the universe? Welcome everybody to Trek in Time, where we're watching every episode of Star Trek in chronological stardate order.

We're also taking a look at the world at the time of original broadcast. So we're talking about 1967. And who are we? Well, I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi. I write some stuff for kids. And I coincidentally have a Kickstarter that's available right now. The link will be in the show notes.

And if you like D& D Please check it out. And with me, as always is my brother, Matt. He is the host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. And Matt, how is your life being impacted right now? There's a lot of raking of leaves because of the time of year we're in right now, Sean, that's my life right now.

Although I do have a robot that's helping me with that. So sort of good. I cannot help. But envision one of those Tesla robots that was put on display, which turned out it was all, yeah, which like, wasn't it all remote controlled from a different location? It was all human controlled. I mean, the robots, the robots really were walking around and standing there, which is really cool, but it was a human being talking to people through a robot.

It was all. It was faked, but it was like, I can't help but picture one of them in your backyard, like grabbing handfuls of leaves and shoving them into a bag the way I did when I was in high school out in the backyard beneath our enormous maple tree in our backyard that would be glorious orange for about a week.

And then Whomp! All the leaves would fall at once, straight down into the yard. And we would be out there for what seemed like most of my teenage years, trying to clean them up. And with mom yelling at me, you're not doing it right. And I'm like, how can you shove leaves into a bag wrong? Like. Like I'm doing it.

Like, what do you want from me? And I just, as you said, you have a robot helping you. I pictured a robot in your backyard. One of those Tesla robots going, this sucks. I hate this. Kill me now. Well, no joke. The robot we do have, it's a, it's a robot lawnmower that has like a little, um, cute little like catching bag behind it.

And it's just like this little sweeper thing. And so you send it out there and it just like, it's basically sweeping the yard into the bag, and then you tell it where to dump it. And it looks, it kind of feels like it has that attitude where it's taking the dump. It's supposed to go and it's a little vacuum.

It goes up and then it just sits there almost like it's going, God, my wife. And it just sits there for a minute, and then it kind of goes forward a little bit, and then it puts it down, and it's like, okay, back to picking up more leaves.

It's very slow and deliberate when it's dumping them off. You should take, you should take one of these, one of these Bluetooth speakers. And just put it on it, so that it's just like, Party Bot, Party Bot cleaning leaves, put on some techno music, yeah, just, unz, unz, unz, unz, unz, unz, and then it's just like, crank.

Crank back to it.

Before we get into our conversation, we always like to take a look at what you guys have had to say about our previous episodes. So Matt, what have you found in the mailbag for us this week? Alright, from The Return Of The Archons, Mark Loveless wrote a great comment, A 2024 mind watching this sees flaws in the pacing.

I was feeling the exact same way. The whole festival thing for modern minds needs explanation. Violence and sexual assault aside. But from what I remember at the time I first watched this, it was, Oh, they just do a lot of really weird things. I think I'd be, I think I'd like an explanation of why some of the people are immune to being absorbed into the body, which is really interesting, but only mentioned.

Overall, though, I do remember it quite fondly and enjoyed the viewing, despite it being yet another Kirk destroys another overreaching master computer via phaser or logic bombs or whatever. Yes, I did enjoy the whole smell you later Kirk attitude as he leaves. Captain Smug exits stage left. Also, not to get too Children of the Corn here.

But where are the children? Did someone check the cornfields? And good god Matt, Sean is still traumatized by your AI podcast thing from Still to Be Determined. You should feel bad, little brother. Um, I thought his comment, the thing that jumped out at me was the uh, cornfield one. I didn't even, it didn't even cross my mind.

There were no kids. Anywhere. And yet this is supposed to be a group that's been enthralled to Landru for hundreds of years. It feels to me like this is, yeah, it feels to me like this was inadvertently an overly fertile and rich terrain for storytelling. Like I could envision a 1960s pulp sci fi novel.

It's all set on, explorers coming to this planet, they land, and then they find this culture, and then it's much deeper into the culture, and it explains why some people are immune. It explains where the children are. I envision sort of a children of the corn, like in the middle of a field. Maybe Surrounded by corn, there's a schoolhouse and all the children at the schoolhouse and they're going through their own versions of the indoctrination and yeah, and the culling and it has this kind of Borg like atmosphere, which I think is a very rich environment because like the Borg is a dystopic vision.

But this is not, this is an idyllic vision. So the idea of the Borg presented in an idyllic fashion is really kind of fascinating. And I think it's a overly rich for a 45 minute 1960s TV show episode. They just weren't going to touch on all these things that from 2024. I'm like, this is a TV series, not just, not just an episode.

We also had a, we had a couple interesting comment threads. Uh, the first one is, uh, RocketQueen8 wrote, Spock shrouded in that black little red riding hood cape is me all day. I adore his little looks when the townie tells them of a hotel to sleep it off. And then AJ Chan responded, at one point the lawgivers confront the landing party and Kirk is like, no, I won't obey.

And the Batons are dumbfounded. Who are you? Meanwhile, Spock is standing there with his Vulcan ears, no shroud, and no one bats an eye or questions him.

That had crossed my mind when I was watching it. It was like he was out in full Vulcan glory and it was like nobody on this planet was commenting like, what's up with that guy? And

then we had, um, for wrong answers only, OldTrekki23 wrote, a taste of Armageddon. Wrong answer only, Sulu has developed a particularly spicy jalapeno pepper variant, which he has named Armageddon. Various crew members come up with culinary dishes utilizing this new pepper, and a contest is formed which Which Kirk, Spock, and Bones must judge.

To which Mark Loveless responded to, Okay, I cannot beat this. Wow, this is spot on. All I can do is simply add that during the judging, there are a few dishes that are inedible to Kirk and Bones, which Spock has absolutely no problem with. To which PaleGhost69 wrote, the episode ends with Kirk and Spock interviewed on Hot Ones.

Oh, I would, you don't know how badly I wish Hot Ones existed at a time that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy could have appeared on it together. Yes. Yes. That would have been fantastic. 100%. That noise in the background can only mean one thing. That's right. It's the read alert and it's time for Matt to tackle the Wikipedia description.

And Matt, before you get into this one, we've been talking for several weeks now, like, Oh, the descriptions. For the original series, they're better. Not all of them. Are we going to hit a snag here, Sean? Oh, how do you say the name of the planet again? It's Emeniar. Emeniar. Emeniar. Amenir. On Eminiar 7, the Enterprise finds a civilization at war with its planetary neighbor.

Unable to discern any signs of battle from orbit, Captain Kirk leads a landing party to the surface, where he discovers the entire war is fought by computer. Through the war, though the war is simulated, citizens who are listed as virtual casualties still report to termination booths to be killed for real.

After the Enterprise is destroyed in an attack simulation, Kirk must fight to keep his crew from death. Okay. Alright.. It's that last sentence. It's just like. Yes.

To keep his crew from death. Death is on the way. Kirk's got to keep them away. This episode directed by Joseph Pevney, story by Robert Hammer, Hamner, and teleplay by Gene L. Coon and Robert Hamner. Main cast, we see pretty much most everybody that we would anticipate seeing except for, um, there's not a whole lot of Uhura, but she is On the, on the Enterprise and she and Scotty are, are having a few conversations.

So we see William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei. We hear Madgel Barrett as the computer and on the planet, we have some guest stars, David Opatoshu as Anan 7. Gene Lyons as Ambassador Robert Fox, Barbara Babcock as Mea 3, Miko Mayama as Yeoman Tamura, David L.

Ross as Lieutenant Galloway, Sean Kenny as Lieutenant DePaul, and Robert Sampson as Sar 6. The original time of broadcast, February 23rd, 1967. And Matt, I know you were hoping to hear more from the Monkees, but I've got some good news for you. The number one song this week is not by the Monkees. It is kind of a drag to see them go, which is ironic because the name of the song that is number one is Kind of a drag by the Buckinghams.

Take it away, Matt.

You got some of the words wrong, but I think you did pretty well overall. And on your screens right now, you'll probably be seeing a picture of the Buckinghams. This is of course, shortly after they had established their savings and loan. And at the movie theaters. We can't get away from this one, Matt, even when we jump forward in time by an odd number of weeks and you would think we're not going to land on the same movie again.

Yes, it's the Bible in the beginning. It is trading places over a series of weeks with Dr Zhivago and Grand Prix. And here it is again, just coincidentally. This is so weird. We're jumping around on these episodes and it's still the Bible. The Bible. It's all about the Bible. 1967. It always comes back.

Famously, 1967 was the year of the Bible. And on television, we, of course, have been looking at the Nielsen ratings, which is an easy way for us to judge ratings, apples to apples. All these were broadcast shows on major networks, so it's not like when we do more contemporary shows where it's, well, how do you judge a streaming network program versus broadcast programs?

And what does viewership mean anymore? And where am I? What happened to time? Bonanza, of course, was the number one show for the year at a 29. Star Trek earned an average in the first season, a 12, which gives you a sense of the scale we're talking about. And we've been talking about a lot of different programs all the way from, well, things like Gomer Pyle and Bewitched all the way down to Dragnet, which we talked about last week.

And now this week, we're talking about a show that is strangely near and dear to my heart. It was a rerun show when I was a kid on WPIX out of New York City. That's right, we're talking about Get Smart. Get Smart is the American comedy television series parodying the secret agent genre that had become widely popular in the first half of the 1960s with the release of James Bond films.

The show was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and Buck Henry has a special place in my heart because of the movie What's Up Doc, which he wrote, and the show had its television premiere on NBC on September 18th, 1965. It starred Don Adams, who was also a director on the series, as Agent Maxwell Smart.

Barbara Felden as Agent 99 and Edward Platt as the Chief. And Buck Henry said that they created the show at the request of Daniel Melnick to capitalize on James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, the two biggest things in the entertainment world at the time. James, er, Mel Brooks described the show as an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy.

And in the news, On this day, February 23rd, 1967, we're seeing a lot of, well, not such great news, middle of the page, below the picture, suggesting it's somewhat buried, but it is on the first page. U. S. unit mauled by the Viet Cong. Things are not going well in the Vietnam War. It's still making front page news, but it is not really landing in a way that history would judge it.

Also, on the front page, Hanoi offers a new to talk if bombing ends permanently and Harriman finds signs that Hanoi is nearer talks.

Hmm.

Those talks wouldn't amount to anything. The war would drag on into the seventies until the U. S. would be forced to evacuate. One of the stories here that caught my eye, which was below the fold, so it's not in this image, but it was a story about the first known white gorilla being found.

What caught my eye about this is I just coincidentally happened to see a YouTube video talking about animal anomalies. And it discussed this gorilla in particular. This gorilla was found in a Spanish colony. The gorilla ended up being purchased and taken to Barcelona and it lived the rest of its life in Barcelona

where it would eventually father, I think it was 22 children, none of whom shared its albinoism. And the gorilla would go on to die in the early 2000s of a form of skin cancer, which would be linked to its albino pigmentation. So, this little gorilla. Something Sean and I can relate to. Yes. This little picture of little Snowflake.

Snowflake would go on to live a long and very popular life because Snowflake was a major attraction in Barcelona at their zoo. On now to our conversation about this week's episode, A Taste of Armageddon. And what do we have going on here? We have a planet that warns away the Enterprise. We have an Enterprise that refuses to take no for an answer in quite an aggressive diplomatic maneuver.

Yeah. This is too critical an area of space. We have to have a space station, and I am here to lead a diplomatic mission, says the diplomat Fox, and in order to start that diplomatic mission, we are going to ignore their suggestion that we not come to their planet, and we are going to force them to talk to us.

It's how diplomacy works, Sean. It's all right. Force yourself on the other side. You don't understand anything because you're like a military guy, but I'm the diplomat. So land on that planet and force them to talk to me. We're going to kind of hand wave that aspect away because that is absolutely goofy.

But ultimately the gist of the episode is there is a war going on that looks like no kind of war that you've ever seen. A computer simulation in which people are designated as being victims of casualties of the war, and then they are killed through a disintegration booth. It appears to be humane. It appears to be so baked into the culture that nobody sees this as a problem.

They see it as hardship, but they don't see it as a problem. And the war as a result has been going on for 500 years. And Kirk and crew arrive at the planet while they're visiting the planet. The Enterprise is designated as a allowed target. It is in fact hit in the computer simulation and destroyed according to the simulation.

Therefore, everybody on the ship needs to come down to the planet and kill themselves. Before I get into my thoughts about this, Matt, more recently I've been launching into my thoughts about these episodes and I thought this week would be a good opportunity for you to give your feelings before I go in and have to defend the episode.

Let us know. Let us know what you thought. So, so Sean, I think you know where I'm going to go with this, even though he and I have not talked about this. Uh, first, I can't discount that stupid opening with the diplomat coming in and going, we're going to ignore what they want and just go in there and steamroll them.

It made no sense. It also didn't hold anything with the plot. They didn't have to have it. Like, you could have excised that and it wouldn't have changed anything. It's like, all they did it was to make the diplomat look extra stupid by the time of the end of the episode. That seems like the only reason it was there.

First problem. Uh, but the theme of this, Sean, I really enjoyed, I loved the idea of this anti war message, which for the time makes perfect sense, but it's an anti war message through the lens of, you have to live through this to understand it, to know why we really don't want this. I thought that was really cool.

really interesting. And this is a theme that's been explored in other science fiction shows and movies, like the classic movie that everybody knows, Robot Jocks. That's right. Ah, yes. Do you know that movie, Sean? I actually do. They don't have war any more because they use giant robots that fight each other.

It's a really horrible B movie. That is amazing. Like it's, it's, it's one of those movies that's so bad, it's good. So if you enjoy so bad, it's good movies, like late 80s, early 90s, fairly, uh, of the era, special effects. So it's a little bit like watching the, I remember that the special effects look like the way that in the first Terminator film, the way the skeleton Terminator looks.

You can tell you're watching something. It's not really there, but it looks good enough that you're enjoying it. Yeah. I remember that movie, but, but it's, it's the same kind of message, this proxy war that you're doing that's supposed to help you work out your problems. Uh, but doesn't same basic theme. So I really enjoy this theme.

I, and there were aspects of this episode that I thought did a good job conveying that. Like, if you took the diplomat completely out of the show, it would improve it. Like, he doesn't need to be there. Just get rid of him. They go to this planet. Hey, this is a cool little planet. Hey guys. And they beam down and it's like, Oh, you're all dead now.

It's like, you still would have had the same exact story. You wouldn't have to change anything. Just get rid of the diplomat. Completely unnecessary. Gets rid of the stupidity of But the parts of this show, Sean, that really drove me nuts was the goofy lying and machinations that the head of the, what was he, the president, whatever he was, the guy that was in charge, the crazy stupid lying that he does, like how he can mask his voice and then like he's not masking his voice anymore and he's trying to trick them to coming down.

But clearly the Enterprise knows what's going on and all that kind of stuff I thought was Just goofy and unnecessary. It's like there's no reason you'd have to have them beam down. Literally just blow up the ship. Like go attack it. Knock it down. But, or do something. But, as the episode goes on, it looks like they don't have any kind of weapons that could actually do anything against the Enterprise.

Like, the Enterprise is just up there with their shields up and their A OK. It's like, This is a non threatening civilization. Just for me, there was, there was aspects of the logic that is kind of like, this is like a repeating theme for me every week. It's just, it's a Saturday morning cartoon logic for the original series where there's good ideas that are just somewhat unsophisticated, um, implementation.

And that was this episode to me. It was just a little unsophisticated in how they implemented it. But looking past that, I actually did enjoy this one. I did enjoy the themes. I enjoyed what they wrestled with. I enjoyed Captain Spock and everybody kind of like weaseling their way out and causing chaos around the facility and they're trying to find them.

And it's like, I liked the cat and mouse game that was going on and blowing up the things and stuff like that. I thought that was really fun. So at the end of the day, I didn't hate this episode. I just thought it was a, if I was going to rate it, it would be somewhere in the middle, you know, like I was a scale one to 10 to be somewhere in the middle because there were some flaws that made me just kind of like roll my eyes.

But the general themes I thought were pretty compelling. I think this falls into the category we've had in previous weeks, which is, I fall into a form of viewing that I think closer, Emulates my childhood experience of it. So I enjoy it at a heightened level. I see everything that you've just described, but none of it struck me as being a problem.

We've enjoying anything. Including the ambassador. I found Ambassador Fox. He's supposed to be a stand in for, like, the know it all government representative. And to me, as an adult watching this, I was like, I found myself thinking, this feels like some of the most Trek like storytelling. In the form of, I could envision what a next generation episode about this premise would look like.

We in fact have this premise as one of the earlier episodes of strange new worlds, when you have Pike and the crew visit the planet that when it sees them is not ready for first contact and they find the planet has developed not warp drive but a weapon or based on warp technology because they were close enough that they had witnessed the warp bubble of a passing ship and had retro engineered like reverse engineered the technology but created a weapon that was going to lead to the destruction of the planet and Pike and crew come down and effectively Pike does what Kirk does.

You want a war, I'll give you a war, I will beat you. And like, I don't want to have to do that, but like, there's not an option here other than you coming to terms with the fact that war is going to be terrible. That is the, I think the. 2024 evolution of this story and the way like it kind of answers those questions that you have, like, why do they have to tell it like this?

And like, Oh, this is how it would look today. So it feels like in watching this episode, I found out something like this is, I feel like the kid inside me is going like, this is Star Trek. This is fun. And as an adult, I tapped into something that you just mentioned in a way that I didn't tap into it as a kid, as a kid, I took it as like, war is awful, war is to be avoided.

This, I actually, in watching it, I think this is a soft critique of the Vietnam War. I think this is a critique of proxy wars where it's safer for the Soviet Union and the United States to be using forces in another country to fight each other as a proxy war. This is practically talking to an American audience about that's not okay.

This will go on forever if this is how this is going to happen. And I found that fascinating to see them speaking about the things we've been talking about seeing in the old newspapers about like, Hanoi's almost ready to talk. We were sure that Southeast Asia is going to be great once everything is done.

Things are looking good. Oh yeah. Some of our soldiers got killed. And this era of the Vietnam War was the beginning of it showing up on American televisions as part of the news. And it was the first time that American, a huge percentage of American Citizens were seeing in their homes the devastation of war in other countries in this way.

The predominance of televisions in homes had expanded by the late 60s in a way that it didn't exist during Korea, and it couldn't exist during World War II. So, here was a major network showing a story around it's not okay for you to not suffer if you are declaring war and quite a bold message.

I found myself thinking like they really kind of like slipped one under the radar. It's because it's deftly done, I think, for a kid to be able to watch this and come out with war is bad. Like I did when I was a kid and as an adult to say like, Oh, proxy wars are bad and really kind of like, Ooh, that like hits you in a different way as an adult.

I found that fascinating. And my last comment is, I think to go back to your, like, it's like a cartoon. I think this is an episode that you can absolutely watch it and divorce those two parts and enjoy them both at the same time, I found myself fascinated by the fact, like, it's a heavy message and it's kind of a fun romp of, we're going to blow up this disintegration booth and then we're going to run down this hallway and they can't find us.

And it's like, all that stuff is going on. At the same time, I'm like, they really managed to have their hands in two different pies at the same time and make them both work in a way, at least for me, that didn't rise to the level of like, Oh, this is a mess. This is a mishmash. I would give it a higher score than you do.

I wouldn't give it like a, a nine or a 10, but I would definitely put it toward like a seven or maybe even an eight for me. 'cause it really felt very trek. Yeah. And I really enjoyed it for that reason. Well, I, I didn't express it well, but that's precisely the point I was trying to make, which was that enjoyed the theme.

Like, this is one of the things I love about science fiction is that you can deal with heady topics, very divisive topics of the time in a way that makes it palatable to everybody. So it doesn't matter what side of the spectrum you fall on, you can watch this and take something from it and it's not going to get you all riled up and angry at the message they're trying to deliver.

It's, it's doing it in a very kind of fable, you know, abstract way. And I love that. And I think it did it really, really well, which is part of the reason why I kind of forgive the, the weirdness and the hamminess of the diplomat. Like those are the things I'm knocking it down for is that the hamminess of some of the things they decided to do.

But the stuff around the proxy war, specifically in the computer system and, and how this, these two worlds have evolved this, this elevated war. I found fascinating and it's really an interesting introspection into the time. And I thought they did a great job of that, which is why it's like, for me, it's like one side, it's like, Oh man, geez, that's so Saturday morning cartoon.

And then the other side, it's like, wow, you're doing this really good job with this kind of like allegory, this kind of different way of looking at this very heady topic. So that's where I kind of weighed it back up again. So if I was going to get a number, it might be like a six. So it's like, it's definitely falling on the side of like, you know, it's fun.

I enjoyed watching it. I don't, I wouldn't recommend skip this episode. No, it's not that it's just kind of like a, okay. Yeah. I wish you could get rid of some of the hamminess and focus more on that really cool idea and just make that 100 percent the thing, but. Yeah, I also think some of the things that stand out is like, weird head scratchers are just poorly thought out directorial choices.

Like you mentioned Anan 7 masquerading his voice. I take that as like, his computer is doing that, like, but they decided to show him talking so that it's coming out of his mouth. It's not what they showed, but I think that that was Yeah, they could have showed him talking in his own voice and then cut to the ship, but you're hearing Kirk.

It's like they could have done that. I have a feeling somebody screwed up an edit. I have a feeling like somebody took the wrong audio and put like, I think somebody didn't get what was supposed to be happening, but I have a feeling as written, it was supposed to be like, he's masquerading as he's masking his voice and that it was never intended to be like, he's.

Yeah, based on what they showed, they should have also shown him later just kind of practicing ventriloquism, like just sitting with a puppet on his knee and just being like, hello, say hello to all the stupid people Anan 8. And like, uh, one of the things that I liked, the goofiness that I liked also is that everybody has a number in their name.

Like, Ooh, that's sci fi. Yeah. Yeah. There's two, there's two character things in this episode. I thought were interesting. One, Scotty. It's like, this is like the first time we've had a good amount of Scotty. Yeah. And we got to see not just Scotty, we got to see Scotty in command mode. And I thought it was freaking cool.

And I loved how he dealt with, you know, like to the diplomat, Basically, screw you, I'm gonna do what I know is right, and you can court martial me, report me, do whatever you want, but I'm not doing that. I also loved how quickly he picked up on the um, the voice masking. Yeah. Like, he was like, immediately like, I don't know about this, and so they did the little computer thing, analyze the voice, but it's, and that was cheesy.

I liked the, I liked the character of seeing Scotty, he's clearly one step ahead, he's clearly very smart, and he's clearly. Comfortable in command. And it's like, we haven't seen this guy much. It's basically been him with his Scottish accent and, you know, like saying two lines in an episode at most, and here we get to see him in command.

I really enjoyed that. Second thing was what the hell was Spock doing through the wall? It's like that whole thing where he's like, I like the feel of the wall. Yeah. Oh, come on, Sean. He's got to find the guy. Look, he's searching for the guy. I know, but this is, this is 2020 format looking back through Star Trek lore.

They never do this again. Like him being able to like feel somebody's mind through from a distance and all that stuff. That's never done again. This is like, this is bananas to me that they set this up in the beginning of the series and never do it again because it's kind of goofy and like kind of weird.

It's like, it's a, it's a weird character choice. It's weird to see them doing things with Spock in the early days, which they were clearly experimenting, but this point felt to me like they're doing this to kind of write themselves out of a corner. Or they're trying to do something that feels sci fi ish to get themselves out of this room.

Yeah, I think that they were looking for the sci fi of it. Yeah. Because the alternate, the, I mean, any, Any other way of getting out of that locked room is going to be stuff you've seen 10, 000 times before. And so I think that they were just looking for a sci fi angle and I didn't have a problem with it.

I thought it was kind of fun that he's like, like scouting out with his mind and like, you know, he goes along until he gets the right part of the door and he's just like, ah, here it is. Um, I had no problem with that. And, but, but, but remember we're watching this in chronological order. Yeah. We're watching this in chronological order, and at this point, Spock has shown zero signs of being able to do anything remotely like this, and here he is doing this.

And so it's kind of like, wait, what? He didn't do this in Strange New Worlds, he didn't do anything remotely close to this. It's like, what is going on? I completely understand what you're saying, but also, you also gave the explanation for why, which is 2024. At this point, they're trying things out. And I have a feeling somebody in the writer's room or the director or maybe Leonard Nimoy himself

was pitching this idea because the neck pinch had been so wildly effective. So I think that they were just like, what else can Spock do that's not human? And I like, at some point it's just like, he does the neck. I don't want to clobber on the back of the head. I'll do a neck pinch. They do that. That's great.

They had an episode last week where Spock punches a guy and Kirk makes a joke out of it. And says how primitive of you and like, yeah, Spock doesn't normally do that. Spock is the neck pinch guy. So here this week, Spock's going to do his ranging telepathy. And I'm like. Yeah, they're trying stuff out and I don't have a problem with it.

I don't have a problem with that he does that here and never does it again because it's one of those little footnotes about Spock. It doesn't matter ultimately. But I agree completely with everything you said about Scotty. It was great seeing a lot of him. It was great seeing a lot of him also with the understanding of what he's shown to be like when they introduce the character in Strange New Worlds.

He in that is depicted as everybody's In his past is frustrated with the fact they know he's brilliant, but he doesn't follow the rules the way you're supposed to. And as a result, he doesn't, he, they, they hint that he almost doesn't graduate from Starfleet. Like he's failed a physics class that is what he does.

And, but he knows what he's doing. Whatever reason he failed is not because he couldn't do things. It's because he takes his own path. And so seeing him in this episode, I'm like, they really in writing him from strange new worlds, the team on that show has done a brilliant job of saying like, what are the kernel aspects of these characters that we can pull back and show a less mature version of?

And to say like, he's a guy who walks to the beat of his own drummer. He is not your traditional commander. So that at the beginning of this episode, he's kind of blase about some things. He's kind of just like, you know, flip about things, but then when push comes to shove and it starts to be time to make decisions, he's quick to make the right guess.

He knows how to suss out the truth. And then he knows how to hold his ground without fear. He doesn't blink when it comes to the ambassador coming in and saying like, I will end your career. And he's just like, do what you have to, but you're not getting me to do anything with the ship. And all of that fits in with the kind of, there's no swagger.

There's no brag in him in Strange New Worlds. It's just a, you know, I kind of know what I'm doing. Like, I'm kind of brilliant in that way. So like, you don't need to shine accolades on me, but I'm kind of a genius. And that in command here is a lot of fun. And it's, and it's the beginning of what we will see a lot of, which is at a certain point, you know

that they in the writer's room and the directors were saying, well, clearly we need to keep Kirk and Spock next to each other in as many scenes as possible, because the two of them are clearly a dynamic duo. So you can't have too many episodes where Spock is left in command. We've seen those earlier in this season, but now that's fading away.

So what do you do? Well, you need a number three. So Scotty is that number three. I also think it was great that you see Scotty in that role. And he spars with McCoy. McCoy has his moment of like, you, like, you can't be doing, like, we have to do a thing. And it's almost like McCoy is that brash, in the triumvirate of Spock, McCoy, and Kirk, it's always Spock is the logical, McCoy is the emotional.

McCoy is still the emotional with Scotty. He comes in, he's just like, you gotta do something. And he's just like, what would you have me do? And. Yeah. McCoy's just like, uh, uh, uh, like he doesn't have an answer. And I love that scene. It's just so, for the characters, it's so perfectly rendered. It's so them.

And found myself thinking like, boy, these actors, like they worked with each other for so long. Cause I couldn't help, but flash forward to like Star Trek 4, where the two of them are off with each other, like trying to figure out like transparent aluminum. Like they have scenes together in the future where it's like the, the camaraderie of the actors is what's beginning to shine through in these moments, I think.

So that's on display and I found it, I found it very charming. So ultimately the conclusion of this is to let a war start. And I found myself. Like, that's the one element of this one that I found really, there is such an audacity to that as the heroic act. Like, let's start a war. Let's do it. Um, and we talked last week about Kirk's kind of flip.

Like you're going to need a new job. Like in this one, he says to somebody, you're going to need to start building weapons and it's the same kind of like, Ooh, but you pointed out something. And I think that there's, I think there is wiggle room around what's actually happened in the form of what you said.

The attack against the Enterprise is pretty ineffectual. And I found myself thinking when Kirk says, you're going to have to build some weapons, the way this planet is depicted and the way the war is being fought, I get the impression that for 500 years, they have not built up a stockpile. There is not a preparation here.

So I have a feeling like I take all of this as when the war effectively becomes hot, It can't be hot, at least not from this planet's perspective, because they don't have anything prepared because war for them has become just some people die. Nothing else. The culture continues. Yep. Yep. So I guess what I'm asking you is which do you think was the more audacious and kind of hair raising decision on the part of a captain?

Is it Kirk here? Or is it Pike when he threatens a planet with if you continue on the path you're on, I will end your war for you. There's no question. It's Kirk. It's this one. Because the other one is Pike, who's in control. Like, you know, he wouldn't actually have to do it. He's in control. He's giving the threat, but he doesn't have to follow up that threat if he doesn't want to.

This one, Kirk is basically pulling the pin out of a grenade and hoping they don't let go. It's completely out of his control. So he's, he pushes the first domino. He has no idea where it's going to go and there's no way for him to stop it. So it's kind of a Kirk, man, that is audacious. It's dangerous. It's, it's brash.

It's a holy crap, man. Yeah. I mean, they even, wasn't it McCoy? I can't remember who it was on the, on the crew that said that to him of like, wow, that was kind of dangerous. And he was like, he gave his reasons for his logic of why he was pretty confident they wouldn't. And he has good reasons. Like, They're too meticulous, they're too careful when they talked about the dangers of war.

They understood, you know, it'll set us back, it'll destroy our culture. It's like he understands, so it's like he kind of listed out all the reasons why he was pretty confident. They wouldn't, but man, holy crap, you pulled that pin, you're not putting it back. And so, where Pike technically could, so that's where it's like, Pike was audacious, but was still in control.

Kirk was just like, uh, yee haw, coming through, gun shooting, and it's like, wow, that, that is kind of a ballsy move on his part. So for that, Kirk, hands down. One last comment from me. I, I, I actually found myself enjoying the inclusion of Ambassador Fox when Ambassador Fox comes down with his assistant and then discovers that everybody on the Enterprise is supposed to be killed and he is arrested and his

response to all of this is this isn't what I was told would happen and his shock once he is rescued, he's like, I don't know how to use a weapon, but I'm a quick learner and he's quick and ready to jump into the fray along with everybody else. I enjoyed his running around. Uh, there's even a scene when there is a brief shootout in the hallway, his assistant gets it.

His assistant goes down and he goes to look like he's lending assistance to a man who never moves again. So it's implied that the man is dead. And then they continue on their way. And then of course, he's given his opportunity for redemption. Fox is at the very end, still on the planet. He is now working to negotiate between the two worlds and sends a message that he thinks there's room for hope.

I think that, I think the arc for Fox, I know you didn't like him at the beginning, but he's good. I found like, I found all of his involvement, including being an officious jerk at the beginning. I found all of that enjoyable and I like that they give him an opportunity to be like, okay, if we're going to get into it, I know I need to help you guys.

That's going to be better than me not helping. And then at the very end, doing what he thinks he does best, which is I am going to help foster a peace between these two worlds. I thought that was nice. I don't know if you picked up on it. I pick up on this stuff. I went to, I basically went to film school, but it's like this kind of stuff picks up, I pick up on it.

You probably saw it too. The scene where they meet up with Fox and rescue him. Did you notice what his assistant did? I have a distinct feeling that the assistant is not a real actor and was like production crew or doesn't have a lot of experience because holy crap, Sean, as soon as the rescue happens, He moved like, I have to go hit my mark.

The way he, the way he, was he like looking down at the ground and looking for a spot, he was like looking, he was like looking down and backing up. Like I was told to go stand over here. And so he was like, clearly like, you can't be in camera line. Yeah. Right. There was no, there was no character motivation.

And the look on the guy's face was clearly like, I've been told to do this exact thing. So I'm going to do this exact thing. And that, okay, I'm in my spot. I'm good now. And it was just like, you could have just had him like scurry behind the wall to like, like, you know, give him some kind of motivation. But it was like, wow, that guy, that guy's, you know, Was he like a producer or an assistant or a friend of a friend and they just needed a body?

And so they told him to be in here. You want to be in a show? It felt very just like, uh, oh dear. There's a lot of that in Star Trek. And I think it's partly because not to say when they were low budget, but like they were, they're not going to reshoot it. They're not going to reshoot it seven times.

They're going to do it three times and take the best. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, you know, they're going to keep, keep things moving. Yeah. So, so you have an extra and like, Like you said, maybe I saw it. I didn't. I saw a little bit of chaos and a bunch of shuffle on the screen and I saw the conversation start, but I didn't notice that.

But like, so I think that they're taking the approach of like, most people won't notice this. And if anybody does, it's like the styrofoam rock hitting the guy in the head last week. They're chugging down the road and a rock that looks like it's a bocce ball. It's a bocce ball size. Like this is a rock that would kill a person.

And it goes, and it's just gone. And he's just like, Like always three ounces. Yeah. You could almost see in the actor's head the thought. I hope I didn't break that prop. Go through his head. Like, I hope the rock is okay. So everybody, listeners, viewers, what'd you think about this one? Do you agree with Matt that it's a little bit of a cartoon, a little bit of an adult program?

Or do you agree with me that no, it all kind of like works if you just like, let it be what it is, and it's all great. Let us know in the comments. And if you noticed any places where rocks bounced off people's heads, or anybody was missing their mark, drop that in the comments too. And don't forget, wrong answers only.

Next week, we are watching Space Seed. So let us know in the comments what that is about, wrong answers only, because I find myself thinking Matt, I think I know what this one's about. Khan that be true? Before we sign off, Matt, do you have anything you want to share about what you have coming up on your main program?

By the time this episode's out, my latest episode is going to be about revisiting hydrogen. Hydrogen is a very touchy topic. Some people just like read it off and think it's stupid, but there's a lot of progress being made. So this is kind of a Update on how things are going that I've about stuff I've talked about before around improving hydrogen production.

Sounds like it'll be a gas, gas, gas. As for me, you can check out my website, seanferrell. com, or you can go wherever books are sold. My books are sold everywhere from your local bookstore to Amazon or your public library. So I appreciate your interest in looking for those. And as I mentioned at the top of the episode, I have a Kickstarter that is going right now.

Link will be in the YouTube. What do you call that? Description? Description and the podcast notes. And the podcast notes. So thank you for checking that out too, if you're into D& D. If you'd like to support the show, please consider liking, Subscribing, sharing with your friends, all of those are great, easy ways for you to support the podcast.

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Lately, we've been talking about various TV shows and movies we've been enjoying. So I hope you'll be interested checking that out. Thank you so much, everybody, for taking the time to watch or listen, and we look forward to talking to you next time.