Rob: Hello, and welcome back to Subspace Radio.
It's me, Rob,
Kevin: and me, Kevin,
Rob: and we are back to talk about Star Trek.
We are here to talk about Section 31, and then that'll springboard us off
into a topic that we are focusing on.
Kevin: Yes.
Moles.
We've chosen moles.
Rob: We have focused on moles.
I'll be focusing on Moley from Wind in the Willows, who's
one of my favorite characters.
Which mole will you be focusing on, Kevin?
Kevin: Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
Won't we?
Rob: Ha ha!
Oh no, I spoiled too soon.
Kevin: Uh, yeah, Section 31.
This is the last time we'll be doing this for a little while because, uh, the, the
premiere date of the next new Star Trek, uh, Strange New Worlds season three is
not yet announced as we record this.
So who knows?
Rob: Who knows?
And especially all that is going on in the larger scheme of things when it comes to
Paramount and, uh, everything like that.
Who knows what the future holds?
We have, uh, been a you know, there's been a glut of Star Trek within the modern
era within the last couple of years.
Everything is, you know, on tenterhooks at the moment about what the future holds.
Kevin: Yeah.
Hopefully before the end of the year, I think it's probably safe to assume
that we'll get a season of Strange New Worlds at some point this year, but,
Rob: do know that they have been greenlit for a fourth
Kevin: season.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: And, uh, Starfleet Academy is, has wrapped and so is in post production,
so that'll come along at some point, but possibly not until next year.
Uh, I, I feel like we're heading into a period of like Doctor Who sort of
release schedule where, you know, you're lucky if you get something once a year.
It won't always happen.
Rob: Yes, and as always as we've talked about many times with, uh, with the
history of Star Trek, um, it's never as long or as, uh, full of episodes as,
uh, we used to in the good old days.
Kevin: But, uh, I feel like we are, uh, beating around the bush because, uh, we
reluctant to get into the primary topic of this show, which is Star Trek: Section 31.
Rob: Do we have to talk about it?
Can't we just catch up?
You know, tell us what's been going on.
What's been going on with you?
Kevin: I have some nice things to say about it.
I mean, when we last spoke, Rob, we talked about how low our expectations were.
Rob: Very much so.
Kevin: Um, and I'm glad I went in with low expectations because I think I was primed
to enjoy what is there to be enjoyed.
Rob: I'm glad you found something to enjoy within that.
Kevin: Well, why don't you tell us what you thought, Rob?
Rob: Okay, well, as we've talked about last time, uh, in sort of like, passing.
Um, the idea of doing a Section 31 TV show has been around for, on and
off, for about a decade or so really.
I mean the, when Section 31 was first introduced, and I think it was
introduced in sort of like the 90s era,
Kevin: Deep Space Nine was the first, yeah, it was invented for Deep Space Nine.
Rob: it was invented for Deep
Kevin: And then it was backported into Discovery.
Rob: Yes.
Um, so it's been around, it's been around for a while and it's always been
the thought of, Ooh, let's look at the darker side of Star Trek with Section 31.
And then with Discovery, incorporating it into their back history, um,
as if there's any other kind of
Kevin: Mmm.
Rob: feeding that into the story of, uh, Emperor Giorgio, with, uh, her storyline.
It's been, they use the word tantalizing to bring this to life,
but then everything has shifted.
Uh, Michelle Yeoh went from being obscure but well respected
actor, um, to then being Oscar nominated and then Oscar winner.
So, this new life with Star Trek then got shifted around because
of this commitment and, um, uh, interest in her from her Oscar win.
So, uh, the offers came in, the focus came in, and, uh, her attachment to
Star Trek has kind of faded because other opportunities have come up.
Kevin: There's a sense that, yeah, they missed their moment.
And I, uh, I mean, it seems we can blame COVID for that.
Like this was intended to be a COVID era production.
And when shut down, it shut down with it and they had trouble bringing it back.
Um, I guess maybe we can thank all of that for the appearance of Jamie
Lee Curtis in this movie, if else.
Um, but yeah, it, it, it was definitely something they were planning to do and
they knew they had promised it to us.
I went back today and watched those last two episodes of Discovery before,
uh, Emperor Georgiou went back in time through the, uh, The Guardian
of Forever, Terra Firma, part one and two, and there is a lot promised there.
There's the, she's having like flashes of this like bloody
hand being held up to her.
And as, as she's about to step through the portal, she tells Burnham, there was
this person named San in my past, and he was my chance to live a different life.
And I didn't take it at the time.
And Burnham says, Oh, I'm not interested.
Go tell your new friends.
through the portal.
Um, so it
Rob: that sounds very, that is very Michael Burnham, I think
Michael Burnham was going through an emotional trauma at time, yeah.
Kevin: but
Rob: it wasn't, that's about me, I'm the lead of this show.
Kevin: It feels like if not for those dangling promises, Emperor Georgiou
could have stepped through that portal, and because schedules never quite lined
up, we would have never gotten more of Emperor Georgiou in Star Trek canon.
But they, they kind of promised us something they had to deliver
and, or at least felt obligated to.
And so we got something.
Rob: Look, yeah, so, the positive we can look at it, this is the
little show that could, or the idea that just would not die.
Despite COVID, despite Michelle Yeoh's success, this Section 31 promised
series then evolved into a promised TV movie, which was then promised
into just an online streaming movie.
But no matter what has happened, it has come out.
So the mere fact that it is existing is something positive.
However, a testament of persistence.
However, you can see the compromise
Kevin: Yeah, there's lot of seams here.
It's like a stitched together Frankenstein's monster.
Rob: It does definitely feel like they've taken elements of the first
two or three episodes, and the first, and the, and the final 20 minutes or
so of the final episode script or arc. It's even, so much so they don't even
hide it, that it's broken up into three clear literally, yeah, they literally
Kevin: at Baram.
We've got The Godsend and we've got The Passageway.
And then there's the little epilogue that promises more.
And you, you remember what I said, Rob, that if this, if this ends with, and
maybe there's more, if you renew us, I was going to say, no, I don't want it?
Rob: And be careful what you wish
Kevin: Hmm.
Rob: So yeah, you can just see the comp.
Compromise is the big word here and it's such, I'm not going to
say a shame because I'm not really.
Kevin: too to what might've been there?
Rob: I mean, I'm Section 31 has always been better in the shadows.
Um, it's kind of if we want to bring another, you know, you brought up Doctor
Who, I'll bring up Star Wars yet again.
You know, everyone's going, yeah let's bring Boba Fett back.
Yeah, let's do Boba Fett.
Let's give Boba Fett a TV show and be careful what you wish for.
Kevin: The mystery is the product.
Rob: Exactly.
And Section 31 is espionage and it is like, you know, how, what,
what darkness is done to keep the light of the Federation.
Kevin: Let me chime in with my take on that, because I think there is, I do
want to provide a little bit of contrast to that point, because I agree that
Section 31, as portrayed in Deep Space Nine, and more or less successfully in
Discovery, I agree that that version of Section 31, the, the Starfleet department
gone rogue that doesn't officially exist and, um, and powerful people
protect it, um, is the less, the less we know about it, the, the better it is.
But the version of Section 31 that we got here, I actually
found somewhat tantalizing.
That this felt like to me, nothing more than a blend of, um, Mission
Impossible and Guardians of the Galaxy in the Star Trek universe.
Rob: Um, I see that because I was watching it going, this doesn't,
they don't, they're not Section 31.
just.
Kevin: This a different time.
And I feel like maybe this is early Section 31, before it all went wrong.
This is, this is the IMF in Starfleet.
This is the misfits who, who, uh, to pay their, uh, their penance to society, take
on the missions that no one else will do.
Rob: It's a little bit, it's a little bit, uh, Suicide Squad, a little
bit, um, uh, uh, Thunderbolts, if you wanna do another reference, and
a little element of Dirty Dozen.
Kevin: And you could say that, uh, uh, you know, something that unserious as
an idea probably doesn't stand up to scrutiny in the Star Trek universe, but
the tone helps it here, like the, the, uh, quippy comedy sort of light touch
tone that they use to the storytelling here and the characters helps us accept
that, that unserious idea could actually to, uh, like exist in this world.
And so I was, I was kind of willing to buy in on the strengths of the
characters and the fact that they were, they were, at least trying to have fun.
And at times it actually was fun.
Rob: The big worry for me was they pushed hard going, oh, this is unlike
any Star Trek you've seen before.
And for me, the reason why I didn't like it is because I
didn't think it was done well,
Kevin: Right.
it was bad on its own terms is
Rob: bad on its own terms and its terms were it was in the Star Trek universe.
I sense this.
I wasn't there going, they're trying too hard not to be Star Trek.
Kevin: Yeah, you saw
Rob: I saw a connection to within that broad, I think it's mostly big, you know,
a big part of that is watching Prodigy and watching Lower Decks especially
Kevin: It's a big tent.
There's
Rob: Yeah, it has evolved so much and there are fans out there who are the
purists only see Star Trek as original series and 90s Star Trek and anything
else after uh, Nemesis, no matter how much we hate Nemesis, it's still a part
of that original canon, and anything after that is a bastard eyed, mutated form.
Kevin: Yeah.
I, I think I take your point.
I mean, I don't want to spend too much time talking about what this wasn't
and what it wasn't trying to be.
But I think what I got a glimpse of here that could be good is I
personally have less of a taste for that Guardians of the Galaxy quippiness.
I think that, that's maybe good as a popcorn flick, but if you were
really trying to build an ongoing story here, to me, I would have leaned
more towards the Mission Impossible.
And if it was this group of misfits who didn't, they, they, they
didn't fit into normal society, and so they had joined this elite
group that did impossible things.
And every adventure was a skin of the teeth thing and you saw the
beads of sweat and they pulled off an impossible heist at the end of it.
And you drop a little bit of the comedy and the, the, the cute, the cute comedy.
Um, I think something like that could work in a, in a way that I would enjoy.
Rob: I felt, yeah, because all that quippiness and that humour stuff would've,
I assume, uh, felt more at ease and more settled over that eight or nine
episode arc. It felt very condensed, and so therefore everything was heightened,
and it seemed a bit it came across as forced, and so therefore it's harder
to get that connection because it was
Kevin: I'll pull in another movie reference and I'll say The Fifth Element.
It was like so, like at points so, stylized and forced that you
almost had to buy into that stylized forced ness, uh, to enjoy it.
And I think for whatever reason, uh,
I mean, I guess production value, if nothing else, The Fifth Element
succeeds better at that than
Rob: Yeah, yeah, um, a lot of people got onto the Fifth Element bandwagon.
I never did.
Um, I could see what they were trying to do, having, you know, that almost
ruthless, um, uh, danger of, yeah, any character could die any moment
that, you know, they, bring that risk back, as opposed to just making them
red shirts, but because everything was condensed to a telemovie, those who we
did lose along The way, we didn't really have that much of a connection with.
Kevin: Yeah.
I, uh, yeah, we lose Mel very early on
Rob: very
Kevin: And, uh, as soon as she, as soon as she evaporated in pink,
uh, dust, I went, Oh no, she was like the most interesting one.
Rob: Ha ha ha ha!
ha!
Kevin: We had a Deltan back and maybe this is our opportunity
to go through this entire motley crew, but let's start with Mel.
Um, great to see a Deltan back since, uh, since Ilia in the Motion
Picture, we have not seen a Deltan.
And, um, yeah, I love the idea of those, uh, sexy time powers
being a superpower for spy work.
Rob: Very much so.
Yeah.
That was, that was, that was some nice stuff and, you know, that spy work was
kind of connected into that bar as well.
Because, you know, James Bond always has to walk into a club or a, or,
you know, a a, a lead VIP space, and to have all the cool misfits there
doing their tricks, um, was very cool.
And yeah, it was a case of, alright, this is cool, she's cool, oh, you
know, well, that's a, yeah, had to kill the good character, the
the, the interesting character.
Kevin: Yes, another body on the floor is, uh, Zef the Mechanoid, um, who I enjoyed.
This was the actor who, uh, was quoted in the press as saying, I hope they
give us a chance even though this isn't the kind of Star Trek everyone wants.
Um, and, uh, he seemed very charming and I, I liked the,
the, the dumb meathead character.
It was, it was really good.
Rob: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin: We just got very little of him before he got taken over by a
tiny, uh, pilot and self destructed.
Rob: Yeah.
Now, let's talk, let's talk about those, shall we?
Have they appeared before?
Kevin: Are you talking about the mechanoids or the tiny
Rob: The tiny tinies.
Kevin: Nanokin.
No.
Also a first appearance in Star canon.
Yes.
Fuzz, the nanokin.
Very annoying.
Rob: And, and Fuzz's wife, at the
Kevin: Yes, Fuzz's wife at the end.
And look, I have to pay the actor, the fact that it was his wife.
I thought, ooh.
You're doing some acting there and it's actually working.
I don't like you anymore though.
I, I mean ultimately he was one of the villains and so probably not there to be
liked but yeah, it was something grating.
There's, I think, a lot of ink been spilled about the Irish accent and
Rob: Oh my,
Kevin: was appropriate.
Rob: It was, look, it was a choice, um, a choice was made, and Yeah, that was
one of those elements that maybe a bit more, if they had more time to develop
it, but it was so crammed in and forced.
It came across, um, harsher for our, for our gentle ears and eyes.
Um, yeah, that was one part that didn't really work.
Kevin: That whole character was facing an uphill battle as soon
as it was like, it's a Vulcan.
It's a laughing Vulcan.
No wait, it's not a Vulcan.
Like, I felt like there was an immediate cancel in the promise of that character.
Uh, yeah, and if it's Star Trek and you put a Vulcan on screen, we are going to
be disappointed if we don't get a Vulcan.
And we did not get a Vulcan here.
Rob: No.
No, we didn't.
And especially if there's such a tantalizing thing of it's a
laughing, oddly behaving Vulcan.
Ooh, I wanna see where that comes from.
Oh, it's just, you know, it's being controlled by a mini creature inside.
Kevin: I read some interview where the actor was saying he was given a whole
like plot arc that was going to take place over the entire first season of the show.
You were going to meet his family.
We were going to visit his planet.
There was going to be a whole Nanokin arc. Uh, and in the end, none of that
happened here, um, except for little hints of, you know, small things can
survive explosions and things like that.
A lot of these lines apparently were, like, bigger things in the original
Rob: Of course.
Kevin: So, uh, yeah, it's, it is, I feel like this character
is one of those things that was boiled down to nothing worthwhile.
Rob: Yes.
Yeah, again, there was the the compromise, uh, yeah, he was one of
the Um, sacrifices of that compromise.
Kevin: We had Quasi the Cameloid, another movie, uh, alien coming
back from Star Trek VI this time.
Rob: Played by the great and gorgeous and incredible Iman.
And Sam Richardson, who's, um, uh, a a, a wonderful comedic actor.
He's done a lot of great stuff on Veep and other, uh, such shows.
Kevin: A noted Star Trek fan.
Uh, he has been saying for quite a while that he loves Star Trek, and so it must
have been his dream come true to get cast in a series and then sadly taken away.
But this character I am here for.
He is great fun.
You might criticize of, he always plays the same character, but it
is such a delight every time that, uh, I enjoyed it in this context.
So, Yeah,
Rob: He, he's got a, he's got a natural charm.
He's a wonderful performer.
And I haven't seen, like, he's got that, awkwardness type of style of
Kevin: And even in the strangest, like, tensest moments, he has still
got that awkward charm going on.
Like, right at the climax of this, when the bomb's about to go off,
Rachel Garrett turns to him and says, You better beam them back.
And he goes, Mm. Mm hmm.
Mm. Mm. And, you know, it takes him second to realize what's being said to him.
And it's just, that stuff could not possibly have been on the page.
That is full Sam Richardson, I
Rob: Yeah.
And especially, like, the great stuff with, um, uh, which was
great, I'll say it unironically.
The cute little play at the end where he's, you know, morphed into the
other character and flirting with, uh, Giorgiou and then, you know, she
takes the bait and flirts back and then it all falls out and awkwardness,
uh, ensues in hilarious state.
Kevin: It was good.
Uh, and then sadly, that last pullout where he's making a, I
thought a funny joke of like, just making fun of the planet that
they're being sent to Turkana IV.
And he says, I heard it was your mama IV, but if you, these things are in 4k,
Rob, and you can see the actor's mouth is not moving as we are hearing those
Rob: ha ha ha
Kevin: pulling out of the window and he's just sitting there, but they have dubbed
lines over top, uh, for a funny outro.
And, uh, I was like, wow, yeah, they re this really fell apart at the end.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: And then the whole space station warps out for no reason.
Rob: No reason.
no reason.
But look, but that's how you end a Star Trek, right?
Everything goes to
Kevin: everything goes to warp.
Yeah.
Maybe we were going to warp.
And when you go to warp.
all the things that say still appear to warp away from you?
That's all I can think.
Rob: Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.
I, I, I love you to bits, especially because you try, and justify
Kevin: I try, Rob.
Rob: You try so hard
Kevin: Let's keep going.
Rachel Garrett, what did you think?
Rob: Because I don't know much about Ra— I know she
Kevin: Oh, Rob, you gotta go watch Yesterday's Enterprise.
Rob: Yesterday's Enterprise.
We have spoken about it before, and so this is a very important
character within, particular
Kevin: There's just a few episodes of Next Gen that people often cite as
their favorite one of the entire series.
There's obviously All Good Things at the end.
the Inner Light is a popular one.
Darmok is right up there for me.
Yesterday's Enterprise.
Oh, Best of Both Worlds,
Rob: Best of Both Worlds, obviously.
Measure of a Man.
Kevin: Yeah, for sure.
Um, and Yesterday's Enterprise right up there as top tier, S-tier
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Rob: That has been mentioned so many times within this podcast, so yeah.
I liked, I liked Garrett.
I was, uh, really, I was really, uh, impressed with the actress, and,
uh, what she got out of the role.
I thought, and I was really interested to see where she would go, and like,
surrounded by so much deceit, she's a, uh, Starfleet within that situa
within the, the darkness of it was, was interesting to see how it plays out.
Kevin: Yeah, I, I have, I have watched this movie three times
now, Rob, and I still cannot say whether Rachel Garrett, I agree.
She is like one of the bright points of this movie and I can't tell.
Is it the words on the page or is it the performance of the actor?
Because she is very charismatic and I can't tell if the charisma is coming
from the the words or the performance.
Rob: It's the performance.
Dead set, a hundred percent the performance.
And the, uh, performer.
Was it um, uh, Kacey Rohl,
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: Kacey Rohl.
Canadian actress.
Um, uh, yeah.
What, what a stunning screen presence and what a great natural
charm she brought that roles and did some incredible heavy lifting.
That's what we, that's what we say is, uh, is, is you know, that's, that's
the triple threat right there, picking up the script, making it work and then
just sprinkling it with the magic.
Kevin: Yeah, this movie would have been much less watchable without Rachel
Garrett, like bringing the commitment.
Like, I feel like when everything around her was not quite serious
enough to take seriously, she was taking things seriously enough that
you wanted to take the movie seriously.
Rob: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin: Um, unfortunately, canonically, Rachel Garrett's presence here is, as far
as I can tell, the only reason for what I consider the biggest plot hole here.
And I'm not usually one to worry about plot holes, but this plot
hole is 70 years wide, and I'm going to talk about it in a moment.
Rob: Yes, she's aged very well.
Kevin: It's not, uh, it's not Garrett's, uh, age that bothers me though.
It is, uh, a different character, but we'll come back to that.
Um, yeah, Rachel Garrett.
Great.
She, several, uh, like, uh, lines mention, conspicuously mentioning that she must
stay alive to become a captain one day.
And that's precisely because we know her as the captain of the Enterprise
C in Yesterday's Enterprise.
Uh, and, um, for those who haven't seen that show, I will, uh, refrain from
spoiling it further, but, definitely, if you liked Rachel Garrett, I encourage you,
as a, uh, if you want to clear your throat of this movie and see some better Star
Trek, go and watch Yesterday's Enterprise.
And for me, the character is also consistent, like, I can see the
older actor, the older character, the characterization is consistent with the
young Rachel Garrett that we see here.
And that was really delightful.
Rob: Yes, that's one thing that has inspired me, I, I was there going, I have
to, I know, I know there's some that I still haven't watched, uh, but, yeah, I
do need to watch Yesterday's Enterprise.
I've watched Inner Light, and I loved it, and so now I need to
watch Yesterday's Enterprise.
Kevin: And all that's left for our new, uh, cast of characters is the captain of
this, uh, this motley crew, Alok Sahar.
What'd you think of him?
Rob: Um, yeah, played by Omari Hardwick.
He, again, he was another one who had a lovely charm about him and an earnestness
and a seriousness about him, but, um, I didn't see much in the way of uh,
much in the way that drew me to him.
I was appealed to the actor, the actor was doing well, I'm there going, come
on, you're doing your best, son, love it.
Um,
Kevin: gave him a big backstory in dialogue, but I agree.
There wasn't a lot here in this actual story of substance.
He was kind of a blank blank page.
Rob: Yeah.
And he's, he's that sort of like point man
Kevin: Yeah, he was playing straight man to all the weird people
around him, I Yeah, including, um, Emperor Georgiou herself.
Rob: Especially Giorgiou, yeah, very much playing the, um, uh, Abbot
to her Costello, if we're using,
Kevin: But a compelling screen presence.
I would, I would happily see more of this character I think, like.
there was nothing to put me off here I guess in a blank slate
straight man sort of performance I guess that's all you can hope for.
Rob: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing to write home about, but, you know, it would
have been interesting to see where that, if there would be any shift or change.
And we're gonna keep on saying that all the way through this.
Oh, if they had the whole, uh, 8 or, you know, 8 to 10 episodes.
But would we keep on watching?
That's another thing.
Kevin: Well, you know I would.
Uh,
Rob: Yeah,
Kevin: the bar is low.
Rob: And then I'd have to watch it as well, because we'd have to review it, so.
Kevin: I'm waiting for the day where I have to, uh, record solo and
report our listeners I just couldn't get Rob to watch it this week.
Rob: Oh no, I'd be, I'd be on the Zoom call, I'd just be, I'd just
be, I'd just be listening you.
Yeah.
I'd be like reading a book while you're doing it.
Um, and now we get to, to, uh, the star of the show, Michelle Yeoh.
Kevin: Yeah.
I don't know this.
I still miss Captain Georgiou from the Battle of the Binary Stars
right at the start of Discovery.
To me, that captain, the Prime Universe version of that character,
was so much more likeable and compelling and interesting.
It's, uh, the, the mirror universe, irredeemable, but somehow redeemed, and
at the same time, attempting to quip her way through every story she's a
part of, has never quite worked with me.
What did you think Rob?
Rob: Yeah, I mean such a tantalizing open to Discovery.
I'm there going this is amazing I'm gonna get a full season of Michelle
Yeoh as the ca— oh, all right.
Okay.
And then when she came back as it's it's I mean Michelle Yeoh is an incredible
actor an amazing performer, physical performer and emotional performer as well.
Her work from you know Uh, her early work in Hong Kong cinema, you know, her work
as being the best Bond girl ever, because she's not a Bond girl, Bond is her boy.
Um, to incredible intense blend of martial arts to emotional acting
stuff in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and her resurgence now.
But, playing Georgiou Mira, you can see her acting.
You see her playing a role, not being the role.
Georgiou, in the first couple of episodes before she's killed
off the Prime Georgiou, amazing.
Believed every beat, every moment.
I love that weariness of
Kevin: It's not the acting that doesn't work, it's the character that doesn't.
She is so full of contradictions, that character, that I cannot buy it.
And every time I start to buy it, she changes in a violent, like, sharp
left turn that reminds me that this character doesn't make any sense to me.
Rob: Oh, the Terran Empire characters are fun, and I do that in inverted
commas, because you only get them for an.
You only get them for 15 20 minutes.
They're
Kevin: am not hanging out for the Killy series either.
Rob: I don't wanna s I don't wanna see, you know, I I love seeing
Mirror Kira, mirakira, haha, for, you know, being all s yeah.
I love seeing her one or two times being sexually ambiguous.
I could not sit through an entire series of that character.
No.
I want to see her for a, you know, it's, it's a blink and you'll miss it moment,
so you get back to the good stuff.
I could, yeah, I, I don't know if I could have tolerated, you know,
10 episodes straight of Michelle Yeoh playing, uh, Breaking Bad.
Kevin: And yet the craft is so here, like those, that scene in her throne room
where San seemingly poisons himself in front of her and see her fighting back the
tears and pulling herself back together and putting her composure back on and
going, Okay, this is what my life is now.
Hold it together.
You're the emperor.
Like it.
It is there.
You feel it.
And it is amazing.
And then she's like, uh, Meh.
You know, to the, to the, to the, group's plan.
She says, Meh.
Uh, just, oh, the, the, yeah, the the stuff they make her
say really doesn't work.
The stuff she gets to do on her own, because she is a
master craftsperson is amazing.
Rob: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And seeing that story fleshed out, the ghost of Sarn, what that means to her,
would have been great to see played out.
But to have it, you know, again, condensed into, you know, a 90 minute,
uh, hour 45, and so the arcs are so rigid, and the turns are so sharp.
You can't keep up with it, and you don't really believe it, no matter how much
she's investing in those type of scenes.
You're going, I only saw him for like five minutes, and I'm meant to feel that?
Yeah, it's tough to, tough to, yeah.
They were compromised so much, they were never gonna win.
Kevin: The overall plot, this is, this is one of those twisty plots that you
have to, at the end of it, you sort of sit back and go, What was his plan?
exactly?
Rob: Ha ha.
What was his plan?
You saw it three times!
Ha ha
Kevin: Here's what I can make sense of.
Um, So we had the, we had the dude Dada Noe at the start, who
came into Michelle Yeoh's bar.
And this was the guy that the Section 31 group was sent to intercept, because
he had this super weapon and he was going to sell it on the black market.
Rob: The Godsend.
Kevin: Yeah, and it turns out we discover that this is not Dada Noe
from our universe, this is Mirror Dada Noe who has replaced himself.
And the weapon actually comes from the mirror universe.
Dada Noe brought it to the prime universe because he wanted to sell
it and live here on the proceeds.
He was tired of living in the mirror universe where the
Terran Empire was falling apart.
And this is this is consistence with what we know of Star Trek mirror
universe history at this time.
This is like within a decade or so of when we've been told
that the Klingon, um, yeah.
The Klingon Cardassian alliance, uh, conquers the Terran Empire.
So that is, that is in process and, and this is why the Terran
Empire is, is on hard times.
And so someone who happened to discover a portal through to a
parallel universe where things are nicer and had, could get his hands
on a weapon to fund his retirement.
I suppose I can follow all of that.
Um, he was planning to sell it to the Minotians and this is a big,
uh, bit of, of Star Trek canon that they're pulling together.
Um, it is, he, he is, the Minotians and Minos Korva are two different, have up
to this point, been two different things.
So, Minos Korva is a planet that, um, was mentioned in, uh, Chain of Command
Part 2, that episode where Picard gets tortured for information by the Cardassian
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: Yeah, so
Rob: is four lights,
Kevin: Yeah, the four lights, exactly.
So there is an accusation that, that, uh, that the Federation
is developing weapons on Minos Korva or something to that effect.
And so Minos Korva at the time, we, we understand it to be like, an
uninhabited, mysterious place where weapons research might be happening.
And separately, in an earlier episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, called
The Arsenal of Freedom, we hear about the Minotians, or we learn about the
Minotians who are, uh, this race of arms merchants and their, um, their motto
is "peace through superior firepower".
But by the time the Enterprise encounters this race, they are
actually dead by their own hands.
Their own weapons have killed everyone and the Enterprise gets stuck in
a trap of these automated weapons.
Um, so Minotians, Minos Korva, this movie goes, actually those were the same people.
So the Minotians live on Minos Korva now, according to, uh, Section 31, this movie.
So, cool.
He's gonna sell it to these, these arms merchants who, by Next Generation
time, have obliterated themselves.
But I guess we're, they're alive and well at this point in the timeline.
Rob: Of course, yeah.
Kevin: So then San enters the picture.
Now, San, uh, also got here from the Mirror Universe
somehow after faking his death?
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: Now, uh, Rob, you're a, you're a Doctor Who fan and you're
familiar with the concept of taking the long way around, right?
Rob: We are very much Doctor Who fans, we love the long way round, both in the
show and as a show franchise outside.
Kevin: As far as we are told, San took the long way around to get to this point.
He did not do any time travel to get to this point.
He hopped universes.
He came from the Terran universe to the Prime universe.
Somehow, presumably, he found the same passageway.
But we have no indication that he is out of time.
Emperor Georgiou, however, is out of time.
She traveled forward to the 32nd century from the original series time frame
where Star Trek: Discovery happened.
And then she traveled back to this point.
And this point is actually, uh, post Star Trek movies, pre next gen.
It's a, it's period of time that we do not have many stories about.
But it's the time where, you know, Captain Picard was just joining the Academy, and
Beverly Crusher was just being born, and a lot of our cast from Next Generation,
this is the time of their birth.
Um, so it is 70 years in the future from the time where,
um, where Georgiou started.
so why is Georgiou apparently the same age as San?
When she has time traveled to this point, skipping 70 years, and San has
taken the long way around, you would expect him to be 70 years older than her.
Rob: Yes.
Yes.
very true.
And
Kevin: This is, big thing that doesn't work, plot
Rob: It doesn't work.
Kevin: And it's, it's It's not something you notice when you watch it
the first time, but by the third time you're like, where did you come from?
How did you get here?
Why are you not in a wheelchair?
Rob: Yep.
It is.
I like that.
That's the thing you go to.
Go from, how'd you get here?
And Why aren't you in a wheelchair?
That's Um, yeah.
It's very much a case of It does seem like the infamous opening lines of Rise
of Skywalker: somehow, Palpatine returned.
Kevin: Somehow, Palpatine returned, exactly.
There's been some to go, maybe there, maybe this particular portal
from the Terran universe has a time shift and it's the, the past of the
Terran universe connecting to the present of the Star Trek universe.
But that doesn't work because of our guy Dada Noe, who came across and replaced
himself and no one looked at him and went, wow, you look 70 years younger.
Rob: Why are you out of that chair?
Kevin: So, yeah, it feels like an odd thing to miss, given how
long this thing was in the hopper.
And can only figure that they were committed to certain things, and this
is the closest that they could get to, you know, tying everything up in a bow.
Rob: And any justification that could have been done over ten episodes is just
blown off the wayside because they've only got, you know, an hour forty, and just
gone, he got here, he survived somehow, we can't explain it, and hopefully you are so
caught up in the drama and the emotional truth of everything that you won't care.
But.
Kevin: I wonder if there is an explanation that was left on the cutting room floor at
Rob: There has to be.
There has to be.
Uh,
Kevin: were going to try and write the story that explained this, I would say,
look, he faked, he faked his death, right?
But he knows this super weapon that he's created that he feels
guilty about creating for this mad woman still exists in the world.
So he faked his death.
And he put himself into suspended animation and if he connected it to
the weapon, if anyone ever took the weapon out of its storage box, he
would, it would trigger him waking up and that's what's happened.
It sat in storage for 70 years.
The Dada Noe pulled it out of storage and it, it woke San up.
And somehow, you know, his, he put his money in some stocks while he was asleep.
So as soon as he woke up he was rich and he could buy that sweet,
red sports car of a spaceship.
Rob: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Look, as soon as any time discrepancy, you just go, unlike Doctor Who where you can
just pop in your TARDIS, it's just, okay, cryogenic freeze, bang, there you go.
Kevin: Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So, okay, that, that is my head canon for what has happened
Rob: Good.
Good, good, good.
I'm right there with ya.
Kevin: So San, coming out of suspended animation, is going after the weapon.
And now for some reason is motivated to use it to, to, to destroy Emperor
Georgiou and get his revenge.
That's his plan.
As far as I can tell is, is steal this weapon that was stolen from the storage
unit so that he can then claim his rightful place as Emperor of the Terran
Empire, as it comes through the the portal and he can usher in a bright new era for
the Terran Empire that was on hard times, but now has fresh worlds to conquer.
Rob: Yes.
And, do they still love each other?
Do they still have feelings?
It's a case of, we spend five minutes with a fight scene, then
someone's stabbed, and then we
Kevin: I'm so sorry now that I'm dying.
Rob: It's, yeah, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, emotional truth.
Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, emotional truth.
You know, you know what you could do?
You could weave that into each other so it actually makes sense.
So you're not just there going fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.
Oh my god, this is what I feel.
Yeah, very clumsy, very clunky, poorly edited.
Kevin: There is in this plot, I feel like one or two big coincidences, like the
Mirror Universe weapons facility dude just happening to walk into the bar run by the
woman who ordered the thing to be built, given how circuitous a route that Georgiou
has taken to get there, beggars belief.
And I think this is why the first frames of this film are
the quote that talks about fate
Rob: Oh
Kevin: fades in and then the quote fades out and the word
fate stays there for a moment.
And it's, it's basically saying, brace yourself, this is going
to be a huge coincidence.
Rob: We're just gonna wash our hands of any type of logic.
We use the word fate we faded just to that word.
Kevin: Yeah.
I've said before that I, I kind of don't mind fate in Star Trek.
It's been an element ever since, uh, the original City on the Edge of Forever
episode of the original series, in which Spock remarks that it is, you know,
there is a theory that there are Eddies and, and a flow to time and space that
will bring them together, even though that they've been separated in time.
And, and so there is a, there is this repeatedly stated thing of when time
travel happens, coincidences occur, and we don't quite understand why.
I feel like if, again, if they had just acknowledged that here, I would have
gone, great, it's that Star Trek thing.
But instead, they're like, let's put a quote on the screen and
hopefully they don't notice.
Rob: Hahaha.
Oh, we notice.
We, Star Trek fans notice everything.
Kevin: Yeah.
It also doesn't quite, I don't know, I don't know how much to obsess over
this stuff, but when, when we last saw Emperor Georgiou in the 32nd
century, she was being torn apart by the fact that she was displaced
out of time and out of her universe.
And she was told that she couldn't be both at once, so they had to send her back in
time, so she was only displaced from her
So why send her back to 70 years in her future instead of where
she came from in the first place?
Mean, it's, it's better than the 850 years out of time that she was, but
it still seems somewhat arbitrary.
Let's, let's send you to a place that's nearly a life, nearly
a generation out of your time.
Rob: Yes.
And that seems like it's done for no other reason than to
fit in with whatever plans they
Kevin: Well, this is the Rachel Garrett of it all, is look around, I watch this
show and I'm like, there is nothing here that couldn't have happened in the TOS
timeframe, except for Rachel Garrett.
You want Rachel Garrett, she would not be born at the time where Georgiou came from.
Rob: And that begs the question, why her?
Rachel.
Yeah.
Why Rachel Garrett?
Great work.
Great actor.
Great character.
Um.
Kevin: It's like they were setting up, they wanted Rachel Garrett
to be a fixture of this TV series that they didn't get to do.
They've been dropping Rachel Garrett things, like we had the red, the red
woman statue in Lower Decks got destroyed.
That, uh, was that in, or was that in something else?
It was in Star Trek Picard.
There was a, attack that destroyed the big red statue of Rachel Garrett.
There were several mentions of Rachel Garrett in later seasons
of, uh, Lower Decks as well.
So they were, they were reminding us of Rachel Garrett, presumably
because they were going to bring her back as this ingenue, this fan loved
character in this new TV series that ultimately they didn't get to make.
Uh, so it all kind of amounted to nothing and it's a shame that they
had to pull the logic of the story apart to make that happen and then
not actually make that happen.
Rob: They did so much heavy lifting and it all resulted in nothing.
A big pile of nothing.
Kevin: So anyway, the rest of this movie is just kind of like running
around after moles and, uh, chasing people through nebulas and it's, it's
a spectacle for the eye and it gives the characters fun stuff to do and say,
Rob: There's definitely, there's definitely something appealing about
the tension at the end and the team working together in different areas.
Kevin: I really liked the garbage scow.
The whole thing of, it's a garbage scow, it has this shield with tractor beams
that can collect junk and are going to hack that thing to, to heck and back
just to make it, the weapon they need in order to take down San's sports car ship.
Like was all super fun.
I really liked Rachel Garrett digging through the trash and finding the
doll that she could make explode because she's a chaos goblin.
Like I ate all that stuff up.
Um, and yeah, the, the mole stuff was fun enough that it stood out to me as
something they might want to talk about on this episode, the fighting through
the, the, uh, rooms of the space hotel was also fun long as you don't pay, you
don't ask too many questions about why people don't fall through the floors.
But, uh, yeah, so yeah, fun set pieces with a decent cast of characters,
some highs and lows, and just a plot that's hard to follow and has
a few too many leaps that you have to take to make It make sense.
That's how this one up.
Rob: It did definitely seem, yeah, it's just a case of, it wasn't a specifically
written movie script, it was a compromised series of scripts that was condensed down.
It's the same thing that happened with Obi Wan in Star Wars.
Obi Wan was meant to be a movie, then they went, let's expand it out to
a TV series, and the padding shows.
Here, in Section 31, the cuts and the compromise of story and arcs
is shown, because yeah, it's just, good set pieces and good moments
stand out, but would blend in beautifully over an arc of a season.
But here it's just going, oh, it's, it's like a bad jigsaw puzzle, going, this
piece is good, that piece doesn't work, and they don't really gel together.
Kevin: Yeah, how does this sit for you?
I mean, I think I know the answer, but where would you rank
this in the Star Trek movies?
I think that is doing this show an unkindness like said it was
not set up to be a movie but
And, and I am inclined to treat it as a different thing entirely and not
call it a movie, but at least Memory Alpha cites this as the 14th Star Trek
film, right after Star Trek Beyond.
And if you were to judge it as a Star Trek film, is there, is
there any other Star Trek film that you like less than this one?
Rob: Definitely when it comes, it's, it's definitely a fight with, um, uh,
Nemesis and, um, Into Darkness, for sure.
Um,
Kevin: Three, five?
Rob: What's that?
Kevin: Three or five?
Rob: Um, no, no, no, well, I, yeah, there's, there's,
Kevin: For all their faults, they were still the good, good cast from back
Rob: It's still, still for all their faults, you can, you can, you can
laugh it off, you laugh off moments and you go, oh gee, oh my gosh.
But, yeah, when it comes to, like, Into Darkness, it's just, it makes me angry.
Um, same, and same with Nemesis, but Nemesis has
Kevin: plug should have been pulled on this one.
Like, the fact that you were like, Well, we came this far, we might
as well release it to cinemas.
That does also bother me
Rob: Yeah, it's, it, this doesn't make me angry, though, like, so, maybe a little
bit above, uh, Into Darkness, um, yeah,
Kevin: Well, that feels like, some kind of accomplishment that this
ill fated series come movie at least was not the worst Star Trek film.
Rob: No, no, and I could, I, I, I definitely enjoyed the performances
better than what they did in that.
How about you, where does it sit for you?
Kevin: Oh, it's hard to say.
Rob: ha ha
Kevin: It's because it is such a different beast.
Um And I'll say, Into Darkness, and also to a certain extent, Beyond, feel
cheap in a way that we didn't have a story worth telling as a movie here,
but we had a theater date that we had to hit, and so we made a movie happen.
Um,
Rob: Especially Beyond, Beyond because they're going, we've got
to do something for the 60th.
It was more along the lines of, oh sorry, for the 50th.
Definitely need to
Kevin: All respect to Simon Pegg and his co writer whose name I can't
remember just this moment But they were basically told you have a weekend
something, and it feels like it.
So yeah, I and three and five flawed, but like, I think, like you
said, there is enough there of a, of a worthwhile character story.
Those films have a reason to exist.
I wish they had been done better than they were, but I don't
regret that they were done at all.
So yeah, I think I might put Beyond and Into Darkness below this
Rob: Mmhmm.
Kevin: And, uh, say it's the third worst Star Trek movie.
Rob: Yep yep
Kevin: There was a time when I might have said the motion picture was also
a bad Star Trek movie, but the, uh, the re release and revamp of it recently,
I feel like has, um, rekindled my like for that movie, if not love.
There's a certain amount of nostalgia as well of just seeing
those characters in their prime.
Rob: The most recent director's cut that's been done is actually very good.
It makes it a very good film.
Kevin: It's still really slow in parts in a way endemic to the time,
but, uh, yeah, the, again, I think the movie holds, it justifies its
own existence in a way uh, those two that I rank below this one do not.
And does Section 31 justify its own existence?
I'd say it's right on the bubble.
Like, if they had given up and said, we're not doing it, it's not good enough.
I could have understood that choice.
I'm kind of glad that at least this draws a line under all of those
promises they made about, uh, Michelle Yeoh's character before they let
her go off and enjoy her Oscars.
Um,
Rob: Hehehehehe.
Yeah.
Kevin: seem to be having fun at times in in this movie as well,
which I pay a certain amount of
Rob: And I think it definitely does put a full stop at the end of, you
know, this has been decades worth of talk about Section 31 happening.
And as opposed to creating the definitive series of espionage within
Star Trek, this is what we got?
A compromised fail?
Um,
Kevin: from Deep Space Nine Section 31 for.
Is not an espionage story.
Rob: Nah.
But like you said, that's a great way of describing it.
It's like, yeah, a Mission Impossible, uh, you know, Soldiers
of Fortune, A Team type of thing.
Um, Suicide Squad.
Kevin: I presumably, you know, in a world where they did anything else
with this idea, you probably, I can't see it being sustainable to get
Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis back every, every time for another movie.
But the concept of this motley crew doing impossible missions in, on the
fringes of the Star Trek universe, I would watch another one of those that
was written to be what it ended up being.
Rob: Yes.
The one is it's hard for me to see it as a movie because it, it just doesn't.
It doesn't feel like, you know, at least with Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
no matter how slow it is, you can feel the scale of it being cinematic.
Um, uh, and even with, you know Beyond and, um, Into Darkness,
no matter how much I don't like Into Darkness, it is cinematic.
J. J. Abrams know hows to shoot for the big screen.
This, there's no comp, there's no way that you can see this as a feature
film, or even a cinematic experience.
It's a movie length
Kevin: There were certainly a some effects shots that felt like juiced up
even beyond what we normally get in a weekly Star Trek show where the budgets
are pretty high already, but some of those nebula shots and the the ship
exploding from sabotage over the surface of the planet as the camera, like pans
over the tiny people beaming out in the foreground, like some of that stuff
I was like, wow, they spent an extra 50 percent on making this look great.
But I agree.
I think it's as much the cinematic shooting that was missing as a
cinematic story that was missing.
Uh, so if you, if you figured out how to correct both those wrongs and
went, okay, we started with a movie.
Let's do Section 31 number two, and write it and film it to be a movie.
Um, I think there is something there that I would show up for, especially if we got
Quasi back and Alok Sahar as the captain.
Um, I think, uh, that'd be the start of a cast that I
wouldn't mind, uh, seeing again.
And Rachel Garrett, of course.
Rob: Of course, Garrett.
Bring back Garrett.
Justice for Garrett.
Kevin: Oh, one more thing.
Turkana IV, the, the planet at the end that Jamie Lee Curtis sends them to?
I thought you would like to know, Rob.
I looked it up.
That is Tasha Yar's home planet.
That is the ill fated colony where she was dodging the rape gangs, infamously.
Rob: I'm not even, I was gonna do a gag there but I won't.
Kevin: So, can't you wait for the story on Turkana IV?
Rob: Oh, if only, if only.
Sadly, we can't get to see what would come of that series on that planet.
What a, it just, yeah, the, the sadness swells within me even more.
Kevin: So yes, moles, we had, uh, we had our mole here and, uh, we thought
we would go looking for some other examples of, uh, turncoats, double
agents, um, enemies hiding in plain sight.
Um, and, uh, I'm curious what you came up with.
I've been on a bit of a voyage with this one myself, actually.
Rob: You have?
Kevin: Yeah, I got, I started compiling a list and then at a
certain point, I actually went and looked up what, what a mole means.
Rob: Yeah?
Kevin: And I don't know how, how accurate this is, but at least
memory alpha contends that a mole is not just a spy in, in the ranks.
It is a double agent.
It is someone working for an opposing government that your, your government
agency has turned, uh, to work for you.
So, for a mole to exist, uh, according to this definition at least, you
need two military bodies and one of them has a traitor in the ranks
who is working for the other one.
Rob: you
Kevin: Which is a much finer definition and it, it eliminated
a lot of my possibilities.
So, like the earliest one I thought of at first was Arne Darvin from the
Trouble with Tribbles and Trials and Tribble-ations, the Klingon in disguise.
Rob: disguise, yes.
Kevin: But unless I'm mistaken, Arne Darvin was not a Starfleet
posing as a Starfleet officer.
He was just like a, uh, a middle functionary who was, uh, who had
infiltrated that the space station K 7 in order to try and poison the
Quadrotriticale and get, get the, uh, quadrant secured for the Klingons.
So he's just a spy.
He's not a mole, necessarily.
I also thought of Valeris in Star Trek VI.
Rob: Yes.
Kim Cattrall.
Kevin: A character I really enjoy.
A performance I really enjoy.
Rob: Especially where she was at that point, you know, she got her
break as, you know, in Porkies and Mannequin and so, sort of like
those raunchy, uh, comedy romps
Kevin: Would famously go on to be in Sex and the City.
That
Rob: Sex and the City.
Um, but
Kevin: Sex and the City.
Rob: But this is Kim Cattrall.
She is a classically trained theatre actor.
She has played Cleopatra multiple times.
Uh, she loves her Shakespearean times on stage.
And you see, and Shakespeare and Star Trek go hand in hand.
So you see her in a different light.
And considering it was meant to be a character we've already seen
Kevin: Yeah.
originally written as Saavik and then I am, I have read that at a certain
point Valeris, uh, was going to be revealed during this story to be the
daughter of Spock and Saavik from
Rob: That's right.
We have talked about
Kevin: the Genesis planet.
Um, but all of that was taken out before the, uh, final version of this
story and Valeris is just a Vulcan who makes some bad choices, and decides
Klingons are not to be trusted.
Rob: An incredible performance
Kevin: Yeah, really great.
Uh, but she is, she is just a traitor.
She is just a conspirator, not mole.
Heh
Rob: She's a dirty,
Kevin: heh heh.
Rob: She doesn't earn the right to have the word mole associated with her.
Kevin: And a big one that I spent a lot of time refreshing my memory on was
Julian Bashir replaced by a Changeling in, uh, Deep Space Nine's fifth season.
Rob: That's right, yes, yes, yes.
Kevin: Um, and he also, I mean, not really a mole.
Like, he's been replaced.
It's not that they turned Julian Bashir to the Dominion side.
It's that they literally kidnapped Julian Bashir and replaced him with an imposter.
So he's an imposter, not a mole.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: Uh, but yeah, lots of fun for those who don't remember or who
haven't watched Deep Space Nine.
Um, there is a series of episodes after which we discover Julian
Bashir on a Dominion prison colony, having been abducted and then you,
you, you're like, Oh, so how long has Julian Bashir been a changeling?
And we're told in the story he's, he's been, uh, kidnapped for about a month.
And you're like, well, that's probably more than one episode.
are few lines that establish definitively that it's more than one episode.
And there's been a lot of fan work to try to pin down at what point
does Julian stop being Julian?
And it's fun that, that, that is there to be found.
Like you can watch entire episodes with Julian Bashir and be pretty
sure that's changeling now.
Yeah.
Uh, when Julian is found, he has the old uniform on, and in the meantime, the, the
actors on Deep Space Nine have switched to the new gray shouldered uniforms.
Rob: yes.
Kevin: Often the, the episode where the uniforms changed is used as a
marker where, okay, then that means that's no longer a real Julian.
The first episode without the uniforms is, uh, Season 5, Episode 10, Rapture,
where, um, where Sisko, uh, has a shock in Quark's holosuite, and it lets him
have a lot of visions to find this ancient Bajoran city that's hidden
underground, and then he goes a little mad and, uh, advises the Bajorans
not to, to join the Federation yet,
Rob: That's
Kevin: be destroyed by a swarm of locusts coming out of the wormhole they do.
Um, and there's The Darkness and the Light, Episode 11, that comes after this,
where, uh, where Julian gives Kira a late pregnancy checkup, um, and repairs her
placental laceration, diagnoses that Kira was unaffected by the sedative, uh, that
a, an evil Cardassian gave her, thanks to the pregnancy herbs that she was taking.
So a fair bit of doctoring happening there for a changeling plant.
Uh, but the best estimate of when Julian was abducted actually comes
in the next episode, The Begotten.
Um, and in this episode, Julian treats Odo's back pain with a hypospray.
Uh, he cures a baby changeling's isotope poisoning.
This is the one where, where Odo is like trying to train the baby
changeling how to, how to shapeshift.
And, uh, yeah, in the end, sadly, the baby changeling dies, but gives Odo
Rob: Gives Odo his ability to shapeshift again.
It's a beautiful moment where he runs through the promenade
and can, uh, change into a bird.
Kevin: And when all of the, the, like, conspicuous mentions of time in the
various scripts are tallied up, this seems to be the, the, the episode
where Julian was first a changeling.
And it kind of makes sense that he was mostly administering to the health needs
of a baby changeling in this episode, which you can almost buy he does.
Kira famously gives birth in this episode as well to the O'Briens'
baby, and a lot of people are like, Ooh, did Julian deliver Kira's baby?
But when you actually watch the episode, he's, he's there just with
a, uh, kind of, um, ineffectively scanning her with a tricorder as she
goes through false labor in one scene.
And then in the scene where she actually gives birth, he is not there.
Um, the do, the, the Cardassian doula, if you will, does all of the delivery.
And so the fact that Julian's not there is actually, I think, a clue,
or at least a relief to those of us who, who would imagine a traitor
delivering poor Kira's baby.
Rob: Ha ha ha.
Kevin: Uh, in For the Uniform, the next episode, Bashir does not appear at all,
but we have heard, um, off screen that Siddig, uh, Alexander Siddig did film
a scene that was deleted from this in which he was told as the actor for the
first time that he was a changeling in disguise, but they took it out.
And I guess they said they didn't want to tip their hand too early.
And then, we have In Purgatory's Shadow where, where it's revealed, where we, we
find him on the uh, on the prison planet.
So yeah, there's a lot there to love, um, and certainly for, like,
impostors, for me, this is the best imposter in Star Trek history.
But not a mole, I don't think.
Rob: Another one.
Another, yeah, when it comes to changelings then, it's, uh,
it's very hard to, to see, uh, the definition mole being used.
Kevin: Yeah, so I, I did land on one mole, and I'm curious if it's
the same one you came up with.
It's another Deep Space Nine episode.
Rob: Mm hmm.
Um, yeah.
Want to say it at the same time?
Kevin: Is it, uh, Season 7, Episode 16, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges?
Rob: No, it is not.
And I'm, I'm.
I'm questioning it now because I'm looking at the story, and
they're going, Are they moles?
I don't think they are.
Kevin: I'm sorry I poisoned you with that thought that don't know
if Memory Alpha is to be trusted I think mole is open to interpretation
Rob: Oh, look how, how, how Memory Alpha has gone from being a trusted
source possibly now being fake news.
Well, let's go back to mine.
We're going, uh, Season 4, Episode 11 and 12.
Homefront and Paradise Lost.
Kevin: Yes, yes, yes, of course.
Rob: This is an incredible two part story.
This is friggin great.
There is so much happening in these two 45 minute episodes of television.
Kevin: Largely on Earth.
I, you know, I love a visit to future Earth as well.
Rob: There is so yeah, exactly.
So, uh, Sisko and Odo are sent back to Earth.
Uh, they are to find out more about the fact that there is a changeling
within Federation or on Earth somewhere.
Kevin: Yeah, they got this revealed to them.
They're like, there is a, there is a mole or there is a in Starfleet or something.
Rob: They're shown, uh, footage, there's a, there's a conference in Antwerp,
and, uh, they slow down the footage, and a pot, uh, just before the explosion,
Kevin: that.
Yes.
That
Rob: that they fo enhance, and as, as Worf says, enhance, um, and the, just before
it explodes, the pot shifts its shape and you see the changeling uh, uh, form,
and, and the explosion kills 27 people.
Kevin: I know a low blow, but That one gag is more interesting and
satisfying than anything that happens in all of Star Trek: Section 31.
Rob: Ha ha ha ha.
Yep.
Yep yep yep.
Um, and so there's layer upon layer, so Jake goes back with Sisko so they
can go see, uh, Grandpa, uh, the beautiful, uh, Brock Peters, uh, in
New Orleans, uh, to try their Creole food, and you don't even know the
difference between Creole and Cajun.
Um, plus you've got, uh, Odo going through the trauma of uh, going
up against his people and the distrust within the Federation, the
Kevin: remember this thick sense of foreboding as well, of like, we're
going home, it's supposed to be like a happy reunion, but there's this
sense of doom that the changelings are everywhere, and it's too late.
Rob: And, um, Sisko connecting with his old captain, who's now, uh, Admiral,
uh, Leyton, um, and layer upon layer upon layer of, of what's going on,
and who's the real trouble behind it, and, um, we have the President of uh,
Earth, uh, played by the same species, or the same species that we see in a
later, um, Lower Decks episode with, uh, upper, upper decks that comes in to
look at the space cows, uh, and then it reveals to be the insectoid rip apart
and going, I've seen that species before.
Yeah, the President of Earth.
Kevin: I would not have been able to get that from memory.
I had to look it up, but
Rob: We've got so much.
Like about the presidents didn't want to be president and he didn't want to have
to face this, you know, this incoming war and possible, um, martial law.
So it's all about who is the changeling and then that evolves
into who is betraying the Federation.
Kevin: Hmm.
Rob: Um, there's a lot of layers.
You've got Nog coming back in, you've got Red Squadron.
You've got, um, you know, a beautiful little moment in episode two, I believe,
where they talk about religion, and, but, you know, Kira talks about how
we're very religious within Bajor, and, Worf does the most incredible
speech about going, we did have gods, but they were killed by our ancestors.
Kevin: I love that.
Um, and yeah, it tracks as well.
I mean, they, they worship Kahless, who is just a, a really great Klingon warrior.
And the fact that, uh, he was such a Klingon warrior, he
killed the gods makes sense.
Rob: Killed the gods because they, yeah, they were, they, you know, they
took advantage of the Klingon people.
Um, so it's a lot of lack of trust and moments that to deal with.
Of, you know, who's a changeling and taking blood tests and everyone has
to do it and it's very, it hits so much with today, especially with,
you know, are you getting vaccines?
Are you not getting vaccines?
Are you, you know, I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I don't need to do this.
Everyone that needs to do this.
I'm not going to be told what to do.
My body is my body.
Um, incredible stuff.
Uh, deep layers about fathers and sons and, and grandparents and all
this stuff, I'm there going, so many layers hit, so many of them hit hard,
Kevin: Yeah, harder now than at the time this show came out.
Rob: God, very much so.
Kevin: Families torn apart about whether you should trust the, the
establishment with blood and so on.
Yeah.
Rob: And we talked about it a little bit, uh, in the past about just
seeing a successful, um, black family in science fiction or in any drama.
Um, uh, played out well and not having to deal with anything other than their own
personal dramas, um, is a beautiful sight to see as a representation of, you know.
That stands out as a symbol for not being, uh, it, it, it hits an issue by not
dealing with the issue, but hitting it.
Kevin: And a lovely, uh, a lovely bad admiral who turns out to
be worse than even we feared.
Rob: So he's not a changeling, but he, uh, is very much along the line of
Brock Peters' character in Star Trek VI, the Admiral who goes against the
Federation because he believes he's more Federation than the Federation.
Kevin: Yes, that's right.
Rob: Admiral Leyton wants to bring in martial law, and stricter protection to
protect the Federation and believes the Federation and, uh, everyone else is being
too soft, that the only way to protect is, you know, causing all this espionage
and problems and subterfuge so that he can get his way and have more troops on the
streets and more protection out there in the sky, but the threat is already there.
Um, so yeah, is he a mole?
Not really.
Is he a traitor?
Yes.
Kevin: Is he a spy or like an imposter?
Yeah.
Rob: Yeah.
Is he, Yeah.
Kevin: But I love that double layer of, like, we, we, know the bad
admiral prototype, the fact that you would not agree with his takes
that, um, our characters would be hard done by the admiral, that's
all standard Star Trek trope stuff.
Rob: And he goes through quite a journey, cause he's quite
pleasant and amiable at the start.
Kevin: they always are, Rob, those bad admirals, they're always very, they have a
very firm handshake and a very nice smile.
Rob: That's how they get ya, and then the next scene he sort of like has a
bit of a run in with Odo, and then he turns out that that's a changeling, uh,
admiral, so he runs away and flies off.
And then it turns out It's a double double bluff, when he comes out and
actually he's the one all behind it, uh, but he's not a changeling, he's just a
Kevin: Oh, that's right.
So it's he is a bad Admiral.
It's just the changeling was impersonating him.
Ah,
Rob: one scene, one scene.
Kevin: Yeah, right.
Rob: And then it all ends at the end with, uh, O'Brien arriving,
O'Brien the changeling, having a chat with Sisko about, you know
how many changelings are actually
Kevin: So creepy.
So creepy.
Rob: And Colm Meaney is such an incredible actor, he's just
smiling the whole time going, Four!
We did this with just four changelings!
We pretty much brought your whole culture to an end, uh, close to
the brink with just four of us.
Kevin: So they're kind of literal moles in that they're burrowing tunnels
under your backyard and everything's about to collapse in on itself.
Rob: Weakening the structure from within.
Kevin: Yeah, wow.
Oh, real good.
Okay.
Rob: Yeah, so there's some incredible, like, they have confrontations with
the Defiant and, um, uh, one of the Federation ships, uh, there's some
incredible space sequences, you've got family drama, you've got, uh, intrigue.
You've got amazing stuff going
Kevin: Those stories of like the, the enemies at the gate and we
can't stop fighting ourselves.
Um, yeah, so tense.
Really
Rob: You've got like Nog doubting himself cause he's only been at, uh, he's been
at the Federation and he's been at Starfleet for like a couple of months.
And so he's getting support from, uh, all the Siskos and they introduced
this Red Squadron, which we've kind of seen, you know, those, um, uh,
Federation cadets going, gone bad.
Um, because they think they're entitled and above themselves.
There's so many layers here.
Kevin: Yeah.
Oh, good.
Stands up, uh, stands up on rewatch, this two parter?
Rob: Oh, it's, I, I watched them last night and, um, I was meant to
be doing work while I was watching.
Uh, that work did not, that work did not get done.
Kevin: Yes.
I know the feeling.
Rob: Um, so yes, let's skip ahead to season seven.
Kevin: Yeah, Season 7, Episode 16, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, which
is a Latin quote by Cicero, the playwright, that, uh, it is, this quote
is said and explained in the episode.
It means in times of war, the law falls silent.
And this is a Section 31 episode, strangely enough.
Rob: Do we have Mr. William Sadler in
Kevin: We do indeed, and he is better than I remembered.
Rob: I love William Sadler.
He's such a great actor.
What a wonderful actor.
Kevin: I remembered him being a little more mustache twirly than he actually was.
He is a smiling villain who is utterly convinced that he's right, and doesn't
need to be mean to make his point.
He is, he is no more dismissive or unkind than his mission requires.
He's relatively personable.
And it's just that everyone violently disagrees with everything he's
doing, and he's okay with that.
Rob: And this is, and this is all with Bashir, isn't?
This Bashir, yeah, Bashir and Section 31 are so tied together
Kevin: Well, we've had several previous run ins between Bashir and Section 31,
and the start of this episode, Bashir is under instruction from Sisko to
play along the next Sloan shows up.
And that's more or less what happens here.
Um, Bashir wakes up in the middle of the night in his bedroom to
find Sloane sitting in an armchair at the foot of his bed with a
Rob: And, and Garak is very very jealous.
Kevin: Indeed.
Uh, and, um, oh man, I, I'm thinking back to those Julian Bashir Changeling
episodes where Garak gets a lot of great stuff to do as well.
He gets to meet his, uh, his old master who turns out to
be his father, Enabran Tain,
Rob: That's right.
Tain, yes.
Kevin: he, he goes to rescue him, but he's too late.
Tain dies, but, uh, in his dying moments on his deathbed, acknowledges him
as his son and tells him he's proud.
And yeah, real good stuff for Garak
Rob: There's some great Garak stuff, yeah.
Kevin: But yes, this is, uh, very much a, uh, story for Julian Bashir, who,
um, who plays along with, uh, because he doesn't have much choice, he is sent on
assignment to a conference on Romulus.
And at this point, Starfleet is doing everything they can to keep the Romulans
on their side war against the Dominion.
very worried that they'll, the Romulans may change their minds and switch sides.
The Romulan government is, it is somewhat controversial that they are
in an alliance with the Federation.
So Julian goes to like on
Rob: This of course this is of course all after, uh, By the Pale Moonlight,
where, uh, Sisko did, he compromised his, uh, moral beliefs to get the
Kevin: Brought the Romulans into the war on their side.
Yes.
So it's all on a shaky foundation of lies.
Rob: Love Love it.
Bring it on.
Kevin: So yes, on the surface, Julian is there just to share, um, he's an expert
in Ketracel White and Dominion weapons, biogenic weapons, and he's giving a, uh,
a conference talk on Romulus about it.
But Sloan gives him a second mission, which is to attempt to confirm that
this senior, uh, member of the, Romulan military, Koval, is sick with
this syndrome, this fatal illness, uh, because ostensibly Section 31,
if they can confirm he does have this illness, Section 31 can fake its
acceleration and, uh, to assassinate him.
Um, and this guy, Koval, is played by John Fleck, who, uh, who comes back in several,
um, antagonist roles, uh, most notably Silik later in Star Trek: Enterprise,
the, the alien in the very first episode with all of the bumpy green skin.
He's got a very, sort of, Lizard y demeanor, and he makes a
great Romulan in this episode.
He is the Romulan that hates anything that isn't Romulan.
Rob: Ah, excellent.
Kevin: And, um, and it turns out, Koval, spoilers for this episode, is our mole.
We think, on the surface, we, along with Julian, are led to believe
that Koval is the one who is arguing against Romulus being in this alliance.
He is the one we want to keep from rising to power in Romulan government.
And so, his assassination will actually help Starfleet keep the Romulans on side.
But in fact, Koval is secretly working for Starfleet.
And he is just being the hard ass to cover his own, uh, his own spycraft.
And so, everything that Julian does to, uh, try to avoid being sucked
into a murder plot is actually, it turns out, protecting the mole who
is working for Section 31 at the day.
Uh, and it is so good.
And reading the behind the scenes, this is, uh, an episode that, um, that started
as a more straightforward episode.
They were originally going to tell a straight story of assassinating this
guy over Julian's ethics, but it was the, the greater good for Starfleet
to keep the Romulans in the war.
But then they realized we've actually kind of already told that
story with In the Pale Moonlight.
Wouldn't be even more interesting if, um, there was a twist at the end and
the, the Romulan that we thought we were assassinating was actually being
protected and they, that Julian protects him by enlisting the help of a very
well meaning other Romulan, the one who is kind of working for the alliance.
He says, you got to help me.
Section 31 is going to try and kill this guy.
And she gets wrapped up in this plot to save him and is branded a
traitor for it and put to death.
And so that is the bitter pill at the end of this is that, Section
31 got exactly what they wanted.
They sold out the innocent Romulan to protect the traitorous Romulan that's
Rob: the traitor.
All that, yeah.
Kevin: So, so, so, so, satisfying.
Yeah.
Um, it's a, it's a great one written by our friend Ronald D. Moore.
So, you know, he's great at a twisty political intrigue story and
Rob: hail Ron.
Kevin: Yeah, at the top of his game here.
Rob: And that's the thing, and that's where, you know, Deep Space Nine went
darker and warlike more than any other.
But having this Section 31 show up for an episode here or there,
you can hit that darkness.
And then
Kevin: And he's represented by one dude.
You don't know who he works for or where he's from or what his childhood was like.
He's just a, a, a person who works in the shadows for forces of darkness.
Um, and every once in a while, gets some, uh, protection from senior
officials who should know better.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: The, the admiral in this episode, who seems all, uh, on the straight
and narrow, Um, it turns out, like Julian figures out at the end that he
was working with Section 31, and they have a badges off conversation where
Julian, protests the injustice and the admiral says, well, I can live with it.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: And that was Julian, what Julian was so good at is that, um, there was
a wide eyed naivety in some ways to that moral high ground that he always
strived for, and that's why it's so great within the darkness here to
be going, you know, I am above this.
I will not stoop to this level.
Kevin: Yeah.
Uh, very much a, uh, Alexander Siddig episode.
Like he's away from the station, and so most of the regular characters
are not present or just like here as bookends in this episode.
Um, he, he very much carries it.
And along the fantastic guest cast.
Rob: Wonderful actor.
Wonderful actor, Alexander Siddig.
Quite an underrated, I think, within the Star Trek annals.
He's gone on and done great stuff.
Um, hasn't really, you know, skyrocketed himself into any stardom, but
Kevin: No, yeah, I feel like he has matured like a fine
wine as an actor as well.
If, if there were some excuse to tell a elder Bashir story, he
would do such a good job with it.
Rob: Most definitely.
Most definitely.
It would be great to see where Bashir is at now.
Um, and yep, and that young naivety and see what has, if that hope
is still there within Bashir.
Um, well that's strive for, you know, um, for the greater good.
Um, yeah, yeah, it's a great, yeah, you talking about now, I remember it.
So, the double play between Saddler and, uh, Sidig is just incredible.
Kevin: It's a beautiful self contained episode as well.
This was like one of, if not the last episode before that, like
nine part series finale epic that
Rob: Yes, I think Badda-bing Badda-bang is just after it or just before it?
Kevin: right.
Badda-bing, Badda-bang is just before it.
There's this, and then we go into the, the final arc. Yeah.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah.
So the final standalone episode of Deep Space Nine, if you will.
And what a good one.
It really does stand alone.
It's a tight, tightly plotted puzzle box that with a really satisfying resolution.
Rob: And a Section 31
Kevin: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob: Boom.
Look
Kevin: who have known that the only two moles I could find in Star Trek
were both in Section 31 stories?
Rob: And done much better than what we've just watched.
Kevin: All right, well, Rob, it was fun to tease it apart with you.
I hope the next helping of new Star Trek we get is a standing on less shaky legs.
Rob: I particularly enjoy the fact that it just didn't become,
you know, an hour of bile.
I love the fact that you are able to put a spotlight on, uh, what
it could have done, what it did achieve, what, uh, things do do well.
So it's not just, there's far too much of just, you know, Uh, darkness and
hate online at the moment for us to look at something we, we didn't like it.
We didn't, we didn't, it didn't achieve what it could have done,
but we can find what was done well.
And I, I really appreciate
Kevin: Look, if nothing else, it opened with a map.
And I, as a nerd, love a story that opens with a map I have read that there are
two Starbase 17s on that map, so the map is not to be scrutinized too closely.
Nevertheless, it's a map, and I
Rob: a map.
We'll, we'll take it.
We'll take, we'll take whatever win we can.
Kevin: Well, until we next meet in the, uh, in the currents and
eddies of fate and time, Rob,
Rob: I'm going to go watch Yesterday's Enterprise, and I
think I'm going to binge watch, re watch all of Deep Space Nine again.
Kevin: Well, start with yesterday's Enterprise.
I can't wait to hear what you make of Rachel Garrett and whether you too see
the connection in the characterization.
Rob: forward to it.
You, uh, take care of yourself and, um, we'll get, we'll go into, we'll
go into a deep sleep, a cryogenic freeze, and come back in 70 years,
Kevin: Very good.
Rob: to talk about Strange New Worlds when it's there.
Kevin: See you 'round the cryo chamber.