Kevin: Hey, Rob.
Rob: Kevin, how are you?
Kevin: I'm good.
I'm good.
There's a, there was a new episode of Star Trek this week, so it's
always a good week when that's true.
Rob: It is, always a good week when Star Trek is back on our TVs.
Kevin: Wagh!
We are immediately gonna go off on a tangent of how Star Trek belongs on
TV and it is so good that it is back in that form in our lives, but maybe
let's save that for another time.
Rob: Definitely.
Let's just say we agree to agree.
Kevin: Yeah, let's talk about Strange New Worlds, season one, episode eight,
The Elysian Kingdom, which is the one we are jumping into here with, I
guess you would call this The Cage of whatever this podcast is going to be.
This is maybe our, our unaired pilot.
Rob: Very much so, very much so, although I am hoping that we keep our full cast as
opposed to everyone being replaced, except for one of us being the Leonard Nimoy
of the… That would be a really awkward, first podcast after this, when it's
just one of us is replaced, going "Hi…"
Kevin: Well, I did wanna warn you that I'm planning to come back for
the proper show with no emotions.
Rob: Can you really promise that though?
Talking, talking clinically unemotional and completely logical,
when it comes to Star Trek.
Kevin: I'll still have them.
You just won't be able to see them.
Rob: It'll be an internal battle.
Kevin: Vulcans.
Another topic for another time.
Let's talk about Dr.
M'Benga's sojourn on the magically transformed USS
Enterprise that we got this week.
Rob: This has been the show that we've all been talking about as in going and
even a lot of the reviews online have been going, cuz we've been so used to
over the last couple of years with this week to week release of TV shows of that
week to week review of it and people have been have their highs and lows
and ups and downs of particular shows.
But with Strange New Worlds it was this unique anomaly really
of week one came, everyone went, that's a really solid start.
Week two, that's a really solid, and kept on going along and people going this
like we're six, seven episodes in and they've been just all killer, no filler.
And we are just going this, this can't keep up that like modern
television just doesn't do that.
We have been trained or we have learnt from the excessive amounts
of streaming television content.
Kevin: Yeah.
It can't all be good.
Rob: Yeah.
And so episode eight, The Elysian Kingdom came out and, although not up
to the same standard, as I think some of the other stories I did enjoy it,
it was very much that you know, you messaged, you know, had the word bottle
episode, it was a little bit bottley, cause it was all contained on the set.
It was a little bit mixed up, the episode.
So like it's not that particular format where shaking things up a bit,
this would be the equivalent of a, a holodeck, holosuite episode of a, you
know Next Gen or, or Deep Space Nine.
Kevin: If they had had the holodeck, they might've used it, but they
don't have it, so they got creative.
Rob: So, yeah.
And, and that's something I'd like to talk about later.
But yeah, I enjoyed it.
I didn't find it to the same, I dunno if quality or standard is a bit harsh,
but yeah, it was definitely, I loved it and there was a lot of great stuff
in there, but there's stuff that really moved me in in, in previous episodes.
But I still think the standard is, is very, very high.
It was much better than a lot of other television out there.
What about you?
Kevin: I enjoyed it a lot.
I think I got to the end of it and said to no one in particular.
I wanna watch that again right away.
And I will, I will agree with you that it was maybe not as meaningful is the
word I'm going for, or consequential.
It felt a little on inconsequential as an episode, which is a weird thing to say
about an episode where a child's entire future existence hung in the balance
and, and changed pretty drastically.
Rob: Well there was a point where I'm there going, are we going to see our
second child, you know, "fatality" I do in inverted commas, in the space
of three weeks, I'm going, oh, okay.
Is this the is this the way that Strange New Worlds is leaning into?
Kevin: Yes.
But I, I think it was the tone that, that gave it that feel that
it, it was a child's storybook tone through the whole thing.
And for, for most of this episode, I was leaning forward going, I don't
know what's going on, but I can tell they're doing this perfectly.
Rob: Yes.
I mean, I've what I love about these type of episodes, especially with the
holodeck ones, you've, I don't know how… because when it comes to specifics,
but from my knowledge of say Deep Space Nine and stuff like that, these type of
episodes came in a bit later when all the characters were well established,
whereas we're only eight episodes—
Kevin: I think we're gonna talk about that of like where in the series does
a "breaking the pattern" episode come, because I think I agree with you.
There's the early ones that are meant to be character revealing.
The The Naked Time, The Naked Now those ones that like lower our character's
barriers really early in the series to reveal their unvarnished selves.
And we get to know them really quickly.
And there's, there's the late series ones that are like, the writers are
kind of like, "What else can we do?"
And something wild is put on the table.
Rob: And also, cuz we know the characters so well, so to take them
out and put them in a different personality or a Mirror Universe
episode, you go, oh, this is enjoyable, cuz I know this character so well.
And especially with the first seven episodes, we've
had a lot of time with Pike.
We've had a lot of time with Spock.
We've had a lot of time with Una.
We've had a bit of time with La'an.
I'm still waiting on my Ortegas centered episode.
Kevin: She was in this a lot, but not as herself.
Rob: Yeah, that's the thing.
I was there going, we're getting a lot of her, but we haven't had much of Ortegas
beforehand, so it hit me well, but if we'd had that come in, say, you know,
a season two or something like that, we would've had, okay, now we know all the
crew and this is even more enjoyable cuz it is so… I mean it was great seeing, you
know, Pike play the sniveling underhanded, backhanded, Chamberlain type character.
And that was so clear and
Kevin: "Cancel the court jester!"
Rob: Exactly!
Seeing Ethan Peck with very nice, long hair and the wizard, rugged look, that
was that was particularly impressive.
Kevin: Yes.
Were you disappointed that Spock's wizard, Pollux didn't do any actual magic?
Rob: It was interesting because I had so much fun with… I loved Hemmer's
enjoyment of playing the, the magic side of him doing scientific stuff.
So yeah, it would've been good to see Spock try that, but then it
would've opened a whole other can of worms of going, you know is the magic
coming from, you know "Deborah" I'm putting up inverted commas again,
or but yeah, him just standing there broody with a five o'clock shadow.
I was all right, mate.
Kevin: My partner, Jess went, "Mm, yes, please."
And I said I think it's like "Spock meets John Snow" was the
look that we were getting there.
Rob: Yeah, yeah.
You know, everything…
Kevin: You know, everything, Mr.
Spock.
Rob: …Mr.
Spock.
But there was so much fun stuff in there and like it was, you know, the, the sword
fighting was great and it's a very Star Treky thing where, you know, this unusual
fantasy esque type different genre, invades, the very clinical, scientific,
hopeful world of Star Trek and how they approach it from that, "Okay, well, we
are in this situation where there are wizards and there are sword fighting.
Let's look upon this in a clinical, straightforward
manner and let's solve it."
And so going through those steps, which has been done in all Star Trek shows when
they have these type of episodes and I'd love to see how each individual thing.
I think Hemmer embraced it so much more.
Cause of course M'Benga was doing it more from an emotional
point of view to find his child.
But that play when they go, okay, this is what we have, this is the parameters
we have and how you play within that.
That's what I like to see when they start to muck around with it.
Kevin: This episode felt like a flex to me in, in that like they are showing…
It's almost as if they set the challenge for themselves this season, how can
we make every episode completely different from every other episode?
Rob: Very much so.
Kevin: No, two the same.
There is no formula.
The formula is breaking the formula.
Rob: Yeah, it feels very much to me.
I'm breaking into a different franchise here, like Dr.
Who, Dr.
Who has been able to last 60 years, because it can
adapt to genres so very much.
You know, the William Hartnell era was educational, historical stories.
The Patrick Troughton era was monster of the week B grade sci-fi.
John Pertwee era was James Bond, espionage type action, the Avenger style thing.
And then Tom Baker had three different genres, but his main one
was gothic horror, which this is.
They've had this established format, of a better word.
For Star Trek, and they've infused like, even in the Gorn episode, they
had two genres, they had horror and, you know, submarine drama going on at.
So they've really gone, this is the format that everyone pretty much knows,
everyone has their roles, but each genre is so different from episode to episode,
Kevin: I'm starting to think that instead of Strange New Worlds,
this is Strange New Star Trek.
On the one hand I don't know what I'm going to see, and I am here for it.
I am almost disappointed though, that if that, if this is the show
for that, does it mean that the other new Star Trek shows are less varied?
Because this, this show is, is hogging the variety for itself.
Rob: Are you saying there's only, you know, so much variety that can go around?
Kevin: Yes, Harry Mudd comedy episodes aside, which Discovery had early on,
all the other Star Trek series, at least all the other live action ones are very
like "tell one story" season long arc, and therefore is somewhat confined to
one genre format for, for their stories.
This is the one that's free of that.
And they're doing more than just telling episodic stories that need
to be wrapped up by the end of the episode, they are using it to
break the format every single week.
Rob: Yeah, definitely.
And they're still bringing in that expectation in little increments
that, modern fans have come to expect.
So we are getting those little, tidbits of story arc.
So we always return to Pike's dilemma, we return a little bit
to you know, Spock's… we all know it's doomed to fail, obviously,
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: You know, it's Star Wars prequel stuff.
We're going well, we know how it's gonna turn out, but it's fun to see them make
up and break up and make up along the way.
Kevin: Mm-hmm I'm rooting for them, even though I know it's hopeless.
That's that's what they've achieved.
Yeah, we're talking about Spock and T'Pring, of course.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: Speaking of character arcs, that was the biggest surprise
for me this episode is that it drew a line, at least apparently,
under M'Benga's character story.
Every other character has been set up with this thing that seems like it might
be solved by the end of the season.
But it feels more like this is the, this is the question mark, next
to each character for the series.
And for M'Benga's to be wrapped up, apparently eight episodes in, makes
me wonder, what is this character going to be between now and when
we see him in the Original Series?
Rob: And, well, that's the thing, because I mean, I think, correct
me if I'm wrong, he only had one appearance in the Original Series?
Kevin: I'll go along with that.
I might have guessed one or two.
Rob: And in The Cage they had the old, you know, almost sea dog, captain
type of doctor who's very much, you know, you need some, you need some
medicine "Here, wet your whistle" with handing him a scotch or something.
So maybe they're, yeah, I haven't heard anything about announcements
or casting or anything like that.
Kevin: No, no!
Don't, I don't wanna let him go.
He's such interesting texture
Rob: Oh no, neither do I.
I think he's a great character, but there openness there for, you know.
Kevin: I wanna see what's next for him, because the, the idea, my child is dying
and I'm searching for the cure, felt like something that could go on for seasons.
And it's, it's gone on for less than a season.
So what's next?
Rob: We are very much out of that nineties era, late eighties, nineties era of Star
Trek, where we go, well, we've got, you know, seven seasons, 24 episodes a season,
so we can go through the process of, you know, well, Deep Space Nine doesn't
get good until season four or whatever.
We've got this case of no, we've got 10 or 12 episodes for this, I believe.
So it's sort of like all those arcs that would back in the nineties, we
had the glorious, you know, luxury of having an arc that would, you know,
come and go for six, seven years.
You know, Julian Bashir's enhanced human arc went on for the entire time.
Kevin: Worf's family drama.
Rob: Wow that, yeah.
Yeah.
The, the Klingon version of kitchen sink drama, it's very much.
But yeah, so it's, again, it's that condensed nature of modern television
that go, what would, what would go over a season of 24 episodes and probably
over two or three seasons is now nup.
We've had a—
Kevin: No time for it.
Rob: No time for it, showed up over eight episodes, but it only appears
on and off for about three episodes.
And I found it quite interesting because he started this journey with Una, but for
most of the episode he was with Hemmer.
But at the end Una came back.
So it's that case of yeah, where that consistency of his
emotional, you know, connection is.
Kevin: Yeah.
So this, this episode, we got to talking after we watched it and agreed that the
fact that it blows up the format, or at least the expected format of an episode
of Star Trek is what stood out to us.
And we thought to go back to the archives what episodes echoed in that
way for us, were our favorite mixing it up, subvert expectations, blow up
the standard format of the TV show.
So we've got each our own lists.
I've got at least three I can talk about.
Rob: I've got at least three as well.
Kevin: All right.
So have what's your earliest one in terms of which series it appears in?
Rob: Okay.
Look, Kevin.
I am gonna, I'm gonna make a massive confession right here.
My key era for me is Deep Space Nine.
So I've seen that series back to front, like three or four times.
So all of mine, I just leaned into my Deep Space Nine.
Kevin: Deep Space Nine.
All right.
Not surpr— like I would say justifiable.
Deep Space Nine was probably the most creative, trope breaking or groundbreaking
Star Trek series of all time.
So not surprising there would be a lot of mixing it up, but I'm gonna pull us back
to Next Generation before we go into DS9.
Rob: Do we need to do the, you know flashback music?
(doodley-doo, doodley-doo…)
Kevin: Yeah, yeah!
Oh, we're gonna get some sound effects.
Don't you worry
Rob: Oh, I don't need to do the sound effects myself.
How, how cheap is that?
You know, I'm opening up the I'm opening up the, the sliding doors myself.
I've actually, I'm a stage hand.
(shhhh!)
Kevin: Oh, we need some of those holodeck doors that, (grrrrrr-krwwww)
Rob: Ha ha ha exactly.
Kevin: Alright.
TNG season five, episode 18 Cause and Effect is the first one that came to mind.
This is the, time loop episode where in the teaser, before the opening
credits, the Enterprise is destroyed in a collision with a star ship
appearing out of a spatial rift.
You remember this one?
Rob: I, I do not.
My TNG knowledge is quite limited, but you're selling it to me.
Bring on, bring on you know, convince me to, once I get off this, this
podcast to go and watch it and go, damn that Kevin, he was right.
Kevin: So yeah, Cause and Effect is a stuck in a time loop episode.
Rob: Awesome.
Kevin: And an episode of Next Generation had a teaser and then it had four
acts and in Cause and Effect, each act was a, a time through the loop.
So the episode starts, the Enterprise is attracted to a spatial disruption.
They go up to it, a ship comes out and, and collides into them and
it, and the Enterprise blows up.
Cut to credits.
And you're like, I still remember— this was early nineties.
I still remember sitting there going, holy crap, the Enterprise has exploded.
And they put extra money into this explosion.
It wasn't just the, it wasn't just the firecracker going
off, overlaid on the model.
It was, they built a model and filled it with fireworks, and the
nacelles went spinning through space.
It was shocking.
Rob: This is before, you know, dear listeners.
This is before you know, the reboot series of movies, where they pretty
much destroyed the Enterprise.
Every movie you just go, well, you if you blow it up, every movie, we we're
just not gonna be excited anymore.
Kevin: After the credits you come back and the exact same sequence
of events plays out before…
Rob: Love a time loop.
Kevin: …of the characters are aware that they are living the same events again.
In fact, people watching this episode for the first time were deeply confused.
They thought that the TV stations had gotten it and were playing the
episode from the beginning again.
Jonathan Frakes, who directed the episode was careful to shoot the
same scenes from different angles.
And it was a kind of a game of how can we make the same
events replay in a fresh way.
But we see in much more detail, the sequence of events that lead up to, once
again, the Enterprise getting struck in space by another starship and blowing up.
Rob: Yeah.
And that's a bold move to, you cuz most time loop have at least one character
for whatever reason is aware of this.
And then it's their mission to educate everybody to keep up and what they
are willing to sacrifice to get to the normality of their timeline.
Kevin: By the third time through the loop, people are starting to have déjà vu.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: And it's creepy déjà vu.
It's like, I know what's about to happen.
And then it does.
And people have no idea how this could be possible.
Dr.
Crusher is hearing voices in her quarters that turn out to be echoes
of past times through the loop that happened to just concentrate
at that place in space and time.
Anyway, long story short, they realize the mystery, send themselves a message
into the next loop by means of a déjà vu that only Data will notice
and manage to avert the disaster.
This is one of many episodes that are like time loops where someone early
on suggests well, should we just change course, would that solve it?
It's Worf.
He's like, should we change course?
And, and someone says, we can't afford to start second guessing ourselves.
We have to proceed as we normally would, which is a stupid idea if you're stuck
in a time loop, definitely mix it up.
Rob: But if you say it with enough confidence you know, early nineties people
who are still shocked by the fact that they blew up the Enterprise will just
go, well, that sound pretty convincing.
They said that pretty.
That person knows what they're talking about!
Kevin: There's a great YouTube video called Worf solves Cause and Effect where
it's a 30 second edit of the episode where they're like, what should we do?
And Worf says we should change course.
And it's the end credits.
Rob: Hit the Jerry Goldsmith.
Come on, let's get outta here.
Kevin: But it's yeah, freaking great episode because it messes with the format.
Each act is a replay of the same story, but they are solving
a mystery in the process.
And, and it's got Kelsey Grammer at the end.
He's the captain of the uh, wayward ship that's come out from, from the past.
They're wearing Star Trek II uniforms cuz they've been stuck
in the time loop this whole time.
Rob: Of course that— yeah.
And it's become quite a popular meme at the moment using that
Kelsey Grammer image with his beard.
Of course.
Kevin: Yes.
All right, let's go to DS9 now.
What's yours?
Rob: Okay.
Well, number three, for me, it, it causes a lot of controversy,
this one, but I don't care.
I re-watched it last night.
Kevin: Hang on number three.
Is this a count up?
Rob: For me, for me, it's a count up I'm going and I'm going, I'm going up.
For me, a lot of people deride this episode.
But I love it.
And I watched it last night and I just had the biggest smile
on my face the whole time.
Take Me Out to the Holosuite.
Kevin: Oh, yeah!
Rob: Are you kidding me?
Baseball.
Comedy.
You've got Worf at any point, you know, just, you know, go, what do we do?
How do you play the play?
And you just go "Find him and kill him!"
Kevin: Ah ha ha
Rob: You know, you've got, you've got Sisko learning a lesson not
to take the game so seriously.
You've got, yeah, it's a bonding exercise with Ezri getting, you know, she's only
been there a couple of episodes, so she's trying to reconnect with everybody.
Kevin: Yeah.
This is a late DS9 episode.
Speaking of our, our conversation before this is season seven.
Rob: This is season seven, this is season seven.
So I've sort of like mixed up my, my timeline as well.
I'm caught in a, I'm caught in a time loop…
Kevin: That's fine.
Rob: …Kevin.
So yeah, I rewatched it and it's a great mix up of everything it is a lot
of location work or "location work" (in inverted commas) in the holosuite.
The, you know, the summoning forth and erasing of crowd.
But it's that whole thing of just building up the team, you know,
and those later seasons, especially around five or six, seasons five or
six of Star Trek DS9 is very heavy.
You've got Dominion fighting.
You've got, you know, dark episodes about how you play out in warfare.
So to have light episode,
Kevin: It was breaking the format of what had become a very dark war story series.
Rob: They'd shifted from like political intrigue and also sort of like a lot of
work on Bajor and building up the culture of Bajor and the culture of Cardassia
and the culture of the Ferengi as well.
But then to take it to that moved on for about two seasons' worth of,
or even more of this Dominion war and, you know, going on, you know,
quadrant level intrigue and drama.
So to bring it back to just a petty dispute between Sisko and a Vulcan.
Kevin: Is it just one Vulcan?
I can't remember.
Rob: Yeah.
It, it, the, the cold, the cold op— it's a whole team of Vulcans, but and
there's that awkward moment where so like the Vulcan runner doesn't hit the home
base and Nog's there looking around it.
And, and Odo, Odo, can't say it.
Yes, but they're all sitting down on the line and Nog goes up, cuz he has to
tag with the ball, one of them, and he looks around and he says "Which one?"
So he came close to saying all Vulcans look alike.
He almost said it.
Kevin: I remember he goes down the line, yeah.
Rob: Yeah.
So it opens with Sisko is visited by a Vulcan captain of a ship
who's serving on the front line.
And there's tension between two of them because he's saying DS9 is away
from the front line and then Sisko's going, oh, we've had, they're like
measuring each other's Starfleet members…
Kevin: This would have to be an early example of the dislikable Vulcans.
Rob: Yes.
Yes.
They had been, up until that point, sort of like the Vulcans were seen from a sort
of like quite a, you know revered point of view, especially when you got, you
know, Sarek and you've got, whenever you bring Nimoy back, you've gotta, you know,
worship the ground that man walked on.
Kevin: That's what I remember about this is it was almost sacrilegious that one of
these core races that was this, it was the favorite character in the Original Series.
They are the villains in this episode.
Rob: Very much so, and very much that, you know, antagonizing through, you
know, you're just a human and they also lean into the fact that how
superior strength they are as well.
So because it had been established that there hadn't been a baseball game
for… There was like an outpost a colony that started it up, but it, it hadn't
been played for over a hundred years or something like that, longer than that.
So to have a holosuite program of it, they challenge each other to a game of
a baseball and everyone gets to try out and no one's played before, only Jake.
Cassidy, Cassidy's quite good with the, in the game, but they, they all learn and
it's about, you know, Sisko learning to enjoy the game, not take it so seriously.
You've got, you know uh, Nog and, and Rom building their family relationship.
It's a great one just to go these are the characters that we love for six years.
Let's introduce Ezri into the group and, you know, find the fun of it.
And it's something like you said that DS9 could do because it spent so much
time working all their characters and they had such a uniformly strong cast
of actors to play these characters.
I mean, that's a whole other episode where we talk about, you
know, certain characters who are stronger than say other characters.
I'm not mentioning any names…
Kevin: Yeah, yeah.
Rob: …Harry Kim.
Kevin: We'll get there, but
yeah,
Rob: I'm not mentioning any clarinet players.
No clarinet players at all.
Kevin: No Ensigns who are unpromotable will be mentioned.
Rob: …through lack of personality.
I'm sorry.
That was a bit harsh on that first episode.
Kevin: That was a bit harsh.
I have to say though, it has one of the hallmarks of a mixing it up episode in
that nothing happens, but at the same time for the characters so much happens.
Rob: Very much so.
Kevin: The stakes in the universe couldn't be lower, but the character growth, or
what we learn about the characters by having them all be fish out of water
for an episode, couldn't be greater.
Rob: Dare I say, Kevin it's about the friends they've made along the way.
Kevin: …the way.
The way to the ninth inning— to the bottom of the ninth.
Rob: Bottom of the ninth.
Yeah.
So what's your, what's your number two?
Kevin: I suspect we are gonna match on this one.
It is Deep Space Nine, season six, episode 13, Far Beyond the Stars.
Rob: Oh look, I was looking at that one, but I thought that you would hit that one.
So I, I made a clever tactical move there…
Kevin: Good, good.
Rob: But I'm glad you brought up, cuz it is phenomenal.
Kevin: If I were ranking these in terms of level of success as an
episode, this would be my number one.
This is the character where, almost without explanation, Sisko, who is
down in the dumps about the war, he's saying those things, starship
captains, and space station captains sometimes say of like, maybe, maybe
it's time I hung up my uh, my uniform.
I'm not sure if I can take this anymore.
And then he starts hallucinating that he is in the 1950s and he is a science
fiction writer named Benny Russell, and these hallucinations quickly escalate
to the point where he is living that alternate reality or that, that fantasy
in which not only does Sisko impersonate Benny Russell, but all of the other
characters-slash-actors, regulars in the show, take on new personas as well.
All of them out of their alien makeup and, and playing
completely different characters.
And all of them interesting, rich, likable characters.
I rewatched this one last night and I had to say, I would watch the show in which
all of these characters were regulars.
Rob: Ah, yeah.
Kevin: If they just wrote a new science fiction episode every week,
and this like magazine was the framing device, I would love these
characters to see these every week.
Rob: Like, I was just saying before it shows just what a stellar group of
experienced actors, they had, you know, Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, you know,
Armin Shimerman, these guys have, you know, Terry Farrell who'd been around, she
was a hard working actor guest spots on Quantum Leap and all these other things.
So you've had serious actors, who'd been working their asses off for a long time
and they came into this ready to work.
And when they do a silly episode, like playing baseball, they would, when they
could hit a hard episode like this one,
Kevin: Yep.
Rob: they'd bring their A game.
Kevin: So directed by Avery Brooks, who was in every scene, if not every
shot almost of this episode as well.
So what a huge lift for, for that guy.
And, ultimately the story is Benny Russell is inspired to write a
story about a space station and a black captain Benjamin Sisko.
Rob: And he's a sci-fi writer in the…
Kevin: Sci fi writer, yeah.
1950s, yeah.
And his story is at first rejected because it is "unbelievable" that there would be
a space station commander who is Black.
And one of his colleagues, I think it is the one being played by Miles
O'Brien or Colm Meany, he says, "Why don't you just make it all a dream?"
And Benny goes, "Would that make a difference?"
And his editor goes, "Well, it just might."
It's someone dreaming of a better world.
And so the fact that it has not actually happened, it is someone's
dream makes it okay to put in print in this time and place.
At least that's what the editor concludes.
And what a powerful allegory for Star Trek itself that over the years at its
best Star Trek is able to say something about our society that is not possible
to tackle directly or, or that the audience will not be receptive to it
if it tackled directly, but they can treat it as a dream, as an allegory,
as a exploration of the possible.
And the audience is willing to go there.
Yeah, it's fascinating, cuz it's been sprouted by so many extreme pundits
about since when was science fiction political or since when was Star
Trek ever political and I'm there going, pretty much from day one.
And each of them had their own agenda within that political
message of progress and equality.
Especially in the nineties as well, it was quite still limited in many ways,
but especially giving that platform to go, you know what, not only are we
making this big, powerful decision in the nineties to have a, our captain
be a man of color, be Black, but also we will deal with those stories.
And they sprinkled them throughout that seven years of Deep Space Nine
to really show issues, even though they're in the, you know, the far flung
future, those issues can resonate here.
And this one is, it wears its emotional heart on its
sleeve and it does it so well.
It's never more front and center than in, in this episode
and they do so well with it.
Rob: But it's never preachy.
I mean, I'm all for a bit of a preach myself.
But it is done in such a beautiful way.
It is written so well, so powerful that…
Kevin: This has the same power as another favorite episode of mine
that we won't talk about unless it's…
Rob: Right.
Kevin: It's not on your list, cuz it's a TNG episode, but it, it's
The Inner Light, which is many people's favorite TNG episode.
Captain Picard gets mentally transported by an alien probe and lives an
entire life based on the historical records of a now extinct society and
then comes back to himself and only minutes have passed, but he has lived
an entire lifetime with an entire family and it is, it is lost to him.
And this Far Beyond the Stars does that same trick of Sisko comes back and he
has fully emotionally invested in this other person, this other reality he
has been living as, and now he's the only person who remembers it and that,
that sense of loss, that feeling of the last page of your favorite book.
And you can never read it for the first time again.
It's all that power plus this social justice message that is, that is
brought to life so powerfully.
In the end, Benny Russell's editor does put the story forward, but the owner
of the sci-fi magazine has the edition pulped because he does not like the
story, and in an incredible, probably the strongest acting moment in the entire
series of DS9, with the camera right in his face, Avery Brooks breaks down.
I have watched that episode at least five times, and I
can't watch it without crying.
Rob: Yeah.
Yeah, it is absolutely beautiful.
And just the respect that the show gave to Brooks as an artist and as
an advocate and as a storyteller, you know and not just pigeonholing
people, going you are this figurehead.
To go, no, you have a voice, you have a creativity, you have an intelligence and
you can share that and you can educate us through being given a platform to do that.
And it all comes to a head in that magical episode in season six.
Kevin: This this episode has a direct link to Strange New Worlds this week
because the book, the story book, the Elysian Kingdom has "written
by Benny Russell" on the cover.
So this for the first time establishes that author, at least in Star Trek
canon as a real person who actually lived, whereas up until this point, the
assumption was, it was just a figment of, of the Prophets' imagination.
And so, yeah, real person now, at least in, in the Star Trek universe.
Rob: Whole chance for a spinoff prequel series.
Kevin: Yeah.
Wrote DS9 and also wrote The Elysian Kingdom.
Rob: The Elysian Kingdom.
There we
Kevin: What range!
What range!
Rob: He can do fantasy and sci-fi, but can he do Klingon, the kitchen sink drama?
Let's…
Kevin: Let's find out.
Rob: That's the challenge for you, Benny Russell.
Next up, this one relates, I think the most closely to the Elysian Kingdom.
It's Deep Space Nine season four, Our Man Bashir.
Kevin: All right.
I wanna hear all about this because I remember this episode exists, but
I could not tell you much about it.
Rob: So, whereas Elysian Kingdom leans into the fantasy tropes,
this is out and out Bond.
It is all James Bond.
And coming from someone who's just finished doing a comedy festival season
in Melbourne with our tribute show to James Bond, it was, it was yeah, it was a
joy to go back and watch that last night.
So it's similar to Elysian in the ways of we establish, you know,
we've establishment of all the characters, something scientific,
something unknown happens.
And so the characters we know are, their personality is gone and
they are becoming these holodeck characters on Julian Bashir's James
Bond style holodeck/suite program.
Kevin: Right.
So it really is a direct match cuz that's so rare.
Like, this thing of characters being transposed into a
piece of in universe fiction.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: That's not something you see that often.
Rob: And it's that thing that I was talking about earlier, it's that mix
of embracing the James Bond tropes.
So you've got, the saucy name for the female assistant.
We've got the henchman with the eye patch, you've got the slightly
"Mandarin dressed", in inverted commas, evil super genius.
You've got the big board of the globe lighting up.
All those type of things…
Kevin: There's a casino caper in this one, isn't… there
Rob: That's a, that's a different episode, spoilers for coming up,
but we do go to you know, a French casino and, that's matched with the
people on DS9 solving the problem.
So basically the cold opener is Bashir acting out his bond fantasy.
In comes Garak, the great Garak, one of the greatest characters in Star
Trek history coming in and looking at it going, what the hell are you doing?
We're meant to be having, you know, our usual drinks and dinner.
And he gets caught up in it when they come back from the ad break, the, crew of
the runabout is meant to be coming back to Deep Space Nine, but there's something
going on and there's an explosion.
They can't get out, they try and beam them out, but while they do they're caught.
And so they have to put all the programming into Deep Space Nine,
but the memories are not there.
And where are the memories?
All that dense sci-fi/scientific
gobbledygook
Kevin: Some technobabble to justify the…
Rob: Exactly.
So we've got that all going on while we've got Bashir and Garak acting
out this James Bond style scene with all the characters that we know.
So Jadzia Dax, Kira, Worf, O'Brien and Sisko are inhabiting those
characters within the Bond— Well "Bond", I do in inverted commas.
Just assume listeners, whenever I say Bond, I'm doing inverted commas.
So the regular actors get to have the fun, like in the Elysian tale of
playing these different characters.
So Kira is now this Russian agent.
You've got Worf as the number two to the evil genius and that evil genius is
of course played with so much relish.
I think they had relish had a slice of ham, add more relish
than another slice of ham.
Avery Brooks, just chewing all the scenery, which was all
covered in his relish playing this, you know, mad scientist.
And his inflections and hand gestures were just outstanding.
So it's that whole mix up and then there's the scientific explanation
of how we can solve all this.
So you've got, you know you've got Rom and Odo all trying to
sort out that on the other end.
So it's a great way to—
Kevin: So is there a ticking clock within the holodeck thing that
Rob: Yeah, the whole thing.
So the safety, the safety's off.
So Bashir has to make sure that no characters can die.
And a lot of them are playing villains, so they have to keep the characters alive.
Kevin: So he needs to do the perfect run of his favourite video game.
Rob: to do the perfect run.
And as he goes along, this is the thing.
So in the Elysian tale, it's the doctor and chief engineer and they
hadn't really had much time together.
So it's kind of like they find each other and they go, let's
solve this, which is okay.
And you have fun moments, like, you know, chief engineer doing the
whole, like I talked about earlier, the magic, which is actually just
transporting them to the cargo bay.
But this is, you've got an established relationship.
You've got Garak, you've got Bashir.
They've known each other for years.
And so as they go through this, Garak's there going, look, you can't save 'em
all, it's better if we can save most of them, if we have to lose some.
And so it's that whole, they learn about each other and their emotional
journey is affected by this.
So it's a case of, by the end of the episode, everyone goes back to normal,
but the great thing about it, and what all stories should be, Garak and
Bashir have moved forward with their relationship, which is really powerful.
And of course it ends with a wonderful nod to to Bond.
So Garak's there going, we should do drinks.
He goes, "Yeah, well, at the same place, same time?"
He goes, "No, let's actually do it within the holosuite," because at the
start of the episode, Garak doesn't get the holosuite, but he gets it now.
And they go, "Let's do it.
Shall we do another, you know, Julian Bashir secret agent mission?"
And Bashir goes, "Well, you know, Julian Bashir secret agent will return."
Just like that.
And that's the end of the episode and you go brilliant, great.
Tie it up in a little bow.
You've got all your science, gobbledygook, you've got your fantasy
acting out the James Bond genre.
And our two characters who have been through it all together, Garak and Bashir
actually evolve and their character and their friendship strengthens.
So yeah.
Kevin: I'm willing to call it now.
This is the best match for the Elysian Kingdom.
It's interesting to me that this is one of your favorite episodes of your
favorite series of Star Trek, and at the start you were saying the Elysian
Kingdom was not the highest of the highs.
Like, of a series of strong episodes, it was the least strong for you.
And is the difference really just where in this series, these episodes
happened because by the time we play Our Man Bashir, getting to see these
now super familiar characters and actors pushed into a new place and
having fun with each other in a new way, that is like it's working for the
audience on like three different levels.
Whereas in the Elysian Kingdom, it felt— I don't wanna be unkind because I really
did enjoy this episode, but if I were to try and criticize it, I would say
it felt a little self-indulgent, that the actors were having more fun than
the audience, because they were getting to play these one-off wild characters
with wild costumes, and we were like, oh, we were just getting to know you.
Rob: Yeah, exactly.
And that core journey, it was just the doctor's journey on
his own to find his daughter.
We didn't have that bond, like with Bashir and Garak.
So maybe if—
Kevin: Yeah.
Hemmer, Hemmer and M'Benga, they like in the moments where they
teamed up, it was sweet, but they were very few, those moments.
Rob: Few, and we hadn't seen that relationship build.
It would've been more powerful, if instead of the end goal was to
find his daughter, what if he went on this journey with his daughter?
So his daughter was there along the way, as opposed to her being
the mystery that he had to solve.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: So that could have been this, their final journey together was doing this
actually reenacting their adventure.
Kevin: Okay, cool.
I'm gonna move forward to Star Trek Voyager, now.
I'm glad we're gonna come back to DS9 for your favorite, because this
for me is the weakest of the bunch.
And I bring it just because it is such a departure from the formula of this series.
And in that, it is perhaps the most unusual episode of Star Trek
ever, and that's saying a lot.
I struggle to see something that isn't almost not Star Trek as much
as this episode, which is season five, episode 23, 11:59 which is a
story of captain Kathryn Janeway's ancestor, who, on New Year's Eve, 2000.
So December 31st, 2000, gets wrapped up in a we'll call it
a, a local zoning conflict?
She is driving across America in a broken down old car.
And she barely makes it into this town on fumes in Indiana.
And it just so happens that in this town they are building what is to be called
the Millennium Gate, which is going to be, built on earth, a experimental habitat
that is a prototype for future Mars.
So it's a self-contained biome.
And they're gonna build it in this town in Iowa, but to do it they need to knock
down a bunch of local community buildings.
And there's one holdout, the old man with the bookstore who
doesn't believe in technology.
He's not gonna sell!
He doesn't want to hear about this future on other planets.
He thinks there's plenty of problems to be solved right here on Earth.
And he's not going to sell.
This guy's name is Janeway.
And Kathryn Janeway's ancestor ends up marrying him.
But that doesn't happen in this episode.
The framing device is in the future on the, on the, on the Starship
Voyager, Kathryn Janeway is telling the story of her ancestor and it
turns out she's got it all wrong.
The story has been passed down through generations, by her family, and it
makes this person into a larger than life hero, who single-handedly made the
Millennium Gate project come to life.
She lobbied for it.
She changed minds.
She did designs.
She was the driving force.
And then we see through flashback that this impression is completely incorrect.
She was just a normal person.
She was a trained astronaut, but she never flew.
She just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
All she did was convince this guy to make room for the future and
agree to sell his bookstore so that the project could be built.
And, in the framing device, Janeway discovers this truth, is disillusioned
that the past she believed she came from was a myth and is depressed because of it.
And then the crew rallies around her by, late one night over coffees, just
telling stories about their own ancestors and their own mythical backgrounds,
and then convincing Janeway that the fact that her ancestor inspired her
to become an explorer in Starfleet, makes her a hero all by itself.
And almost the truth almost doesn't matter.
It's the stories that drive us that does matter.
This episode of Star Trek mostly takes place in the year 2000, which
at the time this aired was only one and a half years in the future.
So the, the things they were predicting like the Millennium Gate, and there's
a, there's a quote I love, "We can email every computer within a hundred miles.
It'll take just a few hours.
It's easy!"
they were, they were making up science fiction about 1.5 years in the future.
And never before has Star Trek played so close to the future with stuff
that they knew would be proven wrong.
And so immediately everything they set up would become fictitious, um, past
cannon rather than hopeful future cannon.
There is no science fiction in this, apart from the fact that people are on
a Starship in the future telling stories about this, the framing device is in
our Star Trek universe, but the bulk of this like three quarters of this
episode takes place in, effectively, the here and now, about ordinary
people, driving cars and using laptops and arguing about um, city planning.
And, uh, it is so weird.
Kate Mulgrew, she underplays it beautifully.
It is different mannerisms and a different personality.
She's a lot more low status.
And it's interesting.
I'm not sure it's a strong enough characterization that I invested heavily
in the futures of any of these people.
And this is why I say this is a weaker episode.
I feel like it really hinges on you caring about these people in the year 2000.
And I don't really end up caring about them by the end of the episode, sadly.
But it is beautifully produced.
The actual, like, cinematography of snowy winter nights in Indiana
and a failing bookstore and construction equipment, blockaded
by one man holding back the future.
It is beautifully shot.
It is a gorgeous episode to look at, but ultimately I think it fails as a story.
Rob: Yeah.
I do remember that one vaguely with my watching of Voyager.
And I always found that, we, as Star Trek fans were very blessed, but a lot
of us are, sort of like, have seem to have forgotten how lucky we were to get
an actor of the quality of Kate Mulgrew for the time we had her on Voyager.
Kevin: And we still have her today in Prodigy.
She's back!
Rob: Yes.
Voice over and all.
Give her her own series.
Come on.
Let's see.
Admiral Janeway.
You know, she's done her time on Orange is the New Black.
She's ready to get back into it.
Kevin: Yeah, Admiral Janeway.
I don't know if you've seen the season finale of Prodigy season one, but Admiral
Janeway, spoilers, makes an appearance.
Rob: Oh,
Kevin: Yes.
Rob: That's on my—
Kevin: In the flesh, not the hologram.
Rob: Oh, excellent, good.
That's what we want to hear.
Good work.
Well done, Star Trek.
But yeah, my number one is, yes, we mentioned it earlier, from season seven,
it's the last great, fun episode before we go into the heavy S H I T of the
final six or seven episodes of the final season of DS9, Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang.
That is, and it— Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang is one of my favorite episodes of Deep
Space Nine, of Star Trek of all time.
It is heist.
It is set in the 1960s in the holosuite, cuz during the final couple of years
of Deep Space Nine, they introduce the character of Vic Fontaine.
Kevin: Yes.
Rob: The lounge singer at Las Vegas played by oh, James Darren
from The Time Tunnel *mwah!*
Kevin: What's The Time Tunnel?
I don't know…
that
Rob: Tunnel, great show from the sixties.
Basically forerunner to all the big time travel shows later on.
Time Tunnel, basically, two guys work at the military installation,
practicing time travel.
They get stuck in a machine and they travel through time.
They're stuck in this time tunnel and each episode, they land in a new
period of time and their scientists and medical team back in modern
times are trying to pull them back.
Kevin: This sounds very familiar.
This sounds like Quantum Leap before its time.
Rob: It's very much Quantum Leap before its time.
It's the same company that did Land of the Giants and stuff like that.
So yeah, it only ran for a season,
Kevin: I had no idea he was a genre stalwart.
Rob: Yes he was.
And, yeah, so it was a good tip to the hat to the sci-fi that came before.
So basically at this time, the setup is Vic Fontaine's
holosuite is running all the time.
So he is a hologram that is aware that he is a hologram.
He broke his programming, pretty much, and he knows that he is just
a mix of photons and electrons and light and stuff like that.
He is aware that he's on a, he is a holodeck program on a spaceship
in the middle of a big universe.
And they all come to visit him and it becomes the new Quark's.
Kevin: Poor Quark!
Rob: Poor Quark.
But he's got big plans ahead for him.
So it's been on all this time and during that time, there's something
called a jack-in-the-box, which is if it's open too long or it runs too long,
this new program is initiated to "mix things up", I say in inverted commas.
So just outta the blue, Vic's there, singing a song in
front of Julian and O'Brien.
Um, But then instantly everything changes.
Saucy dancers come out and there's a lot more of a rough crowd and
it turns out that this program has been initiated and Vic's program
has changed and he's lost his job.
And this gangster has taken over the casino where Vic works and he isn't
allowed to work at any other casino.
So they get in contact with the guy who created the program.
And the only way you can break the program is actually within
the reality of the holosuite.
So they all get together, cuz they've all of the crew of Deep Space Nine
have been affected in some way.
Nog has recently lost his legs, spoilers air during the war and
Vic helped him go get over or deal with his post-traumatic stress.
Kira and Odo finally get together thanks to the help of Vic and his
sultry singing, all this type of stuff.
And so they all agree to help Vic out, to come up with a heist.
And the only one hold out who has never been into Vic's bar is Sisko.
And this relates back to your second choice.
It takes a while for Sisko to reveal to Cassidy, cuz Cassy loves going to
Vic's, why don't you want to go there?
Why don't you like it?
And Sisko reveals it's 1960s.
Kevin: Of course!
Rob: It's 1960s America.
Sure.
You'd let,
Kevin: You weren't welcome there.
Rob: …welcome there.
We're allowed to perform there.
We were allowed to be the janitors, but we were definitely not allowed to
be a customer or anything like that.
And so it's a whole discussion about this is what it should have
been and Sisko going, it's not real and all this type of stuff.
But in the end, Cassidy sort like convinces him that, this is what we can
do and where we are and where we've come.
And so Sisko helps out and it's got this beautiful shot.
You've got like a brassy big band version of the Star Trek theme, as
they slow motion walk through the promenade, all dressed up in— Yeah.
And just as they walk in the shot, the camera angle's close, you've got,
and Avery Brooks knows how to sell it, just as he comes into shot in,
close up, he just flicks his collar.
Ah!
And they go in and all the thing of usual heist movies happen that everything
doesn't go according to plan, but how they improvise their way through it.
Don't wanna give too much away, but I have!
At the end, you get to hear the beautiful singing voice of Avery Brooks
as he sings along with James Darren and they sing beautifully together.
The Best is Yet to Come.
Yeah I love it.
It's one of my favorite episodes.
There are some darker, deeper, like Pale Moonlight is a great
episode, Beyond the Stars.
I love Trials and Tribble-ations, all this great stuff.
Duet from season one, incredible dark powerful episodes, the silliness
of Trials and Tribble-ations.
But this one for me, it's, so earnest.
It's so earnest.
There's so much time there going, we need to do this for Vic.
We need to help Vic.
And they're also Star Trek earnest about a hologram, which I love.
Kevin: Yeah.
It's another episode where like the big picture story, the consequential stuff
in the season-long arc is put on pause
Rob: Again, it's that whole thing it's, much to do about nothing, but
that investment, they put into this hologram and it's played so beautifully.
It's a great change cuz everyone in Star Trek for the most part speaks in a
similar way or they address each other in a similar way, even if they are friends
or if they're enemies or if they're lovers, Star Trek has a, especially
within the nineties had a small parameter that they worked within, but bringing
in a character like Vic Fontaine opens up just the way he speaks in that 1960s,
Vegas singer style, all the nicknames and phrases just mixes up how they all
address it and having that balance of them like Bashir and O'Brien speaking very
earnestly in 24th century dialogue to, Vic Fontaine's "Hey, Pally, what's going on?"
It's a great fun episode before we go into, the resolution of
seven seasons of Deep Space Nine.
It's the last fun episode before…
Kevin: I'm reminded – it's not a fun episode, exactly – but I am reminded
of the third to last episode of Voyager where the fate of Nelix is decided.
So this comedic character who lives in the mess hall and like Vic Fontaine is like
the unofficial counselor for the crew.
And he helps people work through their problems.
He doesn't really have a place in the ultimate denouement of that
series of how they get home to Earth.
And so two episodes before the end, they find his people living on an
asteroid colony of some kind, and he makes the hard decision to,
stay with them, to stay behind.
And, and this character literally gets off the ship two episodes
before the end of the series.
And yeah, it feels very much the same of look, this is all going
somewhere, but we owe one of our, one of our side characters,
almost, an ending of their own.
Rob: Yeah.
Yeah, and it's also that case of all those elements that they used
in, Our Man Bashier of the gimmicks.
So it's all the gimmicks of, and all the, of the format of a
heist movie, which are one of my favorites, Ocean's 11, The Score,
all those type of great heist movies.
It's got all those elements there.
So you.
The lead in of how it's meant to go.
And then when it starts to play out things go awry.
It's a, yeah, it's a cute little mixing things up a bit.
So the characters put in that situation and so how they play up,
whatever role they're playing is
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: a great deal of fun.
Kevin: Should I read anything into the fact that when musing on what are
episodes of Star Trek that broke the mold or broke the format, all three
of yours were holodeck on Deep Space,
Rob: Well, it's a, it is a case of, I need to watch more than just, the original
movies and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
But it also that case of, especially cuz I was thinking about it, within
the nineties, the holodeck became of like the magic instrument that they
Kevin: It's the one impossible thing that makes interesting things possible.
Rob: Exactly.
And so that means they could do all this type of genre stuff, character swap around
and they could do scientific gobbledygook.
And so I'm there going, they didn't have the technology yet in the
original series era or pre original series for Strange New Worlds.
So how do they get to that point?
And they literally use the thing of it is the "mysterious" (read in inverted commas,
magical) being within a mysterious – wink, wink – magical mist, who can do all this
type of stuff, can completely change the set, can completely change characters.
So that would be explained away in Next Gen and stuff like that with the
holodeck, but here they don't have that.
So they go it's an omnipotent creature that is intelligent so far and
advanced, we don't understand it.
So we perceive it as magical.
Kevin: Yeah.
Awesome.
Ah, what a marvelously varied.
Six episodes to go down memory
Rob: Very much so.
And thank you for giving me a list.
Giving me at least a Cause and Effect to go
Kevin: yeah.
Rob: out.
Kevin: essential Cause and Effect is essential.
We've got two episodes left of Strange New Worlds this season.
I don't know about you, but I'm not ready for it to be over.
Rob: No, No.
Yeah.
Are yeah.
You kidding me?
Come on.
Let's go back to the nineties era, let's get 20 let's knock out 24 episodes, easy.
Kevin: Yes, please.
Rob: But I'm very much looking forward to doing this again and, having our
debrief on the most recent episode and what springs from our mind that connects
us back to the broader Trek universe.
Thank you,
Kevin: Likewise.
Thanks Rob.
Talk soon.
Rob: Kev.