Hello and welcome back to Subspace Radio.
We are reaching the end game of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and we here at
Subspace Radio are here to talk about it.
I'm Rob,
I'm Kevin,
and we are looking at episode nine of season one of
Starfleet Academy: 300th Night.
It's almost over the, the year is almost over the, the season's almost over.
I saw some people online going, that was a heck of a season cliffhanger,
and they were delighted to hear that there was still one more episode.
Still one more to go.
A lot was done in a, in a short amount of time and the looming
threat of our overarching villain was present, even though he was not.
He was not.
Uh, Lura Thok was not also only mentioned in dialogue.
So yeah, there, I mean the entire bridge crew was missing as well.
Uh, that was the biggest thing for me.
We went to such great pains to introduce them by name in the pilot,
and it was like, yeah, here's uh, Lieutenant Ya and Enson Weldu.
They will, uh, never be seen again.
Never again.
Yeah.
And the, the, the thing for me was, it was the second last episode and it was a
very, like, physically contained episode.
There was very few, there was like the, the, the set of the planet they went
to, Ukeck, and there was just on the bridge, but it felt very contained.
We had a lot of mentions of characters who've been in, involved in, so
that was, Lura was a big one.
She's been missing quite a few episodes.
Like we didn't
Yeah, I feel like she was only available for the first half the
season or something, and they're just keeping her alive in dialogue
and, and appearances on the comm.
She was very heavy in the first section, then she sort of like handed the baton to
her lover and then it was taken over by
And boys Tig taking it.
Oh, Tig is doing, uh, they have found how to use Jett Reno.
I feel like just in the past few episodes, she is still the same character,
but the gravitas has appeared and I think back to the times where she was
like wandering around engineering.
In Discovery and no one was quite sure what her job was
other than eating licorice.
And back then it wasn't quite working, and you could see what they were going for.
They were kind of going for a, a, Dr. McCoy Scotty hybrid.
What if the grumpy officer on the ship was the chief engineer?
And they finally found it.
It is, it is working so well.
Uh, love Jett Reno is, is skyrocketing to the top of my favorite characters.
Yes.
Yeah, they have definitely done Tig a service they have, um, given
her the right platform within Star Trek for her character to shine.
Um, and just to have a bridge crew of Holly Hunter, Tig and Robert Picardo,
I'm there, well, that is awesome on whatever level you are playing at.
Yeah.
Like it, it felt like they could spend a bit of money on a bunch
of small characters or a lot of money on their three mains, and
they went the second option.
But yeah, for me it felt like they were talking a lot about how widespread
this whole, um, threat was, but it was very contained to, it was a
very human, self-contained story.
So lot of explaining of stuff that was happening outside.
We didn't see a lot of it.
Um, and so that was very interesting as an episode.
It
Oh yeah, like the landing on Betazed was only talked about it
Only talked about, we only see screen representations of what
these kind of, um, mines can do.
Um, we had a little bit of a space battle when, um, uh, some of the ships
came in and attacked, uh, the Athena.
Um, but it was very short.
It was very much, they were, I don't wanna say they were holding back
the money for the last episode, but it did feel very much a case of it
wasn't this big bombastic two-parter.
I feel like what they did was done at a very high quality.
I mean, going back to the on the bridge I mentioned, it was, they,
they, they did a lot with a little rather than a little with a lot.
Uh, so yeah, I agree that everything that was there was really, uh,
yeah, care, carefully produced in high quality in general.
I'd say the, the, the one exception I would make is those last shots
zooming out of the, to give us the sense of the mines in space.
The scale is way off there.
Like if it is, if it is enclosing a big chunk of, uh, like the
entire Federation of Planets, a big chunk of the alpha beta quadrants.
The curvature should not be visible.
You should never see more than one mine on screen at a time.
But they had like a web of them at that, at, at that distance from each other.
I feel like you would need trillions, if not quadrillions of mines to
enclose the Federation and, and you would never see the curvature of
that, that, uh, screen in real life.
So, uh, yeah.
I, I, I feel like we, we have to take those final shots as, um,
illustrative rather than literal.
Yes.
And a, and a convenient nebula right next to where they wanted to be.
Oh, I love a hide in the nebula.
That's good.
Yes.
But the positioning of it was like, I'm there going hide near that nebula.
I went, okay.
So it would be, you know, you know, a couple of light years
And the red wall is going right through it.
With
Yeah, go right,
being nestled in,
this is right around, right next to that thing.
It's a shame 'cause the visuals are beautiful.
Someone obviously put a lot of care and love into the appearance of
those shots, but the, the science, the, the like attention to, uh.
verisimilitude was lacking and, and that's something that I feel like happens a
bit in modern Star Trek at the moment, that they go to a lot of trouble and
fail to avoid some basic mistakes.
Yes.
Um, so yeah, we, we, we hit the ground running.
We went straight into our discussions.
We are here, as always, to talk about the most recent of Star Trek,
and then something that connects, uh, all those little pieces
Connects by disconnecting, if you will, Rob.
That's right.
Oh, look at that.
Set 'em up and knock 'em down.
We're gonna be talking saucer separations in the second half
Shish separations.
Spectacular shish separations.
So, yes, there's a key moment in this episode where of course, uh, Ake needs
to make the decision of disconnecting the saucer from the atrium section
of the ship, um, to escape and flee.
Um.
That is, uh, sent us spiraling down another, uh, saucer separation section.
Another transwarp conduit.
Yes.
Um, but the big focus of this episode, let's get back to the, the thrust of
300th Night, um, was the re uh, the final return, uh, finally the return
of, um, uh, Caleb's mom has finally shown up, and I've gotta admit their
reconnection was done really, really well.
There was a beautiful moment.
Those, yeah, they took a long beat and I was, as I have been in
recent episodes when they, when everything stops and we just let two
characters be together for 30 seconds.
It's so satisfying and it was done well here
Really well and like
shot that that covered hallway with the slatted windows along the side, it
was used in two or three places in this episode, and redressed with different
vendors in it and stuff, but having it completely empty here with just
the wet floor and the light shine, the back light shining through, it was ugh.
Wonderful, wonderful shots for that, that reunion.
And like for, for, for two actors who need to give this impression of having
known each other their entire lives, losing almost two decades of time
together, uh, it's a great, great craft and especially for our young Caleb Mir.
Acted, beautifully written.
The, the, Where did you go, Mama, mama.
It's like they both regressed to the moment they last saw each other they
would've said then, what was the last thing I couldn't say to you?
And that's the first thing they said to each other.
Tatiana Maslany is an Emmy award-winning actress.
She's an absolute, uh, powerhouse of a performer.
But, um, uh, our young, uh, Caleb Mir, having to step up with someone at that
level of performing skill, um, and match them, I was thoroughly impressed.
And all his swagger, all his, um, you know, hutzpah and anything like that
that we've seen all through the season, which can be a little bit grating, but
very much in the style of what, uh, this show is to have that scene done
Yeah.
Swagger with insecurity behind it.
Yeah.
And all that swagger, all that swagger leaving and just, just this connection
happening was, um, beautiful stuff.
Mm.
Uh, enjoyed the shuttle theft.
Love a good, love, a good ship theft in Star Trek.
Uh, this, this shuttle was established a couple of episodes earlier when,
uh, Ake and the Doctor took, uh, SAM back to her home world of Kasq.
This was the warp shuttle that they took.
So it was established that the Athena has a shuttle that is warp capable.
Is a very, it's a very spacious one.
Like there's like, like the
like this, this shuttle you stand up in, that's a big open space, was
kind of established in Discovery, and they've been reusing that
same set of windows ever since.
Yes.
Um, but like the ones that we are used to from the nineties, which are
nice, snug little, uh uh, Runabouts.
This one is quite, with not much in it, it's just a large empty space.
And there go put a desk in there or something.
Could just have in the middle.
Um, but yeah, uh, it just the escalation of, uh, the snowballing
effect of and here's, yeah, and here's every ca Here's Genesis coming in.
Here's SAM coming in.
Yeah.
Darem coming in drunk.
We lack a lot of enzymes!
Bananas, alcohol.
He was funny, this episode.
I liked it.
He was very good.
The glitter vomit worked for me, so, uh, like the, I think I didn't
like it earlier in the season, but that was a setup for this, where he
goes, It is all over my trousers, he says in a weird French accent.
It just like wasn't this big explosion, like when it was
first shown in slow motion.
This one just like dribbled
drunk person spew.
They're not quite aware of what's happening.
Yes.
Um, but yeah.
Uh, very good stuff like tensions building up.
Um, oh yeah.
We didn't even talk like SAM is back and we finally got to see the new
Sam with such short amount of time.
heard her called and yeah, seeing, seeing her reflective, I, I
was going through my other me's memories and I didn't respect her.
And Caleb, even in a low moment, Caleb talking her up.
So good.
I, you know, it turns out I'm just a sucker for the YA stuff, Rob.
Feed it to me with a spoon.
Well, we can start up a, uh, Hunger Games podcast now, and we can go
the t Twilight novels as well.
Oh, God, I can't believe I just said that.
Um, yeah, I'm very interested to see like, uh, the tension between Genesis
and SAM has come out of the blue, but obviously that's what the, one of the,
the victims of a 10 episode season.
Um, clearly there's stuff going on there that we have to sort of like
catch up with, um, with this new SAM.
but we haven't seen New SAM, so it's just a case of hello New SAM.
All right, so you've got all these issues and problems in
SAM in general seems to be reacting negatively to anyone, um, implying she's
the same person and, like the, You don't know me, you don't know anything about me.
I think Genesis has just been in the firing line, but I think she's
giving a bit of that to everyone.
Yes.
But, um, great stuff from our, uh, distance and emotional, uh, I isolation
with the Doctor and SAM to begin with.
Now it's, you know, it's daddy, it's, it's, it's
I know his passwords.
I use them to steal shuttles.
Yeah.
And just how, you know, how relieved he was when they finally reconnected.
That type of stuff was, uh, great.
A lot of, you know, reunions in this episode of, you know,
parents with their, with their children, which was great to see.
Tarima and Jay-Den being left on the sidelines was a bit of a
shame, but worth it for the joke of Well, that's a design flaw!
Yeah.
I'm curious to see how all of these characters are gonna be used in episode
10 because there did feel like a certain amount of, let's split our people up,
let's put them in particular places, that has not quite paid off yet.
I mean, Tarima and Jay-Den are around.
They are, they have been dismissed to the Captain's quarters.
What's gonna hap, like, what are they going to do?
I feel like there is a reason they're in that room for plot purposes.
Uh.
Um, we've been a little underwhelmed recently by, uh, well, I, I
have of Tarima's stuff, but she was handled really well today.
Uh, with this episode.
She was written really
Uh, turbo lift ride?
Turbolift ride, the whole, you've seen me naked and you've
seen me kill a whole heap of
That was a great line.
It was a very Buffy line, I felt like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and it's a, it's a horrible movie and it's one of my favorite
characters, the Green Lantern film.
Um, there's a great moment in the Green Lanter film where you've got Hal Jordan
played by, um, uh, Ryan Reynolds and, uh, Carol Ferris, played by Blake Lively.
That's the film that got him together.
Ooh, gossip.
Um, but like he's wearing a mask to pretend that he's a
different character and, um.
They've had a relationship before, and so he's in disguise and at
the end she goes, of course I know it's you, Hal, I've seen you naked.
Okay.
you think a little bit of material covering your eyes
is going to hide who you are.
Oh no.
50 years of superhero lore, crumbles like that.
Yeah, didn't make much of an impact that film, but yeah, I
love that type of genuine writing about connections and the history
Naming the weird thing is fun.
Yeah.
And his little speech towards her was a, was a, a nicely written, um, tribute to
her and it's like him letting go of all his shmuckiness and his, uh, you know,
um, yeah, difficultness as a human being.
He just like, spoke to her truthfully.
Was a,
the goodbye in the corridor where he says she's music.
That part.
That part was really good.
Really like not schmaltzy at all.
It was a really nice, heartfelt moment and beautifully written.
Yeah, you're music is, is great.
Several points.
This episode, uh, the actor playing Caleb beer was given a big ask and
really rose to the occasion when he gets the, when he gets finally
access to his mother's messages.
Cries, oh yeah, just
Two years worth of
four big, big moments for that character here, like being emotionally
shattered for one reason or another.
And, uh, he pulls it off every time.
Even the breakup scene in, on, uh, Ukeck, where he's like, where he's
saying ugly things to his friends to make them go away, is beautifully handled.
Like it's an awkward scene, but it's supposed to feel awkward.
He's, he is forcing it, and that's why it feels forced.
I, I love the balance they struck there.
Yeah.
And how all three characters responded.
SAM, getting back to a little bit of great work from the SAM actor as
well, 'cause we were talking about it.
How are they gonna handle playing SAM one way and now SAM a different way?
Yeah, she's playing different but the same.
It's so good to
Very good work.
It's very, very good work.
It's good Star Trek.
It's good acting, it's good writing, it's good direction.
So, um.
I can't believe this show is at risk of not coming back after a second season.
This is, this is not only the best Star Trek we have seen in since the
new era has come back with Discovery.
This might be the best Star Trek I've ever seen.
Oh wow.
I, I think it is just, it is so well handled, so well written, so
well acted, and so well produced.
It has everything.
Whereas I feel like at one time or another we have always had to apologize
for some aspect of what's on our screen or, and look past it as fans.
It is just so good right now.
Great.
Yes, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm enjoying it far more than I thought I would.
Um, uh, I particularly liked, uh, you know, the, after the moment of pushing
his friends away so they can escape, then them being caught and both him e
even with the history of his mom with Federation, the fact that he goes back,
he says, sorry mom, I've gotta do this.
I, they're my friends.
They're, you know, uh, they are from Starfleet, but I am as well and stuff.
And he goes back.
To that moment where they both.
Trying to distract them using all their years of hustle and
con artists and how to survive.
Like she mom, mom's playing her cards and playing his cards.
And so they're both working together to,
Are you two working together?
Nope.
No, we're not.
Definitely not.
Dunno, this person, dunno, this person got this thing here.
And then Nus Brakka's hench, uh, woman says to, Anisha, hang on, I know you.
And then the, the phasers come out.
There is that clipped line, just there to go.
Hang on.
was in the inner circle.
There something going on here that we still don't know.
I think that's the last shoe to drop in next episode is like exactly what was
Anisha Amir's role with the Venari Ral?
Does it have something to do with these trillions of minues
encircling Federation space?
Uh, is is she going to be able to redeem herself?
Is she gonna have to sacrifice
as herself.
Yeah, that's the, the, the big after saucer separation,
the big S word is sacrifice?
Mm.
Um.
But yeah, and she did a very cool, like she had her arms crossed
down and the gun was there and she just did the up to shoot them.
Just very cool.
Fun stuff.
Yeah.
Well, I'm not sure there's much else to say about this
episode other than I loved it.
Well, let's focus on what this whole episode is a focus on, to sacrifice
the atrium so that they can escape.
Uh, the saucer is separated from the Athena, which leads us down the
path of what other moments have the, uh, saucers been separated, uh, for
particular reasons within Star Trek.
Now, obviously we only have a very few number of ships that do have the capacity
to separate into two separate sections.
It's implied at different times that many Starfleet ships have that capability, but
it was only ever seen by my favorite ship.
The Enterprise D.
And used quite, you know, quite sparingly.
Like when we picked this as a topic, I went, well, there's gonna be just
so many episodes for us to pull from.
So, but it's quite, you know, apart from a movie, there's only
about like three or four episodes in, in, in TNG for us to focus on.
So I'll be
Yeah.
I counted three.
Yeah, be very intrigued,
movie.
So we get to go through all of them today.
And, uh, I love a, I love an opportunity to go back to the pilot episode.
Uh, so let's start with Star Trek: The Next Generation
Encounter at Farpoint.
at Farpoint.
Yeah, they had pull out all their big guns.
Yeah, which the saucer separation seems to have been an element added to this story
when famously it was expanded from a one hour pilot to a two hour pilot movie.
That whole framing narrative with Q was added on to the story of Farpoint
Station and the, uh, the space jellyfish that are hidden there.
We love our space jellyfish.
And, uh, I don't know if you rewatched, uh, Encounter at Faroint like I did this
week, Rob, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's,
It's rough.
well it is definitely rough.
It is also like the saucer separation is very, um, it's flaming hoop they jump
through to make us go ooh and ah, about the ship, but it does not serve much
purpose other than that, in this story.
I didn't go back and watch it 'cause I do remember, you know, in my most
recent rewatch of it, whether it was a year or two ago when I was trying
to do, okay, let's do TNG from start to finish, and I got a couple of
episodes into season one, I went, oh no.
Um, but I do remember it not being as impressive.
So the ones that I did find and they had a purpose, the later ones that I
found, I went, okay, that makes sense.
I can see why they've got that here.
But this one is just a case of look what we can do and then
move on to the next stuff.
Yeah, it's a bit of flare and, and it's, I'm a little nostalgic about it
because for the, because you know, I'm a, I'm a fan of Starships and this,
this hearkens back to a time when
I can see them in the back.
Look those.
Look at those gorgeous things.
I should have my Enterprise D in front of me for illustrative purposes.
But, uh, yeah, it hearkens back to a time where when I felt like that, when
Star Trek wanted to dazzle us, they would make the show about the ship.
Like some of those movies, like The Motion Picture and, and Star Trek
II, where there's, there's long, adoring shots of approaching the
ship and seeing it from many angles.
Definitely in The Motion Picture.
Yeah.
That is just a whole, um, that is, that is, that is spaceship porn
Yeah.
I feel like Roddenberry for Encounter at Farpoint did the same thing of
like when he was given a bunch of money, what am I gonna do with it?
Do I hire more expensive actors?
No.
We are going to take a good, hard look at the ship and get everyone excited
about its capabilities and here's a secret thing it can do that no Enterprise
has ever been able to do before.
The, the saucer separation was in the writer's guide for the
original series as something the original Enterprise could do.
It's mentioned in a couple of episodes where Kirk, like in a, in a moment of
desperation suggests blowing the nacelles or taking the saucer out of, of the
area and they never end up doing it.
But some of the kind of, you know, fan blueprints that were going at
the time, locked onto those lines of dialogue and showed the fact that
there was a separation capability.
Matt Jeffries famously drew kind of, um, landing strut, uh, portholes on the bottom
side of the saucer in the original series.
So there was the thought that the saucer would be a, a self-contained ship that
could land on a planet at at a point.
And it feels like that was something that was, that was left undone, that like we
could never do it back then because we didn't have the money or the technology.
It's time for The Next Generation.
What is on my to-do list?
I'm gonna make this ship separate.
And we're gonna do it in the very first episode so that I can spend the
pilot money to build the model that can separate, and that's what they did.
They built that, that first six foot model that ILM built for Star
Trek: The Next Generation, the model was able to separate in two.
And so what we see in that is actually the, like, there's no camera trickery.
There's no, they built a second model just for the, for the separated state.
The model they were shooting with for the first season or of the next
generation was a separat able model.
Uh, but it was such a pain in the butt to do, Rob, they only shot like two
shots of it separating, and they had several shots in the bank of the two
sections flying, or really just the star drive section flying on its own.
And they reused those in the second episode where this happened, which
is episode 21, the Arsenal of
Arsenal of Freedom, that's what I watched.
Yeah.
Cool.
Oh, uh, you probably would've seen this one before 'cause
it's a Tasha Yar episode.
It is a Tasha Yar episode.
It's her last, um, full episode before, uh, the episode that shall
not be named or ever watched again.
Um, uh, but I ha I had not seen it.
I would've remembered, uh, Vincent, uh, Schiavelli uh, his appearance.
The wonderful Vince Schiavelli from, uh, from Ghost, from
Death to Smooch, uh, from, uh,
That's right.
My ship is a Drake.
Yeah.
Yes, that's right.
And the, uh, the video recording, um,
Oh, that one.
Sorry.
No, I thought you meant Captain Rice,
ah, no, no.
Yeah, I was talking of the wonderful, uh, the wonderful salesman.
Yeah.
Who's from One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest.
Yes.
I have seen the actor who played Rice as well.
I've seen him in some stuff as well.
Um, but that set, holy moly.
The underground cave.
No, no.
The underground cave was quite nice.
No, the, the surface, which was literally, you could see
Move yukkas around!
We need another angle.
I.
Put more smoke in.
Put more smoke.
Birds, are there any more birds of paradise in California?
We need all of the birds of paradise.
Can we at let, do we have any bamboo?
Any bamboo at all?
We have five long pieces of bamboo.
Just get it out.
It was, I'm there going, that was, yeah.
It was such a studio.
It was so studio, it didn't
It was pretty cheesy.
So hard to see.
And they're just wandering around.
Ah, we'll just put some dry ice on the floor.
That'll, that'll cover up any, uh, joins between the, the, the studio floor.
Um, but yes, ship's gone missing.
They, uh, the Enterprise are there to check it out.
Um,
Minos.
Minos, uh, that there's pretty much wiped themself out of what we've heard.
Um, this video
is the planet that gets a name check in Star Trek: Section 31.
By the way,
ah, well I'm, that's a reason why I don't remember that.
the Arms Merchants of Minos.
Yeah.
But, um, uh, Picard is a little bit slow on the uptake here.
Where, you know, the salesman keeps on talking and it has to be Data after
longer than it should have been going.
I don't think he can hear you, captain.
I think it's a, it's a, it's a recording, captain.
Captain.
Um, I'm just gonna let you give you a heads up.
You're
The recording is interactive later, in Picard's defense
is later on, but at that particular point, it is just
going, he's not responding to me.
Why isn't It's a frigging recording.
Okay.
It's like the, the old gag I used to play with when you'd leave
an answering machine message.
Hi, how you going?
Nah, just a joke.
I'm not really here.
I found it really strange, the line where he goes the, the
they, they mess up on purpose.
The old saying and they go, Remember, the bird that's early gets worms?
I'm not sure what they were trying to do with that.
It was so weird.
Yeah, very, very weird.
Trying to give an impression of you'll die so you'll have
worms eating you but didn't make
Um, so yes, uh, they send a small team down just because there's so much threat.
If they lose three, then it's not as much as losing the
entire, that's how math works.
So ya
Next Gen was very much about captains not beaming down.
The
Captain's, not captain is on the ship.
Send Riker, send Yar, send Data.
Um, they come across, uh.
The captain of the Drake who they, you know, we established early on,
we went to the academy together.
We hear that all the time in Star Trek.
How do you know this person?
We went to the academy together.
Um, but there's something odd about him.
Clearly it's a recording.
They've taken the form of, uh, the captain and, uh, to find out
as much information as they can.
Um, uh, Beverly Crusher and the Captain finally, um.
They beam down when Riker is caught in the stasis field.
caught in the stasis field and they fall down a big hole.
Um,
falling, like the, the, the scene where they come through
the brushes and then, and then, uh, Gates has to like go, oh, no.
She like chucks her, her equipment ahead of her to try and stop
her fall, and then forward when Picard runs into her from behind.
All of that business was fun.
So, so Picard is fine, but Beverly Crusher is on the point of
Well, Beverly Crusher broke his fall clearly.
That's right.
Clearly, clearly she just as always putting herself ahead just to,
that Picard gets out scot free.
How many times has Gates McFadden done that for Patrick Stewart?
Um,
Some like vulnerability and putting, putting Picard and crusher together
in a, in a sensitive moment.
I, really early stuff that, that started building that relationship up, I thought.
And the, the, the rigid coolness of Picard that we get in season
one is kind of melted here a bit.
Stay awake, stay awake.
Talk to me about this.
Tell me about this, tell me about that.
Um, and so now we have both captains, captain and the first
officer on the i on the planet.
And so therefore, Geordi is put in charge.
And obviously because I haven't been watching season one, there's this tension
going on with the chief of engineer.
So Geordi isn't even head of engineering in this part.
He's red,
this one of the chief engineers of the week from the originals,
from from season one.
We never see this guy before or
Because it looks like here
is a one episode chief engineer.
He comes in and they've got, oh, they've got a history.
Oh, they don't like each other.
I'm going, well, I've missed an episode or two.
Nope.
It's just out of the blue.
I don't like you.
I don't like you, visor boy.
Yeah.
Um, so Geordi's
It, remi, you remember dis when Discovery didn't have a chief engineer right away.
The same thing.
How do you put an Enterprise in space and not give it a chief engineer?
Uh, they didn't like the whole first season.
It was like engineering will be a small, small thing and they, they
hired a new day player every time they needed to call down to engineering.
So did they do an episode in season two where they like made Geordi into
the chief of engineering or did they
I feel like it just happened in season two.
Season two starts, Geordi's in engineering.
It's not even commented
He does.
He's not even, he's red anymore.
He's straight back in the,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
so
has passed.
A promotion has occurred.
Yeah.
So yes.
So all this stuff is going on.
They're being attacked, uh, on, on the, uh, out in space.
Um, we have separation from our captain and our, the ship needing to be separated
because the attacking is too much.
So, um, Geordi concedes and goes, we'll take the lower section, uh,
chief of engineering, you take the sourcer section and go find help.
And so we see the, uh, the secondary bridge unit, very, very, uh,
The Battle Bridge.
Yeah, the battle
And this was one of the reasons that we didn't see saucer separation more.
They did have the model, they did have the shots that they could reuse.
As long as they were a few episodes apart, no one would really realize
that we were seeing the exact same two effects shots of the saucer separating.
They could have gotten away with that, but what really killed them
was the expense of standing up the battle bridge set whenever they
of course.
the saucer separation.
Uh, that's from my reading, the, the main reason it wasn't done more often.
It's just to build that particular set, and it wasn't every week, so it's
just an expensive duty to get it up.
Um.
Yeah, it reminded me a lot of, you know, from that television of the eighties
especially, I guess, 'cause that was my informative time in animated shows
or television shows where they'd reuse the same footage, just not to the same
extent here in Star Trek, obviously, because they only used it so sparingly.
But we've got these sourcer shots.
So let's go back and use that exact same shot again and
again to show the separation.
Like in animated shows, whenever a character transforms into their particular
suit, they don't do a new one every time.
They don't need to.
They just go through the exact same action, the exact
same footage that they have.
And same as some of the TV shows of the eighties where they cut corners.
They go, okay, we've got a chase scene.
Let's use some footage of a chase scene we've used from previous
episodes, they just happen to be driving the exact same cars.
Yeah, and, and the, I guess I, I enjoyed the function of the,
the separating the, the saucer.
Like it did what it was supposed to.
It sold for me the size of the ship, the fact that there are families
aboard and the fact that they would have a plan for protecting
those families when things got hot.
Yes.
But it was, uh, it was done lavishly, I would say, ish for
the time in Encounter at Farpoint.
It was done somewhat perfunctorily here, and then the third time we
saw it in The Best of Both Worlds.
two.
It, uh, it takes like three seconds.
They're like auto-sep sequence.
There's one shot of it separating from below, again, reused from Encounter at
Farpoint, and then the separation is done.
I think this was the, um, the most effective use of the separation to
get, you know, to change it from just being one point of attack against
the Borg cube to being, now we split their focus and both are powered up,
so using it as a tactical maneuver
And the saucer's going to be overlooked because it's the low threat vehicle.
And so they'll launch the shuttle from that one behind a, a smoke screen.
Yeah, it's good.
And we have Riker on one ship and we have, you know, uh, Shelby on the other one.
So they're both showing off their, their skills and talent.
And Shelby's quite ambitious as we all know.
So this is the experience they need to get to add to their, um, already
growing, um, uh, ambitious streak.
They famously had to pull the original six foot model of the Enterprise D
out of mothballs for this episode.
The,
used since season one.
Hadn't been used in season one, but they, they needed some more
shots in space of the two separated sections for that battle sequence.
There was no other way to get them at the time than to pull out the old,
large ship and, uh, rig it back up and, and get some new shots of it.
And apparently the, the crew said, oh, yes, we remember why we
don't like using this model now.
It is really hard to work with.
It was massive.
Huge, huge.
They said it took four to six people just to lift it off its rig to reposition it
That's massive.
That insane.
Insane.
Especially, you know, the good old days of model work.
Um, now it's all CGI stuff.
But yes, that means that the smaller, uh, model that was used for the
rest of the series did not separate.
That's why we did not see any more saucer separations after
this in the era of models.
Not until Star Trek Generations, which is the first appearance of a CG Enterprise D.
That's right, that's right.
And one of the most impressive, uh, practical sequences put on, uh, on, on
screen in any attempt of the, the saucer section crash landing on the planet.
I remember they released, um, you know, as part of advertisement
they released, like connected with newspapers, they'd release of of VHS,
making of, sneak peak of generations.
And I remember having that and the big focus of that video was the source
of section crash landing and how
just can't, Star Trek, cannot resist, like a Star Trek movie can't help
itself but to show off ahead of time these very, very significant sequences
of the Enterprise being destroyed.
We had it in Star Trek III.
The, the, the trailers gave away the destruction of the Enterprise.
We had it here again in Generations.
It's just, uh, man, imagine if we had not known that was coming.
I would've been sitting in that theater passing out with,
with, uh, the shock of it.
That's your ship.
That's your ship, gone for good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, but yes, it, it's such an impressive sequence.
The, the model size, the, the miniature versions of the planet, the trees, the
hills, all that have to be constructed, shot from different angles, shot at
different speeds so they can then, when they're replay it, they play
it at normal speed, so therefore it looks slower therefore gives the
sense of scale and weight and size.
Um.
You know, just have apart from the line you don't like,
but I kind of like, Oh shit.
Um, but having Riker there, grabbing home and go all hands, brace for
Uh, so good.
When Jonathan Freaks barks out, something like that, or fire
everything, you just go, oh, Frakes, you get me right in the feels.
Troi being sent to the, to the Conn for the, the, um, for the action is as well.
Yeah, it's, uh,
This is a great movie, if not for the last 15 minutes of the Nexus
stuff and Kirk coming back and the fight on the catwalks on the, on the,
on the mountain, on Veridian III.
Like that stuff, it was completely reshot, they knew it wasn't working.
They had a second go at shooting that ending of the movie.
And it's still, feels cheap.
It feels, um, like it, it, it is not the climax that this movie needs.
Everything before it is so much stronger, like, as I was rewatching
this movie yesterday, I was like, this is a nine, this is nine, this
is 10, this is nine, this is a 10.
And then that last 15 minutes, it drops to fives and sixes in terms of
how much emotional impact, how much production value there is, uh, going in.
And so, yeah, I, uh, basically from the very start with the stuff on
the Enterprise B right up to the crash, the, the, the, as soon as the
shutter, the, as soon as the saucer settles into its final position and
it fades to black, just before we cut to the Nexus with Picard, I feel like
that is a perfect Star Trek movie.
And even the stuff in the Nexus with Guinan is like, it's well acted, it's well
produced, it's enjoyable, but it is a, it is a, a step down from, from the wows
of the, of everything up to that point.
There's a lot of big stuff like the, the, um, the, the mapping room, which is
Yeah.
cartography.
This is so, is so beautifully captured and the the weight of
it by spina and about how many billions of people will be killed.
Yeah, it, and every one of those scenes, stellar cartography is a great example.
It is not just a scene about exposition and, and you know,
laying out the, this plot on a map.
It is also a scene about Data wrestling with his emotion, motion and trying to
quit halfway through that scene, and Picard say, you are a Starfleet officer
and I require you to do your duty.
And he sits him back down and so, throughout this movie up, uh, up until
that point that I mentioned, every single scene serves both of these
functions of like moving the plot forward and moving the characters forward.
Balance that they struck between those two things is so
present throughout this movie.
I feel like I'm both watching the most lavish Star Trek movie I've
ever seen up until that point, and the best episode of the week of Star
Trek: The Next Generation where our characters get to be with each other.
Both of those things are happening at once.
It definitely does feel at, for me at least, it does feel like, um,
where Insurrection felt like a, a, a big budget, um, tele movie episode.
There are elements of Generations that feels like that.
It feels that the stakes are from a television point of view, um,
but it doesn't take away from it.
Like the opening on a tall ship and everyone in Napoleonic era
Yeah, there's TV, there's TV episode hijinks, but it's additive to the very
solid movie that is also on screen, whereas I feel like that second element
was less present in Insurrection.
Yes, very much so.
Very so.
Um, yeah, the time they take for the crash, like you shoot, they shoot it
from every angle and see every angle and how long it takes to, to stop.
The pacing that was so deliberate.
They, once they're on the ground, they're like, it's not over.
We are moving forward.
And there are long shots of them just sitting in their seats, um, vibrating
as camera zooms into a character's face and it's like an earthquake.
They're riding out an earthquake.
It's
And the, and the mesh nets sort of come up as well to, yeah.
All that type of stuff.
The detail, the reality, the verisimilitude, as it were, of
what is on that ship to stop these type of things happening.
Those type of moments coming up where it's not just an episode that that's
where it goes beyond being a TV episode.
They go, this is a movie.
We have that money to go into that detail to show how the defense systems
lock in or the safety protocols kick in to make this living, breathing saucer
section feel like we have contingency plans put in there to save people
who might be thrown about and stuff.
Going back to the separation itself, they did bring more detail as well.
Like I mentioned, this is a CG Enterprise for the first time and say that they were
able to do more detailed shots than they have done in the past, more flexibly.
The moment of separation, if you go back and watch it, there's a bunch of like
glittery particles that fly out the crack between the ships, and they said that was
inspired by what NASA said they observed when they were un docking ships in orbit.
That, that is a thing that happens is when they split them up there's like ice
crystals or whatever, from the atmosphere that was between the ships that like
escapes and flies out in every direction.
And they did that same thing here.
That just brings it, just that little hint of that, that kiss of
reality that wasn't present before.
That balance of CGI and practical effects.
So you've got all CGI and, but that, that saucer section is just, I dunno
if it's is the original giant model
No, they built a new, they built a new saucer specifically for the crash.
A smaller one, I believe.
It's still pretty big.
I've seen shots of it.
It has toured that, that saucer model.
It is just the saucer, but it is recognizable because it has streaks of,
um, of, uh, burn marks on the leading edge from the atmospheric reentry.
And yeah, it was built and, and painted specifically just for the crash.
And it is uh, something that they have, they have toured around, you know,
museum exhibits and things like that.
The, the.
Incredible.
see shots online of the saucer and it's, it's about the size of a person.
So yeah, I'd say from, from long, from edge to edge, the long way, it is about
six foot across that, that, uh, Yeah.
Marvelous.
Yeah.
Well, anything else to say about saucer separations,
Um, look, when.
It's a tricky thing to get right and you can see why it was used so sparingly, is
because it's a great idea and it could, but it could be that thing where it's
pulled out at the end of an episode to like defeat the big boss or something.
It could become quite um, uh, commonplace.
So the mere fact that it was only used so sparingly for financial
reasons, obviously, it's always the cool reality of money.
Um, it makes it
happened two or three times a season throughout the series,
I think we might not be sitting here doing an episode about it.
Exactly.
And especially because, you know, out of the four times it was done,
only two times really were effective, um, and actually was beneficial for
the plot and pushed it forward and did something interesting with it.
Um, as opposed to just going, okay, well, we'll separate and
one part goes somewhere else.
Well, how can this be used?
The Encounter at Farpoint one was especially glaring.
Picard, like they, they're like, they've just met Q. The ship
arrives at Farpoint in two pieces, and Riker as his first test of
that's right.
To do manual docking.
Yeah.
And the manual docking, I think, is probably the nicest part
of the whole thing is, it's at least a character moment.
And there, there is gravitas and, and stakes to it.
But yeah, uh, The Arsenal of Freedom feels like the, the, stereotypical when
they imagined that if we're gonna have families on board this ship, we're gonna
have to send them to safety now and then.
And this was the only now that we got of that happening.
The Best of Both Worlds was a, uh, a battle tactic.
So it, the fact that it was not used conventionally was kind of the point.
And I really like
Generations was kind of, let's use the saucer as a, as a life boat.
Yes.
I enjoyed all of the stuff of the families rushing through and the
announcement over the, over the intercom, starship separation in four minutes.
And, uh, the kids being lost at the corner and Geordi picking them up
and, and rushing them off and one of them drops their teddy bear.
Yeah.
Love that detail.
You gotta see that in, yeah, families leaving a, a, a panic site,
whether it's in any type of show.
And then the, they've gotta drop their teddy bear or their bunny or something
like that and have a lingering shot.
Oh.
Yeah.
Play with the heartstrings.
So, yeah.
But that's pretty much, that's all of 'em.
That's all of them.
Uh, I, I hope, uh, the Athena is reunited with its wings in, in next week's episode.
That's an entire school.
They need to,
Yeah.
When they say we're gonna leave the atrium, you're like, wow.
That is, that giant set with all of the names and the, the, the water features
and the, the seating, the tiered seating where they did the theater rehearsals.
Like all of that is sitting in new, Nus Brakka's hands.
They better get it back 'cause that's an expensive set, Rob.
Yep.
They, they've, they've got a season two to do at least.
So if you, if you, if you're not gonna bring it back, then blow it up at the end
of season two, but, uh, bring it back.
We need it for another 10 episodes.
I feel like there's a lot to play for in terms of what they give us in this
season finale and what they maybe hold as a cliffhanger for season two.
It'd be interesting if they do an actual cliffhanger as in, um, you know, keep you
hanging on or whether they resolve this.
'cause as we know, there's no real return for Paul Giamatti.
So we know that there'll be at least some sort of closure with that, uh, story arc.
Yeah.
He'll have to take his bow, for sure.
Yeah.
Whether there's a, a hint of things to come for next season, maybe at the end
that might be the cliffhanger, but we shall see who sacrifices themselves.
Will our saucer separation be reintegrated together with the atrium?
Hmm.
Will we see Paul Giamatti for the last time or will he do the ultimate
con job and just be a, just be a presence that isn't actually on screen.
No way, Rob, he's coming back.
Mark
He is gotta eat more scenery.
He's got one more
Yes.
Until then, See you turkeys in the brig!