Kevin: Hello and welcome back to Subspace Radio.
It's me, Kevin.
Rob: And me, Rob.
Kevin: And we are here with a surprise episode of Star Trek.
This is the first time in history, if I am not forgetting something,
Rob, that the powers that be at Star Trek Incorporated have shocked us by
dropping in the middle of the night, a new episode Star Trek with no fanfare.
And even better, the next episode is coming out on schedule the following week.
So in two weeks, we're getting three episodes of Star Trek, Rob.
It is a bounty of riches.
I don't deserve this much Star Trek is all saying.
Rob: Yes you do, 'cause you are not a toxic fan who likes to fill the internet
with prejudice and hate and oh, it used to be better in the old days.
You are the type of fan who deserves this.
Kevin: I hope you are not telegraphing some of the to Strange New Worlds
season two, episode seven, Those Old Scientists, because I have
to say this is so well done.
I have no notes.
I have nothing but praise for this crossover that shouldn't have
worked, but worked so, so well.
Rob: There is so much joy.
There is nothing but joy in this entire episode from start to finish.
It is perfection.
It is absolute perfection and joy.
I think this episode was dropped, people saying, it's connection to San Diego
Comic-Con 'cause they had a panel on the
Kevin: They, They aired it for the audience and they were like, if we show it
to some nerds, it's gonna get out there, so we might as well put it on there.
And that's a perfectly good reason to air it early.
But they didn't just air it early, they aired it as a bonus episode.
Rob: Yeah, so we had yeah, like you said, three episodes in a week.
We had Thursday, Sunday, Thursday.
And we are doing our our Star Trek crossover conga dance.
Kevin: Yes, we are.
Rob: I didn't think any crossover episode tribute to the whole show could match
Trials and Tribble-ations but I had to hold my beer because in walk Those Old
Scientists to definitively say it is the definitive episode of showing what this
show is all about and celebrating it.
Kevin: I had a fairly unique experience of watching this episode because
I, like yourself, like many or of the Star Trek fans listening to us
right now, I had been aware that this was coming for a year since it was
announced at Star Trek Day last year.
So we knew this was coming.
We had seen the teases, we had seen the photos.
I was just like, please don't screw it up.
That was my level of excitement was sitting down to find out
if they screwed it up or not.
Rob: Ha ha ha
Kevin: But I got to watch it with my partner Jess, who swears by the
lifestyle of not watching the trailers.
So she was going in completely clean.
She had no idea this was coming.
And she, herself is a big fan of Lower Decks.
She loves comedy, so comedy Star Trek is perfect Star Trek for her.
So when it went from the Previously On into a shot of the Cerritos and
Brad Boimler's log entry, she lit up.
Her eyes opened and she looked at me like, did you know this was coming?
And I nodded back, yes, I knew this was coming.
Rob: Just to let people know how much Jess follows that to the letter, Jess does
not follow me on social media because how much I share trailers and stuff like that.
Years ago, I shared a Doctor Who trailer and she literally put the comment I can't
follow you anymore and so I do not keep in contact with your loved one, because she
said I can't follow Rob on social media.
He compromises my philosophy.
Kevin: That's right, yes.
I will continue to be a dead drop service between you.
If you have any messages for Jess after the recording, you let me know.
I'll pass them along.
The other person I got to watch this episode with was my mother
who does not care for Lower Decks.
Rob: Ah!
Kevin: Lower Decks is bridge too far.
She finds it noisy.
She finds it obnoxious.
Rob: Look, she's not wrong.
Kevin: She is not wrong.
So she watched the first episode, said, I gave it chance, it's not for me.
So when this episode began, she immediately kind of went, oh,
and she went and got her phone.
And we said, mom, come back.
Come back.
This is Strange New Worlds.
Trust me, you're gonna wanna stick around.
And she had a great time.
And that is one of the many magic tricks this episode did, is you could be a fan of
either one of these shows and love this, not knowing anything about the other show.
Rob: I will just say this, to have Spock use the word, it's exhausting.
It was in relation to hanging out with Mariner and Boimler,
is freaking exhausting.
I have so much more for Mariner's mom now for putting up with that
crap day in, day out on the Cerritos.
Kevin: Yeah.
Just amazing that these characters now embodied by the voice actors were
only hired for their vocal talents.
The fact that they kept up the heightened characterization of those characters,
even though their bodies were not capable of things that could not, that
could only be done in animation, now, nevertheless, the energy was there.
I never stopped believing that they were Brad Boimler and Beckett Mariner.
Rob: Look, you say that, but he did the Boimler pace walk as he ran away from Una.
He did the Boimler run and he also did the Boimler Power Walk when he's
Kevin: Yes, he did.
Rob: And I'm there going, Jack Quaid, Jack Quaid can do no wrong.
He is incredible voiceover actor, incredible straight actor as well,
and his physical comedy timing.
Is there, is there anything that man can't do?
Kevin: Just the, yeah.
When Una showed up and he just, yelped and power walked probably was the
biggest laugh for me in the episode.
Rob: There's just, oh I can't even define one.
Just from opening with animation style, and there's been so many reviews going,
oh, they opened boldly on animation.
I'm going, of course they're gonna open in animation.
So the animation was great.
The opening titles, rendered.
Yeah.
Rendered to look
Kevin: Animated, but not simplified.
Like it is to me, it is just as beautiful as the Strange New World
titles normally are, but in a new way.
The um the space bug hanging onto the nacelle was a laugh, and then as it flew
over the fire planet and space bug caught fire on nacelle made me laugh again.
Rob: And then as the end of the opening credits, as the Enterprise
flies off in the horizon, the shape of the space koala makes its appearance.
'cause of course it does.
Kevin: I both love and hate that joke, that Space Koala is so stupid.
I want to hate it, but every time they go back to that it gets slightly funnier.
Rob: Look, and it was a great representation and it was done as
well in Trials and Tribble-ations.
And of course it was directed by Jonathan Frakes, as if there was anybody
else who could direct this episode.
What Trials and Tribble-ations did really well, and this does really well
in many ways, it's not a competition of better or worse, but that case of
people within the Star Trek universe are fans of the previous generations
because there's so much of gap.
We have Sisko nerding out about James T.
Kirk.
And in this we have boler just.
Adoring talking about his nerdy obsession with Pike and Spock and all that stuff.
Of course Mariner is obsessed with Uhura.
And then we get to, the, they're talking so cool on the Enterprise
going, oh, these guys, about them.
But they start nerding out about Archer and the Enterprise crew.
Kevin: We sound just like them.
Rob: Enterprise has been, in many ways the black sheep of the franchise.
And we let's, let's not mention the war, let's not mention the Enterprise
crew, but to have name shout outs for the crew and a plot device wholly
focused on a part of the original Enterprise ship was a wonderful move
and a wonderful tribute to whole show.
So it's not only ties into NextGen and the original series, and this
we go all the way back as well.
Kevin: And that was yet another example of something they're doing so well, even
better this season in Strange New Worlds, is that they seeded that previously.
Like you pointed out the other week, that the Enterprise NX-01 was up on the
wall for us to see, to remind us of it two episodes before they would actually
reference it and use it in the story.
And I feel like they keep doing that, is they figure out what they're gonna
do later in the season and then they jump back couple of episodes and say,
what can we plant there as a seed to remind us of that, so that our audience
is cued up to recognize it and be extra delighted by it because they were
reminded that thing existed two weeks ago.
Rob: And it pulled a beautiful masterclass in being a joyous
celebration, funny, ridiculous nature.
As you said, it was far better than it deserved to be, but then it pulls
out some, just pulls the rug out from under you with, Pike having absolute
exasperated frustration with them.
I'm gonna drop you off at the space Space Station 12 and they'll deal with you.
And then it just slips into this home truth about him and his dad and
his upcoming birthday and it just, and to have the great work of Tawny
and Jack being able to shift from ridiculousness, and have a gag in where
she mimes the chair that Pike's gonna be to just taking on this information.
Go, oh, you know about the, and the…
Kevin: I counted three those gut punch scenes in this episode.
One was, one was that question from Boimler saying don't you think
there are people on this ship that would love one more day with you?
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: There was La'an and her extra rule for time traveling of no
attachments from personal experience.
Beautiful.
And there was of course, the scene with Chapel in the turbo
Rob: Oh my God.
I mean, we know it.
Of course we know it.
There's no happy
Kevin: Of course we know it.
Rob: course, know but she
Kevin: But it's, gonna be extra sad now.
It's sad.
Even before it's sad.
How can they have any kind relationship now?
He, how many times did Boimler rattle off the highlights reel of Spock's history,
and there was no mention at all of a pretty young nurse on the Enterprise.
Rob: Not even mention of a gorgeously dressed, wonderful outfitted T'Pring.
Ah, this man's going alone.
Oh.
Kevin: He's going alone and is going stone
Rob: And he is going stone faced.
I don't, yeah, I always, what I love about Nimoy's performance
is he's, there's a logic to him, but it's never cool, robotic.
There's always there's just something behind Nimoy.
Even like from, even from the classic series, when I watch back, I watch it
back and I go, Just the, what he can get out of holding back is it just
elevates him to one of the greatest actors who ever has done the show.
And especially in the movies, which was my first contact,
he was never robotic for me.
He was never unemotional.
His emotions were there.
They were just controlled.
So he did beautiful stuff in Star Trek II and IV, and even V and VI.
You're just going, no one can tell me that he is being robotic, but.
Kevin: And Ethan Peck is doing a great job of that as well.
Just the fact that when he did smile and the score comes in with
the creepy horror movie chord over it, it was, it worked so well, just
how wrong it was seeing him smile.
Rob: For me, I see it as it's all from Boimler's point view.
That is just this horrifying Shining type moment.
But everyone works so well together.
So you've got, Quaid obviously has a bit more time on set because Tawny
doesn't come in until a bit later the episode, but great bonds with or
with Ortegas and Chapel for Boimler.
Boimler with Spock was
Kevin: I dunno if I'd call it bonds.
They were teasing the out of him.
Rob: Well, you know, I love a good tease.
Maybe that's something saying something about me.
Maybe that causes a stronger bond, but him just going Crap.
Oh crap.
And his work with Peck was great and Ethan Peck was great, and Peck is
such a great comic actor as well.
Goes, should that be exploding?
Kevin: No seek cover.
Rob: seek cover.
Kevin: Yeah.
We heard every version of Boimler's scream or yelp or shrill
exclamation in this episode.
Was
Rob: Did, you like it?
You've gotta love reference to Beverly Crusher as he is
being sucked into the portal.
Remember me!
Kevin: Yep.
So good.
Rob: And little drop stuff in with the Orions as well, which didn't need to
be done, but they've dropping stuff in for Tendi as well and seeing the
Orions in live action for the first time in Strange New Worlds, I believe.
'cause obviously they've been playing the Orions on Lower Decks
as just big hulking masses of
Kevin: Yeah.
That's how you could tell they were nerdy scientist Orions because
they weren't football players.
Rob: Yeah, exactly.
I was there going he's not big, he's not a jock.
He's gotta be a scientist deep down.
And he seems begrudgingly doing the piratey thing.
Kevin: What a guest star role to be that Orion captain.
Like you are such a minor part of episode where everyone's gonna be talking
about it and paying attention to every other part of this episode, and yet
he did so well with that character.
The thing where he says, it's just so hard talk to you with
all your weapons pointed at us.
I was, I just loved the texture and the subtlety with that, with which that
character was played when it could have been a mustache twirling villain role.
Like the episode would've worked just fine with a bigger, less subtle
performance, but brought the subtlety and I really appreciated that.
Rob: And love the, how stories grow and how facts shift from who's telling it.
So at the end, when Boimler goes back and says to Tendi, the Orions did discover and
he goes, yeah, and my mom discovered it.
My grandma discovered it.
What, go, yeah, was there.
She discovered the whole thing.
Goes well, she was on the crew, but yeah.
Okay.
No, that's That's okay.
Okay.
That's right.
Kevin: That's right.
Rob: The tantalizing moment at the end, when you hear the voice
of Rutherford and Tendi going, should we come through as well?
I'm going, no, no.
Kevin: Someday.
Someday,
Rob: Someday.
I'm not sure the actor playing Rutherford could, because, Quaid
and and Tawny Newsome look so much like their characters, despite the
fact that Boimler is stretched.
Jack Quaid is a huge, tall, bean pole of man.
Kevin: Yeah.
He's
Rob: Yeah, I don't know if Boimler's that tall.
Probably with the Boimler animated hair it matches, but yeah.
Kevin: Noël Wells could pull it but I think you're right that Rutherford's actor
looks the least like his onscreen persona.
Rob: Yes.
Which is a shame.
Oh, I forgot to mention just the image and everyone's talked
about this in reviews, okay.
The moment of Jack Quaid looking at Christopher Pike's saddle.
This scene is directed by Jonathan Frakes and Jack Quaid is Boimler, hoisting his
leg over the saddle and saying "Riker".
Kevin: Just Riker.
We are led to believe that was improvised, and he did it
just for the man in the room.
Rob: And then we finished episode of course with, which
I was shocked when it happened.
I was surprised.
But part of me going, of course they're doing this.
How could they not end the moment with the Strange New Worlds cast, being animated.
Pike's hair wasn't as high as I thought it
Kevin: No, that's the thing.
That's thing.
His hair is more cartoonish in real life.
This is an episode that bears rewatching.
There is just so much going on.
It's hard catch it all on first viewing.
Rob: I have already re-watched it two times.
Kevin: So the big challenge or mystery in this episode is how are
we going to reactivate that portal?
They end up harvesting heronium from under the floor of engineering where
there is a part of the original Enterprise NX-01, a beautiful idea and
addition to Star Trek tradition that each ship would be made with, a part
from the previous one to hold the name.
I love that idea.
But it led us to thinking about other hard to activate alien artifacts history.
And that's what gonna talk about here.
I have something from the original series.
Do have anything before that?
Rob: I do.
I have an episode from Discovery season one.
Kevin: Excellent.
Hit me up.
Rob: I am focusing on season one, episode seven, Magic to Make the Sanest
Man Go Mad, with the return episode of Harry Mudd in our time loop episode.
Now, it isn't clearly defined whether it's alien or manmade, but there
is the McGuffin of this that keeps everything together is the time crystals.
Kevin: Yeah, before they gave Pike a glimpse of his ill-fated
future, we had time crystals at the command of Harry Mudd.
Rob: Yes, we're well and truly in the middle of the Klingon War.
And we have Lorca in charge of the Discovery played by the great Jason Isaac.
And two episodes previous, he had been thrown into prison and had
been introduced to Harry Mudd.
That's where he also met Ash, who becomes his security officer.
And this is the old trope, like Strange New Worlds has done multiple times,
ticking off, whether it be body swap episodes or time travel episodes
or crossover episodes, Star Trek Discovery did the time loop episode.
And for me who is not big fan of season one of Discovery at all, this was one
that stood out for me that I really loved this episode when I saw it.
And it still holds up.
Rewatching it last night.
I went, yeah the, I really enjoyed this.
The characters aren't annoying in this.
Burnham is not as annoying as normal.
Stamets really stands up as incredible in this episode.
Ash is quite delightful.
Tilly is used sparingly.
Lorca isn't as full on nasty as he normally is.
Saru is good.
And the genius that is Rainn Wilson is such a good Harry Mudd.
So yes, basically the episode is they're stuck a 30 minute time loop.
Mudd is trying to find out the secrets of how to take over the ship and
control the spore drive so he can sell the Discovery to the Klingons, so they
have the power of spore drive, and that would, the Klingons would win the war.
However, he only has this 30 minute time crystal jump, so
he redoes it all the time.
He's the only one knows that he's in a loop.
But also Stamets does as well.
And so he's desperately trying to connect with Burnham and give her all this
information so that they can gradually develop their knowledge of the situation,
and become victorious in the end.
So it's quite dark.
There's a lot of moments where Mudd is just killing crew members left,
right and center, there's a darkly comedic section where you see all
the times that Mudd has killed Lorca.
Kevin: The death montage.
Rob: death montage, which is which is still quite funny.
But then as in true Star Trek fashion, which I really love, it
ends with no one being killed.
And it ends in quite a hilariously, having Mudd declawed.
So the time crystals are what we relate to, and control this on a wrist device,
and they, their properties and powers are openly vague, but it creates that
gimmick that we need to slip in and out of 32 minute time loop whatever it is.
Kevin: It's almost a video game of an episode, this.
Like that experience of I need perfect run.
And infinite lives.
I'm gonna start over as many times as it takes, but one of these
days I will find the perfect, don't-touch-the-sides path through this
gauntlet and have the perfect ending.
It is, it very much replicates the feel of mastering a video
game that I love about that.
It's lovers of Groundhog Day that is such a successful and
well loved movie for a reason.
The formula works.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: The thing at the heart of this episode, the impossible thing that
makes this go, is that time crystal.
And I remember at the time thinking time crystal, that sounds like
something that's gonna be problem.
If that exists in this universe, what other things possible?
It's like that is a game breaking weapon that really should not be
allowed to exist, but we'll allow it to exist for the conceit of this
one comedy episode, and we'll go back to pretending it never existed.
But it does come back.
It comes back and shows Pike his future and the return of the time
crystals in the Klingon monastery.
I remember that really bothering me because it was like, oh, we're not
going to forget the time crystals.
We're pretending that's something the Klingons have had all this
time and they've just been too religious to use it as weapon.
Seems unbelievable to me.
Rob: Yeah, it was very much a case of what, watching it again, going, this could
be something that we never see again.
That's okay.
Let's just put out there.
It's too much of the ramifications of it, just like within the
Harry Potter world of the time turner, you're there going really?
No, this could cause some really serious messed up stuff.
Yes.
My, my dread of going back to watch an episode of Discovery was tamed
slightly because this is actually very good Star Trek episode and all those
other elements they tried to overdrive in Discovery are quite turned down.
Kevin: I remember that being the experience when I first watched
this episode is that's more like it.
Finally, an episode that stands alone and feels like an episode and feels
like a complete story, beginning, middle, and end that is satisfying.
Rather than leaving us dangling yet again until the next week.
Rob: And it is that case of at the end, it's the entire crew
of Discovery against Mudd.
It's not just Burnham doing all the work.
It's Stamets, burnham, Ash, Lorca, even Saru.
The entire crew have sorted this out and they won together
and I'm there going, that's, to
Yeah, that's Star Trek.
And to quote Burnham at the end, that made me want punch myself in the face,
that's Starfleet right there, Burnham.
It does get a little bit over the top when, you know, tell me a secret that
you've never told anyone, and that secret is I've never loved anyone, or
no one's ever loved me or, and you there going oh, violin a bit more, Burnham.
But it's genuinely a great episode and it's, for me, it's the episode I, the only
episode I really loved about Discovery.
And little hint of Georgiou as well in there as well, which I always
think they, they took away original Georgiou played by the wonderful, now
Oscar winning, Michelle Yeoh too soon.
Kevin: I miss Lorca as well.
Like this was what Lorca could be as a admittedly hard-ass, but proactive,
productive member of a Starfleet crew.
Bring back good Lorca.
Rob: Good Lorca who was killed in the mirror verse or…?
Kevin: As far as we know, he's still out there.
And with just one season of Discovery left, please bring back Jason Isaacs.
I could understand why it would be like maybe a bridge too far, like straining
credulity, but when has Discovery been afraid to strain credulity?
Rob: Exactly, and to prepare ourselves for season five, I am two episodes
in to season four of Discovery.
Kevin: Oh, it's just getting good, isn't it, Rob?
It's just getting good.
Rob: Kevin, now I could see what you're doing there and you're a cheeky monkey.
Kevin: It's not all bad.
That's I'll say Discovery season four.
Rob: So tell us, where are you going for your alien artifact?
Kevin: This is the original series, season three, episode three, The
Paradise Syndrome which fans will remember as the time Captain Kirk lost
his memory and joined an Indian tribe.
Rob: Okay.
Go on.
Kevin: To their credit, for the time, they call them American Indians, but
they don't call them Native Americans.
We were not that enlightened,
Rob: Haven't got to that point
Kevin: point the sixties.
No.
But a lot of speaking of straining credulity, a lot of unbelievable
things happen at start this episode.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beamed down to a planet that looks
like beautiful national park.
They immediately remark on the pine trees, the smell of honeysuckle and
just how improbable it is that a planet here on the other side of galaxy would
evolve so precisely to match Earth.
This is something that happens more than once in the original series,
the conspicuously Earth-like planet.
I think they, they go outta their way to remark on just how unlikely it is.
Rob: It's like MASH how the hills and bushlands of Korea
look remarkably like California.
Kevin: So they walk around the pine tree and immediately come face
to face with this stone obelisk that they didn't know was there.
This is coincidence number two, that they beam down to this surprisingly
Earthlike planet and surprisingly of the entire planet, they happened
to beam down next to this stone obelisk that they cannot explain.
It is high tech device that the natives at the planet who are, we learn, American
Indians to all appearances, could not have built such a high tech device.
They look around, but they don't have long to spend here because the
reason they're here is to avert the destruction this planet by an asteroid.
They have five minutes to look around and they've gotta beam up
and warp out in order to intercept the asteroid at the point where they
can still divert it far enough to not smash the planet smithereens.
But in those five minutes, tragedy strikes.
Kirk says, oh, before we leave, I wanna get one more look at that obelisk.
He walks out on his own, stands on the surface of the obelisk and flips open his
communicator, says Kirk to Enterprise, and the hatch beneath his feet opens.
He goes tumbling down a hole.
Hatch closes.
Kirk like clambers up onto a surface that he is not looking at.
It turns out to be full of buttons that he has pressed by accident, and a
ray of light hits him in the forehead.
He collapses to the floor, end cold open.
As a result of this, it turns out Kirk has had his memory wiped.
Rob: Aaah.
Kevin: This is another case of amnesia that we could have talked about in our
episode about amnesia not too long ago.
Spock and McCoy have lost their captain, but they don't have time to look for him.
They get up on the ship and warp out.
That half of the episode continues with, it's another case of Spock and
McCoy having to lead the Enterprise together without Kirk around.
And they have a similar kind of debates about whether Spock
knows what he's doing or not.
Meanwhile on the planet for the months, the three months that they're away.
This is like an interesting kind of timeline in Star Trek episode,
that episodes rarely lasted that much in in-universe time, but the
asteroid needed to be deflected so far away that they had to warp away.
And then as they are trying to divert the asteroid, they burn out the Enterprise's
warp engines, and they have to limp back on impulse power, which is why it
takes them three months to get back.
During that time, Kirk who can't remember who he is or what he is
doing on that planet is discovered by the natives who in, true white
savior style, embrace him as a God and award him the hand in marriage
of the high priestess of the tribe.
The interesting element of this episode is just how happy Kirk is when
relieved of the pressures of captaincy in a low tech agrarian society.
They highlight this at the start of the episode with McCoy talking about how
this kind of planet could lead to what they used to call Tahiti syndrome, which
is when you didn't wanna come back from your holiday uh, the bushes and trees and
the bodies of water captured your heart.
But yeah the alien artifact that we're meant to be talking about here is that
obelisk, and ultimately, it is revealed that obelisk is a asteroid diverter.
And when the Enterprise fails to divert that asteroid in time it is up to
Kirk in form of Kirok, the God of this American Indian tribe, he is expected
by the tribe to find his way into that obelisk in order to activate it
and make the blue lightning come out as they say, to divert the asteroid.
But of course, Kirk has no idea how to do that.
And ultimately, he is stoned by his own tribe, along with his, very
shockingly, his pregnant wife on the steps they are both stoned and
Spock and McCoy beam down just in the nick of time to save Kirk's life.
But Kirk's wife to be dies along with the unborn baby at the end of this episode.
Rob: What?!
Kevin: Yeah, it is completely shocking.
She like, for no plot reason whatsoever, she reveals that
she is pregnant with his child.
The only thing that serves is to further deepen the tragedy
when she is killed at the end.
Like you could, I don't think you could do that uh, on TV these days and
not deal with it more than they did.
But yeah, very tragic.
Rob: And especially the episodic nature of the show.
Like they can't carry on with that within…
Wow.
That is, yeah.
The double whammy of not only am I your, wife to be, we're pregnant as well.
Oh.
And now I'm gonna die.
Kevin: That's right.
Rob: Deal with that for five minutes.
Kevin: So how do we get back inside the obelisk is the tricky thing.
Spock is able to decipher, in the three months that they come back, Spock is able
to decipher his recordings of the markings on the surface of the obelisk and is able
find out that they are musical notes.
So as far as he knows, if there is way into the obelisk, it probably
has to do with music or a sequence of sounds or something like that.
Once they uh, restore Kirk's memories with a mind meld he tries to remember
what he did in the moments before falling down inside the obelisk, and it was
literally to flip open his communicator.
Have it go deet-dee-dee and then say Kirk to Enterprise.
And that is the magical passcode or the magical sequence of sounds that opens
the obelisk, completely coincidentally.
That is the third complete coincidence in this very unbelievable
episode of the original series.
But I always remember that I just, I love that idea that this alien artifact
that is completely impenetrable to modern science, that it could be opened
just by Captain Kirk flipping open his communicator and saying, Kirk to
Enterprise, this thing he does casually every other episode of this series.
It was delightful there that like the key was right in front
of us all along in, in that way.
Rob: There you go.
And then the next episode, they never talk of any of that ever again.
Wow.
Kevin: I think it's difficult as a Star Trek writer to come up with
a hard to activate alien artifact, where the mystery is satisfying.
That the way it ends up being able to be activated is hard enough that it, you
believe that they had a hard time figuring it out, but not so arbitrary as to be
completely unsatisfying or unbelievable that they do eventually figure it out.
So this week, the heronium, the substance that is like completely out of supply in
this quadrant of the galaxy and is very difficult to synthesize, but just happens
to have been a part of the hull of the original Enterprise, NX-01, it's another
example I think of them just deftly making just hard enough to be satisfying.
Rob: And you also don't wanna have an artifact that's too powerful that it
becomes a problem, like with the time crystals in Discovery, you're there
going, what are the ramifications of this?
Like within Deep Space Nine, one of the possible ones I gonna focus
on with Deep Space Nine was all the orbs, all the prophets' orbs.
You've got a of prophecy and change.
You've got an orb of time.
You've got an orb of this and that.
Or The artifact that's broken by Sisko and the pah wraiths come out of that.
It's that case of finding an artifact that has a problem, an issue that you need
to solve, and can be moved on as opposed to the larger ramifications, which could
affect the whole franchise universe.
Kevin: It was always very unclear to me, those orbs, how you activate them.
Like they, they are these extremely powerful devices, but their saving grace
is apparently the way you activate them is you pray them in a worthy enough way.
Rob: You open a box.
You open a box, Kevin.
Kevin: Do they work every time someone opens the box.
Has anyone accidentally dropped a, an orb box and it's opened
on floor and they're like, oh
Rob: Oh
Kevin: We've gotta fix time.
Rob: Oh, I've ended up on the Enterprise.
Oh God.
Kevin: Those obelisks that diverted the asteroid in this episode of the
original series, they do uh, do a bit of interesting world building where
Spock says one of the other things was able to decipher from the writing
on it is that it was placed there by a super race known as The Preservers.
And I remember in my early days as Star Trek fan, even before Next Gen
had come out, that this idea of The Preservers, that there was this race
that went about galaxy seeding planets with apparently pine trees and Native
Americans and that they would leave a asteroid diverter in order to protect
them, spreading humanoid life throughout the galaxy is a very rich idea.
There is a, there is an episode of The Next Generation that has like multiple
races racing for the secret of this shared code that is in their genomes.
And you need the genomes of all the different races to,
to assemble the message.
And it is ultimately a message from The Preservers you all get
along, you're actually related.
But yeah it's a nice bit of world building that, that alien artifact way back in
season three of the original series.
Rob: Well, there you It's nice to have those little especially
those almost omnipotent beings, being referred to again.
'cause like we've talked about in previous episodes, these big aliens
are huge entities that we have no real comprehension of without our limited
understanding of knowledge and language.
They're touched on just as an idea and a concept for an episode, but to have that
no, they are, there is a legacy there.
It's nice to have that addressed.
It's a nice little Easter egg for us long-term fans.
Kevin: Well, There you go.
That was our bonus episode for our bonus episode of Star Trek.
So much Star Trek coming, Rob, we have another one in of days.
Rob: And from the joy and hope and silliness, it seems like just from
the title, this might be going into a bit more darker territory
with the, the Cloaks of War.
Kevin: Yeah, I am, I am tipping Romulan cloaking device, something, something.
All I, that's all I can gather.
Rob: We shall see.
We are less than a week away from seeing a new episode.
And then just around corner is the musical episode as well.
Kevin: Well, bye for now, Rob.
Rob: See you, Kev.