Kevin: Hello and welcome back to the airwaves, the space waves,
the subspace waves of subspace.fm.
It's Subspace Radio, Rob!
Rob: We're back.
It's been far too long.
Kevin: It has been, I forgot how this show started.
That's how long it's been.
Rob: There was a promise at the end of our last episode that possibly
there would be a Discovery discussion.
That has not happened yet.
Kevin: There's still time.
Rob: Yeah, I'm holding off to the last possible minute for me to indulge
in the last season of Discovery before we go to the very last.
Kevin: There's still time because Discovery season five is still off
there in the later this year, date to be named, future and also no spoilers
at all, but as has always been true of Discovery, I suspect season five is gonna
be a brand new thing and it's not gonna matter if you've seen season four or not.
That is what I'm tipping.
Rob: That sounds a lot like Discovery that I know.
Kevin: Yeah.
But we're not here to talk about Discovery.
We've got a new episode of Strange New Worlds.
Rob, this is the show that made us start Subspace Radio.
Rob: This is where it all started, Kevin.
We are here and we're actually reviewing a whole season of Strange New Worlds, not
coming in two thirds of the way through.
Kevin: Although, maybe we should have, is my immediate, without
tipping my hand, my preview thought about what I thought of this episode.
Maybe we jinxed it.
Rob: I was I was watching it and I'm there going, there are things here
that I know Kevin Yank will not like
that we touched on from conversations when we saw the original trailers
come out for this and stuff.
So yeah,
Kevin: So Strange New Worlds, season two, episode one, The Broken Circle.
I don't know about you Rob, but I did a rewatch of season one in the week
leading up to this so that I was fresh.
And I have to say season one is even better the second time around.
Rob: I've just bought my copy on Blu-ray, but then I just discovered
that in regions other than Australia, you can get it in beautiful 4K.
So I have
Kevin: I did the US import, yes.
Rob: the UK import, so I will have both the Blu-ray and the 4K version.
Kevin: And just while we're talking tech specs here of our Star Trek, I have to
say this first episode of season two of Strange New Worlds appeared, first of
all, it appeared a day earlier than Star Trek normally has been in Australia.
Usually they make the Australian region wait a day from its
original airing in the US.
This time it came out pretty much day and date.
It came out within hours of it dropping in the US, which was great.
Thumbs up to that.
Thumbs down, unfortunately, the soundtrack was in stereo only.
Rob: Yes.
Kevin: Huge first world problem here.
But for those of us who like to hear our starships swoop across
the room it, it was a, I was like, what have I got the setting wrong?
No.
The Paramount Plus, although it had HDR video, the soundtrack was stereo only,
and in this episode there were certain scenes where it was kind of hard to
understand what people were saying.
And having all of that dialogue crushed into just those two
channels was not helping matters.
Rob: I'm glad you brought that up cuz it was an issue for me.
So I had to put up the subtitles just to, so cuz some things were missing
and there was, the mix for me was all over the shop because of my, non
stereo screen that I was playing off.
But we are back.
It came in with the swagger of a 1950s or early 1960s American college footballer.
It was coming in cocky, it was coming in confident, it was coming in strong.
All I could say is they showed their money in the first two or three minutes.
Kevin: Oh, that shuttle voyage around the space station was, Ooh I was
going, I can't tell what's different here, but this is a different
portal into the Star Trek universe.
It feels more real, it feels more tangible in some respects.
I don't know if it was just the shaky cam, the virtual lens they chose to shoot that
vista through, but I felt the g-forces of that shuttle swooping around that starship
in a way that we're not used to seeing.
Rob: And we have seen that space station before.
It's not
Kevin: It is the Enterprise's home base for this entire series.
It's, yeah, there's been entire episodes set there, but we never
got the grand tour like we got here,
Rob: We saw, yeah, very different type of biospheres and all that type of stuff.
So it's not like Spacedock from the original movies and from Picard,
specially season three, but it gave us a little bit of a whirlwind tour in
all its glorified CGI money shot of,
Kevin: That conference room with the ships in the background, I have to
say that has gotta be a quite a, like a meeting power move to roll in with
your ship, park it in the distance there, and then walk in and go, oh
yeah, that old thing over my shoulder.
That's my Enterprise.
Rob: But, um, yeah, we are, back and they've done the brave and ballsy move
of our lead character, our lead actor, our captain pretty much going AWOL
in even before the title sequence.
Kevin: Yeah.
I appreciate them going Okay.
We know you love Pike, but we're gonna make you wait for Pike for an episode and
we're gonna spend a day with our other characters, here, and see how they work
together without, Papa of the bridge.
Rob: Pappa hair quiff?
Kevin: Yeah.
And I applaud the attempt, but I really did, I did miss Pike's presence,
especially in a season premiere that is gonna kick off the new season.
Rob: I loved it.
I loved it.
So I'll be in the camp of, I loved it.
I really embraced it.
I like what they're doing.
I like what what new depths they're bringing to some characters.
So M'Benga who was defined by the tragedy of his daughter last season.
Kevin: Yeah.
I'm glad they're finding something new for him.
Cuz uh, there there was that worry there.
Rob: And adding more to Chapel, which I really liked.
Ethan Peck for me is going from strength to strength.
Some incredibly beautiful sequences and shots.
There were some, for me, some unnecessary shots that kind of were a
bit ridiculous, that have been commented in some reviews as being really good.
And I was a bit, ooh.
It's slow motion doesn't, isn't always your friend.
And I'll just finish off by saying Carol frigging Kane.
Kevin: Uhhuh.
Rob: I have adored Carol Kane since I was, since I could understand what
a performance was and everything she has done is incredible and the energy
she has brought to the show, that new life we were talking about, the
freshness of someone who's been in the industry, over, over 30, 40 years.
She, oh my gosh, she's amazing.
Kevin: I am not an avowed Carol Kane fan, but I do agree, like
she is bringing something fresh.
Like I, I can't tell if I like it or not yet, but it is new.
And I don't mind my Star Trek challenging me and Carol Kane's presence on that
bridge is definitely challenging me.
Rob: There's the thing.
It's a weird thing cause there are similarities, and maybe I'm reading
too much into it, of when Anson Mount jumped on set for the first episode
of season two of Discovery, he just brought a fresh, new energy and breath
of fresh air that just broke outta the stuffiness and the internalization drama
that was like season one of Discovery.
And he just brought this cool energy and everyone on the bridge
introduced themselves and we all went, oh yeah, we didn't know any of
these people for an entire season.
Kevin: Thanks for fixing that, Anson Mount.
Rob: And in her own inevitable fashion with her own weird, incredible accents
like she did in Taxi, like she's done in Scrooged and every other performance
that she has done, she brought in that same type of energy, the stuffiness
and the we're to cool for school nerds that is the new, this Enterprise crew.
She just comes in and just blows it out of the water.
And I love that almost anarchistic energy that she's bringing.
But that's me because I'm already in her court.
So it'll be interesting to see how we both evolve with our opinions of the character.
Kevin: Yes, indeed.
I have to say I came away from this episode a bit cold.
Um, there were long moments where M'Benga and Chapel were punching up Klingons
in the hallway where I was sitting there bored and going, is this the
Star Trek I've been looking forward to?
Rob: It was shot really badly.
Those fight sequences were shot really badly.
And they
Kevin: Yeah, it, they felt twice as long as they
Rob: Yeah, they, and they stayed far too long in slow motion on sections where you
could see the choreography, and you could see the holding back and the shifts, and
I'm they're going, that's bad editing.
That's bad shooting.
That's not the actors' fault.
The actors came across as looking ridiculous because they weren't looked
after by their director and editor.
Kevin: Yes.
I will agree with all of that and go further and say that a story of doctors
stuck behind enemy lines being resolved by let's pump ourselves full of bloodlust
juice and punch all the Klingons, that is not the kind of story that I think
Star Trek is setting out to tell.
It feels to me like a lazy, let's put some action on the screen, proposal
that that I wish they had taken a second crack at that part of the script.
Rob: Look, both actors are incredibly talented in, in as actors, but it
takes a certain skill and it's just not something you can throw yourself
into to do fight choreography, stunt choreography and stuff like that.
They did let down their actors here just to, haven't they ever
thought heard of a Jefferies tube?
That's done.
It's been done over 50 years as a way of getting out multiple times.
They're on a false Federation ship.
Go up a Jefferies tube, guys, and you don't even need to
go on slow motion for that.
Kevin: Yeah, there was the slow motion.
There was the moment that they lifted up the floor of the corridor in
order to jump down to the deck below.
And the camera, for some reason flipped upside down so that they
jumped up through the frame and then it flipped upside down again, so they
landed feet down on the floor below.
And the flipping, I was like, oh, are they like going into a
floor that has reverse gravity?
What is the camera trying to tell us here?
And then they landed on, one floor down with the same gravity.
And I was like, oh, the camera's not trying to tell us anything.
They just are trying to make it exciting by flipping the camera around.
Rob: There were a lot of moments of definitely style over substance.
And that was a moment that I stood out and I went, you are just trying
to do something that looks cool as opposed to the things have been done
before in, other genre shows where they use camera trickery, or camera
things like that to, like you said, tell a story and give a justification.
But this was just put into look cute and to look impressive.
And it didn't justify anything.
There was a moment later on when the Enterprise was attacking the fake
Federation ship and just how the camera moved for the Enterprise to
be upside down, that type beautiful change of gravity perspective stuff
is great and lovely and perfect.
I'm going do more of that.
As opposed to that was just really stood out for me as a director trying
to show themselves to be clever and not really servicing the plot.
So yeah, I saw that as well.
Kevin: Yeah, lots of highs and lows this episode.
And in general I thought the action beats left me cold.
They did not quite work as well as they were intended.
A lot of the character beats worked really well though.
And, once M'Benga and Chapel got cornered in that airlock and made
the decision to jump out into space and they were like, we've gotten
out of situations worse than this.
And she goes, no, not really.
And I was like, then I was there with them.
I was there with those characters and it felt like they were sharing a moment.
Rob: And the drama of Spock.
Oh my God.
Kevin: Spock at the end, cheersing the blood wine, Yarr!
like a Klingon was hilarious.
All of that stuff worked.
Rob: And it wasn't robotic and it wasn't like emotionless and stuff like that.
M'Benga said it, and it's been said before, Vulcans feel emotions
more than humans, and they use these techniques to suppress it.
That's why the Romulans don't, because Romulans are the twin, race of them.
But you can see the emotion is there, but he's just it's controlled in the surface.
I went That's, yeah, that's another tip of the hat, when Nimoy would go, well done.
It was this beautiful Rawww!
Yes, indeed.
I will have more wine.
Yes.
Blood wine.
Kevin: What are the things that you thought Kev's not gonna like those?
Rob: Oh, it was the one that they talked about in the trailer of, Spock
saying, I would like the ship to go now.
And they, but there's, it was just built in the trailer, but there's a whole thing
around it and I'm there going, okay, this is becoming far too self-aware.
Kevin: Yeah.
Yeah, it it's ridiculous.
Rob: It was almost a scene that you'd expect to see in Lower Decks,
and that would be appropriate.
Boimler and Mariner talking about that type of stuff and Mariner with the
sleeves rolled up going, mine will be, guns-guns-guns, pew-pew-pew!,
But that, it came across as there was Star Trek nerds talking about it,
but they were trying to do it as they were Starfleet nerds talking about it.
And so that was, for me, that was the swagger of a 1950s, quarterback
going, we can do this, man.
We're the flagship show.
We can be, we can steal from everything and we can do all this.
And I went don't, that's great kid, but don't get cocky.
Kevin: Yeah, all of that is true.
And also we have seen this beat in three successive seasons of Star Trek, like
every show in every season at some point now has someone new sit in a captain's
chair and then we have the scene where it's are you gonna say a thing?
And it's done.
It's done.
It's like it's past funny.
It's past not funny.
Rob: Three, three types of shows are doing it now.
And now it's a thing, and it never was a thing, but
Kevin: It never worked.
It didn't even work the first
Rob: No, it was cool.
When you didn't mention it, it was cool when you, and we just
go, yeah, that's really cool.
And now they're making it a thing and it's going, it really is they are
becoming quintessential Star Trek nerds going, oh no, you just by bringing
it up, you don't really know what cool is and you're making it worse.
But but yeah, I've been singing his praises, but the, getting back to that,
those character beats, you're like talking about where they're really good at, like
the, the pressure and the tension and decisions he had to make as a captain
of they're waiting, and he's there going, I need to fire these torpedoes.
Be, but, and the fear and the tears and the,
Kevin: And Chapel's on that ship.
Rob: Yeah.
And that moment when he comes and he's there going, I waited for you.
And you're there going, and at the end where he is there going,
I can't desc, I don't know how to describe how I'm feeling right now.
You're there going this is it.
This is good.
This
Kevin: I love the swings they're taking because they could be playing it so safe.
The fact that we know where these characters end up later could
be prompting such conservative, careful, let's not disturb the canon
storytelling, but instead they're taking giant swings that are painting
those future events in new lights.
But yeah, do it take those big risks cuz uh, as a as an opposite example that I'm
going to bring up in a moment proves, safe star Trek is not good Star Trek.
One detail I did notice was they mentioned the rogue ship was a Crossfield class
ship, which is the class of Discovery.
Rob: Yes, it did look a little bit Discovery.
Kevin: The saucer was definitely a Discovery saucer.
The back end was a completely different thing.
It had Enterprise style engines, slung low with a triangle, secondary hull,
well not triangle, but more of a, like a V-shaped secondary hull vertically.
So the back end looks completely different from Discovery, which we're
told is also a Crossfield class.
So either there are several ways we can justify this for ourselves, and I
haven't decided which one I believe yet.
We could say.
Discovery's backend was modified for the Spore Drive that it was
a modified Crossfield class.
And the only other Crossfield class we've seen was the Glenn, which
is a ship that kind of twisted itself inside out experimentally
in the second episode of Discovery.
And that they were also doing spore drive research on that ship.
So the two spore drive Crossfields had the big giant backend.
Maybe that's it.
The other thing we could say is this was assembled from parts.
When they scanned it, the computer went Crossfield?
It's got a Crossfield saucer, dunno what the rest is.
We'll call it Crossfield.
So maybe it was a Frankenstein Crossfield.
Rob: What I was thinking as well.
Yeah.
Kevin: So yes.
I would sum it up as an episode of highs and lows.
There are things that I loved as much as anything else we've gotten
in Strange New Worlds so far.
But overall, I kinda I stood up at the end of that episode and
went that was a bit disappointing.
Um, and I think it was just because all the pieces didn't quite come together into
a satisfying way, or that prolonged action sequence at the middle of the episode.
Everything that was connected to that suffered as a result.
The core, the glue that stuck all the nice pieces together was not to my taste.
Rob: For me, I could, yeah, I think the whole was greater
than the sum of its parts.
And I was happy to have it back.
It was I enjoyed having focus on our ensemble and the confidence they're
having and that family coming back, and uh, looking forward to next week.
Kevin: We were gifted that focus by Anson Mount stepping out of
the spotlight for one episode.
And that is the theme we chose for our delve into Star
Trek history, this episode.
We are going to explore other times the captain has stepped away and
made room for other characters.
And I don't know about you, Rob, but I had a real hard time
finding other examples of that.
Rob: Look, today has been a day, normally we have ourselves about a week to
find topics and stuff, and I am a chin deep in the end of my term at school.
So we are doing reports at the moment.
Kevin: Oh, no.
I'm sorry to do this to
Rob: Oh no, not at all.
Are you kidding me?
I was looking forward to getting home Friday evening and watching
Star Trek to just send off the week.
But today has been a day of rewatching Strange New Worlds episode one,
hunting desperately to find episodes that relate to the topic that,
that Francine here came up with.
And and finish and finishing off my reports.
So I have found my equivalent of it.
Kevin: Look, I'm kind of happy with what I came up with, and as we've
established before, there are no rules.
Pick an episode of Star Trek and tell me why you love it.
That's what I'm here for.
So I'm gonna go first with the original series season three,
episode nine, the Tholian Web.
as we know, season three of the original series is uh, it, it, it is
a, it is a rough ride, put it that way.
But here in episode nine, for me is a bright spot.
Much like this week's episode of Strange New Worlds, there are things
about it that don't quite work.
It's a little rough around the edges, but the Tholian Web is an excellent episode.
It's a classic episode of Star Trek because it is one of, if not
the only time where Kirk, William Shatner steps out of the limelight.
And we get to see what his crew and what specifically Spock and Bones
have as a relationship without him.
Because so much is made of that triangle that like the three
of them work so well together.
That that bones is the heart, Spock is the brain, and and Kirk is
Rob: is the groin.
Kevin: The groin, absolutely.
Whatever metaphor you prefer, that the three of them, like they support each
other's strengths and flaws perfectly.
And when you take one of those away, what is left?
And what is left in the thon web is that very dysfunctional relationship.
So at the start of Tholian Web, there's a transporter accident.
Kirk is presumed lost.
Spock does some science and goes, here's how we can get him back.
The science fails, and then Spock is convinced that Kirk is lost.
And so they hold a memorial service where Spock gets up in front of the
crew and he does a typically Spock job of memorializing a crew member.
He basically says, look, I can't tell you what he meant to you.
You all need to figure that out for yourselves.
Let's bow our heads in silence.
That's pretty much it.
Rob: Thanks, Spock.
I would like you to mourn now.
Kevin: Um, pretty much the moment Kirk disappears, Bones seems suspicious, and
he outright accuses Spocks on several occasions, once on the bridge in front
of the bridge crew of relishing this opportunity to rise to the captaincy
off the back of his friend's death.
And Bones is plotting Spock's downfall because he thinks Spock
does not deserve the captain's chair.
And they, this is the ugliest, I think in the entire series that
the two of them get to each other.
And Spock does a marvelous job of just like water off a duck's back.
But he is this the kind of stone face that you know it's hurting him inside.
Rob: Yeah.
Kevin: And then there is a beautiful scene where they go to Kirk's
quarters to watch the final message, the like, in the event of my death,
open this envelope sort of message.
And they watch it.
And Kirk basically says, look Spock, you're in command now.
You're gonna have to make some tough calls.
I've always believed that part of being a captain is operating from instinct.
And if you can't find that in yourself, go and look to Bones.
I've found him a great source of counsel, and he can be that for you
when you can't be that for yourself.
And Bones, Spock is captain now.
You need to respect that.
You need to do what he says.
But also realize that even Spock is capable of human error, human weakness.
Not even Spock is immune to that.
And you need to support him when he needs it.
And they both look at each other and go, I'm so sorry, and apologize
to each other, and mourn, Kirk's passing in their own moments.
Eventually, of course, they rescue Kirk.
And then Kirk says, in the final moments on the bridge before the end
of the episode, Kirk's like, so, um, I hope my final orders were helpful.
And they both look at each other and go, what final orders?
Oh, sorry.
So much was going on.
We didn't have time to watch them.
And they pretend not to have seen them.
And Kirk's like, oh, I put a lot of work into that.
Oh well.
And that's the move to the credits.
But yeah, a lovely episode, The Tholian Web.
Rob: That's a good one.
That's a, that's, yeah.
Pretty much captain's away because he'd be almost dead.
Okay.
For me, mining my my beautiful version of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, which
is become my wont to do, I found out that, of course Avery Brooks did every
single episode of Deep Space Nine.
Kevin: Of course he did.
I was on Google going, what episodes did Patrick Stewart direct?
Because he's probably not in those a lot.
Rob: And even the one that like Avery Brooks directed, like
he took the lead in as well.
So you're
Kevin: Of course he did.
Rob: he did.
Of course he did.
So I had to look at what type of episodes could be considered
that, Sisko light episode.
And I've tried searching that and.
And Google let me down.
I knew what I could rely on cuz I'm a Deep Space Nine fan, so, they
always were good value and they would be a Sisko light episode.
A lot of fans took a while to like them.
Not many fans liked them within the franchise, but I loved them.
So I looked at the Ferengi episodes.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: Classic episodes where you knew that Sisko would be in the background.
He'd probably pop in at the start for a little, or he'd be there as the,
with a sage bit of advice at the end.
So I'll look at a little bit Family Business, which is season three, episode
23, directed by Rene Auberjonois written by Ira Steven Behr and Robert Wolfe.
And so that's the first time they actually go to Ferenginar and
that's where you find out the deeply misogynistic, capitalistic culture
that is Ferenginar to the extent of it.
Kevin: Is this the one where we meet Moogie?
Rob: This is where we meet Moogie for the first time.
And Moogie is a wonderful creation, a beautiful, beautiful
performance by Andrea Martin.
It's just, yeah.
And she stays with the show then on.
And so how she defines Quark and Rom is a great episode.
And we get deeper knowledge of the Ferengi culture.
That's what I love about Deep Space Nine is they took that time to, as opposed to
going from planet to planet, we found out we could constantly go back to Ferenginar.
We could constantly go to Bajor to Cardassia and find out more about
these cultures as opposed to just, what special bumps we have on the eyebrows
and the bridge of the nose this week.
Kevin: Yeah, it's like these characters in a pressure cooker on a space station,
make them bump into each other in every which way that you can imagine.
Then when you need a little more grist for that mill, send them
back to their home worlds, get a a top up of what makes them them,
Rob: Exactly.
Kevin: them back.
Rob: So that's a beautiful, setup that you have.
It makes it difficult to find a "captain's away" episode because
Sisko's always at damn ship.
So it's a great episode to, to get introduced to that deeper knowledge of of
Quark's backstory and an introduction of Moogie who is just a wonderful character.
And then where Rom starts becoming a regular character.
And as a side note in the B story with Sisko, Kasidy Yates
appears for the first time played by the brilliant Penny Johnson.
But the other episode that I'll sorta like refer to in this block is a much more
well regarded episode from season four, episode eight, Little Green Men, which
we've touched on a little bit before.
And that's just an iconic episode, time travel as well.
Kevin: Yes.
A little remembered time travel episode.
Rob: And it's a, another captain away.
You get Sisko a little bit at the end, but it's Rom and Quark are taking Nog
to Earth cuz he's joining up with the Federation, the first Ferengi to do so.
Um, they get wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey stuff and they get sent
back to Roswell, 1949 and they're the justification of the alien invasion.
And of course Odo stows away with them and it gets caught up in it
and Quark arrested at the end.
So it, this is a out and out classic.
This is one of the better remembered episodes and one of the highly
regarded episodes of Deep Space Nine.
And is always up there with some of the best episodes of Star Trek television.
Directed by James Conway and story by Toni Marberry and Jack Treviño.
So those are two episodes that's kinda like, just wanted to mention and drop
and just how great they are showing the Ferengi culture and different situations.
One more of a family drama.
The other one, the Ferengi comedy elements brought in this
iconic time travel episode.
Kevin: Yeah I love how both of those are great examples of Without our normal cast
members around, particularly the captain, what does a character like Quark become?
Like, what face is Quark putting on at all times because Sisko's got his eye on him?
That when you take that away in one situation or another,
what does Quark become?
So yeah great adventures to go on with him there.
I'm gonna go back and watch the Little Green Men, cuz I, I literally remember
almost nothing except, military uniforms and it was in Roswell, New
Mexico, and so I've gotta re-watch that
Rob: It's a really good one.
It's a really fun one.
And Armin Shimmerman is one of the greatest gifts in Deep Space Nine.
And him working off Rene Auberjonois is great.
Yeah, just that.
Expanding on the characters that we have, expanding on
how they deal with situations.
And this is like the birth of the almost anti-hero within Star Trek.
These are Ferengi who are seen as, gonna be the major threat before the Borg
were introduced into Next Generation.
And how, from a race of beings who come from such a misogynistic, such
a capitalistic culture, how can we actually learn to, empathize with these
characters and how can they evolve being a part of our culture as well?
Kevin: It's a great magic trick when you can take like an objectively
unlikable character trait and put it on a character that we've learned to love.
And then, that's a challenge to the audience.
Rob: So yeah.
Kevin: My second episode is I went looking for a TNG.
I looked real hard for a time that Captain Picard left the Enterprise
and people were left behind.
And I mean, we've already talked about Chain of Command fairly extensively
when they're sent away on that mission.
But we also go with Picard in that episode, and that's what's
happened again and again is when Picard leaves the Enterprise.
We tend to go with Picard rather than stay behind.
There's uh Captain's Holiday where he goes to Risa, but we spend the bulk of
that episode on Risa with Captain Picard.
Not really any great examples there for TNG, but that did send me to Risa, where I
found an episode of Star Trek Enterprise.
And I think I am going to make a note to myself for future episodes of
Subspace Radio is that if we're gonna talk about Enterprise, we should talk
about it in canonical order, before TOS.
Because inevitably the Enterprise episodes, they're not that great.
There are some good Enterprise episodes.
I struggle to think of any great Enterprise episodes with all apologies
and respect to the people who worked really hard on that series.
Rob: Gotta be, there's got, like this is what the internet was born for.
Kevin: Best Three Enterprise
Rob: Yeah, nerd nerds making lists of what the best episodes are.
There's gotta be a list out there on Den of Geek or somewhere that
says, these are the best the, if you're gonna watch any Enterprise
episode, these are the ones to watch.
So that's what I can watch.
Kevin: This is not one of them.
And it is uh, Star Trek Enterprise season one, episode 25, Two Days and
Two Nights, in which the Enterprise visits Risa for the first time.
And the crew draws lots to see who will be allowed to go down to Risa for for
shore leave, and who gets to stay behind.
And Captain Archer goes down to Risa, and because he is a stick in the mud,
he gets a private hotel suite and decides to lay in the sun and read
a book with his dog for his holiday.
But what that means is that everyone else goes off and has fun without him.
And so it is kind of a, when the Captain's away part because the
other people partying on Risa don't have a captain around, so
they get to let it all hang out.
Rob: Woohoo.
Kevin: There are a few people left behind on the ship, notably T'Pol,
our Vulcan first officer, and Dr.
Phlox, who decides to take the occasion to go into one of his long hibernations
where he mostly doesn't sleep, except when he does, he sleeps a real lot.
So he decides to sleep for two full days.
And so he takes an injection and says, don't wake me up
unless there's an emergency.
And of course, there's an emergency.
Rob: Wah-wah.
Kevin: Which leads to, I will call it a clown routine.
The scene where T'Pol and Ensign Cutler have to wake up Phlox from his
torpor in order to treat a suffocating Travis Mayweather in, in sick bay,
who fell off of a rock wall climbing.
This scene where they wake him up and he's just sleep drunk and talking nonsense.
The funniest line is I don't care what it tastes like, he's just lying in bed
with his eyes closed, sh shouting that.
This gives me an excuse to reference a YouTube channel that I highly recommend
called Ryan's Edits, where he does this series of videos called Star Trek Intakes.
And this guy has managed to source from little birdies inside
Paramount unreleased bloopers from all the various Star Trek series.
And he edits them back into the original scenes.
He matches like the color grading, he matches the sound and it, and
then he allows the scene to play out with the blooper in it, as if
that was what the character did.
I will not explain it further for fear of ruining the joke, but there a couple
of weeks ago, there was a excellent intake posted of this very scene of
waking up Phlox from his hibernation where none of the other cast members
could keep a straight face as he was shouting nonsense from his bed.
So go and watch that instead of watching this episode.
Rob: He's a wonderful actor.
John Billingsley, he's great.
I'm watch, currently watching at the moment The Man From Earth, which
is a infamous bottle episode type of movie and Billingsley's in it.
And he's great.
He's such a wonderful actor.
I love seeing those heavily made up actors.
He has stretched their stretch, their acting chops without the makeup on.
Kevin: It's a high point of this episode that otherwise is fairly forgettable
because of the same reasons that I find Enterprise in general fairly forgettable.
This was Star Trek playing its safest.
Going back to what I was saying here about Strange New Worlds about even when it's
not working, it's not working because they took a big swing and every once in a
while one of those risks doesn't pay off.
But here in the early two thousands, Star Trek was, I feel like playing it safe.
They were at the end of 10 years of Star Trek on TV continuously, and they
were afraid to break the franchise.
And this is, I think what ultimately sunk Enterprise as a series and had
it not get its full seven seasons is they, like they were painted
into a corner in every respect.
They were doing a prequel so that they couldn't break any of the cannon.
And it was, it was network television, prime time, so they couldn't do anything
risky with characters or story for fear of upsetting the advertisers.
This episode is an example of that.
You send these characters off to Risa, and, ostensibly they get
themselves into trouble, but the trouble they get themselves into is
such a watered down vanilla variety.
Tucker and Reed go into a bar as tourists and they're like, we hear this is where
all the sexy ladies in, in Risa hang out, so we'll just sit at this table
and wait for someone to proposition us.
And sure enough two sexy ladies show up and say, Ooh we'd love to show you the
secret gardens of Risa, and they allow themselves to be led into a basement where
they get mugged for their communicators, or whatever, and wake up the next morning
in their underwear and have to shamefully scurry out to, to find a communication
station to get back to the ship.
That's the kind of trouble they get themselves into this episode.
Rob: Yeah, we talked about it before, like with Voyager was trying to do this brave
new thing about taking it outside of their comfort zone, into the Delta quadrant.
And like we talked about, there's this whole arc that they could establish
and create about limited resources, limited crew members and stuff like that.
But they fall back on the old routine.
And I'm not sure if it's a reaction to, because Deep Space Nine didn't
really, even though it went for its seven seasons, didn't hit
that same mark as next generation.
Because at that time, in the late nineties doing such big arc season work
was revolutionary and is now embraced by, streamers and television viewers.
But it was a bit too avant-garde back in that time.
So maybe the lessons they learned were wrong and they went let's play it safe.
And cuz Enterprise could have been so interesting.
They didn't have the universal translator.
There's only limited space and all this type of stuff.
But like you said, they went we'll give the impression that it's big
and new, but we'll just play it safe.
The only daring thing they do is what they do with the opening credits.
And if that's a risk, it's not worth taking.
Kevin: Yeah.
It's so easy to say in hindsight, but I think you're right that the response
to, oh, we don't have as many viewers as we used to, is let's be more cautious
instead of let's be take bigger risks.
Rob: Let's try and be more like what those shows were, the show was, that
got us this success in the first place and fundamentally take away from what is
unique about that actual specific spinoff.
And it's not even writing it like Next Generation.
They're just doing these safe generic type of story plot lines that you
could see in any show, any procedural show, any cop show, any drama show
that doesn't stand out as anything unique, which is such a shame.
Okay.
My final episode, like you were talking about, is how our
characters cope without that safety blanket of, a Picard or a Sisko.
And we're going to one of Bashir's finest moments and one of the most really
deeply depressing, powerful episodes.
We're going season four, episode 23, The Quickening, where Bashir, Dax
and Kira sent on a mission and they arrive on a plague-ridden planet in
the Gamma Quadrant where the Jem'Hadar have punished the residents of that
planet for defying and not joining the Dominion by poisoning the entire planet.
And it's lethal.
It slowly it appears in like spider like lesions on your body, and
when it is inflamed and takes you over, that's called the quickening.
And there's no cure.
And and you die slowly and horribly.
And Bashir is there trying to find a cure.
Everyone else leaves, but he stays.
And he makes a connection with a young pregnant woman who is inflicted by it.
And she sadly dies, but he helps the child live.
And with the medicine that he's trying inside in the pregnant
woman, the baby is, has the cure.
So the baby is not affected by the quickening.
So what that means is they can, in, they can give this vaccine to
the mothers who will die, but their children will live and the next
generation will not have this disease.
And he comes back at the end and he's, given all this praise and stuff, and
Sisko's there as the guiding figure to go, you've done an incredible job,
what you've done for this people.
And just the loss and the, what was lost to get some sort of hope.
And what that means as a doctor for Bashir is a powerful episode.
It's directed by Rene Auberjonois.
So knocking out of the park again, and that's that almost safety blanket
of having Sisko around is gone in this, and Bashir really steps up
and it's incredible performance.
Kevin: Remember this one being gut wrenching.
I, it was 20 something years ago now, but I remember the first time
I watched this episode on the day it aired and getting to the end of it
and going that wasn't a happy ending.
It was that twist the knife happy ending.
Bashir saved the day, but we're all left devastated
Rob: It's, so I, yeah, I remember watching it for the first time and
like when I've gone back to rewatch it in my watch of the whole season, it's
one you just go, oh, can I skip ahead?
And you can't.
It's riveting and it, everyone is firing on all cylinders.
And despite the fact it's 1996 budget television with, filmed out
on location in somewhere in Southern California or whatever, but the
script knocks it outta the park, the direction's knocked outta the park.
The actors are in fine form and it just brings it.
Kevin: This is what I wanna see when our doctors are stuck in a situation.
This is the kind of story I wanna see.
Not let's punch all the Klingons.
Rob: I think, the raid Daredevil have a lot to answer for where they've
created this whole new technique of the one shot or the corridor fight scene
that has been brought into so many TV.
And that's what they were trying to do in this, I think.
But it was shot by it looks like someone who's never done a choreographed
fight scene on film before.
If they have I'd, I'm, I'd take that back, but it looked very amateur.
But yeah.
So that was my, yeah.
I'm ending on a very sour note and a very sad note, but it's
Kevin: N no, but I dare say it might be the best episode of Star
Trek we've talked about today.
Rob: Pretty much.
Yeah.
Yeah, quite easily.
It's a powerful episode.
Make sure you've got a, maybe watch a Little Green Men after it.
Kevin: All right.
Well, I can't wait to see where Pike has gone and who this amazing
lawyer is, he's gonna bring back to save number one, is next week.
Rob: Look, Star Trek is back on TV and we get to talk about it again.
It's been far too long and I look forward to getting back into it next week.
Kevin: See you around.
Rob: See you around the galaxy.