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Matt and Sean talk about first impressions and horror stories on Star Trek: The Original Series. How well does a 1960’s sci-fi television show hold up?
YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/trekintime
Matt and Sean talk about first impressions and horror stories on Star Trek: The Original Series. How well does a 1960’s sci-fi television show hold up?
YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/trekintime
Follow us on X: @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmf
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Creators & Guests
What is Trek In Time?
Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.
In this episode of Trek in Time, we're talking about first impressions. That's right. We're talking about Star Trek season one episode, the Man Trap. Welcome everybody to Trek in Time. We're watching every episode of Star Trek in chronological stardate order. That's the important part to remember here.
Stardate order. I'll say that again, and I will say it probably again, again, because well, When we started the original series, we talked about doing it in stardate order, and then that very first week, Matt said, whoops, I watched the wrong episode. And now we've reached the episode that he had watched by mistake.
A couple days ago, he texted me and said, wait a minute. Is this the episode I watched the other week to which I said, yes, did you watch a different episode this time? And he said, no, but I'm confused and it's like, I don't know how to Trek anymore. So I'm inviting everybody to remember how we Trek when we Trek here at Trek in Time, Stardate order.
There is a list on our website. I encourage people when they are curious about which episode is coming up, jump in there. And we've got it all organized according to stardate order, and that means we also have it filtered in the way we're going to record the episodes, which includes when we will be doing the animated series.
And eventually, much, much further down the road, when we will actually be jumping from series to series and going back and forth, which I think will be exciting and fun and will recreate the feeling I had when we were originally watching these when they were broadcast. When you could watch Next Generation followed by a Deep Space Nine episode and get two solid hours of Trek.
It was a lot of fun.
I will point out though, Sean, I will point out that that list, somebody pointed out to me, the list is missing Discovery. It's missing the newest shows that are on there.
Which is okay from our perspective because we already did Discovery. So I'm feeling pretty good about that, but yes, it is a ongoing problem that as they make more of these shows, we have less information in our repository.
So this is probably a list that will be revisited at some point and we will update it as that information is incorporated. We've done a lot of talking up to this point without introducing who we are. Well, here comes that part of the podcast. I know you've all been chomping at the bit, wondering who the heck are these two people talking?
As was said in a previous episode comment, I come here to watch the show and instead I get two guys I don't know talking about a show I haven't even watched. Literal comment that we had on one of our previous episodes. I am Sean Ferrell. I'm a published author. I write some sci fi. I write some stuff for kids.
Uh, as I am recording this, we are just a couple of weeks away from book two of my Sinister Secrets series coming out. It's a middle grade adventure novel. It will be coming out at the end of June. So, there's a heads up for everybody about that. With me, as always, is my brother Matt. He is that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives.
Matt, how are you today?
Doing great. It's a beautiful weekend. Been enjoying the weather.
How about you? It, I couldn't agree more. It feels like spring is fully here. Beach season has begun. I say that boldly and confidently because yesterday I was at the beach. So yes, it was a lovely, lovely day. We are at that time of year where being at the beach doesn't mean it's 90, 000 degrees.
It was a breezy, early summer afternoon, good times were had, corn dogs were eaten, and uh, sand was dumped out of my sneakers when we got home. Before we get into our discussion about the newest episode, we always like to revisit the mailbag and take a look at what you've had to say about our previous episodes.
Matt, what have you found for us today? A
bunch of good comments, uh, one was from Kay Collette. who said, Regarding the issue of the landing party trapped on the surface of the planet, while I was watching the episode, I kept wondering Why they at some point weren't beaming down survival gear, more phasers, tents, hot chocolate, etc.
And in response to that, PaleGhost69 said, They said they beamed down heaters, but they duplicated and didn't work. I almost screamed, How about some frickin coats? Which I thought was really funny. Cause who cares if it duplicates the coats? It'd still work as coats.
I had the same thought as both of them, and one of my thoughts was if they had beamed down a couple of campfires, it would have turned into four campfires.
If they beamed down eight, they would have had 16. Like, problem solved. But anyway.
And then we had one from Sam Higdon 979. Is it just me or when you watch the Kirk and Ran scene in this episode, knowing what actually happened to Grace Lee Whitney in real life, does it make the scene even worse? Okay, so I, I didn't know the history of what Grace Lee Whitney had happened, so I went to Wikipedia and found Whitney said that while she was under contract, she was sexually assaulted by an executive associated with the series.
Later in a public interview, she stated that Leonard Nimoy had been her main source of support during that time. She went into more details about the assault in her book, The Longest Trek, but refused to name the executive, saying in the book, this is my story, not his. Uh, knowing that, made that scene even worse.
Oh,
man.
How tragic. Yeah. No words. Yeah. And also, just real quickly, just to say, like, kudos to her for having the bravery to stand up and share that story. And to share it and frame it the way she did. To, like, to not make it about defending or, or attacking the person, but making it about her journey and her healing and raising it as an issue of what happens to, uh, women given that kind of, of context.
Is really, um, to be admired. So, before we move on to the next comment, I just wanted to say kudos to her for having come forward in that way, sharing her story and doing it in a way that really focuses the light on the plight of women in a workplace. where assault like that is not only an occurrence, but is protected.
Um, and making it about that journey and raising the spotlight on that and the way she did. I have a lot of respect for that.
Uh, the last comment is from Dan Sims, a much later comment. He wrote, Is this the first appearance of the line, He's dead, Jim. Even though this is my first time watching the original series, it's an iconic line that stuck out to me.
I think it is. I think this might be the first time. He said, he's dead, Jim, and he's going to say it a lot more.
He actually says it about the dog in the previous episode we talked about,
but
in broadcast order, this is the first time. Yes. So it has been said by Bones before in a previously filmed episode, but as far as broadcast order Cultural zeitgeist of the universe, the signals from television broadcasts that are still going off into space.
When aliens on another planet intercept those signals and figure out how to interpret them and watch Star Trek on their planet, the first time they will hear that phrase will be this episode. So that's, it's a, uh, interesting catch. That noise in the background, which I inadvertently mentioned before, but it wasn't happening then, but it's happening now.
And it's probably still happening. And now it's over. That's the read alert. Which means it's time for Matt to tackle the description of the episode, and I will just point out that we are no longer wrestling with Wikipedia descriptions for one simple reason. Wikipedia synopses of the original series go on for probably about a thousand words.
There's no way I'm putting that into the notes for Matt to try and read, so I'm going to instead IMDb. And pulling the descriptions, the synopses that are there. Here's an interesting thing about the synopses on IMDb. They are publicly generated just like Wikipedia and they give the name of the editor who put it in.
So Matt, when you see a little name at the end of the description, that's the name of the IMDb editor. So you might want to shout that out too, just so that we give them the proper credit.
So this is from JW curse. In the series premiere, the Enterprise visits planet M 113, where scientists Dr. Crater and his wife Nancy, an old girlfriend of Dr.
McCoy, are studying the remains of an ancient civilization. When Enterprise crewmen begin turning up dead, under mysterious circumstances, the crew are Kirk and Spock must unravel the clues to discover how, why, and who is responsible. That is a way better description than we've ever had on Wikipedia ever.
So, J. W. Kirse, I love you. You wrote a fantastic description. Thank you, sir.
This is the sixth episode in production, but the first in broadcast order, which is kind of wild that they had filmed five other episodes, but this one made it out of the gate first. I think it's easy to see why. It has some special effects, but it is largely on set pieces.
They're in the ship, they're on the planet, two locations, easy peasy, that's it. And who are we looking at? Well, we're looking at the faces of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, a lot, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, who in this episode has really her first big go around as a scene stealer. And again, interesting, first broadcast, audiences would have gotten more of Uhura than they do in the actual first episode recorded where she appeared.
Where she's just basically in the background and similar to Sulu, doesn't have a lot to do. In this one, we see a lot more in context action from the characters. And also noted, I noted, we don't get the introductions of the characters the way we do in the actual first filmed episode. So this was them kind of hitting their stride with what are we doing?
Who are we? We get it. Which I think shows in the episode itself. We also have George Takei, Majel Barrett as the voice of the computer, and Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand. Guest stars included Jeanne Bal as Nancy Crater, Alfred Ryder as Professor Robert Crater, and Michael Zaslow as Darnell. He is effectively a redshirt, uh, without having actually worn a redshirt.
We haven't gotten to that stage of the series yet. Original broadcast date, September 8th, 1966. The first broadcast of a Star Trek show. What was the world like at that time? Well, the number one song was by Donovan. It was Sunshine Superman, a classic little ditty that I've always loved. And little did I know that this is when it was released.
And in the movie theaters, people were lining up to see the number one film of the week, How to Steal a Million. Matt, without reading the notes, tell me really quickly your thoughts about How to Steal a Million. I've
never heard of it.
How to Steal a Million was a 1966 American heist comedy directed by William Wilder, starring now, get this, Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Eli Wallach, Hugh Griffith, Charles Boyer. The film is set and filmed in Paris, though the characters speak entirely in English. Hepburn's clothes were designed by Gavinchy.
The movie cost 6. 4 million to make. And it earned 4. 4 million in the theaters. That's why I never heard of it. That is why you've never heard of it. Yeah. With the names associated with it. It's shocking. The, I mean, it really does, does make me very curious about it as a movie. I'm like, what is this? If it did that poorly, what is it?
I find it fascinating. And in television, we've been taking a look at the competing programs. We know that Star Trek in its first season was earning about a 12 in the Nielsen ratings. And we've been comparing that with other shows of the same year. And we've already seen Bonanza, Red Skelton Hour. Andy Griffith, and The Lucy Show, all topping the lists of programs ranging from a 29 for Bonanza down to a 26 for The Lucy Show.
Next in line is the number five show for the year, The Jackie Gleason Show, which was number 25. This is of course Jackie Gleason of The Honeymooners. This is his variety show, which would have been him with his orchestra, variety sketch acts, and guest stars coming along. So a very, very popular program of the era.
And in the news, there, in the New York Times, were articles about China, and at this point, they were referring to it as the Chinese Red in the New York Times. So still dealing with the fact that we, yes, still dealing with the fact that we are looking at a communist power and the news, uh, of the era referring to China has a reminder constantly in the Cold War era, don't forget they're communist.
Also in the news were investigations into the Democratic Party picking its gubernatorial candidate for the elections that were coming up. The son of Franklin D. Roosevelt was agreeing to run at this time as a liberal. The Democrats picked Frank D. O'Connor to run on the Democrat ticket. This all of course would lead to the Republicans maintaining control in New York state of the governorship as the Democratic Party was demonstrating a fracturing at the time in 1966, as there were divisions between the liberals in the party and the more centrist members of the party around things like Vietnam and race relations.
And now to our discussion about the episode itself, I've already mentioned before. This was the first broadcast, and Matt, my first question to you is What did you think about this episode as you were watching it? If this were your first time meeting Star Trek, what would your takeaway have been? What kind of show is this?
What kind of stories are we about to hear from them? And keep in mind what we've seen in our previous episodes, which were the original Episodes in production order, how does it jive against those? Does it fall in line with them and not make much of a difference? Or do you think, ah, this is really kind of setting up one thing and then not quite a bait and switch, but maybe a shift?
When people saw the following episodes. Yeah.
Uh, what's funny is since I watched this episode out of order, I watched it in the air date order by accident, uh, when I watched it, I've seen this before when I watched it this time around, I was kind of like, it was kind of jarring how different. It is because it's all about Bones.
And it's like at this point, we hadn't seen Bones. He wasn't in the pilot. He wasn't anywhere to be seen. And then suddenly here's a character we've never been introduced to and it's following him. He's the main thrust of the entire thing. And I was kind of like, what is going on here? And it felt a little weird.
Um, and then the, the tone of the episode was very Twilight Zone to me. It had a little bit of a, kind of a like slight horror, kind of like, vibe to it, that Twilight Zone Rod Serling kind of vibe to it, which I thought was interesting, but again, felt very different from the pilot. It felt very different from the episodes we watched before this that were out of order.
So I enjoyed it, but it did feel a little bait and switchy to me. So I'm kind of surprised that this was one they put like right up front the way they did. Cause it may, it's out of context characters you don't know. And the tone is a little different. We find out going into further into Star Trek, there's more episodes like this.
So it isn't truly a bait and switch, but it's It is kind of jarring how different it is from what we've seen before.
Yeah. I think that one of the things that stood out for me in that vein was this one, you know, the dynamic in Star Trek is action philosophy. Yes. And in this one, the action takes the foreground.
And in the episodes we've discussed up to this point, it feels like the philosophy was taking a much more center stage. portion of the episodes. Even something like the Corbonite Maneuver, where it was very heady discussions while the action was intense. It was about a lot of philosophical stuff going on in the episode.
So this one doesn't throw the philosophical stuff away. I feel like it's definitely there, but it takes, it's a little subtler. It's a little more under the radar. Um, and I'm talking about like, The subtlety of arguments around, is it ethical for a creature to try and do anything it needs to to survive? I found that a really interesting thing to chew on.
It is introduced late in the episode. It is done almost more as a way of demonstrating the malevolence of the creature. As opposed to an actual moral dilemma, but it does present the moral dilemma within the context in an interesting way, because the episode also ends with Kirk saying, I'm thinking about the American buffalo.
I'm thinking about the fact that we just watched a species disappear permanently. And so it brings it back around to the philosophy aspects of the, of the program, but it's definitely a smaller on a smaller scale than the action oriented stuff, as you mentioned, the Twilight Zone like aspects. For me, it kept reminding me of less Twilight Zone, more Outer Limits.
Yeah.
Where Outer Limits leaned more into the sci fi And sci fi horror vibe than Twilight Zone usually did. Um, but it felt very Outer Limits to me, which was a program that would have been on before Star Trek and it was, um, definitely fed the energy of what Star Trek could be when it was being created.
I also was reminded, and I'm wondering if you felt something similar. Not anything in particular about the way it was shot or specific aspects of it, but I kept thinking about The Thing, both the movie that was made in the 80s where it's literally like this thing is masquerading as us and how to identify it, but also the original film that 50s where they took the original short story of, of who goes there, uh, Which bore more resemblance to the later movie, and they changed it so that the thing is actually kind of a vegetable life form that is running around in this arctic research center.
I found this episode, to me, felt like kind of a midpoint between those two in a really weird way of, yeah, it's masquerading as individuals, but it's not the kind of body horror, malevolence, invasiveness of, you know, The original short story or the later movie, it felt more of a, Oh, we've unleashed a creature upon ourselves.
And how do we manage that now? How do we deal with this thing that we can't yet understand how to fight? And. To me, it felt very 1950s sci fi horror and it just kind of like kept broadcasting that to me as I was watching it. How did you feel about this? Did it connect for you any dots to other sci fi, other stories beyond Twilight Zone that you were familiar with?
It's funny that you bring up The Thing. I hadn't, that did not come to mind, but it is kind of like the 1980s thing filmed like the original movie. So it is kind of a mishmash. Yeah. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was the movie that just like was in the forefront of my mind of this is Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Um, so yeah, it evoked, it definitely evoked that horror vibe for me from a classic film like that.
What did you think about the performances in particular? I want to point out DeForest Kelly's performance. He's such a lead in this episode, but also The directorial choices, which I think are where you see the performance of the masquerading entity.
The creature, when it's masquerading, is played by a handful of different actors. And I'm curious, how did you feel about the performances and the nuance? In particular, for anybody who's watching me live on YouTube, I mean this,
the knucklebiting.
Yes, there, there was a lot of datedness to the acting and directing choices, which just screamed 1960s to me, um, watching this, which made it difficult at times, but I was able to put myself into that mindset of I'm watching a 1960s TV show. And so because of that, I was more forgiving of the knucklebiting and the, the glances that were very soap opera glances, that kind of stuff.
It was very hammy, very, very hammy. But I still thought what we got from Bones, I thought was really good. I thought there was some interesting character development there that I'd forgotten about. With, uh, DeForest Kelly, I got a little bit of a vibe of this is why he was cast. It's like, he's a good actor.
He's, he brings, he brings a little more gravitas to, to the role of the doctor where no offense to the guy before him, but he has a little more weight to his performance than the previous guy did. Um, so for that, I got something out of it from, from that point of view, but yes, it was a very dated.
I I'm gonna, I'm going to. Uh, not disagree with you, but like, I really enjoyed it for that. Yeah, that's
what I mean. That's what I mean. I put myself in that mind space and I liked it. So it was like, for me, it was, it was not distracting. Oh my God, what the hell am I watching? I, I took it for what it was, this time piece that's, you know, 40, 50 years old or whatever it is at this point and just enjoyed it for what it was.
And I had a lot of fun with it. Yeah.
When I, one of the things that stood out for me, As I was watching it, I really found myself able to kind of click back into the 10 year old version of me that would have watched this on the black and white TV in our parents bedroom, which was the horror aspect really kind of works.
In a, like, they constructed it really nicely in that we know that these people are dying. They're being left with this mottled skin. They take a little while to figure out, like, what's gone on in the body when the doctor realizes that the salt has disappeared. I really like DeForrest Kelly's performance of, like, I can't believe how distracted I've been.
Like, he's doing, he is such a casual actor. In how he brings this character to life that you almost, he almost gets lost behind the dynamic performance out of Shatner and the repressed performance out of Nimoy, the humanity of DeForest Kelly's performance. Is both exactly what he was supposed to be doing, he's supposed to be between the Vulcan on the one side, he's humanity on the other, and between them is the dynamism of, of Kirk, so he's doing exactly what was needed, but also it's so deftly done.
He's such a fine actor. And it really is, the show gets kind of a bad rap because 1960s performances don't resemble what we would move to through the 70s into the 80s with more realism, less dynamism, more reliance on a kind of method as opposed to a more soap operatic like tension and glancing and lighting and the kind of thing that we see constantly in display in Trek.
DeForest Kelly was already kind of there. Even though it was the sixties and he was a sixties actor and, and was one of the older actors on the show. So he'd been performing for years at this point. And I really found his performance very, very touching and the way that. When they first get to the planet, let's talk really quickly about the use of the swapping of actresses.
I remember when I was a kid, this kind of like feeling like somebody had just thwocked me across the forehead as I was watching the episode, just like, wait, what just happened? Like that moment of like, Oh, hold on. I love the simplicity of this as a beginning of the horror technique. It is so subtly done. For the first couple of changes until you get a complete actress change and one of the people on the planet sees a completely different woman, that is our first big flare.
Up to that point, it's been a little subtle. Hair is a little gray, hair is not gray. There's a few more wrinkles, there's no wrinkles. And then, Now she's a blonde. What did you think about this introduction to like no two people are seeing the exact same thing?
It was great. The setup of this was so well done.
Like just that from one shot to the next shot of like, here's McCoy seeing the, his, his love interest. And then it cuts to Kirk seeing the old woman. It was like, it is very jarring, but like, As a modern viewer, you're watching this going, Oh, okay. It's like some, you know, she can make herself look different ways to different people for some reason.
So it's like you, you, you're very attuned to that today. But I can imagine in the sixties, something like this would have been, what is happening? A little more of that 10 year old you getting whacked in the head. Or today it's kind of like, we've seen this kind of thing a lot of times, so we kind of pick up on it quicker.
I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was really, really well done. I was very impressed with the way they constructed the invasion of the body snatchers, the thing, like what we talked about. They did a great job. With the story arc and how they set it up, I thought that was fantastic.
I also thought they did a really great job with setting up the malevolence, ostensibly, the malevolence of the creature as a desperation to survive at the beginning, and the more it kills, the less it needs the immediacy of survival.
And it becomes more calculating to the point where it can actually take somebody that is completely at its mercy, keep them in reserve. It keeps McCoy safe and unconscious so that it can masquerade as McCoy. And use McCoy for further protection later on. I thought that the development of this was really nicely subtle as well.
How did you feel about like the intellectual, the revelations of the intellectual capacity of this creature to do what it's doing? And the horror, For me, in the one scene where it is McCoy in the meeting, talking with everybody and Kirk says to the doctor, can you identify this thing, no matter what form it takes?
And he says, yes, but I won't help you. And he's sitting next to it. You know, it's he's sitting next to it. And you know, in that moment, he knows that it's the thing, but it's not, he won't reveal it. And so those moments I thought were beautifully rendered of showing this thing. Early on is a scary thing without actually seeing what it looks like.
And by the time we actually see what it looks like, we understand it's all so smart. So how did you feel about the building of that arc?
Well, the whole, the whole arc of in the beginning, it made sense because it's starving. It like, it does not have enough of the salt. So it's, Out of desperation, killing the crewman on the surface because it's just so hungry it needs to feed.
But now it's fed and so it now has a little more leeway to be a little more calculated because it realizes if I can get off this planet I'm golden. I'm not going to be stuck here anymore. So it's being more calculated in what's doing. So it's like the evolution of how it behaved and how it was feeding and taking people and what roles it was changing to.
It was, it made perfect sense. There was nothing about it that screamed to me, uh, leap of logic. Like you and I had that debate in the last one where for me, I saw huge gaps in some of the logic of how things were playing out that didn't make sense to me. In this one I didn't have that feeling. I was just kind of along for the ride.
because they did a good job of just keeping it as simple as possible and making it very intuitive as to why it was doing what it was doing. It was, I liked it. That was great.
A couple of things that also stood out in the episode for me that are not related to each other, but I think are fun to talk about.
Let's talk about Sulu's horticultural interests. Uh, he has a plant, which is clearly a man under a table with his arm through a hole, uh, that they then use, um, some kind of like, Birdsong noise to create the sounds of the plant. Um, but this is us seeing Sulu as a botanist, and this is something that will come back up with this character.
We will see this a couple of times. What did you think about the setting of this and the attempt to portray it as like, they've got these alien plants with this one that is able to identify the creature. That is the entire reason why that puppet plant exists, is so it can react to the creature.
This is one of those moments where I was like, why are you doing this?
It's like, as soon as they did the test shot of that thing, it's like, this is not past the sniff test. Let's just cut it because it was unnecessary. You didn't have to have it. Or do it a different way. I thought, I thought this scene was the one part where it was kind of like a huge record scratch. Oh my God.
This makes it look like children's television show. Uh, yeah. Really, really bad. Um, and just to kind of on that, cause it's the Yeoman with Sulu, if I remember correctly. The Yeoman, again, there was some record scratches with her cause there was a lot of sexism around her and ogling of her in this. And Uhura
as well.
And Uhura as well. Um, yeah. That really bothered me, but, but for Uhura, she had some great scenes in this episode and I just got to pay compliment to Star Trek Strange New Worlds because there was a scene where she's having this conversation with Spock and there was a little bit of a flirting to it and, and familiarity between the two of them and she's kind of chatting him and kind of teasing him very subtly.
And she's just stealing the show. She is fantastic. And I just like, oh my gosh, this is exactly like how we saw Uhura and Spock on Strange New Worlds at the end. Like, they were very familiar, making jokes with each other, kind of chatting. And it's, I was just like, it shocked me. And it made me very, it made it very clear to me that the people who are making the new show clearly studied the hell out of how the relationships of these characters worked and got it to replicate on the new show.
And in this episode, I was just really surprised at how well fit together, and how much Strange New Worlds is changing my perception of these characters, and we're only a few episodes in, and I love it. It's like, it's giving this show new depth to me that wasn't there before, especially for a character like Uhura.
Yeah. I don't know if you, I mean, we both use a Google doc for show notes. I don't know if you saw my note. I was going to ask you specifically that question. How did you think this meshed with Strange New Worlds? Because we get that moment. And I agree with you. The depiction of their relationship where she is chiding him saying like, tell me I'm a beautiful woman.
Tell me like, and it's clearly she's talking to a superior officer. And if you watch this episode without Strange new worlds in your background. It kind of stands out as like, is this like, what is happening? Like, what is this back and forth that they're having? But if you do have Strange New Worlds in your background, you could say like, Oh, they worked.
Together for a long time, and she is knowingly teasing a guy that she feels comfortable with, despite the fact he's the first officer. So, it goes back to that, and it brings with it also a certain amount of the family aspect under Pike's command that Kirk's command doesn't reflect. Kirk is not looking at everybody and saying, like, we're a found family.
We're building a family relationship here. He clearly has a best friend in Spock. He is reliant on McCoy for grounding him and reminding him of, of the tension between individual care and aspirational goals of the Federation. Like that's the tension between the three of them. That's on display, but this is not a family situation.
This is arguably more of a workplace drama than anything else.
As opposed to Strange New Worlds that I think leans heavily into family drama in space. So, I, that stood out to me too, that one scene.
Yeah, to add to the Strange New Worlds stuff, the portrayal of Kirk in Strange New Worlds, you and I talked about this, how, I can't remember the actor's name, he's not, he's not doing an imitation of William Shatner. He's doing his own interpretation
of what makes Kirk Kirk y, the Kirkiness of it. And you and I both said he nailed the Kirkiness. Even though he's not doing a Shatner performance, he's bringing his own take, but it still feels has the vibe of, of Kirk. And in this episode, this is the first episode where I thought I felt that. I felt the echoes of the new performance of Kirk versus Shatner's performance of Kirk.
Cause there was a scene where I think it was him and Bones, something with a red pill, like the red pills you gave me last week. Um, he'll sleep. And there's a humor and a glibness to the way Kirk is talking to Bones. That's really charming and funny and just kind of off the cuff. And it's, That's throughout the original series.
It's all Shatner. It's like, he's, it's, that's him, but it just reiterated to me that the new Kirk performance really mirrored that really nicely, the writing and acting. And so, again, the echoes of Strange New Worlds coming through, just to me, like, super smooth. It just meshed really well.
Yeah, I would love to know if the producers with that actor created a reel tape for him to say, They might have.
Yeah. These are moments of the original series that we want you to really take a look at to understand where we're coming at Kirk from because I like that, that clip that you mentioned of him talking through the prompt teleprompter. He's talking through the monitor to McCoy and says, take one of those red pills that you gave me last week.
You'll sleep like, and it's that the way he drops that line. I'm just like, like, boy, will you sleep? It's it's, and it is, it is the, it not only is it the Shatner of it, it is the, it's the Kirk of it. We can't help but talk about Kirk in Shatner terms because he defined the character in the same way we have to with Spock and Leonard Nimoy.
So on now to Spock, there are a couple things about Spock that I wanted to point out. I think this is the first time we're seeing Spock's blood. So it's the first time we're seeing an injured Spock and we're seeing green that's been painted onto him. So, and it's, It's not even referenced. It's not even like brought up as a main thing.
We don't get McCoy saying you green blooded Vulcan. Like he doesn't have that kind of line. It's very subtly done. We're also seeing Spock portrayed in a way that in this episode, as the first episode, I don't think they're fully conveying the fact that as a Vulcan, Spock is supposed to be stronger. than others around him.
We see him in combat, but we don't get the sense that, Oh, he's supposed to be able to do more. They haven't pushed that yet into the series, but we do see Spock jump into combat as he in the end of the episode. And I love this scene when he comes into the captain's quarters, the captain is being attacked or it's McCoy's quarters at that point.
He's being attacked by the creature and Spock is yelling. Shoot it. Kill it. You've got to do that because he's killing the captain. Jumps into action and clobbers the creature in a fighting style, I can only describe as the Pinky Smasher because if you were to do with your hands what Leonard Nimoy does with his and try and attack somebody, I don't know how you would avoid breaking the pinkies on both hands.
Having said that, this Scene has a permanent lodging in my brain from when I was 10, occasionally unbidden of anything I can might be washing the dishes. I might be vacuum. I'm going to be on my way to work. And I will suddenly think of Spock clobbering two fisted, the woman who is taking the blows with a kind of smirk on her face in a very, very terrifying way for a 10 year old to see.
What did you think about the action aspects in this episode? We have, we have a limited amount of action and we also get for, I think the first time, definitely the first time in broadcast order, but for the first time in the series, we get to hear Kirk Scream. And it is a joy to behold. What'd you think about the act at the action?
And what do you think about some of those key first time moments like that?
I, this may be sacrilege to you and others, but like this is the action in all of the original series is laughable to me. There's, there's never a moment where the action's like, ah, it's good action. It's always, oh, that's a stunt man.
Or that's like, he's not even close to making contact with that guy when he's punching him. It's like, it's all like theater action. It's like over the top, very in your face kind of stuff. Uh, so for me,
that's kind of a reaction Sean. What
about you? So, uh, for me, like, like I said, I, I get a kick out of, I get a kick out of it in a way that I'm able to, I don't know, there's just something about having watched these and I'm interested from our viewers. Like, we know some of our viewers and listeners haven't watched the original series.
They've gotten to Trek through a different avenue, whenever that was, and I'm curious for the people who are watching these along with us for maybe the first time, how painful is it for you? Like, are you sitting there and like, gritting your teeth and like, really, I have to sit here and watch these guys do this?
Because for me, when I see these moments, like, I'm right back in it. And I love it. I, I recognize absolutely like this looks choreographed those moments when Kirk's shirt is clearly ripped. It's clearly his double. And it looks like somebody's like, okay, I'm going to come running at you now. And you got to, you got to throw me.
Are you ready? Are you ready? And then throw. And it's like, wow, that looked really, really staged, but I still love it. There's a part of me that's just like gobbles it up. Like, oh yeah, give me that fake. They give me that fake fighting. So totally into it. Yeah. So I guess that's my call to our viewers and listeners to jump into the comments.
What is your experience? Is this your first go around in the original series or is this your 20th go around? Let us know in the comments and let us know what you think about the fighting in particularly action sequences. Do they work for you? Do they make you laugh? Do they make you hit the fast forward button?
Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts. That's right. I absolutely love that. And just one last comment, the sequence where it's Bones is unconscious on his bed and the creature as the woman stands and walks to the door and the camera slowly goes back to McCoy and then slowly back to her and has become McCoy.
You can see the moment that it cuts, you can see the moment they were like, and stop it there, and now splice in the new film, and now we've got McCoy over here. Still works. You can see that cut, but yet it still works for me. Still works. Because when they go over to McCoy, and you're like, oh, it's gonna change into him, and then you see the cut, and it's, oh yeah, it did it!
I was still like, hooray, it did it! Still loved it. So, next time, we're gonna be talking about the original series episode, Naked Time. And that is not an invitation for anybody to be dressed or undressed in a certain way while they're watching or listening to our episode, but you do you. Who are we to judge?
So please jump into the comments. What do you think Naked Time is going to be about? Wrong answers only. And please, as I said last week, keep it PG. Don't, don't make it too smutty. Before we sign off, Matt, is there anything you want to point out to our listeners and viewers about what you have coming up on your main channel?
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I don't do a lot of these, but occasionally I do them a product review kind of a thing. Uh, I have not one, but two robot lawnmowers that I kind of talk about my experience with and just robot lawnmowers in general of, are they even worth it? Um, I also have a robot snowblower. I have a robot problem.
So check that out. It sounds like, uh, you're planning on getting ready to do like. Robot Wars in your backyard. But if you do that, make sure to invite mom because she wouldn't want to miss out. As for me, if you're interested in finding out more about my writing, you can check out my website, seanferrell.
com. You can also look for my books, wherever it is you buy them. They're available at everywhere from Amazon on down to your local bookstore or your public library. And just as a quick reminder, I do have a new book coming out later this month. It'll be book two of my Sinister Secrets series, which is a adventure series for middle grade readers or older.
And it is about robots and smugglers and people getting into trouble and people being unhappy and people hiding information and all sorts of good stuff like that. So please, I hope you'll be interested in checking it out. If you'd like to support the show, don't forget to leave a comment, leave a review, subscribe, and share it with your friends.
Those are all free and easy ways for you to support the podcast. And if you'd like to more directly support us, you can go to trekintime. show. Click the Become Supporter button. It allows you to throw some coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts. And then we get down to the business of making the podcast.
And we also will automatically subscribe you to our spinoff show, Out of Time, in which we talk about things that don't fit within the confines of this program. So we might talk about other sci fi, other Star Trek, or whatever it is that's catching our eye. Thank you so much, for taking the time to watch or listen.
We look forward to talking to you next time.