Trek In Time

Matt and Sean talk about a tale as old as time… in space. Star Trek Enterprise has finally gotten good this season, but this is first real misstep in season 3.

Show Notes

https://youtu.be/OADe0ctyZ-k

Matt and Sean talk about a tale as old as time… in space. Star Trek Enterprise has finally gotten good this season, but this is first real misstep in season 3. 

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Creators & Guests

Host
Matt Ferrell
Host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Still TBD, and Trek in Time podcasts
Host
Sean Ferrell 🐨
Co-host of Still TBD and Trek in Time Podcasts

What is Trek In Time?

Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.

Today's episode of Trek in time, we're gonna be talking about a Trek version of beauty and the beast, but if anybody else calls, Hoshi a beast, I'll punch him in the nose. Right. We're talking about enterprise episode six of season three exile it's dropped on October 15th, 2003. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Trek in time.

As you know, if you're listening to this, I imagine you already. We're watching every episode of star Trek in chronological order. We're also talking about the eras in which these episodes dropped. So right now we're talking about enterprise season three. So we're talking about 2003. And who are we? Well, there's me.

I'm Sean Farrell. I'm a writer. Are it some sci-fi? I read some stuff for kids and with me as my brother. And he is the guru and inquisitor behind the YouTube channel undecided with Matt Farrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty

good.

How about yourself? You staying cool.

doing well. I'm trying to stay cool. I did go out and about yesterday in New York city. And there was a thunderstorm that came out of nowhere, but luckily I was in a museum at the time. So I was enjoying the inner workings of the museum. The fascinating thing. It was the museum of Mo the moving image.

So it's about TV's movie and the tech of making all of that. I sent some pictures to Matt, which made him DRL a little bit. They have. A permanent display around Jim Henson. Yeah. And the Muppets and the puppetry, the history of him as a creator and the histories of the shows and movies, dark crystal, everything from his very earliest days, making commercials and doing stuff on TV in the late fifties and sixties, all the way through.

To, uh, the time of his death and showing the legacy of, of his creativity. And it's really remarkable. And it taps into the same vein as what we're talking about in this podcast, all the truck lore and all that, it, it, it reaches back into a childhood memory for me. That just is like a core of my being and walking into this, uh, part of the museum focused on Henson.

I was there with my girlfriend. She was ahead of me. She stopped and turned around and she said, are you going to be okay? And I said, I'm going to be crying a lot. So get ready. And then about halfway through, I was again, standing behind her and she turned around and both of us were crying at a picture of Muppets.

That was all, it was, it was just a moment of looking at Muppets and that's all it took. I do encourage if people are coming to New York city and they want to get out of the beaten paths of Manhattan, check out a story of Queens, check out the museum of the moving image. Little fun fact. It's right across the street from the Frank Sinatra high school, which was founded by Tony Bennett in honor of his friend, Frank Sinatra.

So. Do the museum and then check out Astoria, which has some extremely good food. There's fantastic. Greek food to be found in Astoria. So we had a very nice day. So as usual, we'd like to start off our episodes by talking about our previous episodes. So, Matt, do you have any comments you wanted to share from previous episodes?

We have a couple comments from the episode about regime, uh, one from Kuma on rain. All I wrote was holy cow. This is, was so enjoyable in a way. It totally elevates the episode, despite problematic elements in the story writing and makes me feel like I need to rewatch it. I'm glad that. Kuma enjoyed. Yeah.

Thank Yu. Kua yeah.

Yeah. Uh, the other one is from Elliot Rowe. He wrote loving the podcast fellows. I honestly can't wait for you to get to the later half of season three in season four, where we get to the true highs and lows of not just enterprise, but Trek as a whole question for you. Will you be including the movies and your rewatch?

Also, where will he place episodes like in a mirror, darkly and trials and tribulations whilst the frame story of those are enterprise and deep phase nine, the core story is the original story, the original star Trek. So would you do it alongside those super excited to hear your reviews of strange new worlds properly?

Because I think it's now my favorite Trek series. I thought that was awesome. Mm-hmm , uh, keep up the good. Uh, my comments on those would be, I can't wait to get to strange new world's spoiler. It's one of my favorite star Trek series of all time. Yeah. Um, it's not my number one, but. And I think that's partly for nostalgia cuz some of the other ones went out for nostalgia.

But for this series, it's just like taking all the boxes for me. Yeah. Um, for, including the movies, I don't think we actually were planning on including the movies in what we're doing. I think we're gonna keep to the

TV shows interesting that you say that because in my mind we were going to include the movies.

Okay. So that's, I'm open to whatever. Yeah. That's an ongoing, that's an O that in my mind, yes we would be. So, um, I'm voting for that and we've already had a little. Of a discussion around how we're gonna incorporate the time travel stories. Yes. And what we're gonna be doing is they're gonna remain embedded with the series in which they are in, so correct.

We're gonna be cuz we're the. Trials and tribulations doesn't happen to the original series crew. It happens to the DS nine crew. So yes, we're following them. And if there was an episode somehow of strange new worlds, let's say which didn't include anything having to do with anybody from strange new worlds, but was entirely focused on some.

The next generation crew, then we might be in a conundrum, but mm-hmm I don't see them doing anything like that. Anytime soon with these yeah. With these shows. Thank you so much, everybody. For those comments as usual, I invite people to drop into the comments. The contact information is in the podcast description or you on YouTube can just scroll beneath the video and leave a comment there.

All of that really does help us. create the show and understand where our audience is in our discussions. So we really appreciate that. And right now you'll hear. You got alert in the background or should I say read alert? It's time for Matt to read the description for this episode, exile, Matt, take it away.

Exile is the 58th episode of the American science fiction television series, star Trek enterprise. The sixth episode of. Season three, it first aired on October 15th, 2003 on the UPN network in the United States. And was the first time the show was broadcast in high definition.

was that important for it's an auspicious episode to move to high Def I love the fact that it's moved on to high Def and it really didn't.

Do anything that made me think. Wow, thank goodness for that high F

the episode was written by Phyllis strong and directed by former star Trek, voer actress, Roxanne Dawson set in the 22nd century. The series fall asleep, adventure of the first start fleet Starship, enterprise registration, and XL one. I love that.

The fact we get these in every single one of these entries. In this episode, Enson Hoshi Sato. Linda Park is contacted telepathically by an alien named tar. Ma Sterling who offers assistance with the ZDI whilst she visits Tarkin at his home, the rest of the crew investigate another mysterious fear within the expanse.

When you finally get to the summary, not a bad summary. No, but

it's the final, like fifth of the description. Yeah. It's I don't know why we need the, yeah.

Why we need all that. As Matt mentioned, directed by Roxanne Dawson famously. Playing Bolan. TAUs in Voyager and this is not her first directorial turn in this show.

And Philis strong who had also been a writer on Voyager, both of them working together to create this episode. And as Matt mentioned, the original air date, October 15th, well, what was the world like when this episode air. Matt was still dancing. His tail feather off two shaky tele fell in there by Nellie P Diddy and Murphy Lee and in theaters, a little movie called kill bill volume.

One opened with 22 million in the box office. People will remember that kill bill. Is a 2003 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, its as UMMA Thurman as the bride who swears revenge on a team of assassins, which include Lucy, Lou, Michael Manson, Darrell, Hannah and Vivica, a Fox and their leader, bill David Carine.

After they try to kill her, her journey takes her to Tokyo where she battles the EQA and it would be followed six months later by volume two. KBI volume one is currently streaming on HBO. So if you haven't checked it out, it is a great movie and yes, it is well worth your time. And I was not surprised to see it at the top of the box office for the week that it opened.

And on television on October 15th, 2003, how was star Trek stacking up against the competition? Spoiler? Not well mm-hmm as it was. Following in dead last against my wife and kids. It's all relative 60 minutes to ed and on WB the network that a year earlier, couldn't catch a break and catch up with enterprise.

Well, now they have a hit. They've got Smallville. It's earning roughly twice as much in the viewer numbers as star Trek enterprise. This episode was a particular low mark for the season because on Fox you had major league baseball, the 2003. World series was coming up soon. And what was happening in baseball?

Well, you had little teams called the red Sox and the Yankees ding it out. And you also had the Marlins and the Chicago Cubs in the national league. And if I could be a time traveler, Matt, I would go back to 2003 and I would bet heavily on the Marlins because this would be the year that they'll win. And in the news from the New York times, On this day, October 15th, 2003 China's first astronaut returns to earth.

China's first astronaut in space returns safely to earth on Thursday when his craft touched down on time and as planned after 21 hours in orbit, the government said China's mission control declared the country's landmark debut, a success, the craft carrying yang Lowe. Touchdown on the grasslands of inner Mongolia in Northern China as planned at Dawn Thursday, the official Zho news agency said later, he emerged from the capsule and waved at rescuers, according to images, broadcast by state television.

The landing is successful at China's central television correspondent said the station released an image of the capsule and the country's premier immediately spoke to the Lieutenant Colonel and offered his congratulations. In other news, the UN was set to gain approval from the UN for its plans. For Iraq, there had been some initial debating, particularly from Russia around.

The timeline and the handing off of power to Iraq, the rest of the world of course, was very keen on Iraq ruling itself, as opposed to the us just putting in a government that it would operate permanently. And as I mentioned before, baseball was getting lots of attention and especially the red Sox and Yankees as usual, duking it out and not really liking each other.

So onto the episode, Before we get into the nitty gritty, just kind of a big picture. Take Matt. What was your take on this episode? Um, I think that, um, says it all yeah. Yeah.

I mean, in, in, in sure, I don't think it was a bad episode, but it was kind of a. Big shoulder shrug. I don't think I would ever watch this episode again.

It'd probably skip over it. Mm-hmm it's like, it was, it's not super meaningful. It doesn't really have

that much. Yeah. I found myself disappointed in a couple of key things while also not being turned off by the episode. Yeah. Yeah. And feeling like, well, it's a focus on Hoshi. It's nice to have an episode that focuses on somebody other than Archer trip to Paul.

You know, it's star Trek has a long history with creating triumvirates, you know, here's your big three characters from this series and over the, the length of a series, sometimes that triumvirate shapes shifts and changes players, but there are usually the, the go-to characters and Hoshi is not one of the go-to characters.

And I thought it was nice to have an opportunity to explore somebody else. Mm-hmm however, I found myself thinking. The way it's being explored feels halfway there. I felt like I wished there was something about Hoshi that was critical to her being. In this story as the focus and the way it is, it almost feels like this is more about Tarkin, which is understandable.

He's the antagonist of the episode, but I wish there had been more of a reason behind why she's the protagonist of the episode. Yes. And I, to get into some of the plot points, the enterprise. Is studying the gravitational anomalies of space to Paul thinks she may have figured something out, which is in looking at the locations of the anomalies, the only way that she's able to make sense of them, mapping them out in accordance with the beams, from the mysterious sphere that they've come across in the past.

She speculates. There's only one thing that truly makes sense of the locations of the anomalies. Given the direction of the beams from that original sphere, there has to be another sphere and she's able to map out roughly where that sphere might be. So they begin their. Exploration to that sector of space.

And while they're on their way, Hoshi begins to have mysterious and, and upsetting experiences that are akin to visions. She's seeing and hearing things that don't make sense. There is I think a very nicely dramatized experience of nobody believing her. I thought that that was, was I. I here's

why I wrote my notes about that specific thing.

And I think the two things in this episode, I think work really well are the science and the rationale of there's more spheres. Yeah. How she figured that out. Yeah. How she's using math in the science to figure out oh, why the only way to explain this would be that there's more. Yeah. And she uses that to try to figure out where it might be.

It's like, that's so. So like NASA discovering a black hole, it's like, it's so cool. How she figured that out. And I love how they're laying this. They're laying out the groundwork for how they're discovering what's going on in expands. Yeah. The second part I really liked was how people reacted to her visions, cuz it's not that they didn't believe her had

a heart understanding the rationale of what could be happening,

but, but it was like, we don't believe we, it.

We think this is simpler than you're making it out to be, but nobody like talks down to her. Nobody says, ah, just brush it off. Yeah. Every person along the way says, you know what? Like, weed's like, we'll keep an extra out for you. Yeah. You know, he's like, well, he's being supportive. He doesn't, he doesn't understand, but he's being supportive.

The captain doesn't understand, but he's being supportive. The, the doctor doesn't understand, but he's being supportive. Like every single one of them, they've all been through so much together at this point. Yeah. That they are willing to kind of, to step outside their own. understanding. Yeah. And go, okay.

She says something's going on? So something might be going on. Right. So let me see how I can help her. Yeah. I like that aspect. Yeah. Of how

they, they built it out. Yeah. The captain puts extra guards in important points because he is like, if we have an intruder, we need to make sure we're ready. The doctors explanation of, I think this may be in your mind, but it's not a dismissive take mm-hmm

It is a, I can't find any evidence of anything else. Therefore, I have no explanation at this time. And she's put in a strange position of getting a message and having to convince her captain. This is not only real, but it is a person who is out there and they want to meet me. And they have told me that they can help regarding the ZDI that becomes then the, the final lure that actually makes them travel to Tarens planet.

if there hadn't been the promise of the ZDI. I imagine this would've been a, we're not diverting. We're not going to other places, but it's the ZDI is enough. The mentioning of the ZDI is enough. So they get to the planet. And now we have the beauty and the beast scenario. This is the approach that the director, uh, Roxanne Dawson, and the actress, uh, Linda Park playing Hoshi.

This is the approach that they took in breaking into this story, that it's a beauty and the beast scenario. And here's where I began to feel a little bit of disappointment in the sense that in the beauty and the beast beauty has a key element that drives her involvement in that story. Yes. and that felt lacking here.

It is. That's completely empty. It felt very much like Tarkin is saying, I know you've felt lonely. I know you've felt isolated. For me, that just wasn't enough. I felt like I wanted something media to hold onto, which would be something in the form of something in the current experience that she's going through, something dramatized earlier in the episode, or maybe in an earlier episode, showing her going through something that becomes.

The hook that becomes the thing that Tarkin can pull on to pull her closer. And I would've appreciated if there had been a little more conflict within her about this scenario. If he offers a promise to be able to unlock the problem she has showing her conflicted about, I really shouldn't stay here, but my God, this is so en.

Yes would heighten what at this point feels like they turned, it felt like they turned the conflict all the way up to a two. Like it's barely ING. It is. I want you to stay. I can't stay. That's really the entirety of it, as opposed to, there's never a moment. Anybody saying never a moment. Oh, what if, you know, like what if I chose to stay?

What would that look like? What. She debated it internally with herself briefly and then turned it on a Ted and said to him, well, why don't you come with us? Yep. And have him then debate his reasons for not being able to go. And then you would've been exploring both of their characters in a way that would be far more interesting than what feels like he's providing exposition about her character.

He is yes. Saying, well, when you were a child, this happened to you when you were a child, your grandfather was this when you were a child and I'm like, why is he telling us her life story instead of. Him saying, I can't go with you because I can't turn this off and being around your crew would kill me.

Yes. I can't help, but be invasive people start to hate me because I know everything about them, her then saying, well, I can't stay, even though you could solve this problem for me. And I don't know what that problem might be, but it needed to be something current. It can't just be, you are a lonely isolated person.

There's any number of people on the enterprise who might have fit that bill. It doesn't, it didn't make sense as to why she individually stood out in this episode. And I found myself thinking, well, I'm fine with the story, but I don't see the point of it. Yeah.

That I agree. A hundred percent. It's like, basically what you said.

Everything point highlighted was for me came up was why couldn't he go with. His, his home planet hated him because he can read their minds. Yeah. Doesn't mean the enterprise crew would. Yeah. Why wouldn't that be an option, but it could have been very easily that what you just described of, I can't turn this off and being around too many people is too stressful for me.

So I can't be around a lot of people it's like that. Would've been great. So, okay. Now he's landlocked. He can't go with her. He has a compelling reason why she might wanna stay, but there was never a moment. If there was any doubt she was gonna leave. Yeah. So like she never showed any sign of, well, maybe I would wanna stay.

It's like they never created that aspect of the love story of beauty, the beast, where she would want to stay. Yeah. And there would be conflict within her. There never was conflict. None. Yeah. So that whole part of the storyline, the ACE storyline, to me, it, like you said in the beginning, it's it feels half baked.

It wasn't bad. But it didn't half of enough, a hook of a compelling reason why these characters were doing what they're doing. Yeah. So for me, the blot of them discovering the orb was far more interesting to me yeah. Than the a storyline. Yeah. But it wasn't badly directed, wasn't badly acted or anything like that.

It just, it lacked a couple of, I thought key. Things like you already highlighted what they could have done that would resolved it. It would've been a very simple fix. Yeah.

And it, it falls into that category again for me where some of the, some of the characters who are of a more supportive role and in the, the background a little bit more are not given too many opportunities to be in the foreground.

And when they are, I always hope the best for them. Like give this person a really knock out of the park storyline mm-hmm . And you know, I think about like, you want an example of what I'm talking about. There's a third tee tier character from next generation who had some of the best stories written about him, reg Barkley on next generat Barclay, a next generation is a fantastic, fully realized three dimensional character.

He's not a member of the show as a regular he's in a handful of episodes. And he stands out in each one because they make him have a purpose in that moment. Mm-hmm and this feels like they forgot to give Hoshi a purpose in this moment. And I felt like I felt bad for the actress. I felt bad for, for Lynn park and saying like, okay, you're you're portraying this thing.

It wasn't as well as you can't, but it, it, you deserved better than, than this.

It wasn't an underperformer of, of an episode because it focused on Hoshi. That's not the reason it did. Yeah. Poorly in the ratings. That's not the reason that we don't like this episode. It was the execution of what they were doing around her.

Yeah. But I will say there were some aspects to the directing, the filmmaking that I really liked. And I wrote a note about this specific moment when she. First in her mind, teleported to the planet where she's in that building. Mm-hmm the way they filmed her disorientation. Around what just happened and she's spinning, or she's like walks into this hallway yeah.

And spinning around. And the camera does this clever thing where it like, it locks onto her straight on, but she's spinning and it makes, gives you as a viewer, a sense of vertigo. I just love the, I, I don't know. I love filmmaking and how they did it. It was like, clearly it was a cameraman came in on her handed, heard the camera, she held the camera spun around a couple times and then handed the camera back off to a cameraman who backed away from her.

Yeah. But it, it created this one shot uncut. Just, oh, I'm dizzy. It's

what's going on. It's it's interesting having you break that down because I left that scene thinking how on earth did they do that? It didn't even occur to me that it could be as simple as like hand her the camera. She does her thing and then they hand the camera back.

It it's that the simplicity of getting that shot. Yes is belied by the complexity of the shot once you have it. And I really, that stood out as a, as a nice moment. There were also some very nice moments and use of her phasing in and out of the projected reality so that it's disorienting, but it's also very visceral, very real.

And the that's the thing about this episode is the teaser up to her. Getting to the planet is very. You're left with a series of things of like, oh, what are they going to find here? Because there is somebody here who is ultimately going to be malevolent. And ultimately the malevolence is not even there.

It's loneliness, that's driving things. Yes. And he then after everything is done, Tarkin who is played, I thought very nicely by ma Sterling, uh, Tarkin, even. In an attempt to blackmail and extort what he wants. He makes one blackmail attempt of like, you don't get this info unless you stay with me. And then she's like, I'm not staying with you.

And then he is like, okay, you can have the information anyway. So it's like, it's like, okay, so he's not a malevolent figure, but he's just desperately lonely. And as you, and I just said, so why not go along? Why. Yeah. If his people have ostracized him. That doesn't mean other people would, and it also there's ostracizing.

And then there's, we're gonna ostracize you by putting you on a frozen rock, as opposed to like, they couldn't find a nice place that had like animals and prairies and like, like no companion explanation,

the explanation of him needing to be distant from other living things would've been made at all. The more tragic.

You know what I mean? It's like, that's the element that was missing. And it would've, what did, like, I did like what they were trying to do at the end with him. Basically it was setting him up as this tragic figure. He's not a malevolent, uh, figure. So him basically setting that transmission of, I don't want you to get hurt.

Yes. Here's the information I thought that was a, I thought it was nice, but it didn't pay off because we didn't have that emotional bond that we should have had.

And ultimately, I can't help. I'm now gonna put on my rewrite hat. what if the story was something about Hoshi. Makes her stand out. There's something that's planted either in her previous episode or the beginning of this episode where she has a problem, something is locked and thi these visions.

Entice her with the opportunity of maybe there's somebody who truly understands this problem who can help me with this problem, they call into this planet. They are looking for companionship. What if he's looking for companionship for a brief period of time. And she is so enticed by him that she begins to think I would like to stay.

And then he has to at a, in a hard moment of, yeah, this is why my people ostracized me. My telepathy is like an addiction to other people. You do not actually love me. You are addicted to me. I am doing things to your mind, without my control that you need to get away from. And I am lonely and I ask for people to come here.

But those graves that you found were the result of people who refused to leave. And then my power ultimately killed them. That to me, would've been a really weird and dark take on this scenario. Yeah. and I kept thinking, like I wanted him to still be ultimately like a guy who was like, look, I, I, I, I'm so deep in your head.

I can recreate food that you like. That's how visceral this is for him. He knows how things are supposed to taste and feel. And like, that's, that's a remarkable scene when he's like, here's all this stuff. What if it wasn't actually all there? What if it's revealed, like she's been eating bread, but he's got her convinced of this other experience.

Like they didn't do a whole lot with what they're claiming his power truly is. And that's so I left feeling frustrated and then I think we can very briefly sum up the B story line. They find another sphere they end up going there on a shuttle craft because they are so impacted by. The sphere that they'd found previously, they knew it was breaking down.

It's not fully functioning. This one appears to be more fully functioning and the anomalies coming from it do devastating damage to the ship. There's a great sequence of some really cool CGI of a ladder in engineering that turns itself into a pretzel moments after somebody finishes climbing on it and a section of the ship.

The hu appears to boil before it bubbles up and then blows out and de depressurizes several decks, some pretty catastrophic stuff to be dealing with. They halt the ship. The ship cannot go any closer. So they go in using a shuttle craft with Archer and trip. The two of them have to explore the sphere by themselves to do the, take the readings in order to give to Paul the information that she needs to be able to triangulate better.

Where all the anomalies are. all of that's fine. Like I thought all of that was well rendered. It was pretty straightforward. Sci-fi adventure. Like, how are we gonna solve this problem? Now we're gonna do this. How are we gonna solve this new problem? Now we're gonna do that. But there was one sequence in particular that I was just like, I know, did they have to fill some time?

What was the point? Of this. And it was ultimately something that I don't know if you're with me, it didn't make a lot of sense. It was done in any way, shape or form. Yes. The shuttle craft trip somehow accidentally in an attempt to repair something, activates the port thruster on the shuttle craft, which is somehow powerful enough.

To launch the shuttle craft off of the sphere. Now the shuttle craft is sitting on the sphere, which implies either it's ally locked to the sphere there's or there's enough gravity or there's enough gravity. You're saying there's gravity. Yes. But they're saying that the little tiny jet of steam that is coming out of the shuttle craft is enough to launch it fully off of the surface of the sphere.

And begin pulling it up into space further and further away as it's spinning. And the two of them literally start taking shots of the shuttle craft with their FERS to disable the thruster. Then it falls back down with such such force with such force and it comes to a screeching rolling halt, right? At the two of them, the two of them never respond to this shuttle craft hurling toward them in any way they have zero concern out of this.

There's nothing about that sequence. That seems like we're supposed to take it seriously. I couldn. I couldn't understand what its purpose was. It ultimately doesn't have anything to do with anything. I, I was really scratching my head of like, they spent special effects dollars doing this. Well,

it's like, they were trying to create tension of, oh crap, they're gonna be stringed on the sphere, you know, and the enterprise isn't gonna know.

And if they Don. How much time will pass before they send in a rescue mission. All this kind of stuff is kinda what it felt like they were trying to set up, but they set up the conflict and resolve it within 30 seconds. And it was. It was dumb. Yeah. It was so dumb. Yeah. It's like, if I was editing that script, it would just been like a line drunk that paragraph of like, why are we doing this?

Yeah. Just cut it out.

And it felt, again, like it takes several minutes out of the episode that mm-hmm was it PAing I F I found myself thinking like, did they have time to kill couldn't they have done something more with Tarkin. Had they done everything they needed to do with Tarkin? Apparently. The way, this episode was shot, the first stuff shot was with Linda Park and the rest of the actors were finishing the previous episode.

And then after she was finished with this, they were already onto the episode after. So it's like, They don't shoot everything in order. They don't shoot everything in a way. That's just like not everybody's filming the same episode at the same time. And I found myself thinking like, was this something that was tacked on at the end because they didn't have enough of something else.

It just felt completely unnecessary and a real kind of head scratch because ultimately it didn't even have any bearing on them. Like, oh, we've damaged. The she craft. Now we can't get back to the enterprise or they never mention it again. They literally shoot their own ship out of the sky. And I kept thinking, boy, you've had an episode that's revolving around hard science regarding everything Matt's talked about.

Gravitational pull, this anomalies were measuring the sources of the anomalies and it indicates that there's another source. There has to be another source. Like that's all hard science. And then you have, oh yeah. This tiny thruster is enough to propel this thing into space. And then after we shoot it, it will fall back down in the way it does, like, yeah, the hard science just went out the window for what felt like cartoonish comedy.

And like, it like, it kind of ended with a sad trombone for me, that scene.

But also at the very end, they went back to that hard science. And this is another thing I really enjoyed, which was, yeah. Okay. Now with this data, we just realized she realizes there's gotta be more than two because things still don't line up properly.

And like the there's, what is it? 26 of them or something crazy. So it's a

large number are somewhere out in space. I, I remember the number being over 50. I mean maybe, yeah. One

of those at this point though, she said something like 26 as far as I know right now.

Yeah. So it's like all the triangulating. All the locations of the anomalies and all the speculating potentially gives them the opportunity to be able to better navigate through this section of space.

But it really lays down the idea that something is here and it, and it raises the question between Archer and to Paul, which is why would these be here? And it raises the question. Is their entire purpose to create the expanse. Is, are these things here, in fact, to make a section of space that would be so difficult to get through so that you could have a section of space, like the expanse it's.

The beginning of, you know, we're roughly like a quarter of the way through the season. Mm-hmm so here we are, like, they're no longer saying what a crazy place to be. They're saying. Yeah. But why? And it's the beginning of, of that level of intrigue, which we will see expand into the next episodes, expand in the expands, expand in the expands, if you will.

And the next episode, since I've just mentioned, it will be the shipment. Matt. I will not ask you. Do you have any speculation about what that episode is about? Because I know you've already watched it. Well, they're gonna go to the ups store, right? John that's right. That's right. They have a shipment there.

You they're gonna ask the question on what has brown done for them lately before we sign off Matt, is there anything you wanted remind our listeners about that you have going on?

Uh, just to stay tuned to undecided, uh, with met Ferrell on YouTube, uh, we have lots of interesting episodes coming up around, you know, graphing and other science advancements, which I know star Trek fans might a kick out of.

So check that out.

And as for me, if you wanna find out more about my books, you can visit my website, Sean farrell.com. You can also go to Amazon Barnes and noble, your local bookstore, wherever books are sold, you should be able to find my books and keep an eye out for my next book, which will be coming out next year, which is the sinister secrets of singe.

It's a, an adventure arguably for younger readers, but it could be fun for. Family reading as well about a young boy who unlocks the tragic history of his family and fights robots while he is doing it. A reminder, if you'd like to support the show, please consider reviewing us on apple, Google, Spotify, wherever it is that you listen to this podcast.

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