61: Carpenter Street - Star Trek Enterprise Season 3, Episode 11

Show Notes

https://youtu.be/XKBbWvlsXrI

Matt and Sean talk about time travel and going to the past to do something you can’t do in the future. Does this episode miss the mark? 

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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.

In today's episode of truck in time, we're gonna be talking about coming up with a plan that makes no sense, given the limited scope of what you're trying to achieve. That's right. We're talking about enterprise episode 11 of season three, carpenter street, a title that I don't understand. This episode dropped on November 26th, 2003.

And I think I may have let the cat out of the. I didn't care for this episode. Trek in time where we're watching every episode of star Trek in chronological order and in history. So what we're doing is we're going back to the first stories of the star Trek universe. That means we're watching enterprise.

And as we go about watching these episodes, we're also gonna be talking about what the world was like at the time of original broadcast. So we're talking about right now, 2000. And who are we? Well, I'm Sean Farrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci-fi. I write some stuff for kids and with me as my brother, Matt and Matt is the guru and aqui behind the YouTube channel undecided with Matt Farrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact in our lives.

And Matt, how are you doing today?

I'm doing pretty well. How about you? How's the

weekend. Well, so far so good. It's, I'm hoping to have a quiet, we're recording this on a Sunday. I'm hoping to have a quiet Sunday afternoon so I can prepare for the coming week, which I'm not looking forward to just because of it being a work week.

That's all I have to complain about yourself. Same,

same thing. It's like, I've been trying to relax and have a quiet weekend in preparation of a lot of

work that I have planned for this week. And as usual, we like to start off our episodes by taking a look back at previous episodes. Matt, did you have any comments from previous episodes you wanted to share?

Sure. On our last

episode that we released, it was the outer time episode. That's kind of our extra subscriber only podcast. And if you wanna get access to that, we released maybe one or two a month of those. You have to go to track and time.show and sign up to become a member. But we released one last week and we talked about movies like pre and the TV show Sandman.

And there were some com there was a bunch of comments about people liking Sandman mm-hmm . So it was from film Gabe. Hey, Matt and Sean. I agreed with Sean about Sandman. It's amazing. Currently on my episode eight and looking forward to seeing how it goes so far. I have not seen night sky, but we'll check it out.

And there were more comments just like that. One about, about Sandman being kind of a home run for a lot of. The other comment that came up was about the movie prey, which is the predator movie about Comanche Indians versus a predator and Emmanuel wrote. So they did film prey in Comanche as well. You can select that option.

And then he also said, Sam, man's amazing, but I do wanna qualify what he said about, they did film in Comanche. It's a dub. They didn't actually film it in command sheet. They

dubbed it in Comanche, which is kinda the option to actually select it as the language. Yeah. Okay. Yeah,

but if you wanna watch it on Hulu, you, it's a separate movie.

You have to do a separate search for Hulu on Hulu for prey Comanche, and you'll find the dub that you can watch.

Interesting. Uh, yeah.

And there were a couple comments from the last episode of Trek and time, which was the episode similar to which was the clone of trip that they made. AJ Chan wrote similar to was one of the best moral plays in enterprise.

It's one of those cases where you could understand the rationale for both sides of the. It's not perfect, but it also didn't end a shootout or some bad guy trying to steal enterprise.

Yes.

And I, I like that. I, I agree with him completely. And then Lambert, Rodney made a comment that I hadn't considered. Um, he said, I like, he liked my suggestion about the show about the new trip, replacing the original trip, potentially mm-hmm

And he said in the new dynamics that it would create with relationships. However, the episode would've been seen as a clone of a Voyager episode in which there was a different. That returned to the ship. Yeah. And I had completely forgotten about that. And then it made me remember, oh yeah, there was also the next generation Riker where there was the transporter accident.

Right. And a second Riker shows up, but that, that didn't replace the existing Riker. There were just now. Two Rikers two

Rikers. One of whom started going by Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. All very, very good feedback. And as usual, we encourage people to jump into the comments on YouTube, or you can reach out through the contact information, which is in the podcast description.

All of your feedback is a huge part of what drives these conversations. And we look forward to seeing what you think, not only about what we're doing, but about the shows themselves and in the background. You're probably hearing that Clason is actually the read alert, which means, yes, it's that time.

Again, everybody time for Matt to buckle up to man up and to read the Wikipedia description of today's episode of track and time.

It's long strip yourself on carpenter street is the 63rd episode of the American science fiction television series. Start Trek enterprise. The 11th episode of season three at first aired on November 22nd, 2003 on the up network in the United States.

The episode was written by executive producers, Rick Berman and Brandon Bragga and directed by Mike VAR in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first star fleet Starship, enterprise registration, and X oh one. Never gonna forget that season three of the series shows the ship, enter the Delphic expands to search for he super weapon in response to an attack on the earth.

Why are we talking about this here in this episode, captain Jonathan Archer, Scott B and commander DEPA, Jolene Blalock travel back to early 21st century earth defined a group of Xindi reptilians. Who were seeking to wipe out the human race by using a biological agent? Why was this not just the last sentence?

That's all it was. I think strangely as rambling as these are, and they're a little bit like watching a young child wander around a room and just describe everything they're seeing. It's I like a candle on a table and I like television shows and here's a TV and over here's a sofa. It's a big soft sofa as rambling as it might be.

I don't know, there's something nice about the fact that it's like, here's what's going on in the season. Like, like, I kinda like the big picture of, of some of it , but as Matts said, season three, episode 11, Mike VJA is the director written by Rick Berman and Brandon Bragga, which at this point I'm very comfortable in saying I'm not a fan of the episodes that they're in charge of in this way.

Original air date was on November 26th, 2003, and guest appearances included Leland Orser as the character Loomis. And people will remember Mr. Orser as the waiter in golden girls. No, I'm joking. The, the part that this. Actor is one of those actors that whenever I see him pop up in something, I'm always pleased because he's always, he's always good in whatever he is doing.

But the part that always stands out for me is he is the victim in the movie seven, who is in the massage parlor. He is trapped in the horrific body. Device that is he's then forced to kill the prostitute with this thing. And his performance in that movie was a standout, small role. But whenever I see him, I immediately go back to him in that role.

So I remember him very well in that this also stars temporal agent Daniels played by Matt Winston and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who people will remember from. Well, supernatural Watchmen walking dead, and soon to be joining the cast of the boys in their next season. And Jeffrey Dean Morgan is completely unrecognizable in this because he is wrapped in Xindi reptilian skin, which apparently.

If the quotes in the information I found online are to be believed. Jeffrey Dean Morgan hated it so badly. He considered leaving acting because he was like, if this is what I gotta do to pay my dues, this might be too much. So oh, geez. And as was previously stated, this episode aired on November 26th, 2003, which is the day before Thanksgiving.

And I thought didn't they learned their lesson previously, this episode. Viewership was among the lowest of the show. Every time they've broadcast a new episode the night before Thanksgiving, which is notoriously a period of time where people don't watch new television shows, the viewership has been terrible.

But what else was going on in the world at this point? Well, Matt you'll remember, you were still singing along to here without you by three doors down a song, which I still do not recall how it goes and I don't care to find. In the movie theaters, people were going to see the cat in the hat with Mike Myers.

It made 38 million in its first week. This is a movie that shouldn't really require any explanation from me as to what it is. It is the classic Dr. Seuss story done as a full feature length film is currently available on Netflix. And we will be talking about it again next week because it held the number one spot for two weeks in a row, making a tidy sum of.

And on television. On this date, November 26th, 2003. What were people watching while they were not watching enterprise? Unfortunately, they were also not watching surprisingly WBS broadcasting of the 2001 film, Josie and the Pussycats. They only got 2.9 million viewers enterprise got 3.7. Queer eye for the straight guy on NBC got 6 million that seventies show and a minute with Stan Hooper, both got six and 4 million respectively survivor was pulling in the lead with 20 million viewers and on ABC, my wife and kids, and it's all relative had about nine and 8 million viewers each.

And in the news. Well, I thought I'd pull out this story from 2001. Because in the making of this episode, Scott, Scott, Baula referred to the timeliness of concerns about bio weapons. He referred to the fact that time travel stories can be tricky. I think it's an interesting quote from Baula given. His star turn in quantum leap mm-hmm , but the, the fandom seems to like them.

So they did one and there was a timely aspect of a bio weapon in the story. And what could he possibly have meant by that? Well, I went back to get some details, to refresh my memory about what was going on in 2001, two years earlier. Then this episode was produced and aired in 2001, there were anthrax attack across the United States.

The 2001 anthrax attacks also known as Amra. Which was the FBI case name for this occurred in the United States over the course of several weeks, beginning on September 18th, 2001. This is only one week after the September 11th terrorist attacks letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and to democratic senators, Tom Dashel and Patrick Lehe killing five people and infecting 17 others.

According to the FBI, the ensuing investigation became. Quote, one of the largest and most complex in the history of law enforcement, a major focus in the early years of the investigation was bio weapons, expert Steven Hatfield, who was eventually exonerated. Bruce Edwards, Evans, a scientist at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Derick and Fredrick, Maryland became a focus in 2005.

And then in 2007, Evans was put under periodic surveillance by the FBI. He was being sought as a major target, but he killed himself before the FBI actually announced that he was effectively responsible. There are still questions about whether or not he actually was responsible. It is the FBI has said, yeah, he was the guy.

They asked the national academy of sciences to take a look at their evidence that led them to that conclusion. The academy of sciences said the FBI made some leaps in logic to be able to make that claim. It has been a contentious, uh, issue. It led to federal investigations led largely by Senator Chuck Grassley and representative rush Holt, who called for an investigation of the FBI's processing of this investigation and the fact that nobody was ever put on trial because their lead suspect killed himself.

I think lends to the question marks. Did they actually get the right person at the time? The letters that were being mailed were clearly being framed to present as if these were tied to the September 11th terror attacks, handwritten notes that were included with the anthrax were making claims that sounded like Muslim extremism was behind this.

So the fact that their main targets of the investigation were. Us citizens without any ties to anything having to do with Al-Qaeda or any kind of Muslim extremism meant that those notes were probably a red herring intended to throw off the investigation. So the kinds of things we're seeing in this episode were definitely in the public consciousness at the time.

There were also. Terror attacks in other parts of the world, there was one in Japan, which was effectively a dirty bomb. There are, at this point in the us context, growing concerns about what a bio weapon in a scenario like in a subway or in a mass transit center at an airport might do and anthrax having been mailed the way it was, and the fact that.

As something as simple as a powder and an envelope could actually kill five people meant that this was something that people were nervous about. And I, myself remember I worked in a office environment where our mail stopped coming into the building. It started going to a vetting area where it was actually undergoing testing before it was brought to us.

So this is something that had a real impact on daily. So when Baula says bio weapon concern is something that is in the public consciousness. I don't think he was overstating things. Having said all of that. The context for the episode, the development of a bio weapon, the concerns about that, the ethics behind what a bio weapon might do.

All of that largely gets just put on a shelf in the background in the episode, it almost doesn't matter what kind of weapon they're develop. Mm-hmm the episode focuses largely on the fact that they're in 2003. Yep. I or 2004. I'm sorry. They were, they were in the future. Doesn't even the episode, but it doesn't matter, ultimately.

Yes. Doesn't matter. This to me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna like give my big picture response, Matt, and then I'm gonna invite you to do the same. I felt like this was another case of the actors doing. A pretty good job with not much to work with. And in particular, the character of Lumis the actor that we talked about previously, I think that he does.

And the actor again was Leland Orser. I think he does a really, really good job humanizing a character that at the end of the day, you shouldn't be sympathetic for at all because he is willing to kidnap people. Take them to an, a faceless. He doesn't know what the goal is of this person. He takes them to this, into this warehouse, leaves them with this person he's being paid to kidnap these people.

And what is ultimately happening is this Xindi team. Once all the different blood types of humanity, to be able to research a bio weapon that would effectively kill all humans so they can release this. So Lumis, as a character is not somebody we should be sympathetic with. He is willing to do whatever it is to get money in his pocket.

He's clearly a smarmy character, but Leland Dorsett does a really, really interesting job with him. I was very impressed with his acting in this. I'm so split on this

because I loved, I loved the acting like what the, all the actors were like, what Baula was doing Blalock was doing. He was doing with that smarty character.

I really enjoyed all the performances. I thought it was well shot. There were some good sequences, but where it completely lost me was it felt like Berman and Bragga lost again. They lost the thread. Why we're watching this show. Yeah. Why should we care? And they, it felt so outta place for this time travel that it, it, it made that the focus yeah.

Of what we were watching and it made the focus around this smarmy character willing to basically sell out his species for a buck as the centerpiece of what the, the story was about when it should have been about the ramifications of what a bio weapon means. Yeah. And it's. It, I don't know why they focused on what they focused on.

Yeah. Um, I don't know why it had to take place in the past. Yeah. It made no sense to me. And, and I was also like, wait earlier in the series when they were dealing with the Suliban it was, oh, they can't actually physically travel to time. They can only send messages. Okay. Now we're dealing with the Xindi and they can actually send the Xindi back through time.

What is going on here? It's like they never explain. Never comes up again. If my memory serves me, right. Never comes up again. It's like, this is like a Terminator situation. Wouldn't they just keep doing this. If they can do it already. It's like, yeah, why wouldn't this have been their first? Why wouldn't this have been their first thing that they tried?

Right. Like going back and killing baby Hitler. It's like, if you can travel back in time, you could erase the entire human species. Probably pretty easily in a primitive time period. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? yeah. Why would you choose 2004? And need all the different blood types. There was like, it just, why that's not how

genetics bunch create a, which are, are glued together to create an environment where it, it feels like a similar Aron where it's very story.

Like it walks around on the screen. Like I'm what a story is. And it actually, if you start pulling at it at all it quickly, Falls apart, the logic of why they're in the past makes zero sense and the intention at one point, correct me if I'm wrong, it seemed very much like they said, the intention was to create the weapon in the past and then return it to the future.

Which no sense that made no sense you release it right there. Yeah. You just release it right there. Like, and then at the end, the Xindi is literally like scrambling to release it. Despite the fact that he's not prepared to release it, he's trying to release it in that moment. And like, wouldn't that always have been your goal.

And as you said, if you can go back in time, wouldn't you have already done that as many times as it took in order for it to work. That doesn't make any sense. This is a huge effort by the Xindi to say, like we can wipe out humanity. So they send three, three guys, that's it? Yep. I mean, I know Jeffrey Dean Morgan is like really capable, but not even he on himself is gonna be able to do, do all of this.

And like, this is your, this is your effort to. undo an entire species. So you send a total of three people back to do this, and if you could design a bio weapon of that scale, why do you have to go back in the past to do it? You've been on the enterprise now, the, the Xindi reptilians have attacked the enterprise directly and been on board the shift.

Well, twice you're telling me they wouldn't have been able to get a hold of what they were looking for for this research. In those attempts, like this is none of this makes sense, but

this, but this is, this is where it could have been explained very easily, Sean, of why they went back in time, which is all of humanity is still landlocked to earth.

At this point, it'd be very easy to release a bio weapon in the past and ensure that you get everybody where in the future we're spread throughout the galaxy. And like, it would be harder to track all down. Sure. So I could understand that as being the explanation for why they'd wanna take it, go back in time and release it there.

But they, the intention was to bring it back to the future where it's like, yeah, that makes zero sense. And one of my favorite, like WTF moments was in that fire fight at the end where he's scrambling to release it into the, the fan. Yeah. That blow it into the air. Yeah. And he he's by the fan, he's opening it up.

He pulls the thing out, he's ready to go. And he sets it down to have a fire fight. Right. And he shoots and shoots and then he jumps back and then tries to knock it into the fan. And it was like, If all you had to do was drop in the fan, you were literally standing over the fan with the bear device. You would just done it right.

Then you had won and you

didn't even have to wait for the fire fight. Yeah.

It's like, he just decided it's like, you know what, I'm gonna shoot these guys. And in turns around, start shooting it's like, it made no sense why he was doing that. Yeah. Like there were so many like logical loopholes, this entire premise that it just kind of makes everything fall flat in its face.

And it's, it's frustrating because there could have been a really good episode here that would. Made all the great acting worthwhile. Yeah. And they just completely

squandered it. And I felt like there, there was an opportunity here for, I mean, it felt very much like what they were saying was like, we need a try and travel episode.

The, the fans, like the time travel episodes. And I'm part of my response is like, do we like it? Is that like is the time tra are the time travel episodes? The strong one. I remember how you and I responded in this rewatch that we're doing to the time travel story where it was the end of was the end of season two.

Yeah. Or the beginning of season two. I don't recall now it, but there was a major time travel story, jump where Archer was trapped in the future. Mm-hmm and like, no, it didn't work. It wasn't a. It wasn't a great episode. And like, what were they measuring all of this desire on the audience's part by, I don't understand.

There have certainly been great time travel stories done in star Trek, but enterprise, at this point, hasn't proved that it's one of the ones that can do them. And the times that it has done them has been stories like I'm thinking about the episode where it's to Paul. Ancestor in the past, on earth, in the one where it was like they, they were living in a small town, um, or was that to Paul herself?

I don't

recall. Now it was to Paul recall a memory of

ancient relative, like telling a story of a different era about a character is one thing. Yeah. But making your characters and in this episode, the time travel is literally. It is and that's, and that's unsettling too for a season that has been up to this point, very based in ethical dilemmas and dealing with some very interesting.

Playing with hard science in very interesting way that we've had some episodes where you and I have both talked about why the hard science in here is really fascinating. They had the episode just last time that we talked, where they were in that field of debris, that was ally attaching itself to the ship.

Yeah. And creating this dilemma like that had a kind of weight to it. No pun intended. That was fascinating to think about. In this episode, the time travel is literally they walk through a door and they're magically in the past. They're sent there by their time travel assignment guy, like why is he not going back?

To stop the Xindi Xindi they never explained that. Well, it doesn't make any sense that it has to be Archer. And when Archer and Daniels talk, it is full of yada yada, yada, as to why does the future not know about the Xindi attack? Why do they not know what is going on in the Xindi and Daniels makes the absurd statement.

And I loved this. It takes a while for changes in the past to reach us like. Yeah, what that makes zero sense he's from a future in which he knows where they are, which means he's from a future that knows of the Xindi attack. There is no, you get to have your cake and eat it too. You can't, you can't play that game.

If the past is changing wherever he is in the future, he wouldn't be able to locate the enterprise unless he's aware of the context of where they. so yada, yada, yada, all you want, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And all of that put me into a mood where whatever was happening in the 2004 storyline was already behind an eight ball.

Yes, exactly. And then the Loomis character is problematic. He is, we're effectively watching somebody who's one step away from burying a serial killer. Like he does not think that he's a bad. The writing is strong in that regard that he is presented as I've got my reasons. I don't like what I'm doing, but I've got my reasons and I'm, and I'm turning a blind eye to things that might be bad, but because I don't know they're bad.

Maybe they're not. So I'm giving myself wiggle room morally. That was an interesting aspect of the story. And it demonstrated that they could have done that in. Different take on this of the development of a bio weapon and talking to like, there's currently a movie which is gonna be coming out soon about Oppenheimer the developer of the Adam bomb.

And at the end of his life, Oppenheimer had tremendous guilt of over the fact that he had developed this. He mm-hmm the moment it was created and then used, he was like, I have fundamentally changed the world in ways that are terrifying to me. And he worked for the rest of his life, trying to push for disarmament, like, and at the time of the development of the bomb, a lot of the scientists involved in all of that, they had two things pushing them.

First. We are at war. So we have to find a way like we can literally save tens, if not hundreds of thousands of lives of soldiers. If we develop a weapon, which is strong enough to make the other side say, hold on, we'll stop. So there was that, the other side of it was, they all knew that everybody else was also working on this.

So there was the, well, I might be doing something bad, but. I'm the hero of my story. Therefore, it's better if I do this than they do, because if they do it first, that'll be a problem. That story in this scenario could have been fantastic. A bio weapon being developed by a third party. The Xindi have found somebody who is not Xindi, but is willing to do this research based on genetic profiles.

They provided by the. Has no idea what a human even is just knows. Looking at DNA, looking at samples of tissue, looking at all this stuff and figuring out how to eradicate this species in a test environment, not about a war, maybe. Maybe this is about an invasive species. That's destroying crops. I don't know I'm being paid well to do this research, take the Lumis character, make him the scientist, put him in a place where the enterprise gets word that the Xindi have been in a place they show up.

They find this scientist and somebody to Paul is doing some scans and she's like, this building is filled with human DNA tissue sample. Why would that be? And they begin to scratch and they find this scientist. Who's like, look, I don't know what a human even is. I've been asked to do research on this thing and how to destroy it.

Using a bio agent. I'm doing this research for that. Cause I've been paid to do it. The ultimate results of all of this are not my cross to bear. That could have been, been a more interesting story.

Well, yes, but they already did that episode. They did. They already did it this season. Yeah. That previous episode with the Xindi where they were building this, the materials used for the super weapon and they set a blind eye as to why they were, do building this material for the Xindi.

Yeah. And when he found out what it was, there was that moral dilemma of, do I keep supporting this or not? That basic premise was already explored. So it would make no sense to do it again.

here. I think that, I think though, between what we were given and what, yeah, it would be much better. It would, I would've rather watched an episode and thought, oh, this is like echoes of the previous story, as opposed to.

Wait, why are the time travelers? Why is the time traveler going back 500 years to tell another person you have to time travel back 200 additional years? Like the, the, the illogic of some of these things Daniels doesn't show up with any reason as to why he's not jumping back with a team to remove the Xindi from 2004.

And ultimately the, the, to cut to, to cut to, I was just gonna say to cut to the chase. The end of the episode doesn't even include any kind of reportage back to Daniels. Like we did it, we stopped them. How are we gonna keep them from trying to time travel again? None of that is explained. The only thing we get is a fairly cinematic and ultimately kind of dark comedy of Loomis looking like he was some kind of nefarious.

Kidnapper. And he's claiming that people with Ray guns and lizard people were involved in all of this. So he just sounds like a raving lunatic, and it's kind of funny and it's kind of like, you can kind of see it coming about 10 minutes toward the end of the episode. You're like, oh, he's gonna be unconscious in that car.

And then he's gonna be arrested. So he will pay his come up ends. That's fine. But ultimately they go back with they've stopped the Xindi and they go back. Their normal time. Yeah. And there's no like Daniel standing there and saying, thank goodness you did that. Here's what we did to stop this from happening again, it, you could skip this episode entirely in a rewatch and not know that you'd missed anything.

yes, completely. I do want to call it one thing I did, like, because we've been dumping all over this episode. which was, I like the milieu that they set up of 2004, the feel of it, the look of it, the way they shot it. And I thought the opening sequences with him. Kidnapping the people, you know, basically gassing them and like knocking them out and taking them into that room.

And you, you as a viewer have no clue as to why we're seeing what we're seeing. Yeah. What is happening here? And it felt very much like a 1970s, crime drama, um, like, you know, you're watching like something like blowout with John Travolta or something like that. It's like you're watching a sequence as like what is happening.

I thought was a really good captivating, well, filmed. Sequence of a phone. I love the

sequence. When he came, when he came home, I love the sequence. When he came home, his phone rang and he was hesitant in answering it. He answers it. He has a brief phone call, but when he walks into his apartment, He grabs himself a beer.

He goes into the bathroom where there's a pizza, a pizza, and he gets a pizza pizza from the bathroom. Yeah. And it's just like, why does he keep his pizza in the bathroom? How does it start off there? What is he doing in the bathroom that he's taking his pizza in there? I couldn't help, but think like, does he put stuff in the bathroom because there's too many rodents and things like that in the kitchen, like, yeah.

Like, does he put it in a place where he is like, well, they don't get up on the bathroom sink, so I'll put it here. Like, he's just living this nasty life and he, in one scene doesn't climb onto his sofa bed the way you would normally climb onto it. He steps up onto it and walks across it. And then drops onto it in a way where it almost, it almost folds up on him.

Like his butt hits it and the foot came up a bit. If he'd hit a little bit harder, it might have actually folded over on top of him. I thought it was just such an interesting, like I would've watched more of him at home just as a character, cuz he was doing such a good job in the portrayal of this. And I agree with you.

It had a kind of 1970s. like it was visual storytelling. Yeah. Visual storytelling a day in the life of a crook and it, and it worked, it was a little bit like watching, like a Dustin Hoffman in a midnight cowboy sort of scenario. It was just like, this things are dirty. Things are he's, he's not on a good path.

He's never gonna be on a good path. He doesn't even know how to find a good path. He knows it. Like all of that was just really, really on screen. I also liked Baula Archer and to Paul's first moments on 2004 earth. Yes. Yes. With trying to figure out the cars, what car to steal. And they try like three different cars before they finally find one that they can steal because one is got a good alarm system.

One has a dog in it. Like everything that they're doing is. they know we have technology with us that is far more advanced than anything that's around us. And yet we're still kind of like, I don't know how to do this thing. They're they have to go steal money from an ATM and Archer B bones, like people go to jail for this in this timeline.

I like to Paul's

we'll give back what we don't use. We'll give back. He's just like,

we're never, we're never giving these money back. Like the, the, the sequence with Loomis where I actually really liked Loomis's assumption that these were cops. And it's all being played again. 1970s cop movie, it's being played like a French connection where these two cops are willing to bend and break the rules.

That's what he thinks he's dealing with until they literally start just Archer clocks him. But when they're in the car and they go to the fast food restaurant, the drive through the drive through is great. The, that I like, I would've taken a story in which. Archer, and to Paul had accidentally gotten thrown into the past and had to figure out a way back and were doing this kind of thing where they had stumbled onto a penny crook.

He's got something they need like, like that sequence, that story. Would've been funny. It would've been, yeah, it would. I would've been willing to follow along in that as opposed to like having. The whole Xindi storyline. It really felt like they were like, well, let's have another time travel story. We'll pull everything from season one to be able to do that.

But we already are partway through season three where they're in the expanse. So we have to kind of like cobble together that into our time travel. Like it didn't work. It just didn't, it just didn't fit. And they've had other episodes this season, which have been standalone. They had the episode where Hoshi was on the planet with the telepathic mm-hmm being like that wasn't directly related to the Xindi storyline.

It was good. It, yeah, like it, it did a thing. It told a story. It had an arc, it was largely in isolation. It touched on the Xindi in. Briefest of way, basically the Xindi in that case were like the lure of the, the character on that planet, where he was like, I'll tell you where the Xindi are. If you stay with me, that entire thing, but you don't need, like, if your villain of the season is not going to be the reason for the episode.

Shoehorned in this way, it just doesn't, it just didn't work. I thought Lumis was far more interesting and I felt bad for Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who apparently when they were putting the makeup on him and it was an hours long process. He had the straws up his nose so that the thing could be perfectly fitted to his head.

He. and then he spends the entire episode in shadow. He's he's only on screen as this Xindi a handful of moments. I'm like they put this guy through hours for minutes of that for they C like for minutes worth of screen time, he stands in shadow nefariously saying like, bring me more. I need more by tomorrow.

Like you need. And that's one last gripe that I had. I need three more by tomorrow. You're a time travel. Sean

Sean tomorrow. It's you need it by tomorrow. It's basically beating a dead horse. The whole, the whole time travel thing has so many flaws in the concept. It's not even worth beating it anymore.

It's it's for me, like we talked about in the beginning, this episode is complete miss, but I am torn because I did like the performances. I like the way it was filmed. Yeah. Like some of the sequences, the, the drive through was hysterical. It was very Joe Peche. They screw you at a drive through. It was like, there was like a, there was a personality and character that came through in some of the scenes.

I absolutely loved it. Just didn't gel and it felt outta place for the entire season. Yeah. And it kind of drove home to me that Berman and Bragga really. They were tired. It came across it's, they're tired and they're exhausted. And they're not thinking clearly as to like how to inject new, interesting life.

They keep going back into the old grab bag and just randomly pulling in old ideas that just don't fit anymore. They don't work. Yeah. And they were on a good path with this season and yet they still dove into that old bag of tricks and just, it just does not fit

at all. Strangely it just occurs to me the same amount of time had passed between.

Uh, Brandon and brags first days as a part of the star Trek universe in next generation, mm-hmm as much time had passed as had passed between the original series and next generation, when Roddenberry's hands on the wheel. Yeah. Felt dated and didn't work. Yep. Same amount of time has passed and it feels dated and it doesn't work.

It's, it's interesting from that perspective, I think. And like this episode, I think there is a reason to watch this episode. I think if you are doing a rewatch and you decide you wanna skip this, you're not gonna miss anything for the season. But if you are thinking, is there a reason to watch this? I would watch it for Lumis.

I would watch it for the humor. I would like, you can just kind of like. Sit back during the whole action sequence at the end. Um, which is strange because it has some of the better choreography of an action sequence. Like what Baula does he leaps from one building to another there's like pipes falling. A lot of this was filmed on location.

So there's some, some locations that are very. For the, for the series where they, that you can tell they're in a cityscape, they're not always on a lot. There is one lot scene where there's an escape down a fire scape. That lot is one of the most used sets in Hollywood. And it was actually in the godfather little fun fact.

So there are reasons to watch this episode. It's really. As an episode of the season, I give it a D but as an episode with the humor and the character of Lumis, I'd give it a solid B, maybe even a B plus for the acting like this is, there are things here that I did enjoy, but as the whole, I was just like, this really didn't have a place in the season.

So why is it. Yep. I agree. So listeners, we've kind of slapped this one around a bit, kind of like Archer when Lumis was tied and then untied from the chair so that Archer could feel like he wasn't hitting a tied up, man. What an honorable guy about Archer is right. How do you guys feel about it? Weigh in through the contact information in the podcast description or jump into the comments below the video?

Let us know what you think. Did you like us say nah, or were you like, no, this is the best episode of the season. You're both idiots. Let us know. Next time. We're gonna be talking about the episode, chosen realm, Matt, any expectations around what that's gonna be about.

Chooses a realm.

I think you're probably on the right path there but before we sign off, Matt, do you have anything you wanna remind our listeners about?

What do you have coming up on your main channel

on undecided? I'm this by the time this is out, I will have an episode about a battery made of sand. It's fascinating, simple, straightforward, but kinda

awesome. As for me, if you wanna check out. Any information about my books, you can go to my website, Sean farrell.com.

You can also go to your local bookstore or public library. They should be able to help you find my books there as well, and keep an eye out for. Continuing news of a new series of mine. That'll be coming out next year. That's gonna be in 2023. It'll be summer next year. It's a book for kids and families.

It's called the sinister secrets of sins. It'll be book one of a new series, and I'm really looking forward to sharing more about that with you as time moves forward. As usual, if you'd like to support the show, you can leave a review on apple, Google, Spotify, wherever it was. You found this show. You can go back there and like us rate us, review us, and you can share us with your friends.

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Out of time. Out of time is a place where we talk about, well, whatever we. And you can't stop us. It's our podcast. So there, sometimes we talk about star Trek. Sometimes we talk about the other shows that are broadcasting such as lower decks, which I've just started. The newest season of lower deck is available.

And I have been enjoying that show very, very much. It really scratches in our strange way, a next generation itch. It's really, it's really well. So we talk about some of that. Maybe we talk about strange new worlds, or maybe we talk about TV shows and movies. We're enjoying whatever you do to support us.

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