Rob: Hello and welcome everybody, we are back.
We've been off for a little bit, but, you know, we just couldn't leave
this halfway through, not completed.
We need to get back and talk about all things Star Trek.
We have episode seven of Lower Decks to talk about here on Subspace Radio.
I am, of course, Rob.
Kevin: And I'm Kevin.
Happy 2025, Rob.
Rob: We are in the future.
Yes, I think we've made this joke a couple of times
Kevin: Well, we're extra in the future now because I don't think
it's worth beating about the bush.
I have seen the end of this season.
I believe you have as well.
Rob: Very much so.
So we are going back in time to do the episodes we haven't done to
catch up where everybody else is.
Kevin: You know, work life balance.
We enjoyed our holidays.
We watched our Star Trek recreationally.
But now we're back to do the professional job that you listen in
for every single episode, listeners.
Rob: That's right.
We've done enough R& R and, uh, Romulans and Relaxation and,
uh, and Ractachinos as well.
And now we've, yeah, three R's, and now we're back into the hard hitting,
serious business, professional business of talking about, analyzing, and
evaluating Star Trek as you all have come to love with us here at Subspace Radio.
Kevin: So what did you make of the purple Enterprise here in Fully Dilated, Rob?
Rob: Um, I had a great time with this episode.
It was a, uh, a quite, uh, High energy, high camp episode.
We really leant into the cartoon nature and the animated nature of
this, what with Boimler and Rutherford back and their, you know, minutes
of disaster trying to solve the
Kevin: Those screaming scenes of madly scrubbing the shrimp off of the, uh,
transporter, control panel at times with their tongues were very cartoony.
I will
Rob: Very cartoony, and also the lurking.
Uh, native uh, on the planet
Kevin: Shout out to a friend of the show, Jason Snell, who, uh, guested one,
one episode while you were away, Rob.
Um, yes, he, he, he's immortalized as Snell in this episode of Lower Decks.
Rob: I hope he does a very good Snell impersonation.
Nyeh,
Kevin: Nyeh!
Rob: My lurking has paid off.
And of course we could not go, uh, as the headline mentioned, yeah, we always
mention the best to last, the man who would never go back to Star Trek and
now has come back to Star Trek, um, in, you know, in many different forms,
uh, Brett Spiner came back for, uh, to play Commander Data one more time.
Kevin: Would never come back to Star Trek, except every single time, uh,
the, the, the piles of money must be piling up that they, they need
to pull out to, to get him back.
I suspect the fact that he was only expected to turn up to a recording
booth, not put on any kind of uniform or, or make up or contact lenses
probably made a big difference in selling this opportunity to him.
Rob: I believe that was probably very appealing to him, um, but it was indeed
great to have him interact, um, so beautifully with, with especially the,
uh, the members of the away mission, um, and just gushing, as all Lower Deckers
are, about just saying how much they are in love with, with, with Commander Data.
Kevin: You're so cool.
I am cool?
Then why does my warmth surprise you?
Rob: Hehehehehehe.
How did you find this episode?
Kevin: Uh, well, you know, I think we, we need to acknowledge and move past
just the, the nostalgia filled delight of getting to see not just Brent Spiner back,
but like vanilla Data, I'm going to say.
Like late TNG, still quite, um, I'd say bright and innocent
and positive sort of Data.
It's not, it's not, uh, old Data, if you'll accept that description.
I mean, full respect to what Brent Spiner did in season three of
Picard, really enjoyed that too.
But it did feel like coming home in a way and going back to visit
your old high school sort of thing with Data here this episode.
He really was his most bridge crew of the Enterprise self.
Rob: Very much so.
And we did see, uh, the purple Enterprise D obviously as well,
going in and out of fissures.
Um, and that's just very, very clever.
I love the throwaway line of the captain going, uh, they had some
sort of run in with a purple version of Natasha Yar or whatever.
Kevin: Yes, clones of Tasha Yar or whatever.
Rob: Whatever.
Kevin: Um, very good.
Yes.
I enjoyed this episode immensely.
I think it was, it was trading on many strengths at once, uh, not
least T'Lyn and the dynamic between T'Lyn and Tendi was just, I felt
like the backbone of this episode and, um, it really carried it along.
Uh, having them tied up at the end and, and then, you know, Um, metaphorically
tied up by being given the same job at the end was just really delightful and,
and felt like, I mean, not looking too far ahead to the conclusion of these,
this series, but it felt like the end point of their character arcs for the
show, really, in a, in a really nice way.
Rob: very much so.
It's a case of.
Yeah, yeah, um, Tendi is very much at that point where the competitive, well, yeah,
I was going to do a bit of a spoiler, but I won't, but yeah, that competitive nature
of her was able to be put to bed and she can just focus on being the best she can
be without needing to outdo everybody else is a big step for her accepting
herself fully within the Federation, but still her competitive nature.
Kevin: Yeah, it was the final crisis for Tendi.
Like that, you know, when she wasn't sleeping and she had the bags under
her eyes and she was not taking Data's very patient and good advice,
it was like, no, Tendi, don't.
But you have to realize before you leave a character on a positive note,
you have to see them at their lowest.
And we got to see Tendi at her lowest one last time.
Rob: Hero's journey.
They need to go into the abyss and the abyss for Tendi is not getting any sleep
and snapping at Data and turning him off.
Kevin: Being beaten by agriculture.
Rob: But I really liked the time they took to actually establish, like, we didn't
get into massive detail, but within this, uh, culture, this pre warp culture, we
had the time to, you know, get used to the way they dress, their architecture,
a little bit of their culture, a little bit of their superstitions, as it were.
That type of stuff was, was enjoyable to have a bit of time with, and that's
like old, old Star Trek of what you like, you like going to a new planet, a new
civilization, find out something new week to week, and that was definitely one of
the more well realized, uh, civilizations.
And also a bit of work for Mariner there
Kevin: Yeah.
I was going to say, I mean, you've been for a long time craving
post self destructive Mariner.
And I think that's what we got here.
She is surprising, like almost, almost annoyingly, but not quite
annoyingly chipper and positive and model Starfleet officer.
She's like,
Rob: She wanted her in, she wanted her Inner Light
Kevin: Yeah, she is playing full "fangirl of Star Trek" Mariner.
Like this is, this is where she fully admits that she has an encyclopedic
knowledge of everything that has happened in Star Trek before and wants to have
her own version of those experiences.
Rob: And that's what I love about the dynamic of it, is that because, you know,
you could just have Boimler as the pure alpha nerd, uh, and that's it, but to
have, you know, Mariner is a nerd as well.
She is a Star Trek nerd.
She knows all this type of stuff.
And, you know, and she's, you know, she has jumped from ship to ship and
it's taken her a while to get used to her authority and her power and
her destiny or whatever that may be.
But there's still within her a deep seated love of the Federation and that's
a great balance to have within this show.
So you've got the pure nerd, and then, the other, there are many different types
of nerds, no matter how, yeah, no matter how many we're told, we're all the same.
Kevin: Yeah, Boimler and Mariner were always set up to be like best friends, but
I think the assumption would be they would be, uh, like an odd couple friendship.
That Mariner would be the, the roguish, um, cool officer, whereas Boimler
would be the nerdy, earnest one.
But it's turned out they're both nerdy, nerdy earnest ones of,
of slightly different stripes and that works really well too.
Rob: And they all are, like, you know, Tendi's a nerd, T'Lyn's a nerd,
Rutherford's a nerd, who, might I say, and just like, uh, Boimler pointed
out, his beard came in very, very
Kevin: Very quickly.
Rob: Heheheh.
Quickly and evenly.
Kevin: Uh, absolutely.
Rob: I love that, but it goes, yeah, I've been getting a lot of compliments.
How about you?
Uh, not so much.
Kevin: Yes Ah, he looked terrible, Boimler, this episode.
It's just like, seriously, we're going to draw him like this for an entire episode?
An entire episode.
And it's going to feel like three.
Rob: They're taking their time.
They are taking their time to get this full Boimler beard happening, and they're
going to make us sit through an entire ten episodes to get, hopefully, a perfect
Kevin: It did remind me of Rutherford just before Tendi got back when he
was at his lowest and he was like unshaven and the sweat patches and
stuff and it was not a plot point for that episode really, yet they drew
him quote unquote ugly or disheveled for the entire episode and it was both
distracting but also like nice to see the investment or the commitment to the bit.
Rob: Definitely, definitely.
Yeah, I had a lot of fun with this episode.
It was all the, you know, it was what a lot of people criticize
about Lower Decks is it's too noisy, it's too loud, it's too big.
Um, all those elements worked well here because there was such a
heart and, uh, such a truth to it.
And yeah, that's what Lower Decks has just proved week after week.
It is a Star Trek show, just not the way that, uh, we're used to.
And so, yeah, I had a great time.
Kevin: Uh, yeah, some, some great Data stuff, uh, of course.
The, the, the, um, when he chews them out of their ropes and Tendi remarks,
Oh, you really are fully functional.
Rob: That was a little bit saucy.
Kevin: And, I was reading about, there's this reference of, well,
how, when you were stuck, uh, back in time, how did you escape?
And he said, I waited in a cave until Captain Picard, myself, and some
guy in a silver jumpsuit dug me out.
We'll call that plan B.
Um, but I was like, silver jumpsuit?
I do not remember that.
But sure enough, you go back and you watch the opening moments, of the, uh,
I think it's the season five finale, or it's, it was this, yeah, it's the
season five finale going into season six.
So it's a, it's a two-parter and, uh, the, the, yeah, the opening of Time's
Arrow is basically the Enterprise gets called to an archeological site where
Data's head has been found, uh, on Earth and yeah, it's Picard, Data and a random
guy in a silver jumpsuit who is one of the archaeologists who discovered it.
But he's not really given a name or anything.
He's got a couple of expositional lines of dialogue.
Um, and, uh, I was reading that the original, that was something that they
found in the booth for this episode.
Like the original script was, I waited until I was rescued
or something like that.
And they were like, Hmm, that isn't quite as punchy.
What else could we do?
And they went back in the, in the moment during the recording session, they went
back and watched the start of Time's Arrow and went, well, it's Captain Picard,
myself, and some guy in a silver jumpsuit.
Why don't you just say that?
That was hilarious.
And, uh, so it came together in the moment.
Yeah.
Rob: Amazing.
Kevin: Uh, sounded like fun making this episode and I'm sure this show in general,
it's, it's, it's sad that it's over.
Rob: Yeah, and it's very, it's very clear that Spiner had a great time on there.
You could just tell that he was giving his all, that he wasn't phoning it in.
Um, and it was a, you know, the answer or the solution we all expected, um, was
that just give them both the job, was of course Data's sage scientific advice.
Kevin: Yeah.
All right.
Well, uh, the, the topic that we chose to pick out of this episode was times
that our, our Starfleet officers or people go undercover, uh, often in
plastic surgical, uh, get ups provided by the medical officers on the show.
Rob: Now of course, one of the big ones uh, one of my favorite ones, we've
already talked about before, which is Apocalypse Rising, where you had four
of the Deep Space Nine crew go full Klingon, to find out about the uh,
conspiracy and there's a, there's a rat amongst the high command within Klingons.
But yeah, so we've already talked about that one, which is a magnificent episode,
uh, start of season six, I believe.
Kevin: Yeah, I always get that one mixed up with, uh, the one where,
uh, they team up with Dax to go and settle the score with the albino.
For some reason in my head, those are the same mission, and they were all
dressed up as Klingons to go and fight the albino, but of course they're not.
They, and that is kind of the point, that, like, Dax is not the tough
warrior that she once was when she last dealt with him as Kurzon.
Um, uh, but yeah, anyway, they, they are completely different
episodes for the record.
I don't know if I'm the only one who gets those two confused.
Rob: And that episode of course has old actors who played Klingons
in, uh, the classic series.
So there's some wonderful, uh, return performances from, uh, classic actors
Kevin: Lots of Klingon makeup, just not on our Starfleet officers.
So yeah, I thought I would talk to, talk first about the original
one of these, which is from the original series, uh, Season 3,
Episode 2, The Enterprise Incident.
Um, one of, arguably, the best, episode of season three of Star Trek.
Rob: Season 3 is quite a challenging one to find good episodes
Kevin: But, uh, you know, you assign Dorothy Fontana to write your
episode, you're gonna get a good one.
And, uh, yeah, they did a real good job on this one.
This is almost kind of like a, a Cold War spy thriller, uh, in Star Trek.
Kirk feigns being kind of, uh, irritable and out of control
at the start of this episode.
So he seemingly goes rogue and orders the Enterprise across the
Neutral Zone into Romulan space.
And the entire bridge crew is like, did you get the order?
No, I didn't get the order.
He seems to be acting a little irrationally.
And Kirk's just, you know, snapping at people left and right on the bridge.
Meanwhile, there's like voiceover from McCoy doing his medical log
going, he won't come into sickbay for a medical examination no
matter how many times I ask him.
And.
Inevitably, they are intercepted by Romulan ships, and Kirk and Spock go
aboard the Romulan ship to negotiate, during which time the Romulans are
quite fascinated, if you'll pardon the term, by Spock as a Vulcan.
This is like where the Romulans and Vulcans shared heritage is traded upon,
and they're kind of like, Ooh, a Vulcan serving among humans, that must be tough.
And they, Kirk and Spock, play out this little ruse where, um, Spock pretends
to be sick of serving with humans, Kirk pretends to, to shout at Spock
as a disloyal traitor, and, uh, Spock seemingly kills Kirk using, quote,
the Vulcan death grip on his face.
Um, and it's all a ruse.
It is, once again, um, you know, Kirk kills Spock.
Kirk wakes up in sickbay and everyone's like, Kirk, you're alive!
Ah, there's no such thing as the Vulcan death grip, it turns out.
But this is for Spock to go behind enemy lines and he's, you know, promised a ship
of his own in the Romulan Star Command.
And, uh, he, he has quite an intimate evening with the woman who, uh, leads
the Romulan ship, the commander.
She's never named, she's just called The Commander.
But she's a beautiful woman and they have this, uh, very kind of intimate
rendezvous that I'm, I've read was originally scripted with a fair bit of
kissing and canoodling, but Uh, Dorothy Fontana stood her ground and said,
Vulcans don't do that sort of thing.
They, they kiss with their fingers and that's what we're gonna do, darn it.
Uh, and so, so it was.
But, uh, the point of bringing up this episode here is, once he is, uh,
returned from the dead, Kirk uses the opportunity to dress up as a Romulan.
He gets McCoy to give him Romulan ears and eyebrows.
He steals one of the Centurion's uniforms from the brig where, you know, when
they went aboard the Romulan ship, they traded a couple of Romulan officers, uh,
as a, as a, you know, a, a guarantee.
So he takes one of their uniforms.
And beams on board the Romulan ship, posing as a centurion.
Now, the logic of this plot is a little weird.
You've just been on board this ship, very noticeably, as a human captain.
Uh, and now you beam on lookin like the same guy, just with pointy ears,
but everyone is bamboozled just long enough for him to deliver a karate
chop to the neck and knock people out.
Uh, and Kirk is there to steal the cloaking device.
That is the purpose of this entire ruse.
While Spock keeps the commander busy in her quarters, Kirk, uh, makes
his way into engineering, steals the cloaking device, and the Enterprise
makes its escape under cloak.
Uh, and, uh, yeah, Scotty manages to wire it up to the Enterprise deflector
system in, in the nick of time.
Rob: Of course he does.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: he does.
Kevin: But, uh, yeah, great fun.
Uh, Kirk, when he comes back from his mission, like walks back onto the
bridge, still with his pointed ears and everyone's shocked to see him alive
because last time they knew he was dead.
Not only is he alive, but he looks, looks very unusual and, and he has to tell
everyone, not now, go back to your seats.
And it's fun to watch, you know, uh, um, the entire bridge crew react to this.
It's, it's good stuff.
It's,
Rob: Well, how's, um, Kirk's Romulan performance?
Because I mean the one thing about this is what we talked about with
um, Apocalypse Rising is that um, you know, it was great to see like Sisko
play a Klingon and or how uh, O'Brien couldn't really handle or Odo as well.
So how is Kirk's um, uh, in your critical opinion give you give us a review of um,
William Shatner's, kirk's performance as a
Kevin: It's fun to watch.
The Romulans are still a little underdeveloped at this
point in Star Trek history.
So they are, they are a bit just kind of, you know, that, that
Roman Centurion sort of air.
And, and he does do that well.
When he beams on board the ship, uh, he's alone, but immediately,
uh, another Romulan officer walks around the corner, and Kirk does a
very good snap into Romulan mode and says, says, Oh, where's commander Tal?
I need to report my escape.
I've just affected my escape from the human ship.
Um, where's commander Tal?
And he goes, Oh, he's on the bridge.
He goes, very well.
I shall be certain to mention your alertness to him.
And they do a Romulan salute to each other.
And it's very, yeah, you know, it's good.
Um, Kirk in general is really good in this episode at the start when he
is like, pretending to be, you know, kind of power mad and out of control.
He does, there's a lot of scenes where he has his back to the bridge crew and
so we as an audience are let in on his emotional state in these moments, and he's
doing a very good job of like keeping up the pretense for everyone behind him but
letting us, the audience into the fact that there's a little something going on.
Uh, and it's really strong, um, beautifully underplayed, I'll
say, by William Shatner here.
Um, there were some memos that went back and forth, um, uh, between Gene
Roddenberry and the new producer of the show, uh, for season three, where Gene
congratulated the new producer on getting that performance out of William Shatner.
He's like, I'm really glad to be seeing new strength out of our captain.
I've been saying for a while we needed that color from him and it's lovely to
see that you're achieving that with him.
Rob: Wonderful, wonderful
Kevin: So yeah, it's a good one and um, yeah, established this conceit of
the, uh, medical officers being able to do a bit of disguise work on the side.
At the end, uh, when the dust settles, McCoy calls up and reminds
Kirk that he needs to report to, uh, sickbay to have his ears bobbed.
And Spock steps up and says, Captain, please go.
Somehow they do not look aesthetically agreeable on humans.
And Spock of course is playing it completely straight, but
the rest of the bridge crew is giggling, uh, in the background.
So it's
Rob: Having a big laugh because you need to finish the episode
Kevin: Always have to end on a laugh in a freeze frame, yeah.
No, they hadn't developed the freeze frame technology yet.
That came in the 80s,
Rob: That was very much an 80s, uh, strength and curse.
Kevin: yes.
Um,
What was your one?
Rob: Well, my one is, uh, I'm, I've kind of inverted the process.
I've been a bit sneaky, so I've gone with one where they are undercover, um,
but the, the, the crew are undercover because they've come across something
that is all too familiar, so they don't need to disguise themselves
because what they're going into is, uh, a well laid out disguise.
I'm talking about Star Trek Voyager.
Uh, Season 5, Episode 4, In the Flesh.
Kevin: Is this the one with the fake Starfleet Academy?
Rob: It is the one with the fake Academy, where they ask all these
questions and they answer none of them.
Because, why should we spend time focusing on answering how this thing
happened, when we can spend more time with Chakotay being a doge?
Kevin: All right.
Rob: Where we have the moment, what is this sensation that
you humans call kissing?
Kevin: Oh.
Rob: Yes.
Uh, we open, uh, with Chakotay and, uh, Tuvok, seemingly at Starfleet
Academy, uh, in San Francisco.
And of course, uh, the groundskeeper, famous groundskeeper, Boothby is there.
Kevin: Oh man, Boothby.
That guy, out of one line of dialogue in Star Trek The Next Generation, he
cashed so many paychecks, that actor.
Rob: That is, uh, the wonderful Ray Walston, who, uh, was an incredible actor.
And, uh, I remember him mostly from a 90's show written by David E.
Kelly called, uh, Picket Fences, which was the biggest
Kevin: Picket Fences real
Rob: Picket Fences was, like, the biggest thing in the 90's,
and then it just disappeared.
Like, as soon as it finished.
Everyone forgot about
Kevin: Very similar sort of character of like, sort of
the patriarch of a community.
Rob: That's right.
He was the judge in Picket Fences.
And so he was gruff and always went up against Douglas Wambaugh
for the defense and Don Cheadle as the, uh, as the prosecutor.
Um, so yes, he's here being his, um, old amiable self who knows
everyone because a twinkle in his eye and a smile in his heart.
I love, I love the, uh, old school 90s modern technology of the, um,
I can't remember the name of the device specifically that Chakotay's
got just to take photos, and it's about the size of an iPad.
Kevin: It looks like, you know, around this time in the real world,
digital cameras with floppy disks that stick into them were becoming a
thing and they seemed to design the prop as a slightly futuristic but same
size and shape version of that, uh,
Rob: Yeah.
It's every time I giggle where they just have that 90s analog perception
of the future where they have.
Um, all these, like, iPads stacked on top of each other, going, well, look
at all these files I need to read.
And they're going, they couldn't even comprehend the fact that all those
files could just be in one device.
Kevin: Well, yeah, it was like a holographic imager
or something they would say.
Rob: And so, the investigation is on for, uh, Why is this here?
Because it's clearly we see a shot from the outside.
It's just like a space station and this whole interior is like a facade.
Kevin: It's fun whenever an episode starts in medias res like that.
That you're in an unfamiliar space and then at a certain point, the
establishing shot comes late, if you will.
Rob: Yeah.
Love, I love being mid mission.
I love we start in the middle of the adventure.
Um, and mysteries come along.
So Chakotay goes to the bar and then one of the, one of the members
within the bar starts reacting badly and their face starts morphing
and then they're dragged off.
Kevin: Just be cool.
Just be cool.
This is completely normal.
Rob: Exactly.
And like, you know, we really shouldn't be talking like this, Chakotay talking
to, um, uh, Commander Valerie Archer.
Nice drop there.
Um, we shouldn't really be talking like that, but, you know, being in this form
for this long and needing to sleep eight hours a day is such a waste of time.
Uh, so Chakotay getting what information he can.
Um, and then things, of course, go wrong.
They get caught.
Uh, trying about to teleport out by a young, um, security guard, played
by the brilliant Zach Galligan, who's from, uh, Gremlins 1 and 2, in
a very small role as Ensign Gentry.
And then the mystery really thickens when, uh, uh, the poor old Ensign is
not coping well with being taken back up to Voyager, and so commits suicide.
And, um, they are able to take away the facade of his humanly body and
find out that, yes, the species that is undercover is of course Species
8472, who we saw last year, who Voyager teamed up with the Borg to defeat
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: powerful.
Kevin: It's a, it's an interesting, uh, way that the show dealt with
the challenges of that Species 8472, like clearly Species 8472
was like, what can we do new in our Uh, foe in an adversary race.
Well, all of our adversaries have basically just been some version of
humanoids with prosthetics stuck to them in different configurations.
Let's go wild.
We've got this CG technology that's just barely capable of it.
Let's make a non humanoid, foe, a non humanoid enemy.
So they do that, and then they immediately realize, well, these non humanoids
cannot emote in a recognizable way.
They cannot speak or communicate in an understandable way.
How do we tell stories with this thing?
I know, we'll make them dress up as humans in a fake Starfleet Academy,
and then we're back to kind of just the same old adversary, uh, prototype again.
So it, it's kind of admitting defeat for what they tried to do with Species 8472.
Nevertheless, this is a story that I feel like we have not seen before.
It was enjoyable from what I remember of this episode.
So I'm kind of happy with what they found, but it, it seems to me it
could not possibly have been what they were looking to do with that species
when they first dreamed them up.
Rob: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there about, a lot of questions asked, like,
um, how did they get this information?
It's so pinpoint accurate.
Um, uh, Janeway does a whole thing of when they find out it's
Species 8472, uh, they immediately believe that everyone is a suspect.
So they go through a whole process of checking Chakotay's DNA, that he's proper.
There's a lineup of all the rest of the crew going into the doctor's
office to get checked as well.
But nothing ever comes of it.
And they must have someone on the inside.
And they never discuss it.
As soon as everything is brought out in the open.
The final section is Star Trek pure diplomacy.
So it's discussing this, what common ground do we have?
How can we make this work?
As opposed to the big mystery which led the first two acts of, uh, this episode:
where did they get the information?
How do they know so much about us?
And then it becomes a case of We're all quite common in the end.
Well, how can we oversee, you know, and they're not just species who want
to wipe us all out, even though they said that in the previous episode.
So it's quite a lot of big questions and statements are started at the
first, this tantalizing conspiracy, and then it goes into we're all the same,
Kevin: yeah, yeah.
Rob: with a final shot of you know Janeway mentioning early on in the episode how
Boothby would always give me a flower when I'd be walking past and so at the end he
pulls out the flower and gives it to her.
We still don't know how he knows
Kevin: Yeah, defanged a bit, uh, the Species 8472 in this episode.
Rob: because there was such a ominous menace when they first were
brought in that that Voyager had no other option but to side with the
Kevin: Yeah, the Borg are afraid of them, was the biggest, uh, thing.
Yeah, and the Borg are afraid of them, but they'll pick a flower
for you to make you feel nice.
Rob: And there's stuff and there's stuff in there about you know uh Seven of
Nine's education as a human you know and her, her conflict with Janeway, Janeway
going, no, I'm going for diplomacy, and Seven of Nine going, we should blow them
out of the sky, we should destroy them.
Um, and then at the end, Seven goes, well, if I had followed, you know,
if we had followed my way of doing things, we would all be dead, but you
have saved us by using your logic and your, you know, diplomacy, and you're
being very un Borg, and Janeway, being smart, going, yeah, no, I'm great.
Um, And Chakotay just making out with anything, because he's a doge.
Um, so, yes, it was sort of like an invert of no cosmetic surgery there for them,
but a lot of awkward moments that kind of was a big part of the 60s Star Trek
of going, you know, what we do as humans is the best, and why doesn't everybody
want to kiss like we kiss, or dress like we dress, or look like we dress.
Kevin: All these episodes have that kind of before the unmasking and after
the unmasking sort of phase and, and it's, it's really fun as long as we
get to live in that, that period of like the audience knowing more than
the characters on, on the screen.
How long do, you know, Chakotay and, and Tuvok, was it, that are…?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
How long do they get to like remain incognito in this episode?
Rob: Um, they're pretty much, uh, there's a, there's a great moment.
I was going to bring it up when he start, uh, a date is set between
Chakotay and Archer, and so they go back up to the ship, they take the
security ensign, uh, the cadet, he's, uh, he kills himself, they reveal,
okay, this is serious, they're in disguise, the Species, uh, 8472.
Uh, Chakotay goes, I've got to go back, I've got a date to keep, I've
got to find out what information I can.
Janeway goes, okay.
There's little moments in there as well, Janeway and Chakotay going, hey.
Where they do a bit of talking back and forth, and I can see
the flirty stuff after, um, more so probably because of Prodigy.
Um, and Tuvok doesn't go back.
Tuvok stays on the ship, but it's through his date with, uh, Archer.
He's taken back to her apartment.
They do a bit of kissy kissy.
Um, and the whole thing is, is that alright?
He goes, well, let's keep on trying.
Um.
Kevin: this how, the humans do it?
Rob: Yes, she goes and gets changed, there's a nice silhouette of her
undressing, he looks at one of her information pads to find out more info.
He goes, I have to leave and finish an assignment, which, and then as he
leaves, they, she gets in touch with Boothby, who's the leader, and goes,
um, gives the information, and Boothby gives the great line, let's cut to
daylight so we can find him easier.
So it's a very Truman Show moment where, uh, Chakotay's walking out in
darkness and then with a flick of a switch, everything goes to daytime
and everyone just swarms on him.
So that's a nice moment of, that's when the ruse is broken, which is
sort of like at the end of act three.
Kevin: Yeah, so we get a while of the skullduggery continuing, which
Rob: Pretty much, yeah, we've got, yeah, so the first three acts, uh, cause,
most television hour long, uh, dramas of five acts for including ad breaks.
So first three, uh, within the drama of it and then diplomacy for the last two.
Kevin: I'm noting that The Enterprise Incident that I was just talking
about and this one both have that kind of, uh, boudoir scene.
In mine it was Spock and the Romulan commander and there is this moment
where, where the commander says, I find myself, I am surprised to find myself
this moved by the touch of an alien.
And Spock says, I too must confess to feel myself moved emotionally.
And there's a, there's a bit of the, you know, aliens meeting in, in, uh, on a
date, if you will, uh, in both of these.
And that carries true in the next episode I wanted to talk
about, which is First Contact.
Not the movie, but the episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation
season four, number 15, in which Riker is injured in a riot while
undercover on a planet that they are preparing to make first contact with.
And so in preparation for first contact, Riker, uh, is on a mission kind of in, in,
uh, in costume as a native of the planet.
But there is a riot he gets caught up with.
He gets knocked out, he gets taken to hospital, and the doctors at
the hospital very quickly realize this is not one of our own.
Rob: I think I might have seen this
Kevin: Yeah, well you might remember Bebe Neuwirth, uh, guest starring
very prominently as the nurse who offers to help Riker escape from
the hospital in exchange for sex.
Rob: I don't remember the sex part, but yeah, I do remember
seeing her, you know, all, uh, alien bumpied up in certain photos.
Kevin: She says, I have always dreamed of making love with an alien.
It's your only way out of here, my alien.
And she's, she's in glasses and, and, uh, has the, the three fingered
alien hands like very, uh, very excitedly pressed in front of her.
And, uh, Riker kind of looks around and goes, Well, I guess we're doing
this, and it cuts to the, cuts to the next scene, and she's adjusting
her glasses on the way out of the hospital room as she leads him out.
Unfortunately, the escape is foiled by, uh, by the rest of the hospital staff,
who, word has gotten around about the alien that is there, and, and Riker is
once again fallen upon by the natives.
Uh, meanwhile, Picard is negotiating with the Chancellor of this planet.
He introduces himself to them.
There's that come up to the ship and see your planet from above moment
that we get in the movies as well.
Um, so all of that is happening here in the backdrop.
But, uh, for my money, the, the scene of this episode is, um, is sex
being traded for escape by our doge, to use your term, Commander Riker.
Rob: And the wonderful Bebe Neuwirth.
I love Bebe
Kevin: she's so good.
It's worth just watching this scene, um, for, for her tiny
little, uh, turn on Star Trek here.
Rob: Yeah, because they've done like, uh, comparison photos of,
obviously, characters from Frasier who've been in, um, in Star Trek.
So, of course, uh, Kelsey Grammer appeared in the, in the lost, uh, uh, Starfleet
ship, uh, episode, and, um, Bebe Neuwirth here, and I think a couple of others.
I know, Jason Alexander from Seinfeld did a Voyager episode.
Kevin: Mm hmm.
Um, yeah, I'll, I'll also call out Minister Yale, who is, I guess, the,
the main guest star of this episode.
She is the, the lead scientist on the planet's project to develop warp,
their first warp flight, which is what has triggered the first contact.
And she's played by Carolyn Seymour.
Um, uh, a great, uh, guest character actress who returns in the other
episode I wanted to bring to the table today, which is Face of the Enemy.
No, a completely different character, but it is a Romulan, so we're going
in circles with our themes here.
Um, season six, episode 14, Face of the Enemy has Carolyn Seymour playing
the commander of a Romulan ship.
But in this episode, it's Troi who is undercover.
The cold open of this episode starts in darkness, uh, and a figure wakes
up and, uh, it's Troi's voice and she asks the computer to turn on
the lights and nothing happens.
She finds her way to the vanity in these quarters she finds
herself in, turns on the lights.
With a, with a button on the wall and is shocked by her own
reflection, which is a Romulan.
She has been, without her knowledge, kidnapped and
modified to look like a Romulan.
A Romulan officer named N'Vek introduces himself and it was
he who organized her abduction.
Uh, she is to pose as a member of the Tal Shiar, the secret service of the Romulans.
And she is meant to order around this ship in order to organize
the extradition of some defectors.
Uh, all of this was plotted by Spock, we learn later, in
a message to Captain Picard.
This is part of Spock's "cowboy diplomacy".
Um, and, uh, he has arranged for some defectors to be smuggled off on
the ship with Troi posing as the Tal Shiar that, that, uh, is pulling all
the strings, um unwillingly for her.
Like, she was kidnapped to run this mission.
Um, so it's a lot of kind of beautiful, um, she doesn't want to do it, but she
has to do it to get out of this situation.
And then she does a remarkably good job of it.
The plan falls apart.
And then she, ultimately, comes up with a fallback plan and orders
around N'Vek herself and says, well, look, I'm the Tal Shiar on this ship.
I can tell the captain to have you executed if you don't do what I say.
And it's beautiful.
But Carolyn Seymour, coming back to our guest star here as the commander.
Um, does a beautiful role as the, the captain, the, the
commander of the Romulan ship.
There's a scene at the captain's table where Troi is there doing
her best impression of a hard nosed, uh, unflappable Tal Shiar,
who believes wholeheartedly in service to the government.
Whereas the captain we learn is kind of a peacenik by Romulan standards.
Her father was dragged away in the night for being a little
too idealistic as a young girl.
And so she mistrusts the Tal Shiar.
She does not want to see the Romulan military be too
militaristic, unnecessarily.
And Troi, who internally believes that as well, internally is working on a secret
mission to advance that same cause, nevertheless has to put on the face of
someone who is completely against it.
It's so well written and tightly performed, this episode.
I recommend it very highly.
Rob: Well, uh, Carolyn Seymour is a wonderful actor.
She's, uh, done, uh, BBC series Survivors back in the 70s.
She was in the computer game series Giz of Well, for me, I remember her from, uh, uh,
Quantum Leap, the famous, um, Bad Leaper episode where, um, in Season 5, things
get a bit messed up where they go outside the parameters of what Quantum Leap was
meant to do and they brought in this parallel dimension where there's a leaper
going through to ruin everybody's life.
And uh, Carolyn Seymour plays the Al equivalent who's the, the
hologram with all the information.
So she appears in two episodes of, uh, of Quantum Leap.
She's very, very good.
Yeah, I'd love to, I have to check those out because I'd love
to see her in the world of Star
Kevin: Oh yeah, a couple of delicious roles as well.
Um, I watched these two episodes back to back and it was not until I read
the, the Memory Alpha pages that I realized it was the same guest star.
That's how, that's how different the characters were.
Rob: Wonderful.
Kevin: So there you go.
Lots of, uh, lots of, uh, faces in disguise, including a guest star in
disguise, um, in, in our episodes there.
I, I confess there's not as many of these as I thought.
Every time Lower Decks does a send up of a trope, I'm like, well,
there must be 20 of those for them to be making this much fun out of
Rob: Nah, it was, it was, a, it was a tough one to find, like, because
there's all, you know, Picard goes all Romulan for Unification, I believe?
Um, Uh, like, uh, and uh, Kira puts on the costume of a Breen in the
final, uh, ever story of Deep Space
Kevin: There's one where she's done up as a Cardassian as well, and it's very
challenging for the character because obviously she hates Cardassians, but she
has to like wear the skin of a Cardassian
Rob: Yes, I can't remember which that one is, so leave the comments below, so,
uh, in all caps, please, I only respond to all caps, uh, which episode it was.
Um, so, yeah, it's, it's always the way, it's always the way we go, well,
because they're homaging it, there must be oodles and oodles again.
No, that's how nerdy they are.
They're very specific.
Kevin: Well, good, good to go through those with you.
I'm already looking forward to our next one, which is
going to be about Upper Decks.
Rob: What a name.
What a title.
And, um, what an episode for us to focus on.
I think we've already had an episode that focused really on
the the bridge crew, I think.
So this is going to be one that's more pointed, I assume.
Kevin: Well, we'll see.
Until then, I'll see you around the galaxy.