Rob: Hello, hello and welcome, this is Subspace Radio.
We are back.
I'm Rob and with me as always is Kevin, how are you?
Kevin: I'm well.
I'm very well.
I'm, I'm a little destitute without new Star Trek to watch, but there
are still a couple of episodes to talk about, so looking forward to
Rob: And then we wait for that, uh, the holy land that is July when, uh,
Prodigy Season 2 hits, apparently.
Kevin: Not far now.
Not far now.
Rob: is in the, the far future compared to right now because we are impatient souls.
But what we do have to talk about is Episode 9 of Season 5 of Discovery.
It is the sticky end of the season, Lagrange Point, directed by the
legend himself, Jonathan Frakes.
Um, and it's all coming to a head right here, is it not, Kevin?
Kevin: It is!
This was part one of what I am thinking of as our two part finale
for the season, and, uh, yeah, it was, uh, certainly action packed!
Rob: We had black holes, we had incoming enemies, we had a fight for a
precious piece of technology, uh, we had infiltrating of enemy territory, uh, we
had flashbacks to traumatic moments in, you know, or at least, you know, dictated
by traumatic moments in people's pasts.
Kevin: I think I like the big picture of this one.
Some of the little bits really bug me.
Like, this, this crew is not very good at their jobs at times.
The, the race that this season has been all about came down to, is Discovery
going to beat the Dreadnought to the tech.
And they did, but instead of grabbing it, they kind of stood and made
speeches until the others showed up and yoinked it right into their bay.
And you could just see the disgust on Rayner's face when it happened.
He was like, nup.
Too late.
They got it.
And he's like, what, what ship am I on?
How did I end up here?
Rob: Yeah, very much so.
I would, I have never felt more connected to a character in
Star Trek Discovery in my life.
I'm there going, I'm right there with you, bud.
I'm right there with you.
Kevin: Yeah, I guess we wouldn't have had much of an episode if, uh, if
Discovery had grabbed it, but you know, it could have at least been a tug of war.
Rob: Exactly.
Exactly.
We found ourselves, which I've been noticing a lot more now that I'm
back into watching Discovery quite regularly, they do like to do the whole,
we need to do something right now.
We need to do something within, you know, that will take an hour, but you only
have 15 minutes, and it's never been done before in the history of Federation.
No one has ever done this before, and you need to figure out,
and you need to do it success successfully, and they get it done.
So,
Kevin: Oh yeah.
You're talking about on two occasions, they penetrate the shields of the
Dreadnought, this episode, on a, you know, a, a single command of let's do this
and we'll figure it out as we go along.
And one is they will fly into the exhaust port that has a gap in the shields for
some reason and, and beam in while their shuttlecraft is breaking up in the fire.
Okay, you know, I'll give you one of those per episode.
And then the second one is, let's just fly into the shuttle bay.
And this one, I'm warming to it over time.
When it first happened, I was like, what?
What is even the point of shields if you can just fly through them?
Rob: In a certain certain
Kevin: Yeah, at a certain angle, but what I realized after watching this
episode a second time is it is not the defense shields of the Dreadnought,
those have been dropped by the away team, it is just the containment field
of their shuttle like a secondary shield, it's not meant for security.
Rob: Just to stop people being sucked out.
Kevin: But boy was it spectacular.
If I had any doubts that it was worth suspending disbelief,
the CG really sold me on it.
The visuals of that ship crashing through there and then all of the, all of the
objects inside that bay simultaneously lifting off the ground and getting
sucked out into space was really great to
Rob: and the, you know, the spinning around of Discovery.
Look, this is not gonna come as a shock, uh, I'm not the biggest Discovery fan,
but that was an incredibly impressive sequence and a beautifully shot, uh,
and, you know, dare I say, directed piece of sci-fi spectacularness.
Kevin: I noticed even the music in that, as the, as that barrel, as I like to
think of it, as that barrel is tumbling, uh, and bouncing against things, the
music kind of swells into a very, Star Trek feature film esque set of strings,
Rob: was thinking that too.
Kevin: that guy, Michael Giacchino, who's done those, those film scores
in recent years, the, there was a lot of that going on in that moment.
And I thought, wow, that is drawing on recent Star Trek films
to just give that sense of epic scale that this scene needed.
It really worked for me.
Rob: Yeah, yeah, I know we haven't got Michael Giacchino for this, uh,
season, and he definitely did the, uh, theme music for Prodigy, but there's
definitely elements of that, uh, style of music that Giacchino has done so
beautifully over the last, uh, god, 10, 15 years of doing soundtrack stuff.
And if you haven't seen check out his, uh, directorial debut, um, Marvel's
Werewolf by Night, which is a masterpiece.
Kevin: Really!
Rob: Yeah, yeah, it's a, there's a great documentary about it on Disney Plus
where he talks about directing for the first time and, um, yeah, it's just,
yeah, I'm, I'm a huge fan of his work, but it's definitely had elements of his,
uh, rousing scores that he's brought to the Chris Pine Star Trek films.
Kevin: This episode kind of has the final face to face between Moll and
Book of the season, and I have to say I was kind of disappointed that
it didn't really amount to much.
There was some smack talk of like, a courier never reveals his secrets.
And she goes, is that what your mentor taught you?
And that's it.
Like the, there, I feel like the episode Mirrors earlier in the season.
was entirely about bringing Book and Moll together in some sort of relationship
that we were presuming would pay off, but I guess it was a dropped element.
Rob: It is.
It's been totally dropped.
It's such a shame because I was there going, there's got
to be something more to this.
There's got to be, it's got to be dropped now because it's going
to be picked up in some way.
But it's another sense of this ball has been dropped and left behind and they've
kind of put it on the, on the back burner.
And who would have thought that their main focus is of course always
going to be, uh, Burnham, at the expense of this type of story.
I mean, we always have, we've talked about it before, you know,
we have our lead characters.
Of course, Kirk is gonna go on the mission.
Of course, Picard's gonna go on the mission.
Of course, Sisko's gonna go on the mission.
But, the, that time is taken within, uh, the 90's shows or stuff like that, or
even the original series, to expand some of the supporting characters somewhat.
Not so much the original series.
It's kind of like they're top three and that's it.
Um, but here it is very much a case of you see it.
You see it.
Oh no, this is a whole story arc that we're not going to give time.
And you've got to be happy with just a line or two here, there,
and that's going to be enough.
Nah, it's not.
It's, it's, it's, it's a disservice to, to um, Moll as a character.
To actually have some sort of more to her.
She started off one dimensional and there was a hope of giving her a bit
of a justification and understanding of where she's at, but it's like they've
locked her into this character type.
Kevin: Yeah, and I think it's more the shame because Mirrors was itself not
a particularly strong episode, and so I was holding out hope that it would
at least be in service of something.
But looking back on the season now, it feels like that entire connection
between Moll and Book could have been dropped outta the season
entirely, and the season would have been stronger for it, more cohesive.
Would have been fewer distractions that didn't amount to anything.
And, uh, maybe room for a better episode than Mirrors, if we didn't have to
explore that Book Moll connection.
Rob: They, yeah, they very much did the barest minimum and, and, and
it got to, it's gotten to the point where the end of the season going,
you know, What's the real point?
I mean, they've done so much with Rayner, especially this episode.
There was great stuff done with him here.
I love that whole setup of, you know, Tilly and that going with
whenever he's in charge, he never sits in the captain's seat.
And so that satisfaction, the final moment, the cliffhanger is, you
know, Rayner finally sitting in the seat, which we all knew was coming
as soon as they telegraphed it by going, he never sits in the seat.
And I went, well, we know what he's going to do by the end of the episode.
Kevin: There's some, there's a funny thing about Rayner that he's almost, he's always
speaking in almost cliches, I feel like.
So like his final lines of the episode are, Failure, not an option.
It's almost like the script page said failure is not an option and
he's like, I'm not saying that.
I've got to make it my own, somehow.
And so he drops out the word, uh, is, and it goes, failure, not an option, alright?
Let's do this.
And, uh, yeah, it, it, it, It works, but in every case I feel like the, I feel
the, the cliche just kind of hanging over his shoulder at the same time.
Rob: It is very much a case of this is where we are very gifted.
We're very lucky to have a very gifted actor in the role.
Callum Keith Rennie is, uh, a gift to this season.
He's really taken, as you've said, quite, um, cliche, gimmicky lines, but he,
you know, is able to deliver them away.
Famously, as Harrison Ford said to George Lucas on the set of Star Wars, you can
write this stuff, but we have to say it.
And it's a credit really good actors to be able to pull that out.
And he's, for me, he's joining up the echelons of the types of
your, your, your Patrick Stewarts.
Kevin: Just his reaction shots on the bridge in the heat of the
action is sometimes the sweetest moment of some of these scenes.
I did like the exchange between him and Tilly where he says, you know why
I picked you for my first officer?
Because I wouldn't kill you in a foxhole unless you keep giving
me that lovey dovey stuff I don't
Rob: Ha ha ha ha
Kevin: really, good.
Rob: That's the type, that's, that's, that's great chemistry.
That's great stuff like Tilly, Tilly with Burnham is just
lovey-lovey-lovey-lovey-lovey.
But lovey and hard ass, that, that chemistry works.
That's beautiful.
So, he hardens her up a little bit and, you know, she softens him a little bit.
That came out a bit more saucy than I wanted it to be.
Kevin: Well, let's, uh, let's move on to the other sauciness, which
was the Breen flirting and just the general Breen world building that we
had with Book and, uh, Burnham kind of infiltrating the dreadnought.
I, liked the, the xenoanthropology stuff of, like, recognizing the name
of the feast, and, and then in the next scene, paying that off with, would
you like to go to the feast with me?
And yeah, good stuff.
Rob: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Yeah, Book going the whole, Wait a minute, is this?
Whoa, what's going on
Kevin: This getting weird.
This is working
Rob: ha
Ha ha ha ha ha ha He's a very attractive man.
So, I mean, totally understand Yeah, that
Kevin: Even in a helmet, he is, uh, he is magnetic.
Rob: And I mean Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
That was great for us to get a bit more, especially, as we've
talked about before, the Breen are notoriously undeveloped as a character.
Um, to have this type of stuff, so figuring out what certain words mean,
the linguistics of it all was amazing.
And those, um, Traditions and those, uh, sort of like cultural touchstones were,
um, just to touch on in a little way.
Wasn't forced, wasn't pressured.
It was still all tied in with the great heist.
I love a good heist movie.
I love a good heist episode in a, in a Star Trek story, um, and
to have Adira and also Rhys out on, on, on a mission was great.
And Rhys was kicking some ass.
Kevin: Absolutely.
I, uh, I liked these final character beats for Adira of this season as well.
Like, I've said earlier in the season that they've been a bit
stammery or a bit, uh, too uncertain.
And I found, I found the balance that they struck this episode
was much more to my taste.
This, uh, you know, they've been given the advice by Tilly, that they shouldn't
feel afraid to volunteer for more or to do more, but that, that moment where they're
like, I guess I am volunteering for the mission, the, it's less self doubting
and more, like, wide eyed innocence, and I enjoyed it a lot more for that reason.
Rob: They definitely, for whatever reason, they seem to have wrapped
Adira in a lot of bubble wrap.
Um, and there's this protective element they have put around them.
And so,
Kevin: I almost feel like they've been getting younger with each episode we see
them and so they are very childlike in this episode, um, which makes the peril
of them going on the mission work for me.
So, you know, setting aside the arc, and, and where they've been, and how they've
gotten them there, this episode, on its own merits, I quite enjoy Adira in this
Rob: Yeah, there was, uh, there was enough done, and it was what they needed to do.
Stop babying them and let them, yeah, let them fly.
Let them fly.
Um, and of course, yeah, with the, ends with the ultimate cliffhanger
of, uh, uh, Burnham and Moll being sucked into, uh, the canister.
Kevin: Yeah.
Rob: Oh, and we had Saru coming in as well.
Saru has, like, put himself up as he's the only one who can,
you know, go on this extremely dangerous diplomatic mission to stop.
Kevin: Yes, we had the Vulcan version of the tearful farewell, I'm
volunteering for the dangerous mission.
First of all, I'll say it again, the chemistry of the repressed
Vulcan love story is not working for me for some reason this season.
I don't know what it is, but they really broke the spell.
Last season, Rob, you haven't seen season four of Discovery.
I wouldn't recommend a watch if you had no other reason to do it.
But one thing that did work was the love story between T'Rina and Saru.
There is heat between them.
You want to see them get together, and it is delicious.
Here it's completely bloodless, and them standing in their quarters, I was struck
by the set design, because you had Saru on one side, and T'Rina on the other,
and if you looked in the background, one half of their quarters was, um, wavy
Vulcan soft furniture, and on the other side was misty, hanging plants for Saru.
And it was like they have divided their quarters with a line down
the middle and this is Saru's side and this is T'Rina's side.
And that feeling that they are together but not really together, that there
isn't really any relationship there, other than these two characters stand
face to face and gaze meaningfully into each other's eyes once an episode.
Apart from that, there is no relationship going on here and, um, yeah, that
bothered me afresh this episode.
Rob: Yeah, it is quite a shame, especially considering, like you said, if there
there was that chemistry there last season, and Doug Jones is a master
performer, especially under layers of makeup, and what he can exude out of his
pores is, is nothing short of remarkable.
Kevin: Yeah, it's not the first TV love story where the will they
won't they was more delicious than the now they're together season.
Rob: It's always, it's always the way.
Happened with Lois and Clark.
It happened with, you know, Let's not even get started on Rachel
and Ross, that toxic relationship.
Kevin: But yes, I had to chuckle at the literalness of
the design of their quarters.
Well, we've got Saru, so we'll need plants, and we've got T'Rina, so we'll
need Vulcan furniture, and we'll put them on opposite sides of the room.
Rob: Yeah, I love, I mean, it shows there's not a good quality
of acting approach if you're, the first thing you say, I remember
in that scene, the background.
Kevin: The furniture, yeah.
Rob: But also, you trying to justify it as, is that a character choice
or is that lazy production design?
So.
Kevin: Yeah.
Transpolock is a funny new technical term for, I think, what we would all recognize
as pattern enhancers, but I guess in the 32nd century, transpolock has caught on.
So that was, that was interesting to pick out.
Rob: It's, it's, a variation of Wingardium Leviosa.
It's all just 37th century magic now.
Kevin: Did you get why the barrel, which had been out in space to begin
with, at the end of this episode, as it tumbled out into space,
kind of exploded and broke apart.
Rob: No!
Is it because something that the Breen did?
Kevin: No, I don't think so.
I think it was just like, this'll look cool.
You know, it exploded.
It became a portal in space, which they immediately tried to tractor beam.
And then there was the, the line, it's moving too fast.
There's too much debris.
And I was like, Also, it's a portal.
Like, it's insubstantial.
There's nothing to grab onto.
They could've said negative lock or something like that, but, uh,
instead it's moving too fast.
When in the CG shots, it was kinda standing
Rob: was still, yeah.
Kevin: Yeah.
So, yeah, this, this, this final beat was a little confusing to
me, of like, what is that thing?
I guess it's the portal and is it solid?
Because it sure looks pretty misty.
Yeah, it was unfortunate that it ended on a confusing note
Rob: Yes, it was quite confusing, I'm glad you brought that up, yeah.
And the technobabble that, I mean, Star Trek always needs technobabble, but there
seems to be some sort of element to the technobabble that is a bit obnoxious or
a bit, uh, um, ha, it gets us away from the reality that we can actually see.
In other Star Treks we kind of justify it by going, alright,
okay, we know it's a bit of
Kevin: Oh, they played with that this episode when they were flying
into that, uh, that exhaust vent and, uh, Adira is explaining
why they can't beam over it yet.
Burnham goes, science later, problem now!
And then someone asks Adira, why can't we beam over?
And they say, science later, problem now.
So I enjoyed that bit of self awareness.
Rob: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Kevin: So the big highlight of this episode, that set piece of Discovery
flying into that shuttle bay and causing its contents to spew out into space
was the thing we seized on and the over like the the phrase that popped
into my head while I was watching that is like Into the belly of the beast.
When when do our ships and crews throw themselves into a dangerous
situation where they will be surrounded by threat and unlikely to return.
This happens in many cases and we're gonna explore a few of them, this episode.
I've got a original series, belly of the Beast.
Have you got, where do you start in the Star Trek timeline?
Rob: I've got one, and mine is from, I'm finally back.
I'm back home, Kevin.
Oh, Terok Nor has welcomed me home.
I'm walking around the Promenade, just observing the people, Kevin.
Oh, I'm,
Kevin: Interesting.
Okay, good to
Rob: dangling my feet over the edge with Jake Sisko and we're just
watching, we're people watching.
Oh,
Kevin: Well, got two, so I'll start.
I'll start and bring up the rear and we'll visit DS9 in between.
Rob: Yes, let's go to those old scientists.
Kevin: Yeah, Season 2, Episode 18, The Immunity Syndrome, which I think
of as the space amoeba episode.
I don't know if you've ever seen this one, is, the Enterprise encounters a
giant single celled organism in space, and it's a bit of a feast for the eyes.
I had not seen the remastered version of this episode since it came out, so I
was looking forward to seeing what they did with this space amoeba, um, and,
and, uh, yeah, it, it's, I'll say it is faithful to the original, so they did not
reimagine it in any super high tech way.
But it looks better than it ever has, and it is charming in the
same way the original episode was.
Rob: I'll, I'll, divert a bit.
I have, I have appreciated watching these remastered ones on Paramount Plus.
Uh, how they've taken that CGI and enhanced it to the point of,
it's like, the natural progression of where where the effects were.
They do it a lot with classic Doctor Who when they release the
blu rays of the classic seasons.
They take one story and do an enhanced version with special CGI.
And sometimes it works really well, where they just shift it slightly.
Uh, but there are some ones where they do big, broad special effects stuff and it
just takes away from it because it's too far away from what the original shot was.
But the original series remastering and new effects seem to,
Kevin: It's so tasteful.
Yeah.
There are, there are a couple of episodes where they have gone, all right, the
point of this episode is the visuals, and we're going to lean into it.
Um, I think, uh, the, the Doomsday Machine episode is one that comes to mind, that
they really brought the, those space battles between the two Constitution
class ships and the shuttlecraft and that, that big Doomsday device in space.
They really made that 3D and we got to see things from above and
below in a way that really fleshed out the world in a satisfying way.
But most of the time they did this less is more approach of like Let's make it
look exactly like what they had in their heads when they were making that episode.
No more, no less.
And that's what we get here in the Immunity Syndrome.
So, yeah, broad strokes, the Enterprise flies to the rescue of
a, of a, star system that has, um, stopped responding to communications.
What they find is a giant black cloud, uh, of space with no stars in it.
And as they go deeper and deeper into it, the crew's life forces are wicked away.
So you, you see people fainting and people irritable at each other and
McCoy's keeping everyone walking with stimulants, but he's monitoring the
life readings on the ship and they're gradually going down as they get closer
and closer to what turns out to be this massive single celled organism in space.
Um, Spock takes a shuttlecraft inside of it to map out its
interior and is feared lost.
Um, the Enterprise eventually goes in after him to plant charges
and blow it up from the inside.
And they luckily rescue Spock at the last minute on the way out.
Uh, and they, having blown up that organism, all is well
with the sector once again.
It's a really good one.
This is another great Spock McCoy episode, because Spock and McCoy, you know, when,
when patience wears thin, these two are delicious to watch together a scene, and
they are also competing with each other around the discovery of this organism.
McCoy is the first to volunteer to take that shuttle in.
Spock says, no, I should go instead.
There's a bit of like, who's going to go?
And, and Kirk has to make the call.
He says, I'm sorry, Spock.
And McCoy goes, I'll pack my things.
And he goes, no, no, I'm sorry, Spock, you're most qualified.
You're going on the suicide mission.
And, uh, yeah, the farewell at the shuttle bay doors, McCoy walks Spock down to the
shuttle bay, and they have this amazing scene with each other outside the doors
while the, the room is pressurizing.
Spock says grant, grant me my own kind of dignity.
McCoy responds, Vulcan dignity?
How can I grant you what I don't understand?
Spock says, Then employ one of your own superstitions.
Wish me luck.
And this comes back later when the comms with the shuttlecraft are failing.
It's the last words we hear from Spock is, McCoy, tell Dr.
McCoy he should have wished me luck.
It's just so poignant.
It's really, really good watching them compete, but fear for each other and
feel guilty for, for, uh, for the other.
It is really, really good.
Rob: Well from what you're saying, like this is like late season two, so
this is really when it's, you know,
Kevin: Oh yeah, this is peak, peak Star Trek.
Yeah, it's good stuff.
Rob: That sounds like the type of stuff that we love about, you know, those
connections between the, our, our three heads of the original series is how
those relationships work and that like, because I'm going back and discovering it
as I go, how, like when we watched the, the ones most recent, I've watched most
recently for the evil computer stuff, just they're going Yeah, it was there.
It was there all along.
Of course, it was there all along.
It was just enhanced even more in the movies because they'd been
known each other for so long.
Kevin: Uh, what is often the case in these belly of the beast scenarios is
the building up of the threat beforehand.
And at the start of this episode, they really go overboard.
So, they are told that the USS Intrepid, which is manned by
400 Vulcans, it's an all Vulcan
Rob: Sheesh!
Kevin: has encountered something and is no longer responding to communication
requests, and Enterprise is asked to go and investigate what happened.
And in this cold open, Spock, who's at his station, suddenly sits bolt upright,
and his eyes are wide open, and he says, Captain, the Intrepid just died!
Over 400 Vulcans aboard!
Dead!
And he sensed their death.
And he has several speeches in this episode where he explains that the
Vulcans, logical thinkers that they were, not only didn't understand what was
killing them, their logic refused to allow them to believe they were dying at all.
Rob: Far out!
Kevin: The line is, not a person, not even the computers on board the Intrepid
knew what was killing them or would have understood it had they known.
And it's, it's, for me it's going a little too far to say that Vulcans
are so logical that they ignore things that they cannot explain.
Rob: It's just not there.
It's not there.
We're not dying.
We're not dying at all.
Kevin: Here's another, here's another passage for you that gives you a sense.
Spock says, They never knew what was killing them.
Their logic would not have permitted them to believe they were being killed.
Vulcan has not been conquered within its collective memory.
The memory goes back so far that no Vulcan can conceive of a conqueror.
I knew the ship was lost because I sensed it.
And Kirk asks, What do you think they felt?
Spock's reply: astonishment.
It's a bit much, right?
Rob: Just a tad.
Just a tad.
But you know,
Kevin: But in a 60s TV series, it was par for the course.
It was like, build it up, super big,
Rob: And especially when you're, you're learning in the very early stages of what
this species Vulcan is, you know, you've got, uh, an alien regular character, so
you're, you know, you're not used to, you know, America at this time, or society
at this time, was finding it very hard to, you know, relate to anything other
than the predominant white, Caucasian culture, so bringing in any one of them,
of, of minority, which I do in inverted commas, uh, is, is, incredibly difficult
with that limited myopic view of things.
But to bring in an alien species and make them regular, um, pushing, pushing the
boundaries of is this what we can do?
Is that what, yeah, it's
Kevin: Yeah, it was early Vulcan mythology, for
Um, and there is a mass extinction event as well.
Like, apart from the 400 Vulcans aboard the intrepid, there's also
the Gamma 7A star system that goes silent and in an, in a single line,
Kirk says there are billions of inhabitants there, and it's Chekov
who's on the scanners at this point.
Chekov reports that the billions, with a B, inhabitants of, uh, Gamma 7A are dead.
Um, and, and, you know, never thought of again.
Never mentioned again.
Billions of people who died in the cold open of this episode.
Rob: Never been brought back.
Never was a, you know, a plot point in a later season of a spin series.
No.
Kevin: There you go, dangling thread, the extinction of Gamma 7A.
Rob: Bring that up in Prodigy season two.
Kevin: But, um, I really enjoyed, like, it is oppressive, the, the stars
going dark, and then going inside this kind of pink protoplasm structure, the
feeling, and, and, the actors are doing a great job of selling the fact that
their life forces are slowly dying off.
There's no overplaying it.
Just people look tired and they look like they, you know, they're massaging their
foreheads because they have a headache and, and it's just enough to sell this
feeling that they are in, in dangerous waters that they may not return from.
And it, it really does have that feeling of a beast all around them.
Rob: Fantastic.
Kevin: Let's go to Deep Space Nine!
Rob: Hey, we are going to one of the best titled episodes in
Star Trek history, I reckon.
We're going to season five, episode one of Deep Space Nine, Apocalypse Rising.
Kevin: I don't remember this one.
I'm sure it'll come back to me, but not by the title.
It a Dominion war story?
Rob: is Dominion War story.
We've had the, the Klingons in for about a season or so.
They've been quite hostile.
At the present time.
Uh, directed by James L.
Conway, written by, uh, uh, Deep Space Nine legend, uh, Ira Stephen
Behr, with, uh, robert Hewitt Wolfe.
So yeah, this is the start of season five.
It opens with a, um, last, last season on Deep Space Nine, where we find out,
um, Odo has, uh, been judged by, um, the Founders because of him killing another
Changeling, and he's, uh, he's been judged, he's gone into the Great Link,
he's been judged and passed sentence, and he has had his powers, well his existence
changed, he is now a solid, so he now
Kevin: Ah, this is in that short period.
Rob: So he has organs, he breathes, he does all that type of stuff.
He still has his own face, uh, that he's had for ages, but he is
now, as punishment, he is a solid.
Um, and the, the big cliffhanger at the end of the previous season was,
um, Odo was looking in shock at the screen, uh, as everyone's around on
the promenade, and he goes, when I was in the Great Link, lots of images and
faces passed by, they tried to hold back information from me, but I got one image.
One image, and it's him, and it's Gowron, from
Kevin: Oh, yes.
Fake Gowron.
Rob: a changeling.
So, this whole episode is, the belly of the beast is, a team from Deep Space
Nine have to go into the heart of Klingon culture to us, uh, to expose Gowron
as, uh, the changeling that he is.
So we have Wolf and Sisko and O'Brien and Odo, uh, changed up to look like Klingons
and go into the belly of the beast to, uh, expose Gowron as, uh, the changeling.
Kevin: I love a good makeup caper.
Rob: Love a good makeup caper.
Love seeing, um, the one who looks, uh, pretty, yeah, pretty impressive
in it, um, Sisko looks really good in them, in, in, in Klingon gear.
O'Brien, not so much.
René Auberjonois looks really good.
And for some reason, he doesn't have to have the teeth in.
Or if he does have teeth in, he's making it look, like, poor
Kevin: He's it looks natural.
The best teeth any Klingon has ever had?
Rob: Yeah, poor old Avery Brooks does have a little bit of the, uh, fang, uh, lisp,
but, um, they go in and they go through the ceremonies of, um, of Klingon culture
and drinking of the blood wine, but they've got inhibitors there so they don't
get drunk and they all have to, you know.
There's lovely stuff with Worf talking about, you know,
you're stepping away from me.
That shows disrespect.
You're quiet, so that means you're in fear.
If you respect someone, you're right up in their face and you talk loudly to them
because I love that little bit of stuff.
Kevin: Yeah, some late Klingon world building.
It's really
Rob: Michael Dorn, man.
Michael Dorn is just, just perfection.
And I mean, you've
Kevin: He's earning his paycheck
Rob: He's earning it here, he's just got that great balance of, you know,
especially when he's going up against other amazing Klingon actors, when he's
got, uh, Robert O'Reilly, the famous Robert O'Reilly, who, uh, just saw
this on, on, online today: uh, he only appeared as Gowron in 13 episodes, but
he has appeared in a gazillion memes.
Those eyes are wonderful.
And of course, uh, J.
G.
Hertzler is there as Martok and he's, Martok's one of, becomes
one of my favorite characters, one of my favorite Klingons.
Kevin: Martok is great.
Gowron is great.
Any episode that has both of them is automatically great.
Rob: Amazing, there's some great, so like, Gowron, Martok, and Worf, the
three of them, it's this beautiful holy trinity of Klingon ness.
And of course we've got, for good measure, Gul Dukat is in there.
So, this is at the height of, um, the Dominion War.
Worf's been there about a season, um, uh, Kira's pregnant, the Cardassians are in
a, in a shaky alliance with the Federation while the Klingons are against them.
And they have to get in to find out, uh, you know, to prove that Gowron is a
changeling without a, but then there's a little twist at the end obviously.
Kevin: Yeah, this is a great one.
I do remember the blood wine drinking scenes and it just, the scenes with
all of these Klingons in them and you can see there are different kinds of
Klingons and they, they are, there are cliques and groups and just, yeah,
it, it really, um, widened the canvas.
Not since, uh, not since the TNG episodes with Worf's discommendation do I feel like
we got to really visit on the ground, uh, Kronos and, and see Klingon culture, at
least Klingon military culture in action.
Rob: Yeah, and I mean, it's a great case of, it sort of like
flips the heist movie genre on its head, going, this is impossible,
there's no way it's going to work.
And it doesn't.
Like, they fail.
They are called out, and it's, you know, a last desperate move of one
thing they didn't want to do, to try and save the day, and then Odo saves it.
And Odo plays a big part in this episode, of course.
He's obviously not dealing well with the fact that he's lost who
he is and he's getting used um, being, uh, you know, humanoid.
And, you know, a great, beautiful opening scene of him talking about
hearing the bubbles in, you know, the carbonated bubbles in a drink.
Um, and losing his way there and how quite matter of factly Sisko pretty
much just goes, just suck it up, okay?
You moaning about it and complaining about it isn't going to change the
fact this is what you are, this is what you are now and you have a
duty and you've got something to do.
Come on, this is pretty much suck it up.
Kevin: There's something perverse about Odo freshly locked in his body, which
must feel to him like makeup, like an appliance that he puts on every
day to go to work, then having to put on a Klingon guise on top of that.
It's like a mask on top of a mask for him.
Rob: Exactly.
And there's a beautiful, coda at the end when, you know, the final shot
is they come out of getting their surgery changed and Sisko does the
great line, I will miss the fangs.
In that beautiful Avery Brooks voice, I will miss the fangs.
And you just hear him, every single letter in fangs is just done with such relish.
And, you know, they say to Odo, you can have whatever face you want.
You can, you know, you know, stay Klingon, or you can have human.
He goes, no, I'll go back to my face.
And that knowing look from Sisko going, I think we've got our constable back.
Kevin: He's grumpy again!
That's good!
Rob: Hooray.
There's a beautiful moment, like, because I know around about this time, Alexander
Siddig and, uh, Nana Visitor, Married.
They got together and then they had broken up by the end of season 7.
It's a whirlwind relationship, I believe.
Um, but there's this moment where Julian Bashir comes to see,
uh, Kira about her pregnancy.
Because she's holding Keiko's baby at this point.
Which is, there's a great line where Gul Dukat goes, well, he must be the
father, of the current man he's dating.
Oh, no, no, no.
The father's O'Brien.
But yeah, there's got this moment where there's this chemistry and
you're there going, we don't see much of Kira and Bashir together.
But it seems like the writer's gone, well, these guys have got great
chemistry because they're like together.
So there's this, they're not flirting, but there's this,
Kevin: No, there, there were some early episodes where they were,
um, Bashir was the awkward flirt at the beginning of the series.
Like he had unearned confidence that he was always cracking
on to the women the station.
And there were a couple of times where he was like giving Kira compliments that, uh,
That were inappropriate in the context, and she was both flustered and annoyed
by it, and, uh, yeah, it was, it was fun in that 90s TV way that I'm not sure
would stand up to scrutiny these days.
Rob: In this, in this particular episode, like, because it, it is focusing on
that, you know, the belly of the beast, but this is a good Bashir episode.
He's, this is where I'm going, yeah, this is where Bashir is hitting his
straps, he's got that confidence, he's really charming, as Alexander really
has as an actor, he's got an incredible, incredible charm which he brought out,
and he's got great connections with Kira, he has a great moment with Jake,
and it's another one of those moments, Jake's going, I just wish my dad wasn't
so good at his job, I just miss him when he's out, and Bashir pretty much goes,
He's got a duty to do so just suck it up.
And go holy christ, 90s sci fi was just a case, yeah, everyone's
just going suck it up people.
Come on.
Kevin: From one makeup caper to another going to take us to late Voyager.
This is season six, episode 26 and season seven, episode one.
It is the last season cliffhanger of Voyager: Unimatrix Zero.
In Unimatrix Zero, Seven of Nine has been, with the Doctor's help, taught
to dream again, and as soon as she starts dreaming while regenerating,
her dreams are suspiciously realistic.
She goes to a forest with a bunch of strangers who know her by the name Annika,
and she is very human in these dreams.
And it turns out she's not dreaming, she has joined this, um, rebel frequency
that, um, one in a million Borg drones are able, they have a mutation that
enables them to connect to Unimatrix Zero, a shared virtual environment, uh, that
they go to while they're regenerating and they forget when they wake up.
This is, uh, the beginnings of a rebellion within the ranks of the Borg Collective.
We see a bunch of the Borg Queen, who in these episodes is played by Susanna
Thompson, who we last talked about as Lenara Kahn in the DS9 episode Rejoined.
Rob: That's
Kevin: Dax's love interest in Rejoined also plays the Borg Queen here in Voyager.
Rob: She's very good.
I do remember I do remember that those
Kevin: Yeah, she's a, she's a great Borg Queen and, uh, does a good job.
Alice Krige does return for Endgame, the series finale, so this is, I
think, the last time we see Susanna Thompson in the role, uh, but she
has done it in one or two other Voyager episodes earlier as well.
Um, we also had Annie Wersching play, uh, the Borg Queen in Picard
Season 2, the now late, sadly, Annie
Rob: Yes, she did an incredible job.
She was great with Alison Pill.
They did some wonderful, uh, duologue work, um, yeah, chemistry work
Kevin: But, um, as soon as Voyager and Janeway get wind of this, uh,
potential for rebellion within the Borg, Janeway is very quick to support it.
The inhabitants of Unimatrix Zero have a request and that is for Voyager
to plant a virus in the collective that will enable the inhabitants of
Unimatrix Zero to remember their time in that Dream space while they're awake.
Uh, and Janeway sees in this the opportunity to, you
know, foster a rebellion.
There are a few conversations with Chakotay where they're like, you know,
this isn't exactly according to protocol.
Uh, giving, giving a rebel group within, uh, an opponent race the means
to sustain their rebellion, but, uh, Chakotay says, well, you won't get any
argument from me this time, Janeway.
And she's like, all right, great.
I've got your support.
That's all I need.
And so what they do is they hatch this cockamamie plan to
infiltrate a tactical cube.
It's the meanest Borg cube we've ever seen.
It's got not just the kind of circuitry exterior, but actually
some armor plating on the sides that makes it look extra tough.
And at the end of part one, Voyager swoops in, and deposits Janeway,
Tuvok, and B'Elanna Torres on board, ostensibly to plant this virus in the
collective, but the away team gets caught and assimilated, and as soon
as they do, back on the ship, Chakotay and Paris say, Oh, everything's going
according to plan, and they warp out.
And so the plan all along was for the three of them to get assimilated,
and so we get to see them all in part two, done up in Borg makeup.
So we have assimilated Janeway, assimilated uh, Tuvok and B'Elanna Torres.
They are assimilated physically, but not mentally.
They are still themselves, thanks to an injection that the Doctor gave them.
Rob: Of course.
Kevin: Poor B'Elanna gets a sub vocal processor, which just means she talks
like a Borg, and it is hilarious.
Because she's very stoic about it.
Tuvok is the first one to start to crumble.
The Borg Queen gets into his head and starts making him
second guess his identity.
And he has to repeat facts about his real life to kind of stay present.
But eventually he does turn and betray them.
And Janeway gets captured.
Um, but yeah, there are several scenes here where the three of them are working
on board this Borg cube, where there's drones all around them, but they are
still themselves, even though they have, they are festooned with implants.
And it's, um, yeah, it is definitely that feeling of the,
the danger is all around us.
And we're in this very tenuous situation in the middle of it.
Rob: I do remember that episode, and it was one of the episodes I was considering,
uh, bringing up, so I'm glad you did.
Um, it definitely has all those facets of being within the belly of the beast and
that tension it, it does prey on my mind, like we've talked about before, the more
you bring a creature back, the less power they have, and this one, you know, the
whole point of, you know, Picard being turned into Locutus and then, uh, and
then brought back is not a common thing.
That is like, it was traumatic and horrifying and, you know, barely happened.
That barely, you know, was a success.
But to get point of going, Oh, it's just an injection.
Oh, and we'll put the little thing here.
It takes away that menace and that, if you are assimilated, yeah.
Even the process of Seven of Nine, the journey she has had to go through over
years to regain her new personality or how she finds that balance with
her Borg and her original self.
This is just a case of oh well we just want to have them dressed up
as Borgs but we want to have them back by the end of the next episode.
Kevin: Yeah.
There's a nice line at the end, because Tuvok does lose himself in,
in Janeway's log entry at the end.
She says, thanks to the Doctor's injections, B'Elanna
and I are back on duty.
Tuvok's going to need a little more time.
We never see what that is, but it is mentioned that it's, he's got a
longer road to recovery because he, he, lost himself to the collective.
Rob: That's another shame, isn't it, that, that, you know, that stuff that
would be explored now, as we've seen with the Doctor in, in, Discovery,
you know, a little incident with the Trills, he's gone, alright, well this
is a whole existential crisis, whereas Tuvok has, you know, been assimilated
and lost his mind almost completely, and go, he's gonna need some time.
Oh, but we'll show that off screen.
He'll be perfectly fine when we come back next week.
Berman!
Kevin: Something that happens in this episode that also happened in Lagrange
Point in Discovery this week is the, the captain, captured, on an open comm
channel giving orders to her crew in code.
Burnham does that.
She kind of doesn't quite explain her plan for Discovery to free
them from the shuttle bay.
Here in Unimatrix Zero, Janeway, who is captured by the Borg Queen, is
allowed a moment to, uh, communicate with her crew in order to pass along
an ultimatum from the collective.
And Janeway says the line, Unimatrix Zero can no longer exist.
The idea here is the Queen has detected the virus that Voyager
has implanted and she is going to turn it to her own purposes.
She's going to mutate this virus so that all the members, everyone who's connected
to the Unimatrix Zero, uh, rebel channel will be killed instantly by this virus.
So Janeway says to Chakotay, Unimatrix Zero can no longer exist.
Do you understand what I'm saying, Commander?
And he says, yes.
And they cut communications and the Doctor goes, oh man, we've completely lost.
And Chakotay goes, it's not what you think.
So yes, they hatch the plan to, uh, interfere with the communication signal
of that Unimatrix Zero and shut it down safely, rather than allow the
Queen to kill all of its members.
Rob: I love that, I love those type of, you know, speaking in code stuff
that happen within, you know, Star Trek II and all that type of stuff.
It just elevates it a little bit more going, oh, they're really clever.
Kevin: Yeah, they can't do it too often, but every time they do it, it's delicious.
Rob: Definitely.
Kevin: So there you go.
Unimatrix zero.
Not
Rob: Zero, and we have gone into the belly of multiple beasts this week.
How are you feeling after this passage through, uh, so many beasts' body parts?
Kevin: A little worse for wear.
I think like Tuvok, I might, I might need a little time.
Rob: We'll be back just in time for us to discuss the season finale, the
final ever episode of Discovery, Kevin.
We need to talk
Kevin: That's right.
I don't want to, I don't want to tip my hand, but I think we have,
uh, we have a lot to talk about.