Matt and Sean talk about a fun dinosaur romp that collapses by the halfway point in Star Trek SNW Season 4, Episode 1, "Valles Marineris." The T. Rex encounter works, Pelia's Doctor Who joke works, and then the plot logic falls apart. Nobody on the best crew in Starfleet asks the obvious question about the mysterious fifth planet. So does the season four premiere earn its time travel setup? Or does it hand wave away the only choice that mattered?

Chapters

  • 00:00: Intro
  • 02:01: Feedback
  • 04:47: Today’s Episode
  • 05:17: This Time in History
  • 07:30: Today’s Discussion

Transcript

Intro

Sean Ferrell: In today's episode of Trek in Time, we're talking about where everything started. No, I'm not talking about a Star Trek prequel. Talking about a prequel to. Well, we'll get into that. Welcome, everybody, to Trek in Time. This is the podcast that takes a look at all of Star Trek in chronological stardate order. We are currently starting season four of Strange New Worlds, which means we've put a pause for the moment on our original series rewatch. We are almost done with the original series, and when we're done with this season of Strange New Worlds, we'll return to that, finish it up, and then move on to the movies, something that we are both looking forward to with great excitement. And who are we? I am Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi. I write some horror. As a matter of fact, I have a horror novel coming out in April of 2027. Wow. Does that sound like the future? It's called In the Fields We Thirst, more about that as we get closer to that date. I hope you'll be interested in checking it out. And with me, as always, is my brother Matt. He is that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how are you today?

Matt Ferrell: I'm doing okay, Sean. Yeah, all things considered.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah, all things considered. Matt and I won't get into details, but hanging on by our fingernails, we will be okay. Yes, we will be okay. Today we're going to be talking about Valles Marineris, the first episode of the fourth season of Strange New Worlds. This episode, directed by Chris Fisher, teleplay by Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonzo Myers, originally broadcast on July 23, 2026. Yes, that is a couple of weeks ago. And yes, Matt and I intended. We really did intend to be recording these episodes as we were watching the show. Ladies and gentlemen, life gets in the way. We apologize. So we're going to be a couple of weeks behind the broadcast dates, but we hope you'll still join us for these conversations. Before we get into our conversation about this new episode, we always like to take a look at what you've had to say about our previous episodes. Matt, what did you find in the mailbag for us?

Feedback

Matt Ferrell: Well, from the episode the Way to Eden, we had Rebecca Davis chiming in when this silly, terrible episode came on. Most of the time, I switched to another channel. Sometimes I would watch out of morbid curiosity. Yes, yes, Rebecca. And also AJ Chan wrote the premise of this podcast, Watch Star Trek in the context of when it aired is exemplified by this episode, Way to Eden. Can you capture the zeitgeist of 1969 better than hippies? No. But sadly, this episode was still a rough watch.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah.

Matt Ferrell: Yes, AJ Chan. Yeah, it sure was. I also picked one from Mark Loveless. On the whole, hippies are bad elements, with them being portrayed like idiots that will always do the wrong thing. This was a very common theme in multiple shows at the time. Gilligans Island, Adam 12, Dragnet, and on and on. The fact that Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin all died seemed to make it real for what we referred to as the establishment. With the whole Manson family and Tate murders being the icing on the cake. It took a while for the smarter elements of the entire hippie movement to really come out and directly influence the overall culture in a more perceived positive way. I hadn't thought about, like, how so many of the shows at that time just made hippies look so stupid. It was a very common trope.

Sean Ferrell: I think it's leaning into a follow the dollars sort of attitude when it comes to advertising. Who is watching the program and who has the dollars that the advertisers care about? Of course it's going to be Middle America, so they're going to cater to middle America attitudes and push back on the counterculture movement. While cultural shift and things like the civil rights movement could be softly embraced in the form of who you put on your show. And you know, we've talked about that before with characters like Sulu and Uhura and Chekov being representative of civil rights and peace movement attitudes. The hippies are just waiting there for somebody to punch down. Because yes, they don't have.

Matt Ferrell: Punching down is right.

Sean Ferrell: They don't have the dollars. So like, who cares what they think? And you end up with an episode like this. So it's unfortunate.

Matt Ferrell: The last comment. I gotta call out my favorite comment of the bunch Sean from Dan Sims. Oh my. That's all he wrote.

Sean Ferrell: That pretty much says it all. Thank you so much.

Matt Ferrell: Yes, it does.

Sean Ferrell: As always, we appreciate your comments and really look forward to seeing them on this one as we head into the new Star Trek. Those lights you see, those sounds you hear? Yes. It is time for Matt to tackle the. Nope, not Wikipedia description. This one's basically by me.

Today’s Episode

Matt Ferrell: The USS Enterprise is caught in a solar storm which sends them back 65 million years to the Cretaceous period on Earth, where crew members encounter dinosaurs and Captain Pike must choose between his principles and human history. Can't you have both, Sean? Can't you have both.

Sean Ferrell: Well, I think that this episode proves you can't. This episode originally broadcast on July 23, 2026. That's right. Just a couple of weeks ago. And what were you singing along to, Matt? Well, I think, you know, if you close your eyes and listen, that it was Choosing Texas by Ella Langley. Take it away, Matt. I don't know much about Ella Langley, but I do know this. My brother sounds just like her. The number one film at the time of original broadcast, Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey. This IMAX fever dream, this thing that's taken over film theaters. And I know one person who saw it in 4D and said the experience almost threw him out of his chair. So you've been warned. Have you seen this yet, Matt?

Matt Ferrell: Not yet.

Sean Ferrell: Are you planning on seeing it in the theater? I have not seen it yet, but I do want to see it.

Matt Ferrell: I really want to see it. I don't know if I'm able to make it to a theater to see it.

Sean Ferrell: That's the challenge. Although I do know this about Matt. He has a home theater, which is a room with a projection wall. The movie will look amazing in his home theater setup. Yeah. So I don't think Matt's too worried about it. And at the top of the streaming lists, a Netflix program. I Will Find You. I Will Found you is an American crime drama made for Netflix, Adapted from the 2023 novel of the same name by Harlan Coben, who served as executive producer. Coben is having a moment right now. There's. I forget how many, but there's at least a half dozen, I believe, Coban things available on Netflix alone. So apparently Netflix is really into Coban. The miniseries stars Sam Worthington, Brit Lauer, Mila Ventimiglia, and Aaron Richards. It premiered on June 18th in 2026. And in the news, the top story on this day from the New York Times with Saudi deal, Trump loosens nuclear standards for one close ally. Nuclear experts say it throws fuel on the smoldering fire of atomic prolife, creating a destabilizing situation that could raise the risk of nuclear war. I don't see how that's possible considering how well things are going in the Middle East. On now to our description and commentary on this new episode of Strange new Worlds Season 4. Matt, how have you been looking forward to the return of Strange New Worlds? I know we've been working our way through the original series, and we paused previously for season three. We had a lot of fun watching those episodes. And then we got back into the Original series. And we were still having fun with the original series. And then season three, where the budget has been severed and then severed again, and you can really see it, you can really feel it.

And I think we've both been bemoaning that the original series feels like the show that could have been so much better if only somebody had been in its corner pushing for it, fighting for it, and making sure that they had the ability to tell the stories that they have demonstrated in the first two seasons. And we'd been talking quite a bit in our rewatch of the original series about how Strange New Worlds was revising our interpretation of some of the stuff in the original series. So we're having a lot of fun with Strange New Worlds. We've been pausing a couple times in the original series. We've been really looking forward to getting to some good storytelling. Good storytelling. Excuse me. And then this episode shows up as the first of the fourth season. Did it satisfy your craving for. Yeah, this is Trek.

Matt Ferrell: The first half, yeah. Second half, no. I was. I was at the end, just to kind of give you my overall assessment was I was. I had fun with this episode, but there are parts of it that are so stupid, that are so dumb, that are so. What were you thinking? One, just even doing this. And then two, this is the first one for the season. I hope it gets better than this was my worry.

Sean Ferrell: I think you're being kind.

Matt Ferrell: Seriously, Sean. I had fun in the beginning. I thought it was fun. It was fun. It did not feel Star Trek y, but it was fun. Like, I was having fun with the Pelia’s, the conversation in the, like, the ready room. There was that Doctor who reference. I thought, oh, that's cute. Like, yeah. I think I was in a phone box at the time. And I was like, ah, Doctor who reference is kind of fun.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah.

Matt Ferrell: But then the whole, like, the Scotty and the beeping of the con, you know, all that kind of stuff going on between the characters I thought was just fun. Just like real kind of, like little fun character tension going on there. And that fit the characters to me. It didn't. It felt very Scotty to be that way because it's his ship. You're not treating my ship well. I'm gonna do this to make you treat my ship better. I thought it was very Scotty. So, like, there were elements of the show that I was just like, oh, this is fun, this is fun. And then they got into, like, what's this thing called? Logic and storytelling? And it went out the window. And I was almost screaming at the screen. At one point I had to stop watching, but halfway through, I turned to my wife and I was like, why is nobody stating the obvious thing about this whole plot? There's no fifth planet. Like, the whole. We haven't even talked about the planets, but, like, yeah, there's a mysterious fifth planet, but this is. This is our solar system. Why is there a fifth planet and nobody's talking about. Maybe it's the fifth planet that explodes and kills the dinosaurs. And, like, it explains the whole thing. It was so kindergarten, obviously. And the fact that here are characters who are supposed to be the best of the best in Starfleet can't figure this out. And it's so. You know what I mean? That was just making me so angry. It reminded me by the end, it was not as bad for me as Star Trek 5. Star Trek 5 to me, does not exist. And when we have to watch it for this show, I blame you, Sean. I can't stand that movie. I saw it once in the theater and I vowed never to watch it again. So when I watch it second time, it's gonna be for this show. Going to the edge of space to meet God. Going to the edge of space to meet God. Dumbest, dumbest, Dumb, dumb, dumb.

And then there was Next Generation's episode where they tried to explain why everybody looks alike.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah. Where this one felt like that to me.

Matt Ferrell: Yes, exactly.

Sean Ferrell: This one felt like that to me because it literally ends with, it turns out their DNA is spread throughout the galaxy. And, like, why did you have to do that? Like, what? I understand where you're coming from with the elements that you liked at the beginning where you felt like you were having fun. All of that felt so light to me as to be practically non existent. I wasn't enjoying it because it didn't feel like it was in anything meaty. I don't know that it felt like it was of the characters to me, I don't think, like, the whole thing between Scotty and the pilot and the fact that they're setting up some kind of like, oh, they don't get along and that's supposed to be cute. Kind of like just kind of hand wave that away. It didn't feel organic to the show to me in particular, when she kept harping on things when she's on the planet and everybody's like, he can't hear you. We've said this before about some episodes of the original series. This felt like it could have been an animated episode. It could have been 30 minutes and it felt like, oh, they made one for kids. It just, it felt like somebody was like, you know what kids like Jurassic Park. Let's make a Jurassic park episode. You know, I find myself in, in watching Trek sometimes thinking one of the things that Star Trek can really do is be a tremendous ambassador for science in entertainment and really put forward a message of science matters and science is good and science can be fun and cool. Then at the end of this episode, it leaned into the kind of very outdated cartoonish representation of the dinosaur era with the flyover where as many dinosaurs as you can possibly imagine are crammed in practically shoulder to shoulder in a way that doesn't make sense. Like you go, if you go to Africa, you don't see lions standing next to zebras standing next to giraffes standing next to hippos.

Like you have to go to discrete areas to find all of those creatures. And even if you're looking for them, you might not find them. The depiction of this, and my wife happened to be there in the room during that and she was like, is this new? And I said, yes. And she said, then why aren't they showing a current representation of what scientists actually think dinosaurs look like? And I was like, that's a really good question. It felt like they were just relying on old style entertainment gimmicks as opposed to doing anything new. And then as you mentioned, the logic of the last half of the episode right down to the oh my God, should I save that planet? Should I stop the antimatter bomb? How is nobody saying the obvious? You got Spock right there. The episode could have if you're going to be. And here's the thing, I wrote a novel about time travel and time travel shenanigans. I like to think I did a good job with it. I like to think it's interesting. The story they told here struck me as a uninteresting. It didn't feel like it amounted to anything because how can you have anything but a foregone conclusion about what is going to happen? The interesting part, they completely hand wave away and give it short shrift afterward. Why not make the episode be a full like act of characters debating, do we have a moral obligation to protect ourselves via becoming a reality in the future? Or do we have a moral obligation in the moment to save lives that are here now? That could have been an incredible Is it morally okay to travel back in time to kill baby Hitler episode? The obligation as a storyteller is to bring something new and engaging out of the circumstances. Not just describe the circumstances.

They relied on nothing but the circumstances in this one.

Matt Ferrell: But that's exactly why by the end, the halfway point I got angry at the show was because they have this alien race that's the Martians, who are super advanced. They're like a full on space faring civilization. And you could have. It was like right there. It was right there, guys, right there. You can make a clear argument of maybe we should save them and damn ourselves. This is what Starfleet's about. Talk about self sacrifice. What could have been if they flourished because they were already on the way to doing that. It's like you could have had a very interesting debate happen around that never happened. Never came up once. It was just, oh, we gotta help them. It's like, well, the future. Let's have the Picard moment in the ready room debating with number one as to like what to do. It's like, where is that moment? It never happened. So by the halfway point it was just like it went from a light fluffy. I was having fun with the characters to oh come on, facepalming myself every five minutes of like, please stop, make this stop. It just. It was like two for me. It was two sides of a. I could have forgiven the fluffiness if it got meaty at the end. Yeah, but it never got meaty at the end. It just went off the rails completely. We're not doing the second episode today, but have you watched the second episode?

Sean Ferrell: I have not.

Matt Ferrell: Okay. What I will say I much more enjoyed episode two. So don't look at this as like, oh God, what are we in for? For eight episodes. Episode two, I thought was a much better episode. But we'll get into that in the next chat. But I just want to put that out here for anybody that's like, oh God, here we go again. Like, no, no, no, this is just a bad episode. And in the original series we've been going after bad episode after bad episode after bad episode. So it's like it happens.

Sean Ferrell: And previous seasons of strange new worlds have had clunkers. We had conversations last season where we were like, this one didn't land well. I think this is one that didn't land well. And perhaps they put it forward because it was. And here's where I was headed with my next comment. This is a well rendered episode. So like everything I'm saying about like the logic of the story and what they were trying to do with like, oh my gosh, like if they don't do this, then humanity will never exist. Like, eh, we've seen that a thousand times. But what they did do really well were things like the depiction of the away party encountering a T. Rex. I thought was, that was great, that was well done. I thought that the special effects around number one trying to like stun it by shooting it in its mouth, that was exciting. And the whole humor of her standing up behind it and going like, I got it. Like, that was that I enjoyed. And then I agree that they. The stuff I didn't like between Scotty and the pilot was between Scotty and the pilot. The other stuff I did enjoy, the leaning into Pelia where she's referencing the Doctor. Some of the most fun going down a rabbit hole to study your own navel sort of arguments I saw online was a Blue sky thread in which people were arguing, which doctor do you think she was the companion to? And I thought that that was a really fun little, you know, people making arguments. And the consensus seemed to be like, oh, she would have been a Tom Baker lady. Like, she would have been with Tom Baker. Which, like, really did warm my heart because I like to think of Carol Kane as somebody who would have been riffing really well with a Tom Baker doctor. That really would have been fun to save. And I know that there is equal fandom on the part of the producers of both programs.

And there has been talk of if we can figure out a way make it work, a crossover. And I find myself thinking, I really hope they do that and do some fun de aging shenanigans with Carol Kane's character, because I think it would be fun to de age her, even if she's with the current Doctor. So it's like the possibilities there, I think, get my nerd juices going. So this episode was not one that left me completely cold. It was just like, oh, the things that are supposed to be the most fun are the things I tend to find the least interesting. Showing me the special effects, showing me dinosaurs running through the jungle, showing me like, okay, you're doing those things well, but that's not enough. I wanted, like you mentioned, like the Picard moment of the debate, having a conversation in which somebody says, I don't agree with you, Captain. That's compelling drama. As opposed to everybody scrambling to say they stole our antimatter. And then at the end it, you know, like the kind of. You have this time travel moment, you have Spock saying, like, if we don't escape this wave, it will be enough energy for us to get back home potentially. And then you get back home. And the one thing that I was like, okay, this is like the fan servicey moment that I did appreciate where they are all ordered to keep this entire experience under their hat. So again, Star Trek, strange new worlds informing the original series. When Kirk turns to Spock for the first time and says, time travel, is that even possible? And Spock's response is, theoretically, if you have enough energy, you could do it. And it's just like, okay, so they've now, yeah, reclaimed a moment that Spock would be able to say, like time travel, gosh, and still have had this experience. So I'm like, I'm like, I, I appreciate that thought went into the episode, thought goes into these. And they care about continuity.

So I appreciate that. It's just, I found myself feeling like, I hope they put this one forward because they were like, okay, there's not a lot of meat on this bone, but it's fun to look at and it might get a lot of families engaged with the season and we'll keep the better episodes in the hopper for the middle of the season. So I've just found myself thinking in those terms because in previous seasons I remember the clunkers kind of coming toward the middle of the season and thinking, oh, how disappointing. So maybe this time around they were like, let's get this one out in front. You know, get past it. So we'll see. Is there anything else you wanted to say about this one before we wrap it up?

Matt Ferrell: I wanted to ask you a question. I was like, we always try to watch the, the episodes obviously, like in context of the time. And I was just thinking when I was watching this episode, is there anything about this episode that jumps out at

Sean Ferrell: me as this is a product of

Matt Ferrell: our time and because it was so dumb, I don't know if there was a clear thing that jumped out at me. Was there anything that jumped out at you?

Sean Ferrell: I couldn't help but wonder if we are seeing the first fingerprints of the new ownership of Paramount. They lean pro trump and Star Trek historically is a more progressive vision of the future. And I couldn't help but wonder if we're seeing some pressure from the ownership of the Star Trek IP to say, let's just lean into action and do away with deeper stuff. So that's, that's where I feel like if our era is leaving a footprint right now in this episode, that's where I think it might be.

Matt Ferrell: We'll have to assess the coming episodes to see if that feeling continues again. I've watched the second episode. So it's like, I don't want to

Sean Ferrell: give anything away, but yeah, it's interesting. But I do appreciate that footnote to my comment, because my comment is in a vacuum of just one episode. I found myself thinking like, is this the dumbing down of Trek? And maybe it's not, because maybe the next episode is one where just like two guys locked in a room talking about philosophy for an hour and like, okay, I'm ready for it. So, yeah, it's, it's that. That would be up my alley. That's. That's kind of like my bread and butter. Everything I just said is, should be taken with a pound of salt. Because I do believe deeply, we cannot fully analyze the era that we live in. We need time in the equation because emotions and personal subjective stance in trying to take in the world paints too many pictures and we cannot fully analyze the moment. We can never be truly objective. And I do believe that, that the value of trying to assess what's going on, I'm not saying you shouldn't put energy toward that, but it's really, really hard to contextualize the moment you're standing in. Five or ten years from now, we'll look back on this episode and we might say, oh, look at what it was doing. How 2026. That's maybe the biggest takeaway from brand new episodes that we're looking at, is that we are, you and I, in our analysis and conversations, are as much of the episode as the episode itself, because we are in this moment with it. People 10 years from now, including us, might look at this very conversation and say, how 2026 of them. That's all to say. Tune in next week, folks, when we're talking about the Griffin incident, which originally broadcast on July 30th. Yes, that's also in the past. I don't think we're going to catch up in real time, folks.

What did you think about this episode? Did you agree with Matt and me that maybe dinosaurs and time travel felt a little been there, done that? Is that a time travel joke? I don't know. Or did you find yourself engaged by this and you were happy to see all the storytelling that was given to us in this first episode? Jump into the comments, let us know. We'd love to hear what you have to say. Especially if you love this, let us know. Matt and I are just two guys, you know, trying to make a podcast. We don't know what the hell we're doing. As always, liking, subscribing, commenting, sharing with your friends. Those are all very easy ways for you to support the podcast. If you'd like to support us more directly, you can go to trekintime.show. Click the join button there. Not only does it allow you to throw coins at our heads, but it'll make you an Ensign. Which means you'll be signed up for our spin off show Out of Time, in which we talk about that things that don't fit within the confines of this program. We hope you'll be interested in checking it out.

As always, thank you so much everybody for taking the time to watch or listen and we'll talk to you next time.