Matt and Sean talk about when the victimized fight back against the bullies, and yes you’ve seen this before.
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Hey, everybody welcome to trek in time the podcast that takes a look at star trek in order and in history as you’ve probably heard me rattle on before what that means is we’re watching all of Star Trek all in 1 sitting. No, that’s a different podcast. That’s the. Please kill me now podcast this is the podcast we’re watching all of star trek in chronological order. So we’ve started with enterprise which in the trek universe is the earliest point in trek history and we’re watching each episode in order and we’re also talking about. What was going on in our world at the time of the original broadcast and I’m not using the royal we here I only use the royal wee here at home in the podcast when I say we I mean me Sean Farrell I’m a writer I write some sci-fi or it’s some stuff for kids and with me is my brother Matthew he is. The inquisitor and guru behind the Youtube channel undecided with Matt Farrell which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives Matt how are you doing my holiday was rife with tension and family fun tension in the forum of.
I’m doing pretty well how was your ah christmas.
That sounds like yeah.
Covid is is it. It is entered the the circles around us some immediate family contracted covid and so we had concerns about that. It thankfully was mild thanks to the vaccines and boosters and other than that. Get togethers with families still did happen and those were lovely and exciting and heartwarming. So everything that we wanted from the holiday on that side even though it was muted by concerns about what’s going on in the larger world and with family members. Um, and here we are now at the cusp. Of 2022 talk about time travel at the time of recording this. We’re standing in 2021 but by the time people are listening to this. It’s going to be the future future future future. So any big plans for this new year’s
It’s It’s next year.
Usual thing in by bed into bed by 9 and sound asleep by midnight. That’s right? So today we’re gonna be talking about the episode marauders from enterprise and.
Yes, you know me so well. Sean.
Matt you want to give us a quick synopsis of this episode.
Sure while in search of Deerium Enterprise Discovers a mining colony that is being controlled by Klingons who are bullying the inhabitants and hoarding their supplies. The crew conduct repairs on the colony and train the colonists to fight off the klingons.
That pretty much sums it up and believe it or not that was the Wikipedia entry as written. So this episode had a Wikipedia fan who was just like let me make this grammatically correct.
Actually good.
Before we get into that conversation though. Let’s take a look at some previous episode comments Matt I understand you’ve picked out something for us to talk about here.
Yeah I picked this one out. Um, this came from Aj Chan on a recent one of our recent videos. Not the last one but like a couple of videos before and I thought this was funny to call out just for the time of year that we’re in because of the holiday season. Ah this isn’t about enterprise but we could say that star trek generations is kind of a Christmas movie. Giant question Mark it was released before Thanksgiving and depicts a family celebrating Christmas via the nexus tiny whimy shenanigans Picard and Kirk experienced their past present and future like Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol Picard sees an alternate present where he and where he had a family Kirk sees his past with Antonia and is visited by Picard. Who’s like the ghost of Christmas future. yes yes I had never I I wanted to call this out because like I that never even crossed my mind I was like oh my god that it is Charles Dickens told in star trek.
That is a remarkable framing of generations I Really do like that.
Yeah, that really is that’s a pretty cool way to to look at it especially when you consider the first contact is Moby dick it. It kind of makes sense that the writers may have been looking at that as as a way to frame like take some piece of literature and put star trek into it. And that’s a really I’m definitely going to enjoy thinking about that when we do our rewatch of generations which if we stick on the current schedule. We should be doing sometime in 2027. So.
Yes.
So for today’s episode marauders as Matt said klingons they’re back and they’re better than ever deuterium. It’s back. It’s better than ever and colonists. They’re back and just as whiny as ever. This episode was written by Rick Berman and Brandon Braggo at the teleplay was done by David Wilcox and this episode aired on October thirtieth 2002 it earned five point six million viewers which is down from the previous week. This episode i. Thought was interestingly originally pitched by gene rodberry back in the original series according to some notes I found online the idea for this episode would have involved at the time. It would have been for the very original crew of the enterprise it would have been captain April would have arrived at a planet that had been effectively beaten back by marauders to a colonial era way of living and the. Crew of the enterprise would have trained these very rustic looking humans into how defend to defend themselves against the marauding aliens. So this is a older story idea. What I thought was most interesting about that as a pitch. For the original series and its existence in this episode and Matt you can let me know if you had the same response to this that I did we’ve seen this story many times before I thought that this episode did a nice job with it.
Yes.
I didn’t as opposed to last week I think regular listeners will remember last week that the night and sick bay felt like 7 nights to me. Um, but this episode while I feel like it’s something that’s kind of a Pat storyline that we’ve seen in it. The mandalorian had an episode like this I believe next generation has an episode like this. Um, it’s a yeah.
Um, it’s a classic old Western story and it’s like that’s that was one of my notes is this feels very original trek and it feels very by the numbers because we’ve seen it so many different times and so many different genres? yep.
It’s the 7 samurai. It’s it’s it is a Pat storyline around the idea of here are the the farmers the homesteaders. The people who see themselves as tradesmen of a certain type being overwhelmed by bullies. And the use of the klingons in this one. How did you feel about that as far as them being the nefarious marauding party.
Well do we want to get into that before putting this in history because we haven’t talked about like what was going on at the time this was aired.
Okay, well I’ll loop back to that. Then. So at the time of airing on October thirtieth 2002 what was the world like well Matt you will remember better than most of us that you were dancing along to skater boy by Averil Levine Matt said there’s a skater boy. Matt said see you later boy and in the theaters and this made me feel strangely old Jackass was the top movie and when I read that I thought how is that not more recent.
Oh yeah.
Or older than this kind of a stunning development to recognize that that movie is suddenly 20 years old and on television which I’m going to start calling for the next few weeks csi watch. Viewer numbers on Csi this week were a paltry twenty nine million. That’s right, 29000000 people were somehow struggling to keep that show on the air and in the news from the New York Times this is a return of what we talked about last episode which in real time. In the world this episode aired two weeks after the previous one and regular listeners will remember that last episode I shared the coverage of the us sniper in the Dc area was currently plaguing. The Dc and Maryland area and causing major concerns on highways in that area. Well at this point they had captured the 2 people responsible and the headline from the New York Times us sniper case seen as a barrier to Confession. State and federal investigators said today that John Muhammad had been talking to them for more than an hour on the day of his arrest in the sniper shootings explaining the roots of his anger when the United States attorney from Maryland told them to deliver him to Baltimore to face federal weapons, charges and forcing them to end their interrogation. The investigators said an Fbi agent and a Maryland detective had begun to develop a rapport with Mr Mohammad the other suspect Lee Malvo 17 was being questioned by a montgomery county detective but was not answering any questions and listeners will remember that I summed up the story. About the snipers in pointing out that mohammed who was 41 at the time had convinced malvo who was 17 that going on a crime spree and becoming snipers was somehow the right way to teach people about corruption in the american system and eventually Mohamed. Would be sentenced to death and he was put to death years after his sentencing so back to the episode of marauders Matt Quick sum up. We find the enterprise short of deuterium in if i. Recall correctly, it’s kind of a lingering element of some of the previous episodes around the the ship repairs that had to be done after the minefield incident so they’re still struggling with repairs and I think that this is an aspect of the of this series where.
Really in the second season Now they’ve they’ve come up with an interesting way of having plots develop out of how far out they are and they don’t want to have to return back to starbases. They don’t want to have to go back to Earth and it’s a nice way of.
Yes, yes I think it’s really interesting.
Of a drip drip drip reminder of these people are not feeling lost in space. But they’re kind of pushing themselves past a limit both. There’s no supply lines. Yeah and they are they are doing this.
There’s no supply lines. They have to figure out their own thing. Yeah.
They had an episode where they revealed that the emotional exhaustion of the crew had reached a critical mass because they had been working nonstop in close quarters for such a long time which led them to Risa. They had the episode which involved the minefield accident and if they had to go back. At a slower warp speed. They would literally be 10 years away from getting home and this is yet another layer to that they are literally bartering for supplies and I thought that that stood out as one of my favorite elements of this.
This.
Yeah, it was for me to it was I like the I like how they’re creating a continuity to the show and the season and the storytelling of how everything it’s kind of got a thread that they’re hanging everything off of but it’s still standalone stories. So it’s not like.
This episode.
You’re going to be lost if you come in at this 1 episode and haven’t seen the previous 3 It’s totally fine. But if you watch them in sequence. It creates a nice like building a nice subtle storyline across the entire season which I think is an improvement over last season which didn’t really do much of that at all.
Yes, I also enjoyed in this episode right? at the beginning you could see it and there was a note in some of the the history of the episode that I found from Bacula referring to this being the largest set that they had on the show. Um, this was shot in a quarry and right at the beginning you get a sense of scale that I think is is really interesting. The the opening shots showing these this small colony of people aliens because of the notable ridges. Um, their forehead classic case of http://startreksuper gluing something to somebody’s face and saying now you’re an alien. But yeah.
Yeah, that was one of my first notes just in gigantic caps I wrote forehead ridges with an exclamation point. It’s like there. We go again.
Yeah, so we see a very clear to us Enterprise shuttlecraft coming in low over the horizon coming in and and flying a discrete distance to a hill behind the colony and settling down while the colonists very understandably. Are watching this with trepidation and talking about is it them and it’s a nice classic setup for a teaser to say oh these people are afraid of somebody but we don’t know who we then get and ah a sequence where we see the back and forth between The. Enterprise and the colonists and I actually really like this scene as Well. For the fact that it is it avoids very typically. You’ll have those moments in Star Trek where somebody shows up who’s an alien to the planet I’m talking about. Crew from the enterprise or from whichever ship that we’re that we’re following along in the show and the aliens are overwhelmingly hey come on in come into my home have dinner with my family. This is my child and this did not feel like that. This felt a little bit like thanks for dropping by you got to go.
Yeah, these guys are.
But this also comes back to what we talked about in the very beginning which is this is a classic western trope and this is typically how it’s handled in the stories. It’s usually the town’s like you’re not wanted here and the guy’s like well what do you mean? I’m not wanted here I’m here to help and kind of keeps prying and figures out what’s going on and helps the town and saves the day.
Um, yeah.
Um, yeah.
Like it’s a very standard trope that we’re seeing play out and my my impression when this episode first started was and you actually brought this to my attention for this specific series. It’s not Brandon and braggga in general. But for this specific series every time their name is on the storyline. Heart sinks a little bit now because it’s like they actually are the the weakest link when it comes to the stories when I saw their name I was like oh here we go and you mentioned earlier about the klingons being the big bad and this storyline this trope. We’ve seen a thousand times which makes sense that roddenberry also was pitching it originally because.
Um, yeah, well the original the original pitch for Star trek. It was wagon trained to the stars. So.
He was a big into space westerns. So it was I felt like yes so this did not shock me at all when you told me that I didn’t know roddenberry pitched this a day a day originally but it all makes sense here’s Brian Braggga with some of the weakest storylines for enterprise. Here’s an old story that they’re pulling out of the archives from roddenberry way back in the day but overall even though I’ll get into the klingon thing in a second. But overall I thought the execution of something we’ve seen again and again was actually really well done I think part of it was the acting I think the actors they got for the people that lived in the town.
Um, yeah.
Very competent, good actors and were able to have subtlety to the performance so it was never over the top. It didn’t feel like people were chewing scenery. It was. It was nice. It was a very well rendered execution of something we’ve seen before so it didn’t bother me too much.
I was particularly impressed by Larry Car as tessek the colony leader I thought he did a really good job of. Portraying the conflicted leader who feels at the same time like it’s his job to keep everybody safe and terrified that he’s not up to the job and right from the beginning the effort to keep everybody safe means.
So.
Don’t rock the vote. We have a system in place where if we just do what we’re told nobody gets killed and we’ve learned a harsh lesson they reveal that in ah previous season and they talk about the mining as seasonal. If my understanding of they’re talking about it is correct. They’ve got 5 years of history on this planet and they refer to three years ago there was an attempt to fight back against the glingons that was totally ineffective. So.
So.
When he first shows up and is talking with the captain archer is he’s a little pushy in this episode.
Yes, very, he’s very confrontational and in people’s faces.
Yeah, and part of that I think is interestingly suggested as born of necessity. He’s begging effectively at the very beginning for deuterium. They’re like we really can’t manage to go very far and. If we leave without deuterium. We potentially could be stranded in space within a few weeks so he’s pushy for that reason. But once he gets the deal which is hard negotiated. They set up a plan. Okay, we’re going to give you certain things off the ship. You’re going to give us the deuterium we need and then we’ll go after that he continues to be a little nosy about why won’t these people be nicer to me.
Yes, yeah, yeah, well he’s he’s It’s clear that he’s reading between the lines that there’s something fishy going on here and he’s trying to get to the bottom of it and it’s It’s just the inquisitiveness of every star Trek show which you can you can kind of excuse.
Um, yeah.
But yeah I took his motivation from the beginning as desperation that he was not going to take no for an answer because they really needed this deuterium and he was can do whatever he needed to do to get it but beyond that it turned into this classic Star Trek I’m just going to keep poking to keep poking around.
I Like the fact too that they had not the captain in isolation but showing other members of the crew also having like their antenna go up about this.
This is.
And that there was not a following up scene where everybody’s reporting to archer about what they’ve seen I like the fact that it was a little bit like the whole experience is kind of pulled back a little bit. The camera’s a little bit back from the interactions in particular Dr. Flox’s conversation with the colonist who is clearly. Colony doctor and the things that she is interested in taking as he is looking at them and he notes effectively. He’s kind of reading between the lines and saying you only need these things if your people are going into combat situations I liked that aspect of it.
Um, well there’s also there’s also the when the discussion comes up when they discover that they are being harassed by klingons and the captain has this great conversation with to Paul where she’s basically taking this classic vulcan stance of like. Should we really get involved in this and the captains saying this is not like a a scenario where we’re messing with somebody’s culture. This is ah a tiny colony that’s a mining colony they’re out in their own. They need help and we can’t just leave them this way I thought it was great when topal said I don’t disagree with you I agree with you and it was and I thought that was a great. Bit of he was expecting a ton of pushback from teal in this decision that he wanted to get involved and when she said that you could kind of see not that it deflated his argument but he was kind of taken aback like ah oh okay, like you could tell that he was kind of surprised that he wasn’t out on a limb by himself.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, some things that stood out for me that were a little eyebrow raising and not in a good vulcan way but in a like really? ah, they’re wearing new away suits which.
So was the entire crew was kind of getting behind the idea of these people need to be helped.
Yeah.
Whenever a new awayuit is introduced I’m always just like but why like classically in the later seasons of enterprise when Kirk suddenly had a something that looked like a greekin inspiredd greenish shirt I was like what happened to what why.
Yeah, yeah.
And remember they have no supply lines they’re running at a deerium but we have ah a guy on board that can tailor us all new suits.
But and yeah, that’s right, they’ve got. They’ve got the fashion Designer Crewman who’s just like captain I’ve been looking at you in that outfit I think you’d look good and Tan. So and then he. Fun on troy and or to or to Paul not Troy sorry about that ah putting to Paul in a skin tight white outfit for a away mission. Perfect. There is clearly nothing about yeah there were also a couple of shots that looked like they were clearly designed to show off.
Different series. Um, yes, let’s go to a dirty planet. Let’s go to dirty planet and we’re white.
Yes, yes.
To Paul’s posterior which made me start thinking of her as to posterior and unfortunate unnecessary again. Please let’s stop doing that. Um, another thing that’s set out immediately and.
Yes.
Thankfully nothing more came of it I wrote down in my notes as soon as the boy in the colony showed up who doesn’t love a kid in a story like this who will immediately become the one that’s put in danger and I was actually very pleased that the episode turned that on its head with.
He doesn’t.
The kid having a conversation with trip. They’re very clearly trying to show this kind of bonding between trip and this kid and showing trip is like all around just like a really good guy like setting him up as like he’s out there and he’s seeing the individuals in the Colony. He’s picking up on the humanity of the moment and he has this nice conversation with the kid where the kid is like I want to help and the entire pushback is the best way for you to help is to stay out of danger because if you’re here we will be focused on you instead of what we have to do and I fully anticipated a moment of.
Yes.
Ah, Klingon Grabs the kid a Klingon is running through the colony with the kid with a knife to his throat like thankfully none of that none of that took place. Ah, but then we get to the klingons and I will admit the first moment we see the Clingon ship I wrote down Klingon Tankership cool.
That that never happened. Yep.
Yes I like they set up that this is a freighter This is not a battleship This is clearly there’s marauders the title of the episode. So it’s like they clearly don’t have a big military backing. They’re not here based on the Klingon Empire they’re just doing their own thing and just being the jerks of the galaxy and so it’s like.
That I thought was really neat.
Um, right.
Enterprise knows they’re on their own. So if we can train these people to stand up for themselves. They can take them on.
Brett. Um, given all of that. What did you think about the depictions of the klingons.
Um, um I didn’t like it. Um I thought it was It didn’t feel like they didn’t feel like classic klingons to me and on top of which the the action sequences and I put those in gigantic air quotes action sequences.
Yeah.
Had some of the worst fighting choreography I’ve ever seen and it didn’t feel believable and here are these gigantic. Yes, it was so bad. Yeah, and and to kind of get go off on tangent a little bit the classic Montage sequence where they’re training the town. How to fight.
And but to Paula had taught them how to move move roll and that’s how you fight a klingon isn’t it.
And they’re doing all the fight sequences. There was 1 bit in all of that I really liked and it was when ah to Paul calls out Travis and says let’s show them how to do this and she hands them the stick and is like okay you know come at me and he gets this worried look and she says don’t worry, you’re not going to hurt me and his response is.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It’s not you that I’m worried about because he knew that to Paul was going to take him down and I just love the fact that here’s this big muscular guy looking at this tiny little vulcan and he knows he’s about to get his butt kicked but again outside of that that entire the way they train them the fighting sequences the way the klingons were represented didn’t feel like the klingons that we got to know through.
Yeah.
Deep space 9 and all the other shows it felt a little off. It didn’t feel like a classic klingon and it felt like you could have put any other alien race in this moment and it would have worked better because they weren’t behaving like klingons.
Yes, yeah.
Right? What we’ve gone through episodes before where we’ve talked about they’ve used and I’m thinking about the episode where the Klingon ship is in the gas giant and slowly breaking up as it falls through the atmosphere there.
Earth.
And my response to that one was like wouldn’t nosikins have made more sense that it’s it’s and I kept thinking the same thing here. This would have been better off as nosikins or my other thought was going the other direction they did have the the sequence where tapa says.
Yes, this would been better for noskins.
I think it’s clear that these are not people who are working with the high command because archer makes what I thought was an interesting like shopping list of here are the favors we’ve done to the klingon so far. Let’s call in a favor and get them to leave these people alone and to Paul points out these people. These klingons are not working with the high command. This is separate group and it sets up an interesting element around the klingon empire that there are maybe factions that there’s some frayed edges to the klingon empire where you have marauders like this I would have I would have appreciated an opportunity to see klingons.
Who.
These klingons all looked like they went to casting and they had a bunch of stunt men line up and they were like okay you 5 guys go put on klingon outfits I would have appreciated if the klingons had been old very young.
Yep.
Or injured like they had been in the military and they couldn’t be in the military anymore because they were maybe once missing a hand or something you know I mean like there’s something about them.
And out of shape I think it would have or injured yeah right set them up as being their klingons but they are not the klingons who are gonna be on the front lines and serving aboard the frontline ships. These are the ones who feel like they are cast off and that is the chip on their shoulder that makes them want to act like the tough guys when they show up and they steal the Deuterium. So I Thought that was a missed opportunity cause it almost feels like what they’re trying to do is demonstrate.. There’s a little bit of nuance to the Klingon empire. Yeah,, there’s the cloing and empire. But then there are these guys out here doing this thing like pirates who are their own thing and their own kind of problem I thought it would have been better casting to show that nuance in the casting choices and then it also makes the final battle seem more realistic because as you pointed out.
Yeah.
Stunt battle here is rather lackluster. It’s a lot of running around a quarry while the klingons don’t act like klingons at all. Um.
Or swing wait one beat move back next person comes in swing. It was like the slow it was like slow motion fighting. It was like it was clear just very rudimentary stagecraft for fighting and it was just like this is this is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Klingons are brutal. This is this is not a brutal fight. This is just 2 people dancing slowly.
Yeah, yeah, but the overall plan involves moving the colony and I thought that the depiction of the crew chipping in I like the fact that you see mayweather on the planet.
Yes.
You wouldn’t need your main pilot at the Helm when you’re not going anywhere and I actually had a little bit of a fan fiction thing in my head around the idea of mayweather volunteering to go down and saying I want to help these people because he and I would have liked there to be a line from him about the fact that. He grew up in long haul freighters where marauders were a known problem so he would connect very deeply with this and it actually made me wonder why isn’t he the main person to connect with that kid as opposed to trip I thought mayweather would have been a better choice for him to have that like look I grew up like you.
Yeah, yeah.
I know when I know what you want to do I know that you want to help but I remember when I was a kid your age. The best thing I could do was stay safe when my family knew I was safe. They could do what they needed to do and I was like missed opportunity there and again a missed opportunity to use Mayweer. They do not utilize him well at.
Um, well they did no, they don’t It’s like that that remember that episode a while back in the season one where there was like it was about his family and his history on shipping That’s as deep as we ever get his character and they never really do anything with him ever again.
All.
He was a great character. They could have done more with but they clearly wanted to focus on trip the captain into Paul and pretty much everybody else is kind of falls to the wayside which is sad.
Yeah, so the captain finally convinces the head of the colony that it’s you’ve got a you’ve got a pushback. You’ve got an opportunity here. We will help you. You’ve got an opportunity to stop this and I love the fact that he says. You teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime and I wanted the colony leader to look at him deeply and say what the hell is a fish is a very yeah.
I know I was waiting for that when he said when he said that like how did that translate for this guy who doesn’t understand an Earth colloquialism. It’s like what the what is going on.
Yeah, you know what we say on my planet to people who live in the middle of a desert you teach a man to fish you’re welcome, but they make this plan to move the colony buildings in the same setup.
Eat a fish.
Closer to the mining facility where the deuterium is and remove the mining equipment so that the the shafts where the deuterium comes out can actually be used as a trap and I thought it was interesting that they referred at 1 point to deuterium when it. Burns will burn almost as hot as almost as hot as plasma and yet when the klingons are trapped in the middle of these spigot to deerium by that logic. They should be incinerated. There’s also the the.
Um, it doesn’t look like that.
Yeah, can can we just talk about that whole I have so this is where the the episode falls apart for me because the whole we’re gonna teach him a lesson and make them leave moment is so not a lesson teaching moment. It was like oh we just had a little bit of a ring of.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like loose flames around them and they’re like oh we’re scared enough to go away but bye and it was like they teleported away. It’s like they couldn’t have just teleported themselves ten feet to the left outside of the flames and then come and killed everybody. It’s like it didn’t make any sense as to like why that would scare them away it.
Yeah. Um, right? Yeah yeah, they even raised that idea in the episode to Paul says to archer if we chase them off this time. What’s to keep what’s to stop them from.
There was nothing scary about that. There was no teaching them a lesson and if.
Um, yeah.
Coming back later and that is never answered. There is never a moment where they’re like well here’s why and I thought of the options for them to legitimately get the klingons to go away included only 2 options blowing up the klingon ship. Or killing the klingons who come down those are the only 2 things they could have done that would legitimately made sense within the confines of the show.
Um, what you could have. Also you could have Also you could have they could have Also they could have actually captured most of the crew and so it’s just the captain is the captain of the klingons is left. They’ve got all the other klingons basically tied up at gunpoint and they’re saying we will do this to you every time you come here. And get out of here. It’s like you could and they could have let them go. It’s like something to show them that we really can stand up to you this trick they pulled is a trick.. It’s like a trick playing football. They will never be able to do that Again. So What are they gonna do next time they never showed that they can actually stand up to them toe to toe they had to trick them into something. No.
Um, right. Right? They did not overpower them they in an effect. Just yeah.
They should have shown. We can actually overpower you not get out of here and if that that was the lesson then it would have worked. This was not a lesson and the fact that they beamed themselves away. My first thought was and they beam right back down and they kill everybody. Yes, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, they being back behind the celebrating group and then everybody’s eviscerated as soon as the enterprise leaves. Yeah, it was definitely didn’t make sense the choreography the search through the colony. All of that felt very. Um, it felt less than star trek. It felt like those Tv shows which aspire to being star trek and you watch them and you’re like oh you’re not even close to being star trek. It felt a little weak like that. But the character moments as a whole like I said at the beginning. Ah.
But how did you feel but but how did you feel about the episode as a whole though.
Felt like we’ve seen this before but overall I thought the execution was well done and even at the end with a kind of goofy Aha we’ve trapped you in our barbecue and now you will leave us alone and the Klingon saying like ah your deuterium isn’t even good for a garbage scow Ha I’ve got you and then they leave and I was just like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, it was fine. It was like I enjoyed this more than I did a night in Sick Bay while a night in Sick Bay was a deeper character dive around flocks and archer and I appreciate those aspects I thought overall as an episode this one. Was slightly above that I felt like okay they executed this standard trope story. Well so.
That’s funny because because like I didn’t mind 9 and 6 bay I can’t kind of liked it I think this is battle on par. It has some serious pitfalls to it but in grand scheme of things. It was enjoyable. I had fun watching it. It didn’t really kind of like leave a bad taste in my mouth other than the. Bad fight sequences and the questionable ending for that wouldn’t scare anybody off, um, other than that though I thought it was a fun episode and better than this. It was better than it should have been based on the paint by number storyline. It was actually better than it should have been.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I agree with you. The acting did a lot they really they put in they put in effort, especially the extras who conveyed a lot of emotional depth to their fear and what they were dealing with in very harsh circumstances I thought they did a lot with with. Not so much on the page. So hats off to all the people who were cast in this episode. So before we get to next episode I have a closing question for everybody and then that question is this if it wasn’t the klingons. Does anybody have a good suggestion other than the nasikins as to who this might have been or like me. Do you have a couple of suggestions around what could they have done to the klingons to make this seem a little bit more within the trek universe as opposed to oh here come the bad guys guess who starts with a k. Let us know in the comments. Next time we’re going to be talking about the episode the seventh Matt I’m going to give people a peek behind the curtain I’m not going to ask you what you think the seventh will be about because guess what we’re recording these episodes back to back. That’s right, you’re going to see these exact same outfits next week because 2 episodes are being recorded at once we both already know what the seventh is about so we hope you’ll tune in at that time and check it out with us Matt before we go is there anything you’d like to remind our listeners about.
Just to check out my Youtube channel undecided with Matt Ferrell talk about sustainable technologies things like solar powered boats and thorium nuclear reactors I talk about all this different kind of cool tech that might be on the horizon. Just check that out.
As for me, please check out my website http://seanferrell.com you can look for my books there find out more about them or you can look for them directly at Amazon Barnes and noble or any bookstore near you or your public library. However, you take a look at them I appreciate your interest. And remember there are ways to directly support this podcast you can visit trekintime show and there is a jar there that allows you to throw coins in it and if we hear those coins land. We greatly appreciate the support. You can. Also if you’re watching this on Youtube just scroll down and find the join button. And join us please remember to leave a comment to subscribe to like the episode share it widely with your friends. All of that really does help the podcast and we hope you’ll come back next time. Thanks so much for listening everybody. We’ll talk to you soon.
I’m doing pretty well how was your ah christmas.
That sounds like yeah.
Covid is is it. It is entered the the circles around us some immediate family contracted covid and so we had concerns about that. It thankfully was mild thanks to the vaccines and boosters and other than that. Get togethers with families still did happen and those were lovely and exciting and heartwarming. So everything that we wanted from the holiday on that side even though it was muted by concerns about what’s going on in the larger world and with family members. Um, and here we are now at the cusp. Of 2022 talk about time travel at the time of recording this. We’re standing in 2021 but by the time people are listening to this. It’s going to be the future future future future. So any big plans for this new year’s
It’s It’s next year.
Usual thing in by bed into bed by 9 and sound asleep by midnight. That’s right? So today we’re gonna be talking about the episode marauders from enterprise and.
Yes, you know me so well. Sean.
Matt you want to give us a quick synopsis of this episode.
Sure while in search of Deerium Enterprise Discovers a mining colony that is being controlled by Klingons who are bullying the inhabitants and hoarding their supplies. The crew conduct repairs on the colony and train the colonists to fight off the klingons.
That pretty much sums it up and believe it or not that was the Wikipedia entry as written. So this episode had a Wikipedia fan who was just like let me make this grammatically correct.
Actually good.
Before we get into that conversation though. Let’s take a look at some previous episode comments Matt I understand you’ve picked out something for us to talk about here.
Yeah I picked this one out. Um, this came from Aj Chan on a recent one of our recent videos. Not the last one but like a couple of videos before and I thought this was funny to call out just for the time of year that we’re in because of the holiday season. Ah this isn’t about enterprise but we could say that star trek generations is kind of a Christmas movie. Giant question Mark it was released before Thanksgiving and depicts a family celebrating Christmas via the nexus tiny whimy shenanigans Picard and Kirk experienced their past present and future like Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol Picard sees an alternate present where he and where he had a family Kirk sees his past with Antonia and is visited by Picard. Who’s like the ghost of Christmas future. yes yes I had never I I wanted to call this out because like I that never even crossed my mind I was like oh my god that it is Charles Dickens told in star trek.
That is a remarkable framing of generations I Really do like that.
Yeah, that really is that’s a pretty cool way to to look at it especially when you consider the first contact is Moby dick it. It kind of makes sense that the writers may have been looking at that as as a way to frame like take some piece of literature and put star trek into it. And that’s a really I’m definitely going to enjoy thinking about that when we do our rewatch of generations which if we stick on the current schedule. We should be doing sometime in 2027. So.
Yes.
So for today’s episode marauders as Matt said klingons they’re back and they’re better than ever deuterium. It’s back. It’s better than ever and colonists. They’re back and just as whiny as ever. This episode was written by Rick Berman and Brandon Braggo at the teleplay was done by David Wilcox and this episode aired on October thirtieth 2002 it earned five point six million viewers which is down from the previous week. This episode i. Thought was interestingly originally pitched by gene rodberry back in the original series according to some notes I found online the idea for this episode would have involved at the time. It would have been for the very original crew of the enterprise it would have been captain April would have arrived at a planet that had been effectively beaten back by marauders to a colonial era way of living and the. Crew of the enterprise would have trained these very rustic looking humans into how defend to defend themselves against the marauding aliens. So this is a older story idea. What I thought was most interesting about that as a pitch. For the original series and its existence in this episode and Matt you can let me know if you had the same response to this that I did we’ve seen this story many times before I thought that this episode did a nice job with it.
Yes.
I didn’t as opposed to last week I think regular listeners will remember last week that the night and sick bay felt like 7 nights to me. Um, but this episode while I feel like it’s something that’s kind of a Pat storyline that we’ve seen in it. The mandalorian had an episode like this I believe next generation has an episode like this. Um, it’s a yeah.
Um, it’s a classic old Western story and it’s like that’s that was one of my notes is this feels very original trek and it feels very by the numbers because we’ve seen it so many different times and so many different genres? yep.
It’s the 7 samurai. It’s it’s it is a Pat storyline around the idea of here are the the farmers the homesteaders. The people who see themselves as tradesmen of a certain type being overwhelmed by bullies. And the use of the klingons in this one. How did you feel about that as far as them being the nefarious marauding party.
Well do we want to get into that before putting this in history because we haven’t talked about like what was going on at the time this was aired.
Okay, well I’ll loop back to that. Then. So at the time of airing on October thirtieth 2002 what was the world like well Matt you will remember better than most of us that you were dancing along to skater boy by Averil Levine Matt said there’s a skater boy. Matt said see you later boy and in the theaters and this made me feel strangely old Jackass was the top movie and when I read that I thought how is that not more recent.
Oh yeah.
Or older than this kind of a stunning development to recognize that that movie is suddenly 20 years old and on television which I’m going to start calling for the next few weeks csi watch. Viewer numbers on Csi this week were a paltry twenty nine million. That’s right, 29000000 people were somehow struggling to keep that show on the air and in the news from the New York Times this is a return of what we talked about last episode which in real time. In the world this episode aired two weeks after the previous one and regular listeners will remember that last episode I shared the coverage of the us sniper in the Dc area was currently plaguing. The Dc and Maryland area and causing major concerns on highways in that area. Well at this point they had captured the 2 people responsible and the headline from the New York Times us sniper case seen as a barrier to Confession. State and federal investigators said today that John Muhammad had been talking to them for more than an hour on the day of his arrest in the sniper shootings explaining the roots of his anger when the United States attorney from Maryland told them to deliver him to Baltimore to face federal weapons, charges and forcing them to end their interrogation. The investigators said an Fbi agent and a Maryland detective had begun to develop a rapport with Mr Mohammad the other suspect Lee Malvo 17 was being questioned by a montgomery county detective but was not answering any questions and listeners will remember that I summed up the story. About the snipers in pointing out that mohammed who was 41 at the time had convinced malvo who was 17 that going on a crime spree and becoming snipers was somehow the right way to teach people about corruption in the american system and eventually Mohamed. Would be sentenced to death and he was put to death years after his sentencing so back to the episode of marauders Matt Quick sum up. We find the enterprise short of deuterium in if i. Recall correctly, it’s kind of a lingering element of some of the previous episodes around the the ship repairs that had to be done after the minefield incident so they’re still struggling with repairs and I think that this is an aspect of the of this series where.
Really in the second season Now they’ve they’ve come up with an interesting way of having plots develop out of how far out they are and they don’t want to have to return back to starbases. They don’t want to have to go back to Earth and it’s a nice way of.
Yes, yes I think it’s really interesting.
Of a drip drip drip reminder of these people are not feeling lost in space. But they’re kind of pushing themselves past a limit both. There’s no supply lines. Yeah and they are they are doing this.
There’s no supply lines. They have to figure out their own thing. Yeah.
They had an episode where they revealed that the emotional exhaustion of the crew had reached a critical mass because they had been working nonstop in close quarters for such a long time which led them to Risa. They had the episode which involved the minefield accident and if they had to go back. At a slower warp speed. They would literally be 10 years away from getting home and this is yet another layer to that they are literally bartering for supplies and I thought that that stood out as one of my favorite elements of this.
This.
Yeah, it was for me to it was I like the I like how they’re creating a continuity to the show and the season and the storytelling of how everything it’s kind of got a thread that they’re hanging everything off of but it’s still standalone stories. So it’s not like.
This episode.
You’re going to be lost if you come in at this 1 episode and haven’t seen the previous 3 It’s totally fine. But if you watch them in sequence. It creates a nice like building a nice subtle storyline across the entire season which I think is an improvement over last season which didn’t really do much of that at all.
Yes, I also enjoyed in this episode right? at the beginning you could see it and there was a note in some of the the history of the episode that I found from Bacula referring to this being the largest set that they had on the show. Um, this was shot in a quarry and right at the beginning you get a sense of scale that I think is is really interesting. The the opening shots showing these this small colony of people aliens because of the notable ridges. Um, their forehead classic case of http://startreksuper gluing something to somebody’s face and saying now you’re an alien. But yeah.
Yeah, that was one of my first notes just in gigantic caps I wrote forehead ridges with an exclamation point. It’s like there. We go again.
Yeah, so we see a very clear to us Enterprise shuttlecraft coming in low over the horizon coming in and and flying a discrete distance to a hill behind the colony and settling down while the colonists very understandably. Are watching this with trepidation and talking about is it them and it’s a nice classic setup for a teaser to say oh these people are afraid of somebody but we don’t know who we then get and ah a sequence where we see the back and forth between The. Enterprise and the colonists and I actually really like this scene as Well. For the fact that it is it avoids very typically. You’ll have those moments in Star Trek where somebody shows up who’s an alien to the planet I’m talking about. Crew from the enterprise or from whichever ship that we’re that we’re following along in the show and the aliens are overwhelmingly hey come on in come into my home have dinner with my family. This is my child and this did not feel like that. This felt a little bit like thanks for dropping by you got to go.
Yeah, these guys are.
But this also comes back to what we talked about in the very beginning which is this is a classic western trope and this is typically how it’s handled in the stories. It’s usually the town’s like you’re not wanted here and the guy’s like well what do you mean? I’m not wanted here I’m here to help and kind of keeps prying and figures out what’s going on and helps the town and saves the day.
Um, yeah.
Um, yeah.
Like it’s a very standard trope that we’re seeing play out and my my impression when this episode first started was and you actually brought this to my attention for this specific series. It’s not Brandon and braggga in general. But for this specific series every time their name is on the storyline. Heart sinks a little bit now because it’s like they actually are the the weakest link when it comes to the stories when I saw their name I was like oh here we go and you mentioned earlier about the klingons being the big bad and this storyline this trope. We’ve seen a thousand times which makes sense that roddenberry also was pitching it originally because.
Um, yeah, well the original the original pitch for Star trek. It was wagon trained to the stars. So.
He was a big into space westerns. So it was I felt like yes so this did not shock me at all when you told me that I didn’t know roddenberry pitched this a day a day originally but it all makes sense here’s Brian Braggga with some of the weakest storylines for enterprise. Here’s an old story that they’re pulling out of the archives from roddenberry way back in the day but overall even though I’ll get into the klingon thing in a second. But overall I thought the execution of something we’ve seen again and again was actually really well done I think part of it was the acting I think the actors they got for the people that lived in the town.
Um, yeah.
Very competent, good actors and were able to have subtlety to the performance so it was never over the top. It didn’t feel like people were chewing scenery. It was. It was nice. It was a very well rendered execution of something we’ve seen before so it didn’t bother me too much.
I was particularly impressed by Larry Car as tessek the colony leader I thought he did a really good job of. Portraying the conflicted leader who feels at the same time like it’s his job to keep everybody safe and terrified that he’s not up to the job and right from the beginning the effort to keep everybody safe means.
So.
Don’t rock the vote. We have a system in place where if we just do what we’re told nobody gets killed and we’ve learned a harsh lesson they reveal that in ah previous season and they talk about the mining as seasonal. If my understanding of they’re talking about it is correct. They’ve got 5 years of history on this planet and they refer to three years ago there was an attempt to fight back against the glingons that was totally ineffective. So.
So.
When he first shows up and is talking with the captain archer is he’s a little pushy in this episode.
Yes, very, he’s very confrontational and in people’s faces.
Yeah, and part of that I think is interestingly suggested as born of necessity. He’s begging effectively at the very beginning for deuterium. They’re like we really can’t manage to go very far and. If we leave without deuterium. We potentially could be stranded in space within a few weeks so he’s pushy for that reason. But once he gets the deal which is hard negotiated. They set up a plan. Okay, we’re going to give you certain things off the ship. You’re going to give us the deuterium we need and then we’ll go after that he continues to be a little nosy about why won’t these people be nicer to me.
Yes, yeah, yeah, well he’s he’s It’s clear that he’s reading between the lines that there’s something fishy going on here and he’s trying to get to the bottom of it and it’s It’s just the inquisitiveness of every star Trek show which you can you can kind of excuse.
Um, yeah.
But yeah I took his motivation from the beginning as desperation that he was not going to take no for an answer because they really needed this deuterium and he was can do whatever he needed to do to get it but beyond that it turned into this classic Star Trek I’m just going to keep poking to keep poking around.
I Like the fact too that they had not the captain in isolation but showing other members of the crew also having like their antenna go up about this.
This is.
And that there was not a following up scene where everybody’s reporting to archer about what they’ve seen I like the fact that it was a little bit like the whole experience is kind of pulled back a little bit. The camera’s a little bit back from the interactions in particular Dr. Flox’s conversation with the colonist who is clearly. Colony doctor and the things that she is interested in taking as he is looking at them and he notes effectively. He’s kind of reading between the lines and saying you only need these things if your people are going into combat situations I liked that aspect of it.
Um, well there’s also there’s also the when the discussion comes up when they discover that they are being harassed by klingons and the captain has this great conversation with to Paul where she’s basically taking this classic vulcan stance of like. Should we really get involved in this and the captains saying this is not like a a scenario where we’re messing with somebody’s culture. This is ah a tiny colony that’s a mining colony they’re out in their own. They need help and we can’t just leave them this way I thought it was great when topal said I don’t disagree with you I agree with you and it was and I thought that was a great. Bit of he was expecting a ton of pushback from teal in this decision that he wanted to get involved and when she said that you could kind of see not that it deflated his argument but he was kind of taken aback like ah oh okay, like you could tell that he was kind of surprised that he wasn’t out on a limb by himself.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, some things that stood out for me that were a little eyebrow raising and not in a good vulcan way but in a like really? ah, they’re wearing new away suits which.
So was the entire crew was kind of getting behind the idea of these people need to be helped.
Yeah.
Whenever a new awayuit is introduced I’m always just like but why like classically in the later seasons of enterprise when Kirk suddenly had a something that looked like a greekin inspiredd greenish shirt I was like what happened to what why.
Yeah, yeah.
And remember they have no supply lines they’re running at a deerium but we have ah a guy on board that can tailor us all new suits.
But and yeah, that’s right, they’ve got. They’ve got the fashion Designer Crewman who’s just like captain I’ve been looking at you in that outfit I think you’d look good and Tan. So and then he. Fun on troy and or to or to Paul not Troy sorry about that ah putting to Paul in a skin tight white outfit for a away mission. Perfect. There is clearly nothing about yeah there were also a couple of shots that looked like they were clearly designed to show off.
Different series. Um, yes, let’s go to a dirty planet. Let’s go to dirty planet and we’re white.
Yes, yes.
To Paul’s posterior which made me start thinking of her as to posterior and unfortunate unnecessary again. Please let’s stop doing that. Um, another thing that’s set out immediately and.
Yes.
Thankfully nothing more came of it I wrote down in my notes as soon as the boy in the colony showed up who doesn’t love a kid in a story like this who will immediately become the one that’s put in danger and I was actually very pleased that the episode turned that on its head with.
He doesn’t.
The kid having a conversation with trip. They’re very clearly trying to show this kind of bonding between trip and this kid and showing trip is like all around just like a really good guy like setting him up as like he’s out there and he’s seeing the individuals in the Colony. He’s picking up on the humanity of the moment and he has this nice conversation with the kid where the kid is like I want to help and the entire pushback is the best way for you to help is to stay out of danger because if you’re here we will be focused on you instead of what we have to do and I fully anticipated a moment of.
Yes.
Ah, Klingon Grabs the kid a Klingon is running through the colony with the kid with a knife to his throat like thankfully none of that none of that took place. Ah, but then we get to the klingons and I will admit the first moment we see the Clingon ship I wrote down Klingon Tankership cool.
That that never happened. Yep.
Yes I like they set up that this is a freighter This is not a battleship This is clearly there’s marauders the title of the episode. So it’s like they clearly don’t have a big military backing. They’re not here based on the Klingon Empire they’re just doing their own thing and just being the jerks of the galaxy and so it’s like.
That I thought was really neat.
Um, right.
Enterprise knows they’re on their own. So if we can train these people to stand up for themselves. They can take them on.
Brett. Um, given all of that. What did you think about the depictions of the klingons.
Um, um I didn’t like it. Um I thought it was It didn’t feel like they didn’t feel like classic klingons to me and on top of which the the action sequences and I put those in gigantic air quotes action sequences.
Yeah.
Had some of the worst fighting choreography I’ve ever seen and it didn’t feel believable and here are these gigantic. Yes, it was so bad. Yeah, and and to kind of get go off on tangent a little bit the classic Montage sequence where they’re training the town. How to fight.
And but to Paula had taught them how to move move roll and that’s how you fight a klingon isn’t it.
And they’re doing all the fight sequences. There was 1 bit in all of that I really liked and it was when ah to Paul calls out Travis and says let’s show them how to do this and she hands them the stick and is like okay you know come at me and he gets this worried look and she says don’t worry, you’re not going to hurt me and his response is.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It’s not you that I’m worried about because he knew that to Paul was going to take him down and I just love the fact that here’s this big muscular guy looking at this tiny little vulcan and he knows he’s about to get his butt kicked but again outside of that that entire the way they train them the fighting sequences the way the klingons were represented didn’t feel like the klingons that we got to know through.
Yeah.
Deep space 9 and all the other shows it felt a little off. It didn’t feel like a classic klingon and it felt like you could have put any other alien race in this moment and it would have worked better because they weren’t behaving like klingons.
Yes, yeah.
Right? What we’ve gone through episodes before where we’ve talked about they’ve used and I’m thinking about the episode where the Klingon ship is in the gas giant and slowly breaking up as it falls through the atmosphere there.
Earth.
And my response to that one was like wouldn’t nosikins have made more sense that it’s it’s and I kept thinking the same thing here. This would have been better off as nosikins or my other thought was going the other direction they did have the the sequence where tapa says.
Yes, this would been better for noskins.
I think it’s clear that these are not people who are working with the high command because archer makes what I thought was an interesting like shopping list of here are the favors we’ve done to the klingon so far. Let’s call in a favor and get them to leave these people alone and to Paul points out these people. These klingons are not working with the high command. This is separate group and it sets up an interesting element around the klingon empire that there are maybe factions that there’s some frayed edges to the klingon empire where you have marauders like this I would have I would have appreciated an opportunity to see klingons.
Who.
These klingons all looked like they went to casting and they had a bunch of stunt men line up and they were like okay you 5 guys go put on klingon outfits I would have appreciated if the klingons had been old very young.
Yep.
Or injured like they had been in the military and they couldn’t be in the military anymore because they were maybe once missing a hand or something you know I mean like there’s something about them.
And out of shape I think it would have or injured yeah right set them up as being their klingons but they are not the klingons who are gonna be on the front lines and serving aboard the frontline ships. These are the ones who feel like they are cast off and that is the chip on their shoulder that makes them want to act like the tough guys when they show up and they steal the Deuterium. So I Thought that was a missed opportunity cause it almost feels like what they’re trying to do is demonstrate.. There’s a little bit of nuance to the Klingon empire. Yeah,, there’s the cloing and empire. But then there are these guys out here doing this thing like pirates who are their own thing and their own kind of problem I thought it would have been better casting to show that nuance in the casting choices and then it also makes the final battle seem more realistic because as you pointed out.
Yeah.
Stunt battle here is rather lackluster. It’s a lot of running around a quarry while the klingons don’t act like klingons at all. Um.
Or swing wait one beat move back next person comes in swing. It was like the slow it was like slow motion fighting. It was like it was clear just very rudimentary stagecraft for fighting and it was just like this is this is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Klingons are brutal. This is this is not a brutal fight. This is just 2 people dancing slowly.
Yeah, yeah, but the overall plan involves moving the colony and I thought that the depiction of the crew chipping in I like the fact that you see mayweather on the planet.
Yes.
You wouldn’t need your main pilot at the Helm when you’re not going anywhere and I actually had a little bit of a fan fiction thing in my head around the idea of mayweather volunteering to go down and saying I want to help these people because he and I would have liked there to be a line from him about the fact that. He grew up in long haul freighters where marauders were a known problem so he would connect very deeply with this and it actually made me wonder why isn’t he the main person to connect with that kid as opposed to trip I thought mayweather would have been a better choice for him to have that like look I grew up like you.
Yeah, yeah.
I know when I know what you want to do I know that you want to help but I remember when I was a kid your age. The best thing I could do was stay safe when my family knew I was safe. They could do what they needed to do and I was like missed opportunity there and again a missed opportunity to use Mayweer. They do not utilize him well at.
Um, well they did no, they don’t It’s like that that remember that episode a while back in the season one where there was like it was about his family and his history on shipping That’s as deep as we ever get his character and they never really do anything with him ever again.
All.
He was a great character. They could have done more with but they clearly wanted to focus on trip the captain into Paul and pretty much everybody else is kind of falls to the wayside which is sad.
Yeah, so the captain finally convinces the head of the colony that it’s you’ve got a you’ve got a pushback. You’ve got an opportunity here. We will help you. You’ve got an opportunity to stop this and I love the fact that he says. You teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime and I wanted the colony leader to look at him deeply and say what the hell is a fish is a very yeah.
I know I was waiting for that when he said when he said that like how did that translate for this guy who doesn’t understand an Earth colloquialism. It’s like what the what is going on.
Yeah, you know what we say on my planet to people who live in the middle of a desert you teach a man to fish you’re welcome, but they make this plan to move the colony buildings in the same setup.
Eat a fish.
Closer to the mining facility where the deuterium is and remove the mining equipment so that the the shafts where the deuterium comes out can actually be used as a trap and I thought it was interesting that they referred at 1 point to deuterium when it. Burns will burn almost as hot as almost as hot as plasma and yet when the klingons are trapped in the middle of these spigot to deerium by that logic. They should be incinerated. There’s also the the.
Um, it doesn’t look like that.
Yeah, can can we just talk about that whole I have so this is where the the episode falls apart for me because the whole we’re gonna teach him a lesson and make them leave moment is so not a lesson teaching moment. It was like oh we just had a little bit of a ring of.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like loose flames around them and they’re like oh we’re scared enough to go away but bye and it was like they teleported away. It’s like they couldn’t have just teleported themselves ten feet to the left outside of the flames and then come and killed everybody. It’s like it didn’t make any sense as to like why that would scare them away it.
Yeah. Um, right? Yeah yeah, they even raised that idea in the episode to Paul says to archer if we chase them off this time. What’s to keep what’s to stop them from.
There was nothing scary about that. There was no teaching them a lesson and if.
Um, yeah.
Coming back later and that is never answered. There is never a moment where they’re like well here’s why and I thought of the options for them to legitimately get the klingons to go away included only 2 options blowing up the klingon ship. Or killing the klingons who come down those are the only 2 things they could have done that would legitimately made sense within the confines of the show.
Um, what you could have. Also you could have Also you could have they could have Also they could have actually captured most of the crew and so it’s just the captain is the captain of the klingons is left. They’ve got all the other klingons basically tied up at gunpoint and they’re saying we will do this to you every time you come here. And get out of here. It’s like you could and they could have let them go. It’s like something to show them that we really can stand up to you this trick they pulled is a trick.. It’s like a trick playing football. They will never be able to do that Again. So What are they gonna do next time they never showed that they can actually stand up to them toe to toe they had to trick them into something. No.
Um, right. Right? They did not overpower them they in an effect. Just yeah.
They should have shown. We can actually overpower you not get out of here and if that that was the lesson then it would have worked. This was not a lesson and the fact that they beamed themselves away. My first thought was and they beam right back down and they kill everybody. Yes, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, they being back behind the celebrating group and then everybody’s eviscerated as soon as the enterprise leaves. Yeah, it was definitely didn’t make sense the choreography the search through the colony. All of that felt very. Um, it felt less than star trek. It felt like those Tv shows which aspire to being star trek and you watch them and you’re like oh you’re not even close to being star trek. It felt a little weak like that. But the character moments as a whole like I said at the beginning. Ah.
But how did you feel but but how did you feel about the episode as a whole though.
Felt like we’ve seen this before but overall I thought the execution was well done and even at the end with a kind of goofy Aha we’ve trapped you in our barbecue and now you will leave us alone and the Klingon saying like ah your deuterium isn’t even good for a garbage scow Ha I’ve got you and then they leave and I was just like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, it was fine. It was like I enjoyed this more than I did a night in Sick Bay while a night in Sick Bay was a deeper character dive around flocks and archer and I appreciate those aspects I thought overall as an episode this one. Was slightly above that I felt like okay they executed this standard trope story. Well so.
That’s funny because because like I didn’t mind 9 and 6 bay I can’t kind of liked it I think this is battle on par. It has some serious pitfalls to it but in grand scheme of things. It was enjoyable. I had fun watching it. It didn’t really kind of like leave a bad taste in my mouth other than the. Bad fight sequences and the questionable ending for that wouldn’t scare anybody off, um, other than that though I thought it was a fun episode and better than this. It was better than it should have been based on the paint by number storyline. It was actually better than it should have been.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I agree with you. The acting did a lot they really they put in they put in effort, especially the extras who conveyed a lot of emotional depth to their fear and what they were dealing with in very harsh circumstances I thought they did a lot with with. Not so much on the page. So hats off to all the people who were cast in this episode. So before we get to next episode I have a closing question for everybody and then that question is this if it wasn’t the klingons. Does anybody have a good suggestion other than the nasikins as to who this might have been or like me. Do you have a couple of suggestions around what could they have done to the klingons to make this seem a little bit more within the trek universe as opposed to oh here come the bad guys guess who starts with a k. Let us know in the comments. Next time we’re going to be talking about the episode the seventh Matt I’m going to give people a peek behind the curtain I’m not going to ask you what you think the seventh will be about because guess what we’re recording these episodes back to back. That’s right, you’re going to see these exact same outfits next week because 2 episodes are being recorded at once we both already know what the seventh is about so we hope you’ll tune in at that time and check it out with us Matt before we go is there anything you’d like to remind our listeners about.
Just to check out my Youtube channel undecided with Matt Ferrell talk about sustainable technologies things like solar powered boats and thorium nuclear reactors I talk about all this different kind of cool tech that might be on the horizon. Just check that out.
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