Matt and Sean talk about raising the issue of women being dismissed, belittled and ignored, but also ensuring it’s all their head.
YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/trekintime
Audio version of the podcast: https://www.trekintime.show
Get in touch: https://trekintime.show/contact
Follow us on Twitter: @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmf
I’m good. How are you doing.
Wasn’t super duper crazy about the episode. But I think it has some interesting things to talk about.
Yeah, yeah.
And I’ve already given the spoiler about not being super crazy about the episode. But what episode am I talking about I’m talking about the episode vanishing point Matt do you want to give us a lovely brief on point synopsis from Wikipedia which we had recently been saying just last week
Good job.
It’s almost as if somebody is going through and revising these before we get to them because they’ve been pretty good lately and then we get to this one Matt.
Here we go hoshi is on home way mission which requires teleportation for evacuation. Hoshi is the communications officer aboard the starship Nx o 1 enterprise on this television show set in the twenty second century the star trek science fiction universe
Yes.
On this television show I like that the episode explores one of the classic staples of the star trek universe a transporter gone wrong theme enign Hoshi Sato passes through the transporter and finds that she is slowly disappearing at the same time she is the only person who can see aliens planting explosives in ah in key systems. With no way to warn the crew on this television show. That’s great. There’s some good writing and right there.
Um, ah yes I think my favorite part I think my favorite part is opening up with Hoshi’s on an away mission. Oh by the way Hoshi’s the communications officer board.
Who’s hoshi.
This starship which is on this tv show and I also like that it implies that the star trek science fiction universe has twenty second has a twenty second century not our universe or the universe in general but just their universe but enough of that Wikipedia.
Their universe. Yes, yes.
As usual, you magnificent bastard you’re doing a great job. This episode was directed by David Straton he also did the episode a night in Sick Bay which from a directorial perspective Matt and I both agreed was really done top notch and this episode was written by Rick Berman and Bri and braga. It aired originally on November Twenty Seventh Two thousand and two it had a viewership of about three point seven million viewers which was down by a million but this is let’s all remember where we were on November Twenty seven two thousand and two mad I know you know where you were.
Exactly where it was.
That’s right, it was the night before Thanksgiving viewership on television pretty much across the board is probably not going to be super duper high the night before Thanksgiving so we can forgive them for having lost a million viewers and there’s even a theory. Ah.
Not good.
About this episode being dropped on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving that maybe they knew they didn’t have the best episode so they kind of pushed it in there to get it out of the way. What was the world like when this episode aired well Matt you were still trying to lose yourself with the song lose yourself by m and m. This is of course his hit song from the movie eight mile which had premiered two weeks earlier so it took a couple weeks for the song to take hold but it is still a song that is recognizable and given that we have the super bowl in the offing. And I believe eminem is going to be part of the hi time show wouldn’t surprise me if we hear some of lose yourself in that performance. The number one movie at the box office at the time was die another day which opened with 47000000 this marked James Bond’s franchise fortieth anniversary.
Is.
And the film included references to each of the preceding films and featured hallieberry as jinx and I’ve always been disappointed that the plans to create a jinx spinoff film never happened and it happened because at this point the production company the producers behind the James.
Never happened.
Bond films decided they would effectively reboot the franchise and of course the movies that have come out since that reboot have been phenomenal I would argue the best James Bond films around but it is disappointing to know that hallieberry was standing there waiting for a jinx film which I think could have been a lot of fun. And a really great addition to her very strong filmography and as I mentioned this was on television the day before Thanksgiving and what else was on the day before Thanksgiving. Well this show was struggling. With its viewership but not all the shows that were opposite would have struggled with their viewership including survivor which had 12000000 viewers the Bernie Max show had 7000000 viewers so twice as many as enterprise the.
Wow! yeah.
Show Birds of Prey had almost as many viewers as Enterprise it was just able to beat it and when I read that birds of Prey was in almost close contention I forgot that birds of Prey was even a thing yes and then there’s this little nugget.
Um, I forget I forgot about birds of Prey completely.
The tv special Tim Mcgraw sing me home. Yes, Tim Mcgraw got 10000000 viewers so but other than birds of prey what was enterprise able to beat. Well there was a candid camera episode which only got 800000 viewers so
Of course he did.
Take that candid camera.
They beat that handily. That’s right, but the number 1 show that week everybody loves Raymond and I don’t say that as a statement I say that as the title of the show. Everybody loves Raymond had 20000000 viewers the number 1 show that week and in the news from the New York Times um this day the day before Thanksgiving 2002 a new federal rule tightens demands on failing schools children attending public schools deemed failing under a new federal law have to be offered transfers to better schools regardless of whether those schools are already full according to final regulations released today by the federal election department. New regulations which are more stringent than expected could leave hundreds of districts scrambling for alternative places for children who want to transfer out of poorly functioning schools. This was part of the no child left behind act. This is something that is still causing some consternation in various places around the country. And it is a rule that has led to testing at schools which I can tell you from personal experience in my household with my child those tests confuse the kids. So but onto the episode. Big picture. How did you feel about this I’ve already given my thoughts about what was going on but what did you think.
I Overall I did like it even though as we’ll discuss coming up. There were some significant issues I had problems with but on the whole I was entertained not not high praise but I was. Entertained.
So the episode centers around as the Wikipedia is already sussed out Hoshi is involved in a transporter accident she and commander tucker are on an away mission. They are on a planet deep in a cave and they are studying. Iconography which has been left behind in the cave and trying to decipher it what I really liked about this moment is there is no way in the world that any explorer. Upon first finding of iconography in a cave that is thousands of years old from a culture. They have no experience with on literally an alien planet I don’t care who ho she is the idea that she is standing there trying to quote decipher these is ridiculous.
The.
It could have been far Simpler just to say they’re taking lots of pictures and they’re doing lots of studies and research don’t make it don’t make it a don’t make it don’t make it goofy to the point of we want to decipher these So let’s send our communications officer.
No Sean you have to do it real time you have to do it in real time you cannot do it back on the ship.
And our chief engineer makes perfect sense Anyway, I will push that to the side and simply say while they’re on the planet a massive storm pops out of nowhere I did like this element of this episode that the and it’s.
Trip would have never been done down there.
It’s effectively. It’s It’s a thrown away thing. It is. It’s ah a plot element mainly to put them in danger to cause the issue to get them in a hurry to get off the planet. Ah but I like the idea that they are on a planet which is has. Extremely turbulent atmosphere that they are not accustomed to and the speed with which the storm pops up and then redirects another storm right? toward their location I thought was something that Star Trek doesn’t really throw at the into the stories often enough I mean.
The.
A straightforward survival story. At this point I thought would have been fascinating like a storm comes out of nowhere and they literally are in a position where they have to try and survive and I had forgotten about this episode. So at this point when the storm pops up, they’re told by the ship you guys got to get back. And they make the argument. Well this cave is actually very very deep and it’s possible that we could be safe here I envisioned where the show was going to go. It’s going to be the 2 of them going deeper into the cave trying to survive and ho she would over time. Be again to decipher some of the iconography. In ways that would help them survive.
That would have been a more interesting storyline but it’s also something they kind of did in season one when they took refuge in the cave. Yeah.
Yeah, they kind of they took refuge in a cave but it was the element of her doing her job in order to get them out of trouble I thought would have been where the story was going. It is not where it headed where it headed instead was well. We need to get back to the shuttle craft. No, you’re not going to make it in time and taking off in this storm is going to be next to impossible. We’re going to use the transporter Matt and I were literally last week saying this show seems to have largely forgotten that they have a transporter and.
Forgotten about the transporter. Yeah.
I find it a little disappointing that the first time they remember they have a transporter. The transporter is the entire point of the story instead of it just being a tool on the ship.
The 1 thing I will say about this one as we’re going to discuss the fact that the transporter is still so new and everybody’s so afraid of it does kind of remind you why they didn’t jump straight to the transporter in that previous episode but given how bad things were going in the previous s episode.
Yes.
Somebody should have said hey guys what about that transporter. But the fact they didn’t is still inexcusable but I did like how they hammered the point home of this is everybody’s terrified of this thing. Nobody wants to go through it.
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I’m fine with them being terrified of it I’m I’m fine with them saying like nobody wants to go through it. Ah, the times that they’ve forgotten about it have also been at times when it would have literally been inanimate objects being transported. Yeah, so like like a communicator so it’s like that that becomes the problem.
Like a communicator. Yeah yeah.
Um, but they end up reluctantly agreeing that they need to use the transporter and Tucker has to offer to go first because Hoshi is so nervous about the idea of being transported. He goes first she goes second she arrives. And things seem to be fine. They’ve gotten off the planet. It is not too long though before we begin to see that Hoshi’s experience has had a some kind of impact which she is. Interpreting as something has changed. She doesn’t feel right? She doesn’t feel like herself at this point, the episode becomes a little bit of a psychological examination toying with. Is something legitimately happening to her or is she simply experiencing something which is psychologically based.
Well this this goes back this goes back to like what you’ve talked about in numerous episodes. It’s a horror movie. This is a horror movie. It’s like body horror. It’s like is she going insane or is this actually happening to her and it’s actually happening to her oh my god how do you fix this? It’s like that whole juxposition of those 2 things. It’s really terrifying and.
Um, yeah.
I Personally I don’t think they play that up enough in this episode they could have gone harder at the is it happening or is it just in her head they could have played that harder. It was a little too fast and loose for my taste.
Right. Well I think that one of the I. I Think to allow us to discuss the episode in the way that I think we want to I think that just a very very condensed synopsis of the overall episode will get us out of the way of the plot element so that we can get into the discussion and so ah. Effectively she is experiencing feeling like something is not right, including feeling like she’s seeing ah a birthmark on her face seems to have moved. She’s concerned that at a molecular leg level something has changed.
There are um, there are moments where people don’t seem to be seeing her or hearing her when she’s talking to them directly.
She goes right? It’s and those situations are always a little bit uneasy to interpret. It’s a crowded room. She walks up to a table where to Paul is reading. She walks up to a table where a bunch of people are engaged in conversation. Are they simply caught up with each other or are they not in fact, seeing her. She goes to the doctor. She complains to the doctor who is very quick to dismiss it as psychological nervousness she moves then. Further into experiences which begin to be doors won’t open for her. She finally is in a moment with trip where she is in an exercise room and they have it’s again, one of those moments where they put something into an episode where you think. They really spent a lot of money to put that in the show instead of yeah trip is put inside a centrifuge sort of exercise device which I yeah, that’s an entertainment ride and it spins in all three axes. So.
Are you talking about the spinning thing that trip is in.
It’s like that wouldn’t be any kind of exercise. That’s an entertainment ride.
He is effectively spinning in every direction based on how he shifts his body weight exercise. Okay I guess meanwhile she’s trying to use the free weights and it’s in this room that she has now the first experience of actually her hand. Moving through matter she has the difficulty of actually grasping things earlier on she was trying to take a shower. She got lost in her reflection. She she sees herself become transparent. So now she is having it’s gone beyond a guessing game of is something happening. We as the viewer are privy to her experience. So we give it the legitimacy of an objective observer. It is happening. She’s having difficulty trans she’s having trouble communicating this to the people around her while all of that is happening.
Right.
She’s also she’s also having she’s also having lost time where she will wake up and she’s you know, 2 hours late for ah her her crew duty and it’s her her shift.
Her Yes, her her shift and she is also struggling with work and this is the through line that I think is the most intriguing about this and I wish it had been. I’m not quite sure in what ways it could have been magnified or if it needed to be magnified but I looked at this as a the metaphor being a woman in the workplace a woman in the world is experiencing. Dismissal and it being largely a a story exploring How women are ignored. She is put in a position where it works. She’s not able to do her job Again. It’s about Communication. She’s having trouble communicating.
This.
With the people around her. It includes trying to communicate in this story when she comes late to work she discovers that there’s a there’s a hostage situation. The planet where they had been she and trip had been. It turns out is supposedly not. Uninhabited There are people there who have now taken hostages as a way of trying to get back The honor of the place that was desecrated so she’s made mistakes at work. She can’t communicate with these aliens they get angrier and. And more aggressive in their communications but they don’t understand what is being said so she’s a failure at work. She is replaced by a man. She goes to a doctor and this is an experience that I know women in my own life have explained that they are ignored by male Doctors. So She goes to a doctor. She complains about a problem. He dismisses the problem. She complains to friends most of them are male. They dismiss her concerns. She is dismissed left and right yes and.
Everybody everybody keeps saying sleep it off I Love that every recommendation is just go to bed and sleep it off I Love that everybody saying that tour.
Everything is about you are simply manufacturing. It’s all in your head and that is a kind of dismissal that I have heard female friends and family members say to me as a woman in the world you get told constantly that you are manufacturing things that they are not True. So I think that that is what is that is the heart of the episode for me and I think it’s a fascinating way of depicting it to to have it be this experience toward the end of the episode now the introduction of Aliens Aboard the ship that are.
And.
Nefariously plotting against them and this is where it becomes it’s the classic. We’ve seen this in truck before of and we’ve seen it. In fact, this season before it’s there are aliens aboard the ship they’re. Going to do bad things and only 1 person can stop them only one person is aware that they are there. We had the episode with the ferengi who took over the ship and we had trip running around trying to figure out what to do in this It’s a couple of aliens who are apparently. As out of phase as Hoshi is experiencing herself so that she is now invisible and she is following members of the crew around there are moments which are I think intriguing moments of story with her being. In the Jeffreys Tube when what they think are her remains are found and you see trip begin to basically bemoan like I didn’t do my job as her commander you see the doctor.
And.
Saying I didn’t take her seriously until I looked more closely at the numbers and I realized that there is a molecular degeneration taking place and I I didn’t look for it early enough so she is seeing people mourn her loss but at a certain point the danger to the ship. The Aliens Aboard the ship. Morning Crew members. All of that is undone in a moment when the heightened tension of how do you keep the explosives that have been planted on the ship from blowing up and she stands on a transporter pad left behind by the aliens. And then she rematerializes on the enterprise and that for me is the moment where I’m left with dissatisfaction because my interpretation of the show about.
This is this is my biggest problem with the episode right? there.
This being a metaphor for a woman’s experience with the world that it being a metaphor of being dismissed and her having to push through that and fight back against that the end of the show literally does make it all about it was in her head.
Yep, that’s why it.
It was all in her experience and and it leaves it’s like hearing a whoopee cushion at the end of the episode where the entire episode is apparently takes place over like a 10 minute period because.
Um, know it’s a couple minutes. It’s literally a couple minutes. It’s like they say it’s like 2 minutes that it took her took them to get her out or something like that.
It’s no but I’m including the entire episode meaning like the 5 minutes on the planet. So the entirety of this episode is they’re on the planet they’re in danger they got to get out they get in the transporter. She’s caught in a in a loop a buffer.
Yeah, yeah.
Until they’re finally able to rematerialize her and her entire experience was just manufactured in her head and I’m left going. You just took the character of Hoshi and revealed that she is in some way just wrong. She is just weak.
Yes.
Bur.
Psychologically to the point where it’s presenting the idea that she is on a certain level so unsure of herself that she thinks that she could be replaced in a heartbeat that she can’t really do her job that her crewmates don’t actually listen to her and I felt so bad for her at the end of the episode like.
Yes, well okay, so there’s 2 things here that fits with her character though from the first episode. She’s very unsure of herself. She’s afraid of everything so it’s playing into the things that we already know about Hoshi and i.
That’s just unfair.
I agree with everything you said it’s unfair to the way they treat the character at the end for me my biggest issue with that reveal at the end was from a viewer’s point of view. You lied to me for 40 minutes you lied to me for 40 minutes and you made me think this is about 1 thing and then at the end your twist.
Yeah, yeah.
Is hey we’ve been lying to you for 40 minutes that was not a satisfying thing for me as a viewer let alone her as a character and that’s really weak storytelling and what got my hopes up at the beginning of the episode to kind of go back. The first scene they have with her after she’s being backed on board and she’s in a very crowded.
Um, yeah.
Ah, the dinner scene. It’s the very first dinner scene and she goes up and says something to the table full of her friends and they’re not hearing her that entire first dinner scene I don’t know if this is going filmmaking a little bit. It looked like they filmed that entire scene with a very long lens like a telephoto lens um and by doing that what that does is you can get nice. Midshots and the background is very compressed so it it doesn’t look like a big wide expanse of room. It makes the room feel narrower and more claustrophobic and it makes the room feel more packed with people than it actually was so that entire dinner scene was I thought I was like oh wow this is like. That’s some clever filmmaking because it’s making this room feel very off from what we normally see which is with a wider lens. So it’s making everything feel a little weird and I thought okay are we going like the David Cronenberg style filmmaking here where it’s going to get a little weirder and weirder over the course of the episode like. As it’s more like a dream sequence. She’s having especially with those lost time moments where she’s like waking up. It’s like a stress dream. It’s like you’ll suddenly change scenes in your dream and suddenly it’s like oh you’re late for work or you’re late for class or it’s all that kind of stuff. It was like a fever dream for her. But the way they filmed it. Went more back to a traditional way of filming an episode. So here’s this dinner scene where it’s like oh they’re going to start doing something different with the filmmaking to make it feel a little off and they just kind of went back to the way they always film episodes and it started to feel more honest and it’s storytelling so you start to see it from her perspective completely and you start to believe what’s happening to her is actually happening and so they’re just lying to you. Over the course the entire episode it was like it’s like they started in a good place and then they kind of gave up after the dinner scene was like yeah, let’s just do a normal episode. It’s what it felt like to me from a filmmaking point of view. So I felt lied to at the end so you’re right about them treating Hoshi poorly.
Um, yeah. From yeah.
And what you talked about is that like a woman not feeling heard I agree with that. But that’s also universal. It’s like there’s been times in my life and career where you’ll say something in a room to you know about like something we should You should do for your business and then people just don’t listen to it and they just go on as if you didn’t say anything. It’s like what I Just you know I’m going to address my idea.
Right.
Then 10 minutes later somebody else brings up that exact idea like it was their idea and I was like I just said that 10 minutes ago and now you’re acting like it’s your idea’s like what’s going on here. So it’s like it taps into something all of us have experienced in our lives which is a nice universal even though it’s your point is true where it’s it’s coming from the point of view of a woman but there is. Relatability no matter who you are so it’s it’s really cool how it was playing with the dreams. It was playing with that that aspect of it what they could have done but they just dropped the ball from a filmmaking point of view and they should have gone more crunenberg in my opinion and made it a little weirder over the course of the episode.
Um, yeah, yeah I agree if if they had gone. Yeah, if it had reached a point where the weirdness had been building building over time and she had still been struggling from a realist perspective of trying to work within that context.
Correct.
It would have become more we as the viewer would have been aware of the dissonance before she would be and then that would also give her the opportunity to grow as a character because that’s one of the things that this doesn’t do at all. It doesn’t allow for any character growth whatsoever. She starts doing things within her dream world.
Correct.
But it’s all the rug is pulled out from underneath her because she thinks she’s legitimately having to save the ship and the fact that within a dream she starts to act heroically doesn’t matter because when you wake up, you’re back to being who you were when you went to sleep.
M.
For her to have a character transition would have been for her to be in that netherworld recognize wait a minute. This isn’t real. Something is happening here I need to figure out what it is and for her to be going through the actxse not to.
Yes.
Fight off the Alien invasion and the destruction of the enterprise but to do things that would fit within her understanding of I’m trapped in something something is going on to me I’ve got to get out which wouldn’t it have been interesting if it had been her fantasy.
I Got to get out. Yes, yes.
In fighting off the aliens was successful and then she realizes wait a minute I need to destroy this reality to get out of it and if she goes through the purpose of now rearming the explosives and being surrounded by the crew that she loves and trusts and having to in that Moment. Say I know that this is not real and blowing up the enterprise herself and then rematerializing on that platform now she’s gone through a transition of I don’t feel heard I don’t feel respected I Suddenly feel like I’m having to be heroic and save everybody.
E.
And then move beyond that to the point of understanding a bigger perspective of the world around me and knowing that it’s not true that would have been and it also would have put then the audience in a perspective of oh my god what if she’s wrong because. In that moment of her saying like I think I need to destroy this enterprise that would put the audience members in the perspective of what if she’s not actually right and there could have been things done that could have teased out the idea of that as well and it would have created a much more interesting tension. Reminds me of the episode from next generation with Dr Crusher where she is ineffectively a wharf bubble as the warp bubble is shrinking and she over time is having to use her scientific approach to figuring out.
I had to I had that my notes. Yep.
What is happening Why are there disappearances what is going on and it was the technological mixed with the psychological. It is the work bubble and her psychological response to the world is combined to give her this universe could have done the same thing here how she could have been experiencing. Something that she could have deciphered and understood in a way but they didn’t tease that out.
This comes back to the whole that we’ve said this numerous times and episodes that we kind of bag on there are previous series that have done the same plotline way better and that episode I had written in my notes that Dr Crusher episode was basically this done better. It was her.
Um, yeah.
Feeling like it was real in the beginning she realizes. It’s not real and that she’s the one that’s alone and is trying to find her way out and it’s like that’s exactly what they should have done with Hoshi here and it is a stronger character building episode. But like I said to you before there are elements in this that I liked. And that weird thing that trip was on. It’s like that to me if they had played that up. That’s like we’ve never seen that before and we will never see that again because it was in her mind. It’s like something weird. That’s off like like they should then leaned into that more which is why I said the krunenberg thing it’s like what the.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
Hell is tripon. It’s like it’s like in the fact that she could have maybe done the double take and then like something’s not right here. He’s just on that thing going around. It’s like they could have leaned into her questioning of like I don’t remember that kind of have that kind of right exactly. So if she starts noticing more and more of that like when she’s in the.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, what is that like what is that? yeah.
She’s in the Captain’s room when it’s ready room when she calls he calls her dad to break the news to her to him that entire conversation if you just look at that just on its own. It is one of the it’s horrendous. But.
Um, yeah. The conversation is Awful. It is awful. Yeah yeah, yes, yeah, he’s Bumbling. He’s bumbling over telling.
Felt like they were trying to do something deliberately because the captain would never be a loss for words like that he never would be he would be. He’s so professional but he is so lost for words? yes.
Her father that he’s dead and I wanted to point out that that’s guest star Keon Young who is he’s a great actor. He’s done voices for characters in star wars he was in the series deadwood playing a character named wu who ran a brothel.
Yeah, yeah.
Was near one of the main characters bars and he is an accomplished actor. He is very very good. The depiction of Hoshi’s father in this. It’s painful to watch because it is so awkwardly writ is so.
It’s horrible. But but if you know that it’s a if as a viewer at that point at that point as a viewer we should have known this isn’t really happening and so then that scene could been filmed in a slightly different way that would have given it a different weight of.
Intentionally awkward.
This is all in her head and it’s bizarre and Yoshi could have been like getting really just discombobulated and been like this isn’t this doesn’t seem right? So it’s like if they had leaned into that more. It would have made it much stronger and given her a chance to kind of step out in her own and grow.
Yeah, again with the cronenberg elements. It could have been something along the lines of her father in that could have been her memory of her father which could be a kind of all ages father where he’s too young.
Um, yeah, yes.
And she’s looking at this as just like my God He looks great. How’s that How’s this possible and it’s right after that scene another one of the elements of this episode that I Really really loved was her using Morse code by putting her hand into the ah.
How is that possible.
M.
A junction box in the Captain’s ready room and breaking the electromagnetic conductivity in there so that a light blinks and she’s communicating using morse code and nothing came of that. It was seen and it became a moment of like is she going to have the communication is she going to be able to communicate with them and she is but she also isn’t because they reach a point of something something weird is going on. We’ll just have the engineer look at it later and then they leave I was disappointed by things like that like ah, a. Brilliant moment. A brilliant idea in that moment and I wanted to see her walk out of that room and say well I know I can do that so I’ll do it elsewhere I’ll find the right person to talk to and if she eventually reaches the point of none of these people are actually the sophisticated 3 dimensional people that I know. That becomes then a doorway for her to go through to recognize where she actually is all in all I would say that for me this episode was like as a c a c plus it felt like I didn’t hate it as I was watching it I found enough for me to want to continue to watch it.
Yeah.
But at the end of it again. The whoopee cushion sound at the end like like I felt like I was biting into a hamburger but I bit into a whoopee cushion and like oh so this is the character is no different than it was when she started and the entire thing was a matter of minutes.
Yeah, for.
And the storytelling was effectively withholding all of this from me as if they were doing a twilight zone but playing by Star Trek rules and that felt.
Yeah, it’s I would have given it a C plus or B minus if I was being super generous. So I’m in the same kind of space of I was entertained. It didn’t make me ungodly angry I This finish of the episode I was just disappointed that they.
Yeah.
Had the potential of a really great episode and just kind of trip themselves up and and to kind of ah kind of bring up a couple of ah the comments we got ah from our previous episode or 2 episodes ago. Um.
Yeah I agree.
Right.
Are related directly to the transporter which I thought would be perfect to talk about. Um there was from the episode the communicator which was season 2 episode 8 where they lost the communicator and never never even thought to use to have the teleporter to bring it back. Um, there’s a comment from makeo.
Yeah.
Who said the transporter as it’s described in Star Trek is her frightening ideas since you’re essentially killed then your molecules are reconstructed on at another other place. The New U is not the same you from before essentially every time you die and a clone is made of you. Maybe I don’t understand it properly which then Pale ghost 69 responded to. And I Love I Love this. It gets really philosophical sort of your alley sea. How is that any different than normal. Our atoms have been ripped apart and reassembled countless thousands of times every two weeks or so you’re literally not the same you as before it’s the ship of the theseus of ah is the ship of thesis dilemma it. Oh.
Yes.
It also brings to question. What are you aren’t we just a collection of cells that uses electricity and growth patterns to store thoughts memories, Brain Patterns neurons if we were made an exact clone of you at this point in time copying your exact atomic positioning spin signals and all would that clone not be you would you be you. And he just went On. It’s a great comment to read. It’s like it just goes they they had a nice little conversation about teleporters are terrifying and it’s like our understanding if we ever make this a reality The character’s discomfort with the teleporter is warranted because it is crazy Weird. You’re literally being torn apart.
Yes.
Yes.
Then just made anew when you’re built in the other place. Yes, it’s an exact copy and the old copy no longer exists so you are technically still you I mean the timeline of you still is there. But it’s technically not you anymore. It’s like it’s a real.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
Right? You start? Yeah, it’s a mind. It’s a mind fudge. It’s and it’s yeah from a Quantum perspective matter is just energy that is not.
I Don’t want to swear but it’s like it’s a real mind messing. Yeah yes, thank you.
Experienced by us as Energy. It’s experienced by us as matters. So from a certain perspective transported technology is taking something that is energy moving it via energy to another location so we are effectively just clouds of energy that are being taken apart and put back together in various states. Surrounded by other clouds of energy. So yeah, a plus to pale ghost and I am reminded of 2 things. Ah a book about the philosophy of Star Trek and which there is a.
Yes.
Ah, chapter that is dedicated to transporters and what do they mean Philosophically and I’m also reminded of the episode for next generation I don’t recall the title of the episode off top of my head but it’s the episode in which they discover a copy of riker who due to a transporter accident.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Years earlier a riker beamed out safely and a riker rematerialized in an asteroid space station and had stayed there for 8 years and so when they discover him they effectively now have two rikers who is one of them the original. There is no original when you’re talking transporter right? That’s right, that’s right, do they both have back problems. It’s.
Yeah, it’s 1 of them more record than the other can they both do the riker maneuvers swiifling their leg over the chair and sitting down. There is there is also one other the comment I wanted to bring up. Um, every episode you close out by saying and if we got something wrong, let us know well guess what Sean you got something wrong and robtrav pointed it out in that same episode of the communicator he wrote. Okay Sean’s sorry
Um, did we.
I just can’t let you get away with the commander O’brien he was too proud to be a chief he was he was too proud to be a chief and refused to be called sir he was an enlisted man through and through never an officer. He was chief o’brien not commander.
That’s right chief O’brien and that reminds me of another thing I wanted to bring up as a result of this transporter focused episode. Everybody should look for chief o’brien at work. It’s a comic strip that is focused on chief O’brien in the transporter room.
Yeah.
It is very much a deep philosophical dive into a sad and lonely man whose only job is to stand in the enterprise in an empty room and wait for somebody to maybe need him and it is very funny. Ah so take a look for that. In the meantime as matches pointed out, we’re open to being corrected I made a terrible mistake by giving O’brien an unwanted promotion reach out to us. Let us know and if you have any comments about this episode.
Is.
Let us know you can find the contact information in the podcast notes or on Youtube you can just scroll directly beneath the video Matt before we sign off is there anything you want to remind our listeners about what do you have coming up on your other channel.
Oh ah so much stuff coming up on my other channel I have video coming up on my experiences with my Tesla power wall and being part of a virtual power plant system small modular nuclear reactors. There’s a bunch of really interesting episodes coming up over the next couple weeks. So be sure to check that out.
That’s great. As for me, please feel free to check out my website http://seanferrell.com you can also look for my books on Amazon or Barnes and noble or other non mega bookstores you can find me at your local local bookstore or your local library. A reminder you can visit trek in time show. You can directly support the podcast there and as usual, let us know in the comments. What you think did you agree with our analysis that this episode kind of ended with a whoopee cushion or did you think it was it was something. Altogether different from our experience. Let us know in the comments please remember to subscribe like the episode and share it widely with friends and strangers and do come back next time. Thank you so much for listening everybody. We’ll talk to you soon.