Matt and Sean talk about princesses from another world (seen it), Trip having urges (seen it), and small escape pods(… guess what…).
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I’m doing Well how about yourself.
This episode this episode took a little holding but I think we’ll be okay. So before we get into our ah damsel and distress story which had a little bit.
Yeah.
Less gripping action than a game of mario brothers which is also about rescuing a princess. There were some comments on previous episodes. Matt did you want to share those with us.
Sure there’s just a couple comments that were more specific to us not the show star trek one was from Craig Stephen a couple weeks ago on the episode rogue planet he said dude on the left would play a good vulcan and he’s talking about you Sean and I thought you might like that I think you might like that.
Ah, well very good.
Because ah Spock has always been your favorite character.
Um I I modeled myself after spock when I was a ah young lad because I just appreciated his his ability to keep himself contained.
I Remember as a kid you were so proud when you mastered the raising the one eyebrow. Yes.
Yes, which took sitting in front of our mother’s makeup mirror and holding the other eye brow down and figuring out how to trigger the muscle memory. So and to this day I’m very proud of that.
How to do it. The other comment was from ah robotrav ah the editing of this show is really improving I mean not that it was bad before or anything just saying that I appreciate the direction. It’s going. So I mean he he I responded to him in the comments. But thank you so much trav we are putting a little more effort into the edits if you watch us on Youtube. Little more visual flair to our editing showing some b-roll sometimes when we’re talking so we’re trying to kind of step up our Youtube game a little bit. So glad you’re enjoying it.
Yeah.
Yeah, if somebody in the future makes a podcast rewatching every episode of this podcast I don’t recommend doing that. But if they did there would definitely be a stage early days where they would be like why are these episodes an hour plus and why is it just.
Yes, yes.
Ah, blank screen. So we’ve happily moved past those early days and we’ve moved on to today’s episode that’s right it’s precious cargo. Matt do you care to read I already shared a little bit of it. The Wikipedia description for this episode buckle up everybody.
Sure? Yeah I say strap yourself in this is a winner precious cargo is the thirty seventh episode production number two eleven of The American Science Fiction Television Series Star Trek Enterprise airing on the upn network is the eleventh episode of the series second season. Set in the twenty second century the series follows the adventures of the first starfleeet starship enterprise registration and x o one in this episode the enterprise answers an alien distress call and commander Tucker Connor Trenier is kidnapped and then escapes with a spoiled and beautiful alien Princess Kaama ah was it padma lash me ah, that’s one heck of a description where half of that is just this is a Tv show. Thanks! Thanks for that Wikipedia yeah.
Yeah, half of that is a tv show and the other half is a run on sentence. So thank you Wikipedia. This episode was directed by David Livingston we’ve seen him a couple of times already. We’ve seen him with shuttle pod one and we saw him in this season with the seventh and I have a lot of positive things to say about David Livingston’s direction spoiler. Not crazy about this episode further spoiler. Not a lot of people are but I came away from it thinking good direction, good set building.
I’m not surprised.
Good environment on the closing planet’s surface the production around the action I think is top notch. So I give a lot of credit to David Livingston and the other people involved in production of this episode this episode was written by Rick Berman and bran and braga.
M.
But the teleplay was by David Goodman and I think David Goodman has a fascinating background. So I’d like to share a bit of that he started off his television rating career writing for golden girls and eventually would go into write future rama. He was responsible for writing the episode of Futurama where no fan has gone before which was the Futurama episode that incorporated all the still living members of the original crew of star trek so it is a top notch episode. He was given responsibility for writing that.
And.
When he basically argued that he was the most dedicated star trek fan on the Futurama writing team and he was able to correctly identify every episode number and name mentioned in dialogue so he has that level of knowledge.
Whoa.
He would go on from Futurama he would work on some Seth Macfarlane shows like american dad he’s written and produced for the Orville and he’s written star trek books. So he’s written star trek novels which are the autobiographies of.
And.
Various characters which include the autobiography of James T Kirk and the autobiography of Jean-luc Picard these are ostensibly first person tellings of their lives so they incorporate effectively. All. Of the stories that we’ve seen in the series or the movies and he then takes those and he’s incorporated those into novelizations of which I think is ah I I think it’s just fascinating so pretty impressive history for David Goodman and he is now.
That’s crazy.
He’s been elected president of the writers guild West Coast and he is now out there advocating for the rights of writers including television and movie writers and they’re going through a number of of flaming hoops at the moment. And he’s leading that organization through it as writers are dealing with the new marketplace what it looks like with streaming services and making sure that writers are protected as things effectively no longer have a shelf life the way they used to and making sure that writers are able to be protected and and make a living.
So.
Off of their work. So this was David Goodman’s first episode after joining the writing team for the series enterprise and another spoiler. He. Feels like his first screenplay for this episode was pretty much a failure and he didn’t blame anybody for the work on camera or the the weaknesses of the episode. He didn’t blame anybody but his own screenplay. So.
Ah, ah, ah.
Wow.
precious cargo aired on December Eleventh Two thousand and two and it was viewed by four point six million viewers so it was up from the previous episode that we talked about which was the pre-thanksgiving day episode centered on a hoshi as she had a transporter malfunction. We talked about how that episode was under viewed. Largely because of the holiday probably but four point six million viewers for this episode puts it near the bottom of viewership for this season. So the series continues to struggle as a demonstration of those struggles.
So.
Some of the shows that were beating it 11000000 viewers tuned into my wife and kids 60 minutes to electric Boogaloo got 10000000 viewers the Bernie Mack show had 8000000 ed had 10 but. Star trek enterprise was still able to beat candid camera which had point 9000000 viewers and Dawson’s creek which only had four for the week though Csi continue to be the top show. It’s been a battle between everybody loves Raymond and csi sometimes a er. Csi this week with 25000000 viewers.
The top movie continued to be die another day which has traded places now with the second Harry Potter movie they Harry Potter came out was replaced by die another day and then in the interim week where there was no episode that we would have been seven days before this. Harry Potter took over the number 1 spot again and then this week die another day took it back and the number one song was still Eminem’s lose yourself. It would remain the number 1 song for the rest of this year two thousand and two so it definitely.
so his presence as a major artist and his movie which did hit number one several weeks earlier. Wouldn’t return to the number 1 in the box office viewership for that film really did drop off after its initial big push of its audience but this song has remained arguably one of his biggest hits that even to this day people are easily reminded of it. When it comes on the radio and then the news on this day December Eleven Two thousand and two some of the headlines in The New York Times Jimmy Carter accepted the nobel peace prize and in his acceptance speech. He made a. Motion for Iraq to do a better job with demonstrating that it does not have weapons of mass destruction. So there was a lot of there was a lot of question marks I think is the best way to describe it around Iraq.
Yeah.
What they had what they didn’t have inevitably. We all know what happens the Us and allies go into Iraq and they’re never able to find any weapons of mass destruction which is ultimately what smaller voices were arguing. Prior to Us invasion also in the news, the joint congressional committee investigating the September Eleventh terrorist attacks voted today to approve a final report calling for the creation of a director of national intelligence. This will be a cabinet level position. Would narrow the authority of the head of the cia congressional officials the senate. Ah the senate panel the senate and house panel adopted the report which will be released on Wednesday in a voice vote during an extended closing door closed door meeting. Report endorses. The new intelligence position to coordinate the sprawling United States intelligence community giving it broad authority over all military and civilian intelligence agencies and leaving the director of central intelligence subordinate so major change in the us government. We had a different headline earlier. This season in which the creation of the department of homeland security had taken place so these major shifts continue to be the shape of the us government to the state. Um, so onto precious cargo in what may have been I mean I I’m not inside the head of the writers or the people making this episode. Interesting. They decided to date this September twelfth 21 52 maybe in a strange tip of the hat to September Eleventh I’m not sure, but it’s a date that just kind of stands out for the fact that it’s.
This.
Not September eleventh while being as close to September eleventh as you can get so it kind of was like a flashing red light when the date is first given in the episode but we’ve already mentioned what this episode is about. We’re going to. See some aliens show up. We’re going to see trip get kidnapped and we’re going to see a princess in distress big picture I’ve already told people what I felt about this episode Matt where do you land on this one.
Yes.
Ah, let me put it deal this way I just watched this couple nights ago and the episode ended and I sat there in silence for a couple minutes thinking How do I feel about this episode and I couldn’t make a decision I Just sat there going. But. Like my brain had shut off. It’s like I didn’t think it was good and I did not think it was bad I thought it was completely forgettable and just an do nothing episode. It’s like the acting was fine except for the princess I did not like her acting especially for the first half. Did not like the chemistry between her and trip there were supposed to be. You know like this budding romance and it felt like they had 0 chemistry together spoiler when they end up making out and making whoopee I was kind of like really it’s like it just kind of came out of nowhere.
Yeah.
Suddenly it was like there was no chemistry there for this but at the end it was just kind of like it was fine. It was fine. It was fine I would never watch this again I would only watch I only watch this because we had to watch this. But if you told me okay, you could.
Right.
Pick your 5 episodes of this episode of ah enterprise that you want to watch this would not even be close to the list but I wouldn’t be avoiding it because it’s awful I would just want. It’s just it’s a nothing episode.
There are two stories at work in this. There’s very clearly the a story which revolves around trip and his attempts to survive with the princess.
So.
And then there’s the play acting that takes place on the enterprise around their having captured one of the aliens that attempted to Kidnap trip I wouldn’t even argue that it’s an a plot and a B plot. It’s like there’s an a plot which is the Princess storyline. And then there’s this deep sucking vacuum where a B plot could have been and then this is almost like a C plot. It’s very few scenes. It’s very thin. It’s almost played more for Comedic relief which is interesting considering that the a plot is not serious.
Ah.
Yes.
So this entire episode has this comedic vein to it I Wonder if that’s a part of the writer having come so from so deeply in the comedic writing world. Ah.
Yes.
So we have an a plot and then a much much much weaker secondary plot and I wish it had been flipped because this play acting that’s going on between archer and to Paul to try and coerce information out of. Their captured member of the 2 person crew. It’s ah you have plan and you have golf and plan claims I am practically not even a part of any coordinated plot by this guy. Golf is completely in charge I know nothing I can’t help you at all and and the way this all unfolded initially was the enterprise responds to a distress call and goffin plan are claiming. We’ve got this. We’ve got a thing. Needs to be kept in cryo we’ve got an individual who’s in cryo they need to stay and cryo during our journey and the cryo system is breaking down and so we we need your help and Tucker is happy to. To go take a look at it. However, while he’s working on it. The cryo chamber opens up and the woman inside Katama who is the damsel in distress literally freaks out and then golf knocks trip. Unconscious. There is then a fight and plin who was aboard the enterprise can’t make it back to the ship so gough abandons him leaves taking trip with him and now the enterprise has golf or plin.
That that kind of just make a note of that 1 sequence in the show where he’s trying to get back to the ship ah to to escape because he’s been radioed they were having lunch with the captain and he gets called away that entire sequence I I love that sequence. Because it’s one of those times in the show where we see the enterprise crew acting as like a super well-oiled machine I love the whole sequence of he leaves the mess the the dining room with the captain and the captain immediately radios read and says you know like he says something and the very next.
Something is going on. Yeah.
Very next shot is the guy walking in the hallway really fast and out from ah a secondary hallway read and a security officer just swoop and flank him and are either side just walking right with him. We’ve been ordered to help you get to the you know te your ship and it was just like all right here’s the crew like working like a well blood machine and like they’re not going to get away with this crap. They still got away with that crap.
Yeah.
But it was very kind of cool to see. It’s almost like you could almost see Reid looking proud because it’s probably all of those things we’ve seen in previous episodes where he’s been like harping on the captain. You know we got to get stuff in order. We need to be more have tight knit and procedures. It feels like.
Right.
These are some of the procedures in action and you can see them working really well and I thought that was a really nice sequence.
Um, yeah I would even pick up on that thread and say that when they then are they lay in for pursuit and archer they are.
Yes.
Right? behind this ship which can fly less than half as fast as they can. In fact, the way if memory serves correctly, there’s something about warp speed where it’s a little bit like the richter scale. It’s exponential. It’s not a flat line of increased speed 2 is not. Twice as much as 1 warp two is 10 times as much as one so it’s like a richter scale. That’s why getting from warp eight to warp 9 is seen as being so incredibly dangerous as opposed to going from warp three to warp four. So. This ship is able to go the retallion vessel is able to go warp 2.2 the enterprise this is a case where the tables finally seem to have been turned for the enterprise.
Yeah, yeah.
So much of the series up to this point has been the enterprise going into situations where they are out gunned an out match by pretty much anybody they bump into this is a case where they’ve run into somebody who now they are easily the big dog they can keep pace with this other ship without difficulty and. Almost with a shrug of his shoulders archer looks at Reid and says phase cannoons and Reid as he’s targeting the warp nace of this retellian vessel has a little smirk. He’s smmiking as he’s laying it and he’s just like oh buddy boy you don’t know what you did.
This.
Smirk Yeah, he has the smirk.
Yeah Beep beep beep boop. He’s gone.
And yeah and they they use the phasers they knock the ship out of warp. But it’s all part of a ruse because here in what I thought was actually a very nice twist. The retellion commander is more experienced than they are. He’s.
Yes.
Nefarious So he’s doing stuff that they’re not accustomed to so he drops a bunch of Dilithium ah shards into a cloud. Yeah, and so it gets into the intake manifolds of the of the enterprise. It’s a lot of technobabble that means nothing but the.
Nano Nanocrystals or some technobabble.
And result is he drops something in front of them that they go through that then keeps them from being able to go back to warp I Loved it. I Thought it was great. It was a very pirate like move and that’s ultimately who golf and plan are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be Kidnappers. They have kidnapped somebody and they’re holding them ransom. Which then raises a bunch of issues as nice as those early scenes are it raises so many question marks of they kidnapped somebody with the intention of ransoming them off they then are having trouble with. Cryo Chamber I think they say something along the lines of we have limited supplies. So if this person wakes up, We won’t be able to actually make it to our destination right could be an excuse.
I could be just an excuse. It could be just a lie. Yeah.
You’ve kidnapped somebody do you then? broadcast an open s o S looking for help. Do you ask for help from aliens that you’ve never experienced before and then socialize with them while having one of those.
Yep yep.
Aliens that you’ve never met work on the cry chamber on the what happens if on the off chance like happens in this episode the cryo chamber opens up and this person on this crew like there was no plan around keeping any secrets. It was. Very Abbott and Costello I had a lot of difficulty with that like why would they have brought the enterprise and socialized as much as they did aboard the enterprise in the way they did if they had nefarious motives of a larger kind.
They show. They’re good. They show. They’re good at getting. Yeah they show that they’re good at the getaway like doing these like you know we can get away from anybody the whole like releasing the gas but yet they can’t make a good logical decision of maybe we should go to that.
Just didn’t make any sense.
Back alley planet that has spare parts that we could go to to fix this stupid thing instead of just talking some random alien we’ve never met it. It didn’t make too much sense I forgave it a little bit but kind of leading into the hole where the plot goes from this point when we’re on the ship that’s getting away and you’ve got trip. And this princess on board. We see 1 interaction one scene with them and this kidnapper where he comes in and threatens them with a gun and then disappears and we never see them together like that on the ship again and because of that he never feels. Too threatening. He never feels like he’s truly in command of the situation and we never have a real sense of stakes that trip and this princess are truly in danger. We never really get that sense. It’s like he should have beaten trip to ah a pulp or something he should have done something to trip because trip is expendable.
Right.
Where the princess is not and if they had set something up or trip has to get out of here or his he’s he could get killed. It’s like it makes the stakes higher and that never existed.
He even says he even says what makes you think that I’ll be kept alive after I complete the work I’m supposed to do but there’s been nothing to indicate that he would have that kind of worry other than.
And no threat.
Logic and it feels like most of the plot points are plot points of convenience. Oh I want to get to point 9 therefore plot point 8 7 6 and 5 have to happen for me to get to 9 So again, we have the the captain of this retellion ship.
This is.
Showing pirate brilliance gets hit by a phaser. His ship is not actually critically damaged. He drops out of warp. He pretends that he’s damaged. He releases the cloud he gets away and yet when it comes to keeping an eye on his 2 prisoners who effectively have free run of the cargo.
He doesn’t.
Hold that they’re in they’re wandering around that cargo hold with no problem. He never checks in on them and they are able to without any difficulty open up a panel destabilize the internal sensors go through tubes on the interior of the ship until they can get to an escape pod.
This is.
Launch the escape pod well before he’s even aware that they’re missing and trip’s entire thing is because I’ve done this to their sensors will be a million miles away before he even knows we’re gone and I’m like this is a pirate who had the tenacity to be able to. As 1 person trick the enterprise into being able to get away and yet somehow trip is able to do all this stuff to the interior of a ship so that they can get away without any kind of conflict or need for the act or even to show up.
Can I just say we typically fall into this trap which I’m about to go into right now rewriting the episode I don’t I don’t know why? Okay you have trip Who’s this amazing engineer. Why would the ship’s basically on autopilot. He doesn’t need to be in a separate part of the ship the cat the Kidnapper he could have stayed in the room with them.
Yes.
Tied The woman up being forcing forcing trip to do stuff at gunpoint trip is having starting repairs and he finds a clever way to kind of maybe overload a circuit that deliberately knocks something out the cat that this Kidnapper has to go back to a different part of the ship to fix so he he deliberately does something. To make the guy leave and when the guy leaves he quickly does something and basically locks the door he like maybe bricks his circuits. The door is jammed and then he goes and starts to escape and tries to get them out of there that would mean far more sense and shown trip in more of a like thinking quick on his feet and being this.
Um, right.
Amazing engineer that he’s supposed to be to get him out self out of there where the way it was currently written no stakes I Keep coming back to the fact that there was no stakes I Never once felt they were in danger so I didn’t care about what was going on.
Um, I’ll even go I’ll go one step beyond that as we put on our rewriting hats. We’ve seen this now in a number of um Tv series recently. I’m thinking primarily of foundation. What if as you laid out trip is working on repairs and he’s slow walking it so that he’s trying to like keep an eye on the princess and he’s trying to build a rapport with her so that she trusts him. He’s trying to keep the captain who’s standing behind him with his phase pistol at his back. He figures out a way to send a feedback through the ship as you suggested so that it blows the autopilot and they drop out of warp. And the captain is just like what the heck is going on and locks them into the cargo hold and then leaves and says I will be back and in those moments then trip says princess. Do you realize that the cryo chamber you were in is in fact, intended to be a cryo escape pod to keep the person asleep. While also able to escape if we can both get into this thing we could set up the cargo bay door to open up. We’ll be ejected into space and then we should be able to use this. It has rudimentary navigation so that we can be able to get to a planet and then they both. Get into what is her cryopod which ultimately much of the episode between the 2 of them is supposed to be in the confinement of an escape pod. So putting them into a small one person. What is supposed to be a 1 person cryopod could have provided just as much of a.
Um, right.
Opportunity for that plus added the humor of it would have been literally a single occupant bed. So then you could have had the 2 of them really having to be in tight confines as they’re trying to figure out like I need you to reach behind you and pull open that panel because I think that’s where the supplies are.
Yeah, yeah.
And the 2 of them could have been very uncomfortable very awkwardly pushed together literally physically inside a 1 ne-seater cryopod that they could have then set up a timer the Captain’s coming back to the cargo bay the bay door opens up all the objects in there get sucked out into space including them in the pod. They find their way to the planet while being chased by the captain. So like all of that would have been saved time in the episode because then we wouldn’t have had them in the tubes walking through the interior of the ship trying to get to the shuttle pod would have avoided the questions of like like.
Right.
All of the how is he able to destabilize the interior sensors like none of that was necessary for any of this and it would have given more time for them to actually would have been nice if a trip had any kind of character development through this.
M.
Yeah.
He goes through nothing other than I don’t like this woman because she’s annoying too I think I’d like to have sex with this woman because she’s hot and she doesn’t have she has some character development but it’s unnecessary because she’s not she’s not a main character.
A little bit.
Series and her character development is ultimately so quick and so thin as to be offended that he’s not treating her like royalty to at the end saying Why’t you drop by the Palace sometime and maybe we can hook up. And that’s not much character development.
Um, it kind of ties back to what you said in the beginning is like I didn’t know the writer’s history before doing this show and it makes so much sense. It does feel like a comedic writer writing his first Star Trek episode because there’s not a whole lot of action. The character development is very thin but there are very good moments of levity.
Yeah.
The entire episode So it’s like it felt very light and that’s part of the reason why I think at the end I walked away from the episode kind of like shoulder shrug I don’t really know how I feel about this. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t bad. It was just kind of like um, whatever nothing birder. So I just kind of like it’s very bland would be the best best way to describe it.
Um, yeah, yeah.
Meanwhile back in the very thin secondary plot that we I hinted that I actually liked and would have appreciated more of it revolves around them taking their prisoner plin and. Archer basically convincing him in a moment that is reminiscent of other times in star trek where the commander presenting somebody else aboard the crew as if they are in fact in charge. It’s an old trope. We’ve seen it before much of this episode. We’ve seen before I feel like. Much of trip and and the princess’s dynamic was literally them saying like what if we had a Han Solo and Princess Leia who had to fall in love in an episode um her offense his kind of casual swagger. Winning her over with his natural charm. Her letting her guard down that all seems very Han and laya meanwhile archer in talking with plin sets up what is supposed to look like an extremely draconian tribunal.
The mess hall. Yeah.
They’ve emptied the mess hall of all tables. There’s a single spotlight on a chair. They have him come in and sit down and archer begins to basically say in a good cop. Bad cop routine I’m really sorry for you that you’re now going to be under the tribunal’s direction. We’ve gotten. Word from the vulcan high command that to Paul is going to be given the right to place judgment upon you and then basically lays out a whole sequence of how draconian the vulcans can be including and I loved it him saying we started this mission with. 86 people aboard were down to 79 and in walks to Paul and we’ve had this discussion before to Paul started the series with vulcans do not lie.
Well, she never she actually she never lies in the scene.
And in this episode she continues to dance that Razor Blade line of she responds to archer’s comments but she never fully says I am the tribunal judge and I will be able to judge you guilty and sentence you to Death. She does not say that in those words, she just refers to her roles her responsibilities in very vague terms and lets archer spin out this tail and it’s done Again. It has a comedic feel to it but whereas the a storyline feels like okay, there’s not enough meat on this bone.
Yeah.
This felt like it was. There was a lot more potential for this kind of dynamic and we know from the original series. There are episodes of the original series where they go full blown into comedy and really like hit a lot of comedic moments.
Yes.
In in great ways. So comedy is a part of Star Trek I think that there is definitely room for a funny episode and I will say that the tone of this episode I did feel like it was refreshing I felt like like oh this is an episode where I’m like I’m I’m really kind of like breathing so I felt like you.
Yes.
Kind of mixed moment of like there’s really nothing to this episode but it’s not. It’s not a dumpster fire.
Yeah, it’s light and there’s levity and the scene that you’re highlighting was one of my favorite scenes in the episode this good cop. Bad Copper Teen and I love that she never lies and when she starts asking him questions. It’s just factual questions. How tall are you? How much do you? weigh. And she’s asking these questions that are going to deliberately make him start to panic of like why? Why would you want to not tall him in my weight. So. It’s like never lies just a lot of obfuscation about to what’s going on which I thought was a very clever way for her to dance through the scene without actually lying to anybody and to tie into this whole sequence. Another.
Yeah.
Moment I liked was a little earlier when they were trying to get information out of this guy and he was not helping and the captain just gets frustrated and says put him in like Deck two’s airlock Um, and we’ll leave the outer hatch unlocked. You know the way out in case, you want to leave. It’s like I thought that was an amazing like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just frustration just of course they’re never going to hurt him but it’s it was the first moment where you see the captain leaning into the fact this alien knows nothing about us and we can actually use that as leverage and so that was the first moment where you saw the captain was willing to dance this line of playing the role of something that we’re not to.
Right.
Scare him a little bit and then the escalation of that to the mess Hall scene. It was like I liked to see that and I wish they had done more with that because it was far more interesting and entertaining to me than trip and the princess crammed together in that Escape pod.
Then being in the Escape pod I think was my favorite part of their time together because once they get to the planet. Yeah, once they get to the planet I think the planet was extremely well rendered I thought that the stuff on the planet was like I loved the approach to the planet their ability to it.
Really.
Felt very sci-fi of like we’re coming to this planet. It doesn’t even look like it has any land where are we going to go? Oh. There’s a small chain of islands. We can go there. We don’t know what the life will be like there. We might not be able to find clean water. It’s it’s going to be It’s gonna be rough. They get there. It is rough. It’s very swampy. They. The landing sequence I thought was a very compelling kind of panicky like we’re coming in really fast and he’s he’s very competent throughout that entire thing but he’s like we lost one of our stabilizers I think the other one will still be able to do the job I think that was the breaking thrusters firing. And they’re coming in at numbers that sound very fast. We’re at 3000 I think it’s meters. We’re at 2000 we’re at 1000 like good god how fast are they going. They end up landing but then once they’re on that planet. It is.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
What’s the Harrison Ford movie where he gets trapped on a jungle island with ann hesch. No, it’s it’s like seven days or something like that. It’s about it’s a comedy and it’s like we’ve seen this before we’ve seen.
Mosquito Coast okay
2 people. Yeah Abbott and Costello and one of them will be. You know, trapped with a beautiful woman on a in a jungle and that by the time they’re found. They’ve built a little hut out of spit and mucus and like like like there’s nothing there on the planet that keeps you. Guessing as to what’s going to happen at no point. Do you wonder? I wonder if they’ll learn to like each other from the very first moment that they have a conversation you’re like it’s moments I moments away from them them having sex is how it feels and and when they do. It’s not compelling.
Yes, yes.
Their chemistry was nonexistent I feel so that as it happens and then it cuts to what might be post coitus. They’re just lying next to each other next to their campfire. Yeah, they just needed cigarettes but they’re lying there in he’s lying there in his underwear and I’m like I’m sorry you’re on an Alien planet.
Um, all they needed was cigarettes.
You’re in an Alien Jungle you would cover up your skin you like it’s fine. You had you know you had whatever you had put your pants back on.
But also at this point she is now in a slip a silk looking slip and her hair went from being pulled back to like the most wiry just like huge hair that you’ve ever seen. It was like what what just happened over the past what I’m assuming is 5 minutes it’s like there’s there’s no, there’s no way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, she looks like Roseanne Roseanna dannna by the end and he’s practically smoking a cigarette and.
This makes any sense.
They then again no surprises. There’s a tracking device. There’s a tracking beacon on the escape pod they hear it going off. They know that they’re being chased now by their captor so when the captor shows up they have set up a pumpkin where did that pumpkin come from a pumpkin. Sort of scarecrow dummy so that he will attack that and then trip is able to attack him the 2 of them are able to overcome their captor I did the 1 thing again. Comedic value in this episode is there. The fight between trip and the alien revolves around trip getting in. At least 10 really solid hits and this guy just laughs it off. It’s clingon like his response to this fist fight so that when trip is taken down and it takes her sneaking up behind with a log to hit the guy in the head like that fine like okay, that’s how the.
Yeah, yeah.
That episode ends and then here come archer and to Paul and they find trip want why in his underwear. It’s just there’s not a lot of superb payoff to any of that and then we get the closing scene of her saying to him once I’m in power.
Nope.
Maybe I can start changing some of the things that are in place but the main thing that she seems interested in changing is not like the rights of my people are being squashed. It’s as queen I won’t be able to hook up but I’m gonna change that so drop by sometime after I’m Queen and then you and I can get together again.
Yeah.
It is not a compelling message at the end. Yeah his communicator beeps and he just looks at it. It writes back New communicator who this so in the long run this episode.
Um, she she she basically is going you up at the end of the episode you up.
Has been reviewed a number of different times by a number of different sources including Star Trek Magazine the Fiftieth anniversary star trek convention. It consistently gets ranked at or near the bottom of episodes of the star trek universe but my favorite review was this one. Which is from John Billingsley who said it is his least favorite episode saying quote. It just didn’t come together close quote I love that review because I don’t recall flocks appearing in this episode.
Yeah, yeah. No, and I also like that Brandon Bragga like you have the note in here it says he considered it one of the worst episodes of Star Trek not just this of enterprise but of of star trek I don’t think I’d put it I don’t think I’d put it that low like I said it’s inoffensive. It’s just.
Yes, and ah.
Yeah I think I think that that’s my take on it too. Is it just feels like it’s a D episode but it’s not an f it is it is if there’s nothing else on television and you really wanted to watch Star Trek and this was on you’d be like I’ll sit through it.
And nothing murder.
Correct. Yeah.
But if there was a different episode of Star Trek on another channel. You’re gonna switch the channel. So but we’re wondering how did everybody else feel about this one. It was a little bit of a hard slog for us but did you all agree or did you all find that there was.
Absolutely.
Something here for you to hang your hat on. Let us know next time we’re going to be talking about the episode the cat walk Matt do you have any predictions about what the catwa is going to be about.
Ah, maybe trip is on a fashion show and he’s showing off as a strut. Yes, exactly.
I Think somebody’s too sexy for their phasers too sexy for their phasers.
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Just to check out my main Youtube channel undecided with Matt Ferrell why I talk about sustainable technologies and how they’re impacting our lives. It’s got a lot of good episodes coming up.
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