36: The Catwalk – Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, Episode 12

Matt and Sean talk about the mother of all storms, hiding on the catwalk, and why T’Pol goes to movie-night.

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In this episode of enterprise. The ship is threatened by a massive storm the crew retreats into incredibly dank and close quarters and everybody finds out what happens when the crew stops being polite and starts getting real in short will to T’Pol go to movie night. Hi everybody. Welcome to trek in time where we’re watching all the episodes of star trek in chronological order and we’re also putting them into contextual. Everybody welcome to trek and time where we’re watching every episode of star trek and chronological order and we’re talking about the historical context of the episodes at the time of the original airing what we’re doing is we’re talking about the original broadcast era and who are we well I’m Sean Farrell um a published author I write some sci-fi I write some stuff for kids with me as my brother Matt Matt is the guru an inquisitor 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.
I’m good trying to stay warm but good overall.
Here I’m trying to stay warm which is difficult in an apartment that has a basement living room with a tile floor and if anybody hears any echoing voices in the distance. That would be my landlord who is here to work on the sink. So before we get into whether or not T’Pol shows up at movie night. A couple of viewer comments from the previous episode Matt What do we have.
We have a episode of vanishing point which was the one where hoshi has that transporter incident where she starts to kind of disappear. Um Aj Chan wrote for all the reasons you guys mentioned this episode was not well executed. The only positive was that we got a chance to see Linda Park be the focus.
Um.
Underutilized both her and anthonyy montgomery for 4 seasons and I just kind of wanted to bring that up because yes, they completely Hoshi and Travis were both way underutilized in the show and I highly did this comment because it kind of pertains to to today’s episode because Travis. I think not the spoiler anything I think Travis had some interesting scenes. He was utilized in an interesting way. They showed his skills and they showed how good he is at his job and I thought that was really nice even though it didn’t focus on character development. We at least got to see him as action man. Like actually doing his job and doing it. Well.
Yeah I agree this episode certainly gave an interesting context for everybody to operate in which I really enjoyed. It was very different from previous episodes and I agree maywether was given some opportunity to do some things that were interesting.
As for today’s episode what we’re talking about is the catwalk. This is season 2 episode 12 Matt do you want to give us the brief description. This is as usual straight from the mouth of Wikipedia and the uneven write-ups continue.
Try not to laugh. It’s not going to work the catwalk season 2 episode 12 is the thirty eighth episode production number 2 12 of The Science Fiction Television Series Star Trek Enterprise the interra crew of the enterprise is forced to shelter inside one of the starships warp nalles to survive a radiation storm that the enterprise encounters as the as time passes, tensions rise and motives in strange behavior of the passengers they took on a his passengers they took on are questioned.
And they do.
Right? Yes, yes, this episode? Yeah yes Wikipedia is very fond of run on sentences. That’s one of the things I’ve discovered from this.
Got tongue tied there because the way that’s written is very odd. Wow I I thought the scriptures were getting better and we’ve just taken 5 steps backwards. This is so.
This episode was written by Sussman and strong they have written I forget how many episodes up to this point they are 2 of the more named people on the writing team and this episode was directed by Mike Vjar who there is no Wikipedia page 4 which I think is interesting. His name is unlinked in the Wikipedia listings of these episodes but I wanted to point out that this is a man with a long and storied history. He is now in his seventy s but his career goes pretty far back and he was born in 1943. He has directed. On series going back to Zoro Babylon 5 Macgyver the dead zone the x-files Jeremiah and he directed on 4 different star trek series. So.

Extremely accomplished and I think that this episode is a good example of what he’s able to do he directed many episodes of enterprise which started with unexpected civilization shadows of pagem marauders and now here we are with the cat walk. This episode aired on December eighteenth two thousand and two so we’re just a few weeks away from the Thanksgiving break where we had vanishing point which you’ve mentioned that episode marked the low point in ratings. Here we are one week before what would be the Christmas break and this episode got four point seven million viewers so it’s up from previous weeks. But it’s basically in the middle as far as ratings for the for the series this season and. Why is it struggling? Well the series continued to be on first of all a brand new network so upn was not everybody’s go to channel. And what were people going to well this show was going up against things like my wife and kids which was getting 10000000 viewers 60 minutes too which was getting 9000000 viewers the Bernie Mack show which was getting 6000000 and Bernie Mack people may or may not remember Bernie Mac was getting nominated for emmys. His portrayal of the main character in that show so he was up against stiff competition. It was also up against Ed which was getting 9000000 it was roundly beating candid camera which was getting less than 1000000 viewers per episode and happily it was also beating Dawson’s creek nothing against Dawson’s creek but and Dawson’s creek is I think an example of the only programming that star trek enterprise was really able to beat which was the W B was struggling even more mightily than upn.
More than you pn yeah.
People might remember that last time we talked about a w b program. It was the show birds of Prey W B was shuffling shows changing time slots always a sign of struggle they’re trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t meanwhile enterprise. Coming in at four point seven million with this episode. What was the larger world that this landed in well Matt you’ll remember you were still trying to lose yourself with Eminem the number 1 song basically for the rest of the year and this episode will Mark the end of our 2002 viewing next episode will be taking place in 2003 so we may actually lose lose yourself and in the movies. Okay, you’ll remember this. You were first in line to see made in Manhattan which opened with 18000000.
What was I what.
Remember you camped out I I questioned you at the time. Why are you taking that tent to the movie Theater Matt and you said I don’t have time to explain to you that this 2002 American Romantic Comedy film directed by Wayne Wang and based on a story by John Hughes is credited using a pseudonym and it stars Jennifer Lopez right finds Natasha Richardson in the film a hotel maid and a high profile politician fall in love. Yes, this film was released on December Thirteenth two thousand and two by Columbia pictures.
A movie I forgot existed.
Would go on to gross over 100000000 and if anybody has been captured by this right up again from Wikipedia you can view this currently on Hbo Max I think we all know what Matt’s going to be watching tonight.
Or not.
And on television. The main competition of the week was survivor with 24000000 and I’m always stunned to see programming that gets 24000000 viewers that just doesn’t happen anymore. But especially when you’re comparing it to. Enterprise the little program that could with its four point seven million kind of puts things in this perspective and from the New York Times headlines in the news this day December eighteenth two thousand and two Governor Pataki of New York signs a law protecting the rights of gays. And on a national scale president Bush was expected to say that Iraq had failed to meet un terms and spoiler alert Bush would go on to say that we’re on the doorstep of invading Iraq which would happen in 2003 so here. We are. We’re leaving 2002. We’re heading straight to twenty one fifty Two Matt it’s September eighteenth this is part of the series that I find baffling is not all episodes have a date.
Yes.
But when they do have dates. They tend to be right on top of each other which would imply somehow connections between episodes the previous episode had a date of I believe it was September Twelfth now I don’t. Quite understand why date things so close to each other if they’re not actually going to respond to each other if 1 episode isn’t leading directly into another one if there’s not going to be a reference back to something that happened in the previous one I also don’t understand well if you’re gonna date some of the episodes. Why not date all of them. Why not. If you’re giving it that kind of context. Why not do it universally It seems very hit or miss which creates a little bit of confusion. So here. We are only six days after the previous episode and in this one we start off with the enterprise looking forward to visiting a planet which. Is from all descriptions they’re looking at an opportunity to see a planet that is in a very lush and sort of enthusiastically inviting atmosphere and things quickly turn when they find out. That there is an approaching storm a Neutronic Wavefront is on its way and now they are basically gonna have to It’s almost like this is just a classic ship having to weather an ocean storm scenario very simple on its premise. I think that’s why I like this episode so much. How did you feel about that setup.
Um, I thought the setup was great, but 1 thing maybe go huh on the setup which was when they finally see the wave front coming at the ship. It’s a thin wide ribbon in space and it’s like you’re in space. You can go up and you can go down.
Um, it’s 2 dimensional. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
This looks like you guys could warp straight up or straight down and get away from this without a problem side to side no way but they made the case in the beginning of the setup of there’s no way they can get away from this in time they’re going to have to take they have 4 hours and but yet the visual they show us a few minutes after that makes you go.
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hu you could get away from that. Maybe even on Impulse you could get away from that. So it’s like it. It just didn’t make sense raised questions of can you hide behind a planet stuff like that. So there were some giant question marks. But if you put that stuff to the side and you just like disconnect from thinking too logically and you go okay that set up.
Yeah.
Have some flaws I like this episode I thought it was a lot of fun. It showcased like you said it’s It’s not big on character development but it did a good job showing the crew in action being very using their ingenuity to come up with a solution to protect themselves and these. These wayward travelers that came aboard to give them the the warning um I thought was nice I thought was I was a nice.. It was a nice episode was had some moments of excitement um did a good job with the claustrophobia of like making things feel confined did feel. It did feel like a um.
Um, yeah.
Like you said a ship at sea. It had that feeling of a dos boat or you know any other kind of like war movie where you’re in a submarine confined space and no danger will they survive it was I thought of it was well executed.
Yeah.
Yeah, the inclusion of aliens trying to take over the ship ah felt both. I think there was an element to that that felt a little bit like when you need a lever to like force the characters to to get out of the safety of of where they are. They’re hiding in the in the catwalk that is part of the nacelles leading out of the main engine of the ship. Toward the na cells and that catwalk is described as being designed in such a way that the Neutronic wave radiation will not penetrate it so they’ll be safest in there but it is clearly not intended to hold 80 plus people in either of these in the cells. So the setup is they get into safety but there needs to be something to force them out of that safety and so whatever it was going to be it was going to be something happening in a different part of the ship that was going to be an accident so somebody would have to leave like it’s whatever it’s going to be It’s going to be something that feels a little bit. Laid on top of the main story. That’s how I felt about the alien invaders but I was willing to forgive it because it was done in in ah it was done in a way as best as it could be in order to force them out of safety so I was willing to forgive that part which I felt like was the the weakest part of the episode and as far as the setup i.
Yeah, yeah.
I had the same thoughts you did like I have flashbacks to you know? Spock’s review of this episode which would be It seems like they’re trapped in 2 dimensional thinking. Um they would be able to on the z as go up or down above the special effects. All of the things that you mentioned were all things that went through my head and all of them I felt like I’m willing to ignore those things because I could think of very brief explanations as to why it would not matter to have to Paul explain away those things I didn’t think was necessary. Because if I could come up with those ideas on my own so quickly. It’s fine. You could say something like well. The Neutronic wave is only in the visible spectrum as a narrow band but the radiation itself extends for extreme distances in the z access.
Way out. Yeah.
To go above or below. It doesn’t actually minimize the danger you could say that you could say that the best way Beyond it is through it the shortest distance between 2 points. We need to get to safe territory as quickly as possible that means flying straight at it. At a reasonable speed and moving through it the way that they do. There’s that there’s the well hiding behind a planet was one of the things I I thought again you’re putting yourself in a stationary position. And to say Well we’d be bathed in the radiation for a longer period of time. It might be safer initially behind the planet but effectively we would be baking in this radiation for too long. So All of these things are things that occurred to me almost immediately after seeing the ribbon and I thought that’s fine. They decided we have to get through it not just. You know hide from it.
Well you you did bring up the the alien invasion feeling layered on and I do agree with that. It felt unnecessary to me it for me. It wasn’t a an over negative like it wasn’t like didn’t ruin the episode. But it felt unnecessary because like all stories can be boiled onto 1 of 3 things that’s human versus human human versus self or human versus nature and the way that this episode is set up is this episode’s going to be about human versus nature and the fact that halfway through they’re like no, it’s human versus human it was like we didn’t need to make that switch. It’s like you.
Right? yeah.
You could had different reasons that they had to get out of confinement because something happened to the ship and somebody had to go out there to fix it so they could survive it in my opinion. That’s far more interesting than what they did do but what they did do wasn’t that bad So it’s like at the end of the day I thought it was still a very fun.
Right.
Yeah, it felt a little bit like any of our viewers who are are movie buffs maybe revisit these 2 movies and I felt like this movie was kind of a stapling together of these 2 movies. The movie dead Com where it’s a shipboard story and there’s a danger where.
Enjoyable episode.
Yeah.
Sam Neil is in 1 location and his wife is in a different location and he needs to get from point a to point b to to help her so that’s that’s the invasion story here. The other movie would be white squall which is the story of a group of boys at a school for boys for. Who have troubled pasts and they are taught to be yachtsmen aboard a ship that while it is out on a on a training cruise ends up getting hit by a storm and they have to weather this storm and I think that both of those movies are part of the storyline of this episode. This episode kind of staples those 2 things together I don’t think it was fully necessary like Matt said um, it felt like what they were trying to do was force the characters out of the safety of the nacele I don’t think that was necessary because Matt you touched on something There’s not a lot of character development I think there was a lot of potential.
Yes, okay.
A lot more character development what this episode did though in ah in a sort of nice way is on ah on a certain storytelling level. This was a little bit of the antithesis of episode number 1 season 1 where. Everybody welcome to enterprise we have a bunch of characters. You’ve never seen before and now we’re going to introduce everybody this episode was you all know who our characters are. We’re going to remind you of who they are in this moment and how they collectively work together this episode.
3 yeah.
Doesn’t revolve around friction in the crew. Even though they are in a confine which should create friction. So this episode is a nice demonstration of replanting a flag for the characters of where are they right now. How do they operate together as a team you have. Reminders of Hoshi’s claustrophobia you have the crew is no longer able to shower they they almost forgot about needing a latrine in their in their location. So the fact that nobody is showering and it’s multiple days. They have brought aboard a group of a trio of aliens who in effect are the cause of the invasion takeover because they are being pursued by a militia It’s an interesting device to create this militia as the danger because then it’s not about a greater. Threat in the galaxy like it’s not klanons I appreciated the fact that it was not a recognizable alien this wasn’t romulans this wasn’t even the sulaban from previous episodes I liked the fact that it was basically a group of people who liked to strongarm and be the bullies of ah of the area. And they’re basically just trying to steal the ship because it looks like this is better than what we currently have you get these moments between the characters and the little bits that we do see we see flocks very concerned about making sure that all of his animals his menagerie stay safe.
Yeah, yeah.
And so we get a reminder of how he treats them as well as how he treats his patients. We get to see him in action helping the crew and casually saying like you’re not alone in your experience. We are all experiencing a level of seasickness in this environment because of the storm you see. The fact that Tucker has trip basically puts together an impossible scenario so that everybody can stay safe and does it in a way that works so we see his engineering prowess. We see his ability and his team’s ability to put this together. Yes, on the fly.
From the first scene he comes up with it. Yeah.
He comes up with it and he says I had 4 hours to put this together. We do see little bits of friction. But it’s the kind of friction. You’d be see between friends or family where people are saying like you basically stink I’m tired of being in close proximity to everybody but they’re still doing things like they’re playing poker.
Yeah.
And they’re using food to bet so little things like that I thought were very charming and we see the fact that to Paul and archer are effectively bunking together in the temporary bridge that has been cobbled together in a separate room from the rest of the crew each of them is on. Ah. Opposite side of the of this tiny little room which is also where mayweather has to pilot the ship from and we get the opportunity to see them being intimate in a way that you would be with a roommate and having to negotiate being like. Right next to each other we have to try and avoid friction where we can but that friction is impossible to avoid entirely. So we see both of them kind of swallow. It. We see them both take it in and say like yeah and they make a joke out of it in a nice way where to Paul says of Archer’s water polo match that he’s watching. It’s disturbing me. Ah, it’s disturbing me a little and then his response back to her for the work. She’s working on like yeah, it’s disturbing me a little bit. It’s this we. Both know there’s no way around this.
Yeah, does this bother you? Yeah yeah, a little bit.
And in that scene is one of the moments where I felt like oh I wish there had been a little bit more to this. He is subtly moving her toward connecting with the crew more she reveals in this moment she knows the name of everybody but she doesn’t socialize. And he comes very close to and I thought a very nice line of dialogue him saying you need to socialize more. Her response is that an order and his response does it have to be.. He’s effectively playing on their friendship and he’s suggesting to her like I’m I’m suggesting this as a friend not as a commanding officer but I will make it about being a commanding officer if I have to how did you feel about that. How that played out and the relationship between the 2 of them and.
Yes, he is.
I I thought it was nice I thought it was really nice how she he was just like prodding her as a friend of you need to get more integrated with the crew I thought that was a very nice dynamic. They didn’t really pay that off until the very end of the episode which I thought was disappointing. Ah there were 2 characters in all of this. You talked about I thought.
Scene.
There wasn’t character development but of the characters the most character development happened with trip and with Travis in my opinion because trip like you mentioned first seen he’s the one that comes up with the ingenious idea of let’s get in and sell. Like you can see him have that light bulb moment. He’s thinking it through he’s talking about it. He comes with the whole plan. He’s going through the nace getting everything set up the funny comment about like what about latrines oh man I didn’t even think about that. Okay there’s a cabin up here I think we could do something with and so it’s like he’s just.
Yeah.
Pulling this together in 4 hours and it’s astonishing what he’s able to do and that’s the whole thing about star trek and every star trek series. It’s always like starfleet engineers are just geniuses at what they do and this is the first time we get to see trip on the fly pull something together. That’s an impossible task and he does it Travis in the entire episode. There was like. And that beginning point where they’re getting ready and he’s walking around the ship with trip but nasll and he brings up a trip says you know did you ever have to come across something along these lines when you were with your family on their their your ship. He talks about? Oh yeah, we were stuck. You know there was a big storm that we had to take shelter in our you know the core of our ship for six weeks and when he says six weeks tripus is like what like. So oh my god and he was like you know were you scared was that awful. He was like I know it was no big deal but you know when when our generators went down.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, that was the first time I saw look on my dad’s face that was like oh boy and and as he’s telling this story. He’s being very offhand about it. Trip’s face is just like oh my god and you could see this moment of just recognition of this guy’s been through some stuff and you know if he’s not too worried about this. Maybe we don’t have to be as concerned about it. It’s like.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
A nice moment showing his expertise and his life that he’s lived in a really nice way and but they didn’t do more with it which I wish they had and then the other side of it was him actually piloting the ship and there were several scenes of him on that Jerry rigged Controller that was in that little front area.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
He is just there and he’s got like laser vision on his console and stuff and you can tell he is. He’s concentrating because what he’s doing is really hard stuff and he’s navigating to the storm really well several scenes where you can kind of see perspiration and. Stuff is going on around the ship and every time they cut back there. There’s this one moment where the captain is next to him and says once you get through this you know, switch out to give yourself some rest because he’s probably been there for like 8 hours straight just like like nail biting piling the ship I loved that and I wish they had done a little bit more with him.
Take a break. Yeah, right? Yeah yeah.
To really highlight how good he is at his job just like they highlighted how good trip was at his job. So it’s of the 2 those 2 characters I think they did the most with.
Um, yeah, yeah I feel like sometimes they they lose track of where tension can be found and and I think very often what I see in Enterprise is they.
Yeah.
They think that tension comes from the outside thing coming in and then people identifying it for the audience. Oh. My god somebody’s trying to steal the enterprise there. There is aliens aboard the ship and like we’ve said that seems to be It’s all fine, but the acting of the scenario around. Mayweather’s abilities is better than than all of that and ah and to go back to you to what you brought up about his conversation with trip. He says yeah when the power grid went down and we lost the grav plating and life support. That was the first moment I ever saw that look in my father’s eyes that made me think that we were in trouble and so they’re effectively describing a ship that is almost dead in space in a scenario where as you mentioned trip is looking at him and saying like.
This is.
You’ve seen more than almost anybody else on this ship. You have an experience that we’re gonna have to depend on and to have teased that out more and make this episode more about mayweather’s Exhaustion Mayweather’s pushing through that exhaustion that could have been amazing and ah to tie it. To then the end of the episode. We see the aliens when trip has to respond to the fact that for some reason it looks like the warp engine is coming back online. This is nicely set up as being incredibly dangerous because the catwalk where they are located. Where everybody is Hiding. We’ll go up to °F when the engine is running so they can’t sit there and just let the warp engines come back online when he goes into the ship. That’s when trip realizes there are Aliens Aboard The ship. So now it becomes about repelling these invaders. And it turns out that the trio of Aliens who warned them of the storm at the beginning are in fact, deserters from the militia and again I didn’t think the the militia issue was necessary for the episode but what they do with it I think is actually fairly interesting. The idea of deserters from a militia who are looking at it is like these guys are bad news and we didn’t realize it when we signed up and they won’t let us go so we were desperate to get away from them I really liked that dynamic and effectively it then turns into. Almost an old West story. It’s just yeah, it’s a shootout in in in the kitchen of the of the of the ship um pots and pans are falling on the floor and to go back to may weather. The.
It’s like it’s a cowboy shootout.
Ending revolves around May weather’s piloting skills to be able to take the enterprise close enough to the dangerous plasma veins within the storm to take them close enough to it that it endangers not only their ship but the alienship that is docked with them. Forcing the militia to say like we got to get out of here because these guys are gonna blow us all up and maywether’s skills in those moments are underscored by the fact that he is saying I shouldn’t be going this close. We need to get out of here but he’s doing his job under Topa’s orders who says.
Yes.
Maintain course until we hear from the captain so he is doing this incredibly dangerous thing as best he can to effectively threaten the ship to until the invaders will leave I thought that that was a very interesting way to tie it to his expertise and his history.
Yes.
I Just wish that that had been more of the focus throughout the entire thing.
Yeah I was going to say the this is where we go into the rewriting Star Trek which we typically end up doing for me that this layer of the cowboy shootout all that kind of stuff The show was trying to do too much and if they had done less and.
Um, yeah.
Spent more time on 1 plot. It would have been stronger overall and so it’s like if they had focused on Basically if they’d focused on trip and Travis as the only main characters of the show as like their throughline to the entire show instead of having the aliens you could have had something happen where. Thrusters were out and Travis could no longer effectively navigate the ship and there’s these eddies just like they at the end of the episode that he’s having to navigate around and it’s making it either super hard or almost impossible to do that you could have had this moment where you’re cutting between trip trying to solve the problem with the thrusters. And Travis trying to navigate without full thruster capabilities to get around them and maybe he’s doing tricks that he learned from when he was on the freighter with his family and the Captain’s like what are you doing is it well I found like if you do this, it can actually you can actually kind of guide the ship in a way to get around things like this so he could had him showing his expertise his experience. This nail biting piloting that he’s doing that should not be possible. You have trip doing everything he can from engineering standpoint to get things back online. So Travis doesn’t have to do that. So by the end of the episode Travis is just like ah an exhausted wreck during what he’s done to save the ship you have.
Right.
Trip who’s put himself in danger with radiation to try to solve the issue you could have made it about those 2 characters alone and then you have the character development that was kind of thin it was there but it was kind of thin and so it’s like they they bit off more. They could chew and that’s something that this show does a lot and it’s like it’s really disappointing because like you have a whole season.
Yeah.
You don’t have to deal with all the characters in every episode. How about this one. We just deal with these two and don’t bring in a boogie man Alien that gives us a shootout. You don’t need a shootout. You could have had a nail biting episode without aliens on board.
I also think you could have to do my version of the rewriting of the episode but not go as deep into a rearri as you did let’s keep the the militia let’s keep the trio of aliens who are brought on board and the militia that’s in pursuit of them and let’s keep them invading the enterprise. But let’s keep. All of the enterprise crew in the nascells and make it about a cat and mouse game between the crew that is in the naslls communicating through audio only to the invaders and trying to negotiate a get off of our ship. And when that doesn’t work then initiating without any kind of shootout the captain with Travis simply saying like you’re going to have to take us into those eddies and then you have more time by not having the shootouts you have more time for discussion more more time for Travis to be able to what he’s showing his expertise in the way that you’ve described. And you could have something happening on the ship where trip does have to through some engineering prowess begin to rescue the situation on his side of it and be able to do what you’ve described maywether and trip being the focus of it. But increase the kind of dos boot sort of situation of the cat and mouse between these militia guys who’ve taken over taken over the enterprise and us and who’s what does it mean to be the captain of the ship and have the militia captain saying like clearly I’m in charge of the ship because I’m sitting in the Captain’s chair and have archer from inside the nacell say it doesn’t matter where you are in this ship I am the captain and being able to prove it through this kind of drastic action I think that all of that would have been heightening of the tensions within the story that were clearly already. There. But doing it a way that doesn’t distract through they fall back on the shoot em up and and I feel like the shoot them up isn’t the most interesting part I’m I’m less intrigued by pots and pans falling in the kitchen than I am the sweat on travis’ brow and for me.
Earth.
The last comments that I would like to make about this episode and I’d like to hear your thoughts on this I think that this episode one of the things that really works is the exact opposite of one of the things that really worked in our most recent episode which was the story about trip. And the princess landing on the planet trying to escape their captor that ah episode I really appreciated the alien environment that they created. Felt like the special effects the the team there had really kind of crafted a very different look for a world almost like a dagoba this episode I love that it’s the exact opposite that it’s basically no need for new sets. This is effectively like a bottle episode where they’re able to cut corners by having. No new environments to have to shoot in. It looks like they’ve just reused a Jeffrey’s tube to to create this this space and I felt like the claustrophobia was the the additional crew member of this episode. It really felt like every shot felt like the camera was resting on the lap. Of whichever character was doing the talking in that moment I thought that that was very effective.
Yeah know I The first time we see the inside of the nacell that that tube I was impressed with I kept thinking like what set did they reuse to do this because it is so intricate and it’s so Detailed. There’s no way they built a one off set just for this. They had to reuse parts from other parts of the ship. But whatever they did. It felt new and unique and I was it was so impressive what they built out and how it felt like a submarine. It felt like Dos boot and I was like super excited by that about how wonderful and a set they created for themselves to pull off this claustrophobic episode.
Yeah.
And it was another part of the it was another character and I wish they hadn’t left that confines like the whole shootout. That’s part of the reason I wasn’t too big of a fan of it was because then they go back out into the ship. It’s like it would be greater if they had just never left that compartment because it would have felt even more claustrophobic over the course of the episode.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and by the end of the episode. You could have also had some dark comedy coming out of the fact that they’ve got their temporary bridge and if by the end you’ve got to Paul and archer and mayweather.
And even more dangerous.
And trip and more and more people keep forcing themselves into that little tiny room. You could have ended. You could have ended the episode with everybody who’s a part of this critical fight to save the ship being in 1 small space and all of them kind of looking at each other like is this how we’re going to die. We’re all going to die basically holding hands. This is nuts. I think that that kind of like would have of supercharged the the claustrophobia in an interesting way. So that’s it for this episode I’m curious from our viewers. How did you feel about all of this the claustrophobia did you agree that it was a great addition to the episode. Did you like the shootout. Do you like the shootouts in general. Do you think that they are a key part of star trek are Matt and I basically asking for something that’s critical to be removed. Let us know what you think next time we’re going to be talking about the episode Dawn Matt what do you speculate? This episode is about.
I Think it’s probably a trip and the captain going on an away mission and watching the sun rise.
Um I think it’s going to be about Tony Orlando’s backup singers.
Could be.
Yeah, before we sign off is there anything you want to remind our listeners about that you have going on. What do you have coming up on your other shows.
Just check out undecided with Matt Ferrell on Youtube covering a lot of sustainable technologies different sustainable technologies like small modular reactors solar panel roofs and there’s some new solar tiles that are coming out that are really interesting to look at and consider for your house. So check out my other channel.
For me just go to http://seanferrell.com you can look for my books on Amazon barns and noble your local bookstore your public library I encourage people if they haven’t visited it before http://bookshop.org. It’s a great massive online bookstore. That links you to your local bookstores so you can either order books from them at large or you can even drill down and support your local bookstore through their order process. It’s a great way to support your local bookstore while having the convenience of something like it. Amazon or Barnes and http://noble.com if you’d like to support this show. Please consider reviewing us on Apple Google Spotify wherever you’re picking up this podcast if you’re on Youtube obviously just scroll beneath this window with our smiling faces leave a comment below. Don’t forget to like and subscribe if you’d like to more directly support us. You can go to trek in time show click on the become a supporter button and then you’ll become a supporter what that means you throw coins at us. It’s a lot of fun all of that really does help the show and thank you so much for listening or watching. And we’ll see you in the next one.

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