40: Future Tense – Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, Episode 16




Matt and Sean talk about finding the future, and then teasing people with it.

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Hi everybody in today’s episode of trek and time we’re going to talk about what a star trek doctor who crossover might look like. Welcome to trek in time where we’re watching every episode of star trek in chronological order that means that right now we’re still talking about enterprise which in the star trek universe are the oldest stories and as we do that. We’re also taking a look at what. Our world was like at the time of the original broadcast which means that we’re currently talking about early 2003 and who are we well I’m Sean Farrell I’m a published author I write some sci-fi I write some stuff for kids and with me is my brother Matt Matt is the guru and inquisitor behind the Youtube channel undecided with Matt Farrell which takes a look at emergrging tech and its impact on our lives. So between the sci-fi and the tech talk. We’ve got trek covered I think Matt how are you doing I’m doing okay.
I’m doing Well how about yourself.
So as I mentioned we’re gonna be talking about well what would a doctor who star trek crossover look like it’s the episode of future tense and this episode is episode 16 of season 2 and Matt before we get into this. I understand you’ve got some comments you want to share from previous episodes.
Yes, I Do there’s one from Giant hogweed lives from the episode dawn which is the episode where trip is stranded on the planet with that Alien and the 2 of them fight it out like enemy mine boy Scout tip for trip. Set up camp on the shady side of a mountain so that you don’t get sunburn or was that just lazy directing Anyway, it distracted me. Yes I also thought of darharak while watching sha I immpressed that you remembered some of the lines from that episode and when he brought that up when he brought up the thing about the sun and I was like that wasn’ in the back of my mind.
Yeah.
But it never like it never clicked of like yeah well duh all they had to do is kind of like go around to the other side and it would have been fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the the alien that trip is hanging out with is the only one who has any shade and the shade that he’s behind is created by a tiny little Bush I believe and part of a rock and so he is hiding in the.
Yes, a little shrub.
Only shade available. Well of course fifteen feet the other direction is the other side of that mountain and they would be fine, but that’s neither here nor there.
Yeah, the the other comment I want to bring up and this one is going to lead into when we talk about the current episode from robotrav who comments all the time. Thank you very rope for that robbotrav we need a podcast of just Matt struggling to read Wikipedia plot synopses while Sean tries to keep the straight face pure gold.
Yes I think that that would I mean we could arguably just shorten these podcasts to just that and probably get just as many people tuning in because well these Wikipedia entries are quite a wild ride speaking of which.
Yes, it’s time for.
Guess what time it is Matt that bell you here. What is that? Oh it sounds like a read alert and that read alert is letting us know that it’s time for Matt to read the Wikipedia synopses Matt take it here. We go.
Always reading these cold I’ve never read these beforehand so here we go. Okay, future tense is the forty second episode production number 2 16 of the television series star trek enterprise. It’s the sixteenth of the second season. Set in the twenty second century of the star trek universe a spaceship and its crew deal with aliens as the explorer space. Whoever’s writing this has to stop the nx o 1 enterprise finds a derelict ship apparently from the future and is attacked by sulaban and later tholian ships seeking. Its. Position. Okay, that final sentence is all that had to be that’s that was it what’s up with the first paragraph.
Yeah, the first paragraph I like that it ends with basically a yada yada yada they they they deal with these aliens as they explore space. So as that synopsis so not clearly and not concisely.
Yeah I think sport place. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But as it points out this episode revolves around the enterprise crew discovering a derelict ship right out of the gate the episode opens with a shot of the derelict ship that they are examining and it is. Damaged beyond their ability to even recognize which end is which they pull this thing aboard and they begin to examine it. So that’s where this episode will start off but where did this episode first land. Well this episode first aired on February Nineteenth Two Thousand and three was written by Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong we’ve seen their work before and it was directed by James Whitmore we’ve also seen his work before what was the world like when this episode aired on February Nineteenth Two Thousand and three Matt you were still groovven out to I’m with you by Aville Levine and
Ah, yeah.
In a flashback to a moment that I actually remember the movie. Well the movie of the week was daredevil starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Gardner and it opened with $40000000 this week and.
Yeah I remember this one too.
Strange I remember not only that this movie came out then I remember when we saw this movie because you and I saw it together with our uncle and his kids our cousins so shout out to uncle Harry Charlie and Tim and on Tv. Well.
That’s right we did.
This episode earned four point six million viewers how was that in the big picture. Well for the show. It was about on par with the previous week but when you compare it to some of the other programming that was available like. The bachelorette which got 20000000 viewers star search and again just like last week scratching my head when was starch search on Cbs and primetime I don’t recall that but 10000000 people do because they tuned in that 70 show.
Just a few more yeah I was star search but.
Yeah, yeah.
Got 12000000 ed almost 9000000 so who did enterprise beat in this time slot if it lost so handily to all those other shows. Well star trek enterprise beat the crap out of birds of prey yet again. As the W B shifted around its programming trying to figure out how to be a network birds of prey had barely 3000000 so and never really succeeding. But for the week. What was the number 1 program well met I don’t know about you but i.
And never succeeding at that.
Kind of had to take a deep breath when I saw that the number 1 program for the week was the show Joe millionaire on Fox which earned 40000000 viewers Joe Millionaire was a show on Fox.
I don’t remember that at all what show What was that about I don’t even remember that show.
Which was a reality competition in the same vein as the bachelor. However, the setup was all the women on the show were told that the bachelor in question was a millionaire which was in fact, a lie it was in reality.
Okay.
Ok, all right.
He was I believe a carpenter or a construction worker something like that and at the end of the program when the final lucky lady was the sole winner of the show. She was told about Mr. Joe’s actual occupation and income level. Who put her on the spot with would she actually stay with him. Nothing better than emotional manipulation manipulation. And yeah I when I saw I remembered the program as soon as I saw the name I was like yeah I remember Joe millionaire but to find out that it had.
Nothing better than using manipulation for entertainment.
40000000 viewers shocking absolutely dumbfounding and in the news from the New York Times were articles around the economy arguing that the economy is bad but in New York
It’s shocking.
It’s particularly horrid shiro the leader of France his scolding of the Us and its allies leading toward the war in Iraq angered us allies and in the us antiwar protests. Don’t sway president Bush at this point in mid -february we were merely weeks away from the beginning of our operations to unseat saddam hussein and invade iraq. So onto the episode at this point the last known date of an episode was september twenty one 52 there are 7 episodes with no date given. Until an episode that is dated january twenty one 53 so as I’ve done in previous episodes I arbitrarily decide to split the time up in whatever way makes sense with 7 episodes which means that this episode arguably takes place in early november 21 52 and as I mentioned before we start off with the examination of a derelict pod in space which is small enough for them to actually bring a board into their shuttle bay and it’s a little bit longer. Then a shuttle craft and doesn’t even seem quite as big around as a shuttle craft. It looks very much like some kind of satellite. There’s a lot of discussion about what they’re looking at they don’t know which end is the front which end is the back. But.
Or skate pod or something like that. Yeah.
They do identify read identifies. What looks like could be a hatch and using a phaser which is strangely and conveniently located in a panel on the wall that kind of made me scratch my head they’ve we’ve had previous episodes in which there’s been discussion around the armoury.
Yes.
Importance of the security has been something that Reid has been banging on week by week for for many episodes but when it comes to he needs a phaser there happens to be just a cabinet that he walks over to opens with no difficulty pulls out a phaser which is just one of many.
Yep.
And then he phasers the side of the derelict craft.
And after he phases it the Captain grabs what looks like some futuristic tool that he wedges into the opening and it’s supposed to look like it’s magnetically attached when it’s clear when it’s clearly it’s the Scott Bacu holding it in place badly is he’s opening it up and it was like.
Yes, yeah I love that I loved that? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You could have just gotten the pry bar. You just could have gotten aryr out and you know it’s you know it’s it’s mechanics is is not that hard nit pick and a minor nitpi. Yeah.
You needed a lever you needed a lever not a eye magnet of some sort. Yeah so I love that too I was like hats off to you Mr. Bacula as you try to make it look like this thing is somehow sealed to the doorway while clearly it’s going wobble wobble.
Yeah, not everything has to be sci-fi.
Wobble and they open up the hatch and the captain climbs inside and discovers a body and the body looks strangely enough human so now begun begins the mystery of deciphering. Not only what this device is what this probe is but who this person could possibly be and the interior of the ship. One of the things that stood out to me as really working in this episode was it was not a case of them interpreting and deciphering. Every detail. It was a lot of loose threads because some of those threads weren’t critical to the plot moving forward I appreciate that kind of storytelling when some of the mystery is left mysterious and the things that happen aren’t necessarily. What we would anticipate this episode starts with the sense that oh they found a thing. The people who made and use this thing will be what we will be looking at and that is not the case. This thing in this case is a Mcguffin it is a device to get the plot moving. So what we are left with is they find a body the interior of this vessel is completely burnt out in a way that speaks of some tragic accident.
Toll Mcguffin. Yep.
Is How I interpreted it. It did not at any point they didn’t say oh it looks like there’s damage from weapons or there’s nothing about the exterior of this vessel that clues you in as to what caused this. It’s the interior that looks like some fire. Rush through this thing destroying every bit of the interior so they can’t even identify panels or circuitry and the body is burned in such a way and it was a tragic detail that I noted that the body actually looked like the hands were curled toward the chest. And it’s a gruesome little detail that I happen to know which is that when a person is in a fire the heats effect on the muscles causes that kind of curling Inward. So that little nuance that little bit of detail really struck a chord with me.
Then.
As I was as I was watching the episode the examination of the body that takes place with flocks follows but I felt like this experience at the beginning starts off with the real kind of excited mystery.
Yes.
But as soon as they find that body. It felt like it took on a reverence in a very subtle way. What did you think about the whole introduction of the mystery of what this thing is.
I liked the mystery box that were’re building like especially when they start to investigate the ship and they’re like we can’t find propulsion. We can’t how does this even work I came even find a power source. It’s like the mystery of this is so beyond our understanding I really enjoyed. And I liked the mystery around it and I understood it. It was clear that it was all Mcguffin that we’re not going to get the answers to all this stuff. We’re not going to get the complete answers as to why this person died it. It was clear that this was just a starting off point. So for me I liked it. We can get into this more as we go through the episode but at the end of the episode what they ended up delivering to me from the setup was kind of disappointing in the end because there’s very little agency in anything that happens in this episode. It’s literally the enterprise going from. Step to step to step just like flailing like oh not knowing what’s going on and not being able to really take control of the situation or have agency about what’s going on and by the end there’s only 1 thing that happens that they have some like little pin that they put in that helps the. Resolution but at the end of the episode. There wasn’t much to take away from it wasn’t like you. We I walked away from the episode going. Okay so this is this is all about developing this character or this was all about setting up a plot for the future thing over here at the end it was kind of like why did I watch this like what was it.
Um, yeah.
But am I supposed to take away from this 42 minutes of this show that I just watched and I couldn’t put my finger on it. So even though I enjoyed the ride at the end it was like it was like eating popcorn. It was like you know it’s like I ate all this stuff and I’m still hungry and it’s like what what did you just give me.
Yeah.
Yeah, it feels like there are episodes that we’ve talked about already that fall into multiple camps 1 of the camps is ah well done for what it is well done and pushes boundaries of storytelling in star trek. Not so well done and not so well done but still trying to push boundaries and this one felt like well done but it didn’t feel like it was pushing any boundaries but it would have if it had been a first season episode.
Um, they’d already. They’d already dealt with a lot of this stuff in previous episodes. So it was nothing new.
If this had followed. Yeah this if this had been the introduction of some of the time cold War The temporal cold War right? after they introduced the character of daniels and we’ll talk more about Daniels a little bit in this discussion.
Yes.
If this episode had followed closely on the introduction of Daniels I feel like it would have had its place the sulaban take center stage as the threat in this episode at this point, the sulaban are easily dismissed as a thing. Within the storytelling of enterprise the second season has has largely just forgotten them. In fact, we’ve had episodes in which we’ve seen that not all sulaban are in fact, a threat. So the introduction of them showing up and immediately. The response is red alert. These people are problem. I thought this feels old this feels dated so we end up with a situation like you said they don’t have agency. They’re reactive to everything. There’s no taking hold of something and. If you’re going to have that kind of story you better focus in on one particular character growing as a result of this and I feel like this episode was about 3 clicks away from that character being to Paul if they had just dialed it.
Um, really.
Up a little bit more. This was another case of to Paul Wrestling with is time travel a thing that’s real.
That’s interesting. So that’s not the person I would have dialed the the dials off on I would just said trip.
That’s that’s where that’s where both you and I are pointing out in those different decisions about where the episode doesn’t really make a point because we’re debating about who could have been the main character of this.
And.
Well for for me that was trip because he’s the when I talked about putting the pin like the only thing that happens where the crew actually has an inkling of agency is when trip finally gets that little remote device that they find aboard the ship he gets it working and once he gets it working. It’s basically a beacon.
Um, right.
To the future so that they can come back and get all their stuff that they that was broken and left behind so. It’s that’s the only thing that happens in the entire episode. That’s like they did something to prevent the bad guys from getting their hands on this but at the same time it was like it was such like a. Here’s a little fivesecond thing and there was nothing built around it which is why I was like if they had this dialed up trip because when they’re investigating the ship in the beginning and they go inside and they find that like the organic circuitry which to me was like ah a nod to Voyager because a voyager had organic stuff in it.
Yeah.
Um, when they pull that thing out and they find the hatch which is basically turning this little ship into the Tardis where it’s bit bigger on the inside than it is on the outside I did not care that was ripping off doctor who I thought that was fun I thought it was really fun just this this shaf just going deep down. They’re like where the hell does this go that was that was amazing. Um, so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah.
It’s clearly super future tech that they came and wrap their heads around and they find all this Stuff. It’s like in in a trip is a meet like I’m going down and reads like we should be telling the captain. He’s like no I’m going which I thought was such a great nod to whatever the bible is they have for this show trip is. An explorer an adventurer. He wants to find new things and so it’s like nothing’s going to hold him back from going down that ladder because that’s why he’s out here to do this and so for me, it was like okay this episode’s gonna be about trip because here’s trip being trip going down to the like town ladder and he’s gonna go do trip things and he’s gonna.
Um, yeah.
Have some kind of character development and it doesn’t go anywhere because it’s just him basically tinkering with this thing the entire episode and then he gets it working and then it goes away where they could have dialed that up a couple notches and they could have had an entire storyline around him maybe pushing the captain saying no I think this is the key I think this is the key that we can use to try to stop this situation.
Right.
Instead the Captain’s like let’s go put a bomb on the ship so that you know if somebody takes it we can blow it up. It’s like it would have been better if trip was like I’ve got the answer you have to trust me, it would have been great to have more of a dynamic there. It’s it’s similar to what you’re saying with with toal. It’s like you could have easily gone the way with toal too. So I see what you’re talking about.
Right? right. Um, great, right? Yeah, so before we get any deeper into the territory that Matt and I usually end up in which is we put our rewriters hat.
Rewriting Star trek.
And we start rewriting the episode just to kind of like super consolidate the rest of it because I don’t think this is an episode that requires the kind of point by point blow-by blow synopsis. They find this vessel as Matt pointed out. They open up a chamber. They find 2 things they find that there is organic circuitry inside. They find that when they open up the panel. It has a shaft that goes down into what is probably an engineering compartment which is so far down that when trip tests it by dropping a tool. It has a good 3 or 4 second count before you hear the thing hit the ground which means you’re looking at ah a shaft that’s probably one hundred feet deep meanwhile flox is looking at the body in sick pay and discovers first there’s human Dna as the majority of it. But then he begins to recognize there’s something strange about the Dna and he puts a little research into it and discovers that the individual’s great. Grandparent was probably a vulcan which makes everybody the captain to Paul everybody scratch their heads because at this point this is still early days of everybody trying to get along. There apparently at this point have been no cross species commingling of Dna but it doesn’t stop there flox discovers a number of other including teleright and some alien Dna. He can’t even identify and so. This is a individual from a far future in which this kind of commingling is clearly not foreign and it makes everybody kind of reel back on their heels. It’s at this point that to Paul is pushing back against facts and. This is where I began to see as opposed to Matt’s argument that trip should be the focus this is where I began to think that oh topa is going to be the focus of this episode because I thought it was going to be her repeating steadfastly the arguments of time travel is not possible and it was going to reach the point. Her arguing against facts in front of her to the point where she would have to either bend or break under her own logical arguments and that it would create a moment for her of recognizing we have been. Experiencing how the vulcan high command isn’t always truthful and seeing that. Not only is there a hesitance for complete honesty but also having to recognize the limits of vulcan knowledge.
M.
No.
Thought it was going to lead to a moment where she would where she would be saying to the captain I’ve just now recognized that while we stand ahead of you. There are those that stand ahead of us and the limits of my knowledge. Not the limits of reality. 1 of the things as you were talking that occurred to me and here’s comes the rewriter. We. Both could be right in. It could have been trip and to Paul working together on what is this device. And trif making the argument based on faith and assumption I think what we’re looking at is a beacon and I think if we turn this on I think it will send a signal and I think if it sends a signal. We’ll be sending it to the future and she could be making the argument of. We have no idea what that device is spending any time on it is a waste of our time we should be doing other things trying to figure out what to do with this device and the 2 of them as the tension is ratcheted up and where does the tension come from well I actually enjoyed the tension. Of the not the first alien race they introduced the sullaban fine the suaban are there I really love the fact that we see the tholians the tholians were introduced in the original series in the third season in the episode. The Tholian web.
Yes.
Hundred percent
1 of my favorite if most unused of the alien species they are described as being non-humanoid they are believed to be crystalline in nature and I love the fact that when they are communicated with they come through as large. High pitched squeaks that the computer is able to decipher. But it’s a little bit like listening to an incredibly aggressive dolphin.
Yes.
I took it as that was their translation. Not our translation and whatever it was I thought the the rendering of how they communicated was brilliant. It was so cool because it was so Alien so bizarre and the squeaks and the squeals and all the.
Right.
Crazy sounds and then also the actual like things that were being translated into English were just so great that the the emotion of these tholians came through and the foreignness of them came through it was so much fun. It was I wish they had done more with it.
And one of the things that stood out for me was everything you just described latched onto the depiction of the tholians from the original series. It was like they did a masterful job. Of in 2003 pulling that late 60 s early 70 s vibe out in the way that this alien spoke so the tholians arrive.
Yeah, yeah.
And there is very early speculation. Well we were told in the temporal cold War There are different factions. It’s possible. The tholians are working for a different faction and that in fact, turns out to be the case when the Sulaban and Letolians first cross path. They almost without hesitation. They start firing on each other. Firefight breaks out between the 2 of them and the enterprise has been trying to get to a Vulcan ship because the Vulcan ship being faster will be able to get this derelict ship back to Earth faster. But when they arrive they find that the Vulcan ship has been immobilized. They. Keep repeating the Vulcans don’t seem to have lost any lives. But the ship is dead. So There’s a dead Vulcan Worship. The Enterprise has been knocked out of commission and the sulaban and the tholians are chasing each other around in circles destroying each other. Theetholians having the edge and I like the fact that the Tholians have the ability to it. It demonstrates a danger from the tholians that they hadn’t explored up to this point they are very quick. They are very quick to be able to to out match the sulaban.
The Tholians are the tholians are badasses they come in and and just wreck. Yeah.
So The Tholians then have the ability to grab a hold of the derelict ship rip it out of the enterprise and they’re just carting it away while meanwhile the Enterprise archer has been trying to plant a Photon Torpedo Warhead. Into this vessel here’s one of the things about this episode revolving around time that I didn’t think worked as well and it was the time Loops. What did you think about the time loops. Yeah.
Um, really I put a note saying I loved it and part of the reason I loved it was the reason the whole episode felt empty was nobody hit a agency. There was nothing.. There was no growth of characters. There was nothing that progressed the real plot of the show along it was kind of a nothing episode by the end. But I thought what they did to ratchet tension each step of the way was Wonderful. So It’s like the whole oh here’s the sulean. Oh. No now here’s Theetholians and oh my God Betolians are kicking the asses of the sulaan and it was just like this ratcheingt up and the them racing trying to get to the vulcans. It’s like okay there. So there’s.
Yeah.
Just tension on top of tension on top of tension and they get there and the fulcons are knocked out a commission and it’s like oh my god what are they gonna do I thought that the time loops were very effective because every time they looped as they were trying to do the warhead. It was one of those they almost got oh they almost got it and it was just like this. Just kind of ratcheted that oh god this isn’t going to work like how how is this possibly going to work. So for me I liked it because it was making that it was making that tension going from 7 to 9 to 10 to 11 to 12 like they were going way beyond and really ratcheting that that sense of urgency up. But again at the end it didn’t matter because none of this mattered it was like it’s like okay this is the problem when you deal with a time travel. It’s like at the end of the day. It’s like nothing ever happened. So why did we tell the story in the first place. It’s frustrating.
Right.
For me I felt like the time loop issue was another example of we’ve seen this before so I felt like it was a little bit of a distraction and a little bit of filler I would have appreciated something happening with time. Might have been a little unique to the moment like they have this vessel aboard the enterprise and they identify that it’s emitting a radiation which is affecting time they first discovered this because of a time loop issue where read and. Trip experience the time loop in the the Bay as they’re working on the vessel and here’s where it becomes a little Samey. We’ve seen episodes that have evolved around the ship caught in a time loop Before. We’ve seen next Generation. We’ve seen the episode where they get caught in an accident where they have a collision with another vessel coming through a warp through ah through a wormhole and it causes a looping sequence where they just go through the same problem again and Again. We see another episode of next generation where a Alien Race has effectively wiped the minds of everybody and has put into motion a ah, an experience for the crew where they will no longer. Want to go to a certain place but the crew can’t help but be curious. This was first too easily identified by the crew as happening and ultimately it didn’t feel like to me it mattered and it would have felt to me like it could have been. A little more unique in its depiction I Think if you had the kind of limited area where time is affected. It would have been interesting if what was happening in the shuttle area was time was simply. Static It was maybe moving slower than anticipated So people who would go into the shuttle Bay area would come out and for them they had been working for hours but when they came out only a few minutes had passed something that would have been okay when we’re in there. There’s something different going on because as you mentioned. Tension at the end didn’t really matter so building up the tension. The way you described it which I agree it was an interesting practice. It was a little bit like they had a fire drill going. They did it. The first time they stumbled through it they did it The second time they were a little bit faster by the time they get it to actually be a board.
Correct. Yes.
They get the warhead aboard The the craft they’re super efficient. At this point they’re actually able to beat whatever the sequence of the loop is so they’re able to get it aboard and then immediately it doesn’t matter and this lionians deactivate it and for me it was like okay you.
Because the well the thought the tholians deactivated it was like okay womp wop.
What if it was something else. What if it was just like something that would be a little more creative and a little more engaging for the viewer and then you could still have them put the bomb aboard the thing but not waste energy with that. In the way that it felt like they did it felt like they were so focused on that moment that it didn’t work for me.
Out. Well for well I hope that we rewrite all these episodes what we just talked about before was how I are arguing that the story could have been about trip and you said it could have been about trip antipol and the 2 of them arguing it could have been. If they had leaned into that that the captain wanted to put the warhead on the ship as a plan b if trip’s idea fails and so you could have Reid and the captain struggling to get this warhead on and ultimately they don’t succeed even in getting it on because this loop is just preventing them from doing it and then it’s all on trip.
Right.
So They could have used it in that way where yeah, okay, we’ve seen it before.. It’s not a unique way of doing the time travel loop thing but they use it as a device to put all of the pressure on trip shoulders because the plan B is not working. There is no plan B It’s all plan a and if they had done that it would have made trips work. That much more?? um, ah, purposeful and so when he got it working it would have been the yes he got it working instead. All of it felt like ah ah everything that was happening was just kind of like man kind of a shoulder shrug to everything even when he activates it. It’s kind of like man look.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, yeah, so ultimately there’s this chase in space. The Tholians the sulaban are fighting each other. The warhead is placed above the aboard The vessel.
Nobody’s celebrating that he got it done. It’s just like Okay, what’s the point.
Butolians still managed to steal the ship and then deactivate the explosive without any difficulty. So this what saves the day. Well, it’s enign Daniels Magic hat here’s where the episode for me.
That’s right.
Like very disappointing when they go and they’ve done this now in a number of episodes they remember suddenly oh yeah, we’ve got this Wikipedia from the future and it’s in Ensign Daniels is cabin at this point I cannot believe that the captain wouldn’t have relocated this database to a more secure location I can’t believe that the captain would still have access to the database like.
Button. Oh.
Has he not mentioned a starfleet that he has this thing and when they remember is very selective in a way that just makes my makes my writer head hurt.
Earth.
Um, when they when they were going yes when they were going to the room I just wanted to go just stop just stop. You didn’t they didn’t even need it. They didn’t even need that scene and it would have been fine.
It is. Yeah yeah.
Yeah, and ultimately the introduction of this database that Daniels is left behind is a big problem for the show. It doesn’t make sense from a writer’s standpoint to write into the program that. The captain and the crew have access to future knowledge. Basically whenever they want and to introduce it in 1 episode and then at the end of that first episode have that database become corrupted have it be reclaimed have it be stolen. Have something happen to it. Take it out of their reach but the way that it exists on the show in this episode it stands out as being a big problem for the storytelling. Yes, it is. It is a deus macana it just comes out of nowhere here comes a hand.
It’s a crutch. Yeah, it’s crutch.
From god who just tweaks the show in this way that like oh by the way we can go figure out what’s going on just by going over here and they go in and examine blueprints effectively for the ship that they have found so that they can identify that this is in fact, a craft from future. This is another moment where to Paul’s entire argument just falls apart and they don’t examine that at all, it’s it’s a failing in the episode and I say that despite the fact that at the end of the episode.
Um, it’s ah it’s a fun ride.
Had fun watching the episode. It is. It’s a fun episode. What saved it for me was all the Tholian experience like the tholian involvement. The the sulaban were sort of a b grade. Batty in the episode for me the tholians were the the a game and the fact that the two of them go to ho to toe that you have this whole experience devolve into trip gets the device going and within minutes everything that they’ve been interacting with. Simply disappears. It’s all just transported away. So what happened they have for the people who are scratching their heads about the ending I don’t think they needed it I think it was pretty clear but at the end they do have a little synopsis for like this episode for dummies where archer points out. Well the moment you activated that.
M.
People in the future had all the time in the world to identify the signal locate when it was coming from where it was to come in and scoop everything up. So the moment it’s activated the tholians lose hold of the thing they were trying to steal the sulaban are no longer around and even the enterprise is left. Without anything in hand I think a little bit of a tweak to the writing would have been if only the thing in Daniels’s quarters was also taken away.
It should have been.
It should have been like this was the last time we will ever be able to use this because by by activating this device. They now know where that database is that should have also been taken. However, that doesn’t happen but on the whole I enjoyed the episode.
Yeah there’s there’s two scenes I would want to bring up as two scenes I thought were very charming. Nice little bit of fan fictiony. Yeah, Kate’s cool to see this. Um, the first one is the late night snack scene between Topa and flox and this goes back to a previous comment I’ve said before Fox is my favorite character in the show. Flox is there. Everything’s better I feel warm and fuzzy inside whenever he’s on screen. It’s just wonderful I love how he is challenging to Paul’s view on things and I also loved when the conversation starts he is genuinely giddy like a kid on Christmas morning when he’s talking about. Found even more alien dna in this thing and it’s like this genetics are awesome. He is just so fascinated by the science behind this crazy corpse. They found. He just loves it. He’s just eating it up and I just love that aspect of it and the second scene I I was really appreciated was the very end when the captain said.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah.
Offers up the apology. Please I Want to convey my apologies to the vulcans for the situation because we kind of got them into this and to thank them for doing what they did I Thought that was a nice touch because one of the purposes of this entire series is that this is the formation.
Um, yeah.
But the federation and that archer is supposed to be some great diplomat that pulls everything together and in the beginning he was a reluctant diplomat. He did not want to be doing any of this stuff and he was not good at it and then now we’re we’re slowly seeing him get better about it and starting to open his mind to it and then like for me this was like 1 of the first glimmers of.
Yeah.
He’s really starting to lean into that role of understanding I have to put out olive branches and I have to show appreciation because he’s trying to build those relationships and I thought that was a nice literally like a 10 second scene I thought okay that is a nice littleiled glimmer of what we’re gonna be getting in the future. Supposedly so it’s like I did like that.
Yeah, and it it and it goes both ways too. The fact that they find this thing and they are going to be able to rely on the vulcans to help get it to earth like that demonstrates like the vulcans recognize like oh there’s this thing. There’s this mystery around this thing and they’re just probably just as curious when they’ve been informed potentially that a thing was found that had a human but the human also had http://vulcandna the vulcans are probably saying like this is a mystery we would like to help crack. So. I think that it demonstrates it going both directions I agree with you completely that that scene with with archer really resonates and I also think that the thing that came out of the scene with flocks I love when flocks and to Paul interact because humans are arguably in the middle between the 2 of them.
Yes.
They represent the 2 extremes and when they are together. Flocks invariably takes the role of almost a older brother teasing you know, gently teasing to Paul and he voices.
This is.
Kind of a through line for his character in I I have learned to embrace surprise and that’s the part of this episode that if you and I were to rewrite it in the ways we’ve talked about one of the things I would push to the forefront is. Having to Paul say she has to embrace surprise in that way. Reality has presented things which she has been logically told cannot be and it is tainting her ability to embrace reality.
M.
And it keeps that element of surprise from doing its Job. Flocks is excited and energized by Surprise she shuts down and I think it would have been nice for the episode if we had had our rewriting. Gloves in the mix the potential for her to have a moment of leaping with faith, especially if it was with trip pulling her forward to say like this thing potentially could do this but I can’t figure out how to make it do that and if she has a moment of. Perhaps this is the way to make that leap of faith and she does this leap of faith not believing it will work. But what if and that that potential of that moment was unfortunately Missed. It was lost Um, but on the whole like I said I.
Lost here.
I Enjoyed this episode and I think the episode holds up and I especially like the fact that it did incorporate I have a feeling. It’s a bit of fan fiction on the writers part that they incorporated this whole. It’s bigger on the inside time travel aspect.
This is.
It has a very timey whimy aspect to it and I think as a whole it was a fun episode before we sign off or reminded everybody. We’ll be back next time with the episode cannemar man any predictions as to what we’ll be talking about when we talk about cannemar.
Earth.
I Don’t even know how to I don’t know how to respond to this I don’t know what it is.
It’s not even a word. So. What do you think it is. So instead of speculating about what Kanemar is once you tell us about what you got coming up on your other channel.
I’ve got a couple videos coming up about do solar panels on cars make sense and it’s ah it’s interesting I thought it was interesting I didn’t want to give anything away but it’s it’s ah not. It’s not what you think.
No spoilers. But yeah, as for me, you can check out my website http://seanferrell.com or you can look for my books at your favorite bookstore. You should be able to find them anywhere. The books are sold if you’d like to support this show. Please do consider leaving a review. On Apple Podcasts google podcast Spotify or right here on Youtube wherever it is that you listen and if you’d like to more directly support us. You can go to trekintime show and click on become a supporter all of that really does help the show and thank you so much for listening everybody. We’ll talk to you next time.
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