Matt and Sean talk about morality plays, the no-win situation, and bonus podcast content.
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In this episode of trek in time we’ll be talking about living through a no win situation. What makes conflict so compelling and what we’re going to be adding to the podcast for podcast supporters. That’s right, we’re talking about enterprise episode 22 of season 2 congenittor. This episode dropped on April Thirtieth 2003 2000 through this episode dropped on April Thirtieth 2003 hey everybody welcome to trek in time where we’re watching every episode of star trek in chronological order and in history. We’re still in early days. We’re in the. Earliest days of the truck universe which is enterprise which means we’re also talking about the earliest days of the twenty first century we’re currently in 2003 and he was doing all this talking. Well it’s me I’m Sean Farrell I’m a published writer writing I’ve written some sci-fi I’ve written some stuff for kids. And with me is my brother Matt Matthew Farrell he’s the guru and aquisitor behind the Youtube channel undecided with Matt Farrell which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact in our lives Matt how are you doing I’m doing okay I’m still clamoring for springtime and you.
I’m doing very well how are you doing.
Here in New York city it is gasp actually in the high sixty s possibly even the 70 s and a sunny day. So after recording this episode I’m probably going to strip off all my clothes and run naked through the streets. So if you’re in the Brooklyn area today please look for the naked guy and stop me and say hi.
Um, watch out.
As usual, we love to hear from our listeners and you can do that by checking out the contact information in the podcast description and sending us a note or you can do it on Youtube by just going to the comments and leaving a comment there. And Matt I believe you have some comments from previous episodes that you wanted to share with us today.
I do there’s three comments I come under bring up that’re all in a theme the last episode where we talked about the breach I kind of apologize for how we are constantly just tearing into every episode of the show of like didn’t like it didn’t like it cause we’re on this bent of wow. There’s so many bad episodes. Were some comments about our conversation about that one of which was from palego sixty nine just a few more episodes until season 3 I hold nothing against you guys for the accurate assessments of these recent episodes some of the best podcast episodes so far have been riffing about how bad the episodes. How bad episodes could have been even better. Ah, so. I’m glad at least pill goes is on board with what we’re doing um a J Chan wrote as we wrap up season 2 I was wondering if you could pick 10 episodes that you would include in enterprise season 2 if it was made as a 2022 streaming format. So it’s like.
That’s an incredibly interesting idea and I and a j thanks for that comment I can’t do it off the cuff right now. But I think that as a part of our season 2 finale. We should both propose what episodes we would include in that.
Yeah, we should.
Basically a top 10 That’s a great idea. So thank you for that.
Yeah, and the last comment was from Jason Dumb I Appreciate the criticism I feel the same regarding Enterprise So Much good. But many bad episodes part of the fun is breaking down. What’s not working keep up the great work. So I’m glad that people are enjoying what we’re doing. Because it feels like like I said I still feel kind of bad because overall I like the show but man, there’s just been this string of just horrible episodes that we just keep tearing apart.
Yeah, it’s and it’s easy to get trapped in a bottle with the things that you’re talking about and feel like the the universe of the show is what you’re currently swimming in and feeling like.
Yeah.
This.
Um, my god enterprise oh my god enterprise oh my god enterprise and I recently I may have mentioned this in the podcast in the past I’m a big fan of apps like tubi and pluto which are free streaming programs and movies and you can just put it on the background. It’s great for. Background noise where you just want nonstop. Whatever but you don’t want to pay too much attention to it while you’re doing other things and so while I’m doing some stuff around the house. There is a star trek channel on Pluto and I love putting that on and what they tend to do is. Very slowly move forward through. They’re doing next generation very slowly move through the different seasons of next generation in batches of repeated episodes so over a 4 hour period you’re going to see 4 episodes that would have been in order next to each other and then they will loop.
Ah.
And so you just go over a 24 hour period you’ll see the same episodes again and again and again I hadn’t watched it in a long time and so I started watching some of it the other day and they were in ah the midst of a bunch of episodes that I think would have been probably season 5 or 6
Okay, okay.
Of next generation and I was suddenly reminded Oh these are not all golden. These are not all wonderful and I was seeing things in next generation that I was like oh this is.
No, they’re not they have some duds. Yeah.
Similar to how I feel about some of the episodes of enterprise that we’ve been talking about recently where it is easy to get that kind of oh if only everything could have been as good as the golden days and then you look at the golden days and you’re like oh this is pretty crappy and in particular I’m thinking about the episode.
Um, yeah.
There were a couple of episodes back to back that included one with Olivia Dabo as a young woman who is just discovering that she is in fact, a qe and and the writing in the episode was almost as if they just forced all the actors into a room together and they were like okay, she’s a cute.
I Remember that one? Yes, yeah yeah.
Go and like there’s no consistency. There’s nothing that feels like you’re watching something you’re watching John Delancy act as if he was the only 1 trying to stay on character. Everybody else is just kind of like sleepwalking through it.
Here. The.
And there’s a repeated riff between that and another episode or on the fact that Jodie was in the midst of growing a beard and I was just like why did the writers feel like they needed to address the fact that Lavar Burton had decided to grow a beard. Why was that suddenly something that needed that level of attention.
Oh yeah.
And there’s a scene with a poker game where Dr Crusher is basically calling out all these bearded men around her riker wharf and Jordy for the fact that they have beards and. They make a bet that if she wins the hand they all have to shave their beards and if 1 of them wins she has to become a brunette and I’m left with this made it out of the writing room this. So yeah and it was just like some of this stuff was just like and it and.
Yeah, they left the interns alone for too long and they came up with a script.
And 1 of the episodes. It was one of it was the episode where there’s a transporter malfunction. It always turns out to be a transporter malfunction doesn’t it transporter malfunction that turns Picard and several of the members of the crew into children and and I was left again with the sense of like wow. Really were so many episodes that I’ve put into a little compartment in the back of my head but when we get there and if the timing in the timing of of how we’re doing this podcast. We’ll get there right around the time I turn 65 when we get there we will be I assume as ruthless in our response to that.
We’ll get there.
Yes, oh yeah.
We have been to previous episodes of enterprise and having said all of that we will now move into our discussion of today’s episode of enterprise which is cogennitor and I’m going to give a little spoiler about my thoughts around this one this one breaks the pattern. Of episodes that don’t really do much as far as my response to it Matt Big picture what did you think about this one? Oh boy here we go.
It did not break the cycle for me.
But before we get to that we have to respond to that sound in the background that of course is the read alert. That’s right, it’s time for Matt to take a look at the Wikipedia description and as always we promise he has not seen this beforehand unlike some previous ones.
Nope.
This one shouldn’t be too painful although it does kind of drop off the face of the earth at the end Matt you want to take a look.
Sure, let’s nice and short. Okay cogenittor is the forty eighth episode of the television series star trek enterprise the twenty second episode of the second season set in the 20 set in the twenty one hundreds of the star trek science fiction universe the nx zero one enterprise led by Captain Archer played by Scott Bacula Encounters A Tri- gendered alien race
And that’s the end of the synopsis that is literally not a synopsis that is not the point of the episode. It is not that they meet a trigender Alien Race It is that they meet a race that is trigendered and kind of screw things up. But yeah.
Yep, Oh yeah.
Better synopsis would be a crewman steps out of his defined role and screws with the culture of another group of people in a horrible horrible way. This is as Matt just mentioned episode 22 of season 2 and it was directed by Lavar Burton
Yes, in a horrible horrible way.
Of the beard that we were just talking about a few moments ago I think that he as a director I just give him a lot of credit. He’s able to really get a lot out of the actors and really knows how to how to put these moments together in a really really smart way. So I appreciate that. This episode was written by Berman and braggga and I think this will be the episode where Matt and I have a differing opinion about what it means to be a burman and Braga episode and as I mentioned before this episode aired on April thirtieth 2003 and what does that mean for the episode as far as the world that it landed in.
This is.
Well Matt you were still dancing to ¢50 into club I know you couldn’t get enough of it then and you probably can’t get enough of it now. But you’re going to have to give it up because next week we’re going to have spoiler alert a different song is the number 1 song and in the movie theaters. Well you and I were not lining up for the movie identity because I had no memory of this movie whatsoever when I read about it. It made $16000000 in the box office this week. It would go on to make ninety it apparently cost around 28000000 to make an identity is the 2003 american ensemble Neo Noir thriller directed by James Mangold the film stars John kusak Ray Leota Amanda Pete Alfred Malna Clayo Duval and Rebecca de mornet each one of those people is an above the title star i.
I Do not remember this movie at all.
Yes.
Could not recollect them all being in a movie together at all. It is loosely based on Agatha Christie’s 1939 who done it and then there were none the film follows 10 strangers in an isolated hotel who are temporarily cut off from the rest of the world and are mysteriously killed off 1 by 1 everything about this everything about this is just like well it’s a Agatha Christie story that’s a positive It’s these actors that’s a positive no memories whatsoever. But if you are like me and are actually curious about this I discovered it is on Netflix right now. So perhaps.
I must have blacked out. Yeah.
I and others will check it out. Maybe we’ll talk about it in the future on television on this day. Well we had 4000000 viewers watch this episode which is up from previous week which is not saying much because the previous weeks have been in the toilet. Competition at this time slot 8 Pm on Wednesdays. Well it was going up against my wife and kids and George Lopez they were getting about 8000000 each star search on Cbs was getting 7000000 american idol while they were squeaking by with a paltry 20000000 viewers dateline nbc was showing a pow interview special which earned 7000000 viewers and enterprise was able to beat up on Dawson’s creek which only got three point eight million viewers take that Dawson’s creek you can only beat star trek once before it comes back with a vengeance and gets.
You could only beat Star Trek Once that’s right.
200000 more viewers than you and for the week the top viewed show was Csi once again with 22000000 viewers and in the news. Well anybody who’s listening to this knows that we’ve been in the midst of.
What.
Pandemic Some say that the pandemic is trailing off and that it’s turning into an endemic and then there are those who say no, the pandemic is still here. It’s still growing strong and there are those who say if only we could have known that something like this could happen If only there was a way that we could have foreseen.
Ah.
Ah, disease taking a hold of the world and and squeezing the way that this pandemic has well on this day. April Thirtieth 2003 The New York Times included a headline which was the sars epidemic canada. Advice to put off trips to Toronto is lifted by the world health organization citing an ebb in the sars epidemic here the world health organization today lifted a weak old advisory urging travelers to delay all non-esential visits to toronto the decision was welcomed with size of relief from canadian health officials. Who had lobbied hard for the reversal and disputed the world health organization’s contention that toronto had been a source of cases outside Canada they argued that the advisory unnecessarily damaged the canadian economy and its international image. If only we could have known if.
Yep, it’s a shame? yep.
Only we could have known. Yeah so enterprise cogenitor an episode that is taking place in late January Twenty One 53 and we find the enterprise is exploring a. Hyper giant star star that as they are looking at it to Paul informs them that it is expected within a few hundred years to probably go supernova so they are looking cosmologically at the last days of this massive star and they are. Thoroughly excited by what they are seeing the proximity to this event has them all really captivated and then they discovered that there is an alien vessel even closer to the star than they are and when they have their first contact moment with this other race. Everybody on board breathes a sigh of relief with the fact that it is totally non-threatening. It is a very excited andreas Kotzilas who we have seen as a. Romulan in previous episodes and anybody who watches Babylon five will recognize him as a series regular there we hear andreas Kasilas respond to their hails with a hailfellow. Well-met response and they very quickly. Get past all the initial like who are you where are you from and archer invites this person to dinner and they accept and before you know it the crews are um there the crews are mingling and everybody is having a fantastic time meeting this other species and it.
Friends forever.
Ends up with the captain of the alien vessel inviting archer to join him in his exploration vehicle which is able to go even closer to the star to help do further exploration and archer jumps at the chance. It’s one of a few times. We were seeing archer put himself in a position of yeah I’m gonna go off the ship I’m I’m gonna be the 1 doing this and if the episode had just ended with all of that it would have been arguably a uplifting episode but without a plot and would have been.
The help.
Ah, why did we watch this what happened here? What is this about. But luckily for all of us that’s not the case because somebody had to stick his nose in it Matt I think you know who I’m talking about. Yeah trip trip trip.
Yeah trip trip trip um, kind of just say I like the fact that you seem to feel like this this kind of broke the string of bad episodes. We’ve been on and I will I will agree that this is definitely better. Than the bad string. We’ve been on but it it doesn’t completely break the cycle and and for me, it also reinforces the Brennan Braggga problem where it feels like they have seeds of good ideas and don’t know how to execute on it in a new and interesting way. Because this episode felt very star trek to me where there’s a lot of discussion and a lot of dialogue and a lot of ethical quandaries that are happening which is great but the execution of it was so to me sloppy and just didn’t make any sense and the core problem I had was. Trip really steps in it in this episode like too profound and to jump to right to the end somebody dies because of his actions he has done this not in just 1 other episode. He’s done this numerous times in other episodes where he has. Done something so impulsive and so just what feels like could be so almost out of character for him where he’s gotten in trouble like there was an episode where the captain is just reaming like read and trip up and down for the the. Crap that they’ve done and they’re not behaving like you know bridge crew starfleet officers and they they both look like whipped puppies and they’re like I’m so sorry and it’s like okay they learned their lesson now. We’re moving on and what does trip do it’s like that episode. Never even happened. It’s like that’s my problem is that this.
Star Blade officers. Yeah.
It’s happened numerous times a trip where he’s done something Impulsive. A bad thing Happens. He has a learning lesson and then he does it again and then he does it again and then this one is like oh and now somebody’s actually died because of what you did. There’s a comment. Ah, like when he’s talking to this trigendered person and she says or it says to him will you get in trouble for what you’re doing and he says people will be angry but no. In in my head I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. No repercussions. There’s never a repercussion for acting like an idiot in Starfleeet. This makes no sense. This is a military organization. It makes 0 sense and guess what happens at the end of this episode. No freaking repercussions.
Um, yeah.
Captain choose him out in his quarters and there’s no repercussions. He doesn’t get demoted. He doesn’t get confined to quarters. There’s like nothing absolutely not even a threat of something being in his record like there’s nothing the episode ends with a ah somebody died I feel bad and then the credits roll and I was like are you joking. It’s like. This is like profoundly a major screw up. It’s like this would have something that would have profound consequences on his career and his station aboard the ship and they don’t address it. He was right at the beginning of the episode when he said they’ll be angry but I won’t get in trouble and it’s like he was 100 % correct and it’s like. This is not how a captain would run his ship and this makes this makes the captain look like one of the worst captains is ever captained ever. It’s like he has no control of his crew. His crew will just do whatever they want and he’ll never punish them. It was basically a father saying I’m disappointed in you like that’s punishment enough I am disappointed in you.
Yeah, right where I land on all of that is I think that when Star Trek is good. It still incorporates some of what you’ve talked about and you forgive it.
So that’s why I didn’t like this episode.
Because when star trek is good. The good elements make you recognize. Okay I’m I’m watching a program for the opportunity to wrestle with these ideas and a different program that is doing a different thing. Is built around. Let’s show what the repercussions of an action like this might be I’m reminded of a program like ah the rebooted Battlestar Galactica might have had a storyline where if somebody had done like you’ve just described the ah an officer of the ship does.
M.
X and then everybody shows up and the Captain’s like you’re off, you’re you’re out, you’re I’m demoting. You. You’re no longer that role get out of here. You can’t you can’t do that. It’s a different design of program. It’s a different purpose to the storytelling whereas this. As opposed to the previous episodes from the previous couple of weeks. Those were not good star trek and so all the flaws were the only thing we had to stand on whereas this one. I see everything you just described. But I feel like it’s good trek because its point for putting those things in there in the first place was a little bit like pulling the rip cord on a lawnmower to get the engine going. There’s a. About a 10 minute 15 minute beginning to this episode where it’s very obvious like just get to the point of the episode. We’re just getting to the point of the episode. So stupid things are gonna happen. But once we get the engine going. You’re gonna understand what we’re doing and for me and I say this. Like I don’t view your response as in any way having missed a point for me I was okay with what you just described because for me the morality tale that was on display was enough for me to say. I forgive those missteps it was like watching a dance performance where when the lights go on at the beginning and I don’t quite know what’s going to happen yet and it’s all a little bit awkward at the beginning. But once. I get the rhythm of what the dancers are trying to do I can buy into it and forgive the awkwardness at the beginning. That’s what this episode was like for me and for me the morality tale around an individual in this case trip looking at another culture. And seeing something that doesn’t fit with his sense of equality and humanity and doing everything that he thinks is right being the direct action leading to the suicidal death of the person he was trying to help. And the ripples that we’ll have with the relationship between that those people and starfleet humanity in the future in the setup of that I was impressed by how this was a no in situation.
Archer at no point is defending the unfair treatment of the third gender of this other people I even enjoyed the fact that this was an episode. We’re in the midst right now in the early 2020 s a major culture shift in culture war around the idea of what is identity how much of identity is an inherent trait and how much is a construct and all of that was at play in this story without it being. Write in the way it was depicting it but wrestling with it as a thing to be wrestled with and I thought that that was an interesting part of this. But then when you jump forward in the story to the elements around when should you step in to help. And when should you not and trip crosses lines into quote unquote helping somebody. He’s not doing the things that would genuinely help this individual. He’s doing things that make him feel better about his relationship. This individual and that that on display was terrific for me and the end of the episode for me did not need and I understood what you were saying about no repercussions I get I get all of that. But for me the discussion at the end of.
I yes.
Um, it’s but he let me clarify.
You and I don’t get to go around and tell people that they’re wrong and change their lives just because it makes us feel better like that discussion was the culmination of the no win scenario that they were in and. And I thought I was left at the end of this episode with a sense of yeah there are some weak points and there were some points where I felt like okay this this really doesn’t make sense within the confines of the ship but I felt at the end like there was enough of a resonance there Of. What does it mean to be a good person. What does it mean to help what does it mean to see difference as a problem and how do we wrestle with that I thought all of that was was strong enough for me.
Um, but that’s that’s that’s where I want to make clear that my problem isn’t just the ending. It’s the fact that they structured the entire story around trip is alone in this and he’s making this choice thinking he’s doing the right thing and he’s going off. Doing his own things they established it as its trip and so there’s going to be this this moral quandary of it’s a no win situation I would say is not true because there’s no ramifications for him since they’ve made it about him wrestling with what the right thing is to do. Should have been ramifications for that choice for his character arc over the series of the episode and there wasn’t so it’s like they so they set this whole. They set the stage for this moral quandary of him bucking the rules deliberately because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. But then there’s no consequences to it. That’s the wrong that’s the wrong thing to do it should have been more of a I think more of a collective of the the entire crew questioning. This seems a little weird and maybe then trip then starts to go off on its own path where. You get a sense that more of the crew is kind of behind this. This is a little odd and he’s kind of taking it on himself to do the right thing because he knows he’s not completely on a limb by himself. But they said it so that he’s a limb by himself and everybody else is telling him don’t do this like to Paul is basically saying that Flox is basically saying that and because of that it sets this episode up.
But I Yeah yeah.
1 of the key aspects is this no win scenario. There’s ramifications for doing what he’s doing and yet they’re at the end. There’s nothing with those ramifications other than this person being dead.
I I disagree with your take on that because to go back to something you said before about trip has done this before and he has and I and like I absolutely see that but I think that for me, it’s a matter of well what did he do. What did he do in the past and what was at stake and in this one as opposed to those previous ones. It was well. What did he do he disobeyed orders or he acted in a way unbecoming an officer and what was at stake in some cases. It was. Countermanding an order doing something that would be against what his captain had expressed in the one where he and Reid get reamed out. It’s because of decorum like you went sneaking in a place where you had no right to be and that’s an embarrassment to me as an as a captain but the upshot of most of those was.
E.
At best ah a reprimand and at worst in the episode where he and Reid go sneaking off and get reprimanded the fact that they did that is a is a key element to them getting out of the dilemma of the episode. So his his.
Yes, yes, yes.
Inability to follow decorum. In fact, is a positive this episode by isolating him and and removing direct repercussions to him and his career makes the weight of the death of this other person. Heavier I think it puts the burden on him as one of not oh I Really kind of took one on I got a bruise as a result of my own actions but like I killed another person so to me that lended weight to the impact. On the other person and kept charles which is the name that this other person there the entire context of the of the relationship in this other species I would I would also just like to point out the relationships between these these other species I Thought that was interesting. The construction of their their cultural.
Ah, and.
Ah, paradigm being they didn’t get deep into it. But it’s basically set up as if there are 3 genders all 3 need to be a part of reproduction but 1 of those 3 is in very short supply. For whatever reason it seems like evolutionarily. The third gender is not as numerous and as a result they’re treated almost like a resource a valuable resource the couple that has this cogenitor with them refers to having had weight. To wait a long time for the opportunity to get one and that if their reproductive efforts were successful. The cogenittor that would then be given to another couple. So this second class citizen status. Is viewed within this culture. It. It becomes the limitation of this resource is what’s driving their thinking as opposed to being able to look at this as a fully fledged individual so that aspect. Of the the species is revealed through his interactions with flocks and with this third gender who after speaking with him decides to take on his name. So this cogennitor begins to call itself charles. There is a lot of stuff with flocks which does do I think some of the things you you talked about wishing the episode had done more of which is having a conversation with flocks and and flox helps him discover There’s no genetic difference and no ah.
This is.
Intellectual difference between the cogenitor and the other members of this species. So This really is entirely a cultural second class status as opposed to anything physical and for me, that’s what. Put the relationship between what is at stake here if you had had the stakes be something around trip I think that the end result would have been well. The episode is really about trip whereas I came out of this thinking about the episode involved trip. But ultimately it was about bigger than any of the individuals involved. It was about culture Clash. It was about othering the other even in the attempt to help and and I thought that it did a very good job with all of those things.
Well like I agree with you like that aspect of I liked a lot but there are other episodes of enterprise that do similar things with the captain and I think they do it Better. It’s like the the fact that like the captain oftentimes wrestles with this shift Between. There’s a cultural difference here and there’s there’s the right thing to do and there’s a and more I would say politically correct but more culturally Correct. Don’t rock the boat. This is not a human civilization. We can’t pass our own correct the prime directive and so this felt like.
We’re talking about the prime directive Effectively yeah.
It’s another basically prime directive episode. But this time it’s trip instead of the captain and so where I disagree is I think this episode because we’ve talked about this. We complain this about this before they’ll introduce. Characters. We know nothing about like mayweather’s family. And there’s this whole dynamic of these characters that are branding to us and we don’t really care about and then by the end of this but Episode. We’re like there really was no story arc for maryweather at all in this and the actual character V was a character We didn’t don’t even actually know you’re basically saying the fact that there really wasn’t a there. There really wasn’t a good closure to trips. Journey on this episode for me and that’s what I’m lacking. It’s like you can’t remove trip and say oh it was a good ethical dilemma. It’s like they do this all the time they have good ethical dilemmas but you have to root it in the characters that we’re with every week to make us care about the characters and have that character development and for me the reason it fell flat was. Was delivering across most the episode on this and then right at the end, it just kind of shank the landing because it was like oh they didn’t give a really good kind of wrap up to his story arc here for how he’s evolving. Yes, you can tell it’s hit him Hard. You can’t tell that okay.
For me that was enough I think that’s where I think that’s where you and I land in different zones where you’re you’re in the rough and I’m on the green. It’s like I thought that this was about trip while not being essential to trip.
Yeah, yes.
It was something he is going to carry with him for the rest of his life and I felt like his relationship to how he viewed exploration how he viewed interaction with other species I felt like this episode demonstrated.. There would be a turning point to that and I’m interested In. Keeping that in my mind as I move forward in these stories and seeing like does he continue to make this same mistake again and again because whereas this does fall on a path of oh he’s done this before he’s never done it before to this degree and ultimately. It just occurred to me as we were talking one of the big things about like there’s no repercussions to his career. The problem with that as an argument I think is he didn’t technically violate any rule or order the prime directive does not exist yet.
No, but he was deliberately lying to people to do what he was doing like you know I mean there were things that he did that are unbecoming of an officer and there would have been there would have been something in his record there had been something that could have been just as simple as a 1 sentence of the captain saying this is going to have an impact on the future of your career.
Yes, yes.
Hope you know what you’ve done. You know it’s like just even something like that would have been enough of like okay there we go. There’s some kind of ramification that’s going to. It’s a stain. It’s a stain on him going forward.
But for me right? But for me that again does what I said I was glad the episode didn’t do which was turn it back on him and say this is about you because there you are left at the end of this episode with. This all largely happened because there is no prime directive. This all is about our impact on the other as opposed to our rescuing the galaxy from itself and the impact here going forward is about recognizing. We need a direct order to our people to let them know you can’t do this kind of thing.
Um, So why? not bring that up that would have been a ramification of like this is he could have been saying something online I said this would have been perfect For. We have to there aren’t clear rules for us and things like this show me that we have to have rules for this. Know like they could have been some kind of offhanded comment about the need for some kind of clear rules of what they’re supposed to do out here. It’s for yeah, but the fact that there was nothing about that. Just kind of ended. It’s like it was unsatisfying for it left me I would do want to change the conversation just a little bit.
I agree that I agree that could have that could have landed. Well.
Um I think I know where you’re going because there’s reid to talk about? yeah.
What yes I was going to say so there’s there’s always the a plot and the B plot and I will tip my hat and say part of the problem we’ve had in numerous episodes is the B Plot is just random and makes no thematic sense like the f last episode with the rock climbing is the perfect example of wtf.
Um, yeah.
What the hell this at least the b plot with Reid at least it was with these alien races and there was some kind of like exploration as to other aspects of their society and culture. So at least in that regard. It was somewhat related but can we please stop.
Yeah.
Just stop making read a fricking horn dog and making things that are just like a teenage boy writing the scripts of just objectifying women like there was an actual butt shot of the woman going through the the hatch and he stares at it and he gets this smirk like oh look at that.
Um, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it was just come on come on. Can we please lay off the stupid childish sex-obsessed read. It’s so lowbrow and stupid.
I agree that it’s lowbrowed and stupid and what this storyline made me wish for is not that this wasn’t in this episode but all that the other previous ones had not been in those episodes this in the episode by itself short of.
Yes.
Yes.
Buttshot that you just referred to would have been fine. It’s the fact that he has been tossed around as just like well what about the women and time and time again even an episode where he was not in control of his body where he was.
Every time. Yeah.
Inhabited by the Alien life form and the Alien life form is sexually harassing a colleague and like they’ve used read in that way So many times that now when we have It’s a little bit like the inverse of the boy who cried wolf like this is the.
A coworker. Yeah yeah.
The boy who Cried Wolf whistle. It’s just you end up in a moment where okay this is where you could have had read suddenly inadvertently become the target of this aliens amorous come on and depicted him as.
The.
At the beginning may be curious and then a little hesitant and a little unsure if he was reading signals properly and then when he discovers in a face-to-face context I’m very interested in you and I was hoping that we could be intimate together that would have been a great story arc and a light story. Arc.
Unna.
Compared to the the a storyline and I thought it would have really worked really well. But it’s been now tainted by all the other experiences we’ve seen with Reid where he’s been portrayed as such a borderline harasser that it becomes like a wait. He’s.
Yes.
He’s winning. He’s he was right to be that way or it’s okay that he was that way. It’s like it’s like I So like I was okay with that storyline in this, it just made me think I wish they hadn’t bothered with all the other previous storylines. So and I will say that.
Yes, yes.
Again, the butt shot is a problem but let me rephrase that. However, the actor’s comedic timing around all of the scenes that he’s in and the way he depicts Dominic Keating’s depiction of.
Yes.
In particular the fruit and cheese sampler scene I thought was perfectly done where this woman begins to feed him cheese and doing it in a rather romantic way and you can tell on his face that ah.
Yes, Yes, yeah, yeah.
Cross the front of his brain is running the phrase is what I think is happening actually happening and he does a really nice job with all of that and and then the comedic timing of when she fully comes out and says like I’m interested in you and he accidentally stands up into a pipe and.
Yes.
Hits his head rather hard against the pipe I thought all of those little depictions including his he does that and says I think they’ve built these cabins cabins a little too small and cramped I thought all of that was well done. So.
Yes.
Yeah, my complaint is not the acting at all. He’s great as Reid it was just the portrayal that aspect of his characters just like it’s getting old. It’s like come on.
Yeah, so I’m curious about our listeners thoughts on all of this Do you agree with Matt that the episode should have contained a little bit more realism around how the character’s actions would have had repercussions. Them moving forward or are you in line with my thinking which was taking a look at this as more of a morality play. It’s okay that it kind of lets go of some of those threads that tie it into reality and just is depicting the moral struggle around. How do we help. What does help mean and what does it mean when somebody else that we do not fully understand the context that they’re in seems to be different and struggling in a way that we think we understand let us know you can reach out through the contact information you can on Youtube of course just scroll beneath the video and leave a comment there and. Drop us a line. Let us know what you thought as for this podcast and moving forward I wanted to let everybody know that Matt and I are planning on putting together something for our podcast supporters. The people who supporting us directly through Youtube as a member or those people who visit the trek in time site to provide us with direct support. We are going to be offering a new spinoff series called out of time in which we’re going to be talking about potentially star trek. But mainly, whatever’s on our mind. Whatever we’re consuming so we might talk about some of the new star trek series. We might talk about other sci-fi shows that we’re watching just off the top of my head we might talk about things like severance or halo or some of the star wars programs that are coming out. We also may even talk about some of the newest star trek that is coming out like strange new worlds picard or below decks. So if you are interested in catching those episodes you can become a member and you can go to trek in time and throw some. Direct support our way and the episodes 4 out of time will be coming out at least once a month and then that will be starting in June most likely and what we will be doing is dropping at least 1 episode a month potentially 2 or more depending on our availability availability with each other. And also what we have as far as what we’ve consumed and what we want to talk about so another tip of the hat and thanks to our supporters. You guys will already be getting announcements as far as like when this becomes live and you will be provided with links and information on how to get to the program.
And for anybody who wants to join in and support the podcast is directly directly. You’ll be added to that list as well. Before we sign off Matt is there anything you’d like to remind our listeners about that we have coming up.
I just stay tuned to undecided with met ferrell where I’m talking about a lot of interesting things coming up like machine learning and Ai which is very star treky very futuristic sci-fi stuff and how it’s impacting things in the sustainability and renewable energy race.
S for me, you can check out my website http://seanferrell.com you can also look for my books on Amazon or Barnes and noble or anywhere books have sold your local bookstore or your local library. They should be available at all those locations and as usual if you’d like to support the show. Leave a review at Apple or Google or Spotify or go to Youtube and become a member there and if you’d like to directly support us. You can go to trekandtime show click the become a supporter button and throw some coins at our heads. We do appreciate it. It hurts a little bit but we like it anyway, all of that really does help support the show. Thank you so much for listening and watching. And we’ll talk to you next time.
I’m doing very well how are you doing.
Here in New York city it is gasp actually in the high sixty s possibly even the 70 s and a sunny day. So after recording this episode I’m probably going to strip off all my clothes and run naked through the streets. So if you’re in the Brooklyn area today please look for the naked guy and stop me and say hi.
Um, watch out.
As usual, we love to hear from our listeners and you can do that by checking out the contact information in the podcast description and sending us a note or you can do it on Youtube by just going to the comments and leaving a comment there. And Matt I believe you have some comments from previous episodes that you wanted to share with us today.
I do there’s three comments I come under bring up that’re all in a theme the last episode where we talked about the breach I kind of apologize for how we are constantly just tearing into every episode of the show of like didn’t like it didn’t like it cause we’re on this bent of wow. There’s so many bad episodes. Were some comments about our conversation about that one of which was from palego sixty nine just a few more episodes until season 3 I hold nothing against you guys for the accurate assessments of these recent episodes some of the best podcast episodes so far have been riffing about how bad the episodes. How bad episodes could have been even better. Ah, so. I’m glad at least pill goes is on board with what we’re doing um a J Chan wrote as we wrap up season 2 I was wondering if you could pick 10 episodes that you would include in enterprise season 2 if it was made as a 2022 streaming format. So it’s like.
That’s an incredibly interesting idea and I and a j thanks for that comment I can’t do it off the cuff right now. But I think that as a part of our season 2 finale. We should both propose what episodes we would include in that.
Yeah, we should.
Basically a top 10 That’s a great idea. So thank you for that.
Yeah, and the last comment was from Jason Dumb I Appreciate the criticism I feel the same regarding Enterprise So Much good. But many bad episodes part of the fun is breaking down. What’s not working keep up the great work. So I’m glad that people are enjoying what we’re doing. Because it feels like like I said I still feel kind of bad because overall I like the show but man, there’s just been this string of just horrible episodes that we just keep tearing apart.
Yeah, it’s and it’s easy to get trapped in a bottle with the things that you’re talking about and feel like the the universe of the show is what you’re currently swimming in and feeling like.
Yeah.
This.
Um, my god enterprise oh my god enterprise oh my god enterprise and I recently I may have mentioned this in the podcast in the past I’m a big fan of apps like tubi and pluto which are free streaming programs and movies and you can just put it on the background. It’s great for. Background noise where you just want nonstop. Whatever but you don’t want to pay too much attention to it while you’re doing other things and so while I’m doing some stuff around the house. There is a star trek channel on Pluto and I love putting that on and what they tend to do is. Very slowly move forward through. They’re doing next generation very slowly move through the different seasons of next generation in batches of repeated episodes so over a 4 hour period you’re going to see 4 episodes that would have been in order next to each other and then they will loop.
Ah.
And so you just go over a 24 hour period you’ll see the same episodes again and again and again I hadn’t watched it in a long time and so I started watching some of it the other day and they were in ah the midst of a bunch of episodes that I think would have been probably season 5 or 6
Okay, okay.
Of next generation and I was suddenly reminded Oh these are not all golden. These are not all wonderful and I was seeing things in next generation that I was like oh this is.
No, they’re not they have some duds. Yeah.
Similar to how I feel about some of the episodes of enterprise that we’ve been talking about recently where it is easy to get that kind of oh if only everything could have been as good as the golden days and then you look at the golden days and you’re like oh this is pretty crappy and in particular I’m thinking about the episode.
Um, yeah.
There were a couple of episodes back to back that included one with Olivia Dabo as a young woman who is just discovering that she is in fact, a qe and and the writing in the episode was almost as if they just forced all the actors into a room together and they were like okay, she’s a cute.
I Remember that one? Yes, yeah yeah.
Go and like there’s no consistency. There’s nothing that feels like you’re watching something you’re watching John Delancy act as if he was the only 1 trying to stay on character. Everybody else is just kind of like sleepwalking through it.
Here. The.
And there’s a repeated riff between that and another episode or on the fact that Jodie was in the midst of growing a beard and I was just like why did the writers feel like they needed to address the fact that Lavar Burton had decided to grow a beard. Why was that suddenly something that needed that level of attention.
Oh yeah.
And there’s a scene with a poker game where Dr Crusher is basically calling out all these bearded men around her riker wharf and Jordy for the fact that they have beards and. They make a bet that if she wins the hand they all have to shave their beards and if 1 of them wins she has to become a brunette and I’m left with this made it out of the writing room this. So yeah and it was just like some of this stuff was just like and it and.
Yeah, they left the interns alone for too long and they came up with a script.
And 1 of the episodes. It was one of it was the episode where there’s a transporter malfunction. It always turns out to be a transporter malfunction doesn’t it transporter malfunction that turns Picard and several of the members of the crew into children and and I was left again with the sense of like wow. Really were so many episodes that I’ve put into a little compartment in the back of my head but when we get there and if the timing in the timing of of how we’re doing this podcast. We’ll get there right around the time I turn 65 when we get there we will be I assume as ruthless in our response to that.
We’ll get there.
Yes, oh yeah.
We have been to previous episodes of enterprise and having said all of that we will now move into our discussion of today’s episode of enterprise which is cogennitor and I’m going to give a little spoiler about my thoughts around this one this one breaks the pattern. Of episodes that don’t really do much as far as my response to it Matt Big picture what did you think about this one? Oh boy here we go.
It did not break the cycle for me.
But before we get to that we have to respond to that sound in the background that of course is the read alert. That’s right, it’s time for Matt to take a look at the Wikipedia description and as always we promise he has not seen this beforehand unlike some previous ones.
Nope.
This one shouldn’t be too painful although it does kind of drop off the face of the earth at the end Matt you want to take a look.
Sure, let’s nice and short. Okay cogenittor is the forty eighth episode of the television series star trek enterprise the twenty second episode of the second season set in the 20 set in the twenty one hundreds of the star trek science fiction universe the nx zero one enterprise led by Captain Archer played by Scott Bacula Encounters A Tri- gendered alien race
And that’s the end of the synopsis that is literally not a synopsis that is not the point of the episode. It is not that they meet a trigender Alien Race It is that they meet a race that is trigendered and kind of screw things up. But yeah.
Yep, Oh yeah.
Better synopsis would be a crewman steps out of his defined role and screws with the culture of another group of people in a horrible horrible way. This is as Matt just mentioned episode 22 of season 2 and it was directed by Lavar Burton
Yes, in a horrible horrible way.
Of the beard that we were just talking about a few moments ago I think that he as a director I just give him a lot of credit. He’s able to really get a lot out of the actors and really knows how to how to put these moments together in a really really smart way. So I appreciate that. This episode was written by Berman and braggga and I think this will be the episode where Matt and I have a differing opinion about what it means to be a burman and Braga episode and as I mentioned before this episode aired on April thirtieth 2003 and what does that mean for the episode as far as the world that it landed in.
This is.
Well Matt you were still dancing to ¢50 into club I know you couldn’t get enough of it then and you probably can’t get enough of it now. But you’re going to have to give it up because next week we’re going to have spoiler alert a different song is the number 1 song and in the movie theaters. Well you and I were not lining up for the movie identity because I had no memory of this movie whatsoever when I read about it. It made $16000000 in the box office this week. It would go on to make ninety it apparently cost around 28000000 to make an identity is the 2003 american ensemble Neo Noir thriller directed by James Mangold the film stars John kusak Ray Leota Amanda Pete Alfred Malna Clayo Duval and Rebecca de mornet each one of those people is an above the title star i.
I Do not remember this movie at all.
Yes.
Could not recollect them all being in a movie together at all. It is loosely based on Agatha Christie’s 1939 who done it and then there were none the film follows 10 strangers in an isolated hotel who are temporarily cut off from the rest of the world and are mysteriously killed off 1 by 1 everything about this everything about this is just like well it’s a Agatha Christie story that’s a positive It’s these actors that’s a positive no memories whatsoever. But if you are like me and are actually curious about this I discovered it is on Netflix right now. So perhaps.
I must have blacked out. Yeah.
I and others will check it out. Maybe we’ll talk about it in the future on television on this day. Well we had 4000000 viewers watch this episode which is up from previous week which is not saying much because the previous weeks have been in the toilet. Competition at this time slot 8 Pm on Wednesdays. Well it was going up against my wife and kids and George Lopez they were getting about 8000000 each star search on Cbs was getting 7000000 american idol while they were squeaking by with a paltry 20000000 viewers dateline nbc was showing a pow interview special which earned 7000000 viewers and enterprise was able to beat up on Dawson’s creek which only got three point eight million viewers take that Dawson’s creek you can only beat star trek once before it comes back with a vengeance and gets.
You could only beat Star Trek Once that’s right.
200000 more viewers than you and for the week the top viewed show was Csi once again with 22000000 viewers and in the news. Well anybody who’s listening to this knows that we’ve been in the midst of.
What.
Pandemic Some say that the pandemic is trailing off and that it’s turning into an endemic and then there are those who say no, the pandemic is still here. It’s still growing strong and there are those who say if only we could have known that something like this could happen If only there was a way that we could have foreseen.
Ah.
Ah, disease taking a hold of the world and and squeezing the way that this pandemic has well on this day. April Thirtieth 2003 The New York Times included a headline which was the sars epidemic canada. Advice to put off trips to Toronto is lifted by the world health organization citing an ebb in the sars epidemic here the world health organization today lifted a weak old advisory urging travelers to delay all non-esential visits to toronto the decision was welcomed with size of relief from canadian health officials. Who had lobbied hard for the reversal and disputed the world health organization’s contention that toronto had been a source of cases outside Canada they argued that the advisory unnecessarily damaged the canadian economy and its international image. If only we could have known if.
Yep, it’s a shame? yep.
Only we could have known. Yeah so enterprise cogenitor an episode that is taking place in late January Twenty One 53 and we find the enterprise is exploring a. Hyper giant star star that as they are looking at it to Paul informs them that it is expected within a few hundred years to probably go supernova so they are looking cosmologically at the last days of this massive star and they are. Thoroughly excited by what they are seeing the proximity to this event has them all really captivated and then they discovered that there is an alien vessel even closer to the star than they are and when they have their first contact moment with this other race. Everybody on board breathes a sigh of relief with the fact that it is totally non-threatening. It is a very excited andreas Kotzilas who we have seen as a. Romulan in previous episodes and anybody who watches Babylon five will recognize him as a series regular there we hear andreas Kasilas respond to their hails with a hailfellow. Well-met response and they very quickly. Get past all the initial like who are you where are you from and archer invites this person to dinner and they accept and before you know it the crews are um there the crews are mingling and everybody is having a fantastic time meeting this other species and it.
Friends forever.
Ends up with the captain of the alien vessel inviting archer to join him in his exploration vehicle which is able to go even closer to the star to help do further exploration and archer jumps at the chance. It’s one of a few times. We were seeing archer put himself in a position of yeah I’m gonna go off the ship I’m I’m gonna be the 1 doing this and if the episode had just ended with all of that it would have been arguably a uplifting episode but without a plot and would have been.
The help.
Ah, why did we watch this what happened here? What is this about. But luckily for all of us that’s not the case because somebody had to stick his nose in it Matt I think you know who I’m talking about. Yeah trip trip trip.
Yeah trip trip trip um, kind of just say I like the fact that you seem to feel like this this kind of broke the string of bad episodes. We’ve been on and I will I will agree that this is definitely better. Than the bad string. We’ve been on but it it doesn’t completely break the cycle and and for me, it also reinforces the Brennan Braggga problem where it feels like they have seeds of good ideas and don’t know how to execute on it in a new and interesting way. Because this episode felt very star trek to me where there’s a lot of discussion and a lot of dialogue and a lot of ethical quandaries that are happening which is great but the execution of it was so to me sloppy and just didn’t make any sense and the core problem I had was. Trip really steps in it in this episode like too profound and to jump to right to the end somebody dies because of his actions he has done this not in just 1 other episode. He’s done this numerous times in other episodes where he has. Done something so impulsive and so just what feels like could be so almost out of character for him where he’s gotten in trouble like there was an episode where the captain is just reaming like read and trip up and down for the the. Crap that they’ve done and they’re not behaving like you know bridge crew starfleet officers and they they both look like whipped puppies and they’re like I’m so sorry and it’s like okay they learned their lesson now. We’re moving on and what does trip do it’s like that episode. Never even happened. It’s like that’s my problem is that this.
Star Blade officers. Yeah.
It’s happened numerous times a trip where he’s done something Impulsive. A bad thing Happens. He has a learning lesson and then he does it again and then he does it again and then this one is like oh and now somebody’s actually died because of what you did. There’s a comment. Ah, like when he’s talking to this trigendered person and she says or it says to him will you get in trouble for what you’re doing and he says people will be angry but no. In in my head I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. No repercussions. There’s never a repercussion for acting like an idiot in Starfleeet. This makes no sense. This is a military organization. It makes 0 sense and guess what happens at the end of this episode. No freaking repercussions.
Um, yeah.
Captain choose him out in his quarters and there’s no repercussions. He doesn’t get demoted. He doesn’t get confined to quarters. There’s like nothing absolutely not even a threat of something being in his record like there’s nothing the episode ends with a ah somebody died I feel bad and then the credits roll and I was like are you joking. It’s like. This is like profoundly a major screw up. It’s like this would have something that would have profound consequences on his career and his station aboard the ship and they don’t address it. He was right at the beginning of the episode when he said they’ll be angry but I won’t get in trouble and it’s like he was 100 % correct and it’s like. This is not how a captain would run his ship and this makes this makes the captain look like one of the worst captains is ever captained ever. It’s like he has no control of his crew. His crew will just do whatever they want and he’ll never punish them. It was basically a father saying I’m disappointed in you like that’s punishment enough I am disappointed in you.
Yeah, right where I land on all of that is I think that when Star Trek is good. It still incorporates some of what you’ve talked about and you forgive it.
So that’s why I didn’t like this episode.
Because when star trek is good. The good elements make you recognize. Okay I’m I’m watching a program for the opportunity to wrestle with these ideas and a different program that is doing a different thing. Is built around. Let’s show what the repercussions of an action like this might be I’m reminded of a program like ah the rebooted Battlestar Galactica might have had a storyline where if somebody had done like you’ve just described the ah an officer of the ship does.
M.
X and then everybody shows up and the Captain’s like you’re off, you’re you’re out, you’re I’m demoting. You. You’re no longer that role get out of here. You can’t you can’t do that. It’s a different design of program. It’s a different purpose to the storytelling whereas this. As opposed to the previous episodes from the previous couple of weeks. Those were not good star trek and so all the flaws were the only thing we had to stand on whereas this one. I see everything you just described. But I feel like it’s good trek because its point for putting those things in there in the first place was a little bit like pulling the rip cord on a lawnmower to get the engine going. There’s a. About a 10 minute 15 minute beginning to this episode where it’s very obvious like just get to the point of the episode. We’re just getting to the point of the episode. So stupid things are gonna happen. But once we get the engine going. You’re gonna understand what we’re doing and for me and I say this. Like I don’t view your response as in any way having missed a point for me I was okay with what you just described because for me the morality tale that was on display was enough for me to say. I forgive those missteps it was like watching a dance performance where when the lights go on at the beginning and I don’t quite know what’s going to happen yet and it’s all a little bit awkward at the beginning. But once. I get the rhythm of what the dancers are trying to do I can buy into it and forgive the awkwardness at the beginning. That’s what this episode was like for me and for me the morality tale around an individual in this case trip looking at another culture. And seeing something that doesn’t fit with his sense of equality and humanity and doing everything that he thinks is right being the direct action leading to the suicidal death of the person he was trying to help. And the ripples that we’ll have with the relationship between that those people and starfleet humanity in the future in the setup of that I was impressed by how this was a no in situation.
Archer at no point is defending the unfair treatment of the third gender of this other people I even enjoyed the fact that this was an episode. We’re in the midst right now in the early 2020 s a major culture shift in culture war around the idea of what is identity how much of identity is an inherent trait and how much is a construct and all of that was at play in this story without it being. Write in the way it was depicting it but wrestling with it as a thing to be wrestled with and I thought that that was an interesting part of this. But then when you jump forward in the story to the elements around when should you step in to help. And when should you not and trip crosses lines into quote unquote helping somebody. He’s not doing the things that would genuinely help this individual. He’s doing things that make him feel better about his relationship. This individual and that that on display was terrific for me and the end of the episode for me did not need and I understood what you were saying about no repercussions I get I get all of that. But for me the discussion at the end of.
I yes.
Um, it’s but he let me clarify.
You and I don’t get to go around and tell people that they’re wrong and change their lives just because it makes us feel better like that discussion was the culmination of the no win scenario that they were in and. And I thought I was left at the end of this episode with a sense of yeah there are some weak points and there were some points where I felt like okay this this really doesn’t make sense within the confines of the ship but I felt at the end like there was enough of a resonance there Of. What does it mean to be a good person. What does it mean to help what does it mean to see difference as a problem and how do we wrestle with that I thought all of that was was strong enough for me.
Um, but that’s that’s that’s where I want to make clear that my problem isn’t just the ending. It’s the fact that they structured the entire story around trip is alone in this and he’s making this choice thinking he’s doing the right thing and he’s going off. Doing his own things they established it as its trip and so there’s going to be this this moral quandary of it’s a no win situation I would say is not true because there’s no ramifications for him since they’ve made it about him wrestling with what the right thing is to do. Should have been ramifications for that choice for his character arc over the series of the episode and there wasn’t so it’s like they so they set this whole. They set the stage for this moral quandary of him bucking the rules deliberately because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. But then there’s no consequences to it. That’s the wrong that’s the wrong thing to do it should have been more of a I think more of a collective of the the entire crew questioning. This seems a little weird and maybe then trip then starts to go off on its own path where. You get a sense that more of the crew is kind of behind this. This is a little odd and he’s kind of taking it on himself to do the right thing because he knows he’s not completely on a limb by himself. But they said it so that he’s a limb by himself and everybody else is telling him don’t do this like to Paul is basically saying that Flox is basically saying that and because of that it sets this episode up.
But I Yeah yeah.
1 of the key aspects is this no win scenario. There’s ramifications for doing what he’s doing and yet they’re at the end. There’s nothing with those ramifications other than this person being dead.
I I disagree with your take on that because to go back to something you said before about trip has done this before and he has and I and like I absolutely see that but I think that for me, it’s a matter of well what did he do. What did he do in the past and what was at stake and in this one as opposed to those previous ones. It was well. What did he do he disobeyed orders or he acted in a way unbecoming an officer and what was at stake in some cases. It was. Countermanding an order doing something that would be against what his captain had expressed in the one where he and Reid get reamed out. It’s because of decorum like you went sneaking in a place where you had no right to be and that’s an embarrassment to me as an as a captain but the upshot of most of those was.
E.
At best ah a reprimand and at worst in the episode where he and Reid go sneaking off and get reprimanded the fact that they did that is a is a key element to them getting out of the dilemma of the episode. So his his.
Yes, yes, yes.
Inability to follow decorum. In fact, is a positive this episode by isolating him and and removing direct repercussions to him and his career makes the weight of the death of this other person. Heavier I think it puts the burden on him as one of not oh I Really kind of took one on I got a bruise as a result of my own actions but like I killed another person so to me that lended weight to the impact. On the other person and kept charles which is the name that this other person there the entire context of the of the relationship in this other species I would I would also just like to point out the relationships between these these other species I Thought that was interesting. The construction of their their cultural.
Ah, and.
Ah, paradigm being they didn’t get deep into it. But it’s basically set up as if there are 3 genders all 3 need to be a part of reproduction but 1 of those 3 is in very short supply. For whatever reason it seems like evolutionarily. The third gender is not as numerous and as a result they’re treated almost like a resource a valuable resource the couple that has this cogenitor with them refers to having had weight. To wait a long time for the opportunity to get one and that if their reproductive efforts were successful. The cogenittor that would then be given to another couple. So this second class citizen status. Is viewed within this culture. It. It becomes the limitation of this resource is what’s driving their thinking as opposed to being able to look at this as a fully fledged individual so that aspect. Of the the species is revealed through his interactions with flocks and with this third gender who after speaking with him decides to take on his name. So this cogennitor begins to call itself charles. There is a lot of stuff with flocks which does do I think some of the things you you talked about wishing the episode had done more of which is having a conversation with flocks and and flox helps him discover There’s no genetic difference and no ah.
This is.
Intellectual difference between the cogenitor and the other members of this species. So This really is entirely a cultural second class status as opposed to anything physical and for me, that’s what. Put the relationship between what is at stake here if you had had the stakes be something around trip I think that the end result would have been well. The episode is really about trip whereas I came out of this thinking about the episode involved trip. But ultimately it was about bigger than any of the individuals involved. It was about culture Clash. It was about othering the other even in the attempt to help and and I thought that it did a very good job with all of those things.
Well like I agree with you like that aspect of I liked a lot but there are other episodes of enterprise that do similar things with the captain and I think they do it Better. It’s like the the fact that like the captain oftentimes wrestles with this shift Between. There’s a cultural difference here and there’s there’s the right thing to do and there’s a and more I would say politically correct but more culturally Correct. Don’t rock the boat. This is not a human civilization. We can’t pass our own correct the prime directive and so this felt like.
We’re talking about the prime directive Effectively yeah.
It’s another basically prime directive episode. But this time it’s trip instead of the captain and so where I disagree is I think this episode because we’ve talked about this. We complain this about this before they’ll introduce. Characters. We know nothing about like mayweather’s family. And there’s this whole dynamic of these characters that are branding to us and we don’t really care about and then by the end of this but Episode. We’re like there really was no story arc for maryweather at all in this and the actual character V was a character We didn’t don’t even actually know you’re basically saying the fact that there really wasn’t a there. There really wasn’t a good closure to trips. Journey on this episode for me and that’s what I’m lacking. It’s like you can’t remove trip and say oh it was a good ethical dilemma. It’s like they do this all the time they have good ethical dilemmas but you have to root it in the characters that we’re with every week to make us care about the characters and have that character development and for me the reason it fell flat was. Was delivering across most the episode on this and then right at the end, it just kind of shank the landing because it was like oh they didn’t give a really good kind of wrap up to his story arc here for how he’s evolving. Yes, you can tell it’s hit him Hard. You can’t tell that okay.
For me that was enough I think that’s where I think that’s where you and I land in different zones where you’re you’re in the rough and I’m on the green. It’s like I thought that this was about trip while not being essential to trip.
Yeah, yes.
It was something he is going to carry with him for the rest of his life and I felt like his relationship to how he viewed exploration how he viewed interaction with other species I felt like this episode demonstrated.. There would be a turning point to that and I’m interested In. Keeping that in my mind as I move forward in these stories and seeing like does he continue to make this same mistake again and again because whereas this does fall on a path of oh he’s done this before he’s never done it before to this degree and ultimately. It just occurred to me as we were talking one of the big things about like there’s no repercussions to his career. The problem with that as an argument I think is he didn’t technically violate any rule or order the prime directive does not exist yet.
No, but he was deliberately lying to people to do what he was doing like you know I mean there were things that he did that are unbecoming of an officer and there would have been there would have been something in his record there had been something that could have been just as simple as a 1 sentence of the captain saying this is going to have an impact on the future of your career.
Yes, yes.
Hope you know what you’ve done. You know it’s like just even something like that would have been enough of like okay there we go. There’s some kind of ramification that’s going to. It’s a stain. It’s a stain on him going forward.
But for me right? But for me that again does what I said I was glad the episode didn’t do which was turn it back on him and say this is about you because there you are left at the end of this episode with. This all largely happened because there is no prime directive. This all is about our impact on the other as opposed to our rescuing the galaxy from itself and the impact here going forward is about recognizing. We need a direct order to our people to let them know you can’t do this kind of thing.
Um, So why? not bring that up that would have been a ramification of like this is he could have been saying something online I said this would have been perfect For. We have to there aren’t clear rules for us and things like this show me that we have to have rules for this. Know like they could have been some kind of offhanded comment about the need for some kind of clear rules of what they’re supposed to do out here. It’s for yeah, but the fact that there was nothing about that. Just kind of ended. It’s like it was unsatisfying for it left me I would do want to change the conversation just a little bit.
I agree that I agree that could have that could have landed. Well.
Um I think I know where you’re going because there’s reid to talk about? yeah.
What yes I was going to say so there’s there’s always the a plot and the B plot and I will tip my hat and say part of the problem we’ve had in numerous episodes is the B Plot is just random and makes no thematic sense like the f last episode with the rock climbing is the perfect example of wtf.
Um, yeah.
What the hell this at least the b plot with Reid at least it was with these alien races and there was some kind of like exploration as to other aspects of their society and culture. So at least in that regard. It was somewhat related but can we please stop.
Yeah.
Just stop making read a fricking horn dog and making things that are just like a teenage boy writing the scripts of just objectifying women like there was an actual butt shot of the woman going through the the hatch and he stares at it and he gets this smirk like oh look at that.
Um, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it was just come on come on. Can we please lay off the stupid childish sex-obsessed read. It’s so lowbrow and stupid.
I agree that it’s lowbrowed and stupid and what this storyline made me wish for is not that this wasn’t in this episode but all that the other previous ones had not been in those episodes this in the episode by itself short of.
Yes.
Yes.
Buttshot that you just referred to would have been fine. It’s the fact that he has been tossed around as just like well what about the women and time and time again even an episode where he was not in control of his body where he was.
Every time. Yeah.
Inhabited by the Alien life form and the Alien life form is sexually harassing a colleague and like they’ve used read in that way So many times that now when we have It’s a little bit like the inverse of the boy who cried wolf like this is the.
A coworker. Yeah yeah.
The boy who Cried Wolf whistle. It’s just you end up in a moment where okay this is where you could have had read suddenly inadvertently become the target of this aliens amorous come on and depicted him as.
The.
At the beginning may be curious and then a little hesitant and a little unsure if he was reading signals properly and then when he discovers in a face-to-face context I’m very interested in you and I was hoping that we could be intimate together that would have been a great story arc and a light story. Arc.
Unna.
Compared to the the a storyline and I thought it would have really worked really well. But it’s been now tainted by all the other experiences we’ve seen with Reid where he’s been portrayed as such a borderline harasser that it becomes like a wait. He’s.
Yes.
He’s winning. He’s he was right to be that way or it’s okay that he was that way. It’s like it’s like I So like I was okay with that storyline in this, it just made me think I wish they hadn’t bothered with all the other previous storylines. So and I will say that.
Yes, yes.
Again, the butt shot is a problem but let me rephrase that. However, the actor’s comedic timing around all of the scenes that he’s in and the way he depicts Dominic Keating’s depiction of.
Yes.
In particular the fruit and cheese sampler scene I thought was perfectly done where this woman begins to feed him cheese and doing it in a rather romantic way and you can tell on his face that ah.
Yes, Yes, yeah, yeah.
Cross the front of his brain is running the phrase is what I think is happening actually happening and he does a really nice job with all of that and and then the comedic timing of when she fully comes out and says like I’m interested in you and he accidentally stands up into a pipe and.
Yes.
Hits his head rather hard against the pipe I thought all of those little depictions including his he does that and says I think they’ve built these cabins cabins a little too small and cramped I thought all of that was well done. So.
Yes.
Yeah, my complaint is not the acting at all. He’s great as Reid it was just the portrayal that aspect of his characters just like it’s getting old. It’s like come on.
Yeah, so I’m curious about our listeners thoughts on all of this Do you agree with Matt that the episode should have contained a little bit more realism around how the character’s actions would have had repercussions. Them moving forward or are you in line with my thinking which was taking a look at this as more of a morality play. It’s okay that it kind of lets go of some of those threads that tie it into reality and just is depicting the moral struggle around. How do we help. What does help mean and what does it mean when somebody else that we do not fully understand the context that they’re in seems to be different and struggling in a way that we think we understand let us know you can reach out through the contact information you can on Youtube of course just scroll beneath the video and leave a comment there and. Drop us a line. Let us know what you thought as for this podcast and moving forward I wanted to let everybody know that Matt and I are planning on putting together something for our podcast supporters. The people who supporting us directly through Youtube as a member or those people who visit the trek in time site to provide us with direct support. We are going to be offering a new spinoff series called out of time in which we’re going to be talking about potentially star trek. But mainly, whatever’s on our mind. Whatever we’re consuming so we might talk about some of the new star trek series. We might talk about other sci-fi shows that we’re watching just off the top of my head we might talk about things like severance or halo or some of the star wars programs that are coming out. We also may even talk about some of the newest star trek that is coming out like strange new worlds picard or below decks. So if you are interested in catching those episodes you can become a member and you can go to trek in time and throw some. Direct support our way and the episodes 4 out of time will be coming out at least once a month and then that will be starting in June most likely and what we will be doing is dropping at least 1 episode a month potentially 2 or more depending on our availability availability with each other. And also what we have as far as what we’ve consumed and what we want to talk about so another tip of the hat and thanks to our supporters. You guys will already be getting announcements as far as like when this becomes live and you will be provided with links and information on how to get to the program.
And for anybody who wants to join in and support the podcast is directly directly. You’ll be added to that list as well. Before we sign off Matt is there anything you’d like to remind our listeners about that we have coming up.
I just stay tuned to undecided with met ferrell where I’m talking about a lot of interesting things coming up like machine learning and Ai which is very star treky very futuristic sci-fi stuff and how it’s impacting things in the sustainability and renewable energy race.
S for me, you can check out my website http://seanferrell.com you can also look for my books on Amazon or Barnes and noble or anywhere books have sold your local bookstore or your local library. They should be available at all those locations and as usual if you’d like to support the show. Leave a review at Apple or Google or Spotify or go to Youtube and become a member there and if you’d like to directly support us. You can go to trekandtime show click the become a supporter button and throw some coins at our heads. We do appreciate it. It hurts a little bit but we like it anyway, all of that really does help support the show. Thank you so much for listening and watching. And we’ll talk to you next time.