Matt and Sean talk about how little a price on your head actually gets you.
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Hey, everybody in this episode of trek and time we’re gonna be talking about how a bounty hunter might unexpectedly have to rethink their life goals. No, we’re not talking about the mandalorian. Right, we’re talking about enterprise episode 25 of season 2 bounty Matt how you doing.
Pretty good. Good memorial day weekend. Got some nice weather going on life is good.
That’s good listeners. You may know Matt Matt is the guru behind undecided with Matt Ferrell which takes a look at tech and its impact on our lives and you may recognize my voice as well. Which sounds disturbingly like Matt’s on Ferrell I’m a writer all write some. Books I write some books for kids I write some stuff for adults and both of us are big sci-fi nerds and big trek nerds as well. Welcome to trek in time where we’re watching every episode of star trek and chronological order and we’re also taking a look at what was going on in the world at the time that the episodes originally aired. But now we’re still in enterprise we are at the edge of season 2 trying not to give spoilers about this episode but boy can I not wait to get out of season 2 and because we’re in season 2 we’re still talking about the year two thousand and three
Yeah, yes.
So we’ll be talking about that in a bit before we get into that Matt we like to talk about the previous episode comments and do you have anything that stood out from our most recent episodes.
Yeah there’s a trend in the comments on this one that kind of mirrors a lot what we talked about from dazz six thirty six I always felt the studio never went all in with enterprise this episode and many others in series 3 and I’m talking about first flight the last episode series 3 ended up feeling smaller. And they should have been and then pale ghost wrote this was a real episode I thought it was some crazy fever dream to which robotrav responded same turns out I was just really drunk. So I thought I thought those were funny because because it was spot on to kind of how we felt of that episode.
Yeah guys I Five yeah.
And then Eboss had a nice long comment I’m just going to talk about the first paragraph he wrote I agree that T’Pol archer the T’Pol archer balance in the present day part of the episode is actually the main storyline. The flashbacks are part of an elaborate backdrop canvas given weight to the evolving T’Pol Archer storyline for me the ratio flashback to present day. It doesn’t bother me necessarily having more of the episode in the present day. What would that look like food for thoughts and that’s kind of like what you had hit on and in our previous discussion is. It’s like if they had changed that dynamic and the balance and put a little more focus on what was happening between T’Pol and archer it’s like.
Um, yeah, yeah.
It would have given it a very different feel and maybe maybe made it a better episode.
Maybe made it a better episode but it also then runs head on into the problem of well if that is the focus then why is the flashback there and so I think that they got stuck in a process where it was like well the story has to be in the past but it has to be Impactful for the present and they just missed the mark both directions. It felt like so I agree with eboss that’s you and I are in the same vein I think for today’s episode well we’re gonna be talking about as I mentioned before bounty. Episode 25 of season 2 and our regular listeners will recognize that sound that’s right, it’s the read alert matt I think you know is expected of you when that claxon on goes off so please leap in head first.
Yes.
into the Wikipedia description for this episode.
Okay, bounty is the 51st episode of start I’m sorry the way these always start is so frustrating bounty is the 50- no bounty is the 51st episode of http://startrekenterprise the 25th episode of the second season this episode presents. The.
Yes, because they are not written as actual sentences. Yes.
Tell tellerite aliens seen previously in journey to babel of the original series and there is a pun far subplot with t’Pol that was 1 sentence. Wow yeah.
That that was one sentence and it’s an attempt to synopsize Boy does it? yep.
Yeah, and we’re still going here this episodes this episodes this episodes follows on from the story of judgment where archer was sentenced to life in in rora pente gulag but managed to escape the klingons have put up a bounty for his capture. So various bounty hunters are pursuing him the story arc with the klingons continues to the into the next episode the expanse the season finale in the secondary story a bacterium infects t’pol and prematurely induces part of the vulcan mating cycle known as ponfar which continues to Tests the medical skill and professionalism of Dr Flox wow okay yeah that brings many thoughts to my head of how I felt about this episode.
Um, yes. Yeah, yes, yes I think that the synopsis very astutely captures the episode in the sense that it’s a lot of words it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
Yeah, yeah.
And at the end you’re really kind of sorry you put yourself through that experience. This episode was directed by Roxon Dawson who of course we’ll remember as Bana Torres and this is not her first time directing enterprise nor is it the first time that she’s directed she at this point. In our lives in the year Twenty Twenty Two is an extremely accomplished director of a lot of different programs that we’ve enjoyed the storyline was by Hans Tobison Mike Sussman Phyllis Strong and the original air date was may 14th 2003 and some of our listeners may be saying I’m having deja vu I’m having deja vu what is with this may 14th 2003. That’s right Matt this was a double bill with first flight. What an evening of viewing that must have been. Yeah I can’t really recall it myself, but just imagine. Cozying up with a big hot cup of cocoa and watching first flight followed by this episode who boy good times that’s right so on may fourteenth what were we doing? Well we were still dancing along to ignition by R Kelly who has now been convicted of multiple crimes that we’ve talked about previously. And in the movie theaters. Well we were lining up to go see x 2 which as I mentioned last episode was directed by Brian Singer who has now been accused of a number of terrible crimes himself in the same vein as r kelly this episode earned 3.5 million viewers which means that it did. A little bit better than the three point three million viewers of the lead-in episode so people didn’t turn in for first flight but they did tune in for this and why is that well given the shows that this episode was up against I’m not sure why this episode went up against the bachelor. Which had 10000000 60 minutes to which also had 10 million the end of the american idol episode which of course would have had around 22000000 and then followed by the Bernie Max show which got 15 million viewers as a result of the american idol lead in this episode also went up against the second half. Of Dawson’s creek which beat it. This was the series finale for Dawson’s creek and this episode also went up against the west wing a little program that earned 13 million viewers for the week the top show was Nbc’s friends which had 25000000 viewers and in the news. Well I wanted to pull this little article out of The New York Times which is about the west wing the Tv watch a whiff of camelot as west wing ends an arrow by Alexandra Stanley
Aaron Sorkin the creator writer and executive producer of the west wing is not returning to the show next year and neither is another executive producer Thomas Schlamy Nbc concerned about this season’s drop and ratings declared that the show would go on under the guidance of the third executive producer John wells. Who also oversees. Yeah ah er and third watch Jeff Zucker the president of Nbc Entertainment assured advertisers that the west wing was still a goodbye with the most upscale audience of any show on television given Mr Wills’s other work. The show’s episodes may become easier to follow. Plots are likely to be ripped from the headlines not from history books or Shakespeare and if Mr Zucker has any say someone is certainly going to have sex besides the axorious president Bartlett. The reason why I wanted to share this article was Aaron Sorkin
Yeah.
At this point had been the creator and executive producer and main writer he wrote 80 episodes of West Wing almost every episode was written by him in those first four years and I wanted to bring this to light to talk about it from this perspective I think. There was a singular vision and drive behind the west wing that was on clear display. It was a powerhouse show. It had very strong numbers but it was very It was a challenging show to watch and I am a big fan of the program. The writing is incredibly strong.
This is.
Dialogue is spectacular and it gives the opportunity for character to be developed and demonstrated through dialogue in action constantly people standing in a room arguing about what it means to do the right thing when you think about it you scratch away the paint of it being about Washington Dc being about the white house. It being about contemporary politics. All of that sounds very much like star trek people standing in a room talking. What does it mean to do the right thing. Morality plays constantly being pushed into corners and figuring out. If I fight my way out of this corner am I doing more harm than good west wing. At this point is changing direction because Nbc saw a drop in the ratings behind the scenes. The thing that was probably doing more. To make this change happen and this is something that now 20 years after we can look back and there have been interviews and discussions about what actually was going on and the one hand Nbc was changing how they would share backend money so that they were limiting how much a producer could make on reruns and continuing interest.
And.
Further down the line and so Aaron Sorkin was not interested in effectively taking a smaller deal than he than he previously had another aspect of this is that when you’re writing 80 episodes in the first four years and they’re episodes which are extremely dialogue heavy. And you are writing these episodes in a way that it’s sometimes slowing down production. They sometimes had to delay production of episodes which means you’ve got actors and crew just standing around waiting for pages to be written that costs the network a lot of money the third nail in the coffin is the fact that Aaron Sorkin was dealing with a drug problem.
This is.
He was in and out of rehab a number of times prior to west wing and during west wing and was arrested in 2001 at an airport because he had drugs including cocaine on him at the time. So this is somebody dealing with personal demons. And he has since said that part of his writing style was when you’re writing that much and it’s that demanding a writing schedule the drug use fueled it. So he’s not the only writer to fall into that trap and. So all of these things coalesce to to force him out the program at the time of this article. Of course they’re saying like we’re going to be fine. Well the show absolutely changed it absolutely changed and became lesser and it turned into something after his exit. It turned into something that was akin to seeing a couple of children inside a raincoat looking like an adult but not quite doing it perfectly and it was still called the west wing. It had all the people in the west wing. But.
Right.
It didn’t feel like the west wing. Yeah.
It was not the same program. It did not feel like the west wing I feel like it’s sort of a ship and a bottle comparison to Enterprise Where Enterprise I feel like this goes back to the comment that Matt just shared. There’s something that the network and the creators of Enterprise were missing. there didn’t seem to be a singular vision and there didn’t seem to be any skeleton underneath what was being put on the air and I think this episode as we get into it will be a good demonstration of what I mean by that. This episode and of course here we go March Twenty first Twenty one 53 why do some episodes have very specific dates and some episodes don’t who knows but it was March Twenty First it was the first day of spring for the enterprise crew. And what happens to them. Well they run into a tellerite? Who’s on a ship they are studying a planet and the tellerite shows up and does this whole gruff. What are you doing here? Maybe I don’t like you but maybe I’ll also be a guide and I’ll show you where my favorite places on this planet are. Which leads the captain and the chief engineer to go down and just welcome this guy aboard their ship and right out of the gate Matt I left my I found myself in the opening seconds of this show saying what is happening did anybody write this.
Sean Sean this my first note I wrote to myself as I’m watching this is what happened to Reid’s standards that he’s set in place and they argue at about in season one and the beginning of season 2 and the captain had that. Come to Jesus moment. There was an episode where he was like read. You’re right, you need to institute a whole bunch of things and read had all these ideas and some of it was around first contact and when you first introduce yourself to people. What are the things that you were supposed to do to keep security what happens at the beginning of this episode who cares about all that. Here goes you know Captain Archer is good ol’ buddy tip trip tucker down to the to the thing and just like hey let’s just open the thing to a complete strange alien and say hi. How do you? Oh my god ridiculous oh.
We’re very excited to go mountain climbing and they open up the door and get shot in the chest. Yeah, it is yes and I think you just coined a term when when something within a show. Could have been solved by them implementing the policies of lieutenant Reid we can refer to that as something that is reidiculous. Well done Matt.
Oh shot.
Right out of the gate you have you have a moment where it is clear like they’re just like we need to get archer caught I can’t believe that this was the best idea to come out of the pitch room. I can tell you off the top of my head ten different scenarios that would have been better than this show archer on a planet where they have found a civilization where there’s a bazaar and they’re walking around a bazaar looking at various goods and scalar comes out of corner alley and shoots him in the back and drags him away. Like you could have done anything anything that would have made more sense than them meeting scalar in space and welcoming him aboard in this way, it sets us off on such a bad note that it.
So you you you are okay just to reiterate Sean is a writer. He’s a published author he has written novels science fiction novels and one of my things about science fiction I love is you can do whatever you want, you can you can do it. Sky’s limit. Only thing you have to do as a creator is set the rules and boundaries of how things work set those up and you can do whatever you want within those boundaries because it has to feel real and authentic and it just has to be you basically had to set the table before you can play around this show has set the table. Numerous times with the security procedures and Reid wanting to make changes because we’re too loose. We’re too lax numerous times they set the boundaries and the rules and this episode was kind of like it felt like it was let’s get a writer who’s never done anything for this show before never even watched an episode and come up and write something. Because it was like what you’re just ignoring not just one but numerous previous episodes. It’s a scene to me. It’s like you don’t you have? ah ah a show bible it’s like at this point in the show here’s all the rules. It’s like.
Um, yeah.
Living in these rules. It was like they threw the rulebook out because it was convenient and it was fast and it got him on that ship right away but you’re hundred percent right just a little bit of brainstorming and you could have come up with a dozen other ideas that would have got him on that ship and it wouldn’t have set up for me. Very clear when I watch these episodes I tend to be 100% focused and I have my ipad mini on my my my my lap and I have my Apple pencil and I’m writing notes and stuff like this I’m watching it this episode I ended up half watching because I got bored beyond all get out. Um.
Yeah.
And part of the reason was the way the show opened and it was such a weak opening. It was like I started to remember oh this episode and when they got to the B Plot I’m going to jump ahead to the B Plot The pon far stuff. Holy crap.
Um, yeah. Yeah, we can Yada Yada Yada The B Plot This is yeah.
That entire b plot is just a massive train wreck. It has 0 connection to the a plot none it doesn’t have any kind of significant or real character development for either flox or tPol it feels like the my my big note I wrote was. Ratings are down and then in all caps I wrote sex it up because it got back to the gratuitous looping yourself up and then it felt like um you know like ah some bad porn rip-off of star trek welcome to porn trek because it turned into kind of a fantasy of.
Yeah.
What if tpol got all sexed up and wanted to have sex with Flux and it felt like a gross pornography written episode of like somebody ring a fantasy and it was bizarre it was just completely off. It’s nut so it’s like I just want to basically say it’s awful. It was stupid. It should never be in the show.
Yeah. Um, yeah.
It didn’t progress any of the characters. It didn’t progress the plot It didn’t do anything. It was awful. They should be ashamed of themselves for this B plot.
Yeah I agree it was and this goes back to stuff. We’ve talked about before the missed opportunities. Let’s say this is your story You’re gonna go with this b story as like this is part of the show. Okay. She’s running through the ship at one point basically in her underwear and comes on to read in a way that’s just like I see how you look at me like it is layers of oogie that just make your skin crawl because it’s effectively setting up the idea of i’m.
M.
Working in a hostile environment. You are the perpetrator of that but hey I’ve turned a corner. So let’s let’s go back to my place. She literally says let’s go back to my cabin. Let’s say that this is going to be your storyline what if the storyline was floxx identifies that both he and tpol have been exposed to this thing and are going to have to remain in the decon chamber for an extend period of time and do everything that they did in this episode try different. Try different salves try different levels of radiation. Try to figure out. Okay, what’s going to work here. What’s going to solve this problem. She begins to get ill she starts to exhibit all the different things like the fever her hormones are getting out of whack and she’s getting more short tempered and identifies on her own internally what is happening but she refuses to admit this to flocks. She never makes one pass. She never does anything that is overtly sexual in a come on sort of way by the time that she is now in full like shutdown mode. She’s going into shock. She reluctantly reveals to him what is going on and he identifies that part of the problem would be okay, there’s a certain act that needs to solve this for you. Our species are not biologically compatible in that way. He doesn’t have to get into any details as to why. It is just there’s not a biological aspect that could work here and we are both infected with this thing so one solution he could medically as a doctor say the solution that would most easily present itself under normal circumstances would be. You should have sex. However, you are contaminated and and this will be worse for the rest of the crew than it would be for either of us so we cannot go that route and I cannot help you so he then has to begin the research process she could have been ill and revealing things. As she’s getting ill and her barriers began to break down. She could have been expressing guilt. She could have been expressing fear. She could have been doing these things in a way that would have been revealing herself to her doctor in a way that could have been a connective thread between the 2 of them.
Yes. Yes.
And the rewrite that I just provided would have also given you another huge advantage over what the current episode actually was flox’s character in this episode was not Flox that was not the character that we have seen up to this point. He became timid and shy and embarrassed about personal reveals. He did he felt there was a certain point where her come ons to him put him off which is fine considering like. In that moment if he doesn’t want that kind of interaction but he frames it as denoullin males are shy and timid in a way that the females are not. We’ve never seen that before.
No is.
We have never seen this flox before and it did not make sense that suddenly for this episode. It makes more sense for him to be the demure. Oh Oh I can’t handle this as opposed to what he’s been in in the past when he’s literally told people like hey you want to have a you know you want to have sex with my wife go Ahead. He’s his. Openness toward that sort of aspect of of his experience and his culture is not what was on display in this episode. It did not make any sense.
Well it ties back to exactly what I was saying earlier. It’s like the person who wrote this episode had never looked at the bible and it also looked it looked like they had never even watched an episode of the show. That’s the way it came across because in previous episodes Flox has behaved in a certain way. And they’ve set up the denobulins a certain way and to suddenly flip that on its head for this specific moment just to create that tension between the 2 of them. It was a thing of convenience and it had nothing to do with referencing the way things have already been established if that’s the problem. Don’t have flocks in there have a different character in there that you could have that thing between what it was Hoshi was Hoshi she couldn’t actually help her with the sex issue the way she would need a man for so it’s like Hoshi could have been in there and. Little freaked out as to what was going on and a doctor could have been on the outside trying to troubleshoot what was going on on the inside. So. It’s like they could have done it any number of ways but they chose the. Path of least resistance. Let’s just ignore what we did before and just do something brand new and let’s and let’s sex it up and make it raunchy and try to get the ratings up. It was trying to be scintillating the story blind with skin deep and when star trek is the best to me. It’s when they’re having. They’re struggling with those ethical moral dilemmas.
Um, yeah.
And really having fun with it. A science fiction kind of motif and the a plot kind of tries to do that like the whole thing between the captain in the little cell with the the bounty Hunter. They do have some very nice back and forths and some nice discussions as to like. You know, like what what is the right thing to do here because you’re you’re basically gonna sentence means my death so you can get your you buy your ship back. It’s like don’t you have a problem with this.. It was an interesting little dialogue back and forth. But for me, everything kept getting undercut because after the how the episode was set up and that B point.
Yeah.
The B Plot kept pulling me out of the moment to the point where I was just like letting the episode wash over me and that’s when I started like paying half attention to the rest of the episode. It was just like this is this is such a no nothing episode. It’s it’s a really in my Opinion. It’s a very bad episode even though there’s good moments because. So many of the decisions they made completely cut their legs out from underneath them.
Yeah, for me the aplot. Um I did not like the aspects of the conversation between archer and scalar I didn’t think that I didn’t think it was original I think we’ve seen that many many times before and it. Did something which in this episode I didn’t think it needed to do which was humanize the bounty hunter in a way to give him pure motives for doing bad things I didn’t think that it was interesting. Um, he mentioned that this is not the first time he’s done this work. So. Why this particular captive is going to have this impact on him didn’t make any sense we get scenes with him with his I think it was supposed to be his brother. Um, where it turns out that the goal that scalar has had this entire time is not achievable that becomes the reason why he starts to help. Captain not because he has a change of heart but because his goal is no longer attainable. That’s not great writing it would have meant more if he could have had the coins in his hand been paid fully and then has the change of heart. Oh damn it what if you know like what if I do this.
Yes.
Can I live with myself. But again I’ve seen that storyline before there was another aspect of this that again rubbed me the wrong way. It feels like whenever Scott Aquila gets into certain situations with archer his way of depicting archer changes in a strange way. There’s a kind of sudden. Cowboy swagger that comes out which doesn’t really make a lot of sense sometimes and I found myself distracted by the performances in this episode like why is he delivering these lines as if he’s trying to come up with them on the moment as opposed to just literally sounding like he’s talking. Um, there’s. There were aspects of that and I found myself wishing like okay if you’re going to go with ah this storyline which revolves around the klingons have a price on archer’s head. Okay, why aren’t the klingons showing up on their own. First of all, why are the klingons. The bad guy in the episode. Yeah, that goes back to something we’ve talked about in the past which is overreliance on things that are too much fan. Service. Why are the klingons not showing up directly themselves. Well klingons are not going to wander too deep into outside their own territory. You could argue. They wouldn’t go finding archer themselves because they wouldn’t want to go and be hostile to a species outside their own territory of control. So utilizing bounty hunters and apparently more than one bounty hunter what if this episode had been about a full blown bounty hunter. Without any moral implications to what the bounty hunter is doing archer makes his argument of like does it make you feel good to know that I’ll go to my death so that you can get a better ship and the guy’s response doesn’t bother me a bit like he’s got no problem but we see in this episode that they have set loose the bounty. Amongst other bounty hunters. We see a cago dar who is played by Robert O’reilly that’s right, it’s galron in yet another role in star trek he does more with his bounty hunter than many of the guest stars especially in this episode he does more with his bounty hunter.
Anybody else.
Who’s only on camera for a few times including one great scene where he’s communicating with enterprise and he’s got. He’s clearly trying to repair his ship. He’s got a tool in his hand he looks distracted and he’s just like comema le me along I’m trying to fix his war corps have more than one bounty hunter show up looking for. Archer and here’s my biggest complaint about this. The klingons are behind this. Why is it important that we know that why is it important that we see klingons in this episode. What would have happened with this episode if a bounty hunter shows up captures archer. Is taking him through space archer says what’s going on here is like I’ve been paid to find you who paid you? That’s something you’ll find out when we get there and then if the other bounty hunter shows up and you turn it into this game of the two bounty hunters trying to outdo each other. Perhaps crash on the planet archer has to figure out how to escape the two bounty hunters are going at each other. They’re switching control over archer through the episode archer keeps saying will somebody please tell me what’s going on what if all of it ends with him getting back to the enterprise. And he does not know who’s put a price on his head that would have laid the groundwork for potentially multiple episodes of questions around who is after not enterprise or starfleeed. But archer in particular that would have been. Ah, great start to a question mark that they could have chased from episode to episode instead we have and and this is my last comments about this episode the ridiculousness of his escape from the klingon ship. Why get him there if the way you’re gonna get him off of there is.
Okay, okay, okay.
He has a secret lock pick and then he beats the crap out of a Klingon I do not believe for a moment that archer could have defeated the Klingon the way he did in that episode to get away from them and the way he did it just doesn’t make any sense.
Well, it does make sense for the fact that it felt like this episode was written by somebody who’d never seen an episode of star trek so I’ll put that to the side you were 100% correct of it would have been great if they hadn’t revealed. It was the klingons yet because it would created a nice mystery box that would have carried to the future episode because this this continues. Until like the future episodes here they could have left it as a little bit of a mystery box to make you go on to want to tune in next time the problem I have with enterprise for season 1 and season 2 the show doesn’t know what it wants to be It’s trying to be classic trek episodic and not like overarching storylines. And having its cake and eat its too so when it has these moments and these opportunities to tell larger overarching stories. It tends to shank that a little bit tends to screw it up a little bit um and to tie into something to our other show out of time which is our members only feed.
Um, yeah.
We’re gonna be talking about strange new worlds the new star trek show and I’m bringing that up now because start the newest track that’s on the air right now you’re talking about like Picard Discovery and Strange New Worlds I like discovery just in general I like it but it doesn’t feel like. Trek. It feels like the J J Abrams Trek but I think it’s well done has some interesting characters but it has a lot of weaknesses. Yes correct. But it’s it’s good I find it very watchable. Enjoy it. Picard is my favorite captain of all time. Love him.
Um, it’s It’s really good sci-fi but it may not be the most trek. Yeah.
Um, a next generation guy and at season one I thought was really was scratching an itch I miss Jean Luc and it was nice to see him and then the ending was kind of like really ah and then season 2 is a slog It’s like I am like two-thirds of the way through I have like. two or 3 episodes left I’m like do I really want to watch those episodes because at this point it’s like I find the show has so jumped the shark. It’s just it’s a hot mess season 2 it’s just a hot.
There were 4 sharks.
Yeah, so it’s like for me, it’s like the newest trek is really kind of struggling. Ah but the animated track is actually doing pretty interesting things and then here comes strange new worlds which is kind of trying to get back to that here’s like this these little episodes that are kind of standalone and you can watch. But yet they’re having their cake andine too because they do have overarching kind of storylines with characters and what’s going on even though each episode stands on its own and spoiler I’m really enjoying what they’re doing and it feels the most trek like Trek of. All the recent trek that’s out there which comes back to this even though this is like what twenty years ago it really feels like they had completely lost the thread as to what makes star trek star trek and what people want to see and so they’re not delivering satisfying. Episodes like standalones and then when they have an opportunity to tell those overarching threads. They’re like just like cutting them before they’re even like pulled out. It’s so frustrating.
Yeah, they’re trying so hard to fix problems but they’re too close to the problem to see what it is and you mentioned before you said? yeah like oh this plot is skin deep and immediately I thought of the movie skin deep with John Ritter
Yeah, yeah.
And which strangely is about like sex addiction so it like kind of fit in with what you were talking about. But the reason I mention that now is because within that story within that movie his character discovers that the problem he has only has one solution. Which is to remove the problem and that’s where I think enterprise is they are so quickly trying to like well how do we fix this problem of long overarching storyline not working and the way they’re doing it is by restarting a long overarching storyline. In almost every episode and abandoning the ones from before instead of just simply saying like well let’s keep going but figure out if we can redesign what this storyline is they just start a new overarching storyline. So now suddenly we’re in a so. Star trek at the end of season two where suddenly the klingons are supposed to be the ongoing bad guys and the whole time temporal cold war is over at this point.
But that that that brings me to spoiler alert. It’s been a while since I’ve watched season 3 and 4 of the show but season 3 for the show takes a turn and it takes a dramatic turn and it takes a turn into the okay we know what the through line is for the rest of the series.
Yes.
And they lean into it hard and that to me is when Enterprise takes a positive turn. So we’re almost there So for listeners hang with us because like we’re almost the we’re almost to the point where Enterprise takes the turn figures out what they need to do to make this a better show and.
Hang with us. Yeah.
Like this hot mass of what we’ve been experiencing for the past several weeks is coming to an end as which is we we were desperately need.
And as Matt pointed out if you’re a subscriber you will get access immediately to our new episodes of out of time and we are also planning on making some of out of time available just in our regular feed as well. So you’ll get a vision of what we’re doing in that program when those episodes. Drop into the regular feed and ultimately out of time in the short run is going to give you an opportunity to hear us to talk very positively about what’s going on because yeah, we talked about it previously. We tend to rag on these episodes when they don’t work like this and we’ve done it again with this one. This is one that I just felt like as Matt said I suddenly was putting together a grocery list I was putting together a little to do list for the day like as I was watching this episode I’m like oh yeah, archers they. Just hand him over to the clingons. Okay, so we need milk and we need eggs. It just didn’t hold together. Yeah, so next time we’re gonna be talking about the expanse. And Matt we already know what the expanse is going to be about it’s gonna be about that Amazon prime series. No, it’s not It’s gonna be about the conclusion of season 2 which means it’s going to be the conclusion of why did the klingons want to beat archer up. So bad. We already know. But.
That’s right.
On Yada Yada before we sign off mad is there anything else, you’d like to remind our listeners about.
Um, ah just to tune in to undecided I have a bunch of interviews coming up with some new interesting battery technologies that are hopefully coming to market next I would say 5 to 7 years. It’s so still kind of off from the future. But it’s some really interesting tech. That’s that’s coming um, way.
And for me, you can check out my website http://seanferrell.com there’s information about my books there you can also look for them at Amazon Barnes and noble or your local bookstore anywhere. Books are sold and that also includes your public library reminder if you’d like to support the show. Please consider reviewing on Apple Google Spotify wherever it was that you found this and if you’d like to more directly support us. You can go to trekandtime show and click on the become a supporter button and throw some coins at our heads and when you do that as a direct supporter you will also automatically start getting. Out of time program sent to you and as I mentioned before to the people who are not able to support us directly. You will get a snippet or two every once in a while from the out of time program so stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for listening everybody. We really do appreciate. And every review every like every subscription really does help support the show. We’ll talk to you next time.
Pretty good. Good memorial day weekend. Got some nice weather going on life is good.
That’s good listeners. You may know Matt Matt is the guru behind undecided with Matt Ferrell which takes a look at tech and its impact on our lives and you may recognize my voice as well. Which sounds disturbingly like Matt’s on Ferrell I’m a writer all write some. Books I write some books for kids I write some stuff for adults and both of us are big sci-fi nerds and big trek nerds as well. Welcome to trek in time where we’re watching every episode of star trek and chronological order and we’re also taking a look at what was going on in the world at the time that the episodes originally aired. But now we’re still in enterprise we are at the edge of season 2 trying not to give spoilers about this episode but boy can I not wait to get out of season 2 and because we’re in season 2 we’re still talking about the year two thousand and three
Yeah, yes.
So we’ll be talking about that in a bit before we get into that Matt we like to talk about the previous episode comments and do you have anything that stood out from our most recent episodes.
Yeah there’s a trend in the comments on this one that kind of mirrors a lot what we talked about from dazz six thirty six I always felt the studio never went all in with enterprise this episode and many others in series 3 and I’m talking about first flight the last episode series 3 ended up feeling smaller. And they should have been and then pale ghost wrote this was a real episode I thought it was some crazy fever dream to which robotrav responded same turns out I was just really drunk. So I thought I thought those were funny because because it was spot on to kind of how we felt of that episode.
Yeah guys I Five yeah.
And then Eboss had a nice long comment I’m just going to talk about the first paragraph he wrote I agree that T’Pol archer the T’Pol archer balance in the present day part of the episode is actually the main storyline. The flashbacks are part of an elaborate backdrop canvas given weight to the evolving T’Pol Archer storyline for me the ratio flashback to present day. It doesn’t bother me necessarily having more of the episode in the present day. What would that look like food for thoughts and that’s kind of like what you had hit on and in our previous discussion is. It’s like if they had changed that dynamic and the balance and put a little more focus on what was happening between T’Pol and archer it’s like.
Um, yeah, yeah.
It would have given it a very different feel and maybe maybe made it a better episode.
Maybe made it a better episode but it also then runs head on into the problem of well if that is the focus then why is the flashback there and so I think that they got stuck in a process where it was like well the story has to be in the past but it has to be Impactful for the present and they just missed the mark both directions. It felt like so I agree with eboss that’s you and I are in the same vein I think for today’s episode well we’re gonna be talking about as I mentioned before bounty. Episode 25 of season 2 and our regular listeners will recognize that sound that’s right, it’s the read alert matt I think you know is expected of you when that claxon on goes off so please leap in head first.
Yes.
into the Wikipedia description for this episode.
Okay, bounty is the 51st episode of start I’m sorry the way these always start is so frustrating bounty is the 50- no bounty is the 51st episode of http://startrekenterprise the 25th episode of the second season this episode presents. The.
Yes, because they are not written as actual sentences. Yes.
Tell tellerite aliens seen previously in journey to babel of the original series and there is a pun far subplot with t’Pol that was 1 sentence. Wow yeah.
That that was one sentence and it’s an attempt to synopsize Boy does it? yep.
Yeah, and we’re still going here this episodes this episodes this episodes follows on from the story of judgment where archer was sentenced to life in in rora pente gulag but managed to escape the klingons have put up a bounty for his capture. So various bounty hunters are pursuing him the story arc with the klingons continues to the into the next episode the expanse the season finale in the secondary story a bacterium infects t’pol and prematurely induces part of the vulcan mating cycle known as ponfar which continues to Tests the medical skill and professionalism of Dr Flox wow okay yeah that brings many thoughts to my head of how I felt about this episode.
Um, yes. Yeah, yes, yes I think that the synopsis very astutely captures the episode in the sense that it’s a lot of words it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
Yeah, yeah.
And at the end you’re really kind of sorry you put yourself through that experience. This episode was directed by Roxon Dawson who of course we’ll remember as Bana Torres and this is not her first time directing enterprise nor is it the first time that she’s directed she at this point. In our lives in the year Twenty Twenty Two is an extremely accomplished director of a lot of different programs that we’ve enjoyed the storyline was by Hans Tobison Mike Sussman Phyllis Strong and the original air date was may 14th 2003 and some of our listeners may be saying I’m having deja vu I’m having deja vu what is with this may 14th 2003. That’s right Matt this was a double bill with first flight. What an evening of viewing that must have been. Yeah I can’t really recall it myself, but just imagine. Cozying up with a big hot cup of cocoa and watching first flight followed by this episode who boy good times that’s right so on may fourteenth what were we doing? Well we were still dancing along to ignition by R Kelly who has now been convicted of multiple crimes that we’ve talked about previously. And in the movie theaters. Well we were lining up to go see x 2 which as I mentioned last episode was directed by Brian Singer who has now been accused of a number of terrible crimes himself in the same vein as r kelly this episode earned 3.5 million viewers which means that it did. A little bit better than the three point three million viewers of the lead-in episode so people didn’t turn in for first flight but they did tune in for this and why is that well given the shows that this episode was up against I’m not sure why this episode went up against the bachelor. Which had 10000000 60 minutes to which also had 10 million the end of the american idol episode which of course would have had around 22000000 and then followed by the Bernie Max show which got 15 million viewers as a result of the american idol lead in this episode also went up against the second half. Of Dawson’s creek which beat it. This was the series finale for Dawson’s creek and this episode also went up against the west wing a little program that earned 13 million viewers for the week the top show was Nbc’s friends which had 25000000 viewers and in the news. Well I wanted to pull this little article out of The New York Times which is about the west wing the Tv watch a whiff of camelot as west wing ends an arrow by Alexandra Stanley
Aaron Sorkin the creator writer and executive producer of the west wing is not returning to the show next year and neither is another executive producer Thomas Schlamy Nbc concerned about this season’s drop and ratings declared that the show would go on under the guidance of the third executive producer John wells. Who also oversees. Yeah ah er and third watch Jeff Zucker the president of Nbc Entertainment assured advertisers that the west wing was still a goodbye with the most upscale audience of any show on television given Mr Wills’s other work. The show’s episodes may become easier to follow. Plots are likely to be ripped from the headlines not from history books or Shakespeare and if Mr Zucker has any say someone is certainly going to have sex besides the axorious president Bartlett. The reason why I wanted to share this article was Aaron Sorkin
Yeah.
At this point had been the creator and executive producer and main writer he wrote 80 episodes of West Wing almost every episode was written by him in those first four years and I wanted to bring this to light to talk about it from this perspective I think. There was a singular vision and drive behind the west wing that was on clear display. It was a powerhouse show. It had very strong numbers but it was very It was a challenging show to watch and I am a big fan of the program. The writing is incredibly strong.
This is.
Dialogue is spectacular and it gives the opportunity for character to be developed and demonstrated through dialogue in action constantly people standing in a room arguing about what it means to do the right thing when you think about it you scratch away the paint of it being about Washington Dc being about the white house. It being about contemporary politics. All of that sounds very much like star trek people standing in a room talking. What does it mean to do the right thing. Morality plays constantly being pushed into corners and figuring out. If I fight my way out of this corner am I doing more harm than good west wing. At this point is changing direction because Nbc saw a drop in the ratings behind the scenes. The thing that was probably doing more. To make this change happen and this is something that now 20 years after we can look back and there have been interviews and discussions about what actually was going on and the one hand Nbc was changing how they would share backend money so that they were limiting how much a producer could make on reruns and continuing interest.
And.
Further down the line and so Aaron Sorkin was not interested in effectively taking a smaller deal than he than he previously had another aspect of this is that when you’re writing 80 episodes in the first four years and they’re episodes which are extremely dialogue heavy. And you are writing these episodes in a way that it’s sometimes slowing down production. They sometimes had to delay production of episodes which means you’ve got actors and crew just standing around waiting for pages to be written that costs the network a lot of money the third nail in the coffin is the fact that Aaron Sorkin was dealing with a drug problem.
This is.
He was in and out of rehab a number of times prior to west wing and during west wing and was arrested in 2001 at an airport because he had drugs including cocaine on him at the time. So this is somebody dealing with personal demons. And he has since said that part of his writing style was when you’re writing that much and it’s that demanding a writing schedule the drug use fueled it. So he’s not the only writer to fall into that trap and. So all of these things coalesce to to force him out the program at the time of this article. Of course they’re saying like we’re going to be fine. Well the show absolutely changed it absolutely changed and became lesser and it turned into something after his exit. It turned into something that was akin to seeing a couple of children inside a raincoat looking like an adult but not quite doing it perfectly and it was still called the west wing. It had all the people in the west wing. But.
Right.
It didn’t feel like the west wing. Yeah.
It was not the same program. It did not feel like the west wing I feel like it’s sort of a ship and a bottle comparison to Enterprise Where Enterprise I feel like this goes back to the comment that Matt just shared. There’s something that the network and the creators of Enterprise were missing. there didn’t seem to be a singular vision and there didn’t seem to be any skeleton underneath what was being put on the air and I think this episode as we get into it will be a good demonstration of what I mean by that. This episode and of course here we go March Twenty first Twenty one 53 why do some episodes have very specific dates and some episodes don’t who knows but it was March Twenty First it was the first day of spring for the enterprise crew. And what happens to them. Well they run into a tellerite? Who’s on a ship they are studying a planet and the tellerite shows up and does this whole gruff. What are you doing here? Maybe I don’t like you but maybe I’ll also be a guide and I’ll show you where my favorite places on this planet are. Which leads the captain and the chief engineer to go down and just welcome this guy aboard their ship and right out of the gate Matt I left my I found myself in the opening seconds of this show saying what is happening did anybody write this.
Sean Sean this my first note I wrote to myself as I’m watching this is what happened to Reid’s standards that he’s set in place and they argue at about in season one and the beginning of season 2 and the captain had that. Come to Jesus moment. There was an episode where he was like read. You’re right, you need to institute a whole bunch of things and read had all these ideas and some of it was around first contact and when you first introduce yourself to people. What are the things that you were supposed to do to keep security what happens at the beginning of this episode who cares about all that. Here goes you know Captain Archer is good ol’ buddy tip trip tucker down to the to the thing and just like hey let’s just open the thing to a complete strange alien and say hi. How do you? Oh my god ridiculous oh.
We’re very excited to go mountain climbing and they open up the door and get shot in the chest. Yeah, it is yes and I think you just coined a term when when something within a show. Could have been solved by them implementing the policies of lieutenant Reid we can refer to that as something that is reidiculous. Well done Matt.
Oh shot.
Right out of the gate you have you have a moment where it is clear like they’re just like we need to get archer caught I can’t believe that this was the best idea to come out of the pitch room. I can tell you off the top of my head ten different scenarios that would have been better than this show archer on a planet where they have found a civilization where there’s a bazaar and they’re walking around a bazaar looking at various goods and scalar comes out of corner alley and shoots him in the back and drags him away. Like you could have done anything anything that would have made more sense than them meeting scalar in space and welcoming him aboard in this way, it sets us off on such a bad note that it.
So you you you are okay just to reiterate Sean is a writer. He’s a published author he has written novels science fiction novels and one of my things about science fiction I love is you can do whatever you want, you can you can do it. Sky’s limit. Only thing you have to do as a creator is set the rules and boundaries of how things work set those up and you can do whatever you want within those boundaries because it has to feel real and authentic and it just has to be you basically had to set the table before you can play around this show has set the table. Numerous times with the security procedures and Reid wanting to make changes because we’re too loose. We’re too lax numerous times they set the boundaries and the rules and this episode was kind of like it felt like it was let’s get a writer who’s never done anything for this show before never even watched an episode and come up and write something. Because it was like what you’re just ignoring not just one but numerous previous episodes. It’s a scene to me. It’s like you don’t you have? ah ah a show bible it’s like at this point in the show here’s all the rules. It’s like.
Um, yeah.
Living in these rules. It was like they threw the rulebook out because it was convenient and it was fast and it got him on that ship right away but you’re hundred percent right just a little bit of brainstorming and you could have come up with a dozen other ideas that would have got him on that ship and it wouldn’t have set up for me. Very clear when I watch these episodes I tend to be 100% focused and I have my ipad mini on my my my my lap and I have my Apple pencil and I’m writing notes and stuff like this I’m watching it this episode I ended up half watching because I got bored beyond all get out. Um.
Yeah.
And part of the reason was the way the show opened and it was such a weak opening. It was like I started to remember oh this episode and when they got to the B Plot I’m going to jump ahead to the B Plot The pon far stuff. Holy crap.
Um, yeah. Yeah, we can Yada Yada Yada The B Plot This is yeah.
That entire b plot is just a massive train wreck. It has 0 connection to the a plot none it doesn’t have any kind of significant or real character development for either flox or tPol it feels like the my my big note I wrote was. Ratings are down and then in all caps I wrote sex it up because it got back to the gratuitous looping yourself up and then it felt like um you know like ah some bad porn rip-off of star trek welcome to porn trek because it turned into kind of a fantasy of.
Yeah.
What if tpol got all sexed up and wanted to have sex with Flux and it felt like a gross pornography written episode of like somebody ring a fantasy and it was bizarre it was just completely off. It’s nut so it’s like I just want to basically say it’s awful. It was stupid. It should never be in the show.
Yeah. Um, yeah.
It didn’t progress any of the characters. It didn’t progress the plot It didn’t do anything. It was awful. They should be ashamed of themselves for this B plot.
Yeah I agree it was and this goes back to stuff. We’ve talked about before the missed opportunities. Let’s say this is your story You’re gonna go with this b story as like this is part of the show. Okay. She’s running through the ship at one point basically in her underwear and comes on to read in a way that’s just like I see how you look at me like it is layers of oogie that just make your skin crawl because it’s effectively setting up the idea of i’m.
M.
Working in a hostile environment. You are the perpetrator of that but hey I’ve turned a corner. So let’s let’s go back to my place. She literally says let’s go back to my cabin. Let’s say that this is going to be your storyline what if the storyline was floxx identifies that both he and tpol have been exposed to this thing and are going to have to remain in the decon chamber for an extend period of time and do everything that they did in this episode try different. Try different salves try different levels of radiation. Try to figure out. Okay, what’s going to work here. What’s going to solve this problem. She begins to get ill she starts to exhibit all the different things like the fever her hormones are getting out of whack and she’s getting more short tempered and identifies on her own internally what is happening but she refuses to admit this to flocks. She never makes one pass. She never does anything that is overtly sexual in a come on sort of way by the time that she is now in full like shutdown mode. She’s going into shock. She reluctantly reveals to him what is going on and he identifies that part of the problem would be okay, there’s a certain act that needs to solve this for you. Our species are not biologically compatible in that way. He doesn’t have to get into any details as to why. It is just there’s not a biological aspect that could work here and we are both infected with this thing so one solution he could medically as a doctor say the solution that would most easily present itself under normal circumstances would be. You should have sex. However, you are contaminated and and this will be worse for the rest of the crew than it would be for either of us so we cannot go that route and I cannot help you so he then has to begin the research process she could have been ill and revealing things. As she’s getting ill and her barriers began to break down. She could have been expressing guilt. She could have been expressing fear. She could have been doing these things in a way that would have been revealing herself to her doctor in a way that could have been a connective thread between the 2 of them.
Yes. Yes.
And the rewrite that I just provided would have also given you another huge advantage over what the current episode actually was flox’s character in this episode was not Flox that was not the character that we have seen up to this point. He became timid and shy and embarrassed about personal reveals. He did he felt there was a certain point where her come ons to him put him off which is fine considering like. In that moment if he doesn’t want that kind of interaction but he frames it as denoullin males are shy and timid in a way that the females are not. We’ve never seen that before.
No is.
We have never seen this flox before and it did not make sense that suddenly for this episode. It makes more sense for him to be the demure. Oh Oh I can’t handle this as opposed to what he’s been in in the past when he’s literally told people like hey you want to have a you know you want to have sex with my wife go Ahead. He’s his. Openness toward that sort of aspect of of his experience and his culture is not what was on display in this episode. It did not make any sense.
Well it ties back to exactly what I was saying earlier. It’s like the person who wrote this episode had never looked at the bible and it also looked it looked like they had never even watched an episode of the show. That’s the way it came across because in previous episodes Flox has behaved in a certain way. And they’ve set up the denobulins a certain way and to suddenly flip that on its head for this specific moment just to create that tension between the 2 of them. It was a thing of convenience and it had nothing to do with referencing the way things have already been established if that’s the problem. Don’t have flocks in there have a different character in there that you could have that thing between what it was Hoshi was Hoshi she couldn’t actually help her with the sex issue the way she would need a man for so it’s like Hoshi could have been in there and. Little freaked out as to what was going on and a doctor could have been on the outside trying to troubleshoot what was going on on the inside. So. It’s like they could have done it any number of ways but they chose the. Path of least resistance. Let’s just ignore what we did before and just do something brand new and let’s and let’s sex it up and make it raunchy and try to get the ratings up. It was trying to be scintillating the story blind with skin deep and when star trek is the best to me. It’s when they’re having. They’re struggling with those ethical moral dilemmas.
Um, yeah.
And really having fun with it. A science fiction kind of motif and the a plot kind of tries to do that like the whole thing between the captain in the little cell with the the bounty Hunter. They do have some very nice back and forths and some nice discussions as to like. You know, like what what is the right thing to do here because you’re you’re basically gonna sentence means my death so you can get your you buy your ship back. It’s like don’t you have a problem with this.. It was an interesting little dialogue back and forth. But for me, everything kept getting undercut because after the how the episode was set up and that B point.
Yeah.
The B Plot kept pulling me out of the moment to the point where I was just like letting the episode wash over me and that’s when I started like paying half attention to the rest of the episode. It was just like this is this is such a no nothing episode. It’s it’s a really in my Opinion. It’s a very bad episode even though there’s good moments because. So many of the decisions they made completely cut their legs out from underneath them.
Yeah, for me the aplot. Um I did not like the aspects of the conversation between archer and scalar I didn’t think that I didn’t think it was original I think we’ve seen that many many times before and it. Did something which in this episode I didn’t think it needed to do which was humanize the bounty hunter in a way to give him pure motives for doing bad things I didn’t think that it was interesting. Um, he mentioned that this is not the first time he’s done this work. So. Why this particular captive is going to have this impact on him didn’t make any sense we get scenes with him with his I think it was supposed to be his brother. Um, where it turns out that the goal that scalar has had this entire time is not achievable that becomes the reason why he starts to help. Captain not because he has a change of heart but because his goal is no longer attainable. That’s not great writing it would have meant more if he could have had the coins in his hand been paid fully and then has the change of heart. Oh damn it what if you know like what if I do this.
Yes.
Can I live with myself. But again I’ve seen that storyline before there was another aspect of this that again rubbed me the wrong way. It feels like whenever Scott Aquila gets into certain situations with archer his way of depicting archer changes in a strange way. There’s a kind of sudden. Cowboy swagger that comes out which doesn’t really make a lot of sense sometimes and I found myself distracted by the performances in this episode like why is he delivering these lines as if he’s trying to come up with them on the moment as opposed to just literally sounding like he’s talking. Um, there’s. There were aspects of that and I found myself wishing like okay if you’re going to go with ah this storyline which revolves around the klingons have a price on archer’s head. Okay, why aren’t the klingons showing up on their own. First of all, why are the klingons. The bad guy in the episode. Yeah, that goes back to something we’ve talked about in the past which is overreliance on things that are too much fan. Service. Why are the klingons not showing up directly themselves. Well klingons are not going to wander too deep into outside their own territory. You could argue. They wouldn’t go finding archer themselves because they wouldn’t want to go and be hostile to a species outside their own territory of control. So utilizing bounty hunters and apparently more than one bounty hunter what if this episode had been about a full blown bounty hunter. Without any moral implications to what the bounty hunter is doing archer makes his argument of like does it make you feel good to know that I’ll go to my death so that you can get a better ship and the guy’s response doesn’t bother me a bit like he’s got no problem but we see in this episode that they have set loose the bounty. Amongst other bounty hunters. We see a cago dar who is played by Robert O’reilly that’s right, it’s galron in yet another role in star trek he does more with his bounty hunter than many of the guest stars especially in this episode he does more with his bounty hunter.
Anybody else.
Who’s only on camera for a few times including one great scene where he’s communicating with enterprise and he’s got. He’s clearly trying to repair his ship. He’s got a tool in his hand he looks distracted and he’s just like comema le me along I’m trying to fix his war corps have more than one bounty hunter show up looking for. Archer and here’s my biggest complaint about this. The klingons are behind this. Why is it important that we know that why is it important that we see klingons in this episode. What would have happened with this episode if a bounty hunter shows up captures archer. Is taking him through space archer says what’s going on here is like I’ve been paid to find you who paid you? That’s something you’ll find out when we get there and then if the other bounty hunter shows up and you turn it into this game of the two bounty hunters trying to outdo each other. Perhaps crash on the planet archer has to figure out how to escape the two bounty hunters are going at each other. They’re switching control over archer through the episode archer keeps saying will somebody please tell me what’s going on what if all of it ends with him getting back to the enterprise. And he does not know who’s put a price on his head that would have laid the groundwork for potentially multiple episodes of questions around who is after not enterprise or starfleeed. But archer in particular that would have been. Ah, great start to a question mark that they could have chased from episode to episode instead we have and and this is my last comments about this episode the ridiculousness of his escape from the klingon ship. Why get him there if the way you’re gonna get him off of there is.
Okay, okay, okay.
He has a secret lock pick and then he beats the crap out of a Klingon I do not believe for a moment that archer could have defeated the Klingon the way he did in that episode to get away from them and the way he did it just doesn’t make any sense.
Well, it does make sense for the fact that it felt like this episode was written by somebody who’d never seen an episode of star trek so I’ll put that to the side you were 100% correct of it would have been great if they hadn’t revealed. It was the klingons yet because it would created a nice mystery box that would have carried to the future episode because this this continues. Until like the future episodes here they could have left it as a little bit of a mystery box to make you go on to want to tune in next time the problem I have with enterprise for season 1 and season 2 the show doesn’t know what it wants to be It’s trying to be classic trek episodic and not like overarching storylines. And having its cake and eat its too so when it has these moments and these opportunities to tell larger overarching stories. It tends to shank that a little bit tends to screw it up a little bit um and to tie into something to our other show out of time which is our members only feed.
Um, yeah.
We’re gonna be talking about strange new worlds the new star trek show and I’m bringing that up now because start the newest track that’s on the air right now you’re talking about like Picard Discovery and Strange New Worlds I like discovery just in general I like it but it doesn’t feel like. Trek. It feels like the J J Abrams Trek but I think it’s well done has some interesting characters but it has a lot of weaknesses. Yes correct. But it’s it’s good I find it very watchable. Enjoy it. Picard is my favorite captain of all time. Love him.
Um, it’s It’s really good sci-fi but it may not be the most trek. Yeah.
Um, a next generation guy and at season one I thought was really was scratching an itch I miss Jean Luc and it was nice to see him and then the ending was kind of like really ah and then season 2 is a slog It’s like I am like two-thirds of the way through I have like. two or 3 episodes left I’m like do I really want to watch those episodes because at this point it’s like I find the show has so jumped the shark. It’s just it’s a hot mess season 2 it’s just a hot.
There were 4 sharks.
Yeah, so it’s like for me, it’s like the newest trek is really kind of struggling. Ah but the animated track is actually doing pretty interesting things and then here comes strange new worlds which is kind of trying to get back to that here’s like this these little episodes that are kind of standalone and you can watch. But yet they’re having their cake andine too because they do have overarching kind of storylines with characters and what’s going on even though each episode stands on its own and spoiler I’m really enjoying what they’re doing and it feels the most trek like Trek of. All the recent trek that’s out there which comes back to this even though this is like what twenty years ago it really feels like they had completely lost the thread as to what makes star trek star trek and what people want to see and so they’re not delivering satisfying. Episodes like standalones and then when they have an opportunity to tell those overarching threads. They’re like just like cutting them before they’re even like pulled out. It’s so frustrating.
Yeah, they’re trying so hard to fix problems but they’re too close to the problem to see what it is and you mentioned before you said? yeah like oh this plot is skin deep and immediately I thought of the movie skin deep with John Ritter
Yeah, yeah.
And which strangely is about like sex addiction so it like kind of fit in with what you were talking about. But the reason I mention that now is because within that story within that movie his character discovers that the problem he has only has one solution. Which is to remove the problem and that’s where I think enterprise is they are so quickly trying to like well how do we fix this problem of long overarching storyline not working and the way they’re doing it is by restarting a long overarching storyline. In almost every episode and abandoning the ones from before instead of just simply saying like well let’s keep going but figure out if we can redesign what this storyline is they just start a new overarching storyline. So now suddenly we’re in a so. Star trek at the end of season two where suddenly the klingons are supposed to be the ongoing bad guys and the whole time temporal cold war is over at this point.
But that that that brings me to spoiler alert. It’s been a while since I’ve watched season 3 and 4 of the show but season 3 for the show takes a turn and it takes a dramatic turn and it takes a turn into the okay we know what the through line is for the rest of the series.
Yes.
And they lean into it hard and that to me is when Enterprise takes a positive turn. So we’re almost there So for listeners hang with us because like we’re almost the we’re almost to the point where Enterprise takes the turn figures out what they need to do to make this a better show and.
Hang with us. Yeah.
Like this hot mass of what we’ve been experiencing for the past several weeks is coming to an end as which is we we were desperately need.
And as Matt pointed out if you’re a subscriber you will get access immediately to our new episodes of out of time and we are also planning on making some of out of time available just in our regular feed as well. So you’ll get a vision of what we’re doing in that program when those episodes. Drop into the regular feed and ultimately out of time in the short run is going to give you an opportunity to hear us to talk very positively about what’s going on because yeah, we talked about it previously. We tend to rag on these episodes when they don’t work like this and we’ve done it again with this one. This is one that I just felt like as Matt said I suddenly was putting together a grocery list I was putting together a little to do list for the day like as I was watching this episode I’m like oh yeah, archers they. Just hand him over to the clingons. Okay, so we need milk and we need eggs. It just didn’t hold together. Yeah, so next time we’re gonna be talking about the expanse. And Matt we already know what the expanse is going to be about it’s gonna be about that Amazon prime series. No, it’s not It’s gonna be about the conclusion of season 2 which means it’s going to be the conclusion of why did the klingons want to beat archer up. So bad. We already know. But.
That’s right.
On Yada Yada before we sign off mad is there anything else, you’d like to remind our listeners about.
Um, ah just to tune in to undecided I have a bunch of interviews coming up with some new interesting battery technologies that are hopefully coming to market next I would say 5 to 7 years. It’s so still kind of off from the future. But it’s some really interesting tech. That’s that’s coming um, way.
And for me, you can check out my website http://seanferrell.com there’s information about my books there you can also look for them at Amazon Barnes and noble or your local bookstore anywhere. Books are sold and that also includes your public library reminder if you’d like to support the show. Please consider reviewing on Apple Google Spotify wherever it was that you found this and if you’d like to more directly support us. You can go to trekandtime show and click on the become a supporter button and throw some coins at our heads and when you do that as a direct supporter you will also automatically start getting. Out of time program sent to you and as I mentioned before to the people who are not able to support us directly. You will get a snippet or two every once in a while from the out of time program so stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for listening everybody. We really do appreciate. And every review every like every subscription really does help support the show. We’ll talk to you next time.