53: Extinction – Star Trek Enterprise Season 3, Episode 3




Matt and Sean talk about ripping yourself off, hard science  vs. schlock, and an ending that seems… hopeful(?)

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Hey, everybody. In this episode of Trek in time, we’re gonna be talking about Chi Chi Chi changes. nicely done. Thank you. That’s right. We’re talking about enterprise episode three of season three, extinction. This episode dropped on September 24th, 2003. Why does that matter? The original air date? Well, here on track and time we talk about each and every episode in chronological order, but we also talk about the era in which the episode dropped.

So we’ll be talking about 2003. In fact, we’ll be talking about September 24th, 2003. And with me. As usual is my brother. Who are we? Well, I’m Sean Farrell. I’m a writer. I write some sci-fi. I write some stuff for kids. And who is Matt? Matt is the guru and inquisitor behind the YouTube channel undecided with Matt Farrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives.

So between me with the storytelling and him with the teching, we got a little bit of the trucking, Matt, how you doing today? Very good. How about yourself? I’m doing well. It’s a lovely, lovely weekend here in the New York city area. I’m very excited to say I went to a beach. It was beautiful. Nice. It was lovely.

So I’m all beatified. I feel like a changed man, which is appropriate given this episode. That’s right. Matt. Before we get into the new episode, did you wanna share any comments from our previous ones?

yeah, there was a few comments. One was from Karen collet in the last episode where I brought up a book series about black Jack Currie, cuz I brought it up cuz the, we were talking about the fight sequence between the two ships being like a submarine battle.

Yeah. And I brought up the science fiction book series because. It portrays space battles. And what I think is the most realistic way possible. And she wrote Karen Colette wrote blackjack.

What?

good question. The characters. Blackjack. Yeah, the characters blackjack Gary, but the book series is called the lost fleet.

So if you look that up whole series of books behind it, there’s been spinoff series that he did the author, the it’s under the name, um, Jack Campbell, but that’s a P. I think his name is Jack Heery is his actual name, former Navy general or Admiral or something, but it’s, it’s a, it’s an interesting book series.

I wouldn’t say it’s an, a grade sci-fi I’d say it’s probably B grade. There’s a lot of repetition, like rehashing what happened in the book that you just finished reading? Because he wrote every book. Like it was the first time you picked up that book. So there’s a lot of. A lot of weight. Okay. You just spent way too much time reaction.

What I just read in the previous book. Why are you doing this? But the other comments I wanted to bring. From episode from our episode number 51, which was about the Xindi which was the first episode of season three, Ashaman, Ron, John, I hope I didn’t just butcher your name. He wrote, I don’t think people understand why the Vulcans were as shitty as they were, in my opinion, their crappy portrayal was intentional by the writers until the teachings of Surak were revealed in season four, Vulcans were supposed to be egotistical, condescending, and hypocritical people.

Their dedication to logic was supposed to be a far. And they simply used that excuse to maintain a double standard. It’s just like how the dictators and countries like North Korea maintain a farce of prosperity and strength. When in reality they have serious underlying hidden issues. The breed Vulcans in the 24th century are a result of Surak writings, every Vulcan before that was supposed to be twisted version of those lost teachings.

And I wanted to bring that up, cuz yes, it’s a hundred percent correct. It actually is very deliberate. Why the Vulcans aren’t the Vulcans that we know of. From the star Trek we’re used to, because this is before that epiphany, the Vulcans had, and yes, found their way back to the right path. So I wanna bring that up.

The last comment was from, uh, episode 45 of our show, and it was about the episode, the breach from season two, uh, season two. From Charles Fernandez. I know the constructive criticisms come from a place of love and passion. This is to you Andon mm-hmm , uh, never hold back, but do evaluate if a particular point of view is coming from thoughtful, positive analysis, or just plain entitlement complaint.

Hmm. Thank you for your time. And I wanted to bring this up cuz you and I have talked like off the show about how like. We are in season two was kind of like, we were like really bagging on that show and I was feeling pretty bad about it because I genuinely like enterprise. Yeah. But season two for me was a slog.

And it’s one of those I would almost recommend just skipping it. And like, if you just wanna go in at the end of season two into season three, that’s probably the best place to start because that’s when the show actually gets it stride. But we in, I think for us, I would say we should probably take that to heart.

And like, when we’re giving our constructive criticisms, we might want to express whether this is coming from a place of aberration or genuine. We think this show screwed up and we don’t like this. Yeah. Here’s

how it could have been better. Yeah. That’s a very good point. Thank you for that, Charles and timely.

As that read alert in the background. Well, Matt, that means that it’s time for you to hit the Wikipedia description for this episode. Well, head in, oh boy. Sure.

Extinction is the 55th episode of the American science fiction television series, star Trek enterprise. The third episode of season three, it first aired on September 24th, 2003 on the UPN network in the United States.

This was the first episode to include the prefix star Trek in the title of the series set in the 22nd century, just prior to the formation of the United Federation of planets, the series follows the adventures of star fleet’s first warp five Starship enterprise. Registration NX. Oh one. We’re not even into the description of the episode.

Yet. Season three of enterprise features an ongoing story. Following an attack on earth by a previously unknown alien race called the ZDI. In this episode while investigating a planet visited by the ZDI several crew members, including captain Jonathan Archer become infected with a virus that mutates them into another species.

The crew of the enterprise must prevent an alien race from exterminating, the mutated crew members while developing a cure themselves. The episode was written by story editor, Andre Boman, and directed by star Trek. The next generation alumni Levar

Burton. That’s right. Mr. Levar Burton. This is according to some counts like around the 20th episode within star Trek that he would’ve directed.

He was a director through Voyager. He’s directed episodes of enterprise before. So at this point now he’s one of their most experienced directors. I think that this episode, once again, every time we. Look at a lava and directed episode, I’m left thinking like this guy really knows what he’s doing behind the camera.

No questions about setting up shots, the very populated world of the, the planet that they’re, that they’re on. And what I mean by populated it is a dense jungle where you never feel like you’re just seeing it. It doesn’t feel like that episode of Scooby do where they pass the same rock three times. This I’m sure was a sound stage that had confines, but I never felt like we were seeing exactly the same corners again and again and again.

So I was very impressed by that. And as Matt just said, it was written by Andre Barrans, who started as a, uh, science and technology advisor on the show. He moved on to being a writer, I think, uh, to give a sense of where I’m coming to this episode from, I think that the hard science. Aspects of this are for me, some of the most compell.

Parts of the show. Mm-hmm, , uh, the, the impact of a virus, which is encoded to do what it is doing to the crew is a hard science puzzle. That just, I find fascinating. So that is. It’s understandable why he would be behind the words. As we mentioned before, this episode dropped on September 24th, 2003, and it included guest appearances from Roger Cross as Tre.

He’s the main, uh, extermination officer who is showing up to basically say the enterprise, sorry about your crew members who are infected, but I’m here to kill. We also see Daniel Day Kim, again, as corporal Chang. I do not believe he’s had a line in this episode, but he did have a couple of lines in previous episode, but of course, Daniel Day Kim goes on to be in the series lost.

And also in this episode, Troy mat Taylor, Phillip Boyd, and Brian J. Williams. So. On September 24th, 2003. When this episode originally dropped, what were we doing? Well, Matt was dancing and he was dancing very, very enthusiastically to the song, wears the love by the black eye. PE Matt could not get enough of that song.

I have very fond memories of him coming into the, into the family room and just screaming. Listen to this song again, and then just tearing it up the floor with, with his excited dancing. I hate you. Yeah. and the movie theaters. Well, I here’s one. We all probably do. Remember underworld made its premier. It made 21 million in its, in its debut.

And for those who do not know it, underworld is a 2003 action horror film directed by Len Weisman and written by Danny McBride based on a story by Kevin Guo, Weisman and McBride, and it centers on. Well, vampires, werewolves, secret wars, cabals, intrigue, love, sex, death, you name it and all with Michael sheen, Shane Broley and bill NY involved.

So. They are fun movies for the most part. The first one in particular is a fun movie. They kind of get worse as they go on, but they go downhill. They go downhill, but, uh, Kate Becken sale is the lead and she’s great to watch in a very tight leather catsuit. So check it out. If you can find it. It’s usually.

Broadcasting somewhere, usually on something like Tobi or Pluto TV and on television. What was enterprise competing against? Well, as usual, it was competing against my wife and kids. I’m not saying that directly as myself, I’m talking about the program, which earned 13 million viewers, 60 minutes two was getting 10 million viewers on Fox.

There was a mysterious program known only. Performing as performing as I do not know what, what this is, we’ll give bonus points to any one of our listeners who can in the comments, provide us with information as to what performing as was it had 6 million viewers ed on NBC had 10 million and on WB.

There was a Hillary Duff island birthday bash, which got 2.3 million viewers, which is a little more than half of what enterprise got for this episode at 4 million. And in the news from the New York times on September 24th, 2003 at the United nations, president Bush had just spoken. And this article demonstrates where we were as both a nation and as a world post the Iraq invasion and the overthrow of Saddam hu.

An audience unmoved. A president who has led his forces to victory, ostensibly on behalf of the United nations, wouldn’t theory deserve a hero was welcome, but that was not what president Bush encountered in an icy chamber here today, almost five months after he declared an end to major hostilities in Iraq.

Without apology, Mr. Bush, Mr. Bush, declared that the security cancel had been right to demand that Iraq destroy its illegal weapons and prove that it had done so, and right to vow serious consequences. If Iraq refused to comply close quote, the United States, he said had not only unseated Saddam hue, but also defended the credibility of the United nations, but that was not how others from the secretary general of the United nations to the French presidents.

The invasion of Iraq to them remained a dangerous act of unilateralism now beset by intractable intractable problems. I chose that article as the news of the day for this episode, because I think it does cross nicely into one of the aspects of this show. The. Episode, if you sniped off the first and the last 30 seconds of the show, it is mm-hmm.

just a typical star Trek episode of star Trek crew getting turned into aliens. That’s yep. A pretty reliable staple for all star Trek programs. Hey, what’s this planet all about? Hey, what happened to my friend? What does he look like that now? Oh my God. He’s an alien. How do we solve this problem? Mm-hmm we’ve seen this before.

At the beginning and the end of the episode, we’re reminded this is about their pursuit of the Xindi they are here for a reason. They have a calling to go and stop what is going to be an extermination of all life on earth. So, With those bookend reminders of what’s going on in the story. I thought that this news story had a certain amount of resonance, your intentions, your desires, to do something your’re calling to something that you see as right and justified.

And afterward when the dust settles, you don’t get to pick how people interpret it. You yep. Will be judged. Just like you are judging somebody on what you say are the merits of their actions. You will be judged on yours. And so this news story, which demonstrated that. Recent as just five months after the end of the Iraq war, the second guessing had begun.

The second guessing had begun. I remember very clearly prior to the invasion, even starting, there were, there was a large debate going on about what is the goal here? How is this? Okay. Now here we are worldwide. The rest of the world, looking at the United States and saying you just did something because you wanted to do.

yep. And the reasons and the arguments for, or against none of that mattered, you wanted to do a thing and you were gonna do it. And so back on the enterprise, back in the, in the story that we’re gonna be talking about today, the reason that the enterprise is in this sector of space is entirely because they feel justified in going out to find the Xindi to stop the Xindi from exterminating life on earth.

And then. As no direct result of that, they have this adventure, they have this story, they pursue a ship to the planet and they come across well, nothing. There’s nothing there we’ve seen in the teaser. At the beginning of the episode, we see an individual getting burned alive in what seems like a horrific moment.

Yeah. And then we see the enterprise crew finding the same spot. Now, weeks later. and then changes start to happen. So we very quickly move from, Hmm. The Xindi might be here or evidence of the Xindi might be here to something’s happening to our crew. And that, from that point on the episode follows a path, very familiar to us.

But

at this, I was gonna say, you can extend your example of why you chose that article for this episode. To the alien species they come across that basically is going to exterminate the mutated crew. Yes, they’re, they’ve taken it upon themselves to be basically the defenders of the galaxy from this disease.

And they will just obliterate anybody cuz they feel justified that it’s their role that they can come in here. And mm-hmm, just white people out to prevent another outbreak. Yes. So it’s like, they’re kind of doing a unilateral thing too. So it applies to what we’re seeing from both sides. How the enterprise got there as well as how the enterprise is treated by this other species that comes in.

um, I, I did Bri, one of my, I only wrote a couple notes for this episode. Cause just in general, I wanna say, I like this episode. I had a lot of fun with it. Mm-hmm I thought it was really well. I thought it was well written, well shot. I especially like the way it was shot because that opening was pretty damn gruesome.

Like you don’t see anything, you do not see anything. Cause you don’t have to. It’s just a bunch of guys surrounding them, lightening up their torches and then flames. Yeah. And it’s like, you can, your imagination fills in of the, oh my God. They’re burning this man alive. Yes. That is a horror show. Yeah. And I thought it was very effective directing by Laar Burton.

Yeah. Of leave it to the viewer’s

imagination. We don’t have to show a thing. Yeah. There was actually a note in my research that I found, which was Scott, Baula talking about the making of this episode and how much fun they had working with Laar Burton, but how excited Laar Burton was about the flame throwers, which I thought

nice little, uh, factoid there that lava likes the fire. So I wanna take your note about, you can extend the analysis of that news article to the, the people who are trying to just, you know, exterminate anybody who’s infected. I wanna take it one step further and say that this episode largely seems to be about shortsightedness in.

Yeah. And, and then laying that at the feet at the very end in front of Archer in particular, but the enterprise in general, the question of is your action thought through enough, or are you coming to it from a place where you’ve taken the most expedient? To a solution and you’re not thinking about justifications.

And I apply that not only to the extermination attempts of Tre and the, and the species that he’s from, but the species that created this virus in the first place. Yeah. They saw a problem, which was they through whatever. Evolutionary stages. They had gone through, they were losing the ability to procreate.

So they came up with a solution and that solution was a virus that would take any humanoid and rewrite the DNA to allow it to transition into a member of their species. And. One of the questions that is posed within the episode was why would they not engineer this virus to turn itself off? After enough of a population had been generated again, shortsightedness, the ends justify the means we need to survive as a species.

So therefore we are going to take this drastic step and effectively. Unleash a destructive virus upon the galaxy. And it is presented in a way that there’s no clear indication that this was anything close to a space faring species. In fact, I would think that this is very likely. If you were to go into whatever show notes they might have had about the history of this planet, it wouldn’t surprise me.

If this would be a pre space exploring species that had come to this solution. In isolation that for them, there was no greater danger to anybody else that they may have been looking at this as well. There are humanoid enough other species on our planet that by using these lesser versions of humanoids on our planet, as the hosts for this virus, we can keep our culture alive.

and then the moment that accidentally some space faring, race, visits, this planet, and suddenly it jumps ship effectively. Mm-hmm , that’s when it becomes the problem. I think all of that is the sign of a really strong episode when it makes you on your own, think not about solutions to problems within the show, but makes you think about the pre-history.

Of the show yeah. Of the story. How would this culture have evolved this? What would their goals have been? How would they, how would this have worked? I’m also fascinated by, from a hard science aspect. This is making some very interesting statements about memory. and about how the mind works because the virus is a genetic memory, the genetic memory.

Yeah. That the, that the crewmen are able to understand. They have a drive to do a thing they’re able to communicate with each other. They have a different language. There’s the physicality of the changes, which is one thing that star Trek has done a number of different times of here comes. Physical change.

And we almost take that for granted that that is a doable thing, but here is also the idea that within us memory is somehow a thing. There’s a hard thing. There is memory held within. DNA. There are, I’ve read about theories about memory production. That includes a physicality to it. There must be a physical component to memory.

So this is at play here, and I think that’s fascinating. And for me, and you’ve, you’ve already mentioned in your response that you really like this episode. I liked it too. I liked it too. Almost in spite of what felt like some. B grade monster movie. Oh yeah. Isms. Oh yeah. Uh, this is a little bit like the thing light or it’s Polpy

it’s Polpy

b sci-fi. Yeah. At times. Yeah. And there’s, it’s totally fine. Cuz it’s enjoyable. Yeah. It’s enjoyable. It’s like you’re having good time. It’s like a bubble come popcorn. Just kind of having fun

with it. I also felt like it was very, very interesting that it is a story. That is directed by lava Burton.

It is basically the same story as his episode identity crisis for next generation in which yep. That story is. And we’ve talked about that before on this podcast, a group of individuals who had visited a now. Defunct colony site have been infected by something that doesn’t get triggered for years. And it’s effectively the same story.

Once it’s get, once it’s triggered, it begins to rewrite their DNA and they become something alien and they are driven by that same kind of genetic memory to return to that planet, to go off into the wild where they will live now, as members of that species, this is effectively reproduction, reproduction via infection.

And that’s happening again in this one, although this one is laying out, this is by design through a culture mm-hmm and this one does something that the other episode didn’t do, and I couldn’t help, but wonder it was lava Burton drawn to this in part, because it kind of was the flip side of that earlier story.

This one revolves so much around looking at this from not the unaffected crew. From their perspective in trying to figure out what’s happening to our friend and how do we solve this? This is looking at it largely from the infected perspective and their desire to, we need to do this thing. We need to find our home.

We are looking for home and they, we see a little bit of their social interaction. We see a little bit of the hierarchy of like one’s in charge. He does it through physical prowes. Again, with the teasing out of what this all means, I couldn’t help, but wonder if it was playing with the idea of the genetic manipulation that’s taking place, unlocking a more primitive form of.

This society, because it’s a very evolved society that we see in the dream sequence. And I couldn’t help, but wonder does it begin to unlock a primitive version of these people that over time, if they were remained infected, would they have evolved effectively into more sophisticated versions? Because what we see in the episode is Archer’s mutated version in particular.

His relationship to, to Paul evolves as the story goes on, I couldn’t help, but wonder was there more of an openness evolving, a more sophisticated alien evolving in Archer and the others, as opposed to when they first converted and they were grunting and very animal-like. What did you think about all that?

You just hit on

something? That’s my one criticism. like there’s, there’s Puy aspects that you could criticize, but I’m not going to cause I’d had fun with it. This is the one aspect that I was kinda like, okay, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. They’re running around like unsophisticated ape, like lizard lake creatures that barely can they have, they almost need to have trouble communicating amongst themselves.

Yeah. And yet in the dream sequence, it looks like a, a highly civilized civilization. And it’s like, that makes no sense that they would have a virus. That would turn something into them in this barbaric state that feels like this doesn’t match with what we’re seeing over here. So that aspect of it, I thought was the weakest point, right.

Of

all of this. And yeah,

you could, you could suppose, well, what if that evolution kept going, that that mutation kept going, would they have evolved to the point where it’d be like, what we saw in the vision problem is that’s not in the text of the show. Yeah. It’s like, and if it’s not in the text of the show, It doesn’t happen.

So it’s like, for me, that’s the one week point that they, I think they shouldn’t have made them as barbaric as they were. There should have been a little more. Walking upright because in the dream sequence, they’re all walking around upright, like normal human beings. But then they’re like scampering around like lizards on the ground doing that crazy, like clicking at each other all the time.

And it was like, okay. Yeah, you know, let’s dial it back a notch. Or if we had seen them slowly start that way. And then become more and more upright by the end of the show. Right. That would’ve explained it. You wouldn’t even had to say any, say anything. Yeah. Just show it. And it’s like, but they didn’t even do that the entire time.

They’re there they’re scamming around like little lizard people. Yeah. Like click clicking at each other. It’s it was that to me, that was the weakest point. But to take our, that comment I brought up earlier, I still liked this episode. I thought it was so fun. Yeah. And even though I’m criticizing that one aspect of it, it was a minor nitpick because I kind.

I very easily kind of hand waved that because I was enjoying the message of the show and what they were trying to say. And I think they succeeded at the message they were trying to deliver, even with that

like little. Gotcha. Yeah. I, for me, I’m curious to the listeners, I think that’s a place for the listeners to jump in.

Uh, you can find the contact information and the podcast description or on YouTube. You can just go belie below the video and jump in the comment section. Did you see evidence of what Matt and I are talking about? Was, was there a point where you were like, oh, their evolution is continuing, they are getting more and more sophisticated or like Matt just said, do you think there’s nothing on the screen to show that?

So therefore it’s not happening. I find myself thinking. There are touches of it. It’s maybe not underlined enough, you know, something you mentioned, you wouldn’t even have to say something. I think maybe you could have a moment where teal might recognize, like I’m, I’m apparently having an easier time communicating with captain Archer than I was before.

Like something is happening. His, his change is continuing in a very subtle way, but it’s there. Mm-hmm I think that that would’ve been something that could’ve been interesting. One of the things I wanted to point out as well mentioning to Paul, I think her depiction within this is really fascinating because she is affected by the virus, but she is not mutated by it in the same way.

And you can see her struggle with it. Certain aspects and certain scenes where she exhibits a bit of fear and she exhibits a bet, a bit of hesitation and concern in ways that don’t seem particularly Vulcan, like, but I took them in as she is wrestling with some aspect of this that is driving the same sort of animalistic behavior that is evident in her crew mates, but it’s not affecting her in quite the same way.

And I thought that that was a nice touch.

Yeah. I do wanna bring up something about Jo play lock. I really, you can kind of look at her and say she was cast because she’s a pretty face. But again, and again, there’s so many episodes like this one where I think she does such a phenomenal job. You can tell she didn’t get this job.

Cause she’s a pretty face. She got this job because she’s also a very capable actress and she did a fantastic job portraying that. I like the, you could see her wrestling with. Her Vulcan ness and what was happening to her. Yeah. And so it was kind of unlocking that emotion and she was struggling with that entire episode.

So she was a little unhinged the

entire time she seemed a little points and it was really quite fascinating to see her struggling in that way. And it, and for it to come across as a kind of mania where, when she finally comes across a trip, when he shows up and he’s wearing his, his. Exosuit so that he can safely be on the planet and it’s not affecting him.

And she just yells at him like I’m staying here. Like you need to get back and runs away and then runs away. And the way she did that was with this kind of like any other moment. In the series, she would’ve stopped for a moment, given him clear instructions and explanations as to why, and then disappeared the jungle.

But this was a kind of animal to Paul who was just like, uh, I gotta go and then took off. And I really, I thought that amazing there was a creamer performance. Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah. She came out of the room where the, the Kenny Rogers roaster’s lights were frying his brain yes. So the culmination of this episode is.

Once again, you know, miracles of science happen and the doctor is able to utilize to Paul’s response to the virus, to be able to generate a cure for the virus. And this is all being done under the pressure cooker of the aliens that have shown up and said, good news. We have a solution for this. You just exterminate anybody who’s infected, and then you don’t have to worry about it.

The doctors pushback of like, let, give me more time. And the enterprise is struggling with like, we need more time. We’re trying to solve this problem. And the alien response being this, just burn it to the ground. And then you don’t have to worry about it. Finally, at the end of the episode, it works.

They’re able to reclaim their crew mates. They have the now semi returning to normal. Crew, including captain arches show up on the bridge to talk to the members of this hunting party to say like, look, you can see we’re getting better. We can share this with you. This doesn’t have to be treated the way it’s being treated.

And we see at the very, very end, we now have the, the, the book ending that I was talking about earlier in the episode where flock has the last remaining parts of the virus. And says offhandedly, I’m sure you want me to destroy this. This is, you know, it’s a tragic story about these people who are gone, but this virus is dangerous if it’s allowed to exist.

And Archer orders him to keep it in stasis under the belief that somehow. The last remaining piece of an entire culture lives within the virus and that to destroy, it would be to do something as harmful as what the Xindi appear to be doing in their desire to destroy earth. Mm-hmm this response at the end of the episode, in a lot of.

Critical response to this episode was that doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s. Dumb. It it’s kind of a, a strange note to end on. Some people thought I agree to a certain point that I felt like, okay, this, that felt like it came a little bit out of nowhere, but at the same time, I felt like there were two things going on.

One, they gave this. A a note that’s very similar to the episode from next generation where Picard has his entire lived experience of an entire life via the alien probe. Yeah. That satellite where he, he lives an entire life that is artificially induced in him. But at the end of it, the experience of it was so real that he mourns the loss of the people.

That he had grown to know and love. He mourns the loss of a family he never actually had, and he leaves that episode with the ability to play the flute. And it became that flute became for the show, a reminder of Picard’s personal growth. It became for me in watching next generation. Whenever that flute makes an appearance, it’s a reminder like this is not the same Picard from the pilot.

This is a Picard. Who’s more human than he was when he started the show. and yep. He’s lived two lives. He lived two lives. And I think that this was a little bit of an attempt to touch on that in a very brief way of, of captain Archer looking at this and saying like, I lived a, th I lived a life in those few hours, which was about the desire for salvation and survival.

No different than. What I’m doing now. And he sees at a certain moment in the story when they are mutated, when they find the devastation of the underground city that they believe is their salvation and they see how it’s gone. And it’s been gone for generations. and the, the morning that he goes through the mourn and despair that he goes through is no different than what happened after the attack on earth, by the Xindi

so he leaves this with this kind of reaffirmation of the rightness and wrongness of what they’re doing out there and what the Xindi have done. And I would like to think that at this moment, this is the beginning of a turning point. For Archer in raising the question of is the solution to Earth’s problem to exterminate the enemy I, for me.

But do you,

do you think that’s a strong message though in this, because that ending to me felt. kind of ham fisted and kinda rushed. And it was like trying to put weight on something that didn’t belong there. I

absolutely makes sense. Yeah. I absolutely agree that it felt ham fisted in the moment, but I think that what they were trying to do was plant that seed of there’s now a crack in his.

Very hard shell from the first couple of episodes of the season where he’s moving forward with a determination around, we have a job to do. We’re not gonna stop we’re we’re going, we’re gonna do whatever it takes, but he, at the end of this episode, there seems to be a stronger width of humanity. In him and empathy in him than we’ve seen in the first couple episodes.

And I, for me that feels like it’s there because they felt like this was the place to start that transition away from I’m gonna burn everything to the ground to make sure earth is safe. Mm-hmm . So, while I don’t think that this is necessarily the best way for them to have planted that seed. I do think that this is that seed mm-hmm so.

Here we are. I feel like at the end, it’s, it’s important to kind of like wrap everything up and give a summary of our thoughts. And I, and for me, like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed this episode. It felt like a fun adventure for me in veins of next generation episodes. Like the, the classic, like what’s happening to my crew.

It’s it’s a staple for a reason. It works. Yeah. And it works in this particular episode, the makeup that they put on three actors that never really went through makeup like that. The descriptions I found online included five hours of makeup prep. The actor who plays Lieutenant Reed gave a shout out to Billingsley who plays Fox saying he has to do this every day.

And I take my hat off to him. Because this was really an arduous process for, for all of them. And the makeup included air bladders around their necks, that they were able to manipulate. Lended, whenever they would growl, you would see these air bladders, pulsate. And I mean, you wanna create, you know, a simple lizard person or you wanna create something with the air bladders, you go the air bladder around Matt, every single time.

It was very effective. It was very effective. It was very effective,

so simple but effective. Yeah. So I do wanna say that. When I watch these episodes, I’m taking notes on my iPad to talk about. And on this one, I found myself focused on the episode. And by the time I realized I haven’t really taken many notes, the episode was over.

Yeah, it was, I got engrossed in it. So for me, even with some of the flaws and the, the, you know, B level sci-fi and this to some of it. I didn’t care. Yeah. I was having fun. I got engrossed. I enjoyed myself. It was, I, I like this one. Yeah. It was a lot of fun.

Yeah. It was a good time. So before we sign off Matt, is there anything you wanna let our listeners know about?

What do you have coming up on your other channel? Yeah,

you should check out undecided this week. Um, I’m talking about edible plastic.

Edible plastic sounds like a topic you can really sink your teeth into. As for me, you can go to Sean ferrell.com. You can find out information about my books there, or you can just go to your local bookstore, Amazon Barnes and noble, small bookstores or public libraries.

All of those places will be able to get hold of my writing. And if you’d like to support the show, You can keep doing what you’re doing right now, using your ears. You can also leave a review on apple or Google or Spotify, wherever it is that you found this podcast or on YouTube, you can just like and subscribe right there.

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All of these really do help support the show. Thank you so much for listening or watching, and we’ll talk to you next time.

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