77: Home – Star Trek Enterprise Season 4, Episode 3

In this episode of Trek in Time, we’re gonna be talking about being lost in our own personal lives. That’s right. We’re talking about Enterprise Season four, episode three. Home. Welcome to Trek in Time, everybody. You should know by now that what we’re doing here is we’re watching every episode of Star Trek.

We’re watching it chronological order. We’re also talking about the what was going on in the world at the time, original B. So at this point we are talking about the fourth season of enterprise. We’re talking about 2004. And who are we? Well, I’m Sean Ferrell. I’m a writer. I’ve written some sci-fi. I write some stuff for kids.

With me is my brother Matt. Matt is the guru and a quizzer behind the YouTube channel, undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech. And it’s impact on our lives. Matt, how are you doing today?

I’m doing great. I’m actually on video, so I’m doing fantastic. .

Yeah, Sean on so much. Our regular viewers on YouTube will see that my face is not moving.

This is not me practicing my ventriloquism, although my ventriloquism is the bomb. What this is, is Matt and I dealing with a technical difficulty which rhymes very much like, uh, with the word spectrum. My internet service provider has failed spectacularly over the past three or four days. So normally Matt and I record this on Sunday.

Sunday mornings. We have a leisurely conversation around lunchtime on Sundays we do this, we do our other podcast, which is tied into his channel, which is still to be determined and. This weekend? Nope. Didn’t work so much this weekend, it kind of all fell apart and I kept delaying because Spectrum kept saying internet.

What’s that? So . We finally gave up and now we are doing this through my phone into Zoom. Matt’s still in his studio so he’s still able to record his himself, and the byproduct of all of this is both a recognition that the technology is remarkable, that we’re able to record this kind of thing via phone.

The downside, of course, is recognizing that sometimes technology fails in spectacular ways and is extremely frustrating. Yep. . . Before we get into this newest episode, Matt, did you wanna share some comments from our previous episodes?

Yeah, there was one. There was a lot of great comments over the past couple episodes.

So I tried to cherry pick a couple of the ones that had me one laughing or were thought provoking. The first one was from PaleGhost 69 from episode 76, Stormfront. I was listening to another podcast and had to come back here to. . There’s a good Kanye Nazi alien joke here somewhere, but I don’t have the time to dig for it.

Give me

yours, . Yes. Sadly, we lived in an era where somebody who is dealing with extreme mental health difficulties Yep. Is manifesting it as the most atrocious sort of public commentary. So yeah. Yeah. It’s really, it’s heartbreaking on a personal level and on the grand scale. It’s absolutely both terrifying.

Strangely Befuddling amusing. So yeah, I’ll leave others to make the Nazi Kanye joke, but, uh, .

Okay, so the, there’s two more comments. One was from Gideon Miles, and I gotta compliment Gideon. He had two comments on the same episode that were. Very thoughtful and very long and there was one section I just wanted to kind of call out cuz if you wanna read the rest of his comment, it’s, it’s fantastic.

It’s very thought provoking. He said. I would say Star Trek is shown to have different kinds of time travel cuz you and I had discussed about like they weren’t consistent about their time travel. Yes. Um. The warp around the sun approach, for example, mocks everyone out and the time ship relativities temporal transporters eventually have a degrading effect on the user.

But the time gate from the original series seemed to not have any disorienting effects, as was the method used by to send Archer and T’Pol back to earth to stop the Z Indie bio weapon. They kind of give the feeling that not all forms of time travel are the same. Time travel used in enterprise by Daniels is one that does not have any effects to say, uh, forcibly slingshotting yourself around the star, star at warp speeds.

But still, yeah, the temporal Cold War getting hot did bother me. He said The mechanics of the temporal Cold War. Well, it primarily seemed to be about giving technology to oneself. Wibbly wobbly timey whammy, ball of stuff, explanation that the effects of time travel are like ripples in the water in the pond.

More akin to back to the future, slowly erasing the picture thing. But even if this was the way they were doing the time travel, wouldn’t enterprise have been affected first? And I was like, I got that. I was like, yeah, they probably would’ve been .

Yeah,

none of, none of the time. The way they did makes logical sense.

It, it just doesn’t hold up. But like I said, read the rest of his comment cuz he goes on and then he has further comments after watching the second video. It’s, it’s, it’s a really interesting thread. The other one I wanted to bring up was from Ebos. On the same episode, Manny Coto cleaned up the chaos that the temporal Cold War concept was granted.

The Temporal Cold War did a limp noodle maneuver here for all the buildup that we got, although very sparsely depicted across the series. This is the resolution we. Glad Enterprise didn’t go down. Another rabbit hole of time story stuff. The portrayal the actor gave to this, Phil and Voss was excellent.

Much like Khan, this man uses his calm and silent way to be menacing. Biggest impact to the combination of exploration, the science stuff, and the strength in numbers, the human stuff. By building Bridges. Extremely funny review, guys, laughing all the way to the end. You have a good one. So thank you Evos for the comment and the, yeah, thank you.

It’s great. Yeah,

those were some tricky episodes to get through. Yeah. Both watching and conversationally, because we had talked throughout the first. Couple of years of this show. Mm-hmm. about season three, is it season? Season three is where it really found its footing, and sadly, the show didn’t have an opportunity to continue past the fourth season, but the season three ending.

and the lead into the fourth season really kind of demonstrate why it didn’t get that shot. It it, those episodes in particular kind of stood out as, wow, you just spent a season really figuring out how to do what you wanted to do, and then you just kind of put it all to the side. So here we are at episode three of the fourth season and we’re gonna see.

Do they make it back to a better track? Matt, that sound in the background Isn’t my spectrum Internet coming back? It’s actually the read alert. , do you wanna read the Wikipedia description for this episode? Sure.

set in the 22nd century. The series follows the Adventures of the First Star Fleet, Starship Enterprise Registration NX 0-1.

This episode brought to a close the Xindi story arc that ran throughout season three with the crew returned to Earth after the successful mission. It features three stories, captain Jonathan Archer, Scott Bakula. Coming to terms with the psychological impact of the previous mission. Dr Phlox, John Billingsley finds that the people of Earth have become hostile to aliens.

Well, commander Charles Trip Tucker, Connor Trier. Is that Connor Trier? I always feel like I’m saying that wrong whenever say

that it’s spelled very interestingly. So yeah, it’s, it’s always catch. Catches you off guard. Yeah.

And so Commander T’Pol Jolene Blaylock, traveled to Vulcan for her arranged marriage.

This is one of those rare cases where the Wikipedia description actually hits all the notes and doesn’t record well. So, so hat tips, who The editor on Wikipedia, who caught that one? As opposed to our previous ones, which either ramble or simply say, this is a TV show on earth. So, as we mentioned, this is Season four, episode three, directed by Helen Kroger.

We’ve seen him many times before, written by Michael Sussman. Again, a veteran of the show. The original air date was October 22nd, 2004. Guest appearances include Joanna Cassidy as tallest Paul’s mother, and Amina gonna throw this out here right now. She does a terrific job with this character, really like her performance.

Michael Riley Burke as cost. Ada Mars as Captain Erica Hernandez. Gary Graham as Ambassador Saal Fawn Armstrong. Admiral Forrest, both of. Regulars on the show. Jim Fitzpatrick is Commander Williams and Jack Donner as the Vulcan priest. And on October 22nd, 2004. Matt, what were you singing along to? I know you want it to be

I know you want it to be Avril Levine. Good news for you. It was Avril Levine. It was my happy ending and the box office. Shark Tale continued to be number one at its third week. At number one. It made another 22 million, and this is the animated Shark film with Will Smith and Robert Niro, and I have zero recollection of this movie, even existing, so to all the fans of this movie, my apologies.

And what was the competition for Enterprise? Well, it was up against ABC’s eight Simple Rules and Complete Savages. I remember one of these, Matt, can you guess which one I remember? Eight Simple rules. Yes, I remember eight Simple rules. I do not have a even a shadow again. As to what Complete Savage is about, unless it was just a little documentary series about Proto humans.

c Bs was airing Joan of Arcadia that was getting 7 million viewers. NBC’s Dateline got 8 million and U p N had. Star Trek Enterprise, getting 3.2 million. And on the wb, what I like about you got 2.4 million and grounded for life. Got 2.6 and I save the best for Last. A show that got more viewers than Enterprise on Phlox.

Totally outrageous behavior drivers’. Wrong turn, lands him in a beehive. Got 3.8 million viewers, followed by the world’s craziest videos. That’s right. We used to show videos on television. Yeah.

TikTok videos on tv. That’s

basically what it was. TikTok videos on television is basically what it was. So in the news, typically I go back and I look at headlines.

I, I pick from the New York Times or other major news sources as for headlines that were in the, either on the day or around the time of the broadcast. But in this case, I felt like I would zero in instead of a. On a, just a large scale topic that was clearly a focal point for this episode, and so what I wanted to do is share some comments.

This is pulling from Wikipedia about Islamophobia. It is not hard to see in this episode that Islamophobia was one of the points of the episode with the way Dr. Phlox is immediately targeted when he turns. Having said to people on the ship, oh, I’m not worried about returning to earth because I spent many years there and found myself very welcome.

So he’s not hesitant to return, and when he does return, he finds things have definitely changed. So this is what was going on in 2004. Islamophobia was on the rise. Islamophobia in the United States can be described as the effect of feelings of distrust in hostility Some Americans have toward Muslims, Islam, and those persons who adhere to the religion and or those persons who appear to adhere to it, as well as members of groups which are associated.

In the United States today, there are numerous attempts to mislead Islamic teachings degrade in slander Islamic groups and undermine and discredit the faith itself. American Muslims are often racialized and faced discrimination due to stereotypes and generalizations and generalizations. Ascribed to them.

Due to this, Islamophobia is both a product of and a contributor to the United States racial ideology, which is founded on socially constructed categories of profiled features or how people seem advocacy groups like the Center for American Progress. Explain that this social phenomenon is not new.

Rather, it has increased its presence in American social and political discourse over the last 10 to 15. They cite the fact that several organizations donate large amounts of money to create the Islamophobia Megaphone Center for American Progress defines the megaphone analogy. As a tight network of anti-Muslim, anti-Islam foundations, misinformation experts, validators, grassroots organizations, religious rights groups, and their allies in the media and in politics who work together to misrepresent Islam.

Muslims in the United States. As a result of this network, Islam is now one of the most stigmatized religions with only 42% of Americans having a favorable opinion of Islam, according to a 2021 Associated Press Center for Public Affairs research poll. Similarly, Muslims are one of the most negatively viewed religious groups in the United States with Athiest..

Being the only other group to be seen as a comparable negative light. This biased perception of Islam and Muslims manifests itself in the discrimination of racially perceived Muslims in the law and media, and is conceptually reinforced by the Islamophobia network. This is, I remember in the days after nine 11.

People in New York City being attacked because they wore the turbans of the, the Shiite, the blaming of a community based entirely on skin color or garb, um, led to attacks of people who weren’t even Islamic. And in some cases, people were seriously injured or even killed as a result of people feeling like.

Well, if I just beat up this old man that will. That’ll be proper, uh, compensation for taking down the twin towers. It’s a remarkable, um, and idiotic stance to take, and it’s been on the rise since nine 11. And this episode, which is in 2004, is rooted squarely at a time when it was beginning to have not just a f a foothold, but a very strong foundation, the anti-Islamic.

was very strong at this point. I would point out that at the time, president Bush made a point of saying, we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with extremism. Mm-hmm. . So while Bush tried to plant a draw line to say, this is not about Islam, this is, this is about extremists. This is about people who are taking whatever faith, whatever belief system they have, and trying to hurt people.

Uh, More moderate voices in that vein have been lost to a certain degree in certain political circles, and we’ve seen an increase in religion taking fully the blame and in fact, being censored and being viewed around the world as the first way of identifying the villain. And so this episode puts that on full display.

It was interesting to see that, that. Storyline, these three plot lines. This is a case where we have three plot lines that don’t really reflect on one another, but they are all of a of a cohesive hole. Nonetheless, because as I was watching it, it occurred to me that what this was was a demonstration of deeply personal moments in an individual character’s lives having.

The time to, to shine as opposed to most of our episodes. Which have focused instead on outside plot factors driving reaction from Yep. Cast members. So in this case, we have the opportunity to dive a little deeper into the inner lives of the characters. And the one that spoke the loudest to me was Dr Phlox.

His disappointment, his fear, and his change of behavior as a result of being attacked in a bar is by far, I think the simplest of the plot. , it is the most, like from point A to point B. It doesn’t have to travel very far. He literally just leaves the ship, gets attacked and then goes back to the ship. Yep.

But it has in, in my viewing, was some of the biggest impact of the show. What did you think about that one? Um, I

liked it. I liked it better than the Captain’s journey, and I liked it better. I didn’t, but I didn’t like it better than T’Pol and Trip’s journey. For me, it was the T’Pol and Trip journey that struck me the.

Um, this one was the second, and part of the reason for that was this may have been just about my viewing, looking at it with a modern lens . It felt ham fisted and it felt really on the nose. And just a little too, I don’t know. Overly dramatic, and this is kind of a broader comment about the episode as a whole.

I felt like, I don’t know if you are picking up on this, this season, we’ve talked about this before. It clearly had its budget. cut Um, and this episode felt the most soap opera and low budget that I’ve ever seen on the show. Um, and it was to me distracting at times cuz it felt like a three camera sitcom shoot at moments during the episode.

and that scene in the bar, I don’t know, it felt like, I dunno, community theater at times. And so for me, I was getting really distracted by that. So I may have muted my, um, the impact of the message

that was being said. . Yeah, I agree. I agree with a lot of that. I think that this episode has a certain, um, after school special feel.

Mm-hmm. to it. And it’s disappointing. Especially I, for me, I was less disappointed in the flock storyline. I agree with you. It’s pretty hamfisted. It’s pretty on the nose, but I also think it’s appropriate for the time that the show. Was produced in, I think it, it’s demonstrating a real kind of huge stop sign moment to the viewer to say, Hey, if you’re doing this kind of thing, knock it off.

Like it, it literally is, it literally has the feel of somebody stepping out and looking directly into the camera and saying, are you attacking people because they’re Islamic? Stop

it.

Well, it was, it was part of the reason, one of the things nuances I liked was the guy that was being belligerent. was basically, he’s calling him a Vulcan and he’s like, yeah, I’m not Vulcan.

And it was like he just kept doing it and it was like, it was making it very clear just how ENT and stupid this kind of racism is. Yeah. And so for that, I liked, I liked how they handled it, but again, yeah. Given how the show looked last season, and felt really good production quality and felt like good.

This one felt like they, they were trying to scrape the coins out from the sofa cushions to get enough money to make an episode. It. It was

really distracting and it’s disappointing. It’s disappointing because we have the episodes that we just talked about with the space Nazis and how disappointing we were in in those, and I.

From the notes I was able to put together on this one, it seems like the actors, especially Bakula, were interested in delving deeper into the repercussions of the Xindi storyline on the characters. And especially with Archer. It’s on display in this one where he, he brings it up in conversation with his cohort.

The, the other captain who’s gonna be the clap, the captain of the, the next nx. She’s gonna be the captain of the NX oh two, the Columbia. It’s Erica Hernandez, is the character’s name, and he reveals to her again and again and again. There are things out there that we weren’t prepared for. You need to be ready to, to be pushed morally and ethical.

And he brings up effectively, he’s, he’s turning to her again and again and saying, I have P T S D. Yep. And that is a extremely realistic and compelling storyline to pursue, especially given the realities of what was going on with the US military at this point. The war in Afghanistan, the war Iraq, we had soldiers coming home with PTs D uh, Would go on and continues to go on to this, this, you know, to this day, the reality of those, those wars, the veterans that came out of it, the impact on the individuals and the families is a real thing.

And this was an opportunity for the show to wrestle with something in a, in a deep and meaningful way. , it reminds me very obviously of the Post Borg Loist storyline. Mm-hmm. from best of both worlds, followed up by the Star Trek next generation episode where Picard goes home and finds he’s actually thinking about leaving Star Fleet and he’s, and he returns to the one person instinctively that he knows will give him the full.

Unvarnished truth, which is his older brother. He trusts that his older brother will tell him, do you still have what it takes or not? And so he goes to the one person who will not pull punches, and they literally fist fight about it. and he finds forgiveness in his brother in a, what is one of the most beautifully portrayed scenes

That seems so powerful. Star Trek. It is so incredible, and this episode seems to be trying to reach for the same thing, and it doesn’t get there. It can’t get it, can’t get the same reach. , and I think it’s because, one, I feel like this episode is distracting itself by trying to do all of this in one episode.

Instead of it stretching out over more than one, it’s dealing with a number of characters and a number of different ideas. The idea of T’Pol’s range marriage doesn’t seem to fit with the. Traumatic stress disorder idea, both like Archer’s storyline and Fox’s storyline seem to be kind of, of a theme with one another, whereas Paul’s doesn’t.

And I felt like T’Pol’s storyline could have been its own episode. Well, it can, can I

just say I, I was gonna bring up the same exact thing it was trying to replicate what that episode of Next Generation. But didn’t even come close to the quality. Yeah, and the execution because that episode, it actually makes me weepy.

Like there’s parts of that that hit me right in the heartstrings

and it’s so Well, if you could hear it, my voice as I was talking about it just now, I started choke though and he’s where this person always gets to

me. He says to his brother, he’s like, you always bully me. And he said, I maybe you came here to be bullied.

And it was like this wonderful fight between the two of them. And just a very cathartic, emotional moment. And because this episode spent time across three stories, Nobody ended up, it was like they tried to do too much and nobody got the focus, and nobody was able to have that cathartic moment. And the moments that were supposed to be cathartic fell way flat for me.

Yes, because I wasn’t, I wasn’t emotionally tied to anything that was happening. And if they had just focused on one, whether it was T’Pol, whether it was Archer, whoever it was, if they just focused on one, it would’ve been a stronger episode. I will say the episode, I do think the T’Pol story. Is of the same vein because she is shaken from what’s happened and she’s been through horrible stuff with her, how she’s struggling with her emotions.

She’s going home to try to recenter herself, going back to her mother to try to help find herself again. So they were, they were trying to do the same post PST P T S D storyline with her. , but it, it got distracted because they didn’t have enough time to really flesh that out. And then there was the whole trip thing and it was like, they kind of like it muddied the waters, so it was there, but it was so thin by the time it got watered down so much that this kind of really fell flat.

So it’s, for me, it’s all about they should have cut out two of these storylines and just focused on one and they could have gotten the same emotional impact that that

card episode. . Yeah, I agree completely with that. I, I, the reason I think that Paul’s storyline deserved its own episode, even though it is, like you pointed out it is of the theme of PTs d mm-hmm.

it’s more of a, like, you think about like the Xindi attack and what they had to do to stop the attack and flock’s storyline is about how the culture is responding to that. Mm-hmm. and Archer’s storyline is about how he is responding to. And to Paul’s is kind of a moving forward into the next stage I could have seen home being about Archer and flocks, and then the next episode being about to Paul’s marriage.

Yeah. And one of the other reasons I say that is because the episode ends so incredibly abruptly, were you caught off guard by suddenly it goes to the credits as the ceremony is starting. I was no, like, like what happened? I, I literally thought, , is this a two-parter? Is this like what happened here? Is that the end?

It really caught me off guard. It, it felt, it didn’t for me. It felt in, it felt uncon included. That’s

weird cuz it totally did not for me, because it was concluded when the conclusion was he was letting her get married. It was not gonna stand in the way of that because it would just complicate things.

And so it’s like that, just that conversation he had with her mother about, she was basically saying to him, tell her how you. and he said, I’m not gonna do that because it’s just, this would not be appropriate. And it was that, that to me was the conclusion. And so then you’re just seeing that little Dana Mall was just the, the beginning of the, the ceremony.

So it’s kind of like it’s playing out. It was kind of tragic. And so it’s like, for me, that was the, that was the storyline for me. That actually came the closest to kind of tugging on a little heartstring because it was like poor trip into Paul. It was like it. Tragic that they’re just kinda like ships passing the night, it’s not gonna work out.

Yeah. So it’s like, for me, that was the one storyline that actually came the

closest. Let me clarify my comment. That’s what I mean is that that storyline felt like, okay, there’s that conclusion. I didn’t feel like the other two at conclusions. Oh

no, no. The the one with the captain and on the rocks, he, his whole, his cathartic moment was the, the re, him coming out and saying, I’ve lost the thread of why I joined Star.

and, and saying, I need, I, I’m having trouble finding my way back and her saying, that’s okay. And basically holding on her hand. That was the cathartic moment. That was supposed to be that wrestling scene in the, the, yeah, the vineyard . And it’s like,

but it didn’t because it’s, once again,

it didn’t work. Yeah.

It didn’t, it didn’t work. It didn’t earn it, so it didn’t work, but that was it. So I felt a conclusion there, even though it wasn’t a great conclusion. It did, it did feel like it was closed up and the Dr Phlox storyline was the one that didn’t because it was. , basically him going, yeah, I’m just gonna hide in the sick bay,

It was like w uh, that, that,

that storyline had nothing to it. Yeah, that was the most I expected. I expected at least two more scenes. Yeah. I expected one scene about Archer, maybe like them going down the mountain, like I expected him to have. I expected him to say, like, having her conclude. The scene with, that’s okay.

That’s her reaching a conclusion. That’s not Archer reaching a conclusion. Yep. And that’s the difficulty there. You needed to have a moment where he could. Something could have happened to them on the climb and then he could say, I think I see a wave forward. Like some, I mean literally like create that metaphor moment to show him finding a path and then that would’ve felt satisfying.

Well, and with Phlox, the hiding in the sick bay, um, they’ve used a device with flocks many, many times before. I think we’ve always appreciated. He’s constantly writing letters to that yes. Colleague of his. That would’ve been a great time for like one scene of him starting a log journal for that friend and saying, , I’m having a lot of difficulty knowing how to say this to you, but I’m feeling conflicted about returning to earth.

Like have it like, and it could have just been a dot, dot dot fade, the black, right? It didn’t have to be a lot, but it could have been something showing that he is processing this thing instead of like, as you mentioned him saying like, I think I’ll just hide in sick bay. Um, well this, this whole,

this whole episode to me felt like, I’m guessing man, Koto and the team, they kind of like specked out what the entire season was gonna look.

And it felt to me like they were like, we have one episode to get some resolutions here for the emotional arcs of these character from the bass season. And so they felt like they had to cram it all into one, which is why we didn’t get two episodes or three episodes around

them, which is, which is laid firmly for me at the feet of Berman and Bragga on their way out the door, putting space Nazis in the closing scene.

of the third season, they had to spend two episodes dealing with that , dealing with that nightmare. And instead of dealing with that, if they had had these two episodes where you could have like really put a lot of time and effort into the PTs D aspect and if you felt like you needed to put a. Firm closing of the door on the temporal cold War.

That could have been episode number three. Mm-hmm. , you could have had a much more consolidated episode around, you know, the, the time, the time war, and it just felt like, boy, this is just, they had to spend time and effort putting out the wrong fire instead of being able to put that effort into a place that was gonna bear better fruit.

O One other thing I wanna bring up about this. We got to see all the major Bridge, bridge crew, so we got to see all the characters. At some point in the episode, we saw, you know, Mayweather, at one point we saw Reid a bunch of times. Reid was in the opening of the show. So as we got to see a little bit of everybody, 35 minutes.

In 35 minutes, Hoshi shows up. Yeah, 35 minutes. And when I, when she came on screen, I had this initial reaction of like, oh, . Oh, she’s part of the bridge crew. It was like, why did they wait 35 minutes to even bring her on screen for anything? It was, it was shocking to me.

And at that point, not only is it shocking, why bother?

It sends the message that, yeah, it sends the message that for some reason she wasn’t going back to earth. Yeah. It sends, it’s like she’s in sick bay. She’s, and she’s only there because she had that parasite put into her by. Xindi. Mm-hmm. in an attempt to, you know, extort control over her. And I’m like, so the one and only place for her to undergo that level of treatment was with flocks on the enterprise.

She not going back to earth for that reason. And she was the one character that would’ve conceivably had the. Drive to get back to Earth because she was the most reluctant member of the crew in the first place. Yep. So it’s, it just seemed, yeah, that was distracting. Ultimately, I think that the performances in this one are typically, typically fine.

And I want to bring up again, Joanna Cassidy. She is. Terrific in this, I think as, as T’Pol’s mother, bringing a very slow and steady simmer mm-hmm. to a character that is supposed to be repressed. You can sense her unease in very subtle ways. I really enjoyed her performance in this one. It was very tepa.

Yes. There was this, there was, I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but T’Pol always has this edge of like, there always seems like there’s a little bit of emotion bubbling under the surface more than a typical. . And so it’s like her mother was acting the same way, and so it

kind of gets, they even had a nice line about that.

Yeah. They even had a nice line of, like, you’ve always had, you’ve always struggled with controlling your emotions and I thought perhaps you had finally done it. Yeah. And, and it was a nice little motherly dig. Mm-hmm. to kind of like Yeah. Like, oh, you look good even though you’ve put on a few pounds

Exactly. Um, That kind of, that kind of dig, uh, seemed very familial and it was, that storyline came the closest, I think, to the kind of homecoming episode from Next Generation where you had, not only did you have card going home, but you had Wesley Crusher dealing. The last reminiscences of his father and his and wars dealing with his human parents.

Mm-hmm. , that episode does so many things so well and really makes you feel like the, the characters are revealing aspects of themselves to the viewer that they do not reveal to one another. Um, and do not reveal in the midst of battle. So it’s, you know, these are the, these are the quiet moments that Star Trek really revels in this episode.

Did not reach those same levels. I do feel like it came closest with the T’Pol storyline. Yeah, I

think, I think our assessment is what you brought up in the beginning, which was the thematic point of the episode, was the strongest one, was the doctor’s storyline. Yeah. But for me, the emotional. came closest with the T’Pol storyline and

it really kind of spoke volumes to me that it was strongest in that one.

And that was the one where you had the most time with two characters from the show? Yep. Around one another. Yeah. When you have the opportunity for the shorthand to, to take center stage, one of the nicest things in the Homecoming episode for Next Generation is Wharf’s storyline includes gyan in an unexpected, in an unexpected way that Gyan is able to kind of guide both the parents towards seeing like, why is wharf building a wall?

And she’s able. He kind of put a crack in that wall to let those parents get back inside. Mm-hmm. And with Wesley’s storyline, it’s between Wesley and his mother. His mother playing a huge part in, I’ve got this thing that I did not recall. I, I don’t even know what this says. And it’s the, it’s an opportunity for.

Two people who’ve been grieving the same person, but are grieving him for very different purposes and different reasons. Yep. It and the T’Pol storyline in this one, I think does a remarkable job with Trip at showing this is a huge step forward in their relationship. From the outside, it looks like the complete opposite.

It looks like an ending to their relationship, but this is a huge maturation in their relationship because both of them at this. Are fully acknowledging like this isn’t just us being curious about one another. This isn’t just like a brief romantic entanglement without saying it. Both of those characters are looking at each other in the final seat when she is moving forward to be.

Married and she stops to kiss him on the cheek. Mm-hmm. . It is a moment where both of them are saying, I love you, and it is, it’s that scene speaks volumes without saying word, and it’s because you have two characters that we the audience are familiar with. Yeah. I think that’s one of the things that weakened the Archer storyline is that they relied too heavily on an outside charact.

Who we are suddenly introduced to and suddenly find out, oh, there was a romantic relationship here. Oh, there was a romantic and a working relationship here. Right, right. Oh, she, she knows all these things about him. It’s, it just felt like, wait, wait, wait. I can’t catch up. None of it felt quite strongman.

The Picard one had the shorthand of it was his brother, so of course his, he knows him from his childhood, so it’s like, you know, there’s baggage there, so it’s

like, it’s a short, there’s baggage there. Yeah. And it’s, and it’s the first time that we, you know, we, not only is it his, , the way they talk about one another.

Mm-hmm. with other characters where the other characters are the ones saying like, the two of you are always like this. Yep. The two of you always go at each other like this. So we’re given moments to say like, oh, this is. We, we are ready to move forward with that understanding. With this one, it’s, we’re still trying to figure out who this woman is, , and Yeah.

Suddenly they’re making out on top of a rock and there’s possibly a cougar in the background. It was all very, it was a lot going on .

I love the, uh, the Tiger . It was like, what does it have to do with

anything ? Yeah. And, and it was, uh, it, it was, um, It was a strange misdirect. It didn’t amount to anything, and it ended up being used to introduce us to a dream sequence that was very obviously a dream sequence from the very beginning and felt like a completely unnecessary, faint yes.

I don’t know about you, but I felt like those several minutes of. Archer waking up in the night and finding what he thought were rep, reptilian, Xindi and being thrown off the cliff. Yeah. Yeah. And waking up in a sweat. I thought, I thought you could have just cut to him. Muttering in his sleep and waking up in a sweat with the, his friend beside him saying You were having a nightmare like that would’ve been enough.

Yep. It didn’t have to be us seeing this whole artificial scene effectively, it just felt like time not well used. Yeah, I agree. So here we are at the end of our discussion of this episode and it feels very much like both of us are looking at this and giving it maybe a low. Yeah. Like this is definitely on the better path than the Nazi alien storyline, but I’m still finding myself thinking like, what could have been this episode felt like it could have been stronger?

What do you think about it? I,

I agree completely. It’s like this could have been stronger, but it’s, it’s, it’s a B minus C

plus for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So next time we’re gonna be talking about Borderlands, we’ll be moving on to what. This will be the first time we’re gonna be seeing what they see. Season four as fully being.

This is gonna be the beginning. We know it’s the beginning of the end, but for this series, which had now just moved to Friday evenings, trying to find a new footing, trying to find a new voice. Borderlands will be our first opportunity to see what they thought the show would be about. Before we get off to that, Matt, is there anything you’d like to remind our listeners about that you have coming up on your other show?

Well, just,

just to keep tabs on undecided with Matt Ferrell. There’s a lot of interesting videos coming up in the new year, but my main message is have a great new year. , happy holidays. Enjoy yourself. Sean and I are gonna be taking a week. So there’s gonna be a little hiatus in the show, but just have a great holiday season.

Yeah, I double that. That please enjoy yourselves, enjoy time with friends and family and stay safe. And as for me, if you’re interested in finding out more about my books and my writing, you can check out sean Ferrell dot com. You can also just go directly to any bookstore or book seller. Look for my books directly there.

That would be Amazon, Barnes Noble, target. Anywhere you find your books, you should be able to find mine. And if you’d like to support the show, please consider reviewing us. You can review us on Apple, Google, Spotify, wherever it was you found this podcast. Go back there and leave a note. And if you’d like to more directly support us, you can go to Trek in Time dot show, click on the Become a Supporter button and throw a few coins at us.

Supporting us directly like that will not only help us produce this show, but it will immediately make you an ensen and you’ll be part of the cohort that gets our spinoff show out of time. Out of Time is a program where Matt and I talk about whatever we like so we aren’t beholden to this.

Chronological discussion. We can talk about any of the other star Trek shows. Sometimes we talk about star Trek. We’ve talked about horror films, sci-fi films. We’ve talked about some fantasy stuff. So if you support us directly, you get access to all that and we hope you’ll consider doing that. I’m gonna wanna talk about lower decks and an upcoming one.

I’m gonna wanna talk about Lord Decks. I’m also gonna wanna talk about the New Willow Show on Disney Plus. Yeah, so those are two things that I think we’re both looking forward to. All of that really just helps support the show. Thank you so much everybody, for listening or watching. Once again, happy holidays.

Hope everybody stays safe and we’ll talk to you next time.