Matt and Sean talk about bringing out the best in everyone by bringing out their worst. Star Trek Enterprise is starting to pull the Romulans into the mix, but how does it hold up?
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We’re also talking about the episodes in context of the original time of broadcast. So right now we are practically halfway through season four, which means we’re also talking about. I’m sorry, I didn’t mention which show. Season four of Enterprise, which means we’re also talking about 2005. And who are we?
Well, I am the smoothest of hosts who never makes a mistake. . Sean Ferrell. I’m a writer. I write some sci-fi. I write some stuff for kids. And with me is my brother Matt. Matt is the Matt Ferrell of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which is taking a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how are you doing?
It’s this guy
with the thumbs. I’m doing
good. How about you? I’m doing well. I’m on the verge of traveling all the way across the country from New York City to Seattle tomorrow, and I’m realizing, boy, I am not prepared. Haven’t packed a thing like trip . What’s a big deal? What’s a trip? What’s a big deal about a trip?
So as I mentioned before, we’re gonna be talking about episode 12 of season four of Star Trek Enterprise Babbel one. But before we get into that, we like to talk about some feedback from our previous episodes. So, Matt, what have you pulled out of the comments for us on the episode
84? Daedalus AJ Chan commented a few weeks ago, we, myself included ragged on storm.
but at least that episode had action, albeit dumb action. Daedalus was so slow that I missed the Saturday morning cartoon Enterprise episodes like
Stormfront . I was like, ouch. . Yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of the balancing act for season four is finding, yeah, action that makes sense. And star Trek philosophy and conversations that make sense.
And sometimes when they miss the mark, it really. Does make you pick your poison and say, would I rather it be dumb action, or would I rather there be no action whatsoever?
Yeah. The other comment was from episode 63, proven Ground. It’s kinda going way back into our catalog from Kindred’s Girl. Hey guys, I’m still a ways behind you, but I wanted to comment here because I really didn’t love this episode, and normally I don’t disagree with your assessments of the show.
It all felt to me just too convenient that the endurance showed up when they did and then all of a sudden the Xindi were. Close by enough phys to, to physically interact with. It just seemed like a lot of plot forwarding things happening conveniently in the same few days. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the forward movement.
I’d just rather it not feel so artificial in any case, thanks for putting the show together. It’s been really great. By the way, my, this is my first ever watch through of enterprise. Wow. Uh, just like you, I decided I’d watch through from the beginning and since I haven’t seen all of the Next Generation or Voyager, I’ll be along for the ride with you guys for a while.
So welcome aboard. Kindreds girl. Yeah. It’s really exciting to have you here and it’s, it’s fun to see people that are hitting our show back and then like steamrolling their way through. Yeah. All of the episodes and catching
up with us. Yeah. Welcome Kindreds girl and, and hope you enjoy the, the conversations and hope you enjoy getting.
You know, it won’t be too long from now that we’re jumping out of enterprise and moving into, you know, one of the newest of the star Trek programs. So if you’re, if you’re holding on for enterprise, uh, for, um, Next Generation. Next Generation and Voyager. We look forward to talking about those in eight years.
Uh, . It’s a constant refrain. Fast forward is a little bit of our discussions about the podcast. Is that like, wow, we really should have done this before we were close to retirement age because we’re cutting a little close and if they keep making new programs, oh boy. Yeah. But once again, thank you for the comments and please keep ’em coming.
And now that sound in the background, of course, is the weak alert. It means it’s time for Matt to tackle the Wikipedia description. And previous weeks we’ve been commenting about how season four, the Wikipedia description has gotten tighter. It’s gotten more on point. This one’s a little bit of a return to form.
This one’s a little more, Hey, let’s just kind of do a jazz trio feeling about. The, uh, synopsis of the show. Matt, why don’t you jump into it for babble one. I’m gonna enjoy
stumbling through this one. Babble one is the 12th episode of the fourth season of the American Science Fiction Television series, star Trek Enterprise, and originally aired on January 28th, 2005.
The episode was written by Mike Sussman in Andoria Borman, and directed by David s. Babel one was the first of a three-part story arc, which continued in the episodes United and the Anir. Mm-hmm. inr. The arc was intended to proceed the Romulan war, which had been mentioned in previously aired episodes of the franchise while Babbel won, was a reference to the Star Trek, the original series episode journey to Babbel.
Should I keep going? ? Yes, .
Okay. Haven’t even gotten the context of the show yet. You’re just talking like big picture. Oh. That’s where I mentioned second century,
it’s you’re not really dealing with a tightly wound synopsis
set in the 22nd century. This series follows the adventures of the first Starfleet Starship Enterprise Registration NX oh one. And this episode Enterprise is faring attel rate ambassador. When they respond due distress calls from Endor from an Andorian vessel under attack.
Pursuing the mysterious attacking vessel, they began to uncover a plot to derail cooperative relations between the tele rights end Dorians and humans. Mm-hmm. , that was pretty much all you needed for the description. What’s that last paragraph?
Yes, and it’s a little off, but it’s, it is. That last sentence is the key one, as Matt just mentioned.
Season four, episode 12, directed by David Straighten. We’ve seen his name many times written by Mike Susman on Entree Bo. Again, two very familiar names. Original air date on January 20. 2005 guest appearances include Jeffrey Combs once again as Commander Shran. Always good to see him. Lee Berg as the tele right Ambassador Grol Molly Brink as Lieutenant Tallis.
Jay Michael Flynn as Na Jill Brian Thompson as Admiral Valdor. And Kevin Brief as nag. And what was the world like on January 28th, 2005? Well, Matt, we mentioned last week and we’ve mentioned over and over how over and over would not be mentioned over and over . And I think the reason we were talking about all of that is because, well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be bringing it up all the time.
Hey. Oh no, Sean, what a weird coincidence cuz the number one song in the US at this time was, I Don’t Want To Be by Gavin Degra. Why don’t you sing a little bit of it for us? Thanks and at the movies we were lining up to see are we there yet, which earned 18 million at the box office. Are we there yet? Is a 2005 American Family Road comedy directed by Brian Levin and it was written by Stephen Gary Banks, Claudia Gra.
J. J David. And David and Weiss, based on a story by banks and Grazi. So Ice Cube starred alongside Nia Long, Alicia Allen, Philip Daniel Boldon, Jay Moore and Tracy Morgan, and on television on January 28th, 2005, what would we be tuning in to watch if we weren’t watching Enterprise? Chances were good. We were tuning in for ABC’s eight Simple Rules, which had a double.
Earning about 9 million viewers. CBS showed Joan of Arcadia. Phlox was showing the Bernie Mac show in a double billing. And on wb, what I like about you and Grounded for Life, both earned about 3 million, which put them on par with Star Trek Enterprise on U P N and in the news. Well, there were some.
Shenanigans going on at the UN that we’re calling. Were raising the call among some people in the US Congress, particularly among Republicans for Cofi Anon to step down as Un Secretary General 70 Nobel Prize Laureates had released a statement in support of UN Secretary General Kofi Anon, despite the calls for his resignation and the calls came as a result.
Iraq Oil for Food program. There had been some shenanigans with the financing. It turns out there was a lot of corruption with millions of dollars being siphoned off by various parties along the way. The program was originally intended, it was designed under the Clinton administration. And it was intended to allow oil from Iraq to be sold, to provide humanitarian support in the form of food and medical supplies for Iraqis.
And what was happening instead were people were greasing palms left and right, so that money was being siphoned out of the system and going directly into Citizen’s Pockets. So the Bishop administration would continue to distance itself from direct calls for Coon’s resignation, and he would in fact, stay in the position for years to come leaving in about three years.
So onto today’s episode, we’re talking about events, which are supposed to take place in November of 2154. We are now. Several years past the OR origin story of Enterprise, and we’re seeing a much more capable and confident Captain Archer and enterprise crew functioning as effectively a giant shuttle pod for important ambassadors In an attempt to play a role in peacemaker, this episode sees the Starfleet putting itself in a position between the andorians and the tele rights, trying to craft out.
Peace negotiation between these two species. We now see a little bit of the Andorian antagonism that has been, uh, a part of the backstory in star Trek for a while, talking about andorians as an aggressive species without ever really seeing it on screen until this epi, until these episodes where we see not.
A strong indoor stance against Vulcans, but now we see that the tele rights and the Andorians are also going toe to toe. We also see tele rights for the first time in enterprise. This is not the first time we’ve seen them in Star Trek. They were in the original series, but this is a little bit more than we’re accustomed to seeing on screen.
We’re seeing a little bit more exposure, and the episode starts with what looks like an interesting argument between Hoshi and Captain Arch. Which looks at the beginning of it, like it borders on insubordination and ends with the captain being completely unprofessional. Before we realize this is just a dry run of conversation with tele rights, what did you think about the introduction to this episode?
Yeah,
I, I, I found it amusing and I thought it did a, a good job. Remember how we talked in the last episode, how when there Mayweather and Reid were playing chess and they were having that conversation where very quickly realized these are. Reed and Mayweather. Yeah. There’s something else going on here.
This was the same thing. It was like almost immediately recognized something is way off here, cuz like they don’t yell at each other like this. You’re kind of like trying to raise an eyebrow, figure out what’s going on, but to me it wasn’t as good as the last cold open. Yeah. Like the last cold open like caught me on the edge of my seat of like, Ooh, what’s going on?
And this one was like, okay, . Yeah.
The previous cold open, um, dead are arguing. Why they arguing. Yeah. The previous cold op open definitely feels more in the vein of setting up the idea that lives are in the balance and it has that kind of dump, dump, dumb conclusion to the cold open. This one is, clearly intended to be a bit of a magic trick.
They want you to be like, why are the two of them talking to each other like this? Oh, stepping back and kind of a laugh. Yep. Kind of a, yeah, a tone shift. And that also includes the direct then introduction of the teller rights where Archer is following hos. She’s suggestion and just being incredibly insulting to the ambassador, and it clearly is taken in a good way.
I enjoyed the depiction of the teller. In this episode as bluntly, arrogantly, insulting, but as a means of making sure that you’re getting the truth out of the person you’re talking to. Right. It really seems to be, there seems to be a diplomatic stance here in being this insulting because mm-hmm. , it’s about like, I’m not going to tell you anything.
That is masking my true intentions. I’m not, I’m being this horrible to your face so that when I say, here’s what I expect out of this treaty, you know, I mean it, and there is kind of a, an interesting logic to that as opposed to like a Vulcan approach or the Andorian approach, which the Andorian seem a lot more inclined to play.
Their cards very close to the vest and. . It’s interesting to think kind of big picture. I don’t know if you did this, but I found myself big picture imagining what previous negotiations might have looked like and why they might have failed. Because in this circumstance it really does set up humans as being able to play a kind of translator role and between the two and say like, , the andorians mean it when they say X, Y, and Z in a way that the tele rights might see subterfuge left and right.
Yeah, it’s,
I, I enjoyed it too, but there was also part of the whole tele right thing that was just kind of rubbing me a little, the wrong way. Mm-hmm. and it, I, I’m gonna have trouble putting words into bringing into words. Yeah. But it’s kind of like the farge. Yeah. In next generation, in D Space, nine and beyond, they became kind of the punch.
the easy way to get humor and jokes. Yeah. And it felt very pat and very uncreative to get humor out of that sometimes. Not all the time, but some of the time. Yeah. And that’s kind of what this was feeling like to me a little bit. It was like not ringing super true. It was like, okay, it, they’re doing this because it’s funny and they can have these awkward moments and things like that.
It didn’t completely work all the time for me, humor wise, and so it felt like a cheap trick for what they were doing. Yeah, but what you’re talking about, yes. I, I, it’s, I enjoyed the depiction of how the Vulcans, the end historians, the humans, and now the tele rights, how we’re seeing how they all approach situations in very different ways.
And you can totally imagine why all. Races have horrible relations. Yeah. Because they just ca they’re just, they cannot communicate. They’re just like talking over each other and past each other and just don’t get each other. And here comes hu humans, which are, we have a little bit of all of this in us, so we can relate and we can act as that translation layer.
So it makes sense in this star Trek lore, why they’re doing what they’re doing. But at the same time, The cheap humor at times kind of like rubbed me a little wrong way. Mm-hmm. . But overall it was, it was, I was fine with it. It was okay. .
I wonder if you noticed what I noticed, which was that this felt very much like it could have been right out of the original series.
Yes. And I don’t mean that as a compliment. No. It felt a little dated. It felt a little old and it felt a little bit like things happen for plot convenience as opposed to any kind of, Yes. Where it didn’t feel like there were moments of, like the tele rights are very tele righty, as you mentioned, because there’s an attempt for a pl punchline there.
There is a little bit of a twist as we get deeper into the episode where they’re being a little more forthright with each other. in a way that’s like, we need to do what’s right for us. We like, they have motivations of their own and it was good that they had that later on because if the characters don’t seem to have an inner life outside of what the main characters in a show care about.
Then they’re just window dressing. So they have an agenda, they have a desire, they’re working toward their own goal, and when they feel like they’re locked into their quarters, that there are guards keeping them confined. And it’s because at that point, later in the episode, the end dorians are now on board and things have turned into a more of a powder keg situation.
revealing that the tele rights have their own agenda was important for the show. I don’t know a way of getting it in earlier, but it comes in later. But other than that, this does feel very much like there’s a lot of hand waving around the motives of anybody who’s not part of Starfleet, and the actions of the main characters don’t always make sense from a logical perspective.
That’s one of the things I wanted to bring up and I had made notes about it. The, it felt like they were just trying to move a plot forward. Yeah, it’s, it’s kinda like a horror movie where a character hears something in the basement and h horrible stuff has been going on. Like weird stuff has been going on and they hear a sound in the basement and they’re like, I’ll go in the basement.
It’s like nobody in the right mind with everything they’ve been through up to that point would make the choice that character’s making, but they’re doing it purely just to get to the next plot element that has to happen with them in the basement with the creature or something like that. Yeah. This felt like that when they were locked into.
quarters.
It didn’t feel true to me that Shran would have broken out and gone after the tell rights the way he did, given his history with the captain. Yeah. He trusts the captain, so he may not trust all humans, but he trusts the captain to do the right thing. It feels like he would’ve not gone to the lengths he did to break out and start shooting Starfleet officers.
Yeah. The way they were doing it made no sense to me. Yeah. It felt like you’re crossing a. , what? You, you, you trust this guy? Why would you do that? Yeah. The second thing that really bothered me was when they finally have like the sh standoff in the tele rights room where the end dorians have all the guns on the tele rights and the humans come busting through and they’re like, stop it.
And Shran turns around and reluctantly hands the, the rifle over the one tele right. Everything. Everything is like, like been disarmed. Everybody’s like, okay, we’re gonna calm down. And then this one random tell right goes, that’s not good enough. Yeah. And he grabs the gun and then then shoots one of the Endor, the trans, I guess fiance or whatever she is.
Yeah.
And it was
like, why on earth would you have done that? Like at that moment everything has been diffused. What did you think? And in that character’s head, what were you hoping to achieve out of shooting that woman? There’s nothing good that would’ve come out of that. There’s no reason why that person would’ve been doing that because everything had been diffused, and it was just like there was all these plot elements, these actions that happened that did not ring true for what a character should have been
doing at that, at that point, and ultimately that moment.
Also, not only did it not ring true, it would’ve, it would’ve rung true if it had a consequence. Yes, but it didn’t have a consequence. It was like she was shot. And for a moment I thought, oh, she’s being killed. That’s gonna turn Shran very anti-elite. And then Shran looks down at her and she’s been wounded in the arm.
It barely looks like it’s bleeding and they’re both like, Hey, what’s up? What’s up, boo? And, or, or maybe she’s up blue. But, um, the fact that the
endurance shot up the. And then they just hand the rifles over and the captain’s like, okay, all right. It was like, no, no, no, no. He would’ve been like, we’re gonna lock you in to, you know, the brig put you in lockup in the brig.
This is unacceptable.
I, it’s like there was no consequences. I think that it would’ve served, I mean, it could’ve been two birds with one stone. If Shran had been in a meeting with Archer and Archer and he were having a conversation, and if it was Shran, Crew. Yes. That did a breakout. Yes. And as Shran and as Shran and Archer, having a moment of Shran saying like, you can’t trust the tele rights, you can’t trust anything they’re telling you.
And Archer convincing Shran of like, I don’t, I’m not talking about the tele rights, I’m talking about the hard evidence I have from my crew. And making a point of getting Shran to at least be willing to say like, I will follow your lead. And in that moment, security showing up and saying like, the andorians are running around the ship, shooting things.
And then Shran has to go and Shran becomes the one who goes in and says to his own people, , you need to put these weapons down. We need to stop right now. Yeah, that would’ve been a better moment than what we ended up having because as you just mentioned, it doesn’t serve a consequence and it doesn’t seem realistic to the moment we’ve been talking about deeper plot points.
I want to give a very, I don’t think we need to go like, Plot point by plot point to be able to talk about this. But ultimately what happens is the tele rights are on board. The ship, the enterprise is ferrying them to babbel one, which is supposed to be this peace conference. And on route they find a distress call, which is Shran, his ship being under attack and almost destroyed.
They get to the site and discover that the ship has been destroyed. They find life pods. in space, they get the andorians who are still left alive on board. There’s a very nice and touching moment between Archer and Shran and the Medical Bay when Shran is, is saying like, how many of my people did you get?
And Archer it. It’s a moment where it really does speak of captain to captain and mm-hmm. Archer’s response is like only 18 and it’s, it’s less than a quarter of Shran crew. At this point, we have this now Andorian crew who are convinced that they were attacked by a tele right ship. Now the enterprise in its attempt to get the Andoria is now pursued by what looks like an Andorian ship.
And when Shran tries to tell this endur ship, don’t do anything. I’m on board. My crew’s on board. The Andorian ship now opens fire and attacks the enterprise. So now it looks like an Andorian and a tele rate vessel have both gone rogue and are both doing things to disrupt the conference. , both the tele rights and the andorians on the enterprise think that the other is doing everything to undo this piece Accord.
The problem I have with this setup is it is so obviously a setup. Mm-hmm. , it is so simplistic in its approach of like, oh, the Andorians now think the tele rights are doing something and the tele rights think the Andorians are doing something, and logically it makes sense that there’s a third party doing all of this.
Mm-hmm. and it just feels like it takes. an abysmally long amount of time for anybody to come to that conclusion. Mm-hmm. , it seems like everybody’s just like, well, why would the andorians, but what would the tele rights and what about this? And then suddenly at the end they’re like, Hey, wait a minute.
DePaul finds hard evidence. The en energy signature of both ships is identical. So now they know, okay, we’re dealing with some other crew, some other ship from some other location, and she finds a bit of evidence that might point to the Romulan. The there is something in the ship that is similar to the material that was used, and I loved the callback here to the episode where the enterprise had.
Romulan mine attached to their hull and reed was pierced by the leg locking mechanism of this mine. So you had this whole storyline around the, the unseen enemy in that episode is, is a, a species that doesn’t even make an appearance. Now here they find some evidence to say this might be Romulan. They eventually follow the trail to a spot in space where a strange looking vessel.
Is found and they can’t get any readings from it. It doesn’t seem like it has any lifeforms aboard. So a landing party goes aboard the ship and while they’re on the ship, the ship then wakes up. It gets into a battle with the enterprise once again, and then rockets off into space entering warp, leaving the enterprise behind.
So now we have crew members aboard this alien vessel and we have star fleet’s, you know, flagship, trying to figure out what to do. How do we pursue an enemy? We don’t even know if they are right. We see segments, scenes, everyone now and then showing Romulan, talking about their vessel, and there’s a lot of, effectively the show lies to us.
multiple times. Mm-hmm. by, oh, quite a few times and it’s, and it’s one of those techniques where you do the thing where you show the establishing shot and then you show people talking, and then you show an establishing shot. You show people talking, and then you show an establishing shot, and then you show the people talking, and then you pull the camera out and you reveal that those two things were never in the same place.
So, so this is, this is going to be, I think, a larger conversation than anything plot-wise. Yes. We’re gonna be talking now about honesty and storytelling, so take it away, Matt. Yeah, I was just gonna
say, I like the science fiction aspect of this whole part of the storyline. Yes. This, it’s a remote controlled ship that can cloak itself and emulate any ship at once.
Very clever. I liked it. That was really neat. Yeah, it was fun, sciencey aspects to it and felt new and interesting, but yet it still felt like it fit into the lore of everything from Star Trek. So I was really enjoying it. But where they really kind of, Shanked it , in my opinion, is they kept trying to do the mite shaline twisty reveal.
Like, yeah, you think you’re in this setting, but no, pull it back. No, you’re not. Wait, we’re gonna pull back again. It’s even in a different place. So they kept trying to do that again and again. I think that was a big mistake. Yeah. Cuz for me, we talked about how this felt like some elements of the show felt very original.
Star Trek. Yeah. And not in a good way. Yeah. This was one of those elements where it. Mustache. Every time they went to Romulus and they were showing the Romulan, it was very mustache twirling. The guy that was the lead Romulan I like, I don’t mind him as an actor. Yeah. But he was so miscast as this Romulan, it was like, What is, he’s like a bulked
up, jacked up Flynn guy, or No, my Brian Thompson, who is famous for being a monster guy.
He was famous for being vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was famous for being like all sorts of, of super strong, big, muscular monsters. And him as a Romulan strikes you as like, The strangest of choices. There are any number of times where aliens are depicted by very thin, older individuals who portray power through their performance as opposed to the physicality.
And this guy’s physicality just seem to be distracting. Yeah,
and the other thing to talk about the truth in storytelling, it felt like a cru. Because of how they were using it. And it kept undercutting itself. And I kept thinking of the previous episode of Enterprise where they went into that the ship was all damaged and they went into that robotic satellite that started to repair the ship.
And there was this whole mystery as to like, what is this thing? And it was doing weird stuff. And it was, you know, it was just like this, it was like a mystery box slowly unfolding itself. Yeah. And I found that intriguing and interesting and really kind of, And like they could have done the same exact thing with this.
Like never show the Romulan. Yeah. Never show them on Romulus. Just have them on this ship that’s like, what the hell? Starts acting really weird. They’re just trying to climb around the ship to find the bridge and like they find the bridge and it’s empty and it’s like, what the hell? And it’s like, and at that point you could start to reveal, oh, this is remote controlled.
Well, who’s controlling it? You could have had this whole mystery box. That we’re going along with enterprise crew in real time with them discovering and yeah, and figuring out what the mystery is instead by them just like trying to reveal it early so that we know it’s the Romulan from the very beginning, but yet they’re still trying to have their cake and eat it too with the mystery box.
Yeah. So let’s only show them what looks like a bridge, but then when we pull out the window, they’re on Romulus. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. It’s like, it was, there was, there was no real reveal there and all it felt like they were doing was trying to pull one over on me. And as a viewer, that makes me angry. It’s like, don’t try to pull one over.
Don’t try to trick me. Yeah. It’s like, tell me a good story. But they were relying on tricks to try to create those moments of Ah, and it was like they didn’t need to do that. Yeah.
It would be a little bit like telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood to a child and getting to the grandma, what big eyes you have, grandma, what big teeth you have.
And then it turns out it’s red. Rotting hood’s, other grand. It’s like, yes, like there’s, they’re withholding information only to have this reveal at the end, and it doesn’t feel organic. And it, and it relies, as I mentioned, on multiple, literally active lies from the storytellers. Here’s an establishing shot of the ship, and then here’s the interior of the ship with the Romulan on the.
And Nope, they’re not actually there. And it’s it. The only reason to do that is to trick your audience. And when you pull the rug out from underneath us, at the end of it, as Matt just pointed out, it’s not worth the time and effort you’ve put into it. It would’ve been far more interesting if all of this had been, who is doing this, what is this?
And have to Paul make the realization about the Romulan. That was in the mine. Have her make that realization. Literally moments before we see a shot where Trip and Reid finally make it to the bridge on this alien ship and trip very quickly says, there’s no crew here because this is a remote controlled vessel.
He should identify what’s happening right here. And then we go to the shot of Romulan in a lab on Romulus. So those three things, dot, dot, dot, should have been right at the end all paired together so that you would’ve had that kind of like, oh, she’s figuring out who it is. Wait a minute, the Romulan, does that mean trip and reader gonna be in trouble when they get to the bridge?
Oh, no, it doesn’t because they’re finding out that it’s a remote controlled vessel, which means the Romulan are safe on their own. . Yeah. So that would’ve been a far more refi, better refinement of the story elements. Having said all of that, taking out these plot points that we’re having trouble with. Yeah.
Yeah. I like the Romulan. Aspect of this story. I like them using a remote controlled vehicle. I like the idea that they are, they are at a distance doing this, trying to screw around with a piece of cords and doing it with a prototype vessel that they feel is confident is not traceable back to them in any way, shape, or form.
I like all of that. I even like the aspect of when they realize that there are personnel on their ship. The commander gives the order. Yeah, do evasive maneuvers. Basically just shake these people because there are apparently no inertial dampeners on the ship. Yeah. Trip and read board the ship with the assumption that the inertial dampeners must be offline, that the life support must be offline.
They’re having trouble figuring these out. This belies a pretty big plot hole. From the perspective of what Starfleet expects when they go aboard this ship, there’s no reason for them to anticipate that this is a manned craft. Yep. There’s nothing about this ship that says it has to be a manned craft, and it is an assumption that is made from a story storyteller’s perspective that I think shows a certain weakness in an overall approach.
Through all of star Trek. Whenever a ship approaches, the assumption is it’s manned. There are people aboard this thing, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. And when you think about space travel, I mean the number of unmanned things robots we’re launching into space constantly should be a part of this.
Like when a craft comes up and to Paul even says there are no life signs a. , and yet they go aboard with like, well, we gotta get to the bridge. That’s where the people are like, what? What are you talking about? You’re making, yeah. You’re not only making an assumption, you’re ignoring evidence that you have right in front of you.
Trip. Can’t figure out where the life support systems are in the systems that he’s looking at, and yet never. , maybe the ship doesn’t have any . I mean, it just mm-hmm. it really again and again. I was like, why do they keep talking as if they know there are people there when nothing is letting them, giving them evidence that that is true, which leads.
To my final nitpick, which is when they are being tossed about and the special effects of this one are pretty cool. They’ve spent some their time and money in this one. We’ve talked about the previous episodes right before this one being bottle episodes we’re clearly, they’re saving some money by using only existing sets and relying mainly on the main cast as the the actors in the episodes.
This one. They’ve gone a little bit more expansive. Here’s where some of the dollars are being used for the special effects. I love the look of the Romulan ship with all of the subspace arrays that they’ve got on the front. They’ve got all of the hollow projectors on the sides. They never make the point of like the Subspace array, why would it need so many?
It’s in such intense contact with Romulus that it’s getting constant feedback between the pilot and the ship. I love the depiction of the pilot who that poor guy decked up completely head to toe in sensors, so he’s in some sort of VR environment. I love the fact that he looks hardwired in physically and they never really reveal.
is he actually okay. Like there’s nothing about Romulan that would make us assume that Oh, yeah. They wouldn’t mistreat a pilot. So it’s entirely possible that this guy is as much a Guinea pig as the prototype ship is a prototype. I liked all of that. I, I really did. But when they are on the ship and the ship goes into, Their evasive maneuver technique to shake up the invading crew members, Reid says to trip Agni, activate your magna boots.
If this was done on a ship with no inertial dampers, You’d snap your legs off. They would’ve ripped their feet from their bodies and their, they would have been just dead little people without any connection between their feet and their legs. Just kind of like swaying as the ship flies around too little.
They would’ve looked like wacky waving and fla arm, felling tube men, who would’ve been just like on the ship. Just dead in space as this thing flies around, it would’ve looked like a car dealership was opening up in that Romulan ship and it, it was so distracting to me that they were acting as if like, well, all you need to do is turn these things on and now look at us now.
Nobody can stop us. I’m like, you’d be dead. You would be dead. Yeah. Like the initial use of evasive maneuvers. Would’ve been harrowing and like they should have just been holding on for dear life. And literally, if the, if they’re gonna make it through the ship, I’m okay with that, but it should have been like, Them clawing their way along, tubes holding on and, and literally treating this almost like a mountain climbing expedition because they would’ve been fighting against forces that physically their ankles wouldn’t have been able to do with however many magnets are in the bottom of their boots.
Well,
I, I was willing to, I totally agree with you, but I was willing to kinda like gloss over that because they would’ve been dead from the very first. Moves because they, that ship would be able to move at such G-forces, it would’ve just turned their brains to jelly. Yeah. So even if they weren’t able to hold themselves, it’s like they would’ve blacked out.
They would’ve, it would’ve been hor, it would’ve been a horse show. . Yeah. So you kind of have to disconnect that and go, yeah, they’re not gonna go there, there for the, for Star Trek, this is a Friday night show on star Trek. So it’s, you kind of have to. But I’m, I’m right there with you. For me in this episode.
Just a holistic view. It sounds like I’m ragging on it and didn’t like it, but I did have enjoyment with it. It just, it for, for me, the, the, the contrast was between the previous episode and this one. It’s a stark contrast for me. Yeah, because it was, the last one was amazing in my opinion. And then this one is kind of like middle of the road and it’s like where this might have.
Okay for me, but the fact it was smack dabs against such a good episode, it just highlighted how weak this one was for
me at least. Yeah, I felt exactly the same way. I liked a lot of the elements, and I like the big picture approach of like, what does it mean for them to be taking this trip in the first place?
What does it mean about the relationships between the various species? How. humanity play a role in standing between Vulcans and Doreens and Teles. We know where these four species are headed. Mm-hmm. . And that’s at this point, that’s the point of this season, is we’re building toward the conclusion of knowing the federation is on its way.
And I appreciate all of that. I. Like I mentioned before, and like Matt mentioned before, the sci-fi aspects, the action sci-fi aspects of the Romulan ship, the use of the remote controlled ship. I would’ve appreciated a little bit more realism in getting through an unmanned craft, what that might have looked like.
It might have even included them saying like, This ship doesn’t have passageways like we would anticipate they might be in something that’s the confines of a Jeffries tube and literally just climbing through, you know, tube ways to get to what they think is the bridge and ultimately the fact that they keep calling it the bridge and the reason that they’re there at all needed better reasons.
But once they were there, I was like, I’m. Okay with the action here. And I like the relationship between Trip and Reid. We’ve had now three other seasons showing how these two guys. Initially really di had a difficult time figuring out what their relationship was with each other. Great episode. Mm-hmm.
where the two of them are trapped in a shuttle craft in the first, in the first season, and have to survive by themselves for an extended period of time. Now here we see two experienced officers who have a lot of unspoken trust between each other. We see the two of them. Bouncing ideas back and forth and and supporting one another without hesitation, and it has a couple of very nice mirroring moments of.
the lack of enough oxygen in your oxygen pack and they have to link up. Mm-hmm. . And that was used as a major plot device in previous episodes where it’s like, no, you can’t give me your oxygen, you’ll die. And now it’s like, yeah, we both need to survive. It’s, it’s an unspoken of like, there is no argument.
I’m giving you some air. And then later on they find, I did like the aspect of, oh, here’s a fuel intake. And it turns out the fuel includes oxygen. Let’s siphon some and then that being something that ticks off an alarm for the Romulan. I liked, I liked a lot of that there felt like, mm-hmm. , there were connective lines between actions that did make sense.
Just the motivations behind why the storytelling wanted to do those things sometimes left me cold. So, , you know, I, I found myself like you watching it, not actively hating it, but just thinking at the end of it, like, wow, if that had been Kirk and Spock, it would’ve made a lot of sense because the storytelling felt at times a little bit like, eh, little hand wavy, like, eh, here we go.
So overall, it sounds like Matt and I are on the same page, not quite landing with a solid grade for this one, but. I would, I would say it’s passing. What do you think? Yeah,
it’s fun. It’s fun. Yeah. It’s like for like, kind of like, I don’t wanna say brainless entertainment, but it was, it was, it’s fun to watch.
There were some very good moments. Some, some cheap humor. Some fun humor. There’s, there’s, it has elements of fun to be had.
for sure. Yeah, and I agree with that. So listeners and viewers let us know. Jump into the comments. Do you agree with this that this one had some aspects to it that could have been a little tighter?
Or do you think that Matt and I are off that we just missed the boat on what was a great episode? Let us know what you think. Matt, next time we’re gonna be talking about the episode, United. Any ideas what we’re that’s gonna be about? That’s right, Matt. It’s about the airline. So . So Matt, before we close out the show, What do you have going on in your main channel?
What are you gonna be talking about in the future? Well, there’s actually
kind of a, a big announcement that I just kind of dropped on my channel this week. This vi, the latest video that’s out at the time of this episode is about me talking about five years living with solar panels on my roof, my experience and some elements I wish I had known about before I went into getting them.
Cuz there are a few, and I’m basically announcing, I’m, I’m launching a new guide, a course that I’m selling for getting solar panels in your. and it’s at academy dot undecided mf.com. I’ve never done anything like this before, but it’s a whole, the whole idea behind this course is to help you come up to a decision of whether you wanna get solar panels or not, and understanding all the basic of a system, how it works, what needs to go into it, how to evaluate quotes, how to figure out how much solar energy you actually need to achieve your.
Because there’s nobody that can tell you if you should get solar other than you, like you’re the only person that can do that. And so the, my, my goal with the guide is to give you the tools to be able to come to those answers so that you know what you’re getting into and know what to ask and how to find a qualified installer to get it installed in your home.
So that just launched. I’m, I’m pretty excited and nervous about it, so I’m, I’m, I’m hoping that people
get a lot of use out of it. That sounds like it’d be very informative for people who are on that path. So that sounds. . Congratulations, by the way. That sounds like a big step. Thanks, . Yeah, as for me, if you’re interested in finding out any, any more about my books, they’re available at all of your local bookstores, anything from Amazon, all the way down to your local bookstore.
They’re also available at public libraries, and you can ask for them there. And if you wanna find out more information about the books themselves, you can visit sean Ferrell dot com. You will be able to find all sorts of information on my site. Don’t forget, as I mentioned before, jump into the comments.
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