88: The Aenar – Star Trek Enterprise Season 4, Episode 14

In this episode of Trek in Time, we’re gonna be talking about the An air, which is a offshoot of the Andorians that we’d never met before in the series. And then this episode happened, and now we can say we met them spoiler. That might be all that we can say about this episode. . Oh boy. Sean. That’s right.

We’re talking about enterprise season four, episode 14 via air, and you’re listening of course to Trek in Time where we watch all of star Trek in chronological order. And then we talk about it not only about the episodes, but we talk about the context of the original time of b. So right now we’re talking about early 2005 because we’re talking about the second half of season four of enterprise.

Who are we? Well, I’m Sean Ferrell. I’m a writer. I write some sci-fi. I write some stuff for kids. And with me is my brother Matt. He’s the guru and inquisitor behind the YouTube channel, undecided with Matt Ferrell, which take a, takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how you doing today?

I’m doing pretty well. How about you? I’m doing okay. As usual, before we get into the context of the episode, we’d like to share some comments from our previous discussion. So, Matt, what do you have for us today?

There’s a few that I wanted to kind of highlight today, and they’re all from episode 86, babble one, which was the previous episode.

Uh, so first one was from way outs, quick thought. Is there a way to see what the watch numbers for Enterprise are on Paramount now? Because we always talk about the how many viewers watch this episode when we get to the streaming series. I don’t know how we’re gonna do this because there are no streaming numbers that are

shared.

Yeah, that’s a very good, uh, it’s a good question. Way out. Yeah, it’s a very good question. But yeah, the streamers don’t share those numbers, so yeah,

we’ll have to figure something else out. The next comment was from Dan Sims. He wrote about time there was a remote controlled ship. You would think those would be all over the universe.

Too bad it wasn’t handled very well, though. the way they did it, you would think that they had never had that thought or possibility. Yeah, I did enjoy the episode overall and I’m hoping fingers crossed that this three story arc will have some real meat in it because I do enjoy the antagonist, ally of the character Shran.

Mm-hmm. and I, I, I, I highlighted this one cause I, I knew complete agreement with you, Dan, that it’s insane to me. This was never thought of. Like the way they reacted to it was like, wait, what? Yeah. And it’s like we’re living through a period where we’re doing this exact thing, like we’re sending robots to Mars.

Yeah. And the fact that this is a shock was kind of surprising. They should have probably said like, oh yeah, we tried that, but you know, it had such a limited range. Yeah. It didn’t make sense. So clearly this is something different.

Or if they’d simply said, like, normally, Remote control. Uh, drones have very limited applications.

We’ve never seen a ship with this level of sophistication as if it actually had a crew on board. A line like that would’ve been enough, but instead it was this kind of like yeah, a ship without people, like it didn’t make sense. But also looking

at it from today’s lens, Sean Yeah. Is like, oh, absolutely. AI has taken on a life of its own over the past year.

Yeah. And it. , the AI we have available to us today. The machine learning today, it’s like you can picture, oh, go forward like 300 years. You wouldn’t need a remote control pilot. Yeah. It’s like the ship will take care of itself, . So it’s like send it out there and have it do something and it’s just gonna go nuts.

Right. So it’s like, I mean obviously that didn’t exist when they wrote this episode, but it’s just funny

and there’s, the content 20 years are talking about all the time in the show is like the limitations of their imagination. It goes back to the phrasing of science fiction. Has for the writer has about a 25 year window.

That’s about as far as we can speculate. We can’t really go much further than that, and this is a good case of that here they were in 2005 and they were saying like, imagine if there was a drone ship. They didn’t know to call it a drone ship. They didn’t mm-hmm. realize that this is something that would actually be in the world that we live in today, so, mm-hmm.

that’s the limitation, right. Yeah.

And then the last comment I wanna bring up is from PGO 69 on the rewatch. I didn’t even remember tell rates being on the ship in this episode. Mm-hmm. , I was so confused thinking I missed an episode until the shooting of Sh Strand’s girlfriend must have blocked out the trauma of the opening being so bad.

Then again, I was excited to see the Andorian ice caves in the next episode, and I thought that was, I, I agree. It’s like for me, the sh the whole Shran and Dorian stuff is always a lot of fun. And, um, it, for me that’s the highlight of this entire story arc is basically gimme more Shran, .

I agree, Shran is a highlight in the show, and especially this, this episode, the relationship between him and Archer is on full display.

It’s really an enjoyable aspect of the show, and that noise in the background is of course the reason, which means one thing, it means it’s time for Matt to tackle the Wikipedia description. We have a two paragraph description today. Good luck. The a

r is the 14th episode of the fourth season of the American Science Fiction Television series, star Trek Enterprise, and originally aired on February 11th, 2005.

It was written by Andoria Andoria Barez from a story by Manny Koto and was directed by Mike Vij. . The Anar was the third installment of a three-part story, which concluded the events of episodes babble one and United Set in the 22nd century. The series follows the Adventure Adventures of the first Starfleet Starship Enterprise.

I feel like we’re just rehashing everything all over again. Mm-hmm. . In this episode, captain Jonathan Archer, Scott Bakula and Commander Shran, Jeffrey Combs travel to Andoria a. Seeking the help. Andoria is not a moon, is it?

They show there is a, like a, a giant cloud planet and Andoria appears to be a moon of that planet.

Okay? Yes. Okay,

so it’s a moon seeking the help of the Anar and offshoot race of the Andorian, one of whom has been taken by the reins to pilot a drone vessel. First seen in the previous episode,

as Matt just mentioned. This is season number four, episode 14, directed by Mike Fija. Story by Mani Koto.

Teleplay by Andoria Bo. Three names that we’ve come to trust as far as like, okay, the storytelling, the episode will. Tightly done, and I think that’s on display here. Although for me, spoiler, I think it’s a tightly wound episode with a lot of air inside the shell. So this episode aired on February 11th, 2005.

Guest appearances include Jeffrey Combs, again as Commander Shran Alexander Liden Asel. Brian Thompson as Admiral Valdor, Gino Silva as Senator Brax, Alicia Adams as Lasan and Scott Allen Riner as Gore, and what was going on in February 11th, 2005. Well, Matt, once again, I’m gonna ask you to sing a couple of lines from, let Me Love You by Mario.

Well done. And the movies. Well, the movie Boogey. 19 million and yes, Matt, I can tell by the expression on your face, Boogeyman is as familiar to you as it was to me. Here’s a fun little factoid about Boogeyman. Boogieman broke. You got Serves record of 16 million for the highest Super Bowl weekend debut.

Now here’s a little fun game. Imagine what kind of movie a studio wants to have released on Super Bowl weekend. That’s right. It’s the kind of movie like Boogeyman, which is a 2005 supernatural horror film directed by Stephen K and starring Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel Sky, Nicole Bartak, and Lucy Lawless.

The film is a take on the classy boogeyman or monster in the closet. Who is the main antagonist of the film? This movie’s plot concerns a young man, Tim Jensen, who must confront the childhood terror that has affected his life. It’s that kind of movie that gets released on Super Bowl weekend. And what do I mean by that?

This movie is currently unavailable in any format anywhere.

quality. quality film. That’s right. And what was Enterprise up against? Once again, it was the eight o’clock Friday night lineup. Which included ABC’s eight Simple Rules, which was getting about 7 million viewers CBS’s Joan of Arcadia, also 7 million. The Bernie Mac show in a double billing on Phlox was getting 5 million.

NBC’s Dateline was getting almost 10 million star Trek. Enterprise are in 3.2 million. We are in an upswing in the viewership at this point where this three part arc gained more viewers every episode. And while that’s great. I think it’s landing for the most viewers this week. It’s landing on the softest of the three episodes.

I do not think this is the strongest of the three. And then wb, what I like about you and a Scooby-doo Valentine, we’re each earning a little over 3 million. We have a Scooby-Doo Valentine earning a higher viewership than Enterprise , which makes me say, Oh, , and in the news, February 11th, 2005, a strain of H I V known to be highly drug resistant is discovered in New York City.

It further alarmed health officials that it’s the type of infection that is harder to treat and potentially more contagious. The patient in this case was known to have frequently taken methamphetamines, which is a mutagen, so it may have had a part. Excuse me, a part to play in the change of the disease.

I think it’s interesting that here we are now in 2023 and we now have not a huge number of cases, but a handful of cases of H I v being cured in individuals through stem cell research. Quite a turn. In about a 15 year period. Meanwhile, the conflict in Iraq was still going on. At least 20 people were killed in Baghdad around this time.

As US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld toured the country for a day, and I thought in this moment it would be interesting to revisit a timeline of the. We are now past the halfway point in season four of Enterprise. Enterprise, sadly had fewer episodes than the previous seasons in season four, because if they had let them get two more episodes, they would’ve passed the a hundred episode mark.

Hmm. But they got canceled too short. So little sad trombone there. But it occurred to me that while this war started, During enterprise, we will finish our enterprise rewatch, and there will not be another program during the events that I’m about to lay down. So in the gap between the start of the war and the end of the conflict in Iraq, enterprise takes place, and then we have to wait many years before we get to the next program.

So we go back to March, 2003, when. Iraq is first invaded. Moving into January of 2005, the Iraqi para ary election and formation of a Shia LED government took place. Civil War erupts between 2006 and 2008. The US withdraws forces from Iraq in 2011. There’s an escalation of sectarian insurgency after US withdrawal leading to the rise of the Islamic state of Iraq, which is effectively isis now putting in.

in its roots. There’s a re-escalation of the conflict in 2013 and the return of US forces to Iraq in 2014. And there has been continued Iraqi conflict since then. So it’s a long road to get to where we are now, and there’s a big gap in the programs that we’ll be talking about. And I just thought as we’re heading toward the end of this season, to revisit that now to say this topic came up during our rewatch and it doesn’t go away.

We will likely be talking about it when we come back in the next program, which of course is discovery. But despite the number of years between the Iraqi conflict will still be a resonating story. So onto our discussion about the episode itself, Matt, I’ve already shared a little bit of what I thought about this episode.

What did you think? Big picture? I

think I liked it better than you, just based on the. High level comment you made. I do agree that there is some fluff

to this one, but for me it was really

enjoyable to see the whole Shran and uh, Archer show, like the two of them buddy copping their way across in Doria, in their little adventure together.

And it was just awesome to see this. Blossoming bromance between the two of them and they’re, they play off each other so well. I was just eating it up. So for me, I really enjoyed it only because of that plot line, . And then the other plot lines between like, um, what was it, trip and the, his whole story line, which we’ll get into in more detail.

Mm-hmm. , I thought that was a interesting. Evolution of how they kind of worked on that through the episode. I thought that was well done. Mm-hmm. , this episode as a whole felt, it wasn’t a bottle episode, but it felt a little bit like a bottle episode because it was more character focused and less, you know, action drama.

Mm-hmm. , because it was, it was so heavily focused on the relationship with Shran and Archer going to Andoria, and then Trip and to Paul and how he was reacting emotionally to that. I thought since those were the two big resonating storylines for me, the rest of it just kind of like fell a little

flat. I agree with, I agree with everything you’re saying, and, and I do think that from the, I think there’s a surface reading that you enjoyed it more than I did.

I don’t know that that’s actually true. Mm-hmm. , I think the issue for me is they’re in a, in a stage now where all these episodes are. Effectively trying to build a bridge to the next series or the original series. And I found myself at the end of this thinking, what have we learned in this episode that we didn’t know previously?

And it feels like time that could have been utilized with different stories, maybe more of a focus on trip’s, experience would’ve benefited this episode. You know, a little closer to trip as opposed to a little further away. And. The way his relationship with DePaul has been little, tiny breadcrumbs in a number of episodes, which I’ve enjoyed.

But at the end of this episode, we have a scene with Trip and Archer, which is effectively the most compelling moment in the episode. There’s not really any, any other part that supplants it as like, this is the biggest moment and mm-hmm. , I found myself thinking. Through all the enjoyable back and forth between Archer and Shran, which felt very, you talked about it like Buddy cop it.

It has that kind of Kirk and Spock tone to it of these are two people who are really beginning to view each other as equals, as partners, as friends. and looking past differences and not even really seeing those differences anymore. Really seeing like I know I can trust you at my back. Great moment when Shran spills down the steps in the ice cave and I pales himself accidentally onto a sh uh, Ice stalagmite, which it’s a, it’s an opportunity to see Shran in his own, like, I’m gonna call it machismo without intending for that to be in any way, like a measurement of like, is he a jerk?

Or something like that. But he’s got this kind of like, I will do this response to this thing tr try and pull himself off of this stalagmite. And Archer still steps in to help and he lets. and they have this moment of like, he’s really, Archer is taking care of Shran in this way. It’s nice moments. And they’re enjoyable.

Mm-hmm. . And it’s a little bit like eating popcorn. Like you pop in popcorn into your mouth and you’re like, yum, yum, yum, yum. And then you finish the popcorn and you’re like, well, what’s for dinner? Like it felt to me like there was just a lot of. Well rendered moments that didn’t add up to enough. And I kept thinking like, what, what are we learning here?

We see a Romulan, uh, antagonist that ultimately everything that happens around the drone ships that they’re using could have taken place in the previous episode. Like it’s, yeah, it, the

whole Romulan thing was lost on me. It was like, it was so, that stuff, and it was like, oh, this admiral’s a complete buffoon, and oh, he’s gonna fail.

It was just so, it was so obvious how badly he was failing and shaking it and like the decisions they were making made no sense and it was just a very boring,

well, valor as a character is like, he’s given the strangest backstory when he reveals he used to be a senator and then he spoke his conscience and as a result, Became even more ingrained into the fascist threading of the Romulan.

It be no sense government. It didn’t make any sense. It was this. Mm-hmm. Like, I swear I would never make that mistake again. So he’s become. This I like, I didn’t understand. Okay, so you, you were a disgraced senator, so now you became the head of a very high level secret military program. Like I, I couldn’t make that work in my head.

I just couldn’t figure that out. And ultimately, The episode kept getting weighed down. Like, uh, imagine a, you know, a beautiful hot air balloon as it’s inflating, and it felt like I’m watching this beautiful hot air balloon inflating, and then somebody keeps putting weights into the middle of it. That just immediately pushed down big parts of it.

It couldn’t fill up entirely to lift the whole thing up. It kept getting pinned to the ground by these plot holes like we have in the community of the anar. , uh, we were presented with the character of Lassan is the spokesperson for the nr, and then Jamel is the young woman who it’s revealed her brother has disappeared a year earlier.

So we’re given the fact that the Romulan came and kidnapped somebody from a reclusive group of people that until. Just a few generations earlier, the Andorians themselves didn’t know actually existed. ? Yes. How? Yes. And what? Yes. Like the Romulan showing up to kidnap somebody like I like

this Is, this is, I, I’m in a completely agreement.

That’s why I said the whole, the entire Romulan plot wine of this episode is just makes no sense. It’s so Saturday morning cartoon. Yeah. There’s no logic to it. I wrote down in my notes of how the hell did Romulan get to Andoria to steal a species that they themselves didn’t know. for 50 years. Like And get away with it.

Yeah. And nobody f found them. It’s like, for what reason? End Dorians are so paranoid. Yeah. About maintaining their border. How would the Rhys do that? Yes. They may have cloaking the technology and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But it’s, it’s still one of those, the whole idea that this is what they did is just so to me, preposterous.

Yeah. That it was kind of like, okay, let’s just wash, let that wash over me and just forget about it. So it’s like I’m in a complete agreement that that whole stuff makes no sense.

Yeah. It’s this plotting for, for convenience. In order to get character moments, we need Jamel to have a connection to the Romulan threat.

It has to be her brother. So that’s why it’s an NR that is in the pilot seat. And when we finally have the communication between the two of them, which there was part of me that was like, is this hokey or is this fine? Like the way that they communicate with one another. Where we’re given very extreme closeups with flashing lights on the faces, and I think I liked it.

I think I was just like, okay, this is, this is a little different. This is different from what we’ve seen in other. Depictions of this kind of moment. The closest that I could think of, of that kind of thing is what we see now in the Marvel movies. Whenever we see anybody in an Iron Man, iron Man suit, you get that super close up with all the, the CGI graphics floating over their heads.

But the conversation, it’s revealed that her brother GRE has been told that all of his people were wiped out. And I was left just thinking. Is that like, does any of that make any sense that you would take somebody who was a pacifist, tell ’em everybody on your planet was wiped out and so now you need to exact revenge.

He’s a telepath to tell to a telepath. He’s a telepath. He wouldn’t be able to tell that they were lying like. Like what, what, what’s happening now? And stuff like that. Kept feeling like weights dropped on the story where Shran Archer dialogue and adventuring on a planet, the look of the planet itself. I love the fact that they had the ice worms that were dropping through.

That Jamal told a story. It was a very clever way of making us feel an emotional connection to her. She says, my brother and I chased them for for hours, and we ended up catching so many, and even the depiction of the nr, who were clearly pacifist and isolationist and operate in a telepathic world as opposed to a visual one.

And. The Andorian experience of that being like, yeah, we didn’t even know they were here. I wanted more of that. I wanted the story to be about the andorians discovering this group of people, and I kept thinking, wouldn’t this story have been more interesting if the Romulan thread had been solved in the first two parts of this?

Because ultimately the, the final. Threat here is, oh, there’s not one drone, there’s two. So this guy is now piloting two ships that he then turns against each other. My favorite part of the battle between the two drones is they look like they’re trying to escape and outdo one another when he is the pilot of both.

Mm-hmm. . He could just fly them into each other. Like there’s nothing about that final sequence that makes any sense. It’s visually stunning. The special effects are really cool. But I found myself, so Sean,

this, this comes back to the. Saturday morning cartoon. Yeah, the Ramian plot line makes zero sense.

It’s just there for action and stuff to happen on screen and it, to me, that is where this episode completely falls flat. But this is where I would say I’m, maybe I’m taking the reading differently of the whole Archer bu the buddy cop storyline. because it was about, um, dealing with loss. So it was focused on Shran and it was focused on, what was her name?

I’m blanking on her name. The young

woman Jamele. The young woman. Jamele. Yeah. Yeah. So

the two of them both have experienced traumatic loss? Yes. And that was their connection. And it was them kind of coming to terms with that loss. Here’s Shran who just lost his fiance and he’s helping to, he’s kind of coming to terms with.

with this young woman, and it’s not that he’s in love with this young woman. He almost feels like fatherly towards her. He seems to want to care for her and take care of her and it, and it’s helping him to get through his grief and then sh. Flip side, he’s helping her deal with her conflict and emotional distress.

Yeah. Over her brother. So for me that was enough. So you’re saying it’s like eating popcorn and it’s like, okay. Yeah. Some of the captain and Shran stuff was like popcorn, the buddy cop, but to me there was an emotional through line that was carried enough of the episode for me, which is why I think I did like it better than you for that storyline.

Between the two of them, it was Shran and the Anar that I thought. was great. And then on the flip side you had that B storyline with Trip and Te Paul and then Flocks coming in and being, you know, giving advice. That stuff I thought was just as compelling emotionally with, and I, I agree completely. The best, the most emotional scene in the entire show was that final scene between Trip and the captain.

Yeah. Where Trip is just barely holding himself together, saying I have to leave. So for me, this episode, I really did enjoy it. I thought it was actually pretty good. But my God, that whole Romulan storyline was like so bad. . It was like, here’s

the thing. Horrendous. You could’ve had everything you’re talking about.

That’s, that’s my problem is that you could have had everything, if they cut out the Romulan stuff they could’ve done, if they put the Romulan stuff out. I, I kept thinking like, there’s a storyline here where they’re returning Shran to Andoria and the captain is accompanying him in a shuttle craft down to Andoria, and there’s something that happens on the craft and they end.

crashing on the surface. Yes. Crashing and train is like, yes, we’re in a wild area, but I should be able to help find us a safe place where we can hold up until your ship or my people are able to find us. Go into a cave. Yes. And then they have their in R experience and he could still have all of that. Yes.

And I, and I kept finding myself thinking like, was it really worth holding onto the Romulan for this third episode? It’s, it just didn’t, the

a r The A r experience sounds like a Disney ride. . It does, it does. I’m, I wanna go on the a r experience, but yes, I’m an agreement. They could have excised the RH and storyline.

Done exactly what you’re doing, talking about. It would’ve given them more chance to kind of really flesh that out, really kind of build it out into something even more compelling, and it would’ve been a far superior episode. And it’s

weird too, because you have the Romulan saying things that they’re saying.

Well, meanwhile, the conversation between Trip and to Paul is so well written. . It’s just, yes, you have this Romulan guy saying like, I was a senator and now I run this program. And meanwhile, you have a very sophisticated writing style for the conversation between Tripp and to Paul, where Tripp is like, you can’t do this thing.

She says, there’s reasons why I have to be the one, I’m the ranking officer. This conversation’s over and then they have a follow up conversation in which it. Him basically realizing in the conversation like, I’m not doing my job. And it’s, there’s layers of subtext in all those scenes and I’m just like, this is masterfully put together.

Meanwhile, yeah, I was a senator. Like, it just like the, it’s like it was written by two different people and I think that it’s, it’s demonstrated that the creators knew like, this is the cartoony stuff and this is the stuff that matters. Yeah,

that’s what I think it was. When they came up with this three story arc, it felt to me like they had all the plot for what was gonna weave them together.

And then each one had, you know, a secondary element that they were layering in and it felt like, It, even though it wasn’t two, it didn’t feel like two separate writers to me. It felt like they were basically just trying to check the boxes of, this is the plot line we have to do, because that’s what we set it up.

We have to wrap it up, yada, yada, yada. Mm-hmm. , but here’s what we really care about. And so it’s like, I agree with you. The, the writing was top notch on all that stuff. It’s just, to me, it’s another one of. Missed opportunity episodes. Like there was a, there was a, there was a golden nugget of an episode and they just completely missed it.

But to me, I still did enjoy what was there. As long as you can turn off your brain on the RHY stuff cuz it

was just unnecessary. Yeah. And I also wanna put my vote in for a audiobook or podcast story around Dr Phlox, read by John Billingsley. because like listening to this guy talk about anything as Dr, Phlox is just so calming.

He’s such a good character , and he has mm-hmm. a fantastic scene with Tripp as they’re putting together what is supposed to be a device, which somehow they’ve magically been able to figure out exactly what sort of array the Ramos put together to allow the drone ship to be controlled. They build a similar thing to be able to try and disrupt.

The piloting of the drone ship. And so Flox is heavily involved in building a machine along with DePaul and Tripp. And Tripp ends up having a conversation with Flox, which is basically, how do I get over a broken heart dead? And it is so moving and honest and flock’s response is so caring. and limited because he is like you’re dealing with heartache, which nobody has figured out how to do without, and it is one of the nicest moments between coworkers who have clearly become friends.

Trip is not going to sick bay because Doc, I got a broken heart. He’s standing there with a colleague. He knows he can. and these revealing stuff and flocks knows it’s, he looks at flocks and he knows flocks, knows how I feel and he can’t get beyond it and even has the little dig of like, you’re the one who started all this cuz you sent me to her for Vulcan acupuncture.

And he’s like, Hey you, you wanted to sleep , this is nothing to do with me. I was trying to help you sleep. Uh, it’s a really, really beautifully rendered moment. So I go back again. I think the biggest point of contention in this conversation is that Matt thinks, I didn’t like this episode as much as he did.

I liked all of those moments. Those moments did have meat on the bone. It’s just the, the stuff that was a little area a little. more of a hand wave. Um mm-hmm. kept taking me out of those moments. I kept feeling like, oh, I’m, this is really comp. Oh yeah, the Vulcans, uh, I mean the Romulan like, it kept like resurfacing as like, don’t forget you’re watching a TV show, which is really kind of silly right now.

And like, oh yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. Having the, the final scene. Including a line from the admiral who’s in charge of this entire program. He makes a line, he makes a statement in this episode, which is that the a and r that they have captive, who’s the pilot is expendable In what context? I mean, it just doesn’t make any, even within the reality of their own scenes, they are self-contradictory and don’t make any sense.

Yeah. So it’s things like that that kept making me think like, oh, I’m watching a tv. , whereas there would be other scenes that would make you feel like, oh, I’m watching really compelling storytelling. Yeah. I

mean,

there’s two things I actually wanna call out that are not exactly related to that, but for me, like I enjoyed the, I enjoyed the buddy cop aspect of this so much.

Yeah. Um, there’s a great scene when they’re talking to the a and r and the captain. She basically says, we. Read people’s minds without permission. Yeah. Like, do you want me to do that? And then Shran is like, don’t do that. Yeah.

Like that moment, he’s just this little nod that’s, I don’t you dare

I, I love what she says to him about, you have an interesting mind captain, but some facets are really in conflict.

And then it comes to Shran who says, That explains a lot. . Yeah. And the captain just goes, Shran. . Yeah. I just like that entire scene. It was just such fun, lighthearted. Yeah. I, I just thought it was really nice. And the other thing I’m gonna call out is, , every time the Endor are on, whoever was in control, those little antenna, the puppeteer of those little antenna deserves like an Emmy because Special Emmy well done because they, they reflect the emotion so well.

There’s like little moments where like, they’re pulling that like helmet down over her and they, they, they go, they tip back. Yeah. So that they can come over. And I was just like, oh man. Whoever was offering those. Yeah. Like, it’s like Chef’s Kiss. You did a wonderful job. Layering onto the performance of the after themselves.

It was so well done. It really is a case where the special effects team at that point is a part of the performance and it really, yes, it’s not just making an alien look weird or making something look scary or making a neat looking special effect of the um, spaceship battles, which in this one there is really.

Stuff like that, but I had the exact same response when that visor is brought down over her head. I was just like, it’s, you wouldn’t even know that it wasn’t actually, I mean, you think about watching like a dog walk around the way their ears Yes. Adjust as whatever’s going on around them, and they just instinctively will avoid bumping into things with these appendages that are on the outside of their head and it’s going on with, with that special effect.

It really, really stands out as. A high level skill in the team. And it’s interesting because I’ve been rewatching in the background. I put it on just like as, as sort of like a radio show in the background for myself while I’m working. I’ve been rewatching Babylon five. and what stood out to me about that show in my memory was I, I think it’s one of those programs that has one of the most compelling long story arcs of a program of showing all the difference between.

All the different races that are at play, all the different communities and how they all come together to work together. And I really appreciate that. It has been a long time since I watched the show and I’m watching some of the earliest episodes, like literally like the first three or four. And what’s striking me is it really was a labor of love.

You could tell everybody doing this really wanted to make it work, but it is extremely date. it is. It does not hold up in special effects. It does not hold up in acting sets, scenery, but you can see the love and effort that was going into it. and the kind of moment that Matt just described of the antenna working the way they do is that kind of commitment.

A little tiny detail, but it does so much mm-hmm. to make the, the show work and a way that lets you as a viewer fall into it and become immersed in it. So I really do appreciate that. So our back and forth, I think, you know, we keep rehashing the same things and like I said, I. Didn’t hate this episode. If I was gonna create a list of episodes for somebody to watch, I think I would suggest watching these Endurant episodes, and I’m watching all three of them to get the full arc, but I just did not feel like this one lived up to the level of the previous two.

And I think it’s mm-hmm , it fully rests in the Romulan threat at this point, feeling superfluous and. Next time we’re gonna be talking about the episode Affliction. Any idea, Matt, about what that’s about? Somebody’s sick. Hmm? Somebody’s being afflicted maybe? Yeah. We’ll find out. Maybe before we sign off, Matt, is there anything you’d like to remind our listeners about that might be on your other channel?

Yeah. Uh, stay tuned cuz there’s a, I don’t know if you’ve been aware of it, but there’s been a gas stove controversy here in the United States about us potentially banning. We’re not painting them, uh, but making a big deal out of gas stoves. You can’t take my gas stove. I have a episode coming up on are they really that bad or is all cooktops, do they all suck?

Um, and what’s the best path? So that, that was kinda a fun one to pull together.

As for me, if you’re interested in finding out more about my books, you can check out my website, sean Ferrell dot com. You can also look for me on Amazon or barnes and noble.com. Or ask for my books at your local bookstore.

Don’t forget, in June of this year, 2023, I will have a new series starting, which is for middle grade readers or anybody who just loves adventure stories. It is the Sinister Secrets of Singe, which is the story of a young boy who discovers his father is an evil genius who has created robots that might destroy the city that he lives in.

So if you’re interested, I hope you’ll check that out. Don’t forget, if you’d like to support the show, Please leave a review at Apple, Google, Spotify, wherever it was you found us. Go back there and leave a review. Don’t forget to subscribe and share us with your friends. And if you’d like to more directly support us, you can go to Trek in Time dot show.

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