Episode 700 - Diving Deep into 'Orders of Magnitude'

0:05 Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready. Old Bob, Sam, Word of Stories, Deltas, Intern, Balthasar, Scimitar, Death of Tashina, Flash, Gordon, Bradger, Stormtroopers, and Clone. Wars, James, Walton, Tweety, John, Koenig. And Sidney. Can we talk about the series?

0:45 You can join us live by picking up your phone now. Can we talk about the series? We're coming to. You on your feelings for the series now. Can we talk about the series? Comics, books, and games, we go beyond the snow now. We talk about the series. Come and join us as we stick and chat and we can go on and. On and on. Well, good evening, Trekkies and Trekkers around the globe. It's Thursday, September 17th, 2026. Welcome to episode 699 of Trek.

1:31 Talkin' and Beyond. I'm your host, Texan host, Uncle Jim, and I'm getting a strange sense of deja vu. I'm getting a strange sense of deja vu. I feel like I've been here before. But anyways, I'd like to go around the room and introduce my awesome Trek experts. Let's go out to Portland and say hello to David. How are you doing tonight, David? Pretty good. It's still really hot over here, though, so, you know, nothing changed. It's hot and raining here in Vermont as well. Well, I think my version of hot and yours are two different things, but that's okay. And also out in Portland, we have our very own Eric. How are you doing tonight, Eric? I'm doing really well. I am surprisingly juiced after having just seen Paul interview Brian Volkweis.

2:14 That was riveting. It was so much fun. Uh, so yeah, happy to be here doing this show, but, uh, also you should check out the one just before this one. Cause it was awesome. It was indeed. And let's stay in Portland and say hello to our very own toy guy. Oh, how you doing today? I'm doing great. Uncle Jim. That was, uh, as Eric mentioned, uh, Previously, we were able to have Brian Volkweis on here, the wonderful luminary behind Nacelle Toys. And man, I'm telling you, I feel like all my action figure dreams for Star Trek may stand a chance of coming true after talking to Brian. So really amazing guest. What a gent, man. That's the best way to describe him. So it was super, super fun. And oh, friends, do we have an episode to talk to you about tonight. I'm just like... Marron ami.

3:05 I'm telling you. So really damn glad to be here would be how I would describe it. I agree. It's going to be fun. Let's swing out to Las Vegas and say hello to Charles. How are you doing tonight, Charles? I'm doing good. The weather's cooling down closer to fall-like temperatures. We're actually in the 90s instead of the 100s. A little breeze and a storm coming through, so it's cooling down a little bit, and I can enjoy being outside. As you see the cloud in the background actually are moving. If you guys missed our interview with Brian, you can go to trektalking.com and you can find that there. Well, you won't find it there yet because.

3:46 I haven't uploaded it, but tomorrow it will be there. And you can check out that interview. You can support Trek Talking by simply liking these posts and sharing them. Tonight, we're going to talk about Strange New World Season 4, Episode 8, Borders of Magnitude. We have our fan shout-outs. That's where we thank fans just like you for supporting us. Charles is going to have a cadet review. We have our fan reactions, fan scores, our sci-fi birthdays, and what's going on around the Star Trek universe. So without any further ado, Eric, would you like to get us started with our fan shout-outs? I absolutely would, Jim. Our very first fan shout out this week goes out to Markus Basler, who is a top fan from Dusseldorf, Germany. And Markus is a top fan because he interacts with us a lot on our social medias. And we really appreciate that because it's much better to not shout into the void and not get a response. It's much better to get a response, right?

4:46 Yeah. So thank you for doing that from Dusseldorf. Hope to visit there one day myself. Glad to have you here, Markus. Also saying hello this week to Gina Delle Peoli, who's from Roma, Italy, sending us that beautiful Italian flag and a live long and prosper. I have to tell you at this point in my life, I've been to your city a couple of times and I love Rome so much. There's so many amazing things to love there. One of my favorite things to do when I was there was drinking a bottle of wine on the front steps of the Pantheon. It's just it's the best way to go, really. Thanks, Gina, for saying hi to us. Also saying hello this week to Gustavo Naranjo, who is from Costa Rica, sending us that beautiful Costa Rican flag. Live long and prosper. And like a little smart guy with glasses. Not sure about that, but I love it. It's all super cute and attention grabbing, which is how you end up on the show, Gustavo.

5:39 You know that at this point. Thanks for saying hi to us. And last but not least on my list, I'd like to say hello this week to Riks Spierd from Groningen in Holland. And I have to tell you, You're not the first person that I have met. Well, we haven't met, but you're not the first person I've heard of from Groningen. I had a good friend back in college who was from that city. So perhaps if you ever met or knew Pimboss, you could say hi to him. From Eric. Thanks, Reeks. Charles, I'm going to pass this over to you since we're missing V this week. What do you say? Oh, thank you, Eric. Sorry, V couldn't make it tonight. She was feeling under the weather this morning. Let's start off with a welcome to Andrew Nathan from Melbourne, Australia.

6:23 I wonder if Andrew knows that guy. Welcome Maxwell Tidwell from Wilton Manors, Florida. Welcome, Maxwell. Welcome Ron Jelenk from Grand Island, Nebraska. And last on the list, welcome Linda Stanley-Owen from Newport Beach, California, now with Texas Transplants at 71. Oh, I bet you missed Newport. Beautiful beach. Welcome Donnie Brady from West Virginia, USA.

7:05 Welcome, Brady. Welcome Darren Collins, who's a top fan from Washington, D.C., He waves a U.S. Flag and a Vulcan salute. Welcome, Daryl. Welcome, Dwayne Royal. I'm from the. Nihalatal Mountains in western Northern Carolina, close to Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. Welcome, Dwayne. And the last one on my. List, welcome, Chris Besaw. I am from Lower Saksville, Nova Scotia. Welcome, Chris. Paul, I'm going to pass the megaphone over to you.

7:46 Thank you, Charles. Appreciate it, my friend. Okay, we have folks all over this planet, clinging on to every, did I just say cling on? Clinging on to every latitude and longitude that you can think of, right? Okay, and let's prove that by seeing as many different countries as we can find. First of all, we're going to say hello to our friend Lhotse Cheek. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, Lhotse, because Lhotse is from Lusaka, Zambia, and I'm seeing the flag there, and the Vulcan, get out of my way, friends, sign, because I'm coming through. Lusaka Zambia, amazing. I would love to go and explore that part of the world. Lotsi, I hope I'm saying your name even partially correct, but it's great to hear from you. Thanks so much for reaching out and showing us that we have Star Trek fans. everywhere.

8:32 And Paul, this is the first time that we have heard from somebody from Zambia. Is this a national first? This is a national first. You keep track of these things, right? I do. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a national first. So I'm pretty excited. Excellent. Well, Lhotse, you've helped us make history here on Trek Talking tonight. So excellent. And Lhotse, between you and me, if you know anybody in Antarctica, I know that country is one of Eric's white whales, if you will. He's dying to get that to happen. So I may have to go there. That may be the only way that this happens. So moving on to the fabulous Czechia, AKA Czech Republic, parliamentary Republic over there, landlocked as it may be between so many other wonderful countries, Austria, Germany, Poland, uh, Budapest, I mean, just so many great places up in the same vicinity. It's a very safe and remarkably cool place to live. We have Leos Zlatnicek. I believe I'm saying that right. Leos, I hope so. Zlatnicek from Chechnya, giving us again a lot of Vulcan solidarity amongst our fans here tonight and a very cheerful smiley face emoji. So Leos, it's wonderful to know that you're out there Hope you have a great winter there in Europe. Gosh, I envy folks who get to spend winter in Europe. Amazing. Stephen Murphy.

9:55 Or could it be Stephen Murphy? I'm not sure. A town called Mallow in County Corp. Ireland. A flag prominently positioned there. And Stephen says, Trekkie for life, and don't you forget it, right? I mean, that is fantastic. So... County Cork. I know some folks that might be related to my family living over there. So pretty cool. Excited to hear from you. And from Cairo, the city of the living and a paradise on earth in Egypt, it's our pal Ali Mohamed is signing in. Ali, great to hear from you. Cairo is one of those magical destinations that everybody in their life, I hope, gets a chance to visit. It's on my list. I'm very excited to go there myself and partake of its splendorous wonders. So as we've proven, folks, in a scientific method, there are clearly Star Trek and science fiction fans replete across this very globe. Even in humble corners of New Jersey, Poughkeepsie, where else do we have fans, Uncle Jim?

11:03 Why, thank you so much, Paul. Now, I don't have any emojis. Everyone gets emojis but me. Guys, send me some emojis on our Facebook page. So I want to say hello and thank you to Belladonna Graves, who's listening to us right now in New Hampshire, just across the border from where I am sitting at this very moment. We also want to say hello and thank you to Mary L. Coons, who says, originally from Philadelphia, PA, now existing in Vermont. I love how she says existing. And I can tell you, Mary, I relate to that. I, sadly enough, exist here as well. So nice to have you.

11:45 We also want to say hello and thank you to Lois Cohen, who's in Newark, New Jersey. Thank you, Lois. And last but not least, we want to say hello, thank you, and kapow, to Bill Schrebner, who's in Auburn, Massachusetts. If you guys would like to be featured on a grand shout-out, please go to our Facebook page, Trek Talking and Beyond. You will see the Live Long and Prosper post pinned at the top. Of the page. Tell us where you're from. Leave lots of emojis. It gets my attention. If you see a heart next to your name from yours truly, Uncle Jim, you'll be featured in a future fan shout-out. All right, guys. Oh, and while you're on our Facebook page, you can answer our polls. And speaking of polls, David, roll the tape.

12:30 Pullin', pullin', pullin'. You know me like no win. What you thought about the show and me trovin'. To. Share your opinions with all of our minions. They're there because they listen. So tell us just what you think, and together we will all dream. Kadar and Romulan ALT. Now, with the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, I thought it might be fun to find out what the fans would pick for their all-time 60th anniversary crew. And so far, the crew of the USS Shaqari includes Scotty.

13:16 As our chief engineer, and Eric. What's going on now? What's our latest poll? Well, this week we are talking about chief of security. So as the captain of your ship, who would you choose? And we have Eight choices pictured on the screen here by David, and we're going to go through them from least popular to most popular. 1% of our responders said that they would go with Ellen Landry. Ellen Landry, there you go. Yeah, not many people know who she is, I think. Similarly, only 3% said none, despite the fact that she did play prominently in at least one season of Star Trek Discovery. Um, but, uh, you know, not a super popular character. So, uh, non came in at seventh in sixth place. We have Chekhov and I have all check. I, is he, is he chief of security?

14:12 Is that his Chekhov chief of security? I don't remember. He was security after he was in a star Trek, uh, six, he was security. Ah, okay. Okay. He was weapons officer in the motion picture. It's hard to. He was weapons officer, which on TNG, weapons officer was also security, so. Ah. Yeah. Yeah, it was a good... It's a fair choice, yeah. Okay, well, 4% of our. He's what you call a jack-of-all-trades show. Yeah. So 4% of our responders did go with Pavel Chekhov. That's awesome. In fifth place... We have Malcolm Reed from Enterprise with 5% of our votes. I think Malcolm Reed deserves more than that. He was a pretty sharp chief of security, actually. He was the only chief of security who I've really felt always did his job. You know, Worf would sometimes forget to do his job or do it poorly. Malcolm was always on point. But only 5% of you agree. In fourth place, we have Tasha Yar.

15:23 Tasha Yar got 6% of the votes. She probably could have been an even better Chief of Security had she not been killed by Armus. In third place, we have La'an. That's right, our new Chief of Security with 13% of the vote. So as much as the last three people or so combined. So that's pretty good. But then we have the big two. In second place... We have Worf, son of Moog. That's right. With 26% of the vote, Worf as chief of security got second place. And with a whopping 45% of the vote, maybe deserves more. We have the constable himself, Odo. That's right. Basically Sherlock Holmes.

16:13 Basically also a super security chief. basically also can turn into anything and like pour through little tiny cracks. I mean, who are you going to choose? You're going to choose the guy who's a shapeshifter every single time. Plus he's got a rather surly disposition that I find delightful. So there you go. That's our top eight security people. Odo is number one. And so now accompanying Scotty in engineering, we have Odo as our chief of security on the USS Shaqiri. And I believe the next week is the doctor, I think. Was that the doctor, David, that we did? I think it was. Yeah, chief of medical or something like that. Chief medical officer. CMO. Yep.

16:54 Okay, guys. So at this point in the show, we do our cadet training. And for that, I'm going to hand the microphone over to Charles. Take it away, Charles. Thank you, Jim. Thanks. Okay, cadet training, where I sit there and talk about how this episode ties into other Star Trek episodes. NTOS, City on the Edge of Forever, which I got to see on the big screen, is where we first saw Cortizene, which is what the doctor gave Kirk. And I think what they used trying to help the Admiral out.

17:35 General Order 24, an order to destroy all life and entire planet. This order has been given by Captain Gareth on Antos IV, Captain Kirk on MNR 7, and Admiral Simon Rieger on Argus II. On none of these occasions were the order actually fulfilled. Kirk called an order of last resort while arguing with Rieger about it. TOS, Whom Gods Destroy, Taserberg Armageddon, and Strange New Worlds Order of Magnitude. I know a topic that Eric loves.

18:15 Evil admirals. Lead Admiral Alexander Marcus. Star Trek Into Darkness. Admiral Eric Pressman. Star Trek TNG, The Pegasus. Rear Admiral Nora Sati. From TNG, Drumhead. And then TOS, Doomsday Machine, season two. Deadly Years, season two. Voyager, Tinker Tanner, Dr. Spies. Season six, where they use Starfleet Order 104, section.

18:56 B and C. This is where the Doctor will relieve the Captain from duty when they don't think they are mentally stable enough or able to command so paul i bet you're biting the bit to sit there and tell us about this episode. A little bit you know and i i try to really hold off my personal opinions until later if i can when i talk about the episode more in depth but just starting this recap i'm i'm super excited because there was some Damn good writing happening in this particular episode, in which episode number eight, Orders of Magnitude, Lieutenant Commander James T. Kirk finds himself serving as first officer on the Enterprise while a decorated war hero turns a personal vendetta into a dangerous command crisis. That's your setup, okay?

19:53 To begin with, Captain Pike, Number One, Uhura, Chapel, and Cadet Asha. Apparently, Pike only travels with females. This is what I've noticed on the episode. They head down to this Class M moon with an elaborate cave system answering an emergency distress call. taking them off the ship. Meanwhile, highly respected Admiral Simon Rieger, portrayed by the wonderful Joe Morton, we'll talk more about him later, he comes on board the Enterprise in search of a stealth alien vessel that is elusive as can be and is evidently responsible for a devastating Varden massacre. And he is determined to bring that ship to justice. With Pike stranded and out of communication, James Kirk, who's visiting, he becomes the senior officer on board and steps in as Admiral Rieger's first officer. And very, very quickly, Rieger becomes obsessed with destroying this enemy ship and eventually invokes extreme measures, as Charles intimated, General Order 24.

21:05 that threaten an innocent planetary biosphere in its entirety and all the beings that live on that planet. We end up finding out that Rieger himself has a history with Kirk's father, George Kirk, who they serve together, kind of claiming in this disappointed way that his father, George Kirk, lacked the killer instinct that was necessary to do good back during the Klingon War, where they both served. Later on, we find out from Dr. Mbenga that that wasn't necessarily the case in that particular battle, that it may be that George Kirk did more than popular notions had it, and that perhaps somebody ended up to take credit for something that they shouldn't have to ruin his reputation out of ego and grief. Realizing that Admiral Rieger has completely lost his objectivity and is basically unfit for duty, Kirk provokes and deliberately agitates the Admiral into a violent rage.

22:16 And after he successfully gets Rieger to physically lash out, Mabenga legally declares the Admiral medically unfit for command. And ultimately, Laan has to neutralize him with a phaser stun, right? Down on the planet, though, there's a lot going on throughout all this, where there's an amazing situation where we find out that Pike stepped into a trap. The whole business of a distress call was like a lure to trick them into coming in there, where there is a party of Andorian soldiers that are there who take everybody prisoner. And I'll let some of the other Trexperts go into that, because I know at least one of my Trexperts on here, one of my Trexperts, one of us mutual Trexperts, has a lot of big love for Andorians. And I'd really like that Trexpert to weigh in on that B story, if you will, which I thought was really interesting. And for me, I like Andorians too, and it was really exciting.

23:17 So there's a lot of cutting back and forth between events going on up on the Enterprise with his visiting Admiral and things going escalating down in the caverns of the planet with the Andorians. It's really great. The episode is a lot about approaches to command, the boundaries of following orders. I'll be happy to come back later on and talk a little bit more about this episode and give it a rating number. But I would say this is definitely, certainly, it's no spoiler to say that Orders of Magnitude is one of the best episodes of the season so far. And it gives us a lot to talk about but i'm pretty sure before we actually go there and all the treksperts have like you know kind of uh big horse bits in their mouth they're ready to go in here but um eric is got a voluminous category of all the different things some of our fans have to say did our fans dig this episode e what do you say man are they are they high on on this stuff what do you.

24:19 Think as Only one way to tell Paul, we have to tell their story. And the story of Ronald Paul Woods is that he's a top fan and he gave it a solid nine. It would have been a 10, but he can't wrap his head around Pike and Una both going on a dangerous away mission. That shit happens at Star Trek. All the time. Has this guy ever watched Star Trek ever? I mean, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy went on every way. Constantly, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it's just what you do in Star Trek. But didn't Pike say in the beginning, didn't he say, Una, you're a woman, you have to go with me on this landing party. Oh, this is a landing party of only women. Well, you know, Paul, I mean, I was thinking about that. And, you know, the fact is that, like, it reads that way, but we actually have women on the ship now in places of command when we didn't used to have that.

25:05 How crazy was that, man? So, you know, maybe that's as simple as all it is. Yeah, that's all I got. I got it. Okay. Well, anyway, thanks, Ron, for your opinions on that. And you gave it a nine. Joe Sittig also gave it a nine. The Kirk story was great. Joe Morton was incredible. Paul Wesley, too. The cave B plot. You could tell some stuff died in editing, but also caves. Who doesn't love a good cave story? Can't disagree, Joe. Charlie Zimmerman gave it a 10. Good suspense, good action, a few small touches of natural humor, and excellent character moments. Appreciated that they didn't feel the need to answer every question. Leaned into the chapel slash embenga rift a little harder than I would like, but that's clearly an arc that's still building into a climax.

25:53 Thanks, Charlie. Good review. Doug Garlinger gave it a 10. When you put Eli Pope of Scandal in command. You know he wants to kill a lot of people. You don't take command. Kirk in command takes you. Thanks, Doug. Sabrina Inej Raya said, well, because there's so much that can still be done, I have to go with a solid nine. It seems to be going in the correct direction for Star Trek. Clearly with Pike and this period of time before Kirk becomes captain of the Enterprise, there's many opportunities to create excellent shows that will be in the seven, eight, or nine range. Living Room, for a solid 10. Every once in a while, landing a 10 is essentially what Sabrina was saying. Thank you so much.

26:41 Ashley Williams also gave it a perfect 10. My nitpicks were not enough to bring it down. Conversely, Morton Trotter only gave it a 6. They said it was definitely one of the better episodes of the season, but this season, that's not saying much. The writing wasn't that great, and Joe Morton acting... was overdone. I'm sorry, I need to go wash my mouth. Wow. Love you, buddy. All right, here we go. Eduardo Oliveira gave it a 10 with an exclamation point and 20 for Paul Wesley's portrayal of Kirk and 20 to Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura.

27:24 She was great. Yeah. Ever think we'd see Brewer kick that much butt? I didn't, and I was pleasantly surprised. Michelle Sparrow gave it a 10 out of 10 with a couple of cute emojis. And Fliss Lawrence, who we heard from last week, I remember because that sounds familiar, gave it a 10. Great backstory for James T. Kirk. I also appreciated the subtle nod to veterans with PTSD who feel pressured to ignore their symptoms and act normal. I acknowledge that there are a few plot holes, like the Federation allowing a captain, now admiral, to misrepresent his role in a pivotal battle, with ship video logs that would contradict him and letting him continue to undermine his first officer's career. I like the acknowledgement that the Federation is imperfect. I did find the Subterranean Andorian subplot hard to believe, but it makes sense in light of Uhura's promotion.

28:15 Fan score combined this week of 9.4. Yeah, 9.4. That's a serious fan score. Let's see. It looks like it was only bested by the very first episode this season, which the fans gave a 9.7. So, second best of the season, according to our fans. Well, you know what, Eric? I'm going to give it a solid 10. I am so excited, you know what, to see Star Trek like this. Oh, my God. If they can write episodes this good, why are they doing gimmicky crap? Why aren't they writing stuff like this every week? Come on, guys. This episode was perfect. This episode had it all.

28:58 I don't want to... Uhura? The last time I saw Uhura kick ass like that was in the Kelvin Universe movies. So to see them utilize Uhura just did me proud. I had a tear in my eye when they mentioned him. At the end, when she got her promotion, I was like, oh, my God, this is just wow. Kirk, you know, a couple episodes ago, we got to see Scotty turn the corner. Now we get to see Kirk do the same thing. Wow, what can I say? Phenomenal acting by Paul Wesley. Great script. Lots of action. The albumer was a dink.

29:42 But I'll let Eric talk about that. I loved it. I loved it, loved it, loved it. Please, please bring on more episodes like this. You've proven you can do it. Please keep doing it. And let's stay away from the Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island and all this other garbage. And just write Star Trek like this, because, wow, outstanding, phenomenal, perfect 10 from me. And with that, oh, and what did V, I asked V in the chat to score, and I don't remember what she said. What did V score? A 9.75.

30:24 Okay, V gave it a 9.75 because she couldn't be with us tonight. So 10 for me and a 9.75 from V. David, you want to jump in next? Sure, yeah. I have to agree with you, Jim. This episode probably gave me a little bit of a breather from all the other episodes that we had to suffer through. But this one actually made me think that... with now, since we got somewhat of a backstory of Kirk's father and more interactions with the brother, Sam makes me wonder if they're going to be doing a reboot, then yeah, we're going to be getting more and more backstories as everything unfolds. And, you know, it'd be really fun to watch.

31:15 So I can't wait for that to happen. But, uh, Yeah, I do have a couple of nitpicks that I was kind of wondering about. So the idea with the Andorian at the very. End, the. Guy gets crumbled down with the slag mite coming down. It was just like the editing part was just like, why didn't he move? It seems like a long time for him to scream and whatnot. To me, that was just a little bit of a probably editing problem. However, yeah, so.... Let's see, there's not much else in here that I wanted to really say, but I really did like Ahura's ability to just fight or flight situations. You don't know what your body can do, and so people can just surprise you. I actually enjoyed watching the idea that she was able to remember her training, as Pike would say.

32:16 So that was really cool. Let's see, what else? I like the plot twist with Mbenga was the one that actually he didn't actually slip him wait so remind me, was it Mbenga who actually slipped the Admiral the courtesan? Or was it actually Kirk? No, it was Kirk. Kirk put it in his coffee. Right, okay. For some reason I thought it was the other way around. Okay, so It was an interesting plot twist to me that he tried to save Kirk that way.

32:58 But at the same time, it makes me wonder, because I'm trying to remember the episode with Mbenga from the original TOS. Was he still in Starfleet? Or was he just kind of like a civilian now? No, he was a medical specialist. So he was no longer, or he wasn't the, they don't say that. I think he's from an institute. He's not from Starfleet. Okay, so he did actually pretty much lost his job and everything. Okay. I mean, we didn't really know that until now, but yeah. I mean, it's interesting how they're trying to make it continuity-wise to put the two together. So I actually give him a plot for that. And yeah, I think everybody in here did an excellent job. I really liked the acting.

33:44 I really liked the plot. And it was a well-balanced... and it didn't seem like it kind of like lagged or anything, except for that one enduring part of the death scene. But, uh, other than that, yeah, I'm going to have to give this a 10. Wow. It's pretty respectable so far. And Eric, how about you? You want to jump in here? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of, it kind of felt like this episode was made for me. Uh, so yeah. Um, no question that I agree with everything everybody has said so far. So I just want to add my own thoughts about, um, Simon Rieger played by Joe Morton. I mean, as Paul said, that man can act and the, I disagree with the, the, um, the person who contacted us and said that it was overacted. I don't think that's true at all. In fact, uh, I think, you know, even though this was kind of like the classic bad moral sort of situation, um, The reason that he was so good, that Joe Martin was so good, is not only because he's a very skilled actor, but the way the character was written is written like all of the best bad admirals, which is that the admiral 100% believes in what they're doing and that it is the absolute right thing to do. In this case, we've got him saying, you know, I will sacrifice, you know, a relative handful of people to save, uh, to save millions of people.

35:18 So he's doing this calculus of the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few. And, um, you know, it's clear that he hasn't, he hasn't seen Star Trek two. Um, you know, Spock teaches us that that's not all necessarily, um, the case, but in this one, he was so good. And he actually, it kind of gave me a little, a little bit of, um, of vibes of Charles mentioned Satie from The Drumhead, one of my favorite, like, bad moral episodes. And she's so good because she absolutely believes that there is a conspirator and that there's trouble and that she's got to root it out and all this kind of stuff. And it turns out that she's just really a zealot, you know. And in a lot of ways, that's what we've got from Rieger here. He's just a person who is on his own personal mission. And he eventually sort of admits it, I think, What was interesting was that as that kind of story went on and on, and before I get to what I was just going to say, I will say that the moments between Paul Wesley and Joe Morton on the bridge together and the tension of those two, it was absolutely electric. Those were like my absolute favorite scenes from this episode, just the two of them. Paul Wesley, Kirk constantly challenging the Admiral, everybody else on the bridge looking around like, is this Admiral crazy? And like, they're all glad that Kirk is there to kind of represent what they're all thinking. Right. But the, I knew if

36:54 I took a sidetrack, I was going to, Oh, the, the, yeah, right. Towards the end. I, at some point, you know, when he kind of, when everything kind of starts going down on the bridge there towards the end of the episode, And he starts really getting kind of sweaty and, um, a little bit more emphatic and that kind of stuff. I leaned over to my wife and I, I, I literally said a Starfleet Admiral would never do that. He must've been drugged. And then it was like five minutes later in the episode, we found out that he was drugged. Um, so that was, that tells me that that was fantastic acting, right? Because we, we saw it happen and we believed that it was happening. So anyway, I love that. Um, So the whole A story was fantastic. I loved all of the performances. The B story was really fun for me.

37:40 I liked that you start with the trope of sending all your most important people down together because that's what you do. I loved the fact, as soon as there were Andorians, you know, at first I was wondering if it was going to be another sort of just like, I don't know, just another little pirate story. And I guess maybe in some ways it was a pirate story. I just felt like sorry, did you say something, Jim? Oh, I, we lost you for a moment. We lost you. Oh, okay. Uh, sorry. I'm, I'm here. Uh, I was just going to say that, uh, in some ways it was like just a pirate story, but it wasn't because the pirates weren't attacking, right? The pirates were being the jailers and they were sort of holding these people and forcing Uhura to do, uh, the things that they needed to be done so that they could then pirate more. Um, And I also leaned over to my wife and I said, what's going on with these?

38:34 Before we learned that they were pirates, I said, what's going on with these Andorians? They're members of Starfleet. And then they just explained that. So all the little details in there, I'm telling you all this to say that all the little details in the writing of this episode to me added up to a much better episode. They paid attention to the fact that we're smart and that we are going to be asking ourselves questions during the episode. And they preemptively answered a lot of those questions, um, which I thought was great. So it was personally exactly what I want from a Star Trek episode. I don't necessarily want gimmicks. I don't want scary horror. I want a complex, well-written narrative that tells great character stories. We get to see fun moments like Uhura totally kicking ass.

39:18 That was really cool. We get to see moments of, you know, we're sort of joking about it, but like, Pike taking an all-woman team, right? This is Star Trek in the 21st century. I'm so excited that we get to experience a different type of Star Trek. So anyway, absolutely love this episode. It was an absolute 10 from me. It's my favorite of the season so far. You know what, Eric? One of the things that I really liked about it, you remember when Pike came on Discovery in season two? When we reviewed that episode, we all collectively agreed that one of the things that we really liked about Pike at that– Pike was a different character, I think, on Discovery.

39:59 He's really different on Strange New World than he was on Discovery. But when he came on Discovery, the first thing he did, the thing that we all liked about him, was. He knew the crew. And he named them by names. And this guy did the same thing. And when he first came on the show, I was like, well, I like this guy. He reminds me of Pike from Discovery. And, you know, which is great. But then he quickly soured. But the fact that I liked him at first and thought he was a good guy and believed him is just a sign of good writing and good acting. Yeah, here's what I will say. I completely agree with everything you just said. The one thing I'll say about his admiral story is.

40:48 I. Guess it was kind of cool that they wove the George Kirk story into his story, but what it did was that it took away the fact that he could really be a good admiral doing a bad thing. Because by giving him this backstory of being a guy who has held this secret for all these years, Now you just know that he's a bad guy. And so it just, you know, it makes him a slightly less interesting bad admiral when he's not a good guy doing a bad thing. But when he's maybe really just making bad decisions on a regular basis. I don't know. I agree completely. Charles, I guess you're next on this train. All right.

41:32 Kind of got notes over here I can look at. I thought, okay, first thing I put in my notes. I heard that Pike and Una were off the ship when the Admiral arrived. I thought, interesting coincidence. It's like, okay, the main commanding officers were not there when the Admiral popped in. Interesting coincidence, or do you have an idea what was going on? Question of, if. You take over a ship and leave crew on board a planet. Do you sit there and just say, oh, we're leaving, bye, and not even let the crew that's on the planet know you're leaving?

42:13 I thought that was like. Okay, I don't know if any captain would abandon crew members without at least letting them know. They did say that they were dropping a buoy. So they were going to. Be in the second that they came out. If Kirk hadn't said anything, he wouldn't have done that. And Pike could have gone up there and it's like, okay, I'm beam me up. Where's my ship. What happened to my ship? I think it was a little, that was the first clue right there with him when the, when the Admiral would sit there and say, okay, I'm not worried about the captain.

42:58 A couple of interesting notes on this one. Episode writer Alan B. McElroy took credit for the final title in this episode of the podcast, Open Pike Night. McElroy said in the pitch that as a placeholder of the title of this episode was Bad Admiral. So I thought it funny that they had the term Bad Admiral in there. The title is a play on words as a term order of magnitude refers to the difference between the numbers, but could also be taken as a reference to command of general importance.

43:41 Thought that was an interesting take on that. Interesting use of, which I didn't realize it hadn't been used that much, is the use of Starfleet Order 104, Section C. or as I looked it up, B and C, where you can remove a captain or. Officer due to their mental condition. The planetary story with Pike, I wasn't as big a fan of that one other than, okay, we're kind of getting Una the promotion, but I wasn't really sure.

44:26 How did that quite fit in? We got a good action scene with Uhura, but just interesting how they did it. I'm wondering if this is also just a help for Mbega's exit. As you said with. Chapel, that. The relationship between Mbega and Chapel is kind of deteriorating. And we wonder if this might be some way of an exit for Embega to try moving on. Interesting use of court design, which, why does.

45:08 That kind of affect me? Well, gee, I just got to see City and the Edge of Forever on the big screen. And that's the episode where they were able to take a small amount and give it to Sulu and Sulu was okay. You gave too much of a dose and McCoy went almost mad. So in this case, they gave just enough for the Admiral to slowly go crazy, but it took more time on this one than I thought. Also, as Jim said about the fact that he knew all his crew members, but yet he had a tendency not to want to take suggestions from his crew, which is the one thing we enjoy seeing from Pike is the fact that, okay, Pike wants options. He'll ask his crew opinions to how to help out with it. Whereas the Admiral was more of the point is like, he'll take, he'll take comments, but he wants to go with what's his decision. And which kind of leads to showing of him being supposedly the big hero. And in truth, finding out what's happened. How much of a hero the Admiral wasn't for what he did, but took credit for the situation.

46:41 So with this one, I'm going to go with a nine. I think that main story was very good. I think the B story could have used some work. And as usual, Paul, you get to bring up the caboose on this one, buddy. Okay. Well, you know, sometimes I'm a little rough on these episodes, right? There've been some turkeys this year for me, but this one was really, really well, well, well produced. Again, no, pole position for me the writing i thought the writing was incredibly strong on here um really really great you know old school uh the best star treks i think typically they're moral dilemmas right where we run into those kind of morality play situations and that's what we got going on here in a realistic dynamic right cannot even begin to say enough good stuff about joe morton I remember Joe Morton going back, and I don't even know what year it was. I think it was probably like 1983 or 1984, an early John Sayles movie called The Brother from Another Planet, where he plays an alien who's maroon on Earth. It's a performance without speech. He plays a mute alien. He doesn't speak for the entire thing.

48:02 But he is completely conveying so many emotions. He's just a very expressive actor. He does an incredible job. And of course, a lot of people first saw Joe Morton in Terminator 2 Judgment Day, where he's Miles Dyson, the father of AI, if. You will, right? So very interesting in this day and age to consider Miles Dyson and his fate. phenomenal performance here. And I would say the same thing for Paul Wesley as Kirk. I mean, they just really got a chance to play off of each other really, really well. I thought it was a really interesting dynamic between Kirk and La'an as well, with everything that's been going on in the past between them, you know, because we don't have Kirk on board the Enterprise regularly yet. Every now and then he does, but we haven't had a lot of him this season, right?

48:52 So it's been really interesting to see the dynamic when folks are reunited and There's some distance and space between people. Again, they don't always have the same reaction. So I think that's been quite interesting to explore. I thought the secondary story in the caves was actually really good. I really thought that was engaging. I mean, it is a lot of core characters together, but I thought it worked, right? I thought they were nobly going on. this rescue mission, that everything just goes south. And I thought it was interestingly done. Really great. I forget the name of the actor who played the main Romulan, but I thought he did a really good job of being a very nefarious villain and quite, in his way, charming.

49:37 Right. And so I thought that was really good. But I really thought the the. No one's really talking about the dynamic between Cadet Asha and Uvura a lot. Right. I thought that that was really interesting to explore. Uvura really sees herself as she wants to be a mentor for this recruit. And the recruit basically wants nothing to do with it. But when the time comes and kind of a bit of a surprise there, I'm assuming she's speaking the truth. Right. Because she's a Vulcan. Right. At the end, she says, you know what? I'm out. This is Cadet Asha, right? I'm leaving. This is not what I bargained for. This is not what I want to do. I'm leaving. Thanks for trying to mentor me. But, you know, go F yourself. I'm leaving. And so as soon as, you know, she wants nothing to do with her as a mentor. But as soon as things go wrong, her mentor is the first person she's going to blame.

50:28 Right. That was really interesting. I don't know if we'll see her again or if she's just done with this episode. She has the near-death experience, thanks to the Romulans and their crazy mineral attack and whatnot. But it's pretty traumatic and well done. And I just thought Celia Rose Gooding was amazing in this, as it were. I thought she just did a kick-ass job. Not just the physicality, but I just thought her performance was really, really good. Because she's trying to be really empathetic and then she basically has to trick the Romulans that she's going to break ranks. Sorry, did I say Romulans? Sorry. It's been a long week, man.

51:10 I'll tell you. She has to trick the Andorians into thinking that she's going to betray her values just to save someone's life, but it's all this thing she's sort of worked out so she can get close to the equipment, which is really good. And I'm assuming this whole cloaked ship that we're referring to is going to be basically the cloaked... bird of prey from Balance of Terror, right? I mean, they don't really, you know, obviously can't say it, but it sort of seems like we're pointing in that direction, right? Because I thought it was really deftly handled because, you know, Kirk has some familiarity with that in Balance of Terror where it seems like he's, you know, there's been some scuttlebutt amongst the ranks, right? At Starfleet Command. So it seems like this fits really well with that without, you know, breaking anyone's, you know, cannon head wide open, right? So I thought that was a good fit there. Yeah, I just thought all those things were really, really interesting. You know, Joe Morton in particular was just phenomenal. I gotta ask, though, I mean, unfortunately, I've only got a chance to watch this episode once. I really, really need to watch it.

52:20 But did, I mean, was I getting the correct hit on Mabenga at the end that he knew George Kirk was basically had been set up the entire time. Yeah, absolutely. And then he was carrying that knowledge, right? And that basically that he knew Rieger had, you know, fucked everybody, you know, all these years. And I don't know, I don't know how you falsify records on a starship and that the technology, I think maybe one of our fans mentioned that, but, but even if he did manage to do that, I mean, why, why did Mbenga keep silent? this whole time, right? I think maybe that's going to be something that we get more of in subsequent episodes, is my hope.

53:00 Well, Mimbinga also, I think in his kind of, in the wrap-up, he kind of explains it a little bit more from his perspective, like why he felt it needed to be kept a secret. It's one of these things where it's like, you keep the secret to protect X, right? Who is he protecting, though, man? I think it was the father of Cook, was it? No, I think it was Rieger. But I think what he said was he came back from the war and he was a hero and this and that. And he basically didn't want to piss all over the fact that they had made this guy into a hero. And so he kept it silent. And then I think... One of the things I'm getting from Mbenga is that he just carries so much guilt about so many different things, like from the war or whatever. And this is just another one of the things that he has just carried with him.

54:01 And I feel like him getting out of Starfleet is a way for him to kind of release his guilt. And maybe we're seeing moments where he's trying to give up some of this stuff, get it off his chest. Yeah, but it just felt like it was against the... the picture I have of Mbenga as being like this hard ass from the Klingon war, right. Who would just, you know, do all these things or just, I think he would tell somebody who was lying to go after themselves. Right. So I'm just kind of like, I was really surprised. I was like, am I interpreting that? Right. I mean, why did he keep silent? The only reason I could think of would be like, if, uh, the, the Admiral had some dirt on it. Right. It's like, if you tell anybody, I'll, if you tell anybody the truth, I'll, I'll, tell everyone what you did, right?

54:44 Maybe there was something like that, but I'm like, it seemed like a real, you know, they've got to deal more with that. I mean, what I got out of it, Paul, was that this, like, unfortunately we haven't gotten a good visual. We got some Klingon war stuff in discovery, right? But, but there's been a lot of talk about what used to happen back in the Klingon war by a lot of characters on this show, like Erica Ortega is, you know, and being as talked about and that kind of stuff. And because there are, exposating that rather than like showing it to us what it i think i think what it does is it takes away some of the like background information so it so if i imagine okay starfleet as a society federation as a society is completely thrown into chaos by this war like ships are getting blown up there's klingons like it literally takes all of their energy to fight this klingon war and then they have this massive victory. I don't know if it was the defining victory or what, but they have this massive victory, and the person comes back, and there's a hero. And the entire society is already behind the hero as that figurehead and symbol that they actually finally triumphed over the Klingons.

55:56 So part of the calculus that Mbenga does in his head is, okay, is it worse for me to tell the truth and be like, no, no, no, no, it's actually this guy over here Or is it, or is it better to just kind of like let it, what's the harm of just letting it go? You know, that I think I could see a world in which somebody, even Mbenga would, would make that choice once again. I don't know if that's true, but that's the way. I read it. Let's not forget that this is not the first time Mbenga did this. He did it under the cloak of war. Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, done this before, so. Yeah. He's got a history of hiding things, right?

56:36 Okay, all right. I think I need to ruminate. None of this is a critique. I think, to me, this just is showing that I'm more engaged because I want to talk about it, right? Because I thought it was really interesting because it is a morality play, this show, right? And there's really interesting stuff going on. So I'm intrigued by all that, right? I think, to me, good writing. It's not black and white, and there's things going on. And so I'm really curious about how, you know, because I'm like, at the end of the episode, if I'm like, interpreted it right, you know, watching it. I'm like, fun, Jim, Jim and Sam Kirk. I'm going to be like, you know, looking for a flight of stairs to push my benga down. Right. I mean, I'm like, you know, fuck you, man. I mean, like, you know, I'm, I'm going to, you know, lock you in your sickbay and remove the oxygen. I mean, what, what, what you did to our family. It's like, he's on the, he's on the America list. Right. I mean, I don't know, but, uh, None of this, like I said, it's just interesting. This is a sign that you've been engaged when you're talking about this and you're making up all these things.

57:35 I got something quick to ask because I don't remember this. Did Mbenga idolize Rigo because he served with him during the Klingon War? Was that another reason why he hid the fact that he didn't want to fill the beans? I kept thinking that was a line in the TV show. I don't think so. I mean, I think if Mbenga's anything he's not a guy who follows cult personality at all so i i don't think that was part of that yeah. But i could go on and on but i just thought this was like this is like you know the breath of fresh air i had been really needing um you know i think that uh uh i'm trying to remember the name of that episode from a couple weeks ago um forgive me um thank you thank you jim yeah off hour These two episodes together have been, like, my favorites, right? They've just been really, really well done.

58:31 But this one, I think, to have, you know, I just think that Rieger's, like, kind of amongst the pantheon of great Star Trek characters, like, for kind of, like, all time. I think he's, you know, like you say, like Admiral Satie or, you know, any of those other just classic characters that, you know, loom large and you talk about for a long time. I think he's a legendary character and a wonderful performance, so I got nothing but love for this episode. Solid admiring 10 for me. I thought it was really well done. I hope more of this. I hope this is the kind of thing we get more of in season six. Season five. Whatever. Whatever. the next season is. No math, please. It's not my thing, but, but yeah, I have more of that. I hope this is the kind of tenor and tone that we're going to have.

59:19 I hope so too. I really like that. It was really, really, really well done. Character, character, character, right? I mean, it's just so much about character through, uh, and, and hard choices throughout the whole episode. Wonderful writing. Well, while Charles is tabulating our skull, which is the fan spark, I just want to say one thing that I'm glad didn't happen because I was a little disappointed is when they thought they were going to kill off Asha, like they did with, uh, with, um, that other guy that was going to be on the podcast, Dr. Um, Ensign, whatever his name was. Um, and, uh, where they blew his eyes out and killed him on his first mission. I'm like, oh, no, if they kill Asher, let's not go down that road. But they didn't, and she came back and survived.

1:00:07 So I was glad about that, because I kind of like her character. So, Charles, how did the Trexperts fare against our fans? One more thing. While we're doing the episode. I was looking a little bit up on Memory Alpha on Mbenga. And during the TOS years, he was in two episodes and he was a general physician. He was under the CMO. So he still had a field command when he was on the Enterprise in TOS. So it'd be interesting to see what happens.

1:00:50 But as the fans gave us a 9.4, In the unusual rarities, the host gave a 9.8. Wow. You're back to being stronger, higher than the fans. Wow. That is a rarity. Okay. So there you have it, guys. That's our discussion on Orders of Magnitude. I hope you enjoyed it. And now it's time to move on to our sci-fi birthdays.

1:01:38 It was not a plain old song. All right, guys, we always start off our sci-fi birthdays by sadly enough remembering those members of our sci-fi family who are no longer with us. And for that, we turn to Aaron. Yeah, Jim, this week we're going to start in the beyond realm, and we're going to say happy birthday to the actress Faye Ray. She's a Canadian-American-born actress, best known for starring as Anne Darrow in the 1933 film King Kong. But through her 60-year career plus, she actually attained international recognition in horror films. eventually becoming dubbed the first Scream Queen.

1:02:22 And you can see some of the movies that she was in over the years on the screen there. So what an actress, what a performance in King Kong. Happy birthday to Faye Wright. Happy birthday as well to Richard Bruce Hyde, the actor who played Lieutenant Kevin Reilly in the original series episode, The Naked Time, and also The Conscience of the King. Overall, his on-screen acting career was pretty brief, encompassing a grand total of nine TV guest appearances from November 1965 to December 1966. But he's one of my favorite Star Trek stories. He said, following, well, this is a story about him. Following a role in the musical Hair in San Francisco, Hyde decided to remain in the city and step away from his acting career.

1:03:18 So this would have been 66, 67. He noted, I played a hippie and I decided I wanted to be a hippie instead of playing one. I was going to get a Volkswagen bus and a big bag of brown rice and go find God. And that's what I did. But wait, the story doesn't stop there. Hyde eventually earned a PhD in rhetoric and communication studies at the University of Southern California and became chair of the theater film studies and dance department at St. Cloud State University. He also worked with the personal development educational company Landmark Education. So sometimes you just got to go and sow your wild oats to find what you're really meant to do in life. And Bruce Hyde sounds like he was able to do that. And I just, I love that story about him. So happy birthday to Bruce Hyde, lost back in 2015. Happy birthday this week to another Beyonder here, Sam Neill, or otherwise known as Sir Nigel John Dermott Neill. Yes, he's a New Zealand actor. And you might be saying to yourself, wait a second, he's still making movies. And that's not true anymore. Unfortunately, we lost him just back in July. like literally a couple of months ago. So sorry if I'm breaking the news to you, but we did lose him July 13th, 2026. He came to International Promise as Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park movie from 1993. Of course, reprising that role later in Jurassic

1:04:49 Park 3 in 2001 and another one in 2022. He portrayed Dr. William Weir in Event Horizon from 1997. And on television, he portrayed Merlin in the miniseries Merlin from 1998 and Merlin's Apprentice from 2006. As I said, unfortunately, we lost him just this past January to a rare type of blood cancer. He did live with that diagnosis for four years. So Sam Neill, we miss you, buddy. Sorry that you left us this year and happy birthday to you. We will always remember all your great roles. And last but not least, I'd like to say happy birthday to Sir Ian Holm. Yes, whose last name is actually Cuthbert. Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert. But he goes, of course, by Ian Holm or went by Ian Holm. He's the English actor best known for his role, his roles as Ash in 1979's film Alien, which I literally just saw at the Hollywood the other night. As Vito Cornelius in the 1997 science fiction action film The Fifth Element. And as Bilbo Baggins in the trilogies Lord of the Ring movies and The Hobbit, Battle of Five Armies being his actual final film role. So what an actor. There are so many other things that I would love to talk about with Ian Holm, but I want to keep the train moving a little bit. So let's just say that we really appreciate his work as well. What an actor.

1:06:17 Sir Ian Holm would have had a birthday this week. Happy birthday to him. And that does it for our remembrances this week. So we are now going to go and celebrate birthdays of the living. Right, Charles? Thank you, Eric. Let's start off with Gia Sanhu, Canadian actress who played T'Pring in Star Trek Strange New Worlds. She reprised her. Role in the VST Holiday Party. She graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada. Happy birthday to Mary Crosby, actress who played Tommy Lang in DS9' s second season episode, Profit and Loss. She is the daughter of singer Bing Crosby and actress Catherine Crosby.

1:07:08 And it's the aunt of TNG actress Denise Crosby. And she shot JR. So I guess she made her definitely well-known appearance in Dallas. Happy birthday, Callum. Keith Rene is an actress who played Rainer in the fifth season of Discovery. Oh, love him as the Admiral. I've occasionally been quoted by one of my friends saying that I look a lot like the Admiral. So happy birthday, Callum. Happy birthday, Miku Martiniu.

1:07:55 She's an actress who played the young Phillip of Georgia in Section 31. Happy birthday to Anita Richards, the American film and television actress, artist, and producer. She was born in September 11, 1979 in Healdsburg, Georgia. California. Her role as Lex Murphy in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Jurassic Park catapulted Ariana into international celebrity as she appeared as Mindy Sterngood in the first Tremors. Film and replies to her role in the second sequel of Tremors, Tremors 3, Back to Perfection.

1:08:43 Happy birthday, Roxanne Dawson. Best known for her portrayal as Lieutenant Belaina Torres in Voyager. She also directed two episodes of Voyager and 10 episodes of Enterprise. And last on my list, happy birthday to Blue De Barrio, American actor who appeared in Star Trek Discovery season three and four, portraying Adiria Tall. Dubrow is a non-binary and uses the pronouns they and them. It was fun to see you on stage.

1:09:29 Paul, I'm going to pass the candle over to you as I burn it down. Who else do you have on your list? Thank you, Charles. Well, let's get started here and see who we've got. First of all, let's say happy birthday to Tom Hardy. English actor who made his screen debut in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down way back in 2001 and has been on an amazing trajectory ever, ever since. Of course, we have to mention that he had a role in Star Trek back in 2002 and Star Trek Nemesis in that movie. And he later grew to tremendous prominence in In the Mad Max Fury Road picture from George Miller, which is amazing. Fury Road is an astonishing movie, absolute action cinema at the highest level. He got a nomination for Academy Award Best Supporting Actor for his performance as John Fitzgerald in The Revenant. Has everyone seen The Revenant?

1:10:31 If not, you really, really should. The Revenant and Fury Road are two of the best pictures ever. If you're looking to test out a good 4K system and see what 4K can do, those are movies you should start with and make sure are in your collection. They are pure cinema and absolutely amazing. He often collaborates with Christopher Nolan. He was in both Inception and Dunkirk for Nolan. And then he did an amazing body transformation movie. to play the role of Bane in his Dark Knight Rises in 2012. I mean, he's just crazy. Did this amazing thing with the mask. Very challenging voice that he chose to use.

1:11:13 You would just never know it's either him. Amazing. He's also done those Venom movies, which I will just briefly glance over there rather than focus on that. If you really want to see this guy doing his thing, okay, Go back to early in his career. There is a picture I urge you to seek out. If you want to see what this guy can do as an actor, you want to see a movie called Bronson. Bronson came out in, I think it was 2008 or something like that, earlier than some of the stuff we talked about. It was an indie picture where he plays a guy who was incarcerated for multiple life sentences. It is crazy. He was in solitary confinement for, I think, 30 years or something.

1:11:55 I think it's Kind of loosely based on a true story, but the performance is nuts. It's very theatrical, and if you've never seen it, check it out. If you've only seen the Venom movies, seeing this guy as a real performer is just unbelievable. But yeah, go back and look at Bronson. It's amazing. Happy birthday also to Barbara Bain, actress from Chicago, Illinois. who is best known for playing a couple of different roles that get science fiction fans all excited. Simon Carter, way back in the early seasons of Mission Impossible. And of course, many of us will always think of Robert Payne as Dr. Helena Russell on the cult British science fiction program from Gerry Anderson, Space 1999, which is great. So absolutely very cool. Very from that kind of... Icy, late 50s, 60s bombshell vibe that she always had. But very cool, amazing performer. Really interesting. Was married to Martin Landau for a while. They played opposite each other quite a bit. A lot of roles in the 60s. But Space 1999, sorry, Barbara, you're always going to be there. You're never going to escape Moonbase Alpha.

1:13:11 It's just the best. You know what's. Great about that, Paul? What? Well, her birthday is September 13th. Why is that date relevant to space 1999? Because, Uncle Jim, that's the day that the moon was blasted out of Earth orbit on September 13th, 1999, this episode, right? That's right. Her birth started the whole thing. So what you're saying is if you're looking for someone to really blame for the moon being blasted out of Earth orbit, don't point your finger at Commissioner Simmons. Point it at Barbara Vane, right? Yes, exactly. So there you go. But happy birthday. She's still out there doing the convention circuit, right? I still see her every now and then in some of the Jerry Anderson pages on frequenting, where you still see her at these things, signing away, doing her thing. So it's great. Happy birthday to Susan Gibney from California, who, of course, played Dr.

1:14:08 Leah Brahms in Next Generation's third and fourth season episode, Booby Trap and Galaxy's Child, where she's kind of the. Can I say it? Inspirational crush for Geordi LaForge? I think that might be sort of the way I would describe Susan Gibney. And unwilling Holodeck participants, perhaps we should also say that. But yeah, and she also appeared as Benteen in Deep Space Nine fourth season episodes Homefront and Paradise Lost, and reprised her role as Leia Brahms in Lower Decks third season episode Mining the Mind's Minds. Try to say that after a few beers, if you will.

1:14:49 And let's talk about legends, living legends, if we can, because we've got a big one that just recently came down the pipe here. The great Walter Koenig, who is now 90, if you can believe it. That's wild. Actor and writer best known for playing Pavel Chekhov on the original series and the first seven Star Trek films. Wow. He was the only original cast member not to lend his voice to the animated series due to unfortunate budgetary reasons, though he still contributed to the series by writing the episode The Infinite Vulcan, which is very cool. Besides his work on Star Trek, he's also super well known for playing his role as villainous psyops cop Alfred Bester, a character named after a very famous science fiction writer, on Babylon 5, a terrific series that... pretty sure someone's working on getting that restored for HD, I think so, or maybe even needing some effects redone. Babylon 5 is really cool.

1:15:46 I think it doesn't get the credit it deserves. A whole world-building phenomena going on there. He starred in a picture called Moontrap, also, where he played Colonel Jason Grant, an astronaut who takes on a sentient machine on the moon, which is really cool. I haven't seen Moontrap in a long time. Kind of makes me want to go and watch that again. So, really cool You know, there's a lot of cool movies we forget about, and then when we think about them again after an amount of time has passed, suddenly they become very rosy memories, and we want to go revisit them again. Is that a good enough segue for you, Uncle Jim? I think that's absolutely perfect. Thank you so much, Paul.

1:16:27 I think I'm going to have to get together with David and come up with some type of movie of the week intro. We'll work on that for next time. But anyways. Let's talk about some movies that were released this week and then Uncle Jeff's movie pick. Of the week. We're going to start off first with Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare. It was released on September 13, 1991. It's an American 3D slasher film and the sixth installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. And it was promoted as the final movie, prompting Los Angeles to declare it the official Freddy Krueger Day. I got a chance to see this in 3D with the Redding family. blue glasses, and it was freaky. Pretty freaky, but I'll let you guys on a secret. It wasn't the final Friday. He came back several more times after that. So, Freddie's dead September 13, 1991. Next on the list, we're going to go way, way, way back to The Little Shop of Horrors.

1:17:28 This is the original now. Released on September 14, 1960. An American black comedy horror film directed by Roger Corman. There's that name again. Written by Charles B. Griffith. The film is a farce about an inadequate florist. Assistant who cultivates a plant that feeds on human flesh and blood. The film stars Jonathan Hayes, Jackie Josephs, Mel Wells, Dick Miller, and Jack Nicholson as a small but memorable role as Masonic dentist patient Wilbur Fork. And there he is right there on the screen, the original Little Shop of Horrors.

1:18:09 Next on our list, we're going to go even further back in sci-fi history to The Day the Earth Stood Still. It was released on September 15, 1951, directed by Robert Wise. You guys should recognize that name, right? Star Trek, the motion picture. This legendary black and white classic is one of the most culturally significant science fiction films ever made. It follows a humanoid alien visitor named Klaatu and his powerful robot counterpart Gorg, who land a flying saucer in Washington, D.C. to deliver the ultimate humanity message regarding atomicity.

1:18:50 Warfare. And there's the poster, the original 1951 poster right there on your screen. And last on our movies released this week, we have Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, released on September 15, 2004. Finally, film, shot almost entirely on digital black glass. It follows the heroic pilot. Jed Law, and a reporter, Gwyneth Paltrow, as they travel the globe to stop a mad scientist and his army of giants. And of all those movies, obviously, the movie that I think you definitely should see if you're a sci-fi fan.

1:19:32 I have to admit, I haven't watched this particular version of the movie myself. It is remade, I believe, Three times, Paul? The version that I saw of this movie has Keanu Reeves in it, but roll the tape, David. Rolling. This is Elmer Davis again. We still don't know what it is or where it comes from, but there's something there. It's been tracked around the Earth by radar, traveling at a rate of 4,000 miles an hour. This is not another flying saucer scare.

1:20:53 Pa'atu, the weird earth visitor in the 20th century Fox film, The Day the Earth Stands Still, learns a great earth custom. He receives a certificate of merit from the Science Fiction Convention at New Orleans. It's presented by Chairman. Moore for the faithfulness of the film to the best science fiction traditions. So there you have it, guys. Uncle Jim's Movie Pick of the Week. The original Day the Earth Stood Still in black and white. I have not seen that version, but I'm going to have to track it down. It's a masterpiece, man. You will not be sorry. It is amazing. It's better than the Keanu Reeves version.

1:21:36 I love Keanu, but I don't actually acknowledge that version at all. No, no, no. You don't want New Coke, Uncle Jim. You want the classic, right? And it's amazing. I just can't even say enough good stuff about it. You'll never forget it. It's remarkable. I'm going to have to check that out. So I haven't seen it, guys, but please check it out yourselves. All right, we do have one, one news story for us tonight. Okay, usually we start off with Shatner says, what?

1:22:38 But we don't have a Shatner says what, but we do have a story that's relevant for the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. Eric, take it away. Yeah, this is pretty cool. Star Trek fans successfully set new Guinness World Record at London Museum. A total of 934 fans gathered at London's Science Museum on Star Trek Day to mark the seminal show's 60th anniversary. They were there not only to celebrate the anniversary, but to attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for the largest simultaneous Vulcan salute. Vulcan salute is the gesture made famous by Leonard Nimoy's character Spock, who first appeared in the 1967 episode of the TV series titled Amok Time, and is usually accompanied by the phrase, live long and prosper.

1:23:25 Those taking part on Tuesday were required to maintain the iconic hand gesture and for one minute to successfully secure the title. Guinness World Records educator Paulina Sapinska has verified the attempt and handed the official certificate to the Science Museum's Commercial Operations Director Ben Leroux. Science Museum Head of Collections and Principal Curator Dr. Glenn Morgan said that they had been, quote, really excited at the idea of breaking a world record. It's the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, and we wanted something people would really remember and would really mark this event as something special. And what's more special than breaking a world record, he said. Also participating was actor Martin Quinn, who plays Chief Engineer Montgomery Scotty Scott in Star Trek Strange New Worlds. He said, I'm going to hang my Guinness record. No, sorry, I can't say it like that. I'm going to hang my Guinness World Record certificate in my brother's room to really rub it in. Morgan previously said about this year's 60th anniversary celebrations.

1:24:29 After a popular Star Trek. After a popular Star Trek... I don't know what that means. This year, we're delighted to invite fans back for another evening exploring the ideas, imagination, and real-world science behind the franchise and a final opportunity to experience the Star Trek Warped Trail. Okay. The free Star Trek Warp Trail includes props and uniforms from the shows and films and explores the lasting connection between the franchise's visionary storytelling and real-world scientific innovation. Sounds pretty cool. If I was there, I would go. And that, my friends, wraps up another awesomely exciting episode of Correct Talking and Beyond.

1:25:18 We missed V this week, but she'll be back next week, but we won't have Paul. Paul's going to be gone for the next two weeks, so we're going to have to try to muddle our way through without Paul. But we did have the opportunity to talk to Brian bulk-wise before this show, so you guys can check that one out. And next week we'll be talking about Once Upon a La'an. I think that's the name of the episode. Once La'an a Time. That's it. Once La'an a Time, which is a sequel to an episode that I tweeted from the first season, Kingdom of Oisium. So hopefully the episode is better. Than that one. I don't know.

1:25:59 I'll let you know next week. I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim. And I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to Eric for hanging out and talking with us tonight. Thank you so much, Eric. You bet. Thanks very much. And thank you so much, David, for hanging out and talking with us and putting together all these awesome videos and the video of Brian that he didn't get to see. Yeah, I was hoping you would see it, but oh well. It's been a lot of fun making it, so good times. And we enjoyed seeing it. Thank you. And thank you so much to Paul for hanging out and talking with us and for talking to Brian for us. Yeah, I think Once Upon a Lawn is the adult film version, right? Maybe Once Upon a Lawn. Yeah, I think that might be. Maybe we're not supposed to see that.

1:26:43 But who knows? In an age where we're going to get a Sabrosa figure, anything is possible. So doors have been blown open wide. Friends, I will miss you for two weeks, but I'll have lots of stories when I come back. So have a lot of fun. And I'll be curious to see how the finale tracks with everyone. Peace out. Maybe, of course, last but not least, we want to say thank you so much to Charles for hanging out and talking with us. Thank you, Charles. Thank you. It's always fun. Except when we get into that Subrosa stuff a little bit. That gets a little, a little adult-ish. Well, wait. Wait till we get the seven-inch action figure with the accessories. We'll see.

1:27:28 All seven inches, Charles. All seven inches. All seven inches. I'm your host, Uncle Jim, saying everybody please stay safe and be good to each other. Hailing frequencies are closed. Good night, everybody. Good night. Live long and prosper. Number one. You're the captain. Captain. Ready for warp, sir. Mark, hold me.

1:28:23 Thank you. Thank you.