Episode 701 - Recapping Strange New Worlds: La An's Journey

0:07 Continuing with the operation, you may fire when ready. Captain, we go to stain Anakin has gone insane Logan 6, Corporal Hicks, the Jem'Hadar need. A fix Ripley, NPC, dead heavily cannot see Pumple B, canine, I'm a doctor and. Cling on wine Thank you, Doctor. Thank you. Old puffs and worms, stories that'll twist and turn Paltar, Scimitar, Death of Tasha Slash Gordon, Bradshaw, Stormtroopers, and Clone Wars, James Walton, TweetP, John Koenig, and CWP. Can we talk about the series? You can join us live.

0:48 By picking up your phone now. Can we talk about the series? Welcome to New Orleans, even in slow distance now. Can we talk about the series? Comics, books, and games become the armistice now. Can we talk about the series? Come and join us as we sit and chat and we can go on. And on. Well, good evening Trekkies and Trekkers around the globe. It's Thursday, September 24th, 2026. Welcome to episode 701 of Trek Talkin' and Beyond. I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim. And before we go too far, I want to introduce my awesome, my incredible truck spurs. And we're going to swing out to Portland and we're going to say hello to David.

1:42 He's our miracle worker. How are you doing tonight, David? Well, I'm starting to learn a language about trying to talk to squirrels. So I don't know how that will work, but yeah, sounds pretty interesting. That does. A squirrel girl, maybe. You can get in touch with her, perhaps. And we're going to stick out in Portland while we're there. We're going to swing over and see how Eric is doing tonight. Well, as a huge advocate of Squirrel Girl, I approve everything you're doing right now, David. So go for it, buddy. Let me know when you're ready to chitty-chit with me on the DL. Awesome. Sounds like a plan. And we're going to jump to Las Vegas, and we're going to say hello to Charles.

2:25 How are you doing, Charles? I'm doing good, as you wish. As I'm sure that's how you're going to want to have a good show. Jim says, as he wishes. We always do. Enjoying our 95 degree weather. Yep. Yep. And last but not least, we have with us V. He's out in Virginia. How you doing, V? I'm here. And it is fall. I am so thankful because I was, like I posted on Facebook, and it's been melting like a peach. The heat and humidity. And so now.

3:13 It's... Melting like a popsicle in Phoenix? Sure, that too. That too. But, yeah. We don't have Paul with us tonight. Paul is in sports. So no Paul tonight. So this is the five of us for the show. Paul will be back in another two weeks. So just hang in there for Paul. You guys can support Trek Talking by becoming a subscriber. It's only 99 cents. And if you do, you get to see all these awesome videos that David works so hard on. But if you don't want to be a subscriber, hey, that's cool. You can help us by helping our algorithm out on Facebook. And how do you do that? Simple. Like and share our posts.

3:55 So that's how you can help us keep this podcast going. So today we're going to be talking about. Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 9, once upon a time. So, yeah, if you got a chance to watch that episode, stick around and see what we thought about it and see what our fans thought about it. We also have our fan shout-outs to ask where we've had people just like you for supporting us around the globe. Charles is going to have his cadet review for us. We're also going to have our fan reactions and episode scores, so you want to stick around for that. And what actions do you share a birthday with? Find out on us. Birthdays. And, of course, we have Uncle Jim's movie pick of the week. Okay. So....

4:44 Without any further ado, we are going to dive right in to our fan shout-outs. Okay, fan shout-outs. We're just dealing with some back-end tech stuff there. Yes, this week we are starting our fan shout-outs with good old Yvonne Listens, who hails from the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, which I didn't personally know that there was a Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, but... The more you know. Ding. So thanks for checking in, Yvonne. And thanks for listening to our podcast. Also like to say hello this week to Carl Garth Grisky, I think is how you would pronounce that, who hails from Malta and sends us that beautiful Maltese flag. Thanks, Carl, for saying hello to us this week. We really appreciate your support for the podcast.

5:34 I'd also like to say hello and welcome Joss Shefferly, uh, who is a top fan, meaning that they already are doing a great job of interacting with us on our social media. And we really appreciate that. And guess where Joss is from. That's right, folks. We have another new, we're getting all these new ones lately. I love this. Joss hails from North Korea. And as far as I can tell is our very first fan to check in from North Korea. So thanks Joss for saying hello. Uh, and for being a top fan, uh, You must have a great VPN. And also thanks to Klaus Melke, who hails from Upper Franconia in Germany, sending us that beautiful black, red, and yellow of the German flag. Thanks, Klaus, for checking in and saying hello to us. V, what do you say we bring it back to the U.S.

6:27 Welcome to America, and we're going to Arkansas. Then Roger Hernandez, who is a fan. Thank you, Roger. And I'll say hello to us from Mexico City with the lovely Mexican flag. And next, Gary Lee, San Antonio, Texas. We have the beautiful Alamo. I don't know, have you ever seen the basements at the Alamo? Oh, it's the Kiwi Home and Joe, sorry. Ray Lefkowitz. My name is Linda Kelly Bryan, saying hello to us from San Jose, California. Thank you all for your support. All right, on to you, Carol.

7:17 Thank you, V. Let's start off with a very warm welcome to David McLean from right here in Las Vegas. And this time, I know who David is. I saw him. Wednesday before last, I believe it was. Welcome Judy DeLong, DeLeo from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Been a Trekkie from the beginning and is 68 years old. Forgot to say David gave us a big grin, a thumbs up. Welcome William Meadows from Marion, Illinois. Welcome William. Welcome William.

7:58 And Brian Kane from the Bay Area in California. Okay, Brian, you got to be a little more specific. There are several parts of the Bay Area. Which one? Since Paul's not here, I'll pass it to Jim. Why, thank you so much, Charles. I'm going to try to fill his footstep, but they're going to be pretty big ones. First, we want to say hello and thank you to Bucky Joe, who's in Texas. And wow, the flag waving proudly. Welcome, Bucky. Right here on my. Neck of the woods, we want to say hello and thank you to Francis Legadia, who is a top fan from Rutland, Vermont. Represent, dog. That's right.

8:39 Thank you, Francis. We also want to say hello and thank you to Wyatt Stone, who's in Georgia. And last but not least on my list, Green Cooper, who's a top fan from Ontario. Get it up. If you guys would like to be featured as a top fan, please, please head over to our Facebook page for our talk and beyond. You'll see the Live Long and Prosper pinned to the top of the page. Click on that. Tell us where you're from. Leave lots of emojis. That gets my attention. If you see a heart next to your name, remember, truly, you're going to be featured in a future fan shout-out. And for those of you who happen to be subscribers, these awesome pictures that are going by right now, If you become a subscriber, you can send your picture to David, and David will put them right up there on the screen so the whole world can see you as your cosplay with your favorite actor, whatever you want to send.

9:33 You can send them to us, and David will get them up there. On the screen. All right, so that wraps up our fan shout-out section. And while you're. On our Facebook page, I like to throw out all kinds of questions, things like that. Because I think it's very interesting to have a lot of fan reaction from you guys so that we're not just a bunch of talking heads here. So I threw up a poll and I'm going to have Eric. go over that with you, but first, we need to have the polling song. You know we like to win, but you thought about the show and we tried. To share your opinions with all of our minions. I'm there because they listen. So tell us just what you think. And together we will all drink. Gnar and Romulan ale.

10:36 Gnar and Romulan ale. All right, Eric, you're in charge of the poll, so take it away. All right. Well, we continue this week with week three of building the crew of the USS Shockerree. And this year, this week, we are asking, who would you choose as your favorite pilot? And we have the top eight pilot candidates from the Star Trek universe being considered. In the number eight spot with 1% of the vote, we have Sydney LaForge. Everybody remember her? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, she was a pilot. Yeah. But only 1% of you remembered. So that's probably one person who answered our poll. But she did get a vote.

11:21 So that's pretty cool. In second to last place and seventh place otherwise, we have Wesley Crusher, who often functioned as ship's pilot. 2% of you gave him the vote. And you know what? He did pretty good for a teenager and then into his young adult life. So I say kudos to Wesley Crusher for making the list and for getting 2% of the vote. In the number six spot, we have Lee Kelso. That's right. Remember Lee Kelso? No, I know you don't, but that's okay. More people than you remembered who they were and they got 3% of the vote this time around. So in that number six spot, we have Lee Kelso with 3%. Of the vote. In the number five spot, we have the cyber-enhanced Kayla Detmer from Discovery, 5% of views, thought she was the best pilot. And I will say she was the first one that I know of to go to Black Alert. So, you know, that's pretty cool. In our number four spot, we have Travis Mayweather with 7% of the vote. And I could go on about this for quite some time.

12:29 In fact, I've considered having an entire Travis Mayweather show, a special one hour show about Travis Mayweather, because I personally think that he's the most underrated Star Trek character of all time. You look at all the stuff that he did during the series of Enterprise, and he's actually an amazing person and an amazing just companion and good friend and Also quite talented and strong and good looking and all sorts of different things. And 7% of you thought he was a good pilot as well. So thanks for putting Travis Bailiwether in that number four spot. In the number three spot, we have, guess who? You would have thought he would have been a little higher, but Hikaru Sulu got 24% of the vote and he's only in our number three spot. Kind of surprising, but I would bet you that these next three were pretty much neck and neck. We've got 24% 25 and 26% of the vote for each of these next three. So they're basically tied. So we've got Hikaru Sulu in number three.

13:28 And number two, we have good old Erica Ortega's from Strange New Worlds, our new pilot with the awesome shaved sides. She flies the ship. And in the number one spot with 26% of the vote, just barely edging out the last two, Tom Paris. That's right. Creator of the Delta Flyer. All around, you know, cowboy, great husband to B'Elanna Torres. Somehow they made that work. But he was a fantastic pilot, so I'm happy to see him at the top of that list. And it was cool to see him have kind of a good arc during Voyager, in particular with his father, the Admiral. So there you have it. You all have selected as the pilot of our ship, Tom Paris, not Hikaru Sulu. So surprising. But that's okay. This is the USS Shaakiri. This is your ship.

14:24 Actually, Sulu, Paris, and Ortegas, it all depended on how I rounded it up. They were that close. Wow. You know, like 26.5, 26.9. They were all pretty much neck and neck. Well, you know, Jim, there are three duty shifts. Three potential pilots. That's all I'm saying. True. Very, very true. You think Sulu would do third shift? He'll be shoveling the coal with Mr. Chekhov. I think we better put Sulu on first ship, put Tom Paris down in the coal mines.

15:07 Yes. Good call. Good call. So how is the USS Shockery stacking up so far? Yeah, so far, as I said, it's been the last three weeks. Our chief engineer was selected to be Scotty by you all. Our chief of security is good old Odo from Deep Space Nine. And now we have our pilot, Tom Paris from Star Trek Voyager. Wow, so that's a good representation of 60 years of Star Trek so far. Good diversity. Yeah, I'm excited to see if somebody from Strange New Worlds or Discovery makes the list. That would be great. Maybe. We're still going. We've still got some more.

15:48 And now that we've got the polls out of the way, we're going to turn over to Charles for. Our cadet training. Thank you, Jim. And of course, the cadet training is based on the fact that episodes or shows that I can tie into this episode. Of course, Strange New World, Elise in Kingdoms. From season one. TOS. Reminds me a little bit of Mirror Mirror. Season two. We're dealing with people's doubles. DS9. Far Beyond the Stars. Benny Russell. I'll talk about that later. Eric will probably love this one. The Princess Bride. There are a lot of references to that.

16:35 Arthur C. Clarke. Logic. Spock rationalizes the entire ordeal story. Using Arthur C. Clarke's famous law, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Remind the crew what it looks like. What looks like a spell book is really a reality warped alien tech they just don't yet understand. And of course, our dragon reminds me a little bit of Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent changes into a giant black and purple dragon. But I couldn't find a real well-famous red dragon. But I'm passing it over to Jim, who wants to recap and talk about what occurred in this episode.

17:19 Usually Paul does this. I volunteered to do it before Eric volunteered to do it. So Eric can do it next week, which is a much better episode than this one. But I'm going to give it my all, guys. I'm going to try to be. Remember, Jim, this is your emotion-neutral, just what happened in the episode. This is no opinions, right? The dragon. I was thinking more of Game of Thrones. Ooh, yeah. We'll get to that when we talk about the episode. Okay, so, fresh from attending a diplomatic wedding, the crew of the Enterprise, including Captain Wright, Spock, Portugas, and La'an, investigate a bizarre, scientifically-defying, unknown, flat planet. Han has been struggling all season with severe emotional disconnection, and her darker augment impulses her to be intensely prickly and very darned.

18:14 Pike leads a landing party to the surface and discovers an immense fairy tale kingdom reminiscent of the storybook world from the Elysium Kingdom. That's a first season. Episode, by the way. The team is captured by the Royal Guard serving on the team that is played by Celia Rose Gooding. That's a La'an is treated as Princess Talia by a sword-wielding Joseph Dr. Mbenga. With help from Prince Dashing, James T. Kirk himself, La'an escapes her captors. She lies that she needs to break into the dungeon to rescue the key. I forgot what the key of consequences is. Is that what it was? I think that's what it was, the Key of Consequences.

18:55 So they go on a quest that turns into a deadly personal reflection on her past, her family legacy, and her inner emotional walls. Pretty deep stuff going on here. Meanwhile, Poppleganger fantasy versions of Mike and Spock, Seraph, and Pollux the Wizard stumble upon a landing party's discarded Starfoot uniform and accidentally beam up to the Enterprise using the magic clam. Alana is forced to metaphorically and literally face aspects of herself within a whimsical, logic-defying environment. The ordeal helps her process her emotional isolation and confront the darker impulses she has carried all season long, ultimately leading to a therapeutic breakthrough for the character.

19:43 So then, I will save my life. Well at any rate let's talk about what our fans thought about this episode. ashley kells uh said it was a five these stories this season have been pretty good and certainly not as bad as the alternative factor plato's stepchildren and code of honor thanks ashley preach i just wish that there was less gimmicky episodes in a row yeah Strange New World Season 1 and 2 were very good. Season 3 was pretty good. Season 4 has been decent. Thanks, Ashley. James Young, a top fan, gave it a 7. I like this season with its fantasy episodes as opposed to a season with one big bad enemy like the Gorn or the Klingons. This is a good change of pace.

20:25 Next season should be back on track with all the episodes setting up the series finale. You know, I think that's a good point, James. We haven't really talked about how a lot of Strange New Worlds and Discovery in particular were all based on kind of the one big bad guy at the end of the season. Even Starfleet Academy, right? So good point on that. Brian Lombard, it's a solid 10, but I give The Way to Eden a 9. So is he trying to show you where the bar is there? I think so. Pamela Tejarczyk gave it an 8.5. Remember how I said during the Case of Charoscuro episode that I was tiring of the La'an story, but I would withhold judgment on the storyline upon watching this episode. My fear was that La'an either would become a villain, letting her genetics determine her future, which would have been against the ethos of Star Trek, or let whatever happened in this episode do nothing at all. This episode surprised me because La'an changed for the better, and gain some inner peace.

21:25 The root of Laon's issues weren't anger, but self-loathing. She hates herself as the childhood bullying with which she was tortured leads her to have that eternal tape recording playing in her head. She is unlovable and incapable of loving herself and others. By confronting her doppelganger, Princess Talia, who loves herself and gives infinite love to someone else, Prince Dashing, who is a monster, Laan learns to love herself and to open herself up to love of not just the romantic kind beyond the nicely positive conclusion of Laan's arc. I love the costumes and the fairy tale setting. Anson and Ethan's comedic timing as their alternates was brilliant. It did nothing to lessen my Anson Mount crush. And yes, the soap opera episode made my heart go pitter patter.

22:13 I took a half point off as I did wish Laan would have actually had the last scene not be a date. even though I am a hopeless romantic, but a therapy session, but we probably couldn't get Deirdre Hall again. And the full point is off for some of the hand-waving plot holes, like how was this a ship? That was a great review, Pam. 8.5. Thanks. Dennis Vayu Jr. said, despite being yet another gimmick episode, I rather enjoy this one. 8 out of 10. John Romleski said, definitely not the best, but a solid 6 out of 10. Chris Barnes, a solid 8.5. The storyline was kind of hokey, but the ending made it come together. Bonus points. Oh, man, do I have to say that? Well, Chris said it. He said bonus points for the cleavage.

23:00 You know, so we do have some people out there who are all about it. Brent Walker gave it a 2. Some funny stuff, but this could have been any other television show. Same for most of the rest of Season 4. Lars Grenluff gave it a 9. It was like old TOS and TNG, plus... development of one of the characters like in voyager real trek thanks lars renee lun jensen said was fun i would say a solid eight so our fan scores this week i i would have to go back and look maybe charles can find this real quickly but i was wondering how this score of 7.2 by the fans compares to the fan score that they actually gave Elysian Kingdom back in the day. How quickly can we find that information if I vamp for just a half a second and draw out the end of this sentence?

23:49 I think I remember seeing it like it was an 8.4. I know it's in our list. At any rate, I remember that the fans really liked that episode, and this one is still in the high, you know, in the 7s here. So I think this is still, I mean, it's the low 7s, you know. This is a C-plus grade or something like that. So better than average. 8.4. 8.4. So they really liked Elysian Kingdom. They liked it originally. So this is a point lower. But given the context of what's going on in this season, I would say that this average is high towards the end of what our fans have generally given episodes this season. There you go. All right.

24:32 Well, I can tell you honestly that that's a lot higher than I would have given it. So, Charles, what did Paul give it? Paul gave it a six. A six. Okay. Yeah, Paul gave it a six. And what did he say? He had some comments. Oh, yeah, he said, very annoying, infantile episode, but Anson Mount's performance bumped me up to a six. Okay. Well, that's cool. So we're starting off with a six. I can tell you. Well, no, I won't tell you. I'll tell you later. So why don't we jump in, which I tried to earlier, but I was out of order.

25:12 Because I'm old and senile, and I've got a bad heart, so I can do that. No, you don't. You're fine. Well, I have to say that the notes about Pamela... I really got a kick out of this episode because I am, I guess, hopeless romantic. There was so much about it that I love. And I'll say, first off, I wish I had not been so that I could have sent Christina Chong her dog, Runa, who she brings everywhere at GalaxyCon this past. I wish I could have gotten a picture with all of them. That's sort of making some... serious money you know i can tell you that so.

25:58 Do you think the dog gets like a separate salary. Absolutely they do having um and commercials and stuff well there was one time where there was a a dog was in it and the dog made at least as much wheat as we did and yeah i'm not kidding they absolutely Yes, that dog is earning her, you know, puppy cat treats and everything. Milk bones, baby, milk bones. She certainly is. And having seen, catching a glimpse of her in real life, she is absolutely adorable. And next time I have to meet her because, you know, adorable dog. References, you know, just crack me up. Where are they called?

26:44 Where are they? That was, that was because the, the, that was a like in the moment Pike thing because all. And so he looked at the, he looked at. Yeah. So he looked at the book and kind of like, and then in the moment was like, and this is Benny Russell. And that's why Pelley. Oh yeah. I'm Benny Russell. Um, costumes. Oh my gosh. To die for. Um, I'm sure. Even though they are way beyond my college, they came to me and looked at these. God, I was thrilled to make either one of the gowns that La'an wore, Princess Talia wore, because they were just absolutely stunning. I do like very much that, like what Pamela said, La'an coming to terms with her, the hatred about being teased.

27:34 which kind of reminds me of Kalana Torres. Do you remember when she threw all this stuff and reflecting back on her childhood and how she thought that she was the cause for her father leaving? So that sort of put me in mind that Kalana came to terms with her both sides of who she was. So finally we get on, you know, look like he's going to be an enjoyable character for the rest of the time and not some, you know, hokey bad person. All right. We got a six. We got an eight. Let's continue on the train and move right on over to Charles. Okay. Thank you, Jim. As you guys started to catch a little bit of one of my references, you mentioned Benny Russell, but you didn't actually mention exactly who he is.

28:25 For the fans who had forgotten Benny, If you go back to the episode Far Beyond the Stars in DS9, when Sisko was playing the author, his name was Benny Russell. And he did actually write a book about Elysium. It's actually one of his titles that he did actually write in that episode. Hell yeah, let's see. Okay. It was an interesting, long about way, way of trying to move Pelia off the ship. But as I re-listened to it, saying, oh, okay, we got rid of her a little bit like we did getting Omega's daughter. Then I started hearing the talk in there. And I had to laugh when they said, she got with the cook.

29:08 Named Max. Was he happen to be Miracle Max? Which those that might not know, but I'm sure Eric's grinning, Miracle Max was the character that Billy Crystal played while she played the older woman that lived with him. So I thought that was a nice, funny reference. Like, okay, yeah, let's end this series by tying her off with Princess Bride. I mean, you know, apparently she spent a bunch of time with the doctor, so it only makes sense that she has to go and spend some time making the Princess Bride now right yeah. I think the character you're looking for she played as Valerie in the Princess Bride yeah.

29:49 It's Valerie, and Valerie lived with Mac. And don't forget that she helped write 2001 A Space Odyssey with Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. We can't let that slide. And she comes from Burlington, Vermont, so, you know. I mean, they've built up quite a Pellia lore in a very short amount of time. Yeah. I know a lot of people are— sorry, Charles, I don't mean to— I' ll talk about Pellia during my time, sorry. Yep. Well, the fact is I see fans, including at least one or two hosts who sit there and are happy Pelia's gone. I liked Pelia. Pelia was a unique character. I guess if you really want Carole King exiting, what a way to do it by putting her out in a theme. tying her to princess bride as of course jen i that's why i was trying to say at the beginning of the show look at jim saying as you wish of course that was the line from the prince interesting a prince dashing as a werewolf and of course the queen showing up floating in the middle of space and it's like yeah i can't our communication object kind of looks like.

30:54 Oh i look good it's like with a That was, yeah, or her, I was like, that was a good one there. I didn't get a lot of notes that I wanted to in here, even though the... Couldn't find the exact sorts of Metal Dragon, but it was definitely a good lore reference. Oh, Iron Dragon? Iron Dragon. Well, I'm sure that there's another specific reference out there. I didn't actually Google this, but I will tell you that one of the best board games ever invented... is called Iron Dragon, and it's basically like, it's like the ones where you draw the track on the dots, like Empire Builder or European Rails or those types of things, and Iron Dragon is a fantastic version of that game.

31:41 I'm sure there's another reference, but immediately when they said Iron Dragon, I was like, oh my god, Iron Dragon! But I think I'll go with this one. We didn't get a chance to mention that Una and... ortegas's characters interesting choice to make them a romantic couple and how dashing kind of goes off to fake himself when he becomes a wolf and then goes back to human when una almost i guess tries to slay him but overall this one i'm gonna give a seven it wasn't my favorite episode but as v says the costuming i did rather enjoy some many of the princess bride references just because it's a fun movie, but I will score it there and pass my bidding back to Jim.

32:28 Yeah, I think we'll just continue on the little trail and now we're going to work our way up to Eric. Alright, yeah, so I have been saying kind of all season how I've been upset with the fact that I feel like they've done Lawn Dirty this season. They just really haven't had a good La'an arc. And in fact, after this episode was over, my wife and I had to kind of go back and look up the end of last season, which remember, this is like where it all begins, right? Her like latent DNA gets triggered or something at the end of last season, which is why she's so angry and has all these urges this season. I was really hoping for a very cool like resolution of that kind of arc because it's really been bugging me this season. And I will say that I think this episode gave me that. I really liked this whole idea of showing two sides of the same character. This is a classic trope. I can't remember if Charles mentioned Enemy Within during his cadet training, but I think of that episode where Kirk's evil half gets separated from him and they sort of... You can see those things out in the open. I think we've had a few different episodes of Star Trek where that happens. So this was just another riff on that. So the fact that this entire episode was a delusion of the Laan story, I really liked that part of it. And I liked that it plugged back into the Elysium Kingdom as well. I know a lot of our Trek-sports didn't care for that episode,

34:01 thought it was silly, dumb, whatever. I think V and I thought it was delightful, if I remember correctly. And so. I also found this one delightful, though I kind of am with the fans. I feel like this one's about a point lower than that one for me. It didn't quite have the zhuzh that that one had, and I think it's because it wasn't setting up a resolution of the Mbenga story. This is almost like a spinoff story, right? Because the Elysian Kinnings started with Mbenga's daughter, but now we're telling a story about La'an in that same universe, so... I do like that there's an entity out there where this fantasy stuff can happen. I think that's very Star Trek-y, and it's pretty cool. Some of the writing in this episode was not great, though. It felt to me a little bit like they couldn't figure out whether they wanted to go lean into the cheese a little bit or lean into the seriousness of the stories or lean into the kind of ridiculousness of the characters but play them straight.

35:02 And there were a few different moments, I think, throughout the entire episode where you saw all three of those things. So it doesn't hold together as kind of like a cohesive performance with all of the cast members to me. Like if you if you workshopped this for like three months on stage and then performed it, I think you could get there. with maybe a few script revisions. But yeah, it just didn't totally wow me in terms of the writing. So you got La'an, and then you got Pelia. And I'm kind of with V. I haven't been as down on Pelia. I haven't completely loved her. I think sometimes the way that they write her is almost like a... I don't know, it's like a person in a room with a condition where they just burst out saying something that may or may not have any relevance to what's actually going on. At times, they write her like that.

35:51 But generally... She's really goofy. It's Carol Kane. She's an amazing actress, right? And she has this quirkiness to her. And I love the fact that she lives in this, you know, the quarters with all the telephones and like the weird stuff going on in there and that she's hung out with Doctor Who. Now she's going to go like hang out with Miracle Max, right? It just like the lore that they've woven for her character, for the Pellia character in a very short amount of time. has been fast and furious and it doesn't bother me one bit because it seems to fit her whole like je ne sais quoi that they've, they've woven into this, um, uh, this show. So, uh, I liked the Pellaea send off. Uh, I doubt we'll see her again, but that was cool.

36:38 There's a good way to kind of write her off the show. Uh, Charles, yes, very much. I enjoyed the, the princess bride references. Uh, you said Miracle Max, you said as you wish, uh, Also, they went into the Swamp of Infinite Death, which is not unlike the fire swamp from Princess Bride, where the rodents of unusual size live. There was also, I think, a Little Shop of Horrors plant in there. And I was trying to remember whether Carol Kane had ever been in a production of Little Shop of Horrors. But there was one moment where there was a giant Venus flytrap snapping something in this episode. And it was during the Pellaea stuff. And I was like, I wonder if Pellaea has been in it or if Carol Kane's been in it. a little shop of horrors along the way. I didn't have a chance to look that up, but it might be fun to.

37:24 I was thinking the bog of eternal stench. Yeah, there's also that. Yeah, for sure. There was one kind of cool, like I watched this episode with my wife. We usually watch strange new worlds together. She is not a Trekkie. She, you know, she's familiar with kind of like the general stuff, but like she has been watching discovery and strange new worlds with me. And today, this episode gave me the best possible example of one little technical thing that David will get off on and maybe none of the rest of you will. But I know David is familiar with this phenomenon. So in Star Trek of old, in TOS and into the next generation and all the way up to Voyager and Enterprise times, When the ship gets shot and the shields are up, a sphere of shields forms around the ship and it repels the shot, right? So it's like, it's like, so people who are into like tech geekery call that bubble shields.

38:17 Ever since Discovery, they have had a different kind of shields. People who are into tech geekery now call these skin shields and they're the shields that are right against the surface of the hull. And this episode had such cool special effects when the dragon was coming in and breathing fire on the hall. And you saw the skin shields like peeling back with this like blue luminescent. I mean, it was just, it looked so cool. So I know it's hard to be impressed with special effects these days because they're everywhere. And like AI is just like where we live now. But like, I just thought that was an excellent effect that was really enjoyable to watch. So I didn't think this was a deep episode. I mean, it was kind of like it was razor thin plot.

39:02 Let's be honest. But we did get resolution of the La'an thing, which I was satisfied with. And it had just enough kitsch to it to keep me interested. So I'm going to give this episode a seven. All right. A seven from Eric. So David, you get to be next on our train. Hey, true, true. All right. So yeah, as many of you don't know, I am a very big fantasy-style kind of guy, and I love The Lord of the Rings. And also, Tuchel mentioned that he didn't know of a famous red dragon. I would almost suggest Smaug. That's another reference that another dragon appeared. So, I love dragons, and I love what Captain Pike mentions about, like, how he likes to read about dragons, and that's how he knew about what he was about to do, kind of thing, when he attacked the ship. So, it's like, you know, he just.

39:49 You mean the sniveling version of Captain Pike? Yeah, exactly. I can't remember his name. I don't. Okay. Yeah, but anyways, I do have to agree with Paul and everybody else when they said that Anson Mount and Ethan Peck did a really good job on their part to act. I actually did enjoy them when they were on the ship and everything and just the way that they were trying to fit in. And then they were looking at each other in the mirror trying to, like, say the words, and Bach was like, fascinating. Fascinating. But, and also, the other thing, too, was when Anson, the coward character, saw Uhura for the first time, just the face he made, it was like, it cracked me up. But, yeah, a lot of good acting. I did like the werewolf scene.

40:39 That actually kind of, that actually kind of made me, what's the word, I didn't see that coming. I knew that they talked about the werewolf and it kind of reminded me a little bit of Harry Potter because you knew that for some odd reason that the character was going to be the werewolf but I actually thought he went to fight off some other beast that he saw something. For some reason I didn't know why I didn't see that coming. But yeah, this whole thing where Charles mentioned about the turning into a dragon, I have to admit growing up, that was my favorite Disney movie ever, The Sleeping Beauty, just because it had the dragon in it. I actually enjoyed that part and I liked the way that they did it. This whole episode was definitely like a D & D sequence where it was just like, yeah, it does magic. It doesn't have to make sense. It's just, you know, it works. Why not? That's what makes a fantasy movie fun for me. So it's just like, yeah.

41:36 And the fact that they had a dragon, I'm not saying this is my favorite episode out of the whole thing. And yes, this is Still somewhat of a gimmicky episode for the season. Still a series. But I don't know. I really like to look at dragons. I actually read a lot about dragons, so I know quite a bit about a lot. I love it. I love that David's analysis. Dragons are fucking awesome, and this episode was awesome. Yeah, I don't know. Anyways, okay, so... But other than that, the episode itself, I did enjoy the background, the story for the La'an character and how she was trying to find her inner self, I guess. That part actually kind of made the story plot kind of worth watching because everybody has a good side and a bad side, and a lot of people don't like to face their bad side of themselves at all and to me I actually enjoyed the sequence of them fighting with their swords you would think that what's her name Princess Talia was like you know just a princess like didn't really know how to fight but man did she know how to fight and the fact that she was fighting herself made me wonder like you really don't know how people can react especially when you're facing

43:08 yourself and it's just like The fact that they just couldn't defeat each other was like, whoa, that's actually kind of interesting. But yeah, overall, I really did enjoy this episode, and I'm kind of up there with you guys with the whole high numbers, but there was this one thing I did want to add really quick, and that was, it didn't make sense to me, and I have to be nitpicky about this, about the fact that when they first came to the planet and they were looking all around and stuff, and they came across this Nvenga character, it was almost as if The story forgot about him. And he was just like in the background when they were all just kind of like, you know, talking about what to do. And even the security guard, La'an, was like, had her back to him. It's like, I thought he was a big threat. What was the point of just having him there? And then was he there the entire time when they all changed out of their clothes? I don't know.

44:03 That was kind of weird. Yeah. But, I mean, the fact that he drew a sword and everything, and it was just like, it was just a big threatening scene. It was just kind of weird to me. I was like, okay, they just kind of ignored him. It was like, oh, well. But, yeah, that was the only thing I didn't really like about this episode. But other than that, yeah. Ah, dragons, what can I say? I'm going to have to bump this up to about a, not quite an eight. I'm going to have to go a little bit in between, probably a 7.7 for me. Well, that's cool. 7.7. I want you guys to do me a favor, if you don't mind. My team, Whitney, who's our IT expert where I work, is.

44:45 Watching us right now. And I'd like you guys to flash her to live long and prosper. Hey, Whitney. I told her to give her a shout out. Thanks for joining us. The first person I met when. I started working at the school, she's got a big Enterprise D hanging on top of her desk. Oh, nice. She's one of the good ones. Nice. Thanks for for your support well guys i want to start off before i talk about the episode by stating the obvious i love star trek 5 you can see my autograph posters right here okay over my head and that's very important that's very very important because in the world of star trek there's a lot of opinions these opinions can often be very different like My favorite Star Trek movie?

45:29 Star Trek V, right here. We had Lawrence Luck and Billy sign this poster for me. It's the pride of my collection. I truly, truly, truly love Star Trek V. And that's against the grain. And so I have to preface that before I talk about the episode because I hated it. I'm completely on the opposite end of the spectrum of all of my co-hosts. I couldn't stand the Kingdom of Elysium, and I couldn't stand this one either. Now, I did, I had some problems with it. First of all, the Kingdom of Elysium, how did this floating magic planet even show up? It's not a planet, Jim.

46:11 Okay, what is it? It's an organism. They said that in the episode. Okay, I went back and watched. They said. It's a ship. Or ship, that's what it was. It was a ship. It's a ship, yeah. And watched the end. I tortured myself. I took paperclips and put my eyes open and watched the end of Kingdom of Elysium so that they wouldn't bleed. This episode just didn't line up with the facts of the Kingdom of Elysium. First of all, magic didn't work in the Kingdom of Elysium. But in this episode, Spock is like wicking out magic left and right. But in the Kingdom of Elysium, magic didn't work. If you guys remember, the magician in that one happened to be the awesome Incredible Hammer. He couldn't do magic on Andor. He was doing card checks with a vanguard. So magic didn't work in the Kingdom of Elysium, but in this episode, it did. That was kind of weird to me. I didn't like the whole magic thing. So I didn't like the magic thing.

47:06 I didn't like the way the character, like... How am I going to say this? I didn't like the characters playing their doppelganger thing like that. Yeah, that bothered me. Give me an. Answer, please. Yeah, so you'll remember that in the kingdom of Elysium, Hammer couldn't do magic, but magic was actually possible in there. He couldn't, he actually he never actually was able to do it because his mind was never like connected with the alien entity that was part of, that created the kingdom of Elysium. So that's, he like, remember he's an Aenar, right? So his natural psychic defense allows him to like resist being controlled by, by an entity, which is why he wasn't like part of that story in the same way that everybody else was. So that's why he wasn't really able to do magic. Cause he wasn't really like part of the story in the same way other people were.

48:11 See, Leia is getting in the picture here. I guess she likes the episode because she's trying to get in on the thing. This is my runa right here. Okay, so not that I didn't like it, but I will say this. I thought the special effects were awesome. The dragon was so cool. David was absolutely right. The dragon was, I was like, wow, that is some awesome shiznit right there. A dragon attacking Enterprise. Cool. Absolutely cool. I find it humorous. Watching Anson Mount and Mr. Spock, I mean, Anson Mount and Ethan Peck, Clay, the coward, Roosh, or whatever his name was, and the wizard, while they're looking in the mirror, saying, Fascinating.

49:05 Fascinating. Hit it. Trying to pretend to be someone else. I thought that was funny, and it demonstrated the acting chance of Ansemout and Ethan. When they're walking down the hallway, and everybody is thinking. Anselmau says, well, this shit could use some color. How about some tapestries, you know? And then they walk by tent board and they're going to go in and have a drink with the dweebs, you know, and then they're pounding down the drinks. You know, I thought that was cool. I liked that. But My biggest.... I'm conflicted. Because here's the thing. We only get nine episodes.

49:49 Or ten episodes. This is episode nine. In my opinion, they utterly wasted it. It was a throwaway, wasted, gimmicky episode when they should have been focusing on And ending Star Trek, because now we only have seven episodes left until Strangely World is over and this is what they give us? Another gimmick? It bothered me that they did that. I think they could have resolved the Talia thing in a different way than they chose to. Talia has some great moments in this episode, like when she says, are we all on drugs or is there a castle over there? I was falling off my couch when she said that she helped Arthur C. Parker sing the Kubrick Bright 2001 Space Odyssey. When she said that the picture of the Elysian King, I think they got rid of her perfectly.

50:42 If they're going to write a character out, this is the way Pele should go out. You know, move over, make room for Scotty, and this is right where... Oh, and hey. My co-hosts, most of them know. David and V. Might not know. I never saw The Princess Bride. I was a Princess Bride fan. Eric and Charles were like, you've got to watch it. You've got to watch it. So pretty recently, I think that was, what, a year or two ago? Yeah, I'd say within the last year and a half or so, yeah. I finally watched The Princess Bride. So I had never seen it before. So I thought that probably you're hanging out.

51:24 All she needed to do was say inconceivable. And that would have. Made the whole. Her line. These stones are inconceivably good or something. So, you know, I was conflicted because I really enjoyed the, we liked the special effects. I didn't like the story. Just didn't care for the story. Um, If I may come in. Here really quick, Jim. The dog staying there? The dog was real? It was a doppelganger dog? Where did the dog go when she beamed off the ship and left the dog behind? She just leaves the dog there, beams away, and then beams back up.

52:15 I do think it's fair to ask about the dog, because I thought that the whole Elysium Kingdom... I didn't realize that... I'm a little unclear on the Elysium Kingdom and how it works, if they're actually creating real things, or if this is all a mental connection type thing. I haven't... You know what I mean? I mean, the dog is real now, so apparently Doppelganger Laan is actually a real... I. Have a theory about who Rune is. if she's real. And it's N'Benga's daughter. She put herself and the dog. And now she wants to be a part of the crew, I guess. So she's going to have a uniform.

52:57 I wonder if the doppelgangers are more like the Mirror Universe. It is just sort of a dimensional cross that appeared in this universe. And they actually are doppelgangers of the actual characters. And the dog was real, and the dog had to go because somebody was allergic to the dog. Yeah. Too bad they didn't put a goatee on a dog. Yeah, it was Mr. Prince Darling. Isn't that wonderful black art episode that I also thoroughly enjoyed in my sleep? Didn't Mbenga make some comment how it's amazing that we haven't met our doppelgangers because they're out there? Didn't he say something like that?

53:37 He did, yeah. Yeah. You know, Jim, there was actually one other reference that. Charles, I don't know, as the probably second most voracious book reader on the team here, unless I don't know about V. V, are you a voracious book reader? I can't remember. You are. Okay, so the top three voracious book readers. The flat ship that was a planet-ish that everybody lived on. Has anybody read any of the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels?

54:23 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, there's a pretty famous author who has like 40-something books that are set on a flat disc that rides on the back of a giant space turtle that floats through the universe. Oh, is this another reference of the Hogfather? Sorry, what, David? Is this another reference of the Hogfather? There was a TV show, a mini TV series about this, where a giant turtle was carrying a giant disc.

55:03 It's the writer who has a bunch of novels set on a universe-like planet that looks just like this thing, except this one doesn't occur on the back of a turtle. But, like, the flat thing is, you know. At first I thought it was going to be something like Shirley, like a magical planet that brings what you're thinking to life. That's what I was thinking at first. Not this whatever planet. This is doppelganger planet yeah so yeah like i said yeah you can't be up here while i'm doing so anyways my my overall score like i said paul paul gave it a six i gotta give it a four i was gonna give it a two actually like when i when i watched it the first time and i put my review up on our facebook page i gave it a two But just because I thought the dragon was cool and Ansem out and Ethan Peck's talking chops were just incredible.

55:59 The hair blowing in the wind. Bumped it up from a two to a four. Nice. I'm just not there with you. Yeah, I actually have a. I do have stars of five. I did get this interview by telling you. No, no, wait. That's just mean to me. That's what actually sets the bar of all of Jim's reviews, that his favorite thing is Star Trek V. If only Star Trek V had a dragon. Anyway, if there was a dragon, if the Chaparri was a dragon. I did have a theory about why they made the gimmicky episode for this season. I'm wondering if it had something to do with during that time, they didn't know that they were going to be canceled. So then they got the.

56:42 What do they call it? The script and everything. The scripts and everything were probably already made, and they didn't want to go back and remake them, especially after they probably found out that they're going to be canceled in the fifth season. So I'm wondering if that's why there's so many gimmicky episodes in this season. Jesus. I swear to God, if the whole season is a dream, I'm going to kill somebody. I agree. Don't kill any dragons. This is what they're putting in his mind. Yeah. I would hate that so much. No, seriously. Here's the incredibly awesome Magnitude of Orders episode. And the incredible All-Power episode, which I think were two of the best, and they followed it up with this.

57:34 I don't know. So, uh, Charles, even with my crappy score, how do we end with our fans on Facebook? Well, our fans gave it a 7.2. The host gave it a 6.6. That's thanks to me. Yeah. Oh, well. You can't love them all. I'll tell you this. You're going to love tonight's episode. It's all the time. So I can't wait to talk. Hopefully these new computer comes. So by next week, she'll be all set up. And I sent via computer. So she should be set up for next week. So that should be cool.

58:17 Excellent, actually. So yeah, that wraps up this week's episode of Once Upon a Time. We have one more episode, which is tonight's episode. And I did want to mention one thing that happened. I was going to put it in Star Trek news. Yeah, maybe we'll talk about it. No, we won't. We'll do it now. This segue is good with this. So Warner Brothers and Paramount are now officially merged, and they're calling it WarnerMount. And part of the agreement that they have is. This new company, they have to produce 32 movies a year. And if you guys don't remember, they canceled Star Trek. They canceled Strange New Worlds. They canceled Starfleet Academy. They destroyed the set because what did they say they wanted to do? Make Star Trek movies. So I think that this is part of their agreement They're going to start kicking out movies. One of their agreements was a $ 50 million budget, which isn't very high. So we might be seeing Star Trek movies kicking out here once a year to fulfill that contract. And that might be where they're heading towards and why they're canceling all the TV shows. Maybe, maybe not, but we'll see. So at any rate, that wraps up our review. I hope you guys enjoyed it.

59:36 I still have the suspicion that Rune is in Banger's Daughter. It could be. It could be. We'll have to wait and see. But at this point in time, it's all... You know what it is? It's Cybok. He's taking her pain. Oh, no. Okay, so that's three, oh my gosh, that's three end-of-season theories. Now Charles and I have to come up with one. Yeah, where is Cyborg? Is that Cyborg episode that we saw the only Cyborg one? I mean, I hope he shows up in season five. If you have a sexy Cyborg, you gotta have him. A sexy Cyborg. Oh my gosh. Imagine if you showed up in season five like that, instead of, you know, a lot of slugging.

1:00:19 Yeah, he had a rough life between that and Star Trek V, so yeah. Yeah, he had it tough. He had it tough. Yeah, I bet Dee would have loved to have seen Sean Connery in leather. Yeah. Yeah, he really loved talking to hell. All right, guys, so this is the part of the show where we do our sci-fi birthdays. That was not a Klingon song. No, the underworld says that every week, but we like it anyway.

1:01:10 So 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 Eric. Yeah, Jim, this week I am particularly excited to start with the person who we're going to start with. So we're going beyond to start with, and we are going to say happy birthday to the great Adam West. That's right, he was the American actor who lived from September 1928 to June 9th, 2017. He acted out the role of Bruce Wayne slash Batman in the Batman television series of the late 1960s and its various spinoffs. A victim of typecasting, West reemerged to voice other versions of Batman with 1977's The New Adventures of Batman and the Super Friends cartoon of the mid-1980s. He also made a couple of guest appearances later in his career in some of the other shows like Batman the Animated Series. I have to tell you, and I think I've said it on this podcast before, but every afternoon I would come home from school and my television routine was to watch General Hospital with my mother and then to watch Batman, which happened right immediately afterward.

1:02:23 And to me, that was the greatest one-two punch in television that you could ever imagine because it was like the drama stories of the soap opera and then the like kitschy comedy uh, hero work of Adam West and, uh, Burt Ward, uh, you know, playing Batman and Robin. So just absolutely. Yeah, that's right. No, but you know what, V, I do carry shark spray in my bag every single day. So, yeah. You know what I remember? He played, he played himself. Is that calling up the outside of the building on the roofs? Yeah. And the people opening up the windows? Yeah. Is that calling up the side?

1:03:03 Yeah, the famous people, they would get famous people to make cameo appearances in that scene. Yeah. What were you saying, V? I was saying that he played Mayor Adam West on Family Guy. Does anybody remember that? That's right. He was hilarious. He was hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just have a super soft spot in my heart for Adam West and in particular for Batman. So I'm happy to say happy birthday to him. Yeah. I watched it when it originally aired. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I obviously was watching it in syndication, but it was on same time every day for years. So I definitely saw lots and lots of Batman. And what's her name? I can't think of. will play Catwoman.

1:03:49 Perfect hit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, happy birthday to Adam West, who took us just a little bit beyond Star Trek. But bringing it back to Star Trek, we're going to say happy birthday this week to Carolyn McCormick, the actress who played Minuet on the Next Generation first season episode 11001001. And. Minryker in the fourth season of Future Imperfect. That's right. Archive footage from her first appearance was reused in the second season episode Shades of Grey as well. Forgot that, didn't you? Yeah. Carolyn was of course best known for her reoccurring role as Dr. Elizabeth Olivier on Law and Order, in which she appeared in 87 episodes between 1991 and 2009. She also previously had leading roles as Assistant District Attorney Rita Fior in Spencer for Hire. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, that's that Avery Brooks show from 1986 to 1987. Later projects included the romance Downtown Express, the thriller True Nature, and a reoccurring role as Judge Burdette in three episodes of One Life to Live from 2010. Happy birthday to Carolyn McCormick. Happy birthday as well to actress Kathy Brown.

1:05:12 She was the California-based actress who appeared as Dila in the original series' third season episode, Wink of an Eye. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty played mainly ingenue parts and was very busy during her TV acting career of the 1960s and 70s, but always in little tiny bit parts here and there. But one of her most famous acting roles was as the prospective bride of Adam Cartwright during the 1963 to 1964 season of Bonanza. Various shows all over the place. I mean, you name it. Back in the day, you got your Gunsmokes, your Perry Masons, My Favorite Martian, Wagon Train, Wild Wild West, Fantasy Island. She was on all those shows back in the day. So Kathy Brown, a face I'm sure many of you recognize, subscribers can recognize her. right now as they see David's amazing presentation.

1:06:03 Thank you for that. And happy birthday to Kathy Brown. And last but not least on our remembrances, we're going to say happy birthday this week to Henry Gibson, the prolific character actor who played Nilva in the Deep Space Nine six season episode, Prophet and Lace. Outside of Star Trek, he's best remembered as a regular performer on the television variety series, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. From 1968 to 1970, you recognize his face, right? Yeah, you've seen it. He went on to appear in a large number of films, including several from Robert Altman and Joe Dante. Gibson worked with director Robert Altman on The Long Goodbye in 1973.

1:06:44 But his best-known film role is as country singer Haven Hamilton in Altman's acclaimed 1975 musical drama Nashville. If you haven't seen that and get an opportunity to see it, you should probably see it. Douglas S. Kramer, the executive in charge of production on Star Trek, the original series, who worked with Gibson on the television series Wonder Woman, referred to Gibson as a comic genius of the 1960s and 1970s. And I would say that I probably agree with that. I remember him in particular from the Blues Brothers and National Lampoon's Vacation series. But he was also in Magnolia, Wedding Crashers, and myriad other things. So amazing actor, Henry Gibson, unfortunately lost to us way back in 2009.

1:07:34 Happy birthday to Henry Gibson. And that does it for our remembrances. But before I actually pass it back over to Charles, I actually stole one birthday from Charles this week. So I'm sorry, Charles. Charles, to do this to you on the fly, but I really wanted to be the person to say happy birthday to the very much living Tatiana Maslany. She is only 40 years old, born in 1985. She, of course, is the actress who played Anisha Mir. in the Star Trek Starfleet Academy first season episodes Kids These Days, 300th Night, and Rubicon. But we all, of course, best know her for starring in Orphan Black, for which she won an Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Drama Series.

1:08:29 She's the first Canadian to win an Emmy in a major dramatic category for acting in a Canadian series. She also starred in the Marvel superhero series She-Hulk. attorney at law as jennifer walters slash she hulk and i just thought that orphan black was such a fantastic show and if you don't know anything about that show tatiana maslany plays i believe it's something like 27 different characters in that show over the course of seven seasons. You see some of them on the screen here. So just fantastic actress. I love her so much. And it was so cool to see her show up in Star Trek. So thank you, Charles, for letting me steal that birthday from you. I will go ahead and pass the flaming birthday candle at this point over to my good.

1:09:16 Friend, Vy. He played Frank on TNG Angel One, while, as in the golden version that you see there, on TNG The Spring, and Tomar, the agent, Virtuoso. Happy birthday goes out to Alder Scott. He's an actor who played Frank in the Star Trek short film, episode, Calypso. Next, happy birthday goes out to Sierra Stewart, You were a star actor to play Kattel as Selah in the TNG Four Seasons episode eight. Next, I'd like to say to Carl Held, you were a star actor to play Lindstrom in the TNG Four Seasons episode, The Return of the Arbiter. Next, I was trying to practice doing something with his last name because I love him so much. He's a Nigerian-American actor who plays Joseph Mbenga in Star Trek The Green New World. Oh, here's a good one. I love his book that returned in the movie. I'm a fan of. It's the one and only Stephen King. He's an American author. Doug is the king of horror. He is widely known for his horror fiction.

1:10:47 It's a few of Terry's that work him in horror. Among the films that Doug did, the king of horror, Terry, The Shining, The Dead Son, Stand By Me, Save Mary, The Shawshank Redemption, another favorite, Dolores Claiborne, The Green Mile, It, there's a heck of a meaning of the life of a cat and the long walk. Well yeah and don't I gotta say don't forget about the Gunslinger series that's my absolute favorite Stephen King of all time yeah seven amazing books that actually tie into so many of his other works as well oh.

1:11:32 I would have to add in my first book that I actually read from him was Pet Sematary But of his series, my favorite is The Stand. That Stand is such a fabulous book. And I recommend it to Eric. Stephen King's not always horror. I recommend fans go back and read Fairy Tales. It's not a horror book. It's a fantasy book, but it's a very good book. Does anybody remember that? Oh, yeah, for sure.

1:12:13 Is that why he wrote the book The Long Walk? No, but he did write... No. Yeah. Anyway. Let's not forget 1982's Creepshow. The anthology, he wrote the story, and he starred in it, about the asteroid that crashes, and Geordi finds it. His character was Geordi. He's going to sell it. He touches it, and he gets green moss on his fingers, and he turns into a giant moss creature and blows his own mossy head. Off at the end. Poop show, 1982. Spoilers. I love Star Trek V, okay?

1:12:55 Yeah. Yeah v v i was just uh i was remembering what you were just talking about and i just did a quick google on it so um after that accident is when he wrote that book dream catcher and i don't know if you if you read that book but that's the story where he kind of tells the story of an author who gets hit by a car and it's like it was like his way to process getting hit by the car so if Yeah, if you haven't read Dreamcatcher, it's actually kind of a cool... It's not really horror, but it's definitely in that realm of, like, dream weirdness, you know, kind of book.

1:13:39 Yeah, and if you watch the movie, it has weasels in the movie. Oh, is there a movie of that one? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. It's a weird movie. Whoa, okay. Yeah, well, anyway. My last happy birthday goes out to Ralph Lauren Bowers. He plays Demar in the second season of The Outrageous O'Connor. Not one of my favorites, but it's okay. And best known for her portrayal of Dr. Wendy Smith in the second season of Beast Quest.

1:14:20 Thank you, Vee. Let's start off with a happy birthday to John Berthold. Gained critical acclaim and prominence for his portrayal as Shane Walsh in the AMC series The Walking Dead. In 2015, he was cast as Frank Castle, Punisher, as part of the Netflix MCU series. He debuted on the Daredevil season, second season of Daredevil, before starring in his own series, The Punisher, in 2017. Most recently appeared as Frank Castle, Punisher, alongside Tom Holland in the movie Spider-Man, Brand New Day, Menzelius, The King of Spartan, and Christopher Nolan's 2026 epic movie, The Odyssey.

1:15:08 Yeah, he's also the brother, the... the catalyst for much of the story of the bear. If you're not watching the bear on Apple TV slash Hulu, that's a fantastic series about a restaurant. And he's the brother who kind of dies at the beginning of the series. And they often bring him back as kind of a memory as part of the show. Thank you, Eric. Happy birthday to Suzanne Watson, actress who played Lethe in Star Trek's original series. Original series first season episode, Dagger of the Mind. Happy birthday, Jeremy Roberts. Actress who played Lieutenant Commander Damar Valtaine in Star Trek IV, Star Trek VI, The Undercircle Country. And Voyager's third season episode, Flashback.

1:15:57 And Miso Clan and DS9' s fourth season episode, Hippocratic Oath. You guys, we interviewed him on this podcast, and he was a lot of fun to talk to. If you go over to. Trucktalking.com and you look up Special Guest, you can find his interview. Give it a listen. He had a lot of good stories. He worked with Chevy Chase on Christmas Vacation. He was in The X-Files. He's been in a lot of stuff. So go over to trucktalking.com, listen to our interview with him. He's a lot of fun. Yeah, and Jim, it's been a very long time since I mentioned Star Trek Attack Wing, but Valtaine has one of the best cards in Star Trek Attack Wing. So if you still play that game, which David and I still do on occasion, if your ship has a scan token beside it when you attack, you can reroll two of your attack dice with Valtaine. So he's classic for many attack-based builds in Star Trek Attack Wing.

1:16:48 Very nice. Then a couple of good ones coming up. Happy birthday to Christina Chong, English actor who played Leon Noonien Singh in Star Trek Strange New Worlds. She was born in Enfield, Greater London to a Chinese father and English mother. Great to having her on the show. And I'm glad Eric saved this last one for me. Happy birthday to Billie Piper, English actor and former singer. She gained recognition as a singer after releasing her debut single, Because We Want To, at the age of 15, which made her the youngest female singer to enter the UK singles chart as a number one.

1:17:31 But we're better known her as. Rose from the reboot 2005 through Two Doctors in Doctor Who. Companion of the Doctor as, okay, Rose Rose. as Brianna Croft, Lily in the Showtime horror series, Penny Dreadful, and Capria in the Netflix series Wednesday. But I still think of her as Ro, as I. Still think of the first time Eccleston ran into Ro, and the first words the doctor said to Ro, run, as he was being chased by mannequins.

1:18:15 Yeah, and I always think about the fact Oh, sorry, Charles. I was just going to mention that as you mentioned, she's the companion through two Doctors. She starts with Christopher Eccleston and she goes on to be with David Tennant. One thing that they kind of avoid during most of Doctor Who is any romantic entanglements for the Doctor. They played with that a little bit with Enshuti's character. But people forget that they actually played a little bit with that at the very beginning of David Tennant's run with Billy Piper as well. And they sort of dabbled with it. and then they let it go, which I thought was one of the most brilliant things ever done on television to sort of say, oh my God, is there sexual tension? Nope, actually there's not.

1:18:56 Well, but remember, she took care of the, I forgot what part of the doctor, but she had a version of the doctor in the alternate universe that she took care of. But definitely happy birthday to Billy. She was a fun companion to see. And I think Jim. Wants to talk about some movies that occurred recently on this date. Absolutely. So, Eric, you like our new logo made-off? Yeah, it looks familiar. Dave and I got together and decided that we wanted to keep the show uniform. I like it. We used your logo and just altered it to each one of our segments so that they all kind of match.

1:19:39 It's really cool. I love it. Anyways, guys, instead of doing birthdays, I do anniversaries of movies that happened this week through history. Uncle Jim's movie of the week. So we're going to start off. The first movie that we're going to mention is The Haunting. Released on September 28, 1963, it's a British horror film directed and produced by, there's this guy. Again, Robert Wise. Dr. John McQuade, played by Richard Johnson, an anthropologist with an interest in psychic phenomena, takes two socially selected women to El House, a reportedly haunted mansion. Eleanor, played by Julie Harris, a lonely, eccentric woman with a supernatural event in her past, and the bold Theodora, played by Clara Bloom, who has DSP.

1:20:30 Joey and John and the Mansion's Hair, cynical Luke, played by Russ Tamrim, to spend. The night in the haunted mansion. 1963. There was a remake that came out with Liam Neeson as well, but this is the original one. The next that's on my list is Dread. Released on September 21st, 2012. A great futuristic action adventure and comic book adaptation starring Carl Urban. That's right. You heard it. Carl Urban, Bones McCoy. from the Kelvin Universe movies. The film takes place on the hostile streets and high-rise blocks of a mega city. One of Judge Dredd's and rookie partners fight their way through an apartment complex to bring down a drug lord. Played by Lena Hensley, who was in Game of Thrones and the Sarah Connor Chronicles. The next movie on my list is Conan the Adventurer. It was released on September 22, 1997. You may have forgotten this one because in this adaptation, the work of Robert E. Edward, Conan is played by, not by that muscle-bound Arnold Schwarzenegger, but by Danny Woodburn. And I think that's why people forget it, because this dude is no Arnold. But at any rate, He goes in search of the ancient sword of Atlantis, a powerful weapon you need to deal with the evil sorcerer. Together with a group of brave warriors,

1:22:03 live an incredible adventure in which you face terrible creatures that rise up from hell. And last on my. List, Amityville 2, The Possession. It was released on September 24, 1982. An anthology, Dolores Montello, along with their four children, move into their dream house in Amityville and are immediately plagued by a string of paranormal experiences. When the abusive Anthony wrongly places the blame on their children, Dolores recruits a local Catholic priest to exercise the house. And those are the notable movies that came out this week. And which movie are we going to celebrate this week? David, roll the thing.

1:22:53 800 million people living in the ruin of the old world. Only one thing fighting for order in the chaos. Judges. Judgment time. There's drugs like nothing I've ever seen. If we play this right, we can take the whole city. Okay, you ready? Somewhere in this block are two judges. I want him dead. This is Judge Dredd. I am the law. just confess right now. Dread. There you have it, guys.

1:23:55 I have to admit, though, I'm a huge fan of the Stallone version from the 80s because I love the one-liners. Stallone cracks those one-liners. Better than anybody Jim they they are both really good solid movies for different reasons like I think the Stallone one has way better one-liners and actually the um the art of it matches the comic books just a little bit more than the Carl Urban but the Carl Urban one actually has a better story and the action sequences are so good. I like the Statue of Liberty in the Stallone version. So, yeah, I mean, so I just wanted to, because I believe they're making another one. I think Paul said that Carl Irving was working on another Dredd movie. You may have noticed most of our movies were horror movies. That's because we're into September and October. So this is the big horror movie time of the year. So a lot of our movies are going to be horror movies.

1:24:56 So that's okay. We can re-go beyond that. So that is Uncle Jim's movie. Pick of the week, Dread, from 2012. If you missed it, go out and check it out. You might enjoy it. All right, guys. So that finishes up our birthdays. And now it is time for some Star Trek news. Now it's time for some Star Trek news. Star Trek news intro. Here we go, David. Oh, no. Here it is right here. Oh my god, there's no sound. Oh, he stopped it. So this is live. So I could edit that out, but I'm not.

1:26:07 I'm going to leave it in so the people watching later can get the feel of the live show. In our attempt to keep everything uniform, we kind of use that logo throughout. The whole show, if you guys notice. So, Eric, we usually start off the show with a particular segment if we can. And this particular week, we have one. So, Eric, the stage is yours. Yeah, I'm going to do a Shatner Says What. V, I'm going to ask you to just mute your microphone real quick. We're getting some static from you. So this is my favorite segment of the show. Shatner Says What? That's right. William Shatner covers Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, classics at his first ever performance with his heavy metal band, The Uckers, which I believe is how you pronounce this. It is spelled asterisk U-C-K-E-R-S, The Uckers. 95-year-old Star Trek legend William Shatner performed live with his newly formed heavy metal band, The Uckers, for the first time Saturday night, September 19th, at the Riot Fest aftershow at Park West in Chicago, Illinois. The gig served as the warm-up for his main Riot Festival appearance at Douglas Park the following evening. The Uckers feature an all-star lineup of veteran rock musicians, including Marcus Nand on guitar and as musical director. Philip Sousan on bass, Brit Lightning from Vixen on guitars, and Fred Oching from

1:27:37 Kings of Thrash and Dead Groove on drums. The performance reimagines songs from throughout Shatner's musical catalog, while also previewing materials from his upcoming rock metal album, What the F is Heavy Metal? Shatner said, I've explored space. I've explored time. Now, I explore distortion. Shatner laid out some conditions for his performance at the Riot Fest, telling the organizers, Don't forget my bowl of sauerkraut if you please. What? His writer also included fire breathers. Many of them. Like, no kidding, it's in the contract. A Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater signed by John Stamos.

1:28:23 What? Four feet of Polish sausage. What? And an assortment of adoptable puppies sourced from a reputable local animal rescue nonprofit. Dude, that's the most crazy thing I've ever heard. Anyway, that was... great. You understand, these are conditions of his performance. Like, the assortment of adoptable puppies have to be there for him to do the gig. I just love it. He said, you gotta start with the premise that I really know nothing, Shatner explained. I'm inquisitive. Apparently I'm inquisitive. And I'm reading and looking up all the time stuff. So I began to experiment. I fastened on to emotions. I thought heavy metal has got to be about emotions. Violent, passionate, not violent, passionate emotions. Guest musicians set to appear on What the F is Heavy Metal include Queen guitarist Brian May, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, are you kidding me? And the bassist from Disturbed. You guys, this guy has got connections beyond connections. And I know this is all about the kitsch of it, right? But as a metal fan and also a fan of kitsch, I can tell you that I am so excited about this collaboration. There are some songs by this band, The Uckers, online. If you're

1:29:54 interested in hearing what William Shatner sounds like in a metal band, go to your favorite music service. Some of it is there right now. You don't have to do that, Eric. David! You guys want to see and hear some Shatner as well? I love it, yes. Let's do it. I will try. Here we go. Look at his face. This is Enter Sandman by Metallica, by the way.

1:31:35 Oh my God. Okay, how. About some Ozzy Osbourne? Oh my God. Wow. I just...

1:33:20 Only Shatner. Only Shatner. I mean, is it just me or is he just totally lit up during these performances? He's gotta be, right? Only Shatner. I couldn't pass on that it's just like amazing it's just incredible. So that's our Shatner says what or in this case Shatner sings what and we're gonna pass it over to Charles Charles has our next story take it away Charles. Okay not to be able to top that Garrett Graham dies actor of Star Trek and Phantom of the Paradise Fans and stars alike are mourning the death of Garrett Graham, an actor known for his role in several Brian De Palma films, Fan of the Paradise included, and two Star Trek series. He died at the age of 77 in Rhinebeck, New York, after living with lung disease and other ailments.

1:34:27 Under De Palma's direction, Graham appeared in the 1968 film Greetings, Robert De Niro's first feature-length film credit, 70's Hi Mom, 74's Fan of the Paradise, and. 79's Home Movies. Other film title roles include 76's Cannonball, 1980's Used Cars, 1990's Charles Play II, 1993's The Boy's Life, in 98's One True Thing. On television, Graham starred as Leonard Scribber in Stockard's Channing's Just Friends and Roger Bender's On Now and Again, recurring on Dallas and Parker Lewis's Can't Lose, and lent his voice to the animated series The Critic.

1:35:18 He also guest starred as Hunter in DS9 in 1993, and Quinn in Star Trek Voyagers in 96. One of Graham's other claims of fame is that he co-wrote the Grateful Dead song, Victim or the Crime. Graham is survived by his brothers Sam, son Jack and Henry, and their wives, Tali and Jolie, and the grandchildren Nolan, Mecca, Brera, and Joey. As we also will know him as Q2. No, not Q2. One of the Qs.

1:35:59 Quinn. Quinn. We have more sad news, unfortunately, Eric. Yeah, kind of a bummer for news this week. We've got actor James Sloyan was unfortunately lost as well. So we have information about his obituary. James Sloyan, an actor who built a six-decade career in theater, film, and television, died on July 22nd at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, attended by his family. He was 85 years old. Friends and colleagues remember him always present, always curious, courageous, inventive, loyal, as well as brash, mouthy, and very urban. He was one of a kind. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 24th, 1941. His father's untimely death brought the family to Albany, New York, where the young James established truancy in several high schools. Established truancy, I love that.

1:37:06 He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and served three years in the U.S. Army stationed in Hauchuka, Arizona. commended by his captain for revitalizing the post-dormant entertainment program. Back in New York City, he found his footing as an actor and dueling choreographer. He had feature and cameo roles in films like The Sting, Xanadu, The Traveling Executioner, and The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. He had leading roles in made-for-television movies like The Disappearance of Amy with Faye Dunaway and Bette Davis. and The Billionaire's Boys Club.

1:37:49 Jim peppered television with his guest-starring roles all over the place as lovers, lawyers, heroes, and goons, notably portraying three divergent species in the Star Trek pantheon. He is pre-deceased by a sister, Judith Wilkes, a clinical coordinator at Liberty House in Glen Falls, New York, and Patrick Sloyan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He is survived and deeply missed by Deidre Lennon, his partner of six decades, and their children, Daniel, a musician, and Samantha, an actor. This guy's face, if you can't see our screen right now, you, you, you'll have to wait till you can. But if you wreck it, if you saw his face, you would recognize him because he's been in everything. I of course, immediately recognized him from the sting. Um, that's one of the very first movies I can actually remember seeing as a child. Um, but he was all over the place. Like if you look at his IMDB, he's got upwards of a hundred or so, um, credits in there, including things like chips, which I watched all the time as a kid, including things like wonder woman, which I watched all the time as a kid. Um, you know, later on, he was on shows like Simon and Simon, which I watched all the time, the fall guy, which I watched all the time.

1:39:04 Right. So he just was like one of those faces that's just sort of defined my childhood, uh, in the seventies and eighties. Um, so, uh, definitely will be missed a great actor, uh, Unfortunately, we lost James Slian back in July. So, yeah. There you have it, folks. That is our new story. Lighten things up a little bit. What do you say? There we go. Yeah, let's lighten things up a little bit. David, what do you think? Yeah, I think we could just admire this awesome photo right here and then just dive right into Strange New World makes top 10. So, Strange New World is once again rising in streaming charts. The series is currently the number six most-watched TV show in the United States on Paramount +. Per Flick Patrol, globally, it is ranked number nine.

1:39:59 Last week, Strange New Worlds reached number six in the United States following the release of Orders of Magnitude, which became the highest-rated episode of the series on IMDb. since the season two finale. A few days later, though, the show fell out of the top 10 until the release of Once La Anna Time. However, the latest episode wasn't as well received. The episode currently has a 4.3 out of 10 on IMDb. Nearing the end of its fourth season, with only one episode left scheduled to debut on September 24th, Today.

1:40:47 After that, there's one more six-episode season, meaning fans will only get seven more episodes in total. The series started strong in 2022, receiving praise from audiences and critics alike in the first two seasons. However, the audience reception dropped significantly in later seasons. While critics continue to say mostly positive things about the show, audiences have been quick to express their disappointment, saying the writing didn't live up to previous seasons. In Season 4, Stranger Worlds generated a 36% audience score on Rotten Tomato, the show's lowest score yet, compared to a 90% critic score. So I would have to agree. Yeah, the season definitely seems to be like they had planned on multiple seasons. But I have a feeling they didn't get the memo that they would be canceled right away. So that's probably why we had so many gimmicky episodes in this season. So that would be my guess.

1:42:01 Well, David. It's a cool dragon though, David. You got it? The dragon is cool. Awesome! Well, and one thing that I'm always struck by, of course, is the critics score things based on what they feel contains the essence of a good story, like good writing, good acting, good whatever. And so that's how they base their scores. Popular opinion is often based on that and then also... bots attacking things like the imdb. Like rating superman movie but the monkey on the. Computer yeah so the fact that strange new worlds um this season has a 30 36 on rotten tomatoes i wouldn't like yes has this podcast in particular been hard on the gimmicks of this season yes why do the critics like feel better about this season i think it's because if you actually look at it outside of the gimmick of each of these episodes each episode has tried its best you know with varying success to explore character stories along the way and i think the critics love that type of stuff so um i just think it's interesting like this 90 to 36 percent is a huge spread I would bet you that the real number for the audience score is much higher than that, but probably not 90%. It's probably in the 60s or 70s or something like that. I just wanted to say something about that because these numbers don't mean anything in the long run.

1:43:33 They're probably giving it a high score because they're saying that it's finally over or something. I don't know. No, the critics give. I encourage everybody to do research on how critics typically score episodes of shows and what are the factors that they typically look for when they rate. And remember, they get to see things before we do, right? So they're actually able to give their initial opinions before the court of public opinion sort of attacks the. Thing, right? Yeah. They also have first viewing of it too I would imagine. Yeah I just want to encourage everybody to like not read super deeply into this and make whatever you do ensure that you're making your own opinions about these shows yeah.

1:44:21 What were you saying Jim? Well the critics. Like Starfleet Academy and the fans completely hated it supposedly I. Believe that but I will say this critics okay. If you ask me to review some dramatic romantic comedy. No, I'm not going to give this a massively high score because that's not my thing. But if you ask me to review some sci-fi movie with cool aliens and stuff, that's up my alley. So I think it all depends on what, you know, these critics are looking at these episodes different than you and I are. You know, they're looking at it like, you know, the Academy Award winnings nuances and the camera angle and the lighting of the plant on the table with the shadow and whatever. And you and I are sitting there thinking, wait a minute, a Klingon would never drink Chardonnay.

1:45:18 You know, I mean, it's a different thing. So, and this next story that I have, I'll actually put him here for Paul. Unfortunately, Paul's not here. So I'll try to fill Paul's shoes on this one. Nacelle announces price increases for Wave 3 action figures. Brian Volkweis, who we had on the podcast last week, two weeks ago, last week? Last week. We did two shows last week. Last week, double episode last week, yeah. Yeah, check him out. He was a lot of fun. Paul did a great job talking to him. Announced in a video on Facebook that we can expect the pre-orders for the third wave of Star Trek figures to go up before the end of the year. A little Star Trek update from us. The good news is a billion percent confirmed that wave three pre-sales will be coming out this year. The bad news is we unfortunately have to raise the prices a little bit due to all the bonkers rising costs we're dealing with.

1:46:19 Oh, no. What a time to be a toy maker. Thanks for everyone's patience and hit me up in the comments or DM me with any questions. And I hope everyone had a great 60th anniversary. I know I did. I bought two popcorn buckets. Wave 3 includes the original series, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekhov, Scotty, Chappell, Rand, and a Roddenberry Lucille Ball double pack. He didn't say exactly how much of a price increase we'll be seeing, just that they would be more expensive than Wave 1 and 2, which are currently $ 28. 99. So that, my friends, wraps up yet another Trek Talking and Beyond. Can you believe it?

1:47:04 Wow. How do we do it? I think David does a great job with the video, so thank you so much, David. It was awesome. Yeah, so I must have had them mixed up or something. That newsreel was like way at the bottom for some other reason. I don't know. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much. We got through it. We got through it. Thank you so much, Eric. It was a lot of fun tonight. Thank you, Eric. Absolutely. Thanks very much, guys. And thank you so much to Charles. It was a lot of fun. Thank you, Charles. Oh, always fun. As you wish. As you command. Thank you so much to V for coming on and talking with us as well.

1:47:45 Thank you, V. This is unseemable. And I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim. Please, everybody, stay safe and be good to each other. Hailing frequencies are closed. Good night, everybody. Good night. Have long and prosper. I am. Continue with the operation. Where to, number one? Your apartment. you.

1:48:48 Thank you.