Episode 698- Soap Opera Tropes in Star Trek

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0:51 We're coming to you on your dream services now. We talk about the series. Comics, books, and games, we're going on the show now. We talk about the series. Come and join us as we sit and chat and we. Go on and on and. On and on. Well, good evening, Trekkies and Trekkers around the globe. Welcome to another episode of Trek Talkin' and Beyond. This is episode 698. It's Wednesday, September 9th, 2026. This is a make-up show, a catch-up show, actually. This is going to be a shortened show of our usual broadcast, but tomorrow night's show will be the normal one.

1:41 So sit back, relax, and have some fun. Fun. Okay, before we go too far, I'd like to go around and introduce my wonderful truck experts. We'll start off with Eric. Eric is out in Portland. How are you doing tonight, Eric? I am doing really good. As you can see, I'm actually in. Captain Pike's quarters here. He just finished making me a really sweet meal, and my belly is full. And I'm a happy man. So, yeah, feeling good about the podcast, ready to talk about this episode. Excellent. We also have with us Paul. He's the toy guy. He's also out in Portland. How are you doing, Paul? I'm doing good, Uncle Jim. It's been a heck of a good week to be a Star Trek fan. It's been really delightful, this 60th anniversary week. There's a lot of love for Star Trek coming back on social media, which is great. And it's pretty amazing to be able to see Star Trek episodes and features in the theater again.

2:38 So it's been pretty darn exciting. And also from Portland, we have our very own miracle worker, David. How are you doing tonight, David? Pretty good, pretty good. I got lots of snacks and, you know, I'm really excited to. Talk about this episode. Excellent. Did you bring enough for everybody? I think so. And also from one great. And from Las Vegas, we have Charles with us tonight. How are you doing, Charles? I'm doing good. I agree with Paul. I got a chance to see one of the movies and shows on the big screen and had a ball with it. I was disappointed because I couldn't partake in the 60th anniversary because people here just, I don't know, aren't into Star Trek.

3:19 I haven't figured it out. So I missed out on all of it. So I don't know. And last but not least, from Virginia, we have a very own bee. How you doing tonight, bee? Doing all right. I have not been able to see any of the movies in the theaters because, well, I just, it's been crazy at work. I haven't looked to see if they were around. I don't know. I really wanted to get that $ 80 enterprise popcorn holder. Just, you know, why not? So, but glad to be here. That did look pretty cool. That looked pretty cool. Tonight, we're going to be talking about. Strange New World, Episode 4, I mean, Season 4, Episode 7, like chronitons through the hourglass. So without any further ado, we're going to have Charles jump right into it.

4:14 Okay, let me just quickly load up my notes. Okay, cadet training, which is how I kind of tie in different episodes to the episode we just saw. And tie in a couple of characters. Let's go TOS Season 1, The Squire of Gatos. And Strange New World, Wedding Bell Blues, Season 3. This is the two times we've seen T'Lain. And then, of course, Star Trek V and Strange New Worlds, The Serene Squall is where we saw Cybok. Cybok.

4:57 Of course, this one thing caught to me. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the everyday daytime soap operas from 60s, 70s, 80s. Of course, I looked up famous Star Trek Amnesia episodes. We got the original series, The Paradise Syndrome, Next Generation, Thine Own Self, Enterprise Twilight, and Strange New Worlds Among the Lotus Eaters. Of course, a little bit reminds me of TNG's Cupid from season four with Q's Robin Hood fantasy. And then, of course, there's one I will talk about later in mine, Strange New Worlds, New Life and New Civilization season three. I'll get a chance. That's where we got to see Ju... Juliet, and I'll talk more about her in my review. I can pass this over to Paul. I think he wants to talk.

6:07 About what happened. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I've just been handed some breaking news, friends. I've just been handed a special bulletin from Eric over on the Trek Talking and Beyond behind-the-scenes desk. Eric, Eric, are you there, sir? What did you learn? Yes, Paul, I'm here, and as you know, On August 31st, the episode trailer for Light Chronitons Through the Hourglass circulated around the internet, and in a stunning display of serendipity, seemed to feature Jim's holy grail character from Star Trek V, Cybok. And for four beautiful days until the episode aired, it was as if Jim's dreams really did come true.

6:53 Ha ha! When you wish on shakari Then wait for eternity Eventually your. Dreams you see. Will come to you First you must give up your game. Then tattle all again and.

7:33 Again Trying to make them understand Your game's. Came into play. Wow, that was the best thing ever. So, Jim, that one was for you in those four beautiful days where you were really like a young kid again. It was really fun to watch. Oh, my God. That was the best. The drive-in theater marquee.

8:14 Was the best. We're sorry. We only have drive-in theater. Eric had me add that in at the last minute. He was like, I got a very funny picture. That was hysterical. Oh, my God. Yeah, so thanks to David, who helped me put the slideshow together. Obviously, I did the song and whatnot. That was fantastic. David is the man. It's like, man, Cypok has gone to hell since he was... He looks like shit. So anyway, I will now pass the microphone back over to Paul, who will tell us what happened in this episode.

8:54 Wow. Well, if I knew what happened in this episode, I feel like I could get. The no-go prize. I don't know what the hell happened in this episode at all. We begin rather dramatically in sickbay with a very confused and bandaged Captain Pike having awakened, supposedly having some kind of cosmic amnesia. as Dr. Mabenga explains it, because he's been in a shuttle accident and he's been unconscious for two weeks. And right next door to him is Commander Spock, who was also in an accident with the same shuttle. And it is revealed by Chappell et al.

9:35 that the only thing that could save Spock because of his terrible injuries is a living heart transplant. A wonderful miracle. Medical, very, apparently very futuristic Dr. Mbenga technique that only the most shaky handed of surgeons can perform. So that means that Laan is flying off to find the only viable solution. candidate who, of course, could possibly be able to give that living heart transplant. His brother, Saibach. Yes, friends, it's true. That would be the only person who could do it. So she has to break him out of a prison where apparently all the prisoners are held without shirts on.

10:18 That's what I took them in. Apparently there is no prison bar. Anyhow, things get even more surprisingly dramatic when Lieutenant Revorah tells Pike that she learned she is actually his daughter. Yes. And though we've never seen this person in three years, apparently there is a ship's counselor on there. to weigh in and help with these types of situations. Dr. Chivers, but she's no help at all, because all she wants to do is talk to Pike about his repressed feelings. And it's sort of a glorified cameo from actress Deidre Hall, who for decades played Marlena Evans on Days of Our Lives, supposedly.

10:59 So she's really trying to go for the whole soap opera thing on here. Pike rejects all of this and, uh, keeps kind of commenting on the fact that there's all this weird music and people keep looking off the distance. And of course there's a lot of sudden camera zooms in when people are revealing important information. So it's almost like you're in William Shatner's head. There's so much melodrama happened happening in this episode. Right. But it's not a musical. It's not another simulation. What it is is, uh, it's that wacky wedding bell blues iteration of, uh, Trelane slash Q, whatever you want to call it. Right. Uh, played by Reese Darby, who's running this kind of reality bending experiment as part of his dissertation on humanity, like from a TV control room right there. And there's apparently a Q Proctor wearing a lady's version of the judge's robes that we saw in Q-Ware so many times on Next Gen. And then in kind of a bit of a shift towards the very end of this stuff, beneath all the campy daytime TV soap opera presentation, the story is trying to use Pike's mourning for this, you know, non-existent family life and non-existent daughter that he had during his whole Battelle thing last year to explore how people process profound loss and, Futures that never really happened. So that's the best I could do to sum up all this crazy stuff. And yeah, well, you know, but I'll

12:30 have an opinion later because, you know, God knows I always do. But let's hear what our wonderful fans had to say about this. Right. I think Eric has been channeling them. Yeah, I always like to channel the fans. Both their love and their hate flow through me into the microphone, out into the internet. So here we go. Ronald Paul Woods, one of our top fans, said, The episode worked because of Trelane. I would give it a 6.5. Was Pike's daughter and the life he experienced with Winona Earp, sorry, she will always be Winona, real from another reality? Or was it all just an illusion? Thanks, Ronald. Dorothy Harris gave it a 10 because Star Trek is meant to inspire.

13:11 It did. Maybe someone will seek out a friend or someone to talk to if they need it. Secondly, Star Trek is meant to entertain. They did. Q's abilities, you never know what it leads to. Thirdly, they are meant to make you question and feel the unknown. Like, was Juliet real? And what happens to her when she's gone? Fourth, they had Cybok. That was interesting and how it was part of Spock coming out. So that concluded the relationship he had with La'an. Another great episode, if you are a true fan and could understand. Thanks, Dorothy. Clive McThorg said, Creepy AF cyborg. Poor script. Reflecting the genre, it's a pastiche of, I guess. I loathe daytime TV. I'm not a fan of Q episodes generally.

13:57 I'm in the UK, so I haven't seen Days of Our Lives, so no nostalgia for me. The two, which is what he gave it, because I thought the blurred screen and bright, colorful lighting effects. We're clever. There you go. Ashley Kell said, too much gimmick for a short season. I would rate it a three. David Hegney Jr. Said, I'm going with a seven. Not the greatest episode in the world, but they nailed the genre quite effectively. Nice character development, too. Kimba Thom said nine. I said what I said. I don't think he said anything. He said nine. What do you mean by that, Kimba? Say something. I love that. That's a lot of confidence, Kimba.

14:37 Thank you. Fliss Lawrence, perhaps a distant cousin of mine, gave it a 10. This is Star Trek at its best, seeking out strange new worlds, not in 3D space, but in the characters' emotional lives and using a familiar genre as a playful lens. Thanks, Fliss. Asenior Lucy said, 10, so funny. I love this season. We need humor and laughter in the current world. Frank Bono said, I give it a seven as in 70% AC grade because I do not see it as something. That would be a D or F. Okay. So it wasn't terrible. The biggest issue for me was the soap opera acting aspect was difficult to watch. I know the acting was intentional, but still it wore on me. Yes, it was humorous to see Pike react to the change, but that was about it. Great casting of Deidre Hall. The reveal climax of the episode made the entire episode worth watching and I often thought about this other life Pike experienced as well as Picard's similar situation and how both enriching and devastating.

15:38 It must be. It was a true loss and wonderful to see the episodes address it. And finally, Angela Rotaro gave it a five. It's way better than the Casablanca ripoff. Thanks, Angela. And that gives us a combined fan score this week of six. So kind of middle of the road for this season, I guess. All right. There you have it. The fans have spoken. And I think Uncle Jim is going to speak first. Shocker. Okay. So, let's get our Cybok references out. What do you say? Let's do it. Okay, so here we go. You knew it was coming, didn't you? So, Cybok, what can I say? I'm speechless.

16:27 I have been waiting patiently for years for this episode. And what did they give me? Yeah, nothing. So there was a scene, though. There was a scene with La'an and Spock in the shuttlecraft where Spockbottom, says to laan everyone hides a secret pain share your pain with me and gain strength from the sharing i loved it and why did i love that that particular line eric why did i love that line so much. Uh because it's from your favorite movie of all time.

17:09 Jim that's right it's from star trek 5 the final frontier this is exactly what cybox says to check off to get him to change course to go to shakari um. Other than that, the end. The end where Pike actually sees his daughter, his imaginary daughter from last season with Marie. That was awesome. That made the whole episode for me. Oh! So yeah, that's all I liked about this episode.

17:50 I was going to give it a 2 because I absolutely couldn't stand it at all. This is one of those problems I talked about when we talked about the black and white episode there. You know, when Star Trek turns into Weird Al, you're going to parody something. It's got to be something popular. And when you parody something that isn't, like in this case soap operas, I'm sorry, but I just, you know, Didn't. Get into it at all. And the ending, someone explain the ending to me. So now Uhura thinks it's like a Star Wars thing. Oh, you're my father. So now Uhura thinks that Pike is her real father. Is this what I gained out of this?

18:31 And Mbenga thinks he's got some space dimension madness. I didn't understand that ending when they're all sitting around talking about their feelings from this imaginary episode. Am I not a real fan and didn't understand that one of our. Well, I think, Jim, I think the fundamental argument that one of our listeners there was making in the fan reviews was that much like the inner light, where Picard experiences an entire lifetime and as a. Result is affected, right? For him, despite the fact that it wasn't real per se for anyone else, it still was real for him and it still affected his life.

19:17 And I think the, this episode meant to, to do. The same thing where, you know, it's like Pike's experience with the daughter and everything wasn't real, but that doesn't mean that it didn't touch something deep within him, you know, that, that needed to be explored in some way. Well, Did you guys not think that Ethan Peck made, a super sexy Latino cyborg? Oh, heck yeah. He couldn't have been steamy in this episode. I mean, did you not see leather pants and the nice hairy chest? Oh, yeah. The chest.

20:01 I was so excited when she pulled off the headpiece and it was Ethan Peck playing Cybok. I thought we are in for a treat. This is going to be good. I was just, in fact, I'm going to tell you guys, I'm going to tell you something. I stayed up to watch this episode as soon as I could, because I couldn't wait to see it. I was like a kid at Christmas. And so I watched it immediately and yeah, that's all I can say. So, um, Yeah, it is. I can't think of any. I was going to give it a two. I'm going to bump it up to a four, simply because of the Star Trek V references and the Pike and his daughter thing. I don't know who Deidre Hall is, so I can't comment on that. I don't watch Days of Our Lives or Sans Through the Hourglass, so I can't comment on that.

20:54 Trelane, you know, and this Q eating popcorn deal. Yeah, you know, whatever. But yeah, I'm going to give it a 4. Unfortunately, I was ready to give it a 10 just because Cybok was in it. But no, no, no. I'm going to go with a 4. I'm sorry, guys. That's the best I can do. So, yeah. Dee, you want to jump in? Sure. Well, I happen to like it because having been a fan of Days of Our Lives way back when, this just hits every single... soap opera you know moment or experience or trope or whatever you want to call it with looking off into the distance because you're contemplating whatever you know having some you know life threatening illness or injury or something and you know they find your twin who's the only one that can save you and you know we did the test and he's your father, you know, all that. It just was, it hit every single soap opera story because I watched not only Days of Our Lives, but General Hospital too. But, so I really appreciated that and Deidre Hall. Did anybody ever, did anybody else notice that they had the TOS sound effect, the brrng, you know,

22:28 whenever Trillane or Q or whoever made something happen, when Pike was walking back, he was trying to leave because he didn't want to have that counseling session. And he walked right back into the same scene. So that was funny. But, you know, with all the Star Trek episodes and everything, I was thinking about how several times over the years, if you've ever had a dream that was so vivid and you woke up and you're thinking, did I dream this or is this real? And it just sticks with you for a while. So that's how I was able to relate it. And then there was something that Dr.

23:21 What's-Her-Face was saying about how, because I guess Pike hasn't, uh, obviously, you know, the whole thing was his daughter. He hasn't properly mourned the loss of Marie, but she said, um, you're not just mourning the loss of that person, but you're mourning the loss of the future that you would have had with them. So that, that really got me. Um, but on the flip side, uh, yeah. Sexy Cybok. Oh, heck yeah. Ethan Peck and those tight leather pants and the long hair and the, chest and all that, that was, um, um, cause every, uh, soap opera has, has, uh, a sexy villain like that. Um, but at the very end, when he, he goes back to, uh, talk with a counselor, I don't know. It just, it really took me off guard when Pike just started crying. You know, he just was, you know, at, for a moment there, he, his, his, emotions were just laid bare. And so that sort of gutted me, but I enjoy, you know, being a days of our lives soap opera fan. I enjoyed it for what it was. I will give it. I think because they, like I said, they nailed all the soap opera aspects.

24:47 I think I'll give it an eight. Sure. Why not? So that is my, that is my review. Okay, we got a four for me and eight for V. How about you, Eric? Yeah, so V, it's funny to hear you name those two titles because I grew up in the 80s watching both General Hospital and Days of Our Lives with my mom on weekday afternoons. When I came home from school. And, you know, I remember that like high drama, intense overacting in all of those shows. Like the sheer number of times that a single character can have amnesia or be married.

25:28 To their brother or have. A secret terrible disease or, you know, it's like all these things, but what soap operas really do. And, you know, Jim said, they're not popular. They actually are incredibly popular, just not obviously with your demographic, Jim. And, and, but there are like a billion people that watch these things, probably not that many, but a ton of people who watch these things. And I think they do it as a kind of like way to explore their own like emotions. They see other people going through things and while it's overacted and kind of overdone on the television, it evokes these things within them that kind of like speak to them. So I think that's why so many people do like soap operas and that genre that, uh, you know, one of our reviewers, uh, said that they didn't care for either, which makes a lot of sense. You know, it's not, it's not for everybody. That's, that's very clear. Um, but, uh, What I will say is that I thought this episode did a great job of using that exploration of character insides up against this backdrop of soap opera. Whereas so many other episodes I think this season have used the...

26:35 We're all sick of the kind of trope of the week, right? But what this one did that I think some of the other ones haven't done was use the actual things that occur within the trope to really effectively... do the same things that happen within the trope, which is explore all of these character issues. Was it ridiculous that the crew of the Enterprise were behaving like soap opera characters? Absolutely. No question. But right from the beginning, if you're just. Kind of like, okay, my biggest concern at the beginning was, I swear to God, if it was going to all be a dream, I was going to flip the table. I have no tolerance for any more of that.

27:15 Well, that would have improved it, actually. Well, I mean, not for me, because I actually like Reece Darby's Trelane. You know, I know he's not for everybody. I know not everybody liked the wedding episode that we saw last season where he was introduced. But I like him. I think he's got the right kind of feel. I think he's whimsical, which a Trelane slash Q is supposed to be. In this episode, he clearly behaves like a child because he's doing this thing for a school project. So I actually really liked his character. If I had a criticism of this one, it would be that it's very much like Cupid. That episode, which I was kind of surprised actually didn't come up in Charles's cadet training because.

28:02 It did. It was in there. I had it in there. Oh, okay. I must have blanked out for a second. Sorry about that. So. So, yeah, I mean, so for this one, like in that one, Picard does the thing, or excuse me, Q does the thing so that Picard can kind of like confront his feelings about Vosh, right? And there's the whole Robin Hood thing and all of that stuff. So, so it kind of followed the same plot as that a little bit, but whatever. When Mbenga had, as soon as Mbenga's hand was shaking, and they zoomed in on him, I leaned over to my wife and I said, he's going to have space madness. And then he said, space madness. And I was like, yes.

28:43 But similarly, Uncle Jim, when they revealed the evil twin, which is another soap opera trope, the first thing I leaned over and told my wife was, oh, that's really going to. Piss off Jim. I absolutely recognized that that was not the cyborg. you were looking for. Um, sorry about that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, uh, you know, a relative amount of like emotional complexity in this one. Um, I thought it was funny. I was giggling, but I get the tropes too. So, you know, it, it. Maybe was, uh, maybe that's what I wrote on was the, you know, just the fact that it had these tropes that I was familiar with and that, uh, and that I liked. But I do think that it was a quality episode, a lot higher quality than some of the other ones that we've had this season.

29:36 So I think I'm going to give this a. Give this a fearless seven. So we've got a four, an eight, a seven. David, how about you? Yeah, there's a lot about this episode that I didn't like. I'm not really a soap opera fan at all. I tried watching them and they just tasted really bad in my mouth. So, you know, no pun intended. But anyways, there were a couple of funny parts in here that I did actually laugh at, especially when Pike was looking around trying to figure out what was going on because he felt something was off. He's like, oh no, it's just another musical. Yeah, that was funny. The idea that, you know, they're using past episodes to bring them forward of what they had experienced into this episode, which is actually kind of fun. I got the whole Cyborg thing with Ethan Peck playing him as somewhat of a twin.

30:43 I get the trope, and I get all the close-up stuff, and it's just the way that they filmed it, like soap operas. But to me... I actually think Cyborg will make a comeback. And now since they established that Spock or Ethan Peck is playing both parts, they might actually bring in a one episode story arc with Ethan Peck playing Cyborg for a real serious episode. I could see that happening. But hold on, David. So wonderful idea, except that in this episode, Ethan Peck or sorry, Spock says, you know, actually, my brother's not a twin. And, you know, Cybok is significantly older than.

31:27 Spock. I'm not sure. Jim, you probably know how much older. Isn't it, like, more than 20 years older than Spock? He's quite a bit older, yeah. Yeah. That's not much of a difference. No. Yeah. I mean, they could just bring him in just to play if they haven't found anybody else. But, I mean, My question is, when we first saw Sidebar from the back, was it played by Ethan Peck? Nobody knows, really. Right? I don't know. Nobody knows. Yeah, so just the idea that if they did bring him, because they've already established that maybe this was like a test episode to see how many people would love to see Ethan Peck play his brother or something.

32:14 I don't know. Well, you know what, David? Maybe the next series is going to be a Star Trek V remake, and they're going to have, you know, Paul Wesley play Kirk, and Ethan Peck play Cyborg, and they're going to, you know, give us a Star Trek V remake. That would be awesome. Yeah. I'm just throwing it, you know, out of there to see what happens. You had to know that with Cyborg in this one, we were going to be talking about the best movie. You had to know that. Yeah, so there were a couple other funny parts in here that I enjoyed where a lot of the sound effects, like V was mentioning the original sound, I actually enjoyed that, and I thought that was pretty clever. As far as the heart transplant, I just, I don't know, this whole episode just seems a little... weird it was just so it was a project of a queue and I actually enjoyed some of the um some of the uh things that he would say like you know now we'll hear from our sponsors yeah you know and he snapped his finger and went straight to a commercial it was just like okay uh but other than that it was just uh I don't know I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought I would but uh I don't

33:45 know what else is there. Okay. Not much left. All right. Well, I guess I'll pass it off to someone else and I'll just give this episode. I'm going to have to give it a five, but I'm going to have to give Eric's musical a seven. So. All right. So there we go, Charles. You're up next, buddy. Okay. Share your pain with us. Oops. Okay. Yeah. Share my pain of logging into my pad.

34:27 Okay. A few things. One of my questions was in there, why did Ethan Peck play Cyborg? But you guys did explain that's part of the soap opera trope. For Eric, yes, I did mention Cupid season four. I said Q's Robin Hood fantasy. So, yeah, I did see a little bit of Q's theme in this one. One of the things I had a question about was the doctor. It's interesting that she's... Okay.

35:08 Uh.... All science is in blue and medicals in white. Why is the counselor in teal? And this is the only character I've seen onboard ship with a regular uniform that had a full jacket on. Kind of reminded me of Beverly Crush, not Beverly, yeah. Not, well, Crusher slash Deanna. Sort of the costume they wore. Sort of a jacket like Deanna wore, which I don't see anybody in medical wearing that color or that style. It's interesting how all of a sudden the counselor is an entirely different color uniform.

36:00 I thought that was a bit confusing while that was going there. That's for Pike's daughter. I've always had. Sorry, I was just going to say, Charles, I've always had some headcanon on that, which is that the counselor is like in a more, almost a more intimate setting in some ways with their patient or with their, you know, the person that they're counseling than even a medical doctor is. And so I've always taken the casual dress to be kind of like a getting close to the person, you know, feeling different from what's on the rest of the ship. So, you know, getting them kind of out of that space that they are in and putting them in a different place.

36:44 But that's just my own headcanon. I don't have. Anything to back that up. Right. I think we've only really seen one strong counselor in the series that I can think of. Now, when we got to Juliet, I kind of scratched my head saying, okay, I don't remember her. And so I wanted to go actually back and try to understand who she was. So we actually went back and watched The New Life and New Civilization Season 3, Episode 10. And watch it straight through. Had forgotten the fact of our medical person, which was supposed to come on at one point as a guest and never did.

37:30 And. Him being possessed by that society. Well, Captain Battelle, who was very confused from what's happened to her, and to gain enough power to banish him, had to live a whole life. And so she actually went back and gave a whole, we actually got to see an inner light theme for her and Pike together. through the decades. And we got to see the daughter once when she came home and said to the Pikes, hey, we want to get married. And now we know the fact that, yes, we didn't see it, but there was a marriage ceremony in there and the years that they had there so that we knew the, so that the daughter could be brought back. And I thought that was an interesting reaction that when the daughter was being brought in and Terrain did not know about it. Terrain's like, where'd she come from?

38:46 So I thought it interesting that Pike was able to throw in a confusion to Terrain, which would be like, but the cue was like, oh, I'm going to throw something in that Q's not going to expect. And it's like, oh, I didn't think about that. So I thought that. Definitely was an interesting addition to the story. Not to really probably add a whole lot more to it. I'm going to go with probably a six on this one. It was all right, but just wasn't the episode I was looking for.

39:26 All right. So, Paul, that means you get to bring up the caboose, buddy. All right, my friend. Okay. Well, yeah, this was, uh, uh, you know, not my cup of tea, I guess is the nicest way to put it. Right. Um, you know, uh, Again, I think this whole phenomenon of gimmick of the week that we've been subjected to this year has just not been what I turned to Star Trek for. We're kind of going out of sequence with our reviews this week. I have a lot more positive things to say about the previous episode that we'll talk about tomorrow on there. But this was a huge failing for me. I feel really bad for Anson Mount because he's really trying his hardest in this. I mean, the guy is a really good actor. He was the most believable part of things at the beginning where he's just like being really skeptical and like, what the hell is going on here? And he's just he's played that really well, very convincingly. He had to go to a very emotional place for the end. So I really respect him as an actor. I just don't respect what he was given to work with, right? For Cocteau, it was all in your head nonsense. I think it was just ridiculous.

40:37 So I know they want us to buy into that and it's meaningful and all this, but I just think it's really lazy and poorly done. So it's like, okay, everyone was making confessions earlier, right? About like, oh, things I recognized from before. Well, you know what? When I was young, I used to watch a lot of Gilligan's House. And I know the episodes of Gilligan's Island have a lot of like tropes and things in them. Right. And so if I were to see them again, I would recognize them. Right. Oh, that's just like when, you know, the howls are, you know, detached from the stakes that are actually going on. I don't want Gilligan's Island in my frickin Star Trek. OK, I don't. I want Star Trek to be Star Trek. And this rotating, you know, let's play and do a different kind of dress up game this week that has been. plaguing this episode, each episode with a couple of exceptions this year. It's just not my thing.

41:30 Right. So, um, didn't enjoy it. I thought it was really poorly executed. Um, I mean, if you like this kind of thing, this is great. Awesome. Good for you. Right. I don't want to detach, detract from anyone's enjoyment, but it's, the show is becoming like a, like, you know, uh, a Saturday night live episode. I mean, it just, it just doesn't, uh, You know, you'll get like, what, 10 episodes a season now, and I've found two of them to be watchable. So that's a pretty low batting average. So just not for me, right? So really looking forward to talking about 4.6 tomorrow instead. This episode gets a big old three from me, and I feel like I'm being generous.

42:13 You know, I. I just wanted to say something to what you said, Paul. And I think that Star Trek needs to find an identity. And right now it doesn't have one right now. It's just copying other genres and not being itself. And I think Star Trek needs to start writing Star Trek episodes that are Star Trek episodes and not like, what are we going to see? Like what is next week going to be the Brady Bunch episode? Well, actually, we already know what next week is because we're going to talk about it tomorrow. But still, I mean, when does it end? When are they going to start giving us Star Trek that takes place in the Star Trek universe with Star Trek-related things that aren't lifted from another genre?

43:02 That's what I want to see. You know, Star Trek being Star Trek. That's not going to happen with the writers they have right now unless they go back and get writers like Ronald D. Moore. Or, you know, like the kind of writers they had on Next Gen or old school science fiction writers who like written science fiction, right? I mean, you know, get, oh, what's that guy's name who wrote, he's a local guy, Jeff Vandermeer, right? Who wrote Annihilation. Really great local science fiction writer, lives in Portland. Get that guy to write a Star Trek episode. He'd do a phenomenal job. He understands character dynamics in a group, but they're not going to do it. They're going to hire these sort of, you know, you know, Look at some of the writers' credits on this show. Just pick a few of them and take a look at what they've done. It's not very impressive. And certainly none of them are published science fiction writers who know how to write a book. So yeah, until they get a different bunch of writers with a more focused point of view, expect more of the same.

43:59 Well, I'm hoping that the end of season four for the finale is going to actually be serious and get back into Star Trek. Here's hoping, man. I hope you're right. I wanted to throw a couple of things out for Jim's questions. One, I think it was the fact that she believed it was her dad. She had that chance at that meal with Pike, and I think she was disappointed as not being the daughter, not being able to do that. And I think she just wanted to make a connection with Pike and do that as a coworker. I think she just liked the idea that Neil, and that's why she wanted to do it. Mbenga might have a little bit of issue, but also remember, Mbenga's on his way out. We only get to see him in one or two TOS episodes, so he's still got his egg that claws coming up. Because eventually, somewhere, we've got to see McCoy.

45:04 Well, I don't want to. pee in anybody's cornflakes here, but the episode that's on tomorrow night is entitled Once Upon a La'an. So I don't have much, I'm not expecting much from that one. Where are we going to see a fairy tale with Rumpelstiltskin or something? Oh, man. Which they did have in DS9 with, I forgot what that was, where everybody saw came to life and so Molly O'Brien did have Rumpelstiltskin. Yeah so I think that Once Upon a Laan is actually two weeks from now Jim I think tomorrow is Orders of Magnitude.

45:53 Oh you're right Orders of Magnitude is the one that's on which sounds like it might be a real episode like tomorrow Tomorrow on September 10th, yeah. So the fantasy one's the next week. So one thing I wanted to ask the group about is, you know, so we've known since, I don't know, the third episode or so that we were going to be getting these kind of gimmicky episodes. And, you know, while we didn't know that they were going to go the entire season, we sort of saw the writing on the wall a little bit. So for me, what I've tried to do is just kind of like, ride the wave a little bit and try and find the good in the gimmicks.

46:38 I completely understand and agree. Actually, with what Paul's saying in terms of the quality of the overall writing. I do see things that they're trying to do with, you know, building backgrounds for some of these characters that we already know a lot about or ones that we don't know a lot about, like Pike, you know. I mean, for Pike, we only. Know the Cage character. Essentially, up until this point, unless you count the Kelvin timeline stuff. Do you think that the fact that we're in this gimmick loop right now, do you just kind of go into each episode expecting it to completely suck? And so do you think. That that at all colors the way that you see the episode, or is it just really like, no, they're just really that bad, and you look at each one objectively?

47:27 I've gone through each. I can toss off a quick Go ahead, Paul. No, I was just going to say, I was just, I always, I don't root for anything to fail. I'm not always hopeful. Right. I like to be surprised and entertained and I would love to, I'd like to see people succeed. Right. I'm always hoping it's good. I'm hoping that I'm going to get an episode like what we had that we have yet to discuss like off hour. Right. Or the premiere of this season, which was really good. Right. Ballas Marineris. Right. I want it to be good. I want it to be a real good science fiction show. You know, it's like, you know, when, you know, when your famous race car driver crashes, right, you feel bad, right? You still want them to succeed. I have a lot of affection for this cast. I don't have a lot of affection for the writers room of the show at all because they suck.

48:18 And I don't, I just, I'm really, I'm really out of their corner right now. I mean, I just, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm kind of glad that somebody is going to come in and have to redo this entire franchise apparently. Cause I think it couldn't get any worse. I mean, I just don't think so at this point. I mean, I feel bad cause there's a lot of good actors here. Right. And, uh, and everything like that, but you're never going to see it. You know, um, I've been watching like Jim, I've been watching a lot of the center seat to, uh, series. Right. And they talk a lot about on that series, right. About how, you know, the jump from a small screen episodes to taking, uh, a show and turning it into a theatrical tentpole and making it into a movie, right?

49:01 And what that's like. You're never going to see a Strange New Worlds movie. Ever. Period. Ever. Because it's just, you know, there's one thing to shoot yourself in the foot. It's another thing to blow your leg off at the kneecap, right? I mean, it's just, you can't even stand up. And so, yeah. it's sad I wish it wasn't I kind of agree with you Paul. I don't know if they've been switching the writers around like The first couple of seasons of this series was actually pretty good. But then, for some reason, this season just fell flat to me. It was just like, what? I used to enjoy watching Strange New Worlds, but now every time a new episode.

49:43 Comes, I'm like, should I? I mean, I have to, but should I? So I'm just kind of like, I'm hoping that it's a good episode. That's what I'm hoping for the finale of this season. We'll just start to go into the next season for the last season for six episodes. That's why I always said... I feel like it's going to be rushed because they got all this stuff that they have to cover and they should have done it for this season. It's like, oh no. So I don't know what's going on, but to me, I'm hopeful. I'm hoping that it will do better, but who knows? Well, I for one actually have been enjoying, I've been enjoying the, some of the different series. Some of the shows, the Muppets, the Horror One bit, I enjoyed them. Yes, they're a bit of a trope, but there was still a theme enough to the episode that I enjoyed myself.

50:41 I just didn't quite understand why we need to go towards black and white. Why we need to really push... Yes, we could do a Trillane episode. Why did it have to be a soap opera? I kind of just wish they'd gone a different direction. But. Some of the episodes I've actually enjoyed. I enjoy the trope just because it's a theme I do enjoy. Some of them are just themes I wasn't as happy about. So I go into each episode saying, okay, what are they going to do? Because I may not be as happy with it. I may seriously enjoy it. It's just how I like some of these episodes.

51:23 You know, there was a Voyager episode, The Q and the Gray, where... They are set in the Civil War era with costumes and running around and, you know, it was, I haven't watched it in a little while, but I just, I was, it just came to my mind just now. So that was one where, you know, the Q, I think it was the Q Continuum or whatever they're called. They were just, you know, messing with the Voyager crew. Does anybody remember that one? Yeah, yeah, of course. That was actually a fantastic episode. And I think what we're finding is that when you have these special little moments like subspace rhapsody tucked within a season of sort of normal.

52:13 Star Trek episodes, it's really cool. And people like it. And it has an effect. And people can see the kind of like, metaphorical relationship between the setting and the story that. They're trying to tell I think that when you. Have an entire season of that it just creates so much like episode fatigue that every single time we're just initially right from the get go expecting it to be a trope that we hate and so and I don't think I'm not defending the writing I think the writing is bad but like I also think that we're approaching it in a way that you know is is not it's not like that special little moment like the q and the gray or you know like a captain proton episode or you know something something like that.

53:02 Well yeah you know we talked about cupid right just imagine if they had filmed that episode like a 1950s errol flynn movie instead of like a TNG episode and I think that's what we're seeing here they want to do something tropey that's okay keep it in Star Trek they're not doing that you know they're copying they're stealing other people's stuff and calling it Star Trek that's you know my issue but the. Biggest thing that killed me was Saibot oh my god I was devastated. You have no idea how excited. Well, yeah, you do, Eric. How excited I was for this episode.

53:52 I have been waiting since we saw Cybok's shadow for this. I love Star Trek 5. And Cybok, I wanted to find out where he was. What has he been doing? How did he get out of jail? How does he end up where we see him in Star Trek 5? I had all these things going through my brain, and I see this. This leather clad, half naked, you. Know, Ethan Peck. You say that like it's a bad thing. And I was so let down for that because I've been waiting so long for this. And it was just a major let down for me. So, yeah, that's it. So, Charles, how did we stack up with our Facebook fans?

54:38 Well, the numbers were interesting. The numbers were interesting the way they came out. The fans gave it a 6.6, and the hosts went with a 5.5. Okay. That's cool. That's not too bad. So the reason why we covered this out of order, there's two reasons. One, I already had all. The show notes and everything ready for... tomorrow and it would have been too much of a pain in the ass to go back and change everything and then once I saw this episode I wasn't really too excited to talk about it and the one that we're going to talk about tomorrow I think is going to be a much more lively conversation so tomorrow same bat time same bat channel we're going to be talking about off hour that'll be 7.30 eastern 4.30 pacific.

55:31 And we'll have our fan shout-outs. We'll have Uncle Jim movie of the week. We'll have our birthdays. We'll have our regular show. Shatner says, what? And we're going to have some fun next week. I promise you. So, did we lose V? We did. Unfortunately. We lost V. Okay. So, without any further ado, guys, I'm your host, Uncle Jim, saying please, everybody, stay safe and be good. To each other. Hailing Frequencies. I close. Good night, everybody. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I got to say, I got to say thank you to Charles for hanging out and talking with us. Thank you, Charles.

56:11 Thank you, Jim. Always fun. And thank you to Eric for hanging out and talking with us as well. Thank you so much, Eric. Yeah, thanks a lot. Good times. And thank you to David, of course, our miracle worker for the awesome videos. Thank you, David. And the Cybok video was awesome. I'm going to have to go back and re-watch that, dry my eyes a little bit. And thank you to V, who we lost, and thank you so much to Paul as well. Thanks, friends. Here's to another 60 years. And let's not forget, let's give a shameless plug in here. Paul, who are we talking to next week?

56:54 Oh, dude, it is going to be Epic. I mean, epic. We were just talking about, you know. The new show, right, that just dropped yesterday on YouTube, right? These new episodes of the documentary, The Center Chair Part 2. I have to go back and watch Center Chair Part 1 to get all those in there. But we are having, I'm willing to say, the legendary Brian Volkweis on here, who is a producer of media such as that, and also the wunderkind behind Nacelle Toys. So Nacelle is just going crazy. I mean, this guy gets stuff done. He has resurrected the Star Trek action figure universe in a way that I think many people thought was not possible.

57:37 Absolutely phenomenal. Really, really doing some great stuff. So, I mean, I'm just chomping at the bit to pick this guy's brain. And just a super cool producer, director, and toy empresario. So, can't wait. I want to say that's, what is it, the 17th, Jim? Do I have the date right? Yep, 17th. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be legendary. I absolutely can't wait because it's just like if we can just get him to talk and reveal something. I know there's probably a lot of stuff he's got to keep quiet because I'm pretty sure he's going to be at New York Comic Con in October. And right. So I'm betting he can't say too much about what's coming prior to that. But he loves to tease stuff. And, you know, if you're not following him on social media, you should. I mean, he's very entertaining, has a lot of cool stuff on there, but gets it done, man.

58:24 Gets it done. Shout out to a guy from Queens. Right. It really is just the toy thing. I'm just going bananas. Right. So it's just, and you know, I'm, I'm just waiting for this set of expanse figures to show up from the TV series, the expanse. I mean, man, they're just phenomenal. So what next, man? I can't wait to find out what's next from this guy. So yeah, that's going to be a great show. I've been working, working hard to get them on here for you, Paul. And I'm glad I was finally able to make it happen. So. Yeah, much appreciated. He's a tremendous dude. So who knows what he'll do in the years to come. Maybe he'll become a movie producer and he'll take over the franchise. Yeah, he should take over the franchise.

59:06 Yeah and V I just I just wanted to say thank you so much for hanging out and Shrek talking with us tonight thank you so much. Let's be here even though Riverside kept on taking me off but I'm back again. You're here now so I'm your most excellent host Uncle Jim saying please stay safe be good to each other hailing frequencies are closed good night everybody Good night. Bye.

1:00:03 And now for our commercial. Buy one of these things. What is this thing? A shaky box. Everyone needs a shaky box. Available where you get your things. All right, guys. I just wanted to end the show on something a little different. We'll be back next week. Same bad time, same bad channel. Thanks a lot. Good night, everybody. Bye. Bye.