Episode 690- Star Trek Through the Years: How Fans and Series Evolved

0:01 The five four. Oh my god, Ah, continue. With your operation. You may fin be ready and may. Notice Kane and again it's gone insane Logan six Corporals that Jim and Donnie to fixed, Pripple, NPC Ted everily cannot see Bumblebee Kane. I'm the doctor wrankling online Old Bob sand World stories that will twist and turn bout Cimitar, death of tashi Ya, Flash Gordon. But Rogers don't. Through prison clone Wars, James Holden Tweaky, John Cone against Yanke.

0:45 We talk about the series. You can join us talk about the series. Well, good evening, Treky's and Trek is around the globe and it's Thursday, June twenty fifth, twenty twenty six. Welcome to episode six and ninety. Wow, hard to believe. I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim. Welcome to the show.

1:38 Before we go too far, I like to go around my little loop here and introduce my trek'spirt. We'll start off with David. David's out in Portland. How are you doing tonight? David? I am a floating head in space. I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. And we also have Eric. Eric is out in Portland as well. How you doing, Eric? Doing pretty? During good? You know what, I have a confession. There is a frame in our intro song of an old white guy with a like some kind of Martini glass or something, with like a young blonde girl next to him, and I have no idea what that is from. So next time we watch this, I need to like do some research because there's a frame in there. I'm like, I don't think i've seen whatever that is.

2:23 Paul, you want to tell him who that is? I have to see what he's talking about. Yeah, I'm visual. So it's from It's from one of the best sci fi movies ever made, Saturn three. Okay, I haven't seen that one. I don't know how you missed that movie. It's a classic. Yeah. I think there's been a threatening to have a Saturn three show. Has there not been? There may have been, there may have been. Well, you know, I'm not against watching bad sci fi every now and then. I mean, good is what I meant to say. That's that's a shot. What that is? Oh my god? Wow? Thank you?

3:04 See David, that's why you're the miracle worker, David. He can pull stuff like that right out of his ass like nothing. He's the man as it is? Wait was that was? That? Was that Kirk Douglas? Wait? Who was the man? That was Kirk Douglas Douglaslas we talked about. I'm sorry, all right, sorry, that's a classic it it's one of the it's it's really good. I can't believe you missed it. It's good. It's yeah, not as good as start a five, but it's you know. Anyways, continuing on, we're going to welcome Paul to the show.

3:48 And you're never going to guess where Paul is from. If you said Portland, you win. But we have Paul with us from Portland. He's our toy guy. How you doing to Paul. I'm doing okay, man, recovering from a little jet lag, but. Doing all excellent. Good to have you along. And they're going to say hello to Charles and guess what. Charles isn't from Portland, He's from Las Vegas. How you doing today, Charles? I'm doing all right. Since we got a when advisory comes through soon, then a little bit of fire warning with the breeze starting to kick in. It's only one hundred and two, but with the breeze I think I wanted to stay in the studio A. Today excellent and last, but definitely not least from Virginia.

4:29 We have V with us tonight. How you doing, V I'm. Doing all right. And Eric, if you felt bad not knowing that Saturn three picture, Remember how I thought that the battle droids. We're dancing the. Skeletons, the Army of dark. Yes, the Army of dancing skeletons. Yeah, it is because I. Will stick together. Yeah, sure, sure, why not? And as I said at the top of the show, my name is Uncle Jim and I'm from Vermont. So we don't have anything except well, we did have a tornado the other day. It is that's scary, but nothing really, nothing really cool happens out here, just snow and cold, you know. But at any rate, here we are and we're gonna be Trek Talking tonight. You guys can support this very podcast, and if you're listening to us right now and you'd like to see all of our rosy faces and David's floating head and everything, then you can head to our Facebook page Trek Talking and Beyond it for just ninety nine cents.

5:32 You can be a. Subscriber and you will get to not only listen to these podcasts, but watch them as well. And David puts a lot of work in these videos and I think they're well worth ninety nine cents a month, So please do that if you can. All Right, So, without any further ado, tonight's show, we're gonna be talking about Star Trek. Has Star Trek changed, have the fans change? Or a little bit of both. We're gonna dive deep in the manhole in the rabbit hole on this one and we're going to have some discussions. We also have our fans shout outs, and that's where we think it is just like you around the globe for supporting us. And what actor do you share a sci fi birthday with? Well, you're going to find out tonight. And we also have Uncle Jim's Movie Pick of the Week. This is a new segment that I decided to throw in there, and each week I will pick a movie that's celebrating an anniversary and we'll.

6:25 Talk a little bit about it. And I got a really good one for this week, I think, And what's going on around in the Star Trek universe. Paul is going to tell us a little bit about so six new Romulent figure, and Eric's going to tell us about the enterprise it's been returned home, and v is going to tell us a little bit about a new Warp CCG game which is available on Steam. And that, my friends, is our show for tonight. But before we go too far, we're going to dive right in to our fan shout outs, and for that we're going to have Eric start us off. Oh yeah, we need a fan shout out, so like fan shout outs, fan shout out. Something, we'll figure dancing dancing skeletons.

7:14 All right, Well, our very first fan shout out this week goes out to Christian Alexander svenson Dale from Norway in Scandinavia, Europe. Christian, at the end of July, I am about to come to your country for the first time, and I am so excited to experience Norway and explore the Fjords myself, So very excited to be there and not too much time, and very excited that you are a supporter of our podcast. Thank you so much for saying hi to us and hello right back. Also saying hello this week to top fan Rachel Carr from Dublin, Ireland. So I'm sending us that beautiful Irish flag emoji, catching Jim's attention with graphics of course. Also saying hello this week to Klaus Cooningbauer from Franconia region in Germany, sending us that livelong and prospers sign and I say peace and long life right back to you, Klaus, thank you so much for supporting our podcast from Germany. And last but not least, on my list, I would like to say hello to top fan Beverly Goalsworthy from Leeds in West Yorkshire in the UK, just across the pond. Beverly, so much support for our podcast and so much love from us to you and all the folks on all of the islands of the United Kingdom. Thank you so much for saying hello. V I passed this shout out megaphone over to.

8:39 You, right, Thank you, Eric. There's my first hello and thank you goes out to gosh as I choke excuse me, but my goodness, see got me all choked up. Gosh, I'm okay, I'm fine. Let's try this again with to Let's say hello to Matt Parkins, who is from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Next, my goodness, all right, it's like the world. Something is like going on with me. I don't know what. I try to talk and I get all choked up. Anyway.

9:22 Next Hello goes out to Nancy Newsham Jerome from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And next next month, Philadelphia is going to have a big two fifty celebration with our country. So that's going to be a happening place to be. Next, Hello and thank you to Joseph Grubau, who's from Muscatine, Iowa, which is about twenty minutes from Riverside, the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. Been to Trekfast several times when the kids were younger. Sounds like a lot of fun. I am last, but not least, Hello and thank you to Susan Ray, who is from Wyoming. All right, throwing the shout out megaphone to Charles.

10:14 Thank you. V Let's start off with a warm welcome to David Hammond from Texas. Welcome David, Welcome Gail Davis Bruno from Bloomington, Illinois. Oops, do we talk about Bruno? I guess we'll talk about Bruno. I give to see what you did there. We don't talk about Bruno, charl Yeah, exactly, So we'll just say Gail Davis, Welcome, Gail. Welcome. Mike gen from Paragouled, Arkansas, Welcome, like welcome, Jim Blair from Alabama who loves our podcast.

10:56 Welcome Jim. I'm hoping you're having a good day there and you get good weather in Alabama with no hurricanes this summer. I'll pass a megaphone over to Paul, who's going to spin the globe and don't hit your fingers. Thank you, Charles. I'll try to avoid any lacerations if I can. So let's dive in. We have all kinds of folks across the planet who enjoy Star Trek, science fiction and this podcast. So first of all, let's go over to our friend Joss Shefferly, who is saying hello to us from all the way up in North Korea. Jos, phenomenal to hear from you, So I hope things are going well.

11:39 Yeah, Paul, can I mention that as a first, we keep track of places that we hear from, and North Korea Joss is our first. So thank you. Fantastic. That's great, So keep listening. Awesome, that's incredible, So. Keep listening Joss, and spread the word if it's allowed. We are gratified to know that you're there. Over in Eric's future stomping grounds of Finland, we have Tanya Nsula co Visto is saying hello to us. I hope I'm not put during the pronunciation of your name, Tanya, but it's great to know that you're out there another continent away in South South Africa, excuse me, South Africa. Ben Vorbeck is chiming in and saying hello, and back to Europe again, because we are in no kind of sequential order whatsoever. From czech Ya aka the Czech Republic aka historically known as Bohemia. It's our friend Petra Liska who's saying hello to us from that wonderful berg with the flag of czech Ya billowing proudly in the wind. Along with their enthusiasm for scientific that covers another large chunk of the planet. So great to have a new continent or new country rather on our list. I believe we're still needing Antarctica, though, so if I'm not mistaken, anyone who is able to hear the sound of my voice, if you happen to know anyone who even remotely knows

13:11 what science fiction is, and you happen to be able to make contact with them and they reside in Antarctica, or even if they just went there once, that's probably good enough for us, right, help them chime in on the Facebook page so we can cross that off our list, and then we might actually have every single freaking country that there is as a start talking notch on our bedposts. So that's our humble aspiration for you to follow through this week, and I'll pulse it over to that Bohemian man himself, Uncle Jim. Is that where the Bohemian Rhapsody comes from? I wonder absolutely? Absolutely, yeah, verified historical fact.

13:52 I'm trying to think what was that? There was a sci fi movie? Was it the thing that was said in Antarctica? I can't remember. Well. I want to turn around and say thank you to Terry Man, who's listening to us right now in Ohio. Thank you Terry, and Steven Howard who's in New York City. The Bronx. Actually, we used to have a regular caller from the Bronx. You guys, remember Ray, Ray from the Bronx used to call every single week. He would call, Dude. I think that those were amazing years that Ray would call in because I felt like we had sort of a codependent relationship. We always knew Ray was going to call, and when Ray called, we would always take the time to like honor Ray. It was it was cool he.

14:49 Was Remember, yeah, Ray needed to have surgery and he wouldn't do it. Remember, and his wife called the show and told us that we need to talk some sense in array. Remember that, And and we did, I mean not not do if we do not give medical advice. But what we did we did listen to Ray's wife and was like, listen, Ray, girl's got a point, you know. And and he did it. Did and he was able to walk again. I hope Gray is doing well. I hope so too. Man. I kind of like missing hearing from him. He was a unique individual back in the day. I also want to say hello and thank you to Shaun Patrick Murphy who's listening to us in Providence, Rhode Island.

15:34 Thank you. And last but not least, Kirk DaCosta who's in the Blaska. If you guys would like to be featured on a fan shout out, please have a Facebook page Trek Talking and Beyond. Look for to live on the Plasterer posts at the top. Telleth where you're from. These some emojis. That gets my attention. If you see your heart next to your name, you've been chos him and you see all these awesome pictures. Oh wait, you can't see him if you're not a subscriber, But if you will, you would see all these awesome pictures that David has put up on the screen. You can send us your favorite picture and we will put it right up there with all these awesome ones. There's me and my wife with Michael Myers. Actually, I will put your picture right up here on the screen for everybody to see. Okay, guys, that is our fan shout outs for this week, and we actually don't have a plan. Save that for a second before we go too far, though there is some Star Trek news. They did drop a brand new Strange New World's season four trailer. David, you want to roll that tape for our fans, please.

16:39 I have many things I want to talk about, hopes, dreams, fears. I believe you are here so I can share them with you. You more than anyone that I know. I have thought about the past in the future a great deal, but most of us live in the now. Perhaps what happens next both to fine. Everything. What are you sending us?

17:20 Well, this is a fun one. I know what we are about to do is hard. There is ever any reason to do something alone. You need help. There's too much at stake. The SOS is a draft. Everyone out now. We need to get up the ship. Everybody hang on to something, anything and everything. Let's save this ship and our friends. You are facing me finest crew and stock feet, and they will be able to fight back in ways you cannot imagine.

18:00 We've seen a lot of strange new worlds, but we'll never see something like this again. Don't worry, funk. I'm sure one day you'll get to aim that logical mind of yours. That's some lucky captain. Wow. So what does your guys think? It's pretty good? Yes, it does. Wow. That was so I'm a little behind. That was my first time seeing that. And that was a dragon right.

18:42 Well, there's a scene that there's a scene I don't know, it wasn't in that trailer, but there's a scene when Kirk goes and spots a do you want to hug me? Have you guys seen that one? My brain? You know what my brain went? Right? Don't you take a while gas my brain went right. Not in front of the Klingons, and I started laughing, that's awesome. So I just wanted to play that trailer for you guys because I think it's relevant to what we're going to be talking about tonight. So yeah, I thought that was a really good trailer. I really enjoyed it. And let's plant that date in everyone's mind again, folks when that is airing, just so folks can be clear that the new season is just a few weeks after.

19:22 July July twenty third, and yeah, we're going to be talking about that episode so well on the following show. We'll be a week I'm looking forward to Diving. World. Yeah, so it's not exactly a poll per se, but I'm going to call it a poll because that way we get to run this awesome intro. Right damn yeh, there we go. You know me like, no win what you thought about the show when we try. Just share your. Opinions with all of our minions out there because they listen, world, Why tell us just what you think. Get together, we will alter and romulin ale.

20:21 All right, and I'm going to tell you guys something right now. If if you're not a subscriber. And you haven't seen that video. My god, you're you're missing out because I think that video by itself is. Kermit. Don't kermit the frog in that is worth. Don't understand how it makes me laugh every time? I don't know either. It like how many like fifteen? I love it? Well, it's the way the words to the song are cute with the images and that's just brilliant. And at the end with the romulin ale, was it renax center to Renac right there?

21:02 That's a back yep, that was him. So it's not actually a pull, but it's a question. So I like to throw these questions out to you guys on our Facebook page and see get our finger on the pulse a fandom. So, Eric, what what did I ask our fans on our Facebook page? And what were some of their Now, before I want to preface this and say, if you guys go to our Facebook page, there were three four hundred, hundreds hundreds of answers of replies to this question, so I couldn't possibly put them all in here, so I just picked some that I thought were a good cross section. So what was our question, Eric, and what did our fans.

21:44 Yeah, it's it's kind of what our shows about tonight. Has Star Trek changed or have the fans changed? So? Randy Rigolet said, fans changed, and I think expectations are too high as they never seen they know. I think happy with the amazing content Trek has been putting out. Robert Robert Bolivar said, definitely, Star Trek has changed. If you look at the new movies, they are all about the villain and how the crew reacts to said villain. The story should always be about the crew or specific members of the crew. It is the story of our people, not the guy who suddenly shows up. That is what has been lost. Action has replaced story. Ooh interesting, Robert all right. Michael Nardi said Star Trek stopped being Star Trek following the end of Enterprise Discovery, and the rest of that nonsense was not Star Trek. I'm gonna keep that one inside right now. Chad Smith said Star Trek has been twisted into a millennial cluster. Yeah, I mean, at least that one's funny, Mark all right. Mark Brownhill said Star Trek is an American produced franchise that spanned sixty years. Yes, it's twenty twenty six, but parts of America and certain groups of Americans are still living in the nineteen fifth and there's lies, and there lies the problem. Sorry, thirty years ago, the world hadn't changed as much from the sixties as it had changed in the past thirty years.

23:10 Star Trek has to adapt to the new world, but a core part of fans just simply can't comprehend this or are willing to because or willing I think not willing to because they just don't want to live in twenty twenty six, but they want to stay in the nineteen fifties. We get you, Mark, I think, yeah, I'm picking out what you're land. Michelle Garnier Savage. Savage said Trek evolves, Trek Bros don't. I'm sorry, that's a brutal takedown all of that. The majority of the fandom is accepting of the evolution, but the louder minor subset that isn't are the ones causing the problems. Thanks Michelle. John Bobbitt said, the fans definitely haven't changed, and that's why Star Trek has become so controversial. Old school fans like myself want Star Trek to retain the wonder and keep pushing the barriers of science, while newer viewers want the characters to represent who they are rather than adjusting to the core of what Star Trek is and challenge their own intelligence. Ooh, this is deep, John, Thanks. Kurtzman Trek series are all based around their singular main character, while the older series had entire crews that people loved. I can't name anyone else on Discovery's crew other than Tilly and Michael Burnham. No one in Picard was memorable until season three. I can't name any characters on Starfleet Academy except for Sam Strange. New World is great, though sometimes

24:40 some of the episodes are kind of stupid. Old Trek wanted us to be better and showed us that science and diplomacy was how things got done. On Kurtzman Trek, the solution is just to cry a few times an episode, and that saves the universe. Thank you for the detailed review. John josh Rid said Star Trek died in two thousand and five. Continues was to be the next successor, but then the CBS slash Paramount Collective killed it. The Orville is the true successor. Be sure, Uncle Jim is not agreeing with that, I will say I have watched The Orville multiple times, though not as many times as Star Trek. But Jim, You're just You're just not you gotta it's like total recall open, all right. Dave Carrey said Trek has changed from representing an enlightened future to becoming a pc d I lecture series. All right, hulk out here.

25:43 Ivon Congier said Star Trek it does not tell stories, but now promotes its political and LGBT agenda. Kurtzman sad it very clearly, I think said said it very clearly several times in interviews. He does not care about Trek as much as using it to pute his agendas. John Deegler said there have always been toxic fans. There are more prolific. They are more prolific now because of the toxic administration we have. Mark Darby said, that's a good question. What changed is the leadership. It was allowed to self implode after upn bit the dust, but for at least the first thirty five years it was done in the spirit of Gene Roddenberry's vision. Now it has a different vision.

26:27 Top fan Lisa Castler said the actual fans has stayed the same. It's the fake fans that are ruining it. If I don't like an episode, a season, or the whole show, you know what I do, I don't watch that episode, that season, or that show. Real fans understand that. The fake fans try and ruin it for everyone else by trying to get shows canceled and succeeding bad mouthing and whining about everything they hate about it and doing laughing emojis that just show the world they have the maturity of twelve year olds. But yes, the show has changed, as it should. Everything changes, even track, but the core value remains. And if people don't know what that is, I'm not explaining it like saying like the saying goes.

27:09 If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand. That was a really great cross section, Jim. I think that was great. It was like from one extreme to the next. Yeah. I tried to be fair and give those yeah people a chance to be heard, and. I'll read them out loud. There there they are. They are no one more way to space and a billionaires from now, a billion light years from somewhere. You know they will hear it. They will hear it, that's right. So I want to I want to start out by saying I'll start out this conversation and then you guys can jump in with with whatever you want to add or say or debate whatever. I want to have some fun with this and really dig into it. But way back in the day, when TNG came out, I was going to conventions. Patrick Stork got booed. That's right. People hated TNG. I hated DS nine. We've all been down that.

28:01 So the question being has Star Trek changed or had the fans changed? So here's my answer to that. I think Star Trek has changed dramatically. Back in the day, when TOS came out, it was fifty one minutes twenty six episodes. It was on broadcast TV. That was how it was because that's all they had. TNG came along, it was cut down to about forty five minutes because they needed to make more money for commercials, and we still were on our twenty six episodes and that went on all the way through. Enterprise streaming came along and now we have ten episodes and done. So the way we are fed Star Trek has changed dramatically from the sixties to today. That's a big change. Going from twenty six episodes to ten, so that's different. People also have to subscribe to Paramount Plus.

28:51 Now. I don't know about you guys, but Star Trek was never free for me. Ever. If I wanted to watch Star Trek, I had to put an antenna up. I had to wrap tinfoil around my head, put my nose on the on the windowsill, put my finger and outlet, wiggle my to the left and to the right and try to get a good signal. It was crazy what I had to do. Or I could subscribe to cable TV and watch Fox twenty three perfect on cable television. So for me, it was never free. I always had to pay for cable to get a decent Star Trek picture. So you know today you have to subscribe to it. So that has changed, and a lot of fans don't like that. So that's how Star Trek has changed. Now have fans changed. That's a tricky question because back in the sixties when we had tos Or was on the Bridge, a black woman, that was a major thing.

29:43 Back in the sixties, that was huge. And then when she kissed Kirk, Oh my god, I'm sure TV's down on the South exploded when that happened. I mean, you know, TOOS was just you know, we had an Asian on the bridge, we had Russian show up later. These were big things. These are lost to today's audiences. You know, the cutting edge where Star Trek was where Gene Roddenberry wanted it to be, and they lost that. And why did we lose that? Okay, here we go. I'm gonna say it. We lost it because of Berman Trek. Okay, I said it, all right, there's different eras of Star Trek. We have the Roddenberry era tos tas Season one of TNG. Berman steps in, takes over until enterprise. He didn't want to shake and he leaves. He didn't want to.

30:28 Rock the boat. He wanted to make the advertisers happy, so he didn't challenge our fans. And I heard Riker Jonathan Fakes tell a story. There's an episode called The Outcast where Riker falls in love with the GNI person and Jonathan Fraakes went to Berman and said he wanted a male actor to play that part, and he refused. He said, no, fans would not accept Riker kissing a man. We have to have a feminine character. In that role. That right there is the kind of Star Trek that Rick Berman produced. He was very week on the representation, and that I think created the environment with the fans that we have today that when we see a gay cling on their heads pop they can't deal with it because Star Trek is forcing an agenda down their throat. But unknown to them, that agenda, I don't want to call it an agenda.

31:17 The representation was always there, it was just lost on them. They either didn't see it or didn't want to see it. And then when it was put on display in front of them, Kurtzman's forcing an agenda down their throat. So that their fans have changed I think quite a bit from the sixties to today, and let's not forget to the biggest change of all. I don't think it's fans exactly. I think we've always had those fans there. But like one of our listeners said, I think that it's the Trump administration and the mag of people have made hatred, body shaming, discrimination, you know, anti LGBTQ normal because our president doesn't have a problem spouting hatred and content and making fun of people and things like that, and these low life scum buckets that are under all these rocks are seeing this and they're coming to the surface and they're like, Wow, it's okay and it's acceptable now. So now they're not afraid to come out express themselves because it's okay. It's not okay. But I think that's why we have so much of that going on today. And I think the biggest reason is that is the AI bots and that we have in technology. We didn't have these things back in the eighties, so they couldn't bomb rotten tomatoes and get a show canceled because the ratings were so low.

32:37 You couldn't do that. Today, you know, all these little nerds can sit down on their parents' base and just bomb these things with negativity and they have it. But I also think that the Nazis that bought Paramount, we're going to cancel Star Trek anyways, this was just an excuse and they gave them out. So that's my take on the whole situation based on what I've seen from the eighties till today, I think there's a lot of good Star Trek. In fact, I think the majority of Star Trek fans out there are decent, good people that understand what it's all about I think it's those few outlying lolis that don't get it. And I said it, Yes, I did say yeah. I think they don't know what empathy is, they don't know what acceptance is, they don't know what representation is.

33:20 Okay, these are concepts. To them, and they'll say, oh, it's too woke, and that's their answer to everything. So I think that they were behind the door when they were passing out. Well, anyway, I'm going to step down off of my platform and I'm going to turn it over to my Trex Spurts and see what they think or what they have to say about it. You heard what our fans had to say, you heard what I had to say. The yeah, what do you think? Well, I tell you what my I have Lisa's comment on here and because she really I think captured the essence of it. You know, the fake fans that are ruining it. It's but also, and I hate to well when people said Star Trek should be political, that's that's part of what. It's always political. It's whether it be you know, the romulence against the Federation. You know, it's it's I mean, that's obviously political. That's that's how it is.

34:12 But from my standpoint working in the history field, I have seen an uptick in the well throughout the history field, not my museum so much as others where the current administration is demeaning and erasing and eradicating everything like people of color, you know, any mention of the difficult history of our slavery in our country. So I've seen that, you know, in my field of work. But it's also I've seen it in you know, the Star Trek world because people are saying, you know, whatever that comment was about, oh d I you know, basically, it's diversity, you know, it's what is it diversity? What's the East Tech? I'm drawing a blank. I'm so sorry.

34:55 Equality. That's an inclusion, which which is who doesn't Why wouldn't you want that? You know, unless you've been indoctrinated into this. Everybody must be a cookie cutter person, you know. And when I was at Galaxy Con, I was having a conversation with a no visitor and this was before Starfleet Academy was canceled, but we were talking about the hatred and the people of d S nine they know, you know, ugly fan comments, because they got it. They got it in the mail, so they got it, like, you know, hard copies of the fan comments. But you know when when a certain member who I just referred to as news for a two went to Shatner and said, hey, take over Star Trek and make it, you know, turn it around and get rid of this, you know whatever he said, and Shatner basically blew him off. And it's like, that's somebody who says that can't understand the true nature of what Star Trek is. And you notice my shirt, you know, because it's the end of Pride month, and yeah, people people of different I just just everybody does to have a place at the table and they're existing. Does nothing to ruin your lives, you cry, baby bleepers. I mean, that's that's that's a meme that's out there. And being a mama bear and seeing seeing an uptick in the hatred to my one, my eldest who's in the community, it's painful. And you know Star Trek, I mean they had, you know, with with dax jaed Zia having that really

36:26 hot kiss with her former host's former husband's wives whatever, you know, that one particular episode. That's that's what Star Trek is about. And if you talk with the actors, I don't think there's I don't know any one of them that would, you know, agree with it's like, oh, Star Trek's two woke, we shouldn't do this, that or the other. They will absolutely say, no, that's not what Star Trek is about. And they should know because they've been in the show, they've lived it. So yeah, if you don't you know what Lisa said, if you don't like an episode in a season, then don't watch it, you know, just you know, the fake fans try and ruin it for everyone by trying to get shows canceled, you know, which I think that's absolutely what happened to Starfleet Academy. But yeah, thank you Lisa, because what you said is just absolutely awesome. And just just the comments that I see, I have to scroll past many of them otherwise I will, you know, meet somebody out of the airlock. But yeah, it's it's uh, I don't know's I'm very very my brain is obviously very scrambled because I just I love Star Trek and I just hate how things have changed in the real world and how it's affecting a show that was supposed to be in the future and showing us a better way forward. It's just really painful, and I just hope that you know, things can change, you know, I mean, they have to change politically. And I thought I'd never I'd never thought I would see such division and such hatred and such censorship in my lifetime. That feels like we're in, you know,

37:56 a totally different era, but which I think Star Trek had Part one started. It was that was the message, and somehow here we are again, and we just I don't know. I better stop talking because otherwise I'll get upset. But I will pass it on to somebody else. But that's my. Take on it, you know, the like Lisa said, you know, my co host Eric and Charles can say, I despise the Orville. Okay, I just don't watch it. I don't watch it. I just I don't watch it. Do you hear me lamd basing it constantly? And no, I just don't watch it. I don't care, so I don't watch it. Yeah, I'm not going to go making videos telling people why it stocks, telling people not to watch it, telling people. Why I hate it. I don't like it, I don't watch it, and I move on in the story.

38:39 Yeah, you know, I don't want to waste my time on things I don't enjoy and. Love, so I go to Star Trek. Yeah, but do my battleft around and yeah. But see like yeah that last sentence real quick, so she said. But yes, the show has changed, as it should. Everything changes, even Trek, but the core value remains. And if people don't know what that is, I'm not explaining it like I was saying, goes, if I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand. Boom. So again, I need to be friends with you, Lisa, because you sound like you're all That was Lisa. I just quoted Lisa and it's like she's a top fan and you're awesome. And to me, that's that's that's a Star Trek fan, right there, a true fan.

39:24 That's why I picked to. Oh yeah, Eric, I see bid a little bit there ly, Yeah for sure. Yeah. I mean for me, this one started as kind of like a chicken and egg thing, right, like did society change first or did Star Trek? And I think that Star Trek, of course, has always been a reflection of the society that you know, it was produced in. And you know, Jim, you talk about Berman track. And if you look at what society was like in the late eighties and early nineties, you know, have you seen the movie America Psycho, Like, That's what it was like, right. It was like Wall Street boys, take what you can get, brutal, whatever's misogyny, you know, it was about a lot of those things, and so Star Trek you know, reflected some of those values. Now, there was still a ton of Star Trek, let's be clear, in the late eighties and early nineties that did completely adhere to what I would consider to be Star Trek core values. And there's you know, there's like a pretty short list of Star Trek core values if I was, you know, to name my own, the first being you know, infinite diversity and infinite combinations.

40:36 That that idea that everybody, as V was saying, has a seat at the table. You know, regardless of who you are, you can you can come in and be welcomed and not only be welcome, but be celebrated. I think that's really always been part of Star Trek, you know, classic Star Trek has that sort of optimism to it and all what I think has always been called kind of a human view, which to me has always meant a base of humanity who are not reliant on their looking up to whatever the next power is, but like rather taking on all of the responsibility of the society and you know, the ways that they want to shape it on themselves, human beings steering their own destiny rather than relying on you know, fate or whatever other entity might be out there that you know, steers the hand of where they're going. And I think that modern Star Trek is still adhering to that sort of thing. In addition to the ITIC, then you've got like the prime directive stuff, right, which I think is where like partially where Jim hates the Orville because they violate the prime directive all over the place, so you know whatever. There's also plenty of other sci fi where they violate the prime directive all the time. But I think that modern Star Trek takes that into consideration, and that's really a real reflection of you know, imperialistic values, right, Like when a military power comes into a what could be perceived

42:09 as a technologically inferior you know, depending on your perspective and point of view, but like society, like do they have a responsibility to not interfere with that society. This v is where I like, I've been watching a lot of Stargate lately because you have you love that show, I know, and I've been thinking about it a lot. And I will say, like the first half of season one right now, they are constantly violating the prime directives. It's definitely Stargate is definitely not a like Star Treking show to me. I mean, I'm still totally enjoying it. I love the you know, all the actors and stuff, but yeah, the prime directive is definitely part of Star Trek.

42:51 Right then you get like the exploration and like science side of things. Right, So, to me, modern fans are less interested in exploration and science than they used to be. And I think that's probably due to the Internet. Jim was mentioning Internet stuff, but like people's attention is just constantly occupied by mindless shit that they find on the Internet and pass on to one another, right, and they don't have to downtime, Like, how many people, how many people in line at any place that you go to, are not on their phone? Right? Is it possible to even be within oneself and not be on your phone these days? I don't know. That feels weird, and so contemplation, exploration, the idea of you know, wondering about things, I think is on a downward trend personally. I mean, I still wonder about shit all the time, but I don't think everybody does. And then, as I said, like finally, you know it just being like allegory for modern society, and Modern Trek is definitely doing that. The ways in which I think that I see that in Modern Trek are Okay, card came out and it had kind of a like I remember us talking about it's sort of dark feel, you know, and that's definitely a modern development in Trek, the lighting and all. Actually, no, you know where it started.

44:14 It started with Discovery and that freaking like Tartar Grade episode, right, and like they were, they rebooted Star Trek. We get Discovery, we get the Tartar Grade episode, and it was like, all of a sudden, Star Trek was horror, and I feel like that episode set a bad precedent honestly for what people were gonna how people were going to perceive modern track. I don't know, you know, not everybody saw that episode, but I do think that Discovery had a rough start partially because of the aggressive of the sort of intensity of it. I don't know that was. You know, I'm an mpath so I can't help, but I that that episode was just like whoa, what fuck's happening right now? But yeah, So anyway, long story short, has society changed or has Star Trek? Yes, you know, society has gotten darker.

44:59 People have lost a lot of hope, I think, And you know, if you look at this sort of like income to success curves, they're all heading the wrong directions and the richer getting richer and the poor getting poorer. So I think we see that in modern Star Trek reflected back at us, and it's kind of sad, but it is also totally on point with everything that we've ever seen in the history of Star Trek. So yes, there you go. Well, well, said Eric Charles David Paul. Someone want to jump in, I'll jump in. Cool, excellent. I look at some of the comments and I'm thinking things changed after Enterprise. Things did change after Enterprise because when we got Curseman the era with Discovery, we were no longer going and saying we got to make sure we have the TV on at eight o'clock on Fox.

45:53 Now we went to our streaming service, and we went to go watch the episode, which means all of a sudden, they weren't as the in on all the commercial time that regular TV had. We also weren't as much worried about the censor on streaming. Okay, hey we can use an adult language once in a while, Telly can drop a four letter work. Couldn't do that, really. Couldn't do that on television at one point, especially in the TSTNG era, you couldn't have sat there and dropped a four letter work. So all of a sudden, it's like, oh, we weren't sitting there hitting our watch, being there at eight o'clock, or hitting our DVR skipping commercial. We were watching a whole episode when we wanted to. We wanted to see it twice. Okay, we're done with it, go back watch it again, watch it a few days later, see what we missed. We also had the first occasion with Discovery that there was an after show somebody talked about the episode. We got behind the scene back in the TNG, back in the back in the previous era, previous ear. It's like, oh, you want to be you want to see behind the scenes, you want to see the blooper reels, Well, you had to wait for you had to wait for the VHS tape to come out or the DVD to come out. You didn't get to see that stuff right away. You didn't get to see that stuff popping. We were able to see more of what was going on with Star Trek with this new era, and we hit the peak of the Internet. So we

47:26 had the chat groups. We had all kinds of people where the conversations were out there. I think Facebook was around then. We had everybody chatting about what was going on, what they like dislike. It wasn't mailing stuff in, it wasn't going to a comic invention. It was okay, I could go right to my computer and I could start saying how I felt. So we had a lot more direct contact of how people felt about how things were going. And people were unhappy. You mean, I have to pay for my Star Trek you want know? I agree with Jim. It's like, yeah, I had problems. I didn't get to see a just Star Trek because I had problems getting a good U chef. Sigmas no longer in Fox. It was over on UPN. Well, UPN wasn't always the best channel to get a hold of.

48:09 So I did miss some episodes back then. So I think Star Trek did have changes going on with the kurtsman Ere. But we also only had at one point thirteen down to ten episodes because that's what streaming started demanding. As we had short up. We had a short season. You didn't have as many character developments episodes as you did in the Legacy series. They had more time to say, Okay, we got to blow up, we got an episode we can throw away that we can focus on one character. Didn't have as much time to sit there and focus on one character. But yes, we did have a lot of We did have a bunch of episodes in Discovery they did focus on some of the cast, and later seasons we got more in depth into the rest of the Bridge crew. But there were certain people we really wanted to focus on. Season walk per card. You missed you only you only sit there and remember didn't remember characters that for third season.

49:07 There were a lot of good characters. In season one and season two, but if you were just kind of saying, ah, I don't really care about it, No, you missed those characters. We got some good stories with some of whose character. So I think Star Trek in ways has changed a bit for the batter. I think it's nice to be able to see Star Trek one I want and not have to worry about the TV schedule. Also like the fact that some of the pre shows, some of the being able to see some of the cons and all the celebrating a Star Trek that's out there, and I think it pushed towards the good. Yes, there were issues, but hey, we got the Kurtsman ear, the Kurtsman era, could do adult, could do a little more adult. Okay, well, let's actually talk about a little more diversity out there. Yes, people don't like diversity us. We're hanging around We're hanging around society that's very diverse.

49:55 We want to be able to. Celebrate that diversity, not hide from it. Star Trek's changed, but I think it's changed for the better, and I think it's going in the direction it should be going, even if some people don't like it. Well said Charles, Well said David a floating head. A lot have been said which I agree, disagree with a lot of what you guys have said. I'm not really going to go over a lot of it just because of sake of time. But I do have to mention that I believe with the state of the question is that has Star Trek changed with a fan, And I would have to say that I think both both have definitely changed. Everything changes over time, culture, everything you know, TV shows, even and technology. Technology is definitely something that I think chang is quite often more than it should.

50:44 But I think technology in general, like what Jim we're talking about, you know, we don't have a lot of AI back in the eighty or even none at all, and show to me, I'm wondering like a lot of the people who are like fake fans, they could be AI bots people program around body to probably just you know, spontaneously constantly say a lot of bad things and probably true that. Yeah, I don't know. It's just an idea that the society that we're living in today is probably full of a lot of propaganda that has just been going on, and that's probably what caused a lot of people to cause a lot of uproar of what's been going on. So, I mean, you know, AI's out there and whether it's going to be for the good or bad.

51:24 I'm not a programmer, so I have no control over it, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people out there who could, so yeah, and there's a lot of evil people out there, so but you know, I would have to say I would like to think that there are a lot of other good people out there, of course, But I'm just saying, like the idea that culture changes all the time. I think Star Trek definitely had tried to keep up with the culture and with the idea that fan from like back in the sixties. You know, people just don't seem to get beyond the changing of the culture because they want to remain in a certain field. To you know, there's comfortable zone. I want to say, Yeah, I think there some fans change, some don't, and some people are more acceptance than others, some people have more empathy.

52:10 There's a wide variety of different people out there who just can't seem to handle certain things. And so to me, I'm just like, yeah, I think this question is true for both statements that guide track changed. Like what you guys, I agree with that you guys were all saying about, you know, pretty much started to ride around Coachman and maybe it was dude. The fact that technology made it easier to watch Star Trek and made it broader to get it out there. Maybe, I mean technology changes, so I don't know. I don't want to keep repeating myself. All I'm trying to say is that, yes, I agree with both statements. People change over time, culture did tract change, and yeah, I do agree. I think it did change right around Coachman because it gotten a lot. Like Eric mentioned that one episode its tarted great, it just kind of got into the horror. But I mean, Guard Track had horror in it before. But it's just definitely got darker, that's for sure, and not darker as in lighting, but just the idea that it's kind of it was telling the more I don't know what's the word. I can't think of the word, but it's just basically it was just telling a more broader story of what they're trying to accomplish. Show and Star Trek in general, I think for sure has gotten a little bit of Okay, here's one thing that I wish I would have actually known from the beginning. If people would have known what Star Trek was from the beginning watching it, if they would have probably been able to say, hey, yeah, you know, this is about this, and they come and watch the show all of a sudden, you're like, I'm not sure I like this, but I like other parts of the show,

53:41 And so a lot of the things, like the core values of the show, people could still like a show without having to go through the core value in my opinion, But when I first started watching Star Treks, in my opinion, I didn't understand Star Trek at all that much until way later. And then once I started getting into it, I was like, Okay, this is interesting. I still like it. I just don't really enjoy a lot of the different episodes. I'm not saying I like them all. I'm just saying that, you know, I have opinion, and I enjoy what I enjoy, and so a lot of the core values of Star Trek may not be my drop in the bucket, but I still enjoy it to a point where it's just like, you know, hey, this is pretty fun. It's a good sci fi show. Some of the stories are good. So yeah, have I trained over time? Possibly?

54:24 Maybe? I don't know, But to me, I'm just saying that from my perspective, a lot of people can like many different things. Dompition, like Joiville, I love the oil film, you know, I mean, I know we keep going back to that, but it's just like, I don't know. To me, I kind of agree with a lot of what the fans are saying, and a lot of them I would like. But I'm not a people I'm not a people hater, So you know, I have empathy. I love everything that you guys are. You know in this group that we're here together. So it's been quite a lot fun. I got some friends out of it, So there you go, all. Right, and that my friends, we guys in a full circle. Right back to Paul, who gets to pull up the caboose and are you sure?

55:07 Are you sure? Uncle Jim? Oh, I've been I've been waiting to hear Paul. I've been looking forward to this. We've trodden a lot of ground and I don't want to repeat what's been said if I can avoid it, and we've tried retrod a lot of the same ground repetitively over and over and over again. So I think that it's obviously both things have changed. Fans have changed to some degree and the show has changed to some degree. That's a given. I think it's not really a question. Really, it's obvious, But let's talk a little bit about the fandom and a lot about the nature of the show. I think is the way I would approach it. Right, we live in a different age now, Okay. I think fans represent culture. I mean, that's basically it.

55:52 You had. I'm sure, you know, as Uncle Jim said at the beginning, I'm sure there were people that responded very negatively to you. But it was step Shouldern episode of the original series when you know, William Shatner kissed Michelle Nichols. I'm sure that they really freaked out about that. They didn't let right, And had they had a thing called social media that would have allowed them to broadcast their opinions beyond the hay bail they were sitting at, I think that you know, they would have I'm sure been you know, soodcasting their vitriol and hatred as much as we see. I just think that they didn't have the tools or the ability to do them. And I think, you know, we have people who just have always not liked the stuff. And it's important to remember too well. As much as you know Rodenbery's take on you know, the infinite diversity thing, the I dick as a stated principle of star Trek didn't emerge until the third season of the original series.

56:45 All right, that's. When he really sorted, let's crystallize and give a name to what it is that we're talking about with the openness of an acceptance of the show, which was always there as back far back as early as episodes, like a balance of terror. When you know, acceptance negative perceptions of bigotry, we're really being espoused. That's the core empathy of star Trek that we've always had. Right, You don't need to be a left wing person or a liberal to have that in your DNA. You just basically have to be a decent person and not be a hateful person the civil sense of society. But social media has amplified those divisions, right, And it's like, and I don't want to really get to negative to say, those people, those awful people over there, like the folks who are like braying about the DEI as a problem, because they're not organically grown that way. I don't think. I think that a lot of our adversaries in the world right now, in the particularly in Russia, have you know, very carefully used social media as a tool to divide us, and we just forget about that very conveniently. But it's not like we're over here and a lot of people just naturally hating each other. Is they're using social media and manipulating its abilities to keep us divided and to keep us each other. And so if we continue to do that and go those people, I mean, you're basically falling into being manipulated by our adversaries. And we need to find more ways to align ourselves and come together and find out things we have common and stop relying on social media all the time. Is a method of divisiveness.

58:16 So I think that we really need to move beyond that if we can. But you know, I don't think we're going to suddenly change society. And as long as society as the way it is right now, we're going to have divisiveness, right and we're going to people manipulating it to their ends, and that's what this is really all about. But what I'd really like to focus on, what it's been very little talk about on this episode tonight, is storytelling. Okay, I think that we get so focused on well, it's no longer on television, it's on streaming, and there's x number of episodes versus how many used to get. That's just distribution and production has nothing to do with the storytelling and the nature of Star Trek. If you want to talk about the nature Star Trek itself and how it's changed, you have to talk about the nature of it now. The storytelling has changed, right, which is dramatic. I think I think of the comments that Eric read earlier, the one from I think Robert Bolivar was great. He talked about the movies, right, and if you look at the movies, the most recent ones that have happened, right, they're all about the villain. And now the crew react to said villain, to quote Robert right, and he emphasizes the story should be more about the crew or the specific characters, and focus on our people, not this you know, generic adversary who always shows up. Okay, we saw that in as good as season three of Picard. Well, here's Amanda Plummer, She's the obligatory villain, right, is engaging as certain episodes of Starfleet Academy were. Right, Oh, here's Paul Giamatti, the villain who shows up, right is Everything's kind of there's a real formulaic style to the storytelling that's been done on Star Trek right, written by a

59:47 lot of folks. So I think are they come out of television right and the modern streaming definition of television, those kind of scriptwriting environments where it's a writer's room collectively trying to work on things, as posed to somebody with the unique and specific voice that's writing the show. So you have like a little you know, democratic collective crafting each episode. Right, how can we make this appeal to everyone? And how can we follow the formulas that we've been slavishly conditioned to embrace, right, and that leads for a lot of bad science fiction? Okay, I challenge It's like when we think about, like, you know, the original series, you can name like fifty sixty episodes, name me one episode title from season two up a card, anybody, one title without looking at the internet. One title of one episode. You can't because they're not memorable. They're absolutely forgettable, right, Absolutely, there's nothing iconic about them. Where it's like television show should be that the next morning people can't stop talking about it. Like with the end of I think I want to say Season three finale, Best of Both Worlds Part one, right, all of America was talking about that episode, that finale, that Cliffhanger, and people could not stop engaging around it and talking about it. It got everybody fired up.

1:00:58 It was excited. It got people excited about storytelling and its nature. Star Trek is an adventure show, period, full stop. It just happens to be an adventure show that very cleverly talks about the human condition and philosophy and culture and politics and all those other aspects. And I think lately the show that's done that most adroitly has been strange in worlds because it remembers, it doesn't forget to be an adventure show. Discovery in the first two seasons remembered it was an adventure show back when we had Lorca on there. I think when we lost Larca, the show kind of lost its way and it became heavily overwritten and following a lot of TV tropes and really lost its ability to entertain on a regular basis. They would occasionally get a really good episode, but a huge chunk of them we're forgettable and not really out there getting the attention they should. And then you know, you're trying to navigate this environment right and you're trying to go ahead and keep fans going as you're losing things.

1:01:52 Prodigy gets canceled, This gets canceled. You know, all these big you know, profitability oligarch sharks are circling paramount, And what do you do. You make a movie like Section thirty one. It's one of the worst pieces of you know, television I have ever seen in my life, an absolute horror show of an aptitude and you know it's poor Michelle Yong get thrust in the middle of that nonsense. So you cannot make a show like that and expect to gain fan and you know, strengthen your position on a you know, potentially floundering network. You can't do it. So I think my advice would be you've got to go back to the beginning to some degree and have better storyteller, right, And I think Robert makes some great points.

1:02:33 Don't keep doing the same thing over and over again following these formula. The best science fiction writers working right now, people like Martha Wells and k. Jemison, Becky Chambers, Ted Chang, Adrian Tchaikowsky. These are some of the best novelists that are out there outside of television today. They're our age is equivalent of like Harlan Ellison and Norman Spinrat and Ted Sturgeon, folks who wrote for the original series right. Stop using these you know, glorified interns who are right their formula following you know WB script and get some real science fiction writers in there and have the right episodes that will embrace the unique nature of these characters to help us tell a cautionary tale about the future.

1:03:14 And remember that at it's heard, Star Trek is an adventure story about the adventure outside of us and the adventure within us. And none of the writers writing the stories I see on Star Trek and I remembering that, and I think we need more literary writers who know how to tell a good story and really embrace discovery and exploration in science fiction to do that. So that would be my advice as we move into new eras in the future is look outside of the writer's room. Bring in a writer who's published something successful and the cat who wrote The Martian, I know that guy's a great science fiction fan, a great Star Trek fan. Bring that guy in, Bring Andy Weir in and say, hey, man, we'd like you to write a Star Trek episode. You can do whatever you want. That would get the greatest ratings.

1:03:57 It would be a huge success because you're bringing in a name that people want to see what he has to do. Right, It's it brings attention, right. I mean, I don't know if any of us will ever get to read the Quentin Tarantino star Trek script, but that's a name that gets attention, all right. He's going to have a point of view, as weird as it may be, as divisive as it may be, it's going to galvanize and get folks excited about the franchise again because it's like, Ooh, this guy's got something to say. He's got a perspective as opposed to half the Discovery episodes and half the Card episodes that I couldn't tell you what the story is and remember a single detail about if I tried, they are not going to age. Well, they will be forgotten. It's sound, but it's honest, right. So I think we really need to bring in and remember that this is all about storytelling, and we need storytelling as a human audience now more than a So that's my take on it.

1:04:43 I think everything's changed, you know. I look at society around me with a lot of fear and caution and suspicion. But I'm also a diehard optimist, and I see the younger generations coming forward right now that are more like, more outspoken about they're willing to accept and what they were not willing to except I looked at the youth coming up as folks, I believe that we can put a lot of hope in I want to see what that those future storytellers who are young right now, what they would do is Star Trek and start. That's my two cents, gang, I hope that's okay to express. No, I think that was perfect. Well, before we move on to our Star Trek birthdays, anybody want to add another the two cents before we move on? Everybody happy? Okay, everybody's happy. So we're going to do our Star Trek birthdays, which means David hast Roll the tape.

1:05:30 Really that was not al song? All right, guys? Usually will we start out our birthdays with our sci fi rememberances. We're gonna switch things up a little bit this week because Paul has to run early, So we're gonna jump right in and have Paul do his birthdays, and then we'll go back and so you've got the Mike Paul, It's okay.

1:06:16 Thanks for the heads up, man, I appreciate it. I will frantically scroll to my section with those notes that are out there. So let's do that. Okay. First of all, we have an illuminary right out of the gate, which I always loved. The phenomenal Zoe Saldana had a birthday this last week. This is an Academy Award winning for us, who played Lieutenant Uvura in Star Trek, the jj Abrams Iteration into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond and did a phenomenal, phenomenal job. She is a science fiction icon, this woman. I mean, she's been in like three massive tent poles. I mean, good lord, she's basically, you know, really made this character phenomenal in Star Trek.

1:07:02 She played ass kicking Gomorra in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies within the Marvel Cinematic universe there, and she's still rocking hard as blueskinned Navi Princess nay Tierri in the Avatar franchise, which we just got another one of just this very last December, and you can watch right now on Disney Plus or on Ideally Physical Media if you have no already purchased it. So but yeah, she's just amazing, I mean, just doing all this stuff. She's still a really young individual. I think as far as longevity goes good, I can only imagine what she's going to do as time goes on. She's a phenomenally talented actress, got a lot of guts and chooses her material really, really well. So it's delightful to wish a very happy birthday and a very long career of success, much deserved as always all talent. Okay, I'm going to go back to another era, friends, and let's say happy birthday to the great Richard Thomas, American actor, best known for his role, of course, as John Boy Walton in let our viewers don't remember the Waltons, but good night, John Boy. I mey Award winning performance on that show. And of course the original television version of Stephen King's horror novel It from nineteen ninety, you know, the Tim Curry version of

1:08:32 it where he played the lead character Bill Denburrough on there, right, amazing stuff. And then cult fans of science fiction, we'll go back to Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars, where he played Chad, a young Akira farmer to a Curra Coros alliance. This is basically a Seventh remake, who looks for mercenaries to save his people in that terrific picture. There so really fun stuff. So definitely man with all kinds of big cred in the genre universe. So we salute you, Richard Thomas. Good night, John Boyd, keep on going, big favorite of mine. Next here. I love this guy, absolutely amazing performer. The great Malcolm McDowell, British actor with Charris from Star Trek fame, who played doctor Soren in Star Trek Generations, the man who killed James Kirk. Oh, boy, that'll get you all kinds of dirty looks when you walk into the pub, won't it knock? Him? From Yorkshire and Leeds originally? Of course, he made his big splash on the universe in Stanley Kubrick's Opus A Clockwork Orange, where he played the infamous Alex Delarge Vity Well my brothers, Vitty Well in that amazing movie. Are there people on this podcast in the treckspert's sphere who have not seen Clockwork Orange? I have, fellow tr experts. Have you all seen it?

1:09:58 I've seen most of it? Not all all of it, but. Yeah, I suspect David hasn't seen it. But anyhow, I would urge everyone who's not seen Clockwork Orange. We're kind of in the Clockwork Orange era. It is not really a horror movie. David's afraid to admit that he hasn't seen it to you, Paul, because he's afraid you'll think of him. I'm very tolerant. I would as I would say that that's an opportunity for improving, you know, but it's just but it's it's as you get deep, you know, exposure to us man, you're going to get more recommendations. And it's a movie you should see, you know, for especially living in the country and the times that we live.

1:10:43 And I think you'll find a lot of stuff that it's a very disturbing picture. I mean, it's a very disturbing picture. But I highly recommend it and see it for Malcolm mcdow's performance, if nothing else amazing, it's it's good tough. I'll be really curious to hear what you think. Marriott Hartley, the lovely Marriott Hartley, Okay, Emmy Award winning actress. Of course, in the third season, I would say this is one of the best third season What was that Space nineteen ninety nine graphic out there? I just did. I just have a hallucination, was like, you know, I got the neck take there? Oh did I really? Okay? Well, well apparently, I mean I'm still on jet lag man. So I'll finish with Mary Hartley.

1:11:23 And go back to the Nick Day. God help me. I would say that the third season episode that Mary Hartley was in All Our Yesterday's ranks among the best, certainly of season three of the original series. She was great getting down in the bear skin rug with the Commander Spock there, you know, I mean, that's some memorable stuff. But yeah, so sorry for going out of order. Sorry, David, I'm like. You know, a mess. It's been a crazy week. Mary Harley, Happy birthday. And now going back into the proper sequential order of which I am in programmed to comply with, we will go back to Australian amazing dude, Nick Saints, Okay, amazing cool. He was in the fourth season episode Final Mission of Next Gen Right and also Deep Space nine six season episode Honor among Thieves, but amongst old school, gray haired science fiction fans like myself. He will forever be known as astronaut Alan Carter of moon Base Alpha on the Alt time British science fiction show Space nineteen ninety nine, where he would crash an Eagle space vehicle in just about every episode he was in, which they kind of referenced in all the Star Trek appearances he did every single one of them. He crashes a space shuttle all the time, so it's kind of hilarious. But great guy, always going out the conventions and rubbin elbows with the fans and the faithful there. So Nick Tate, we salute you, buddy.

1:12:48 I remember on an episode of Lost a few years ago too. He's done a lot of still occasionally does a lot of work. So a very cool guy, a very likable character. Okay, back getting back here, I see a lot of middle names here. I have to ignore them because to me, they don't really line up with my vision of the of who they are. So I will it's not actually part of the person for you, It's not. It's not. It's like it's like, like even know what I'm working on their headstone anymore. It just seems it's like that's not on my sad thing. I like you. I like to acknowledge people as it would be on their television credits or their movie credits, right and where it would just be Bruce Campbell. And that's how I'm gonna say it, because that's it's not his credits. Well, he wants it to me. Bruce Campbell of the Man American actor and filmmaker, best known as Ash Williams Groovy from Sam Raimi's infamous Evil Dead horror series. He also appeared in Escape from la as the Search in general of Beverly Hills just hilarious, and had a part in Moontrap with Walter Koenig as well. Walter Kanig excuse me, that's Space nineteen ninety nine. Talk got me thinking Konig instead of Kanig. It's really easy to fuck that up, isn't it. Friends. Anyhow, Bruce Campbell is amazing and he was in the early pretty much any Sam Raimi movie, probably you're going to see Bruce Campbell in that picture.

1:14:12 In some small part. He was like the wrestling MC in the first Spider Man movie that Ramy did as well. And personal note, Bruce lives in the state of Oregon. I understand he is waging his own personal battle with the horror of cancer these days, So Bruce, I want to wish you the absolute best. I hope you're getting the absolute most modern treatment. We need guys like you around for a long long time. Bruce. I remember you when you were on a show called brisk The Adventures of Briscoe County, which was a wonderful Western parody, very much akin to like the Wild Wild West. Just terrific stuff. His early stuff on like Xena Warrior Princess. He's just a wonderfully funny, a live character actor. I just love his work. So wishing you all the best. Bruce Long may live a friend. Moving on a happy birthday to Mick Fleetwood of the rock and Amazing Fleetwood mac drummer, singer, all around good guy. He appeared briefly and anonymously as an Antedian dignitary under a whole bucket load of prosthetics in the second season next year an episode man Hunt, and was in the Picture of the Running Man the Schwarzenegger picture there back in eighty seven. Is the leader of the underground Resistance movement, and he spoke the memorable line, mister Spock, you have the con which is interesting. I must go find that again and watch again. But if you don't like Fleetwood, Mac, I got nothing. I got

1:15:44 no use for you. That's what I say. You need to go. You need to go work on your musical education. It would be what I would say. So anyhow, amazing dude and absolutely great to celebrate him. A big fan of this guy. Sound to conclude with my birthday regalia with this fellow who is quite the entertaining outspoken person if you ever heard it, Locke antlers with him at a con Oh boy, he does not hold back. Peter Weller, the Great Peter Weller. Okay, of course in enterprises fourth season episodes Demons and Tara Prime. He played John Frederick Paxton in those enterprise episodes and they have a big part in the Abrams picture Star Trek Into Darkness? Were Alexander Marcus really cool? Bad Admiral? I mean, you know, we've our friend Eric talk about bad admirals, evil and admirals all the time. I mean, holy moly, that's a bad admiral. That's a best What did Dan Zellan's say in in Mandalorian.

1:16:52 Admiral Horrible baby Admiral? No squeeze that Admiral of course, though I have a ridiculous number of RoboCop action figures, and I have nothing but fondness for the legendary performance of Officer Murphy and the brilliant Paul Vorhoven action satire RoboCop from back in nineteen eighty seven. Holy moly, what a picture and what a performance one of the I mean you talk about like people fearing that our humanity would get lost as technology consumes us. That's what RoboCop is all about. And man, that picture delivers hard. But the reason it delivers so hard is because performance human he remains underneath all that stuff, underneath all that It's amazing, absolutely amazing. So really really a smart freaking guy, Peter Weller, and does not suffer fools gladly. So if you're seeming to Cohn, be nice would be my advice. Well one of my be nice.

1:17:58 And I loved what is his name, Miguel Ferrer as the bad evil corporate guy getting like, you know, wiped out by the robot. That's a wonderful picture. I gotta bounce because I got another meeting. I gotta go to guys and bounce. But I just want to mention if the fans out there, go see Toy Story five if you have not, I seen it twice already, and it's chefs, absolutely, absolutely amazing, definitely worth your time, and quite wonderful in this day as we live in. Take care of friends. I'll see you next time, all right. So that was Paul's birthday. We jumped him to the top because he had the wrong But.

1:18:40 Now we're gonna swing back around to Eric, because Eric always starts off by sadly enough, remembering those members of our sci fi family who are no longer with us. So take it away, Eric, yeah, Jim. This week we start with actor John Warburton, the British born actor who played the Romulan Centurion in the original series first season episode Balance of Terror. He of course was born in Liverpool, England, known for Cavalcade from nineteen thirty three, Saratoga Trunk from nineteen forty five and Secret File Hollywood from nineteen sixty two, made lots of appearances in westerns back in the day, and plenty of motion picture credits to his name. So happy birthday and lots of love going out to John Warburton and that classic look that he has from Balance of Terror. We are now moving on beyond, and we are saying happy birthday this week to Martin Landau. Yes, Martin Landau speaking of space nineteen ninety nine. We lost Martin Landau back in twenty seventeen, and I just want to talk a little bit about him. He's got a pretty cool story. At age seventeen, he was hired by the New York Daily News to work on the promotion department before he became a staff cartoonist and illustrator, where he would work for five years. Then, you know, his major ambition was to

1:20:11 actually become an actor, and in nineteen fifty one, he made his stage debut in Detective Story at the Peaks Island Playhouse in Peaks Island, Maine. He made us off Broadway debut that year that same year in First Love, and he acted throughout the thirties, forties, fifties in various things. He was actually, I don't know if you know this or not, but Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play guess who mister Spock. Yeah, he wanted Martin Landau to play mister Spock and then eventually came around to, of course, Leonard Nimoy. Martin Landau is probably best known for Mission Impossible. You know, he was not originally meant to be a regular on that series, which also starred Barbara Bain Hello Space ninety nine, which you know, of course he eventually married her, but his character Roland Hand was originally was then eventually made into a recurring character, which was pretty exciting.

1:21:14 He won a Golden Globe once upon a time for Best Male TV Star, and eventually he quit Mission Impossible in nineteen sixty nine after a salary dispute, and that, of course is when Peter Graves took over, and that's the Mission Impossible that we all sort of think of when we think of that show. He had a little bit of a lull in his career in the seventies, but then eventually came back right with that Space nineteen ninety nine. And I, you know, everybody knows, everybody who's a fan of the podcast knows that I semi recently watched that entire series and really fell into it. Look at his IMDb page. There are plenty of really cool movies in there. He worked with Bella Lagosi once, you know, we just tons of good stuff in there, So check him out. Martin Landau lost back in twenty seventeen. We love you and thank you so much for all of your awesome contributions to sci fi and other stuff. Happy birthday, Happy birthday as well to David L. Lander, the actor who played the Ferengi tactician in the Next Generation second season episode Peak Performance. He's best known for playing Andrew Squiggy Swigman opposite Michael Keenan's Lenny Becausnowski im Lavern And sure I did watch lavernon Shirley, but I was very, very small, so I don't remember much about it. If he did a ton of work with Lenny aka Michael mckegan, he attended He attended acting classes at Carnegie Mellon. He

1:22:48 had roles in many television series, even played minors together alongside David Bowie in The Weird Al Show. In nineteen eighty, he released an album as Lenny and Squiggy, titled Lenny and the squig Tones. Yep, I remember that. Have you heard it? I haven't heard it. I remember that because Michael McKean is he is a musician, and he's been in the different of course in This Is Final Tap and all the other movies and that. Yeah, and of course Michael McKean played Fear in that wonderful, that scary, creepy episode of Voyager, so there's that.

1:23:31 Yeah, absolutely, yeah. He also played mister Pinkele on Twin Peaks and did a ton of voiceover work along the way. So yeah, awesome guy, awesome breath of work. Thank you, David Lander for all the things that you did. We lost you back in twenty twenty. And last, but not least, on the remembrance list, we say happy birthday this week to George Murdoch, the actor who portrayed God in Star Trek five movie, as well as J. P. Hanson in the Next Generation third and four season episodes Best Both Worlds and Best Both Worlds Part Two, which I believe Paul was just talking about as one of those, like you know, classic movie cliffhangers. In the pre production of The Final Frontier, director William Shatner had originally planned to cast Murdoch for the role of Cord, the Klingon, so he could have been a Klingon Jim. But that's actually when Charles Cooper was read for the role, and you know, he was like, nope, that's my going on. So the other JP Hanson was demoted or promoted to God, I don't I don't know which way that goes. Murdoch is probably best known by fans for two reoccurring roles as Lieutenant Ben Scanlon, the intern internal affairs officer on Barney Miller and as well as the overstressed and bitter doctor Salik on original Battle Star Galactica. Not the new one,

1:25:03 but that original one. Yeah. He was also on an episode of Seinfeld and Trapper John MD and a few other things. So, George Murdoch, thank you so much for your sci fi and other contributions. We lost you way back in twenty twelve, which apparently is now a long time ago. Yeah, So happy birthday to George Burdock and Jim You got too Star Trek five references this week, So congratulations, and I hope you feel good about yourself. Okay, all right, well there, no, let's keep going, ye.

1:25:49 Take it over all right? Well, Happy birthday goes out to Joe Piscopo, a stand up comic and actor who appeared as the comic in TNG second season episode to the Outrageous o'conna. Not one of my favorite of the episodes. It's just rather cheesy but the part where Joe Piscopo is trying to help Data learn about comedy. That was great. And of course I remember Joe Piscopo from not the Greatest season of Saturday Night Live. But you know we're the memorable. Are you from Joysey, I'm from Joys which eggsit ha you know type of thing. Anyway, all right, Next, Happy Birthday goes out to John cho who's the feature featured actor who portrayed Hukaro Sulu in Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond. Choe is best known for his roles as John in the American Pie films and as Harold in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Oh here's one of my favorite. Happy Birthday to the wonderful Carol Caine. She's an Emmy Award winning actress who played Pellia in the second and third season episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds where she learned We learned she was a roadie for The Grateful Dead, wasn't it. Uh? Yeah, she is best. Oh yeah, that's right.

1:27:20 She has a telephone. Yes she does, Yes she does, and a weird. K didn't she ride in the didn't she ride with Doctor Who in. Yeah, and I remember her. I first saw her on the TV show Taxi and she was the wife of Latka Gravas and her character's name was Simca, and then later on she is She was on in The Princess Bride with the One and Only Billy Crystal. So that is great, but we definitely love her as exactly right.

1:28:05 That was my first scene of her from. That's how I never saw that movie. Charles told me, Yeah, yeah, Well. What's his name? Was it? Carrie always was at he was at the Galaxy Cohn and I wish I could have met him, but there were just so many it's overwhelming when you want to meet all these people that you've seen. There's only so much time and so much money and all that. But yeah, it was a great movie. Now I don't know how to pronounce what yes, yes, which of course he was in He was the Grand Negus in nine yep. So they're Star Trek connections everywhere.

1:28:53 Uh. Next, and I don't know how you pronounced this night for the last name Fred that the Pascory. Yes, thank you so much. I would love to meet him because he seems like an awesome guy. Uh. He voiced Lieutenant Shacks on Star Trek Lower Decks always want to wanting to eject the warp cores in calling all his people baby bears, which I just I absolutely. I he is the biggest, like most empathetic, like the baddest ask. Guy on that and having a totally a totally not suitable for primetime TV relationship with Doctor Tama. It's like you want to get what did she say them?

1:29:40 Once? You want to get to. Right, you know? Anyway, But yeah, I would love to meet him at a con because he just seems, like I've heard he's awesome. Next to what was Jack Ransom's uh go to war in the final episode of Lower Decks. Wasn't it like, uh test the warp core or. What Ransom ransoms? I don't remember on the bridge and oh. He said because he like works out. He's like he's like, engage the core. Yeah, engage engaged the Yeah.

1:30:21 It's too funny. Yeah, And they're up on They're like, no, no, no, we can't say. I just remember Mariner's program, would she have a holiday or it was a gym program that she was showing to uh was it? Tend said, Wow, this is very realistic and from the back you see all these naked guys. I don't know, because that was hilarious. It's like, oh, I think I need to stand back anyway. Yeah, yeah, it's like getting to interview Gabrielle Ruiz from that was that was awesome. And getting to meet Eugene Cordero at the con was great too. All right, so let's get back to all right, I digress. Happy birthday to Eve Harlow.

1:31:18 She's an actress who played Mall in the fifth season of Star Trek Discovery. She was born in Moscow to a Russian Jewish family. Next, oh, talking about RoboCop. Happy birthday to Nancy Allen, American actress whose accolades include a Golden Globe Award nomination and three Saturn Award nominations. Gathered mainstream fame by playing Anne Lewis and Paul ver Hon's RoboCop franchise. Other credits include Holdergeist three, The Philadelphia Experiment, and Strange Invaders, and last but not least, somebody who I know you all interviewed. I got to meet him last September. Lovely, lovely man and very talented musician Tim Russ So he played of course Lieutenant Commander Tubac on a Voyager. He also directed the Voyager four season episode Living Witness, and of course made a memorable appearance in the popular sci fi spoof Spaceballs, where he will never live down the line, we ain't found shit. So happy birthday to the wonderful and talented and very kind Tim Russ.

1:32:41 All right, who is next? With the flaming birthday candle? Who can I hurl that towards Jim? Uncle Jim? Well, that would be me. I've got a couple here, Okay, I have a few we want to start off now. Okay, one question everybody asks, who's your first doctor? Right? Well, I gotta tell you Tom Baker with the scar frogs. But but butuckuckuck but lots of butts there. We we actually were reviewing Doctor Who. Uh, Eric Charles and myself and I had never really seen it until our next birthday person took over, Jody Whittaker. She played the thirteenth doctor of Doctor Who. She was the first woman to portray Doctor Who, and the first time I actually sat down and watched Doctor Who. And I gotta tell you, guys, there was one episode that I watched I thought was just top not awesome, and that was an episode called Rosa.

1:33:40 And if you guys have not seen that episode, if you're not Doctor Who fans, if you didn't like Jody Whittaker, if you didn't like a woman is Doctor Who, plush all that crap down to toilet and go and watch Rosa because it's a phenomenal episode. And Eric and Charles tell me that that's not the type of story that Doctor Who usually tells, but that particular story I found to be very compelling and fascinating. And it's too bad that Doctor Who didn't stick with more stories along that vein, but please check out Rosa. It was awesome. Happy birthday to Jody Whittaker, the next one on my list.

1:34:22 We actually had her on this podcast, so you can go to Chuck talkin dot com and you can find our interview with her and watch. If she's a fascinating, lovely, beautiful woman. You want to say Happy birthday to Robin Curtis. She played Savoc and starts her three to search for Spot and starts for the Voyage Home, and she played Hilaria and the TNG seven season episodes Gambit Part one and Gambit Part two, and there she is on the screen. You know, you know how I like to think of Robin Curtis, Jim. That's awesome. Well, seems like she she was more genuine than I know.

1:35:04 That was the breakout role for Kirsty Alley. But you know, yeah, yeah, she's off at truck con roga quite a bit uniform. Nice, She's awesome, She's such I'm gonna okay, I gotta tell. A little story. What was the show, right? No, So we were doing this convention. Down in Schenectady called phantom Fest, and she was scheduled to appear at fandom Fest. And I was driving along in my car with a friend of mine and my phone rings. It's Robin Curtis calling me. We had to I was supposed to get in touch there, but unfortunately my cousin had passed away. We were on our way to a funeral. She called me on my cell phone from her cell phone to express her condolences on the death of my cousin. That's how awesome she is, and I was. I was flabbergasted that she actually took the time out of her day to call me about, you know, and send her condolences and say she was so sorry.

1:36:30 And she talked to me for a few minutes on the phone about it, and I was like wow the phone and I said to my guys, who. I'm like, you know stars. He still didn't know who she was, but that's. She is such an awesome, awesome lady, great individual, and she didn't have to take the time to call me y. She did that says speaks volumes for the kind of person that she is. So Happy birthday to Robin Curtis. Ah Right, My last birthday wish is a cleaning and I always do the Klaionons, but I don't get one of them. So this is why we're getting segment because I'd rather give the birthday to my Trek spurts.

1:37:24 So we want to say happy birthday and to Claire McConnell. Claire McConnell is the Canadian actress and comedian who played Dennis in Star Trek Discoveries first season episodes Battle at the Binary Stars, Lefe and will You Take My Hand? She's the she was. She was the Klingon that had the uh head piece on. You can see her in the pictures here and uh. She she was awesome. So Happy birthday to Claire. Uh yeah. Uh, do you have your muted? Uh?

1:38:05 Your muted Jim. Oh. There we go. For the next segment. Because because I don't get a lot of klingons, I started doing movie anniversaries in so I'm going to continue to do that because it's fun and I like to bring up movies that people may have forgotten about scene in a while. So this is Uncle Jim's movie pick of the week or whatever. I don't know. But so, but before I get to my movie pick, though, I have a couple of memorable of mentions. First of all, I have to mention Logan's Run, which.

1:38:48 Was released on June twenty third, nineteen seventy six, fifty one. Years ago Logan's Run hit. I also have to give a mention to space Balls, which we were just talking about, which was released on twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven, turning thirty nine years old. Both memorable movies. But I had to pick one, and I went with a classic which deserves to be Uncle Jim's movie pick of the week. And David roll the tape, Well. There is a creature alive today has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without passion, and without logic, it lives to kill.

1:39:34 A mindless eating machine. It will attack and develour anything. It is as if God created the devil gave him Jaws from the best selling novel Jaws ratted PG. Maybe two intents for younger children.

1:40:17 Yeah, understatement. So Jaws is often considered the first modern summer blockbuster film. Jaws was released on June twentieth, nineteen seventy five, and became a breakthrough for director Steven Spielberg. With mostly TV work under his belt. Spielberg teamed up with Richard d. Zene. However, many production difficulties on the film stemmed from the malfunctioning mechanical Sharks name Bruce Undaunted, Spielberg and the crew came up with innovative solutions involving unusual editing and angled complete with the odds of with odds, and continue to influence films makers to today. Jaws return of the movie theater for its fiftieth anniversary around Labor Day weekend of twenty twenty five to be celebrated at won three Academy Awards at the nineteen seventy six Oscars, and I was one of the people I went to see Jaws and Imax when it came out last year, did anybody else go to see it?

1:41:27 I couldn't bring myself to see it. No, I want to tell you, guys, seeing Jaws and an Imax theater, you would never know that this movie was fifty years old. I'm telling you it was phenomenal. In fact, the part where the head pops out of the boat, yeah, I jumped out on my seat. And I've seen the movie a million times. I knew it was coming. But I'll tell you what, when you're watching it Imax theater and you're just imment, you're just immersed in the movie. You're you're just in to the movie, and I'm just so into the movie. When that had popped out, I actually jumped in. I saw. I went to the movie theater to see was it Jaws three? It was the three D one that was really I was I had never been to a three D movie before and so yeah, that one was less than less and impressive.

1:42:23 But was it was it? So? Yeah? Yeah that was jos It had a rubbers and everything. It was. Yeah, the three D effects were just like I was not impressed. Yeah, anyway, but the tagline, you guys, remember the tagline for the original Jaws. You're gonna need yep. Well you can't see it, but this middle picture here, this is Jaws fifty Imax. The tagline at the bottom, because the poster is black and the writing is in red, the tagline is You're gonna need a bigger screen. And so we went to see the Imax.

1:43:03 And boy, oh boy, was that move. That's why the Jaws is Jaws. The cinematography is impeccable, the acting is outstanding, the story is just incredible. Everything about this it's a masterpiece. And I have to I have to say there was a nod to Jaws and the malfunctioning Shark. I believe in an episode of Bob's Burgers with Wonder Wharf. Is anybody a Bob's Burgers fan? And remember do you remember that? Doesn'ty? Did anybody? Now? Okay? Crickets? Okay, all right, you know, having to pick from all these great movies, I had to go with Jaws, Okay, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Spaceballs or Logan's Room.

1:43:50 Jaws masterpiece all the way around. And every week I'll I'll pick a movie that that's celebrating an anniversary and play a quick earlier and we can talk about it briefly. You guys want week So anybody else see Jaws at the theater? David? I know, David, I was, Uh, I didn't. Okay? Yeah, all right, well that wraps things up, and now we're going to get into some Star Trek news and you know what that means. On the rootape. I love that video too.

1:44:49 I just realized I'm doing a girl nod in that. All right? Well, long most piece. So Eric has our first story and unfortunately it's not a Shatner says, well, but we do have a Shatner says what for next week? Yeah? I know. This week we have a long lost piece of Star Trek history is finally authenticated. That's right, the first model of Star Trek's Starship USS Enterprise that was the personal property of franchise creator Gene Roddenberry. It's been missing for more than forty five years, and it's been positively identified as the real deal. The model showed up on eBay in twenty twenty three, but the auction was quickly taken down when the seller learned that the model might have been stolen. During an interview with John Champion and the entertainment professional who specializes in pop culture commentary with a particular focus on the Star Trek universe. Rod Roddenberry stated the three foot long wooden model is the one that belonged to his father. The model of the Starship Enterprise seventeen oh one was designed and built for the first Star Trek Pilot, which aired in nineteen sixty four. Matt Jeffries came up with the concept model that featured the saucers section, a cylindrical main lower body which we call

1:46:23 the engineering hole, and the warp nas cells. According to Rod Rodenberry, the model was designed to be used as a prop for publicity for the very first Star Trek Pilot nineteen sixty four and as a guide for the development of the eleven foot long model that was used in the filming of the show and now resides in the Smithsonian, which I have seen and is totally awesome. According to an interview with the late Major Roddenberry Barrett Rodberry in nineteen seventy eight, Gene loan the model to the production company for preliminary work during the filming of Star Trek the Motion Picture, but never got it back. She was not sure if Gene simply forgot to get it back, or if it got lost or if it was stolen. Over the decades, there have been numerous stories about what happened to the model, which featured a hand painted underside and decals on top of the saucers section.

1:47:17 When the model reappeared on eBay with a starting bit of one thousand dollars, multiple news outlets reported that the model was allegedly found in a storage unit, but when it was learned that the model might have belonged to Gene Rodberry and kept without his permission, the auction was pulled down. The seller then made contact with rod Rod and Marry and made arrangements to return the item to the family. According to Roddenberry, Star Trek model makers Don Drexler and Gary Kerr, along with Mike and Denise Okuda, have inspected the model for authenticity. They have spent decades building models and sets for the franchise and have studied information gleaned on the design for over the years. Quote they matched everything from the grain in the wood to the potential rust over time with the stand. Rod Murray said, I mean they looked at every detail. They were able to tell what had changed what happened when it left off, when it left off my father's desk, and we're able to more than authenticate it. Rod Murray said there will be more clean up and preservation for the model. Then he wants to have it displayed someplace where others can see it, such as a museum. So that's super cool.

1:48:32 We have a new piece of found Star Trek lower that can accompany that awesome model that's in the Smithsonian. Yeah, there you have it. Yep. We got to interview a lovely lady who oversaw Margaret. Yes, yes, that's so cool. Yeah, that was I think this one needs to go next to it. I think we're nearby it. Yep, and I've got our next story actually as well. This is a quick one. This is a short one. Paramount plus you and, oh my god, just looking at it, Paramount might have been the.

1:49:15 Ugliest Star Trek thumbnail. Okay, if you guys are subscribers, you're looking at this picture right now. I'm throwing up on my computer just looking. Oh my god. Paramount plus looks to have used looks to have used obviously, Paramount Looks have used generated AI to whip up a thumbnail for Star trek to the Wrath of Colm. The image shows Captain Kirk is played by William Shatton, addressed in a business suit. Kirk never gone a business suit in The Wrath of com obviously or. Any other time.

1:49:55 It's horrible you get. A rock a flannel shirt and jeans wants during a visit to the nineteen thirty and he did wear a flannel shirt and jeans and starts with five to file Frontier's camping scenes at Lee's fan asking why Paramount Plus and its little AI buddy decided to plot Starfleet's most iconic captain in a button up shirt and tie. We don't know exactly what happened, but artist Ryan Estrada has an idea. He noted that the actual image of Kirk is from The Wrath of con pulled from a scene in which the captain is getting a retinal scan to access a computer file. It's not a particularly exciting scene, and he's wearing a Starfleet uniform. A Strata speculates that Paramount Plus got attached to that image of Kirk getting the retinal scan and wanted to highlight it further by making it a thumbnail. However, the image from the film is a close up of shat in his face. So generative AI was used to place Kirk's head inside of a fake body and put that body in a business suit.

1:50:55 His hair also looks very fake and weird, as the original frame off his forehead. Long lived AI slop hurt Hermount owner and David Ellison recently told the NBC that the company is using technology to transform every single aspect of this business. That is a hundred of things to come. Trek fans should likely start knocking up on Blu rays. As a lifelong Starshik fan, it hurts to see the property controlled by Monitor and that's just a David David. Yeah. Sorry, I was going to say, David Ellison, go eat a bag of Bord Dicks because you're just an absolute idiot. Okay, damn, that's.

1:51:46 No, no. And who's isn't the guy from the on the right? Isn't that that alien? Isn't he from. Which was it? Was it? Sir? Spot? Yeah? Yeah, that's the Star Trek version of Yoda. Talking friends. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, Well guys, that pretty much wraps up our show. I think we'll just we'll have to bump up these. I can live with it.

1:52:26 Yeah, well we'll bump that up the next week and wrap things up here. Uh, I don't have a topic for next week. We'll be winging it. I don't know. We're down. Some trivia again, that would be fun. Actually, yes we do. We do have. The trivia is going to be I heard you were dead trivia for next week, so that'll be fun. Yeah, and uh, we'll have our Star Trek birthdays and our fans shoutouts like we usually do. And I do have a shout and says what story for Eric next week? So that's something to look forward to. And uh, you know we'll be back saying bad time saying bat channel guys, So don't worry. Head over to Truck Talking and Beyond on our Facebook page, think about subscribing, and then you can see this wonderful AI picture of Captain character we's talked right about, and all these awesome videos that Eric pushed together and had for us and host Uncle Jim saying please everybody stay safe, be good to each other, and live long and prosper ailing frequencies are closed.

1:53:33 Good night, everybody, good night. Else let's fine, yo,