Episode 693- Strange New Worlds Exploring the Griffin Incident

0:00 M continue with the operation. You may far and ready the. Older Skane and again has gone insane. Logan six Corporal thinks that Jim at Doney to fixed Pripley NPC ted eavily cannot see Bumblebee Kane. I'm the doctor Wrankling Online, Old Bob sand World Stories, Sttle Twisting, turn Bolts, Cemita, Death of tashi Ya, Flash Gordon, Protest ont Prison, Clone Wars, James Holden, Tweaky, Junkney.

0:42 Against Yankee, talk about the series. You can join up. About the series. Series. Well, good evening, Shroreki's and Trekkers around the globe.

1:26 It it's Thursday, August sixth, twenty twenty six. Welcome to Trek Talking and Beyond, Episode six hundred and ninety three. I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim. And before we go too far, I'd like to introduce my awesome trek Spurts. And we're gonna go out to Portland and start off with our very own David. He's our miracle worker. How are you doing tonight, David? Right there? Pretty high and then pretty good. Excellent, And also out in Portland we have our very own toy guy Paul. How you doing, to my Paul, I'm doing well. It's been an interesting week. It's a lot of craziness going on. A lot of quite a bit of wildfire smoke in the air out of these parts. So it's been a little dodgy and hopefully that's coming to an end.

2:15 But some a large part of the state on fire, which is not fun. So we're we are hoping that things start to calm down and less of that would be my hope. That would be good. That would for a. Little distraction, a little you know, a little uh departure from realities. It will so, and that's what we're here for. That's what we're here for. We also have with us on a very own vs. She's out in Virginia. How you doing trying not to spontaneously combust outside? You know, it's uh just over over this heat and humidity. I'm sure like everybody is.

2:58 I I hear that I'm supposed to go out and do a twenty minute walk every day for my heart, and the doctor said no, with the fire, with the smoke, and the fire is up in Canada and the high humidity and the heat, he said, nope, stay inside. So no walking for me. Today, so I had to stay home and watch Start Trek anyways, you know, and we also, I know it's it's it's it's terrible, and we have with us. Also Charles, Charles is out in Las Vegas. How you doing tonight? Charles doing good? We're stuck in the middle of the heat warning. So what's todd outside and it feels like the monsoons are pushing in a little bit. And the kids go back to school on Mondays. The staff is already back working away, trying to get classrooms ready for the Monday.

3:53 Hectic, hectic part of time. Huh very hecky. Yeah, of course Eric isn't with us, but he will be back with us next year. Before we go too farlo, I've got some really exciting news. You guys are aware that The Cell has a new line of Star Trek figures out. Paul was kind enough to review a few of those for us a couple of weeks ago. I have been trying to get Brian Volkwise from the Cell on the podcast for well a while now. Guess what it's happening. Yes, his people reached out to me. He's currently at Star Trek Las Vegas and Charles's neck of the woods where they're going to be on veiling some new stuff. As soon as he gets through with that, he's gonna get back with me. We're gonna get him on the show.

4:48 So I keep your eyes peeled a Trek Talking and beyond on our Facebook page and so you'll know when that's gonna be. But I'm looking forward to that, and I know Paul's looking forward to that as well. So that'll be we eat, do we get free? Do we each get a cell toy to be able to pulled up? And you know, well, you know the best way to get stuff from Swag is to never ask for it. You know, that's we don't want to. We don't want to. You know that's that's a you know, Emily Post would say that is the best method of proceeding. So well, they were to respond to enthusiasm. They're going to make it Uncle Jim action figure. So we'll have to see with a big.

5:34 Great so at start trek Las Vegas, they have, like the Cells get this thing. They have a gigantic mockup of a the Cell Star trek box right with a big window in it. And for people who are showing up at the show you could go into the box and have soar in the mock up. So go to. Instagram check it out. And then they just announced today the Cell they do a lot of partnership stuff, and they announced today that there was a I don't know this show, but there was a show called The Center Seat that is in the past, a big kind of Star Trek documentarything. They're going to do The Center Seat to that they're helping produce. You know, this is Miselle here right with Gates McFadden doing interviewing folks with the likes of like Alan Rock, Brent Spiner, Malcolm McDowell, Ronaldy Moore, you know, you name it. So it sounds like sixty years of Star Trek coming to September eighth on you know, Prime video, YouTube, et cetera. So it sounds like that's a very yet another exciting thing that the Cell is involved in. So hopefully that Brian, I'll be talking to us about that too. So very cool.

6:47 Aren't they making a Cylon Raider with cylons inside of it? Too? Different company? Yeah, that's not in the Cell. The silons are more like four inch figures and that's from a factory Tainment I believe it is, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, So they're expanding their footprint into the foreign figurings there, so it's really cool. Na Cell's right now really focusing on the six seven inches style figures and including the Expanse, which I'm really excited for if those are coming out hopefully hopefully soon, but gonna be worth the wait for sure. So they're very busy. Brian's got a lot of irons in the five. Well, that's that's something we can ask Brian about when he's on the show exactly. So anyways, I wanted to start off the show with that, guys, because that's some pretty big news. You know, there's really two ways that you can really help support this podcast. The quickest, easiest way is just to go to our Facebook page, Trek Talking and Beyond and become a subscriber. It's only ninety nine cents a month, and you get to see all of our awesome faces, which is quite the thing. You get to see v turn Blue and she's an Today, and then you get to see all these awesome videos that David puts together for us. But there's no pressure.

8:06 You can just listen to the podcast as usual. If you choose, or another way you can help us is go to our Facebook page and like and share our posts to everyone you know because that'll help our algorithm as well. So those are two ways that you can help us, and we'd appreciate either one. So thank you, thank you so much. Tonight's show, we're going to be talking about Strange New World Season four, episode two, the Griffin Incident, and as usual, we have our fans shout outs, and that's where we thank fans all around the globe just like you for being fans of our podcast. We also have our Cadet review with Charles, and that's where Charles points you in the direction of episodes that are related to the one we're discussing, so you can go and check it out for more background information. We have our fan reactions and episode scores for this week's episode, which is a Griffin incident. And what actors do you share a birthday with? You can find out on our sci Fi Birthday segment and Uncle Jim's Anniversary Birthday Movie Pick of the Week. Each week, I'll pick a movie that's celebrating an anniversary. We'll play a trailer from it, tell you a little bit about it and hopefully it's a movie that you either have not seen or haven't seen it in a while, and you can go and check it out. And the last, but not least, what's going on around the Star Trek universe and our Star Trek News section, And The's gonna tell us about Pipe Captain Pipe and a Muppet, and David is going to

9:38 tell us about a brand new Star Trek horror game that's due to come out, And of course I'm going to talk about how the Clippens Scorer is big on the streaming network. So that's what's going on, and I hope you guys stick around and have some fun with us. We're gonna dive right into our fans shout outs right now, and usually we start off with Eric, but today we're going to start off with the so V take it away, all right? Well, my first shout out goes to Bobby Lee Caskey from Kentucky. So hello and thank you to Bobby Lee. Then Tom Veach, who is saying hello to us from Iowa's West Coast, USA. I'm quite sure what that is, but okay, Next Eric, Laura Frederick who says I am from Mereda Yucatan, Mexico. So thank you and hello to you Eric. And last but not least, hello and thank you to Matt Parkins from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. All right, so I'm passing the flaming fan shout out megaphone to Tuture.

11:01 Oh okay, why are we lighting the megaphone on fire? Okay, let's welcome Joseph Grubon from Mascatine, Iowa, which is about twenty minutes from Riverside, the future place birthplace of James T. Kirk Ben a trek fast several times when the kids were younger. Welcome Joseph. Welcome Nancy Newsham Groan from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Welcome Nancy. From Texas. We got David Hammond. Welcome David.

11:44 Hope you're staying cool over there in Texas. And last time my list, Mary Eashley Smith from Mississippi. Welcome Mary. I'm going to put the fire out, then pass the megaphone over to Paul so he hasn't burnt his fingers. Well, Charles appreciate that. Okay, let's go global, shall we? I think we should. First of all, let's go over to the United Kingdom and say how to eat to Diane Williams in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. We love England here on Trek, talking and beyond all parts of the United Kingdom, all adjacent areas of the United Kingdom as well. There's something about that climate that we relate to and there's a lot of like minded fans there. So Diane, we salute you, my friend, thank you for saying hello, and thanks for being a fan. Let's say a big hello.

12:38 Flag proudly displayed to our pal Boris Salvador Sanchez Tapia and is hailing from chile Mania. Now you might say, oh, is that in the country of Chile. Perhaps, No, that is not correct. Chile Mania is actually in phenomenal, gorgeous Costa Rica, Provincia de Alajuela to be more precise. But it's nice to know that in that gorgeous country where I've been lucky enough to spend a little time myself, Boris is down there representing the enthusiasm of Star Trek and science fiction. So thanks for letting us know you're out there, Boris. We love to hear from you and from nfan. Moving back over to the continent here New thoundon Capital c We're going to say hello to Christian Alexander spencent Dale from Norway, Scandinavia in Europe, so phenomenal.

13:30 I'm pretty sure that wayward Trexpert Eric might just be in your area right now, Christian. So if you see somebody like blundering around and looking lost and you know, pressing his face up against the glass of like a bookstore and you know leaving, you know, trek talking postcards on top of urinals, it could very well be Trexpert Eric. So just in case I know he's in I've not, you know, Scandinavia proper sure is in Norway right now, so you know, just keep your eye out, don't call the police on him. As messages you'll be tempted to, so we'll deal with you our own way when he returns.

14:11 And lastly, we're going to move over to another continent real quickly. We're going to go to say Prince Asy or Ja Simboro, and I really hope I am pronouncing that correctly. Prince from the wonderful land of Nigeria, where it's great to know that we have Star Trek fans as well, amazing that we have folks all over the planet united together by their love of a form of storytelling that can help us see into the future, perhaps avoid the pitfalls we might step into, and maybe step into a brighter future together if we only have a chance to figure things out and work together. So let's go ahead and move on with our birthday regalia. And excuse me, birthday regalia, our fan regalia. I'm just jumping ahead of myself. I'm putting the cells in front of the saucer section here. That is crazy. Who would do such a thing? Uncle Jim sent me straight.

15:06 You're on, Jim. It's got so many buttons. He doesn't know what he's doing, so we can't hear you with your talking. I'm going to talk for you. Would you like me to do my Uncle jim imorsonation. Then I'm I was, I was. I was titulated for a second. In the throes of a paralysis. That's all right, Old age is moving in quick here. Well, thank you, Paul. I'd like to say hello and thank you to Jesse Hammer, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and is currently living in Phillisburgh, New Jersey, and sends us the American flag. Thank you so much, Jesse. We also want to say thank you so much to Andrea Ritter, who's in New York City the Big Apple. And thank you to Shannon Williams, who's a top fan. Thank you so much for being a top fan who's listening to us right now. In and last, but not least, we want to say hello and thank you to Mark Roberts who's listening to us. What could be watching if he's a subscriber in Houston, Texas. That, my friends are our fan shout outs for this week. If you would like to be featured in a fan shout out, all you have to do is head over to our Facebook page Trek Talking and beyond you'll see the livelong and prosper into the top of the page. Tell us where you're from, Lisa emojis, it gets my attention, Look for heart next to your name from yours truly, Uncle Jim, and then you will be featured in a fan shout out. All right, guys,

16:40 before we go too far though, Oh yeah, by the way, all these awesome pictures that there's me and my family with Gates McFadden at Trek Conder Roga. If you guys would like to see your picture up here, just head over to our Facebook page, become a fan, send us your picture and David will add it right here to all these awesome pictures that are currently on the screen that only subscribers can see. Okay, we don't have any polls this week, but Star Trek San Diego Comic Con and Hall h Paramount dropped a sixtieth anniversary Star Trek video and I meant to play this last week, but yeah, you know, with the blood flow problems I'm having and everything else. If so, I don't want to forget now.

17:34 I'm sorry it's a week late, but better late than never. It's a really really good video. And David, do you have that queued up? Yep? Rolling in now? All right? We are all explorers, driven to know what's over the horizon. Well, I used to say a man could fly, he have wings, but he did. Extra per aspera to the stars through hardship. That's boldly going. Are we ready? Number one? Ready? Captain? For sixty years, Star Trek has carried us beyond imagination, to galaxies, out of reach, to the very core of what it means to be human.

18:25 Of all the souls I have, an encounts human. It began with a bold idea that the future could be united. Ringing with words like duty and honor. Many some emotions are universalnnect us. All in quite a profound way. We crossed star systems and stood beneath alien skies, meeting civilizations that revealed our empathy and our hope, all while reminding us how far we still. Must go.

19:05 For we know at this very moment, somewhere far beyond oh. Those distant stars, in the streaming of ours. My mind, in your mind. Star Trek has never just been science fiction friendship. It is hope realized. It's okay alone. It is connection across divides. It is proof that imagination can shape reality. Your reality.

19:49 Huh, you guys look very realistic. I'll thank you, family. The journey will never be risk. Is all business. That's what the starship is all about. So come aboard the future. He's weird to make. Sure history never forgets the name. And wow, wow, wow, quite I got it.

20:33 One of the things I really liked about that video is that they included Star Trek Prodigy, a show that Paramount seems to have flushed down a toilet and totally forgotten about. They removed it from their platform. You unless you bought a physical copy, you can't watch it, but they included it there, which I thought was awesome. They also included Scouts Star Trek animated series start for the Academy. Every Star Trek was represented in that video, and I think that's just so cool. So I wanted to show that to you guys last week, but I forgot, so I apologize better late than never, I suppose. All right, guys, So before we get too far, we're going to be talking about this week's episode, which means Charles is going to start us off with our cadet training.

21:25 Thank you, Jim, and cadet training kind of just goes through and where can I find Easter eggs? You thinks related to this episode to other episodes, and definitely was a locked quite a few in this one. Let's start off with Discovery. Context is for Kings. That's the episode where Lorca's informed by an incident Discovery's censorship to Glenn where the entire crew is killed and they have to go investigate strange New Worlds terrarium. This is actually the first time the division such Division twelve is mentioned in the series, as Ortega mentions it as an organization who kind of deals with strange phenomenons, ghost.

22:20 Stories and such. Voyager, the Haunting of Deck twelve. Thought that kind of fitting here start a Trek two the Ratha Kan. Why do I bring that episode up? Well, this is where we actually see Carol, Marcus and David and we have many references to them in this episode. Episode that got me reminded in this was Strange New Worlds lots and translation. This is the season two episode where after we've lost Hammer and Hammer appears almost zombie like to speak to a Herah, kind of reminding me of some of the makeup I saw in this episode and Discovery season one they mentioned Epsilon five where Epsilon Outposts five. It's a Starfleet outpost and the Beta Quadrant near the Klingon Federation Klingon Federation border, and there were some times issues. I think that that station has been taken over more than once because of from the Klingon with the Klingons, and I went to Google and looked up oh, tell me about terror in Star Trek and he had had three

23:51 episodes that it focused on. First episode is the Faw from Voyager, the second one is Schisms from TNG and the third one is Genesis from TNG, and I think definitely part of this reminds me of Genesis, because that's the one where we saw Barkley in turning into a spider and Worf de evolving and hunting in the corridors. We got lots of definite horror and a lot of stuff that occurred in this episode. But I think then Paul wants to probably just discuss and recap this episode.

24:42 Alrighty Charles, thank you so much. I appreciate that. So I'm not gonna go to too much detail. I'll get too granular because I think folks are gonna have a lot of opinions, so I want to get in there and hear from everybody as soon as we can. But briefly, this is season four, episode two of the Griffin Incident, which Spock Lawn and James T. Kirk board the USS Griffin. It's a Constitution class long lost starship that's been missing with all hands for nine years, and I just want to point out briefly, we did not get to see Paul Wesley's Jim Kirk in the premiere episode of this season four, so this is our first look at him here in this second episode of this season, so good to have him back. So the ship has been missing all hands very mysteriously for nine years. So the three of them being aboard this direalctic vessel to try to investigate what's happening. The crew. The ship seems curiously preserved and there's something very eerie about it that they pick up on right from the get go, and they discover these very disturbing ships disturbing ship's logs while they're exploring the bridge. So a lot of what this discovery and investigation of the ship leads to very quickly our psychological terrors and what seemed to be hallucinations. Jim Kirk is grappling with a lot of guilt over his son David,

26:14 who of course we later find out about in Marathacon as Charles mentioned, and he ends up having some haunting, auditory and visual kind of grief induced hallucinations about David. Lahan of course, becomes very heavily identified with and potentially a lot of subjective reactions here, friends, So if you interpret what I say differently, you know, that's for you to explain what you think, and hopefully our other trexperts can do that as well, but she is really connecting with and seemingly possessed by the ghost of this former Chief of Security Rose Harper, who we discovered these logs from Right and Lawn very quickly seems to be sliding into both paranoia, violence, and potentially a break from reality.

27:11 I think it could be argued. So that's what's going on with Lawan. Spock, on the other hand, is experiencing a very long protected series of nightmarish experiences in Sick Bay that grow very quickly surreal, a lot of unsettling apparitions of his former fiance to Pring that moved quickly into body horror territory, and Captain Pike is testing his grip on Vulcan logic. So it's all kinds of craziness going on there. What ends up happening, Laan excuse me?

27:52 La pretty much succumbs entirely to her delusion, if that's what it is, and stabs Kirk aboard the ship seemingly fatally right, Spock manages to ground himself a bit more by reciting a Vulcan meditation, and he tries to pull back from his own hallucinations. But how can they be hallucinations if they're actually creating physical damage to you. I found that very unclear. There's a frantic rescue mission by the Enterprise to say to the surviving crew members, and yet the I think the best way to put it in terms of leaving this episode is the true nature of this entity or phenomenon or whatever it may be aboard the Griffin remains a very ambiguous thing that's never really defined. It's an unsolved mystery that they say is going to be investigated by the Starfleet's Division twelve.

28:48 Right. That's kind of the X Files vision of the of Starfleet as well, that we've never really seen before. I've only heard an oblique reference to them in an earlier episode, so definitely strange. In the world's first real foray into horror, ohes quite a significant dB to other horror motion pictures, I would say, and notably for me, I would say the biggest one that came to mind was the picture from the nineties event Horizon. Kind a very long shadow over this episode, but that's just kind of the short and long of it to begin with here. I think the rather recapping all the minutia, it'll probably more interesting if we jump into conversation as much as possible. So that's my take on things. I'll let Uncle Jim coordinate who speaks next and who's got an opinion, but I'm happy to chime in more with my own opinion than a numerical grade later. But I'd love to hear from everyone else first and their reactions.

29:52 All right, So every week, if you guys go to our Facebook page, Truck Talking and Beyond, I asked the question I usually posted around eleven o'clock on Friday, and I ask you guys right out there that are listening our fans what you thought about the episode, And I ask you guys to score it one to ten and then we'll discuss the episode and we'll see how close we come to the fans. So usually Eric does this segment, but I'm going to step in for him. They're big maccas is to fill, but I'm going to do my damn this to fill them. Okay, First off, we have Steve Ramsey, who says I give it a ten for well written, directed, produced, and acted, twelve for being so creepy and triggering that I will probably never go out of my way to watch it again. I would even dare say this was on part with Stephen King and m Night Shaalan for spine tingling, suspense and shock. Thank you for that, Steve. Next, we have Aaron Bittner who says this episode was original, memorable, and it kept my rapt attention from beginning to end. No, it's not classic Star Trek in the Roddenberry mold, but then again, roden Berry would be the first to agree that there should be stuff out there in the universe that's beyond our comprehension, and Aaron gave it a nine. Matt Klaus gave it an eight and said it reminded me of Event Horizon.

31:27 Jonathan Finley also gave it eight and he said very event Horizon the so that's two people that compared it to Event Horizon. Robert Weiner gave it a nine HP lovecraft worthy horror story with the gross out, no pronouns, no virtue signaling, just a scary story without a scientific explanation for why it was great. No pronouns or virtue signaling. That lost me, but thank you, Robert. We also have James Young, who's a top fan on our Facebook page.

32:10 He gave it an eight. Scary and interesting. Concept would have been higher with a better resolution or twist at the end as opposed to just leaving it unknown. Well, well that's where division twelve would come in, hopefully, James, thank you for your comment. Kim Noble gave it a nine. I like where it left the three main characters. John rum Suckley gave it an eight point five, and there's those decimals Paul loved so much. Eight point five. Not my favorite episode, but a solid space horror flick. Definitely event horizon vibes. There's another one that's three event horizons, and I'm going to talk about that a little bit when I talk about the episode as well. Chris Hansen gave it a ten. One of the best Star Trek episodes.

33:00 It was all time superb and terrifying storytelling. Two thumbs up. Lee Christopher Aultman says, I don't like horror. I wasn't expecting horror, but that was some legit horror. Also section twelve to do science regarding paranormal stuff. I actually buy that, and he gave it an eight. Joshua Fulton gave it a nine. The event horizon of Star Trek make it so they we're back on the whole event horizon again. Stefan Parker a solid nine. I loved it, but I'm a big fan of Event Horizon, so seeing Star Trek through something like this was interesting. I'd have given it a perfect ten if it would have been completely explained, but I'll just chalk it up to another question for the franchise and try to enjoy what little Star Trek remains on the small screen. Thank you, Stefan. Vicky Mitchell said it was definitely intense and so I give it a nine. Henry Hernandez said, on the scale of one to ten, I give it a ten. It felt like the shining in space. It was cool how the episode explored the character's deepest fears. I'm with you, Henry, and that's a topic I'm going to discuss when I talk about the episode. We also have Jennifer sin Siba who

34:33 gave it a two. Trek is supposed to be hopeful and optimistic watching people self mutilate because of some zombie ghosts, ain't it. Thank you so much, Jennifer. And the last we have Debbie McLaughlin who gave it a five. Too scary for me. I don't like or what the acting was good. When you add that all up and average it out. Our Facebook fans gave it a score oh eight point three, so that is where the fans stand. Let's see where the truck spirts stand on this one, and I guess we'll start off with you, Charles.

35:16 Okay, they grabbed my notes. I definitely had to grab some notes on this one in the beginning. Definitely Leon distracted at the retreat. According to Spock, does this tie into the last episode? By what happened? There? Anyblody who plays RPGs, I think I'll understand this one. This will comment RPG rule, don't split the party. You split the party up and something happens to something happens to the two different groups. I definitely had a question of illusion when the boarding party showed up. I definitely was questioning immediately, kind of right off. It's like, I'm not sure if this crew was real. They didn't seem quite a little more wooden than I expected them to, which I think actually fit into the episode foreshadowing Spock's brother talks about let's see someone mentions about Kirk's death, Kirk dying alone in space, and then we had someone

36:52 mentioning of David dying to the blade of someone's knife. H I'm curious in this episode are we going to see foreshadowing? Are we going to see the effects of what happened with let's say, Spock in Sick Bay, or how Kirk, how Kirk is worried about his brother. Definitely, I'm wondering will we see more of this in more more? Are we going to see discussion of what happened this episode in further episodes? And I think as Paul mentioned, aberrations in there. Yeah, they definitely were interesting illusions. But yet, how was Spock.

37:59 In? How did Spock had his ears cut? How did Leon end up with the blade in her knife? If the illusion really wasn't there? So definitely a lot of questions this was the illusions, but some of the illusions were rather real. And definitely how the boarding crew showed up and how they end up reacting and most of them dying on that ship. This was definitely to me a real thinking episode, a little psychological view which I thought was interesting. And I'm going to give this one an eight point five. I think they did good well with the episode. They could have done a little better with it, but I still enjoyed the episode.

39:05 All right. There we go eight point five from Charles down to David. What did you think, David wake up? M uh well, most of everybody knows. I do not like a who I'm gonna read at all. This to me wasn't a whole lot of horror in my opinion, This to me felt very It felt like a dragged on to me for some reason. I mean, you see people going through the horrors of their fears, so but it's almost as if it just they kept coming up with like new ways to have a new fear, and it just seems like, you know, especially with Fock, I mean, he went through like multiple different fears, and of course that could be reminitions of him being half human and half aul Can. I guess maybe volcan humans have different who knows, But like that picture here, I mean, I don't know. This episode kind of made me boyed. To be honest, it wasn't really all that scared to me, but it just there was some disturbing parts. Sure, yeah, but I mean, I don't know, it just it didn't click for me. There was one thing though, I did want to add because I can't remember and I forgot to actually watch first block the movie, but I was

40:35 under the impression that Cook never knew he had a son, and I was under the impression that when he found out that he had a son, he didn't know. I mean, so how did he know that he had a son? Here? I mean, it was a little bit of a contradiction to me. But unless somebody. Else to that, man, if it helps clear it up, fare go ahead, just just briefly, if you go back and I had the same thing at first where I was very confused. I went and looked at the script for Ratha con Right and basically, uh, you know, it is telling you that Kirk was never around. And one of the lines that Kirk has is to Carol Marcus is I did what you wanted. I stayed away. Why didn't you tell him?

41:19 Right? So, Kirk knew he had a son, but David didn't know he had the Kirk with his dad. Okay, that's what That's what I get from that. Gim do you. Concur absolutely, I've been having this conversation on our Facebook page with all of the cannon flushers that are not going to watch in the world. It was never stated, Kirk never said ever that he wasn't aware of David and. I loved that than Rathacn. That was always really realistic, right this, this whole thing is it's like they gave enough credit to the audience just from that line to go, you know, hey, I did what you wanted. You know, I stayed away. I mean that tells you everything you need to know. But I was just like you, David.

42:10 I was confused by that, and I wanted to because it's been a while since I've watched her at the con so I wanted to look that up. But yeah, I don't think they broke cannon or nothing. I think I want to add something here, which I was going to mention in my review, but this is a perfect segue for it. They set up the Wrath to Cohn perfectly at the end of the episode, when the Horror sets up the subspace relay for Kirk to talk to Carol because he's concerned about David. He sends her the message and Carol doesn't respond, and that right there sets up the Wrath of Khan where he doesn't hasn't seen David and stays away because Carol refused to answer him. That's that's the way I took that ending.

42:55 But I didn't actually put those together for some minute. I kind of forgot about the old movie for a while and I meant to watch him. But yeah, so okay, so that cleared that up. Cool in that case. Other than that, yeah, it just dragged on. That's all I'm pretty much gonna say about it. I did like the picture of the n X clash in that quarters, and there's that picture that Jim we're talking about. But yeah, other than that, I don't know very boying I found it. I don't know. I'm trying to give a score. I don't want to give it a too low of a score, but I'm probably gonna have to. I might have to agree with Jennifer on this. Going around zombies isn't really the weight of the future, So to me, I'm thinking this is probably gonna be a three on my end.

43:47 I didn't really enjoy it all that much. Okay, we got a three from David. How about you, V let's jump up there. Well, I I'm glad you cleared up the thing about David because I didn't quite understand that either. Then I you mentioned you know, and now I remember you know. When he encounters Carol and David in Wrath of Khan and so that makes a whole lot of sense. I just think, you know, Star Trek is great for having absentee dads because there too, you know, was Kirk and Wharf and you. Know, just all that. But anyway, I just I don't know, I just I it's just been kind of a week for me, just you know, in real life. But it was I just found that I just didn't have the brain power to follow it.

44:44 So I was. Kind of confused what was real what was imaginary? Then I sort of went off on a drift singing what if I were on that ship? What would be haunting me? And then that just sent me up down a whole nother rabbit hole oh something, And I forgot where I saw it, and I got to look it up again. Nobody's mentioned that little that little robot that uh was it? Kirka picked up off the floor. Where did that come from? And what was his story? You know? That will look like a little retro robot? Do you remember that? We'll wind up?

45:26 Are you asking that little figure was in the that's that little figure was on board that? Yeah? Okay, Yeah. Then Sam was talking about how he had a whole box full of stuff which reminded me of the Voyager episode, which was like, truly, you know that was the friendship one where they have that little toy that plays some music. But I don't know, I didn't really have a whole lot to say. So it was scary, it was dark. I think that la On is uh with with her because I didn't know did she really stab Kirk? Didn't She turns out she did, And because we explored with the last episode how she you know, infamously punched the dinosaur, So I guess she's grappling with that that part of her that, you know, con side of her that might be coming out. But overall, I just won't I won't babble on. I'll just leave it to uh, to the rest of you. But it seems like the most most people were I really enjoyed it, So I'm not gonna drag down the score. I'll just uh, maybe at another time when I'm in a better frame of mind, I'll watch it. I think for it's production

46:57 value and the acting, I'll give it an eighth. Wait an eight from me? So wait, wait, you're you're saying that we're just babbling. No no, no, I said, no, no, no, I said, no, no, no, I said, I don't want to. I want you all to have something worth saying when I'm just going to be talking and not really saying a whole lot, and I want to save it for those that do actually have more to say. That's what I'm mean. I just hope you're not giving it a higher score than you really feel. If you genuinely didn't care for it, don't feel obligated to it. You know, if you want to lower it down, you should feel you can lower it down. I don't. I mean I will be lowering it.

47:37 I mean the psychological part of it was, you know, Like I said, I just I just couldn't keep track of it. But I just I cannot judge it. I can't give it a low score for just watching it once. Tell us I'll leave it at an eight and I will watch it again. And just be clear, Just to be clear, I'm not saying that you all are babbling. I don't want to babble. I want to let other people say more things that are more worthy of the segment. So there you go. These Sometimes we need to be told that we are battling. I think that that's a valuable service from Babylon. Don't hold back, Yeah, don't hold back?

48:25 Do I have to? I have to give you a guy? Not sure? All right, so Paul take it away. The microphone belongs to you. Okay, friends, all right, I'm really glad that Stranger in the Worlds is back. Premiere episode was last week. I'm pretty sure I gave that a ten, you know, just a quality of writing, quality performances, just a phenomen This felt like a huge step backwards for me. I did not care for this episode at all. I am actually a huge lover of horror when it is done well right, and you know, there's a lot of bad horror out there, right, this episode prove and when it's really good and well executed, it's great. But a lot of times what people will do is they want to I want to do a horror thing, right, and they just shamelessly cobble from the work of other people. Right. It's almost like literary AI, right, And I really felt this episode was just shameless to that degree. Lifted a ton of just super trophy cliches from many, many, many other horror movies, from David Cronberg, from The Shining and Super liberally from that picture we talked about earlier event Horizon as well, which has Jason Isaacson and Captain Lorca incidentally, so just to make a little connection there in addition to everyone else on there and the late Sam Neil really graphic, very lovecrafty and horror film, right, and this was sort of their attempt to like distill all that stuff together and in a

49:57 very unoriginal way. And you know, there's some stories that have been out there, right, not everything's going to be an original breakthrough. The a brilliant piece of writing, right, But I think what troubled me with this movie, with this episode was how preposterously inconsistent it was. Right, I don't need to have everything explained to me, right, A little ambiguity is fine, Right, mystery is good. Let the viewer have to think for themselves. I have no problem with that, Right, that's fine. But the rules of the episode are based on what you get to see in the episode, right, And for me, I just thought this episode was wildly inconsistent. And at one moment everything appears to be a hallucination or a mirage or whatever it may be. At the other moment, though, people are being physically injured and things are happening physically that shouldn't be able to happen given the laws of physics and the narrative laws of what we've seen in front of us.

50:51 So to me, just really poor writing on this episode. I think somebody really wanted to do a horror movie episode and they got all fired up about it, and they there's certain touchdowns they wanted to make sure to include. And I felt bad for the actors because the actors were gainly doing their best, you know, trying to resonate and depict their emotions and depict their characters fears and things like that. But I just, you know, I judge every one of these episodes based on all the other episodes that have come before, right, so you know, I in terms of the whole what have I seen throughout all the seasons of strange in the worlds, Right, And that's where I draw my baseline. That's why my last week deserved a tent Right. But this was not a good episode, and it was very inconsistent, very lazily done.

51:39 Not really blaming the actors here. It's not their fault. They did the best job they could, right, They were trying really hard. It's great set Paul wesnon't back. I really like what he's doing. But and I have this terrible feeling we're going to get more of this later on in this season, because they had a thing like that last season that they ended up coming back in the finale, right where we ended up finding out that Pike you know, girlfriend slash fiance was really going to be spirited off to become kind of a god guardian person, right, and that had been all set up previously, and you know, and again another kind of ambiguous part one earlier in the in the season, and I think we're going to get something like that here too, where we finally find out who the mysterious that doll faced girl is, right the ghostly you know, interdimensional you know, senior executive officer or whatever the hell you was. So I found it really an annoying episode, not start Trek at its best at all. If you're able to find this to be an eight, nine and ten, God love you, you know. I'm super glad you were able to enjoy it. I just was not a person that could. I don't want to take away from anyone else, but for me, this is an embarrassing four And I think they should you know, do better? Gang, write better? This is bad writing, This is not good storytelling. Drove me up the wall. So a four from me, did we lose Jim? I don't know.

53:06 I see you from. Actually actually, oh that is I just not have been I have not been able to collect my thoughts very well these last couple of weeks. But the way, you know what, the way you said it, they just resonated with me, and it's like, you're, You're absolutely right. I was just trying to be a little more positive. But yeah, I just you you you put it perfectly. I think, do you want to revise your score? I'm going to give it a let me drop it down to a six. How about that? Okay, want to go lower because I never received that toy.

53:52 Yeah it is, Yeah, it just was, you're because I was just I was I was just talking it up to my brain just didn't compute. And it's like, turns out there was nothing to compute. I didn't realize that until you just put it so distinctly, Paul. So thank you for that. Oh, thank you. I'm very kind of you, you know, And I want to be clear, friends, I love the horror genre when it's done well so much. I love like John Carpenter and David Cronenberg and you know, HP Lovecraft stories and you know, the Shining and and Stephen King. This is my bread and butter. I love this stuff when it's done well right as much as I do science fic. It when it's done well being the key thing right, and I love that stuff. I do have nothing against the genre right at all. I really do.

54:43 But but after this episode was over, you know, I was just like, I kind of feel like I need a shower, you know, I really did. I was just like, this is gross and I feel like really just with the ears snipping and the finger chopping, like this is just. Okay. It's like, oh my god, why did they have to do that? That was disgusting. I forgot about that. And a guy I saw somewhere online. I don't know if it was in our Facebook group or somewhere else, but I was just like, you know, this guy, I appreciate his point of view, right, you know, not that we have to be you know all, you know, g rated innocuous folks. He was like me because now I feel he goes. I have to pre screen start Trek before I can share to the kids, right, And I kind of think the guy has a point, right, because it's like where are we going? And I don't really remember a lot of you know, disclaimers at the beginning of the episode, like warning for graphic violence, so you know, And I'm I'm not against it. I'm just saying it's just it seems it's a little tone deaf and not I think especially it's like they living in I come to start trek for hope and uh and vision and clarity and good writing, and I just didn't get that here.

55:55 The question is Box snipped his own ears or what? Like I quite okay, I don't understand that. Okay, we don't know. Because the episode never told us, right, it was left that out a little ambiguous. But how would you even do that? Given how much he's screaming in pain that's not self self uh you know, uh, that's not a self inflicted wound. When he's screaming like bloody murder, where's your vulcan resolve? It means to see Spot on the original series, he would just like endure incredible amount of pain and he would never break under any circumstances, almost right, And for him to be like, he's you know, he's too busy having a new girlfriend every week. This spot right. I mean, it's just I can't even keep trying. So it's just I don't like to come across negative. But like I said, just the bad taste in my mouth, and they did not care for it. So I'm sorry.

56:45 I did anyone else think of fucked brain? When he would put on the table for the first time. So bad, so bad, it was good. We got to hear. I'm I've after my recent medical situation, I've had plenty of time to watch plenty of Star Trek. I watched this episode four times, Oh my god, because I just had to wrap my brain around it. So I watched it four times. And I want to say I'm a fan of horror too, but everybody kept mentioning Event Horizon.

57:25 Paul mentioned it in our chat. I went and watched it because I have plenty of time now I'm home all days. I get to watch all these eighties movies and stuff, and I watched it. That movie was horrendously I hate that movie was terrible. I just did. It was just uncomfortable to watch, just gory from beginning to I did not care for Event Horizon at all, just just no, they just didn't like it. All the people that were comparing this to that I think is a very loose, really loose comparison, simply because we have an abandoned starship with a murdered crew, and that was really the only thing I saw that that would connect the two in my opinion. So so I just wanted to say that there's another movie that I think sums this up perfectly, and that's the Shining. I saw more of the shining in this than I did in Event Horizon.

58:24 I also want to say a while ago, there was some talk of Quentin Tarantino making an R rated Star Trek and people went crazy, you know, cutting off their vulcan ears out over the whole thing. And I got to say that after watching this episode, which which by the way, there was a fan of Facebook page that said this that this episode was not shown on Canadian Sci Fi TV because of the graphic nature of the episode, so all the same, So yeah, this this episode was was more graphic. I think, not as as any means, but still it was graphic. Having said that, I also think that strange in the world has this uh tendency let me put it that way, Tendency two want to do different uh styles and genres of Star Trek rather than just doing Star Trek. You know, they got to give us a singing episode, which I love. By the way, I'm not knocking it. They have to give us a you know, a holid deck episode. They have to give us a what if episode, They have to give us a mouffet episode. They have to give us, you know, a time period episode that for some reason they can't find their own style, so they feel the need to

59:57 continuously make Star Trek episodes in the style of other people. And sometimes that bothers me. I would like to see them do their own style. This was their attempt at a horror episode, and in my opinion, it worked brilliantly. And I'm going to tell you guys why I mentioned The Shining and to me, this episode is perfect for The Shining because in The Shining, was Jack Nicholson an alcoholic that was projecting these these apparitions as a way to justify his actions, or was the hotel influencing him in these these apparitions were real. I have watched The Shining, god knows how many times and It's a brilliant movie.

1:00:43 And to me, this episode followed the shining a lot closer than Event Horizon. It leaves you wondering was this reel? Wasn't this real? What? You know, does Spot cut off his own ears? Yeah? I think that he did. Laan, we see the knife on the wall. Laan's the camera shows us the knife. We see that it's there, and in the very next scene we see Lan stabbing Kirk with the knife that she just looked at on the wall. You know, Kirk is dealing with, you know, his son. He knows that Carroll's pregnant, he knows that she's and that he's going to be a father. He's asked her to stay away.

1:01:27 He's dealing with the guilt of his family. And so, you know, this is why we see so much talk of David and he's you know, digging into the console because he sees a baby in there. And to me, the episode was all about the inner strife that each one of these characters was dealing with and would their inner inner demons take them over and make them someone else or will they defeat these these demons, And to me, that's what the episode was all about. You know, was the Griffin real, yes, was it haunted? When else Spock did detect negatively charged ions and Kirk says, you mean ghosts and Spocks is no negatively charged ions. So was there something on the ship that was making them do these things? You know it could have been. Uh, it was never explained to us, just like in The Shining, it's never explained. It's left for the viewer to decide.

1:02:30 And there was enough for me a lot of character development in this episode, like Spock seeing to Pring instead of Chapel, and then when he gets back on the Enterprise and as Chapel fixed his ears, you know they're discussing, you know, why was it to Pring and not her? On me with the captain about his log compleet. All of these things were were then dealing with their inner demons and hopefully defeating them. The only one that has me worried though, on because she still seems to be that maniacal, take over the universe type of person that punches dinosaurs. But we'll have to wait and see how she plays out by the end of the season. But it was brilliantly shot. Whoever directed this episode was definitely a horror fan because I could see Michael Myers or Jason Horhi's popping out from around any one of these coins at any time. It definitely had the horror vibe.

1:03:29 They redressed the Enterprise to look like, you know, a horror ship. The lighting, everything about it screened horror movie, very well done. The production value was phenomenal. I don't know if you guys noticed this or not. No one mentioned it, but after watching the episode four times I noticed it, and I wanted to bring this up. When they beam onto the Griffin for the first time, they used the cage transporter sound effect now and also and I'm gonna come back to that in a minute, but also if you look, well they're beaming down onto the ship. In the far right hand corner. As they're materializing, you will see Chief Security Rose whatever her name is, the zombie faced ghost girl. She's also materializing in the corner of the room at the same time that they are.

1:04:27 And one of the things about the cage is it was all imagine area. The Celosions were creating these visions for Pike and crew to deal with, and so the fact that they chose to use the transporter sound effect from the cage in this episode, and the fact that you see Rose whatever her name is, materialize as a ghost at the same time that they do got me thinking about, you know, the episode. So to me, there was a lot going on in this episode. There was a lot to it. It was very well shot, very well acted. We learned a lot about these characters. And also something else that I think they did incredibly well, which Charles had mentioned. When when Spock sends the message to the Enterprise and An says we only have an hour to get out of here, and then Pike and Una and Ahura and Ortegas appear on the ship, I'm thinking, oh, okay, and I thought, yeah, they're really here. They're here. They beamed onto the ship. They're actually here. I believed that they were there, even when Pike was cutting off his fingers.

1:05:42 I'm like, oh Jesus, that's gross, But I still thought that they were there. When Laan beams or Tagas into herself, which I thought was an homage to the motion picture, and Ahora puts her in the transporter buffer, I thought, wait a minute, if they kill if they kill or Tegis, then that's going to ruin the whole illusion. But they saved her. So I'm thinking to myself, they're really there. Now this is affecting them. When Sam gets sucked out through that little hole into space and he's floating, that's when I said, Okay, they're not really there. And I don't know if you guys remember there's a really there's an alien movie that I'm going to mention now that that was really not good, but I'm going to mention it. Anyways, there was an alien movie called Alien Resurrection and the main alien gets sucked out into space just like Sam Kirk did, and that reminded me of that scene. So yeah, I was like, Okay, well, now I know they're not really there. And that's what broke the illusion for me was that particular scene with there. But overall, I thought I really liked seeing the characters dealing with all of the situations that were putting them dealing with their inner demons, Spocks switching to logic, and I also think that to something Paul said, this version of Spock is not quite there yet. This isn't the Spock that we will come

1:07:12 to know and love on cos he's working his way there, so he's not fully embraced the logic yet he's not really there. But I think this episode puts him on course to be that Spock because he steps back to logic and he solves the whole illusion with logic. And the reason why I say that that he self mutilated himself is because he picks up he has the scissors in his hand with the green blood on them, and he holds them up and has them in his hand, and that's what I'm like, Okay, well, you know, he obviously had cut his own ears off, and that's the way I interpreted that scene. Again, just like with the Shining, there's people that argue it was an alcoholic delusion and other people that argue that it with those and we can both be right. That's the beauty of it. So to me, I found this episode to be Star Trek does Shining more than Star Trek does Event Horizon. I enjoyed it. Well, I don't want to say I enjoyed it, but I didn't hate it. Okay, I've seen better episodes of the Star Trek, but this just showed me that Star Trek can be done, are rated, and can be done creepy and spooky. So I enjoyed it. Was it a ten no, it was not a ten by five, but I'm gonna I'm gonna go with that, you know, I'm gonna go with an eight point five like one of our fans had given the episode, So eight point

1:08:44 five from me. So Charles with our how to the Trek Spurts hold up to our fans on our Facebook page. Okay, overall our our fans, our fans gave this episode an eight point three. The Trexperts only gave it a six. Wow. Okay, well there you have it all right. So now guys, uh, it's time for our five five birthdays. Yeah, that was not a clemon song.

1:09:43 Okay, grumpy war if we understand. So I'm attempting to to shorten our podcast a little bit. So I'm going to every week, I'm going to try to get our birthdays down to stand six per person, and I think that's totally doable. I'm only going to mention the ones that are memorable. Now, last week, I apologize. You know, I had a heart attack. We were out for two weeks and we had some good ones that I couldn't take off the list. You know, we had Harrison Ford and you know, we had some good ones. So it was a little bit long. Hopefully I'll make up for it this week. So usually we turned to Charles, I mean too Eric for our remembrance is. But this week we're going to turn to Charles, and Charles is going to Savvy and I'll remember those members of our Sci Fi and Star Trek family who are no longer with us.

1:10:32 So take it away, Charles. Thank you. Jim. Start off with Ted. Yeah. Ted Cassidy played Rouck in tos's first season episode What Are Little Girls Made Out? Also did an uncredited voice role in The Captain Gorny Arena and Balck's puppet in The Carbonite Maneuver. Best known for his betrayal as a macabre butler Lurch in the TV series Adams Family Back from sixty four to sixty six. Happy Birthday THEO Marcus was the actor who betrayed Corb and t was the second season episode Cats Paul Happy Birthday Remembrances to Nehemia.

1:11:34 Hears Off was an American actor who played Parlow Top and TNG Thursdays and episode The Most Toys, and did show up in SAT. I found it interesting when I was doing this that he died at one hundred and two. That's impressive. Awesome, that's impressive. And last on my list, I think the biggest one on my list is a very happy birthday. Sorry you're not here. To Luisille Ball an actress and comedian best known for her role at Roland I Love Lucy. During the mid sixties, she was the owner and chief executive of Desilu Studios.

1:12:29 As such, rememberable for her approving the initial Star Trek production. There is a production of Star Trek. Ball founded Desilu with her husband Desilu in nineteen fifty but we always talk her as the first Lady of Star Trek because she really did help bring Star Trek existence. And now I will pass is flaming birthday candle over. To v Yeah. Finally something that can be properly on fire. Yeah. So the first happy birthday goes to France Win. She played Elon in the TOS third season episode Ilon of Troye.

1:13:19 She was born in Marseill, France, to a French Roma mother and a Vietnamese father. Next happy birthday goes to Edward Furlong. He played John Connor in the nineteen ninety one film Terminator to Judgment Day. I remember taught in the Theater. Born in Glendale, California, he had no acting ambitions until he was approached by a casting agent who was looking for a young actor to play the role of John Connor and what turned out to be one of the biggest box office hits of the nineteen nineties. Next birthday to somebody I wish I could have been part of interviewing, but because I was, forgot what it was anyway, But a big happy birthday to Bruce Korak, Canadian actor and artist who portrayed Hemmer in the first season of Strange New World. He reprised the role in an episode of the second season, where he also made a guest appearance as Garkog. He's legally blind, having lost over ninety percent of his eyesight to childhood cancer. Over that does not seem to have stopped him at all.

1:14:36 Next and me, I gotta say, I just want to jump in here and say to our listeners, if you missed that interview, head over to trek talkin dot com and give it a listen, because he was absolutely fascinating to talk to. He was a lot of fun, and he's brilliant and the singing, dancing Klingon Oh my god, does it Does it get any better than that? I have to say no, you know, a week doesn't go by that. I just don't threw the fact that they got rid of this character, right, I mean, we got Pellyan now, and it's just I'm sorry, Carol Kane. There's just no comparison. This is a great character and they should have never got rid of him. He was fantastic.

1:15:20 I absolutely agree. And Bruce Horwock is a great individual. So he was a actor, he really really he brought a lot of life from unique perspective. You never confused him, but that the characters he made sense. He was a great mentor. It was just it was such a good character, and it's just like you hang on the good characters. Don't let him throw away like that. He was the greatest question to me because of his legally blinded and I am so I agree with the guy. They shouldn't have gotten rid of him. When he was on the podcast, he said that he knew that he was only going to be there first season, and they knew they were going to kill him off at the end. So I don't know what was going through their heads. They should not a good call, not a good call. Absolutely not sorry.

1:16:09 Sorry, no, no, no, that's that's perfectly fine, especially you know if you have that connection with him, So no problems. The next happy Birthday goes to Catherine Hick and she played doctor Gillian Taylor in perhaps one of the best Star Trek movies ever, Voyage Home, the one with the Whales. She is, but she is best known for her starring role as Annie Camden in Seventh Heaven. And her husband was played by name just went out of my head, but he was Decker in Star Trek's emotion picture. Was his name Stephen something or another? Yes, thank you in coming.

1:17:01 So I gotta tell you a little story about her. We have this time for an Uncle Jim story. Okay, so here's an Uncle Jim story. My wife and I drove all the way down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to see her at one of her first conventions, and we get down there to meet her. She's a charming lady. She was absolutely wonderful. In fact, I sent Charles an autograph poster from Star Trek four that I had or sign. I had her sign a couple of them. But what she's up on stage doing her Q and A and I'm going to say a bad word here, but I'm just quoting her, she says to the crowd. She says, yeah, I think that she was a bit of a cock tease when it came to Captain Kirk. She she got what she wanted. She came to the future, worked with the whales, and then told Captain Kirk bye bye, I see you later, dude, and left them hanging hay and drive.

1:17:57 I thought that was funny, and I think it's nice to see the tables turned on, right, So congratulations to Catherine Hicks for doing that, and out back to our schedule program. The best Star Trek movie ever. Yeah, so my last happy Birthday goes out to Melanie Shatner. She's a former actress who appeared as a jogger in Star Trek for The Voyage Home, Great Picture, and as the Captain's gilman in some other Star Trek movie that I've never heard. Of, The Best.

1:18:40 Start The Final Frontier. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but she is the youngest daughter of the shat William Shatner. Happy birthday to you, Melanie. All right, and you know. What I got to say, congratulations because you got our Star Trek five reference in. The so now I'm going to get a hurl a flaming birthday candle over to Paul. We need a flaming or some sort of graphic that goes across the screen. That would be great. Yeah, a laws rocket would be good. Okay, we'll work on that. So let's continue, shall we, friends, and say, we got a lot of July birthdays sneaking in here to and we've got one at the end of the month.

1:19:27 It's the great Michael Bean, American actor, of course, known for his many depictions in the films of James Cameron, most notably for me as Kyle Reese in Aliens or excuse me, no, I've got my'm backwards. I've got reading dyslexia here tonight. It's terrible. Kyle Reese is of course. The first thing he did with Jim Cameron was The Terminator. What am I thinking? I think I need. Coffee or something? But yeah, memorably as the guy who basically you know John Connor's dad, if you will, right, Kyl Reese right, amazing, terrific stuff, really great, indelible first impression. But he ended up working with Jim Cameron so many other times, and for me, you know, corporal Hicks and Aliens. It doesn't get any bilder than that. I mean, what a great performance, right Hudson, Sir. He's Hicks. I mean, just so great, so many great lines of dialogue. I say we take off and look aside from morbit On a way to be sure. I mean, he's phenomenal, really engaging with folks at conventions all the time. He ended up showing up in really great Part two an Abyss for Jim Cameron also, so they just keep working together doing all these different things.

1:20:40 But Michael Bean's done a ton of things beyond that as well. Really all over the place. He was in Tombstone, the terrific picture with about the Okay Corral with Kurt Russell, a really really great role in that. For him, He's all over the place. He had a small part in the first season of The Mandalorian. If you have not checked that out, you should. But just a wonderful performer, really great, able to do everything with the Old West of the far future. A big fan of his work. I can't believe I confuse those two characters. But there you go, Michael Bean. We salute you, sir, and do more work. We love seeing you. Happy birthday to original series veterans. Susan Denbergh, German born Austrian chorus dancer, model and actress, who, of course, in the original series first season episode MUDs Women, played Magna Kovacs. Very very cool.

1:21:38 Was born in Germany originally then became part of Poland at the end of the Second World War. That section there, but a really memorable role and a very you know, part of that whole mystique of the first original series first season. So very, very striking and very very cool. So Happy Birthday, Susan Denverg. Happy Birthday. Took an actress Evangeline Lily, who portrays Tail the Elf in The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smog and The Hobbit, The Battle of the Five Armies the Peter Jackson Hobbit Movies. There great to see an Elf step to the forefront as a warrior. She also played superhero Hope van Dyne aka the Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe The ant Man Pictures. Notably, there a lot of stuff that she's done. Of course, many of us remember her for her leading role as Kate Austen in the Lost television series People Forget about how Lost was just made such a huge impact, amazing, amazing television show. She got like I think, numerous nominations for her work in that Saturn Awards and stuff. She's just great, so very very cool. Exciting to see her continuing to make an impression. So if you've never seen her and Lost, you should really check out Lost. It's pretty amazing stuff, very very cool. Moving on, Actress Melissa George Okay, who Australian actress who played Vina in Star Trek Discovery second season episode of Memory Serves again. Kind

1:23:08 of riffing on the whole cage thing there as Jim was describing earlier, but very very cool to see a different iteration of that character. Happy Birthday goes out to we're just all over MUD's women know in the original series, here aren't we? We're just all over the original series Night Luis Sorel, who played Rayna Kopeck in the third season original series episode Requiem for Methuselah. Daughter producer Albert J. Cohen and actress Gene Sorell, made her acting to be back in nineteen sixty three in an episode of Rout sixty six. And here's what I can't believe I had managed to steal away from Uncle Jim. It's kind of shocking that I'm getting this one here. It's kind of mind boggling. But we're going to say a huge happy birthday to iconic actress Michelle Yoka, who, of course, in the Star Trek universe we honor for play Philippa Georgiou Georgia, Let's pronounce these things correctly here, as well as her Mirror Universe counterpart Philippa Empress Georgia in Star Trek Discovery.

1:24:12 She reprised that role in Star Trek Short Takes episode of Pride. A Star needed to buy a few houses and so decided to go ahead and take the role in Star Trek Section thirty one. The less set about that from my perspective, the better, but is an iconic performer and has done so many good things. I could just sit here for hours and hours and hours. Let's first talk about where she really exploded on Western audiences for the first time, in the phenomenal picture Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that if you've never seen it, Holy moly, what are you doing? You should definitely be checking that out everything everywhere, all at once. For which she won the Academy Award. Amazing stuff. She's been all over the place.

1:24:57 She's done so many different things that are really really tremendous good work. She was in the two Wicked movies. Really recently, she's been on the Witcher, Transformers, all kinds of stuff. She just does a ton of work. And also a Bond girl. Let's not forget her work with Pierce Brosnan and Tomorrow Never Dies, which is great. I'm really excited though, for I believe it is this November, if I'm not mistaken, She's got the lead role in an upcoming new series that is a blade Runner television series, Friends blade Runner twenty ninety nine. It's going to be a six episode limited series on I believe it's on Amazon if I'm not mistaken, in November. But that's exciting.

1:25:42 It's you know, to see Visa. But Michelle yo amazing performer, really cool that she's part of Star Trek. Does a lot of other cool work as well. If you've never seen Crouching Tiger Hitten Jag and check that thing out. It's amazing, amazing stuff, tremendous performer, and I think we have a few more here I'll probably clean on too, so I better pass it over to Uncle Jim. Why thank you so much, Paul, So I don't actually have an actual birthday. So each week we have a lot of our favorite movies that celebrate anniversaries, and some of them get forgotten, some of them don't. I post them on our Facebook page, and I'll always pick one that I think our listeners and our viewers will appreciate. So, David, what is our anniversary movie this week?

1:26:33 There's totally yeah. On December of the sixth, nineteen eighty, the nuclear Power to Attack Aircraft carrier USS Limits with a crew of five thousand men and a strike force, a mighty aircraft was on a routine mission in the Pacific when it encountered a storm unlike any ever recorded and disappeared.

1:27:16 Across the board Antennis check out. But we're up the air anywhere from out destroyers. We're not getting anything except some co transmissions into two hundred meter band. Otherwise we're dead as. A Doornail's all right? That picture right? I showed this class, sir. Can't you see that Russian trawler? I haven't sing them off on but no visual sightings there. All of us know that movement through time is possible. Einstein proved there are forces in the universe which we're only now just beginning to understand. I mean to understand through science. Not superstition. There are black holes in. Space, anti matter, curved space, things that are strange to us, as electricity would have been to people in the Middle Ages or the ship in World War Two?

1:28:00 What's happening here? Who are you? Pupil are a war? Is that what happened? Splash the Zeros, I say again, splash the Zeros. We've got an incredible opportunity here. We know where all the mistakes are going to be made in the next forty years, and. You've got the power to correct those. I've got planes out. Those planes give us all a second chance. We're a bunch of damn fools. We don't take it.

1:28:44 Those men have enough knowledge among them. Gon know we at them. Bove reached the moon here before it should have happened. Is that a terrifying prospect? Captain? On December the sixth, nineteen eighty, the nuclear carrier USS Nimics disappeared in the Pacific and reappeared December sixth, nineteen forty one, off. The coast of Pearl Harbor. The Final Countdown is about to begin. Yeah, so any of the Final Countdown was released by United Artists on August first, nineteen eighty. It's a science fiction war film about a modern nuclear powered aircraft carrier that travels through time to the day before Pearl Harbor.

1:29:39 It is directed by Don Taylor, his final theatrical film as a director. Stars Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katherine Ross, Ron O'Neill, and Charles Derning. It received mixed reviews from critics, but was a moderate success at the box office. It received Saturn Award nominations for Best Science Fiction Film and Best Actor for Kirk Douglas. You guys, did you guys see The Final Countdown or have you seen it? I feel like that was a trailer that I showed me the whole movie, so I feel like I just saw it again. Yeah that you know that trailer was awful. Yeah, but back in nineteen eighty that they had one trailer. I saw it when it came out, and I saw everything.

1:30:24 Back in those days, the first run on Anything New was science fiction. It was there, and yeah, it's fun. I mean it's just like you know, Martin Sheen, Charles Dirning, all kinds of great character actors in there. But you know, you know the films for Kirk Douglas, right, so you know, I can't stay away from that. But it's had a very long cult life since the heyday of home video. Right, everybody wanted to see this movie, and it's got a wrap. People like it. It's a cult took. And while I was researching this movie, I never read the book for the movie, but apparently it was Aliens, and they were planning on making sequel. Aliens open up the rift that sends the limits back in time, and then the Aliens open up the rift and send it back in time and the aircraft carrier sees the UFO at the end of the movie. But they cut that whole alien connection out and never made the sequel. So I don't know if that would have been better worse.

1:31:21 I don't know, But I like the movie. It was a lot of fun. If you guys haven't seen it, go and check it out. I think I think you will enjoy it. It brings up some interesting questions like if you could change the future, would you and what would be the outcome if you did so. The final such a mind blower for me is that an aircraft carrier's got six thousand poke people on it. I mean, my god, that's six thousand people's huge one vessel, can you know? I mean, I just have a hard time understanding how an object that size can float frankly, but you know, it's just that's a lot of people to be on a single ship. Man, that's a big floating city. Reason, they really are until you think my my former husband was in the Navy and he was on a smaller ship. But you know, I got to see a couple of aircraft carriers up close, and it's mind boggling, it really is.

1:32:16 Yeah, it's we're always on Star Trek. How many people in the US's enterprise forier and something right? And just it's worn warner people versus like six thousand, six thousand, an insane number of human beings. I mean, how many bathrooms? How many lot a lot on a regular day. That's like, you know, that's like that's like a couple of hundred thousand toilet flushes a day. I mean it's just that's yeah, I can't wrap my head around it. David it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, ninety ninety six aircraft. That's that's huge as well. So yeah, check it out. It's the final countdown. I think you'll like it, all right, guys. So now that wraps up our Star Trek birthdays. We got some time for some Star Trek.

1:33:04 News, all right, guys, Star Trek News. You can find all of these stories in their entirety on our Facebook page, Trek Talking and Beyond. We usually like to start out with a segment called sat and says what, which Eric usually does for us, but we're gonna forego that and we're gonna jump right into V. She's got a very good story for us.

1:33:44 Take it away, right, Star Trek Strange New World reveals Captain Pike as a puppet all right, Yeah, for all my Muppets fans out there. Well as we know, Star Trek Ancient World has built a reputation for unique aches, including a musical episode, an animated crossover with Lower Decks, one of my absolute favorites, a mock documentary. I believe it's called a mockumentary, a clue style holiday murder mystery. But when producers reveal that Pan Diego Comic Con that season four would include a suppet episode featuring the crew of the USS Enterprise reimagined in himself. Oh that just sounds funny. Just say bye by none other than Jim Henson's Preacher Shop. Some fans stopped laughing and started worrying.

1:34:41 Executive producers Alt Kirksman and Akiva Goldsman confirms what many suspected. It starts with a transporter, because why not. Kirtsman described an unexpected and terrible transporter activist as the meg chanism that transforms Spike into a felt version of himself. What Season four is doing, Goldman said, is taking that reliable device and using it for something the franchise has genuinely never attempted before. The episode is directed by Jordan Canning, who previously helms back a mock Charades and Wedding Bell Blues across Strange New World's first stream seasons, and all puppet work was created by Jim Jim Henson's Preacher Shops, the same studio behind the Muppets and Fragile Rock, and called it Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, et cetera. Goldman made clear that the puppet episode turned out to be harder to make in any episode the show has produced. Fan reaction to the original SCCC Seezer was divided, with some fans celebrating the Gonzo ambition really at that, get it the gonto okay, and others pushing back on what they saw as the show prioritizing guns over story, whether the puppet

1:36:12 episode is the gimmick that breaks so or the episode that proved stranging Worlds may have gone too far. They finally know where it starts, somewhere between this transporter pad and a very bad day for Captain type. Fans will have to wait until the fifth episode, Level five transporter accident to decide for themselves. All Right, I can't wait because Jim Henson's creature shop, I mean heck y out, muppets heck y out. So I say go for it. Yeah, good time. And I got to be the first one to say here and my truck sports can verify this. When they said they were going to do a musical episode, I was like, no, no, no, that's going to be crap.

1:37:02 We don't need it. It's a gimmick, and it turned out to be one of my favorite episodes of all time. So I'm not going to judge anything. I want to see what they do with it, see how it happens, and I'll decide after I watch it, and I hope, I hope that Start Trek fans out there feel the same way, and that they give it a chance before they turn around and judge it and hate. So that's my take. Personally. I get hold of it in a muppet. Yes, they'll probably have the cell will probably make little action figures of them.

1:37:42 Have to Oh, I'll take him. Then, Oh, I'll take him. Then we'll have to ask Brian volk Wise about that when it comes out in the podcast. Hell yeah, absolutely, all right, David, being our video game guy, I thought that this would be a good story for you. All right. Well that's one a horror so I'm not really into horror, but I'll do my best, all right. So Star Trek Shadow Frontier, a new horror game. Bluebird Team, a studio behind Silent Hill Too remake and last year's can Quonos, The New Dawn and Paramount Game Studio, which recently revealed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Last Ronan, have unveiled Star Trek Shadow Frontier, a psychological horror game launching next year.

1:38:44 Revealed during ign Live. Shadow Frontier put players in control of Star Trek the next Generation roll Larn after she crashed lands on a mysterious planet to answer a distress call. So Michelle Forbes, who played the character the Next Generation, returns to play the character in the Shadow Frontier, and though only appeared in just a handful of episodes across the series seven series a season, she made an impact on Trekkis, making her reappearance in the first effort Star Tract horror game and making it an exciting one. Okay.

1:39:31 The planet roll Laron Lanzon is a spaceship graveyard where nothing is as it seems. A press release reads as she explores the planet corrupt surface and crosses path with other survivors, she must face twisted creatures, a hostile ecosystem, and an entity that seeks to envelop her body and mind. Stytrak Shadow Frontier does and have an exact an exact relief date, but Bluebird Team and Permount Games said out next year on PlayStation five, Xbox, Xbox Series x S and PC. So I'm not intruqua, but I probably wouldn't mind playing it if just if we do a podcast about it. If you guys want but I don't know.

1:40:28 It's uh, I don't know, it's interesting, But what do you guys think? Well, I saw that story and I thought of you right away, David, and I thought it also went well with the topic of today's podcast, which was a horror episode, so that's why I put it in there. I'm all, I'm always thinking these things out. I try to anyways, Okay, yeah, I mean anything anything would startsuck. I'll check it out. It'll probably be on Steam, so I can probably pick it up over there nice once it comes out. I do although do a PS five, so we'll see. But I'll probably check it out. And since Michelle Forbes is playing the character, you know, I'm assuming she's gonna voice it is what they mean, So.

1:41:13 Yeah, it could be probably like an RPTE I would imagine, but I don't know. I've never heard of it. So anyways, all right, guys, and I've got the final story of the Evening. Star Trek's Strange New World's horror episode scares up bigger streaming audiences than the season four debut Star Treks. Strange New World started its fourth seasons strong with quite an entertaining time travel from Mere Dallas, Marinaris on July twenty third. Unfortunately, the first Strange New World's episode of twenty twenty six barely cracked Paramount's Top ten Shows Now section at number ten last week, but things changed drastically and for the better with the late installment titled The Griffin Incident. The highly publicized Strange New World season four horror story came out screaming and scared up nearly a top five debut at number six on the streaming service's Top ten Shows Now list, and according to Flick's Patrol, the Griffin Incident is ranked number seven worldwide top ten shows of Paramount Plus as of Friday, July thirty. First, Strange New World's second episode also ranked as the top content overall, whether it's being shows or films on Paramount Plus in the number of countries including Australia, France, Germany and Italy. Meanwhile, the Griffin Incident helped Strange New

1:42:46 Worlds ranked as the top series in Austria, Canada and Switzerland. So how did this surprisingly graphic ghost story fair in the United States. Well, Strange New World's landed at number three on the Paramount Plus's Top ten in the US as of July thirty, first only behind number ones Criminal Minds and number two's South Park. In addition, Strange New Worlds and that the number two spot on the top ten overall Amazon, with only the number ones Avatar Aim The Last Airbender ranking higher, and new episodes of Strange New Worlds season four drop every Thursday on Pairmount Plus.

1:43:30 So that's interesting, which I'm going to bring up here Starfleet Academy because I have to. So they're talking about Paramount Plus's top ten shows, not this Nielsen Craft, not all this other stuff. Paramount Plus has their own numbers. They know what shows you're watching. Every time you click on a show, they know you watched it and how long you watched it. So I find it interesting that they canceled Strange New Worlds because it wasn't getting the viewership. But they never we never really saw they never told us anything about it. So that anyway, that my friends wraps up our podcast for the night. What do you think?

1:44:17 Did you have a good time? Did everything flow well? You know? What do you think? Yeah? Yeah, online the whole time? Yeah yeah, and he only turned blue it was a couple of times. Yeah, with whatever, I don't know. Yeah, so we will be back, same bad time, same bad channel. Eric will be with us next week, and I'm sure he'll have all kinds of fun stories about leaving business cars on your halls when he gets back. From him when he comes back, will he be pining for the fewards?

1:45:05 So I will be talking about the episode which is on tonight. I don't remember the name of it, Human. Friends or human. Yeah. I'm going to go and watch that right after the podcast because I don't have to get up for work. In the morning, and I'm going to. Run over and watch it. So there and we'll be talking about that episode next week. Eric will be back with us and we're going to have a grand old time. So please guys head over to check Talking and Beyond on Facebook. Please like and follow us and share our posts. If you feel so inclined and you want to see all these awesome videos in our awesome faces, please become a subscriber. It's only ninety nine cents a month that helps us keep the podcast going. I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim saying to everybody, please live along in and thank you so much to Charles for hanging out and trek talking with us. Thank you, Charles, Thank you Jim.

1:46:07 It was fun. Needed the break, and of course then it was. It was a fun distraction. And thank you so much to v for hanging out CORECT talking with us as well. Thank you, and of course thank you to David for making all these awesome videos and hanging out with us as well. Thank you, David. I give you a Propa guy nod. And of course thank you so much to Paul for hanging out and Shrek talking with us as well. Thank you so much, Paul. Brief bonus content coming at you, just to let everybody know I was lucky enough to get out there. Check what's the latest Spider Man movie? This week at the box office? Over a billion freaking dollars in a week and deservedly so. It's fantastic, I would say, really really good stuff. It's not retreading anything, it's not, you know, boring, it's super exciting, amazing cast, and it feels like a legit, solid, reverential, cool, action filled smart comic book when you watch it, I highly recommend it big screen. Don't wait for home video on this thing. Okay, it's a knockout.

1:47:22 And Paul I actually went to see it as well, and I agree with you. I think Marvel has the magic back. They are lacking in a lot of their recent movies, but boy, oh boy, they got it back in this one. It had everything that that that you'd expect, a lot of fun and it picks up a lot of the threads that had been left hanging in previous movies. I think that Bruce Banner's cameo is awesome. I really like the way they use the Black Widow in this movie as well. And Sadi think is great. Sadie think is terrific. She's really really good in this. Yeah, and she you know, uh. Punisher was also good.

1:48:04 And a lot of characters that we've seen from like other shows on teas that are popular TV. And we have actors from like The Bear, we have actors from Severance, a lot of really cool small parts from other actors in here. But it just really delivers. It's beautifully made. It's super cool. So yeah, if you're even remotely on the fence, it's just go see this in the theater. You'll have an amazingly fun time. It's really good stuff. Glad you enjoyed it, Uncle Jim. Well, in fact, back to what you were saying the theater was sold out when we went to see it. When's the last time he went to was sold out theater? Well, like a week or two ago for the Odyssey. It's crazy. These two pictures, fascinating thing. Tom Hollins and Daya.

1:48:47 And I'm always spacing out on his name, the guy who plays a punisherr Oh, that's the character's name, but you know the guy I mean, right, the apologies that I'm forgetting his name, but both all three of those guys are in both movies. They're in the Odyssey together, and they're in and they're in the Spider Man movie together, which is just nuts, right, I need to imagine that. You say, yeah, my last two movies collectively brought in two billion dollars in like a week. I mean, that is just John Barenthal. That's what I'm trying to think of. Who plays the Punisher from like The Walking Dead and stuff like that. He's got a big part in the Odyssey as well. Really, I hate the Punisher because he's a big gun guy, right, and so I've never liked the Punisher. I love the character in this movie though, because he was really engaging and relatable and you know, had a soft heart. For the first time, I liked The Punisher thanks to John Barenthals. He really did a really, really, really good job of not just being a cliche.

1:49:44 So I need to movies. It's super fun. I mean those are both like to miss those two movies of anything this year you got to see him in the big screen. They're just remarkable, I mean, like movie history. So I agree, I think that I think him is the Man had a really good rapport together. They really played well off of each other. Yeah, and it's just it's it's just super entertaining, and it's just you know, we're getting our first seeds planted for the X Men coming into the Marvel universe. Now I am no spoilers, but it's just it's it's it's pretty damn cool the way they do it, and so I'm really excited for this is of course, all building up to December's you know, Avengers Doomday with Doctor Doom.

1:50:24 So we're But if it's as good as this Spider Man movie is man look at the printing money like crazy and nice in December, it's crazy, good sufferings. Awesome, really good stuff. All right, guys, Well, I'm Uncle Jim, and I'm saying everybody please stay safe and be good to each other, and hailing frequencies are closed. Good night, everybody not all live long and prosper. Eat your vegetables. Two and number one, you're the captain. M okay, okay, ready for warm sir.

1:51:16 H. M hm. Okay. Alright, well guys, that is alright, no big deal. All right, guys, we'll see you guys all next week.

1:51:56 We're going to talk about strange new worlds. You get a little bonus ending hair because usually we cut before we leave the studio. That's okay, so the fans get to see eat your vegetables. All right, guys, thanks a lot of whom you enjoyed the show. We'll see you, thanks, friends, Bye bye,