Yet Another Star Trek Podcast - Ep 005: (TOS S01E03) Where No Man Has Gone Before

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

In this episode The Gang watches "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - the original second pilot episode that was third to be aired. What did I just say? Eh, they watched an episode. Join the guys as they talk about Gary Mitchell, who starts to exhibit God-like powers... The Gang may have watched "Charlie X" again by mistake and called it something different. Who knows! listen in and find out! What did you think of "Where No Man Has Gone Before"? Drop us an email at [e-mail] and we'll discuss it on the air! Be sure to check out our website, social media, and join our Discord! Links for all are listed below: Website | Discord | Instagram | Twitter | TikTok | YouTube “Warp Speed” and "To the Stars" was written and performed by William Grobbelaar Music: https://soundcloud.com/williamgrobbelaarmusic Additional artwork by George Rateau: https://www.fiverr.com/georgerateau

Welcome to yet another Star Trek podcast. A show where I'm pretty sure you probably guessed it, we talk about Star Trek. I'm your host, Brad. Welcome to the show. Joining me as usual, a man who has been rumored to be the illegitimate love child of Spock and O'Hara, my friend and yours, Majid, welcome to the show, buddy. Hi! Hi! to the show, buddy. Hi. Hi. Man, I was not expecting that.

You just threw out all of my business. Hybrid. How's it going? How's everything been? It's been, uh, what, about a week since the listeners last heard from you. How you doing? It's been a week since listeners last heard from me. It's been a week since Lister's last heard from me. It's been good, man.

You know, the snow and weather are garbage up here, right? But, you know, we do what we can't. You shoveling yourself out from another snow storm? No, it was an ice storm, and I left it alone and it kind of cleared up on its own. I did nothing. My neighbors were out there shoveling, and I just said, yeah, I'm good. So you basically just didn't leave your house for a period

of time and it took care of itself. Yeah, it worked itself out. Well, speaking of things that worked themselves out, we're also with the true king of pack lids. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the What are you saying? I'm gonna start that over again. I'm gonna leave it in. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out.

I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. I'm gonna leave it out. all the brains, our friend Drew. How's it going there, buddy?

I make things go fast. How's the ship modifications coming along? Good. Well, in true packlet fashion, I did not leave the snow alone like Mijid did. And I shoveled it out out. I had to go to my parents house. And you did it again. So they get so that they could go fast and I shoveled them out and let me tell you shovel and ice that is already re-frozen a second time sucks so I can I can really I remember one time having to do that at 2 a.m. when I came home from work one night it was rough it was really rough.

And then you moved someplace warm. I know. And now, now if you guys get like half an inch of snow, like everything just ceases. It's a crazy, like I get maybe a quarter and nobody knows how to drive on the road. So what do you do? Just stay home. Who would have thought that would be a great idea?

Don't you work at home? We don't talk about that. Well, I an essential employee, you want to show your badge on the drive over and be like, oh, I'm essential. I need to get to work. When the pandemic first started, there was fears that they were going to close the highways down and I actually had a drafted

legal letter with the Department of Homeland Security seal approval on it that said that I had permission to be on the highways. Like our previous employers wished they had that stuff. I know, right? Oh man, that is nuts. I didn't even realize you had that. I did. I mean, thankfully we never needed to use it,

but yeah, that was the thing. Can I get a copy of that? I'm gonna frame it in a bit. Nope. Literally just threw it away. Oh, come on, dude. This is the kind of thing you frame and put up on your wall. No.

You can explain to the cats when they get older about the pandemic they live through. Okay, okay. Dear DAX, remember how I was home for nine days in a row? Well, that was because of the pandemic they live through. Okay, okay. Dear DAX, remember how I was home for nine days in a row? Well, that was because of the pandemic. Hey, bro. DAX, DAX, just look at me and me out. Well, I think at this point, my cat is,

if I go away from my house from any given point, my cat's like, where the hell did you go? Why did you leave me? I'm going to kill you. Is your cat Batman? Close close I mean have you see my cat. She's all black. So I guess technically would be cat woman or batwoman. She is the night I don't think we should dive into this anymore. It's gonna get away. No, no this this will then hey, welcome to yet another comic book podcast True, we're being entirely lost. I have a I have a, are you entirely lost?

I have a surprise for you, Brad. I am. In honor of you hosting again tonight, I'm not gonna give you any strikes tonight. Oh, that's right. I didn't get a dimmer before we started. That's like a record so far. Oh my.

Well, to be fair, I was eating my dinner. Hahaha. My mouth was too full to give you dinner. It's a strike. Oh, you're at least one. Oh, man. Oh, you, you, I mean, you had plenty of time to do it though. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, but no, no, no strikes, no dinner for you tonight. I'm going to do my best to not give you a strike at dinner. I think you, I think you deserve it. Challenge accepted. Yeah, just don't, don't, don't, don't, don't make me regret it. No, no promises has gone before. The technically second pilot, but third to be aired episode. The impossible has happened. At least according to Captain

Kirk, they have picked up a distress call from a ship that has been missing for over two centuries. Sporting Turlnex sweaters, the crew shortly finds the source of the distress signal, but instead of a ship, they find a small object. Kirk makes the decision to have the object beamed aboard the ship, Spock points out immediately that the object had survived the destruction of its ship. Without warning, the probe begins to transmit a signal, causing Kirk to have the Enterprise be on alert. Making their way to the bridge, we meet Kirk's longtime friend, Lieutenant Commander Gary

Mitchell, who joins in on teasing Spock for being a little bit too excited to play chess. Once there, Spock begins to uncode the logs of the device. Dr. Elizabeth Denner joins the bridge crew along with Chief Medical Officer Dr. Mark Piper, Sulu and Scotty. We learn that something mysterious happened aboard the SS Faliant, causing its ultimate destruction. Spot conveys that the ship was pushed out of the galaxy by a magnetic storm. He goes on to explain that on their return

into the galaxy, they encountered some unknown force. The records are badly damaged, but for some reason reference ESP and humans and it is unknown why. Kirk makes the decision to have the enterprise follow the path of the valiant to help ensure that no other ship encounters the issue. Eventually they find their way to a purple force field that they go through for some odd reason that I can't figure out why. Ultimately, this causes damage to the ship, killing 9 crew members and causing Elizabeth and Gary to be stunned. We click see what happens to Gary is that his eyes start to glow with some sort of magical

power. With the engines burned out and years away from the narrow station, the crew works on repairing the ship. Gary rests in sick bay, but you can clearly see something is wrong. When Elizabeth checks on Gary, the conversation leads towards the sensors that are monitoring him as they indicate that he is fine. Joaquin Lee, Gary mentions that he would be rather than that they weren't, and without warning the sensors go awry just by from his thoughts.

Things get even stranger when Gary tells Lieutenant Kelso to check the impulse engine packs and that if he doesn't, they will explode destroying the ship. Kelso being the cautious man he is, checks the packs, and identifies that Gary was right knowing if I quickly Kirk that Gary knew something he shouldn't have been able to. After debating with Spock, Kirk decides to travel to the planet Delta Vega where they plan on stranding Gary. When attempting to bring Gary to the planet, he starts to exhibit powers with some sort

of Star Trek lightning beams. After a struggle, Kirk and Spock managed to get Gary out of the room and onto a transporter pad and beamed down to the planet's surface. Once on the planet, Gary awakens to find himself locked behind a forcefield. After several moments of struggling trying to get through the forcefield, it is clear that the force field somehow weakened Gary. But unfortunately, he quickly recovers and ends up knocking out all the crew members on the planet. Gary influences Lisbeth by giving her powers and the two ventures off exploring the planet.

Once Kirk recovers, he advises the doctor to have the Enterprise leave without him if he's not heard from in 12 hours, stating that the entire planet should be destroyed. We now find Gary and Lisbeth together, both eyes emanating with power, Gary thrilled with his power that he is making a tropical oasis on this desert planet. Wilding a rifle of Kirk confronts Gary in attempts to stop him. As you can imagine, that doesn't go well for Kirk when he tries to go against somebody with godlike powers. Elizabeth realizes what they're doing isn't right, so she helps Kirk weaken Gary.

Through an epic struggle of wrestling, Gary and Kirk finally find to point where Kirk is on his knees forced by Gary, but Elizabeth says no and pretty much stops Gary in his tracks straining his powers and Kirk somehow gets a boulder to fall on Gary crushing him to death Sadly, Elizabeth is weakened from Hora Deel in confronting Gary and dies on the planet. Back on the Enterprise, Kirk meets note that Gary and Elizabeth gave their lives in performance of their duty. To sum up this episode, Turlnex are back in fashion in the future. If your eyes start to glow you're probably a god and wrestling against a god doesn't really work out so well.

That was an episode gentlemen what what are your thoughts on that one? Drew I'm gonna start with you buddy. How did you find that episode? Well there was a lot going on in it that That's for sure. I think I mentioned at one point, I feel like the entire episode could have been an entire season. I mean, if this was done in like, you know, 2022, then they absolutely would have drawn that out.

You know, because they would have taken two episodes to establish the friendship between Kirk and Mitchell, they would have taken three episodes to explain the fact that he was zapped by strange energies. And another four to five episodes to have the climactic fight, one of which would take in, you know, the one entire episode would be taken place on Delta Vega. Oh yeah.

So, and then if it was also a modern series, there'd be a number of emotional speeches to tie it all together. I was waiting for it. You see right there, that sums it up. That could have been an entire season of a show. It really could have, but instead they crammed it all into a tight, neat 60 minute episode. I liked it overall though.

I think we had... I think this would have benefited from being a two-parter. I don't know that that would have been possible, especially considering the money that was spent on the original pilot to cage, which didn't really see the light of day for a long time. But they did a pretty good job with what they had and came up, I think, with a pretty compelling story. I do have concerns at the number of God-like episodes this early in a series.

I know, back to back, right? We had Charlie X last week week and now we have Gary Mitchell Yeah, I mean I have to look at the production timeline but like these are all episodes that are you know filmed relatively close together so even though the network shuffled them around to kind of make it work like You know, I feel like somebody has a god complex. They really want to be a god Yeah, like this was, you know, the first episode coming out of a cage that they produced. No, I'm a jeede. No, I'm a jeede. How did you feel on this episode?

Did you enjoy the wrestling, God-like powers of Kirk and Gary Mitchell when they were fighting hand-to-hand. That's just big of clear that Kirk is not a really good wrestler, at least not when you compare him against the rock. Let's just get out the way really quick. You see, I felt like he had some inspiration for the rock and saying, hey, look at me, I'm doing it first and then Rock just pulled from it. No, please. Look, hey, look at me, I'm doing it first. And then Brock just pulled from it. No, please.

Look, look, I said to you at the beginning of this, I was gonna give you a strike, but man, I'm so close to saying the words. Listen, I, man, I'm starting to really enjoy the shows, the episodes. This one was really good. I was trying to watch how they did the shining eyes for Gary Mitchell.

And I'm guessing it was contact lenses, but man, it was so well done. I really enjoyed it. I was actually quite surprised with that. To me, it was a hard to identify If they did special effects or if they just did did contact lenses Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was this contact lenses a whole eye contact lenses But did you happen to notice and maybe I'm I'm going crazy because I watched it on my lunch break Spoiler alert. I didn't do my homework last night. I watched it during my lunch break today recording it. And I still forgot some plot points because I'm ruined

as an adult as a functional adult. But what I did notice is that throughout the course of the episode, Gary Mitchell started to go gray Around his temples a lot more at the end versus at the beginning So by the end of the episode He had a lot more gray around the temples read Richard style If if I remember correctly, I believe that was that was correct and I think it was to resemble His increase in power the more powerful he became, the more grayer hair line that he had.

Yeah, they should have not done that and just increased his resistance to bolder smashing. That's a detail I never picked up on though, so that's interesting that you caught that. I like stuff like that. My little details here and there. You know, I'm glad I can get one up on you. I'll mark that down on calendar. But I'm gonna give you a dimaret. What?

Don't you dare. One detail that I found rather humorous was the transporting of Gary Mitchell down to the planet when they knocked him out and they just like, oh, you stand here, even though you're knocked out and you're going to beam down to the planet while nobody's holding you. They, they did not come out, they roofied him. But whatever they did, he could clearly stand up with no problem at all. You've just a little bit of a roofie.

Right. Just a little roofie. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, godlike powers, you would think, especially since he could read their minds that he would be able to stop them in a much better fashion. By the way, just really quick. One thing I loved about the episode is the fact that after Kirk was given the green light to kill Gary Marshall. Gary Marshall. No. Gary Marshall.

Mitchell. No, hang on. Gary Marshall is a real person. He directed movies. Pretty woman. Pretty woman? Okay, whatever. Pretty woman. Princess Diaries. Anyway, Gary Mitchell, when he had the green light to kill Gary Mitchell, he didn't pick up the gun like a normal person of what he said, I'm gonna go old school on you and I'm gonna start punch you in a stomach. And then he got his shirt ripped. I don't know how, by the way, I don't know how we got a shirt ripped. There was no action. Doesn't matter. I think he ripped his own shirt. Strange energy. We got a shirt. There was no action. It doesn't matter. I think he ripped his own shirt. Strange energy.

Strange energies. Oh my God. Stop it. You can't you can't get me talking about lower decks right now. But that's what they talk. That's what they call it in this episode. They have to yeah. Oh God. That's why there was all those references in lower decks. We'll get to that. We will get to that. And I don't know, man, it's the fight scene. Look really well done, in my opinion. It was better than the one from the ManTrap. The one from the ManTrap was just laughable. Because like that, they came after. That was produced after this.

Right, so they went backwards. Yeah, yeah. They went backwards and going. Well, if you think about this is the pilot, so they're putting all their cards in the table, they need to make sure they make a point. The second time around. Yeah, yeah.

Well, to be fully honest, like thinking about this and how the cage was, this is far superior of a pilot episode between the two. The less we talk about the cage, the better, which is just continue to distance ourselves from that massive existence. That existence is just not, we don't talk about the cage, the better, which just continue to distance ourselves from that mask existence. That exists in garbage. That exists in garbage.

We don't talk about that one. Right. Well, treat it like Bruno, we just won't talk about it. That thing was a garbage fire of an episode. It was so bad. I'm so glad I didn't err until what the 80s, we said. 90s? Yeah, there was the 80s.

Yeah, well, I should never air it. Well, yeah, that's besides the point. But anyways, with this episode, there was a very interesting dynamic where they were trying to build like a relationship within a short period of time, make you feel further for Kirk. I think they did a good job though.

Overall with how they they tried to structure a jam packs two-part your season long episode until like you know 60 60 minutes. They did a really good job trying to keep everything going keep all the stories straight and there were some points that I felt they could have done a lot better overall but for why it was I feel that it was a very good Star Trek style episode in that point. Yeah, what you guys think about that romance that they were trying to build between dinner and and Mitchell. Like to me, it seemed like they put it in third gear right out of the gate. And I just floored it and hoped for the best.

They have space horny. I mean, to me, it was kind of a subplot point where they were talking about ESP and humans. And I think the whole idea was that she has a high ESP, just like Gary Mitchell did, and so they were trying to connect the two in that sense, so that they would show, oh, if you have a high ESP, you're gonna go this kind of path when you get exposed to this.

Right, which is fine, but I think they also fast-tracked the Dr. Fawz and Love with her patient kind of story as well too. She became fond of him very quick and was going to bat for him more than most people were. She rebuked him at the beginning, right? Originally, yeah. Yeah, she did.

But I think that's, I think that again, to me, I kind of give it a little bit more leniency only because this is the true, not the true, but this is the second pilot. And if they had to put so much into the story in my mind in order for them to sell it to like executives. So to speak, because if they don't show that a show like this can handle these types of messages, these types of storylines

that it's probably not gonna get greenlit. It's probably just gonna be made and then they're like, not for us pass. Like that's kind of the perspective I'm taking with this episode It doesn't get a free pass and in every say everything in my my mind I mean it is better though like Overall like when you when you compare it to how the original pile was like with a cage it

If far surpasses it in so many different ways for like the writing, the acting, I feel for the characters so much more than than I would in a you know in a in that type of situation. Yeah, I think the the acting and the writing is certainly stronger, you know, without a without a doubt, you know, it sounded like they had a better idea of what they wanted to do with the show and where it was going, you know, a lot of those details that just kind of didn't get fleshed out in time for the cage. Which, you know, kind of like makes me wonder

why they didn't go with this one as the first episode after all. Who was, who was Jean Rodbury trying to sell this show to in terms of demographic? That's a good question. I couldn't find an answer on any of the sites. Maybe I'm not looking at the right sites. If I mean he... Go ahead, Brad. No, if I remember correctly during this time period, one of the big big TV styles that was really popular was like Westerns. Like Westerns.

Well, he was marketing this as a wagon train to the stars. Yeah, wagon train being a very popular show. So, like a train to the stars. Yes, like gun smoke or some other Western TV series. Western TV series. So with this episode, one unfortunate side note, in the news recently, the actress who played Elizabeth Denver actually passed away last week. Yeah. She died on February 24th. It's very unfortunate.

But if I remember correctly, she's been in a lot of movies in her career as an actress in general. Yeah. Sarah, excuse me, Sally Callerman. She passed away on the 24th of February. And just a tremendous career. She started acting in the 1950s and had a mixture of film and television roles, you know, very, very deep array of movies and shows that she was working on. I think probably her most famous role outside of this was in MASH, where she played a character by the name of Major Margaret Hotlips Hulehan. It is important to know that there was the movie not the TV show. Correct, yeah, the movie, Masha. I don't know if you've guys have seen that,

but it is an excellent film and she was wonderful in it. I do recommend checking it out. She won, she won some awards for that too. She was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and nominated for a Golden Globe Award for that movie. Yeah, I don't respect for her passing. I won't know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, never saw saw mash but it's something that's it's on my list I've seen this the series but she also she was also quite a few episodes of the you know some some great tv shows to outer limits she had two two different episodes she was in I was just looking at the outer limits in toilets I think that's like a prerequisite for for most of these types of shows like you need to appear at least in outer limits or Twilight's own. Yeah, pretty much. You know, she was in Bonanza. She was in Alfred Hitchcock hour.

She was in London live. She's Columbo. Yeah, I mean, you can keep going. Yeah, I have in turn of any of these shows. Well, that's because you don't want anything that was prior to 1980. Or if it doesn't have lens flare, you're not interested. I swear. It wasn't in the 2011 version of 90210. That I watched. That I totally didn't not watch. I did not watch that.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, either. But doesn't surprise me, Majeed, that you watched that. Well, I mean, you know, listen, don't judge me. It's not fair. It's not fair. I mean, it has to work. So the law of averages dictated that I would have a one. Don't worry, don't worry. I watch my guilt or pleasure is down to napping. So it's okay. Um, no, it's not. No, it's not. No, it was

Jersey Shore. Are you liar? Moving on. So, so, so, G, tell me what is one thing that you felt about this episode that didn't really hold up, that didn't really, you know, keep your interest. Was it something that kind of felt short in its storytelling technique or, or anything specific that that kind of let you down? or anything specific that kind of let you down. One was the weird way that they colored Spock. He was a weird color. I'm not, I'm not bugging. You can go back and watch it.

Spock had like this weird sort of sheen and skin tone to him. I'm not making this up. Just, please go back and take a look. Also, what color was it? A bronze. I felt like it was a bronze. Maybe they just applied a little too much makeup. Maybe. Again, this is the second pilot. Maybe they tried doing something different. Well, Spock was kind of like half-shouty, half-logical on this one too. Yeah. He was, he was murdery. He had, had he had blood thirst. Yeah, he wanted to kill

And it's not the first time that he just wanted to kill someone. Um, I you see the the thing is like I was looking or thinking about that and it didn't feel like Random shouting it was to me more of extreme logic What about the part where he was on the bridge shouting all the commands? That was just I've completely awkward Yeah, I haven't heard let her need more ever yet. You have a point. It was out of character Um, I think they're still trying to find the character's block in that point And that's part of it. I think the difficulty of airing these out of order the way they did because I feel like

Spock was a little bit more dialed in in ManTrap and Charlie X. It felt like the Spock that we've come to know over the years, whereas in this episode, clearly it's not quite there yet. They don't have that definitive character direction. I know with a common reason to do that before making it interesting to the audience. Right. And I think back in the 60s, chances are you probably didn't get to see the man trap right on day one. It's a completely different situation

that is today, you know. But no, in the 60s, they really didn't have reruns back then. Right, exactly. So if you didn't see it when it aired, then you wouldn't be watching it. Yeah, that's my point. So somebody that might have heard about the show through word of mouth from a friend of theirs,

they might not be jumping in until after this episode had aired. So they wouldn't go through that turbulence of spockdom. Well, I think about it as more of the, if this is the first episode that's going to air and people who will actually watch the first episode, if they don't like it, they're not going to talk about it. And to your point, it's gonna be the nobody's actually going to wrap around and say, hey, you should watch this show. It just people will be like, yeah, whatever was kind

of garbage, move on. Yeah. The audience is probably less tolerant than they are now. Oh, I would imagine. Like, because it's, remember, the whole idea is serialized and that they're not building up some ultimate, you know, goal that's not reached a point in TVs. And so there, you know, anybody who's watching this stuff, there's no investment. You just watch a single episode. You, you know, you missed the next week. Oh,

well. And I think that's probably the reason why is because if you do miss the next week's episodes, it's, you know, it's okay. It doesn't actually detract from like a over-arking storyline that you're gonna miss. I will agree with that to a point. Yes, there is no over-arking story and I can skip an episode and jump into the next one and have no problem following along. However, character wise, there needs to be some thread of logic. And with his behavior, there really wasn't. Oh, I don't take it an A, since me, excusing the way Spock was. I definitely agree on that.

The more you brought up, I think I completely forgot about him shouting the command part. Yeah. You know the more you brought up I think I completely forgot about him shouting the command part Yeah, but it's just I don't know I think I think watching these episodes out of order those inconsistencies and character become more evident But is it is it really that it's evident to us because we're watching it in The order that was aired or is it more evident because we have years and years of conditioning of we know how a spot should be acting or will be acting. And so therefore our minds immediately go to that. Both.

I would say both. You know, you'll watch next generation and Picard is a dick for season one. Is it because he's British? No. No. It's because Patrick Stewart didn't want to be there. Wait, he says, yes, he has his most famous role, right? It is. Yeah, but he had to get like kind of twisted into it. He wasn't a fan at first. But anyway, that makes me sad. The way the character, you know, he came around. Don't worry about it. Like, what we watch, it's a watch TNG. We can, we can talk about that. But I mean, like, you

could see the character and the writing change and kind of hone in on what, um, you know, Jean Luc Picard is supposed to be. And the same happens with all the other shows too. And I think a big part of that is, you know, writers trying to figure it out. When you're airing the episodes in an order that they weren't written in, the viewer kind of loses that. And I think it becomes more jarring. I definitely get that. But I again, to me, it's a serialized Asian show that, well, yeah, it does become jarring when you're watching everything dedicated, but they're trying to build up an audience, and I think right there, there were less caring about individuals understanding how things are progressing and more concerning about those numbers. I mean, that was the Nielsen ratings is like what they would go by, like solely.

They can't go by clicks, they can't go by views, things like that. So it's a little different of a time period, and I think that's the main concern towards it. Mijid, what are your thoughts on that? Like, how do you feel that that, because they aired this as the pile episode, the third episode, is it really destroying, watching it from episode to episode, seeing the character's block change in that way? Or is it kind of like an understandable growth pattern

or just them trying to still feel for the character? I, we're noticing more because we are essentially binging and we are tracking stuff from week to week with our fancy spread sheets and metrics. So we are feeling this a lot more than someone would back in the 60s. You know, back then they just come back home with their glass of whiskey and they're watching a Star Trek episode. So should we then get rid of our spreadsheets and just go old fashion,

we grab some whiskey and a cigar and have a sit on the couch and watch it that we can just talk over the phone. I don't drink alcohol. Let alone whiskey. I don't want to burn everything inside of me. It's wrong with whiskey. A burn's going in and I have to imagine a burn's coming out. You're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, not you're not you're lack of response is not give me any confidence that it doesn't burn way out If it burns if it burns of the way out, I think you have other problems

You can start by buying a whiskey that doesn't suck. Does the rock make whiskey? Haven't had up his buddy Ryan Reynolds maybe they could talk. I understand that. Oh is that the joke? Oh god. I'm so sorry I went over my head. You can't give to Marits. That's not what I'm just saying. How? We've never defined the Demerit system. So. That's fair. Are we tracking this?

We have a spreadsheet for the Marits. Oh man. Well, we can start. We can start creating one now. All right. No. Seriously, yeah, no, not happening. I'm the one doing the spreadsheets.

I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. Spread you guys can do the Dmitri sheet. I don't care. Right. We do some Excel formulas. If, uh, if this equals this, then Drew got eight Dmitri's.

That's all in Excel formula works, right? I don't know. This is part of my daily job.? I don't know. This is part of my daily job, and I don't know how Excel works. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, man. Oh, man. Anyways, gentlemen, so moving on to more of a pleasant topic, what is something that worked

well for this episode? What is something that you found entertaining, that really appeals, or that kind of drew you into the episode itself? Magi, let's start with you. How about you on that sense? What really spoke to you in this episode? A curse leadership man, that's been like rock steady the entire run so far. So him wanting to be the captain that says, hey, we're going to let these two officers rest, not with this most recent event that just happened, but their record will just say that they served

nobly and died in service. So, you killed an action or something? Right, you know, performance of their service, yeah. Right, so that, him understanding, you know, that'll look good for a, their record, and be whatever family, that Gary Mitchell and Denmark had. Denmark, Denmark? Denmark. Denmark.

Denmark. Denmark. It's Denmark. There's no, there's no. Oh my God. Denmarker, Denmarker. Denmarker. Denmarker.

Denmarker. I wonder why you're getting the Dermare tonight. That's fair. I deserve it. I just refer to as Elizabeth. I deserve that Dermare. I'll take that. Now where is a badge of honor? So the back back Kirk was the brave captain that he was and just again, that's been carrying throughout the entire show. And I love it. And also, you know,

again, he's not, you know, afraid to get down and dirty. Fighting. He's not afraid to get down and dirty fighting. The other stuff we have got to get. Thank you for clarifying much much much appreciate on that. Yeah, I had to clarify. But I do I do feel like Kirk is still a little bit careless in the way with his crew. You know, it's kind of the oh, we found a black box from a destroyed ship. Let's go follow it into the purple mist that we have no idea what destroyed it. Right. That's And then nine of his crew members died. And I'm like, oh, Kirk, you're being a Kirk again. You're being a Kirk. It's how he yeah don't don't be a Kirk Kirk. It's how you defeated the Phil bots right right? Yeah. Yeah. He's in the legions of waves and waves and

men. Oh I'm sorry. That's that burn again. It's so it's it's it's we every time. So if you want me to break on stream it's always going to be a feature of a reference about that brand. No, don't worry. No, don't be more to come, more to come. Oh, God, true. It's true, how about you, man? What really appealed to you on this episode? What really stood out on a positive note? In a positive note, okay,

cause I was about to nerd rant again. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Um. You know, I enjoyed in the brief time that we got to know Gary Mitchell, his rapport with James Kirk. It sounded like, you know, they were pretty good friends. I find it difficult to believe that if they were at the academy together that you know Kirk would be his commanding officer. I know Kirk kind of got fast track to the captain's chair, but This kind of makes it seem like he leaped rather than ran

So I don't know that was a little weird, but I mean I thought that they had a pretty good rapport with each other you know for a friendship that had been established in a very short order. Didn't Gary mention in the episode that he messed with like his, like, one of Kirk's girlfriends to a point where Kirk almost married her? Yeah, something like that. I don't remember the details, but it was one of those things where I'm like, this guy seems smarter than he leads on in a sense. Yeah. Let's see here. Let's see here. Mitchell Sissy aimed at little blonde lab technician Adam and Kirk says, you plan that. I almost married her.

So I mean, that could be one of two ways. It could have been like a really bad thing or a really good thing. So it depends on like, there, it depends on the history that they had with that individual. And it could have been a really bad relationship. Who knows?

I also really liked the actor that they chose to play Mitchell, gentlemen by the name of Gary Lockwood. I thought he was excellent. I thought he commanded presence on the screen and was very much between him and Denner and Kirk. The three of them owned this episode from start to finish. You see, like, I, even though I knew how the episode was going to end, I was still hoping they would find a way to get Gary back to normal. I, to your point, like, I really enjoyed the dynamic Gary brought to the episode and the relationship that was there with between him and Kirk and it seemed like there would be more to explore

in a sense kind of like a different version of bones so to speak if he were to stick around. But speaking of bones we didn't see We didn't see the doctor this episode. We saw a different one. It was named as Piper I believe remember correct doctor Piper Was was this the first time we ever saw him and last Actually, I don't know that for certain but we did hear Scotty right? Yes, got was in there. And Sulu, both of them were. Sulu, I'm playing a very different part.

You know, he was like the head of astro sciences, I believe. Yeah. And Scotty though was still the engineer. Chief engineer, right? We saw him in the transporter room. He's also the bridge too. Yes, he was. Yes, you're right, you're right, because he had all the department heads, uh, come to the

bridge and that's when we saw Sulu and Scotty for the first time, um, and both of them presented themselves as the heads of the department. Dr. Piper was, you know, head of medical, Scotty head of engineering, Sulu head of astro sciences, and dinner was on the bridge with them as well too. Was there anybody else? I don't think so. No, no, no, no, we were missing you, Hira. Well, yeah, she wasn't in the episode. No, she wasn't. Yeah. And I don't think there was really any of the Yoman,oman brand wasn't there. Yeah, I was doing a little bit of research on her.

She doesn't appear in nearly as many episodes as we were kind of hoping. Oh, really? Yeah, she's, she's only gonna end up in about like six to eight episodes or so. Over the entire show. I'm, I'm really looking forward to getting into future episodes to see who actually has more roles,

but I'm pretty sure that it's going to boil down to the ones we know, the ones that we're really more familiar with. Because it's funny, I was thinking about when we were playing Star Trek timelines and we would see the pop-ups of these random characters, like Gary Mitchell will come up. And I'd be like, who the heck is this person? And now we're starting to really get an understanding of all these references. And even in Star Trek Lower Decks, I'm getting much more references to the jokes,

and it's more meaningful, and it's funnier. You speak about language harder. You speak about language harder. You speak about language, man. Listen, I ended up watching the season two episode one of Lower Decks. And I belly laughed so hard. I had such a good time watching episode when Jaguar and St. called Gary Mitchell and lawsuit and

And the the chief medical officer say I don't know we just threw a bow there And he was gonna At the end when Jack ransom is just cured drops of bulls are under many It makes it a lot more entertaining. And I do want to go back and watch all of Lower Decks, probably, though, once I finish the original series. Because I've seen every single episode of all the other Star Trek series with the exception of Enterprise. I think that's the only one that I did not see everything else.

Same, same. Although I haven't seen all of the Actually, I don't think I've seen any of the animated series episodes. Which lower dicks does tap into that more than once. Are we gonna make that our next one or Or are we going to go to the movies? Well, I think we'll have to let the viewers decide. Watchers. Wait, listeners? I said what I said.

I'm going to say something that's pretty controversial for me and this may upset Drew. I find the original series is easier to watch and digest than discovery. Well to Brad's point earlier it's about that episodic nature. You know these these episodes are isolated chunks. You know you could sit down tune in and 50 minutes later tune out, and now have to worry about trying to retain what happens for next week's episode. Oh, you wish it's not that. It's, uh, it's the cast.

The cast, I think, is more likeable than anybody in, well, again, aside from, um, uh, what would we call him Alpha Kirk? I'm sorry, Alpha Pike? New Pike? Proto Pike. No, Proto Pike is what we don't talk about. You know what? Your first experience with Star Trek was the Abrams. Run, JJ Abrams.

Right, thanks Claire. And then your first experience with TV shows, is that discovery? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, it was discovery with Scarbidge. It's not, I mean, it's, it has moments. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm, it did have his moments when, you know,

Alpha Pike shows up. But I think to you, to your point, though, is that this, this crew that we've been dealing with in the original series is a lot more likable than some of the characters that have come out of discovery. Yeah. No, totally. I'm not going to say any names. Burnham Burnham is, uh! Burnum is an emotional wreck. Yeah, but in truth though, I think the original series, because it is episodic, they have to do a story within a short period of time build up relationships with the understanding that the viewers not necessarily going to tune in next week unless that episode to them, you know, they're watching right there's probably entertaining them. Like that's, I mean, there's, there's a way to do that. And we've seen it time and time again in Star Trek, you know, um,

it's, it's not a difficult formula to, to make. And you can still have character progression Well, when did they when did TV start to go to Go away from like episodic and more into building up relationships between characters Like I don't think that was until like the the 80s when J. R got shot in Dynasty So I'm not I'm So I'm not making fun of them. I mean, there's no poppers. Like the soap operas.

No, you bring up a good point. So poppers did a really good job because it actually brought a full continued storyline that was, you know, from each episode that continues on to the next one. Yeah. And I don't think most TV shows didn't really follow those types of things because it's, you know, you do have primetime TV, people tune into what's entertaining right now.

Right. And it's easy to alienate an audience that way too, especially when you have networks that move your show around at different times. Back then, there was no DVR, there was no, you know, like if you were going to watch an entire series, you were potentially buying, you know, uh, dozens of VHS tapes. Well, I remember I remember if I missed like an episode of Star Trek Voyager, even even when like that was on, like I would have to watch it at like 2 a.m. on a Thursday night, um, the following week, if I wanted to catch that episode again. And it wasn't much easier. I don't think it really got easier until the 2000s,

unless you were like a dev, not DVD, VHS recording habit. You know? Well, like I'm just thinking about like in science fiction, you know, Deep Space 9 kind of went a little serialized, but Babylon 5 was serialized from episode 1. Yeah. You know, if you, if you didn't follow that show, like you might be able to get away with missing an episode here or there, but if, if you missed more than two consecutive episodes

in a season, you're not. You're not in good shape. Well, moving back into the Star Trek universe and the episode at hand, let's get to the grading scale. So on a scale of one to 10, but gee, how do you feel that this episode held up for you? What do you think my score is going to be? Knowing me, what do you think I'm going to say? I'm going to tell you the score and then you're going to guess it. it and if you guess if you pick the same number I do you owe me $10 I'm not playing that I don't know

Do you know how much gas is right now? That's exactly why I'm doing I may not drive to work my wife does you have a bicycle No, I tell you don Can you just send me the money because I have the longest commute of both of you guys? Sure, that's sure. Yeah, you can just put your car in neutral and this guy glide down the highway. You're fine.

This doesn't work that way. It's momentum. So, so, Maggi, what's your score of this episode? I would give it a, I would give it a six. I'll give it a nice good six. Give it a, I would give it a six. I'll give it a nice good six. Why? Yeah, any specific reason why?

Oh, because you don't kill a god with a lowercase G, with a boulder. You can't, you, with the amount of power that Gary Mitchell had, you can't kill him with a boulder. And you sure as heck can't you know fistfight him No, no body slams no Stop it. Listen When we get to that episode of

Voyager with or wherever we have a long way out of us. It's fine. Um, you know, stop it, Brad, you're, you're, you're, you're throwing me off. I think, I think that's going to probably be like what? It's like 10 years from now, we'll get to that. It's fine. You get, you guys can math it out if you'd like. I'm not even going to try. I don't, I don't do math. Um, my wife does the math. Um, no, I mean, I, I don't, I don't think the resolution My wife does the math. No, I mean, I don't think the resolution, you know, fit the, I don't think the resolution fit the problem and the scale of that problem.

You hit, you hit it with a boulder. That's not the way to fix something. Fair enough, fair enough. Drew, how about you, buddy, on a scale of one set? Where would you rate this episode? You know, coming into our discussion, I was kind of putting it at a seven, but now that we've talked about it a little bit more, I think I'm gonna have to shout out the six that Majid gave it. But I want to say maybe for different reasons. I like the episode. I think it was a good story. I think it was well-acted. But they were just

trying to cram so much into so little time. And it was just a little a little fast for me, I think. Just too much going on. I think if they just slowed the pace down a little bit, it probably could have brought it up to a 7 or 8. But that said, like, where I do think it was a better god episode than Charlie X was. I don't think it was a terrible pilot. But in hindsight, you know, now that we've kind of talked it through, I do agree that the studio may have made the right choice to go with a different episode as episode one. But I always love seeing stuff where you get to see like a nod to something current, you know, the Gary Mitchell Jack ran some stuff

in lower decks. Love it. You didn't really care for the Turlknock uniforms? No, nobody likes turlknocks. No, nobody likes turlknocks. It's not that cold in space, is it? When did they do like, Turtle Neck uniforms, like one of the movies,

like, kind of like where they had almost Turtle Necks, or it's like, when we was like a dress uniform, even, it was, no, in one of like, I think it was like, episode five, maybe they, they had like, a dress uniform with Turtle Necks, and it was kind of, it just looked hilarious if I remember correctly. Of the original series? Yeah, the original one.

I, man, that's going to kill me now. Episode five or movie five? Movie five, movie five. That's the one that I've seen the least. So it's the, it's the, it's the, another god, it's a god story, remember? Yeah. So that's probably why it's probably why It makes a lot of sense true Is to why you gave a solid six and and quite frankly, I'm actually with both of you. I

I'm picking a six as well But I think a little difference between you and me maje, is I'm more following a line with Drew here. I feel that the story for this episode, while it was a better God story than Charlie X, like Drew you mentioned, it felt way too packed with everything. There's too much going on, and I felt in a sense kind of overwhelmed

from all these different discussion points, these different talking points. And in some cases, it felt that they were just saying stuff to confuse me. And it just felt like, hey, you're making up words. You're sounding confident while you do, so I don't know if they're real. I do them. It helps. It helps the self-illusionment. You know what you're doing.

Yeah, and that's kind of the problem I had with this episode is stuff like that. Really, it became to a point where I was having to rewind it for 30 seconds to be like, did I just hear that crackly? What's going on? and I had to do that a few times. And I think that kind of really dragged it. Well, to, to, again, Drew's point, though, this is not nowhere near like a horrible episode. It was definitely much better than the original pilot, in my opinion. And it also did a better God storytelling than what we've seen so far. I do feel that it was a solid six, though, overall. But yeah, I think that's a good idea. So did a better God storytelling than what we've seen so far.

I do feel that it was a solid six though overall. But yeah, it just had different, it just had different problems. Yeah, yeah. And I feel that if they had broken out certain aspects of this episode into a different episode that it would have solved a lot of the issues and it made it a much better episode overall. You guys he preferred the Charlie X as a quote unquote God episode and I never thought of it as a God episode. I thought of Charlie X as a enhanced human episode.

Never split in hairs, we're splitting hairs. Yeah. Like he could he could vanish somebody with a thought. Yeah, so controls his area. No, no, no, he, okay, we're not getting if this comes. But, but I think, I mean, Drew are looking at it, Charlie X, as the ability to But, you mean, Drew are looking at it, Charlie X, as the ability to pretty much do whatever he wants and people having very little power to stop him. That's kind of what we're referring to as like a God-like episode. You can call it omnipotence if you want

or whatever you want to call it. It's this extra power over humanity outside of natural means. So it's a little bit different than like our, you know, Professor X from the X-Men where you can manipulate somebody's mind to make them do or think something, whereas this is just like, you can do

what the hell you want. Gotcha. Okay. Well, yeah, when we say that way, that makes a little more sense. I won't use the word Drew, use because I can't pronounce it. I'm nipotence. Nope, not even gonna try. sense. I won't use the word Drew use because I can't pronounce it. Um, nippetance. Nope, not even gonna try. No, no, no, yeah, say we're not gonna try. I'm gonna, I'm gonna butcher that one up to you, so don't worry. Um, nippetance. I can barely say it in my name properly.

name properly. Oh, all right. But it was definitely understandably, and it definitely moved on from its own sense of the way that it was a decent episode, which is good. And I'm happy to see that we're not seeing another repeat of the original pilot where it was just somewhat of a train wreck. Right. Yeah, let's talk about the cage so horrible. I know that that that will be the episode we will never reference.

Yeah, it. God. Until we do again, they made such a good choice. I can't say it enough, man, they made such a good choice. If you were trying to sell me on Star Trek and told me to watch the cage at first, I would have I would have opened hands slap you in the face. I stand by these words. Well listeners, we hope you surely use our words of wisdom to make sure you watch this episode of Star Trek.

But we want to thank you one and all for tuning in for yet. We gotta talk about next week. What are we watching next week? The naked time, baby. I gotta leave that in. Shit, I was hoping we could maybe skip this one for once, but I guess I can't. So, ladies and gentlemen.

It's a very, very simple premise. Yes, naked side, baby. Ladies and gentlemen, tune in next week where we will be watching the episode, the naked time. Baby. Hosted by Magi. I'm excited. And in this episode, the Enterprise crew is intoxicated by an inhibition, stripping

contagion that causes mayhem throughout the ship. It's a key. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. And tune in next time for you on yet another Star Trek podcast. We are part of the Retro Sessions Network. This episode was recorded on March 1, 2022, and is hosted by Brad Drew Amigee. As always, our episodes are edited by Drew,

Lord of the Packlets. No suspenders Brad wrote the synapses, Fruity Pebbles Mijeeed, took care of the RR work. Our music warped speed and to the stars was written performed by William Grobalar Music. Be sure to check him out on SoundCloud, we'll have a link in the show notes. Want to chat with us on social media? We're just about everywhere at yet another ST pod. Want to drop us a line? Email us at yet another ST pod at gmail.com. Next week we'll be watching the naked time. We'll all be watching it naked, watch but along with us on Paramount Plus and let us know what you think of the episode.

Want to support the show, the best way is to write a review and rate us on Apple podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else where you get your podcasts. Don't forget to subscribe too, that's pretty important. Thanks again, we'll see you next week. you