Yet Another Star Trek Podcast - Ep 017: (SNW S01E07) The Serene Squall

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

This week The Gang watches the episode "The Serene Squall", not to be mistaken with Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy 8. The crew of The Enterprise are on their way to assist three colony ships. Boy Scout Pike cooks his way through the episode, making many marvelous dishes. Brad hosts this weeks episode while Drew and Majeed make an attempt to pay attention. 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 Drop us an email at [e-mail]! “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

Good evening and welcome to yet another Star Trek podcast. I'm your host, Fred, and I hope everybody's having a fantastic Father's Day. We are actually recording on June 19th for all those wonderful Fathers out there. Happy Father's Day. And of course as usual, my two Mitzvitz are joining me as usual. Drew and Majeed, how how you guys doing there guys? I don't like, I don't like that you just call me a misfit. It's accurate though. It's very true. It's very true. Well I get it's accurate. I mean I could I guess I could just call you Terry Cruz but you know. Oh right that reference I was making my man boobs dance for Brad. He had never seen it before. Listen you do not insult Terry Cruz that way. That man is a national treasure.

Did you just insult Majid by saying? Yeah, you just insulted me by defending Terry Cruz? Yes. Tell me I'm wrong. That's fair. I can't argue. I really can't argue with that, that with that that question there. Um, so how you guys been? How's everything been going? I know it's been, uh, quite a busy week for

for all of us. I just saw you seven days ago. You yes, that's that's why I said, quite busy week for all of us. I know, but like actually saw you like physically solving. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I was able to hug and touch you. I Wasn't I had a work and I touched them for you. Thank you. Oh, and you know Drew. I guess you may not have heard of this, but so To our wonderful listeners some news for you to my wife and I are expecting a child and we're coming up on I think, two more months until we're due. Yeah. Oh my God, that's great.

I had no idea. But I was up in Connecticut with my wife for our baby shower. And Majeed was kind enough to do those pre-maternity pictures. I don't know what they're called. was kind enough to do those pre-maternity pictures. I don't know what they're called. Those pictures. Those pre-maternity, if she's already pregnant. Right, if she's not pregnant yet,

then it's pre-maternity pictures. Okay, so normal pictures. So basically normal pictures. So then it would be fraternity pictures. So I guess if you take a photo of me, it's pre-maternity, technically. I mean, until you get pregnant. But, but anyways, magi was kind enough to take pictures for my wife and I and they

came out fantastic. He says they came out great. I mean, you know, the world will never know. So, so to, to insert a little tagline, magi, what's your, you know, you should totally dish out a, a calling card, your email address to let everybody know the Europe for business I hope for business. I just don't have a name for the business Well then to all of our listeners if you think of a name for magi's business shoot us an email Yeah, except you Frank's Frank's you stay out of this. I have a suggestion

What's that you're is it Frank's like yet another maternity Go go right in with theme. Yeah, we had a list. I mean, whatever Frank's gives us is not going to be me. Well, I bet. Well, the one thing that was a little bit interesting during that and to my parents house, my hotel, my dad, how everything goes good. And he's like, oh, my dad's like, yeah. Oh yeah, there's there's homeless guys that live underneath the gazebo. And how do you live under a gazebo? Well, it's like, I mean, no-ish.

There's a bit of an incline. But we got there, right. Just to kind of add that to a little backstory, we get there to the gazebo. And there's what appears to be a bundle of clothing on the corner bench. And there's also oranges like two tangerines there. It was three. For no reason. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Whatever. And if this person hypothetically were underneath the zebo, they haven't me talking junk about his Tangerines.

They're also looking up my shorts and they would have heard me threaten to steal their Tangerines. That's really low, man. You were gonna steal Tangerines from a homeless guy? I was hungry. I was hungry. Listen, that's Brad, how many meatballs are there?

Oh my God. My parents hungry. Listen, ask Brad how many meatballs I have. Oh my God. My parents like salued you sir. My mother made these sweet meatball, like appetizer things. And I guess Majid thought, hey, you know what? This is the food that I get to eat today. It's just these sweet meatballs. So I'm just gonna pile them on my plate. And I swear he had to have

eaten at least 20. Oh my God. So, all right, it's just a little, a little more clarification because Brad is just like deframating my character right now. I need to have a certain amount of protein and, you know, not a lot of carbs. So there were other foods there just that when he came to the food, I really can't eat it's to meatballs, cause it's protein. Keep in mind, it was appetizer food. It was caramel. I had no idea that it was like a main meal.

I thought it was just like finger foods, and then there were other meatballs. I had it. Yes, the mother made really nice homemade meatballs from scratch. And they're the savory type. And then we also got chicken parm and pasta. Right.

So there was pasta and bread gave me a hard time because I had no pasta. I give you a hard time for not having the chicken parm. You have chicken parm? Well, no. I didn't have the chicken parm. You don't have chicken parm? Well, no. I didn't have the chicken parm. It was breaded chicken parm. He just ate the balls, that's all.

Hey, easy, Frank's is just jumping off. So are you like comments? Just not eating gluten too. Is that a part of your diet? That's just, no, no, I just thought I have to, I gotta hit a certain number for proteins to keep muscle while I continue to cut. So, but my cheat day will be Saturday after the train race, which I get another Star Trek podcast. We'll have a present time.

By which I mean out of the three of us, I will be the only one participating in the in the run. You can do it, Majeed, win the race. There's, so it's not an actual race race. There's no first place, second place. It's basically an obstacle course. It's basically think of the Spartan run. The Spartan race except like a mini. You know who, you know who says things like that? Terrier Chris people who people who don't know how to win.

You're gonna be a tiger dad, aren't you? Well, Drew, we missed your buddy at the the shower. So next time, if there is a next time, I'm sure welcome to come. I appreciate that. I much would have rather have been at the baby shower than what I ended up doing that evening, but, you know. Yeah, listen, Brad's father, by the way, just seriously, he is Brad.

Oh, I believe that's pretty accurate. I believe it. Yeah. I think my dad was a little tipsy at that point. I believe that too. Really pretty accurate. I believe it. Yeah. Um, I think my dad was a little little tipsy at that point. I believe that too. Really well gave it away. No, I, I, I like your father. I wouldn't, I wouldn't mind him without. Yeah, he ended up paying around, uh, Majid, Frank's Wayne and, uh, and my buddy, um, Nelson, Nelson, who... Is that his real name, or you just gave him like a pseudonym, he gave for Frank's name?

I gave him a pseudonym. Oh, hey, all right. Oh, speaking of friends, there exists a picture of you holding a watermelon, a melon of some sorts, and you have this look on your face. Can you give me the back story of this? You said that you would tell us. Oh, okay, okay.

Yeah. Well, what happened is for some reason my phone decided to populate this picture that is like 10 years old. Imagy, you're more than welcome to go ahead and Photoshop it up, man, and post it on your social media. I don't need your permission. I don't need your permission. I don't need your permission. Yeah, you're good, you're good.

But no, it is not a water mon. It's a picture of me at Easter holding up a hard boiled ostrich egg. I have more questions. I still have questions. And on the ostrich egg is a painted dinosaur. Gee, have you ever seen an ostrich egg? No, I don't think those are real. Go to hell foods, man.

Go to hell foods. I'm serious, they haven't. So do you eat them like a normal egg that you scrambled? Yeah, you can do whatever you want. They're like the equivalent of like a dozen eggs or something, one of them is. Oh, yeah, what? Yeah, so to give you more context on the whole situation,

is that every year for many years, my family would have Easter and we would hold an egg spinning competition. Where one verse one and you kind of have a full bracket and the winter takes the home with trophy and you spin an egg. And you know what, I was like, hey, you know what, I'm going to go big this year. So I got an ostrich egg. And it took me about like, I think it was like an hour maybe maybe two hours to hard boil that

ostrich. That thing is freaking huge and did not fit or fully submerge in any pot that I had. But it was me like trying to boil it for like two hours. It was hilarious. And then we get there, I remember very clearly, I had a lunchpale cooler, and I pull out my egg, and everybody, my family is like, what in the F do you have there? I had a special order, by the way.

I had a special order from Texas, but because they didn't have it in Whole Foods at the time. All right, so I'm going to reach you a couple facts from Livstrunk.com about Austria's eggs. Livstrunk.com, the authority on Austria's eggs. Right, which is again, I don't know if this is true. So one Austria's egg contains about 2,000 calories, 100 grams of fat, 235 grams of protein. They go on to say, think of it like this. Just one of those eggs have weigh up to five pounds, take 45 to 90 minutes to cook, and it's equivalent to having 28 large chicken eggs. So it's not really a practical food source. I think there's one way we can sell this.

We can get 28 large chicken eggs from Frank's and we can get one of these ostrich eggs we can compare. I like it. Eggs are like my favorite food so I love eggs. So after the competition I of course was like you know what what am I gonna do with a giant ostrich egg? It's hardwell. Brought home, cracked it open, it made egg salad sandwich. Must have been a big sandwich.

Well, I ended up making like 28 sandwiches. 28 sandwiches. It was, there's just so much egg and it tasted like pretty much exactly like an arbor egg would but the consistency was a bit different. It definitely denied look merely like a normal arbor like so it was a it was an interesting experience. I'd like to try one. So you know that would be fun. Uh, yes, you look like what Magizad you'd need like an hour and a half to hard boil that thing. I wouldn't

hard boil it. I would probably scramble it. I'd scramble it. Oh, scramble it. Okay, okay. Yeah. Because then you can make a giant omelet. You could. Good. So this week we watched the Serene Squall. Another episode that starts off with Spock having clear relationship troubles with Brink. She apparently is a bit more adventurous than Spock is, doing research on human sex. Being a bit taken aback, Spock suggests more collaborative approach and read the books together. I don't know about you folks, but I kinda feel like Spock's taking this deer head on. Yeah, like to bring, just starts throwing out these novels

that she's been reading about like human sex, just because he's half human. She's like, oh, this is the solution to our problems. It was a pretty funny scene when she told Spock what she was researching. It was like one of those like, what are you doing? Yeah. Because she's so deadpan, you know, so logical about it. And Spock like also equally deadpan, but with a completely different reaction.

Yes, it's not, it's kind of like it never, it would never occur to him kind of situation. it's kind of like it never it would never occurred to him kind of situation. Well, I think you might have been too embarrassed to, you know what I mean? Like I know, I know Vulcans are supposed to have control over their emotion, but Spock was pretty embarrassed in that scene. Well, getting into the actual story of the episode, Pike has cooked a meal for several crew members as well as the new guest Dr. Aspen. The crew enjoys a few good laughs, Aspen explains about a pirate ship called the Serene Squall, and apparently Pike is Starfleet's Boy Scout. which apparently is actually in his file. And I would like to see that file now. Oh, yeah. I want to see him being called a Boy Scout. I think that's kind of hilarious.

I want to see in this file where he's called Zaddy. That's a part. Is it classified? When you black it out? Classified. No, well, yeah, I mean, the files classified, but they are redacted. Redacted. Okay, okay. Well, we learned that they are on their way to provide aid to stranded

colonists ships. However, things seem pretty grim upon their arrival, and they find two of the three ships destroyed is quickly suspected the colonists were taken to be sold off as slaves. is quickly suspected the colonists were taken to be sold off as slaves. Pike makes the decision to search for the missing ship despite starfleet being two days away from communicating with them. The crew eventually finds the missing ship. All 200 colonists are purely being held captive inside. Pike and several crew members beam over to try and rescue them, however, it turns out to be a whole ruse when they don't find any of the colonists. Pirates

beam over to the Enterprise at the same moment and take over the ship. Number one is able to lock the ship down before she is captured and Spock, Aspen and Nurse Chapel manage to flee and work towards freeing the ship. I have to say like the the fight sequence when the the pirates taken over and they are doing that dive from Dr. Aspen to protect Spock, that was pretty cool. Yeah, I enjoyed that. That was well done. And I like the sneaky like guerrilla tactics that Chappell was doing. Oh yeah, yeah, no that.

Chappell was to me, my opinion MVP in this episode. Pretty high in that list, yeah. Pike and the other captured crew members are interrogated by the pirates. And of course, Mr. Boy Scout does what he does best and cooks his way into the heart of his captors. Eventually, he starts to so doubt in some of the crew members and kind of staging for a mutiny.

Back on the Enterprise, Spock, Aspen and Chapel managed to secure engineering and begin to take control of the ship. This is quickly foiled when it turns out Aspen was actually the pirate captain all along Angel and she takes full control of the ship. The whole scheme was just a ruse to have to bring a prisoner in exchange him for Spock's life. Spock is able to convince to bring not to go through with it by pretending to have an affair with Nurse Chapel. This allowed enough time for Pike and the rest of the crew

to take control of the Serene Squall and take back control of the Enterprise. Angel Hover escapes by transporting to a nearby ship alone, and Spock later explains the prisoner she was attempting to release was his half-brother, Sybok. To sum up this episode, cooking for your captors is a great way to start a Muay Nguyenni. Spock is a hot mess and a hyperspray

is just as effective as a phaser. Gentlemen, that was some episode we had there, wasn't it? Yeah. Didn't have quite as many plot twists as some of the other episodes we've encountered these past couple weeks. But you mean I last reset episodes, Brad're at like a plot twist every five minutes. No, no, there definitely wasn't. But there was still a few twists in here and there. Majeed, I know you really enjoyed the twist with Aspen going from

you know, being on the side of the Starfle fleet then to be the villain of the day. She went from bad girl to bad girl. Like she went to be like the pretty formidable foe for the Enterprise. A couple of things man, I listen, I enjoyed the episode where I enjoyed the party episode where it's basically die hard. Yeah, and they're hiding in the fence.

And it was the one man army in Nurse Chapel, which by the way, which he took out the entire invading force inside of engineering and Spock is like, oh, okay, well. Yeah, I guess we'll do it this way. That was pretty bad ass. I think looking towards the episode, there were a few things that kind of had a little bit

I had some problems with, but I think for the most part of his is a good episode overall. One of the common reoccurrences is, is Pike Cooks, he likes to cook a lot. And I feel like there's gonna be no end to that point. And it's just gonna be a continued reoccurring adventure. It does seem to be a recurring thing, which I like. I like that he has his thing that he does with the crew

on a semi-regular basis. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, I like I like that part a good deal. I think You know, I honestly at first I didn't really care for Dr. Aspin as a character. I it felt very pushed into it when we were talking about But that kind of changed once it was switched over to Angel, turns out the pirate captain. I got a little bit more comfortable with the character because it made more sense to me. I could be wrong entirely,

but my view was kind of like when they had her as Dr. Aspin, I kind of felt like it was they casted wrong because it didn't feel like the way they described the character they were talking about. It kind of felt off, but then they did the reversal reveal and it made more sense. I was like, okay, now I get it. How about you guys? Do you guys have any type of experience like that? With her? Yeah, with with the ass. I think I'm like in general, like in real life. Yeah, I'll go with real life. Sure. Do you have any of the issues where your wife is like, you know, one thing and then all of a sudden,

she turns out to be the some crazy person? Well, that's a trap. Yeah, I'm not answering that question. So the face tattoo she's given us an idea she was a bad guy, right? That's kind of why I think why I had such a weird feeling about the character in the beginning is that was like, it wasn't like an octopus tentacle or something. That's right. She's not like, she's not, she's not, she's not stewed from hangover though. It's not like she's got, you know, trunk and, you know, a giant face tat. Yeah. I must have missed this line of dialogue, but I guess, uh, Dr. Aspin is somebody, it's an actual character. And from what I understand,

Angel just left her stranded somewhere. The real Dr. Aspin, we don't really know where, or where if the crew then Enterprise were able to find her after this. Just kind of, they didn't mention it again, right? Yeah, it was a throwaway line that she was, you know, kind of somewhere, assumed dead, presumed dead.

And that was it. Never to be heard of again. The other thing that kind of was a little bit off for me was with the other pirate crew that was on the Serene Squall. There was a clear, I don't know, guy who was in charge. But like the question is, is like, should was was angel the real person in charge? Or was it just, or was angel using them to, you know, get like what she wanted?

I got the vibe that Angel was the leader and that the crew that was on the serene squall was under her command. And so the problem I have with that part is that if you think about Pike's plan to create a mut Like, would that really work though? Because that guy that was like, he was making the crew question or the pirates question, was if he's not really the captain, like, why would they really need to be worried about what he does? I don't know. Um, yeah, that one struck me kind of as weird too.

I was hoping you guys would explain to me, but I was more excited for the fact that that was an Orion. Yeah. That was an Orion. That was Tendi's race from Lower Decks. You bailed out on Discovery a little early, but we have seen Orion's in Discovery as well. So it's nice to see them exploring that race more because they really

didn't do much with them outside of the original series. They're the villains, the Orion Syndicate or whatever that was called in the third season. If 10 years you say that she would not write syndicate is from deep space nine. In discovery. Oh, the chain. Emerald chain. Emerald chain. That's what was yeah. Yeah. But, but no, I don't know. The the Iranians were okay. Not, I mean, I think my favorite villain of all searchers would probably be like the Dominion. I think they're probably my favorite and followed by the board, but the Emerald Chain was okay.

The, I guess, this guy though, the captain of the Serene Swallow or the supposed captain, I think to me that was like a bit of a It was a little confusing for me because it really felt like he was in charge of that group while Angel was in charge of this other group and She was like taking advantage of the situation That's kind of how I was seeing it. Because if it was really Angel was in charge of both groups, then the crew of the Serene Squall had no reason to form a mutiny, right?

Because they can just know Angel is gonna be the one in charge and they'll just trust her. And quite frankly, she seems a lot more competent than the other guy. Yeah, it's a little loose and sloppy with the continuity, but I don't think it necessarily took anything away from the story overall. But Gita, how about you?

Did you, were you confused just as much as I was? Yeah, because I think every five minutes I was a message to you guys like, oh my god, look, an Orion. Or, oh my god, die hard in space. So what you're telling us is that you should probably watch an episode without your phone near you. I mean, shut up. It's impossible. I did set my phone down. The episode started off slow for me.

I don't know, it just started off slow. I think I messaged Drew when I started, might started watching the episode on Thursday. And I'm like, hey, are they, she trying to initiate fun sex with Spock? Oh, geez. What's happening right now? Okay. And it took me, so I started Thursday, Friday past Saturday.

I had to restart the episode this morning before I left for church. And I watched it five minutes before we start recording. Finish it. So this whole is a bit of a matter is that you finished it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm always good to finish. I mean, I can always finish. That's not a problem for me. So try trying trying to move away from the obvious joke here. What what about nurse chapel though? I think I think she honestly she was MVP for this episode. I felt so bad for chapel. Yeah. Yeah. With the, uh, because you could tell that she has feelings for a spot.

And we knew that in TOS though. Did we? Yeah, during naked time. She professed his feelings for him. I'm sorry. Naked time. I'm not putting the music in. But, but, yeah, yeah, she did.

I don't think of anything that was professing that episode as true necessarily being true. She wanted to fuck banana. I mean, I don't know. People were acting in ways that they normally wouldn't have in that. It was lowered inhibitions. Lowered inhibitions, right. So I don't count that in my opinion You know if she made a like a move on him outside of being under the influence then maybe but well

I can understand your point Magiddo it does Make a bit of sense there But I kind of agree a little bit more with during this is I wouldn't necessarily trust that those episodes. But then again that could be just the writers trying to write into that situation where she's always been in love with Spock Mm-hmm. Maybe I mean we of course will have hopefully many more seasons to come of Stranger World's We've got at least nine. We've got at least one more. Yes, stop it. Sure. I want I want nine more

I'm good with seven seven seven's a comfortable number, but it's it's Stretching pushing it. Well, it's not the same because we had seven seasons with 26 episodes a season. It's different nowadays, you know. Well, think about those 26 episodes though. Like how much actually progressed? Yeah, I mean, some of them were pretty dragged out. Yeah, it wasn't always a hit.

But back to Chapel, though, I thought she was kicking ass pretty well. She was. No, she was. Chapel did great. I mean, you know, she used her resources effectively. She knows that she's not somebody that's gonna necessarily do well and to shoot out.

So she stuck to what works best for her. Yeah. And that's used in medicine to her advantage. Yeah. No, do you kind of feel how it was so easy for the pirates to take control of the enterprise? That seemed like a little too easy for... Yeah.

I, yeah. There's, you know, invading the most advanced starship in the federation with the best crew in the federation. And they just took over the whole ship in like a matter of moments. Yeah. Seems a little far-fetched to me. It did. How about you, how about you, Majid?

Yeah, listen. There's a lot of plot armor, the fact that a chapel was able to take down these guys with what I assume is a lethal dose of cocaine. I would say non-lethal dose would be more accurate. We don't know if they died. She's a nurse. That whole ship take over scene, I thought was exciting. Maybe put my phone down. You know, the bridge being invaded and Spacke, you know, folk and sleep were holding everyone left the rights. I thought it was just fantastic.

How did you feel? How did you feel about the fact that these invaders essentially took over the ship with out much trouble, though? Well, most of their security force was on the planning, right? Well, I mean, that was like what? 10 people at most. Right, and Sam Kirk was still in a coma. But I think to my view is that how could it be that 10 people is the entire security for force to send over and to protect the entire enterprise? How is it that I mean, sure, they'll be by surprise, but to me,

to me, there was a lack of explanation. They could have elaborated more maybe on a sense of, oh, Angel had done reconnaissance or something like that. And knew where all the patrol positioning was so they could easily get taken out. Something like that, like a throw-in? This whole episode is just a series of convenient events one after another. Yeah, I think it's an accurate statement. I think though, the whole point of the episode is to get to the final talking point that

really wanted to get to the ending of the song. Okay, hey, me, I'm ready. Cyborg. Ooh, yeah. Drew, before I go to you, I'm gonna go to my G. Ah, you sure? G, what are your thoughts on Cyborg? He's a character. He's Spock's half brother.

And he was in Star Trek V where he died. Sorry, Kylo also wants to talk about it. Sorry, Kylo. That's okay. My cat is sitting outside the closed door of this room, meowing at the top of his lungs. I love you, but you gotta go. I'm talking Star Trek right now. You like Star Wars, remember? You're Kylo. Don't stab me with a lightsaber. Okay. Right. Yeah. So I guess side-buck guys in, um, in Star Trek 5 by Sacrifice himself to save Spock. So he can't be all bad. to save Spock? So he can't be all that. Well, he's also the villain throughout the entire film.

So Jesus, what a spoiler. I guess there's no need for me to watch anymore. I mean, you learned that within the first, you know, few minutes of the movie. So I mean, you know, Drew, were you expecting something like this? I was not. Um, so first of all, I would say that Star Trek V is probably the film I've seen the least amount of times. Um, it is not among my favorite Star Trek films.

I don't know if it's a better film or a worse film than the first one, in my opinion, but it is probably the one that I've seen the least. So my memory of it is not as strong as some of the others. You know, I remember certain scenes vividly, and then the rest of the film, including most of Cyboc, is just Cybach, it's just blank. I'm right there with you. For some reason, the original movies, the odd movies, one, three, and five are the ones I've seen the least.

Whereas the even ones, two, four, and six, I can't tell you how many times I've seen, because it's just been too many. That's generally, that's generally, I think most of the fans would agree with that. But I do recall five, probably a lot more than one in three. I think the only reason why that is is that, like, I know my grandmother would take me to movies and she would take me to these really cheap movies on the weekends and she took me to that one. I probably saw it a few times that way.

It wasn't even those second round movie theaters, it was like movies that were already on VHS type thing. But like, but to that point though, is its cyboc is such like an unknown character, I would say, as far as the general population. Mijee, let me ask, have you ever ever heard of Cyboc before this? Yeah, from what I've come back? I don't know why I expected anything else for you.

I really do. I think with Cybbok, he's a character we don't really know too much. It's only real exposure is that movie experience. It's going to be interesting to see how they have him interact within the series. Is he gonna have a major role? Is he gonna have kind of like a just a really small, like here and there type thing? At first, I honestly thought that Angel was gonna be that said villain, that she was gonna be that main point, but then they reveal Sybok,

and now I'm kind of wondering if he's gonna be that potential reoccurring villain for the series. I mean, I think if an angel could fill that role. But how many times are they gonna go back to to these characters, you know, this is supposed to be an episodic show. There aren't too many characters in the other series, Deep Space Nine, and Excluded, that keep popping up over and over again. So, I don't know, I don't think we're going to see too much of either one of them again for the rest of this season.

And well, at least, you know, in Cat Den Angel, they have this character that they can go back to because I don't think she was pretty formidable or at least so was mud when he had the time device in discovery. And they went back to him once. He's only been there twice and I think a short track. Yeah, there was a short track and then the two full episodes with you. But I don't know. So just again, I know we don't want to harp on discovery, but when Mud got the time device, the Groundhog beta device,

he infiltrated obviously the enterprise pretty. No, it was the discovery. He got a discovery pretty quickly, pretty easily, I might add. So, you know, that's two ships that have been compromised because of bad guys. If you can hear that, just a dog trying to get in, by the way. I just think about how often we've seen the flagship or any starship get infiltrated though in Star Trek over the years. And really is it all that often? There should be more people on that ship regardless, you know. I think there was a there was a there was a 20 there was an episode of next generation where a small group captured the enterprise. And the reason

they were able to do it is because the entire crew was already off of the ship. Actually, there's two episodes off the top of my head. One of them was in season one with the binars. And the other one was, I wanna say season six, where Picard is doing the die hard on the ship, I mean, so. Oh yeah, I remember that one, yeah. Yeah. But, I think that was kind of one of the biggest

detractors for this episode for me, was just that things were a little too easy without explanation. And then like the captors just didn't make sense how they created a mutiny when, if they were part of the same group, then how did they create the mutiny? Yeah, I don't know. Oh, you have a squad, never a b squad, right?

So the a squad was if was trading the ship, the b squad wasn't. I suppose that could be clear. Clearly, though, the mutiny didn't really go too well because they were still dealing with it by the time they rescued the enterprise. Yeah. And by the way that little personal transport device. Is that? I don't think that was like a personal transport device. I think it was she signaled the other ship to transport her back. Yeah. But didn't she go to a smaller ship? Yeah. She did. Yeah. Okay. Could have been a shuttle. Could have. She did, yeah. Okay.

Could have been a shuttle. Could have been, could have been anything. But something was there keeping a transporter lock. Got you. I got the impression it was a shuttle that was hiding. Right. It was that spider-looking device that we saw hiding in the asteroids. Right.

Yeah. I will say that I wasn't completely enthralled with the villainous portrayal that angel took. I just don't like the, I guess the the stereotypical cheesy Braggadocious villain that we got those are the best kind of villains those are the villains that are a staple of diehard movies since diehard No, I die hard was was different. I don't agree with that. Oh, man. I thought you about to die hard I thought you about to see bad mouth die hard and no no, I can never I can never bad mouth that movie Okay, you know what I found funny was the about to badmouth that heart and no, no, I can never, I can never badmouth that movie. You know what I found funny was the when when Spock was talking to to bring and on the bridge

and Angel was just kept letting him talk. Even though she knew is like going south rather than like trying to do anything. Be like, let me just shoot him one more time. In front of her. And then we like maybe that one again to shut up kind of thing. Yeah, I don't think Angel was particularly good at being a villain. No, not really. Truth is I would have done some difference when I was infiltrating the ship. Yeah, isn't cyborg though? Like isn't he?

If I remember correctly, not like a villain, so to say, he was like, I'm trying to to find God kind of thinking. He wasn't like evil, he just had a different mission. I remember correctly. Yeah, I know. I was had a different mission too, he was still a villain. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. know. I know. know. I know. I know. I. I know. I know. I know. I. I know. I. I. know. I know. I know. I. 100% in what he was doing and he felt that it was for the right reasons even if it was evil. You know, and Thanos is another great example of that. You know, he 100% believed that what he was doing was the right thing for humanity and the rest of the universe is to eliminate half of everything. Yeah, and I guess to that point, like I didn't really feel that same feeling with Angel. No, it's just kind of slapsticky evil. Yeah, I think. But I get that.

But it didn't detract from the episode too negatively. At least not for me. Okay. the episode too negatively, at least not for me. Okay. Gentlemen, anything else you wanted to bring up or talk about before we go into our scoring? Yeah, when, just one more thing. When Pike was on the pirate ship

and they were attacking the Enterprise, there was a sound bite from the original theme. Not sure if you caught that. I did not. I did not know. Yeah. There was a sound bite playing from the original theme lightly when they were attacking. So that was good to hear. I have to try and see if I can track that down.

That's cool. I like a lovey stories like that. Didn't catch it. I have to admit though, the kitchen on the pirate ship was far superior than my own kitchen. Yeah, that's sad, but why did why did they give them apron? Oh, because he looks good in it. That's fair. By the way, his hair was messed up too much either. No, he's, he's, hey man, Pike's looking good. Can't every single episode. There you go. Can we talk about the scene with Chapel and Spock into Pring? Chapel to pop to pop. Oh, when, when, when Chapel and Spock make out. Yeah.

when when when when chapel and Spock make out. Yeah. Cause that's kind of a big deal for for chapel, right? And and you could tell that she's like clearly torn up about it. I think yeah, to the after point is the I think she's very clearly lying to Spock. And it's funny when she's like, I know where I stand with you because you're gonna tell me the truth but she's not gonna tell him the truth right do you do you think that Spock is telling her the truth though or do you think that Spock has feelings for see I don't really know the whole like to bring in chapel and Spock triangle. I'm not really sure how it's going to play out. You know, it's

clearly between Spock and in chapel. Chapel has some sort of clear feelings and I don't really know about Spock, honestly, Drew, it's kind of hard for me to read. And Maggi, what are your thoughts on that? I think it's a necessary drama. I mean, I think Chappell is probably a better fit for him though, because Spock has that free side, but only reason why it seems, the only reason why he wants to be with T'pring is because it's a logical move to make.

But Chappell seems to be, you know, a better fit for him, just personality-wise. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that chapel is a better fit for him. I do know that to bring is a bad fit. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? I don't know.

I just, I'm having a real hard time with them exploring these things that with existing characters. Yeah. To bring down to her credit, she tried. She's really trying to make this work. She is. And I think that's great. That's great.

Well, because she doesn't come across as just like, you know, oh, the the jealous girlfriend, you know what I mean? Yeah, that would have been very easy for them to write, but they're taken they're taken a different path with it. They're showing a You know, so they're showing him as or excuse me, they're showing Spock's wife as making a general a genuine effort to do something good for the relationship, while still acknowledging the fact that Spock has responsibilities as a Starfleet officer. I think to your point though, Drew, I kind of would prefer them to avoid Spock. I'd rather have them go over the other characters. I would be okay with even Chapel, more so than Spock. I could probably say even Ujura too, mainly because she just doesn't get as much screen time compared to Spock over the years. And so we already know Spock.

I want to learn more about the other characters. I appreciate that they're not going for the low-hanging fruit with Spock, that they're finding the characters that were underrepresented in his past. To praying is a good example of that, Syback is a good example of that. You know, perhaps we'll get some more of Seric at some point. But I wish that to what you're saying, I really do wish that they were focusing on other characters instead of focusing on Spock. Yeah, I want to get some more sing. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't think Hammer or Herofero were in this episode. No, they weren't. No, they weren't. You're right. By the way, Ortega didn't seem as irritating to me this episode. Well, that's progress. I know she's really trying very hard to appease you on a weekly basis. I don't know if I appreciate your tone.

Yeah, the comments on how close you want to get first date, second date and, uh, pike, general reaction, just a shoulder shrug, blind date. Um, when, when Pike made a joke at the end, um, our, you know, mateys and when we find Captain Angel, make a walk the plank. Yeah. you know, madeys and when we find Captain Angel, we'll make her walk the plank. Yeah. Number one's like stop. And or take his is just laughing.

She had the same reaction I did. It was cheesy, but I was cheesy. Right. Well, I think there's a balance between it. Like some cheesy is good. Yeah. Like I like that part. That part was actually pretty good.

And by the way, we're not the only ones that find Captain Pike charming and handsome. The O'Rhyans do too. Yeah, well, you know, he's a star man. He's a Zetty. What was it? Pike's peak or something like that? Oh, God, his hair. The hair, yeah.

Like, honestly, man, whoever does his hairstyle is phenomenal. I love that part and everything. I think that's just him coming to set every day like that and they're like, I don't wanna touch it. Why we're doing what's already perfect? We're doing it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. How do you fix perfection?

Um, man, I really like Ansemon. He's, he's been really phenomenal nailing it as Pike. Yeah, it was a good idea. It was a little bit nice if he got a better shot at a black bolt, but they ruined him on in humans. I'm, I'm happy to say though, like, you know, it's not just the Christopher Pike show, it's not just the Ansem Mount show. He's killing it. I'm, I'm really happy with his

performance, but credit goes out to the entire cast. They're really doing a great job. I still would like to see an episode focused on Mbenga, Hemer, and I guess nurse chapel. I really like the character But no, I think it's it's overall pretty good I would agree Okay, so Drew I'll start with you buddy buddy. Would you think of the Serene Swal? This is a total popcorn episode. You know, just, I enjoyed it. It was fun, it was silly. I never felt like there was any serious danger

to the Enterprise or the crew. I thought Angel was an interesting character, but she kind of went into ultra-cheese territory for me, which I wasn't really, I'm not into that. So that's a little bit disappointing. So yeah, I mean like there was a lot of cheese in this episode. I thought the jokes that Pike was making with Ortega's, the pirate jokes at the end of the episode, even Angel just kind of being a little over the top. It was fun, but I don't know.

I wasn't really blown away by this episode. I think I'm going to land on a six with this one. Ooh. I think I know. I wasn't really blown away by this episode. I think I'm gonna land on a six this one. Ooh I think I know it's seven. Well that that I can understand your thinking process behind that true. There is all The episode was to me. I think you're right. Total popcorn Mageed, how about you, buddy? Um, go with a seven. Um, you know, I said before, how many times I had to try and sit down with the episode since Thursday. Um, it didn't really, it started off slow for me. And um, it just, you know, didn't really scream

great episode. I was kind of surprised. I thought you would be a little bit higher, based upon the way you were talking, by how you liked Angel and the character, the diehard-esque kind of feel. Right, I mean, listen, even though Angel went full Hans Groover, you know, I, you know, it wasn't a great episode. It was a good episode, Matt. Again, my, my phone

was out. Yeah. My phone. If you can't pull you, if you can't pull you away from the phone, then it's not that. Yeah, just like Drew has his metric for, you know, whether or not a good episode by, you know, if you'll not change the channel, it's for me. It's, you know, well, I put my phone away and I didn't have my phone away. It was, it was bad. So a seven. It was good. Not great. I'm gonna watch you. Brad. This was an interesting episode. Right off the bat, I really didn't care for Aspen.

When they did the reveal and it was Angel, it made more sense, but I still didn't really care for the character. I really enjoyed the scenes with Nurse Chapel. I thought that was great. And I really did enjoy the interaction with Chapel and Spock. I think overall I was very disappointed with the episode. Things were too easy. Enterprise was taken over real quick. real quick. The nobody pretty much like stopped or even faunae resistant to to those invaders, the pirates, then once everybody was captured, it was like two competing factions, but like were they really two competing factions were they the same people? Like there's no explanation.

And I, ah, this was a bit of a rough episode for me. I wouldn't say I hated it, but I can't really say like I enjoyed it too much. I think I'm gonna probably be a five with this one. Wow. It just, it was that middle ground of very not spectacular, not, you know, bad, but it just, it didn't, it didn't catch any of my attention and I was frustrated more so than anything with it.

Makes sense. It wasn't like, I wanna emphasize though, it wasn't bad. It wasn't a bad episode. It just, for me, I didn't like the overall plot points in writing. It just unfortunately was, I think the only thing that really saved it

was actually Nurse Chapel and her fight sequence and all that fun stuff that Kind of and then the cooking part where where Pike was cooking for the the captors and it was just like the come on guys That's just so ridiculous. Yeah, it was weird Yeah Well, gentlemen, anything else you want to add for This week's episode? Uh, no, I think I'm... think I'm tapped out. Okay, well, well folks, next week we're gonna be watching the Elisian Kingdom.

That's all I know about it, it's just a title. Yep, yep, it's listed on Memory Alpha, that's all a title. Yep, it's listed on memory alpha. That's all we got. Yep, I'm assuming it's probably about the elicions. Well, that's my confused, I think, not to be confused with the race that number one is. What is that race called? Those are the Elyrians.

So these are, oh my God, you know what? I totally thought that was that gonna be the episode I did it first two, but it is a completely different word Well, I guess reading is important comprehension is good kids stay in school Well, I guess it's about some sort of kingdom. Maybe we get King Arthur and we can, you know, go back in time. Oh, that would be cool. A time travel episode.

Let me see if this is a race that we've encountered before. I feel like it is. Probably. Well, there's an Elysian ruling council from Lower Decks. Governing body of Elysia. Huh. I don't know. Oh, that's not Lower Decks. I'm sorry. It's the animated series.

Really? What's the throwback to the animated series? I think that's what's gonna be happening. I think we're getting a throwback to the M-Made series. Okay then. So, well, that should be fun. Two in for that. Yep. Folks, I'd like to thank you for listening. Everyone have a good one. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to yet another Star Trek podcast, where a part of the retro sessions network.

This episode was recorded on June 19, 2022 and was hosted edited by Drew, because Drew is God. God is Drew. Brad, poorly somehow wrote the synapses and Mj takes care of all the banging out artwork. Special thanks to William Grobalar Music for our music warp speed and to the stars. You can find him on SoundCloud. We'll have links in the show notes. Also special thanks to George Retal for additional artwork he made us look like lower deck characters.

Hit him up on Fiverr and you can too. We'll drop a link for him in the notes as well. We'd love to hear from you, hit us up on TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter at yet another STPod or shoot us an email, yet another STPod at gmail.com. We've also got DiscordRum, so come on chat with us and say hello. Next week, we'll be watching the Elysian Kingdom. Watch along with us on Paramount Plus and let us know what you think of the episode. Show us your support by giving us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever

you get your podcast from. Plus, it's help support the site. It's free! Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week! Music