Yet Another Star Trek Podcast - Ep 020: (SNW S01E10) A Quality of Mercy

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

This week, The Gang watches the season one finale of Strange New Worlds. It's a time travel one, so the question arises: will Majeed finally get his answer to the missing three days from "The Naked Time?". Brad hosts cause he's awesome and Majeed cut the line and bumped the hosting order out of whack. Listen in to find out if any answers are actually found! Be sure to check out our website, social media, and join our Discord! Links for all are listed below: Website | Discord | Facebook | 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 morning and welcome to yet another Star Trek podcast. I'm your host for the day, or I'm also potentially Brad for the day, depending on how you look at it. But yes, my name is Brad, and as usual, I'm joined by the two most fabulous flamboyant men I know. I have have of course in front of me the man with the the most stunning stunning head of hair Drew how you doing there buddy Oh my god, this is gonna be a special recording I'm bald Drew you're not bald. Just have clear hair. Clear.

Clear and patchy. And as usual, the most scrawny ill-muscle individual, I know the man with the best laugh. Majeed. Hi. This is going to be a special recording. I feel it. We're already, I'm already laughing my butt off. This is gonna be special.

Well, I think I think you're right. I mean, it is special. It is the last episode this season for Shranger New World. So that's pretty exciting, right? How did you pull the season finale? Brad. Oh, because Majid swapped with me. Brad oh because Majid swapped with me Right, yeah, I hosted the season beginning right how did that and Majid pull this originally the season finale I think I just bullied Brad that one day I just bullied him like no, no, I remember what was it? It was like his favorite episode was like yo. I really like this episode. I need to host Yes, I remember that which episode. I need to host. Yes, I remember that.

Which one was that? That is an uncanny impression of me. It is accurate. It was never do it again. That was uncanny and accurate. It was never do it again. He was bread. Bread was even flexing his muscles while he was making

that impression of you. Oh, yeah. I got to full on macho there. Yeah, you can't see it, but his chest muscles are flexing. Unfortunately, the webcam is only showing him from the shoulders up. So yeah, so you just see the great shoulder muscles I have. Scraining. I'm pretty sure the episode was Momentumori. Oh yeah, Midgey. I think that was the one that you're just like, I loved it. Isn't that the moment the the Gorn the last time?

I eat the first Gorn. Yeah, I? I eat the first Gorn, so yeah. I think that was the first Gorn episode. Pretty sure it was, yeah. But anyways, gentlemen, how you guys doing? It's been a full week since we've chatted in a person like this. I mean, I talk to Jeremy Day. I'm tired, Brad.

Oh, I'm always tired. I woke up, no, this is a personal victory. Yesterday, I woke up at 3 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. And for the listeners that are tuning in for the first time, no, I'm not just lazy. Like, I work in overnight shift. So I woke up at 3 p.m. And I actually got some exercise in before I went into work. So I feel really good and really accomplished about that because I've been really struggling

to do that on my overnight hours. This is the first time that like I made the effort to do it. The downside is now here I am, as soon as we're done recording I'm going to go to sleep and I'm an extra hour more tired. That I hear. Well, well, be sure when you do the editing, just set yourself a pause in this little segment here, sir. Yeah. Don't, don't sell him out of it. He hates that.

Yay. Mjid, how about you, man? How's everything been going on your side? It's pretty good. It's really good. It's really good. Really good. I finally cleaned my truck. I'm not sure, like I think I told Drew this because you know we're best friends. We talk every day. We talk every day.

I am used to have a smaller sedan and they're getting a pickup truck. My wife took the sedan, and even though I don't drive the sedan as much, I find myself cleaning her car a lot more than I clean my truck, and it's been, I think, a full-on six months. So I finally clean my truck, and it felt good. It just, it felt like I could, I could, drew talk about a person of victory. This is my personal victory. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely relate with that. This is my personal victory. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely relate with that Yeah, I but I drove my wife's car today and it's like a guy. Why why why I'm so happy to listen to this Yeah, yeah, none of our wives do we can say you be in the doghouse although my wife is in the other room and she can hear me talking about her so

Yeah, you know, I choose wife. I'm sure it's all good things though. Um, we should do a segment every episode just about our personal victories for the week. Brad Brad, what is your personal victory? Uh, it could be. Uh, this, this past weekend at the new house, I dug up, uh, there's five bushes and removed like the roots and everything around the side of the house. You don't know. I'm sorry to interrupt but gardening talk gets me a little excited. Continue. Oh no, like I'm getting prepared because the plan is so that the way the house was structured

is like on the side, the left corner and going to the back, there was like five bushes or six bushes total. And like our goal was to rip out all the bushes, dig down and then put some white stone so that I can put the trash barrels there. Because there's really like the other option would be to keep the trash barrels within the carport and I really wanted some sort of designated area and quite frankly the bushes were getting to a point where it was risking potential damaging the house. So I need to rip those off and that was quite an accomplishment. It was down digging the dirt and man some of those bushes were real hard to rip out. I had to use the back muscles, you know, get those shovels down and deep. What back muscles?

I hate you. Brad, Brad worked, Brad did back day that day. Did you say Brad word at first? Brad word worked. Okay. But Brad word also works. Yeah. But I have a lot of yard work ahead of me. So I'm pretty excited about that. Yeah, you know, I love I'm a genius talking trash and telling you to hire somebody when he's busted his ass in his own property, turning it into his own backyard paradise.

So I've had no choice. You know what I'd be honest, man? Like that's actually what I'm dreaming for is like something like that. So, so Majid, you inspire me. I got bullied though. I got bullied by my wife. Well, I can assure you, my wife is complete opposite

and is like, yeah, I don't give any care at all. Get rid of all the plant life. See, I thought that it's an entire week or you were doing is just putting Legos together. Yeah, it did sound that way. Yeah, that's I've wanted for the past couple years to like, you know, really spruce up the backyard. I wanted to plant new grass seed and everything. And what's happened since we bought the house, so I think this is our fourth summer here now. We, in the past few years, like we haven't really had the money

to complete any project, so we kind of start something and it would be half-assed. And we would do the best with what we have, but we would never really get completed to my satisfaction. Now, we have the money, and I don't have the time. Yeah It's infuriating. I Have you should the most weedy lawn and it drives me just bonkers. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it

Drew your your satisfaction means a lot to me and You should be satisfied and you should be able to finish whatever you start so you can get that satisfaction. So wait, what Majida is saying is he's going to come over and take care of you along for you. I can help you. I can help you and you can obtain that satisfaction. I can help you get satisfied if that's what you need.

I may take you up on that actually because I really want to get some brick for a fireplace outside and I don't have a truck and I know somebody that does Brad I just kind of realizing what he's committing himself to now he's like a crap. No, don't worry. I love doing outdoor stuff. I love and hate doing outdoor stuff. If you guys starting it is always like, yeah, right, and then it's like, oh, yeah, look, it's finally coming together, just like those eight YouTube videos I saw. But you also get to buy a lot of new toys when you do that. Sure. Like I'm excited. I bought like a new lawn mower, bought blower, you know, it's gonna be fun. Power tools are awesome. I love power tools. I have a lot of battery stuff now, but because of all the tools and projects I have going on, I don't often have time for personal stuff.

Speaking about time, do you guys want to start talking about this time-related episode? I don't actually, because there was something because Drew and I had best friends. We talked about cruises, like going on a cruise together, and something that came across my Facebook algorithm was the Star Trek cruise. So I threw that link in our chat.

I'm not sure if you saw this, Brad. No, I didn't, I didn't. There is a Star Trek cruise that drew us in Norwegian. I was encroased by Will Whedon. No, Will Whedon wasn't a part of the cruise, but Jonathan Frakes was there. Data is on the cruise and tickets for this crew is like $2,000 for like a really basic interior room.

What's the company's days? It's seven days. Seven days. That's still pretty high up there. It's called Star Trek, the crew's number six. It's got a pretty awesome cast, Kate Mulgrew, Doug Jones, Sarah Middich, Michelle Hurd, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Maria Sartese, Denise Robbins, me, John Delancey, Robert O'Reilly, Terry Farrell, Nana Visitor, Armand Schimmerman. I'm

not going to read the whole thing, it would just take a while, but long story short, it's pretty much everybody that you would expect. I mean, I also expect, um, well, we didn't, I feel like the kind of thing will be a part of what's, you know, he's cool as hell. Well, we didn't, it's pretty cool, but he picks and chooses, um, oh, he does. What projects he gets involved with, uh, when it comes to Star Trek. Yeah. And he also takes, he also takes the pandemic very seriously. Yeah. I could also see him being the kind of guy that's afraid to go on a cruise because he can't swim.

That's just mean. Yeah. That is. But sorry, Brad, I want to talk about that because I, again, I know the Drew and I talked about it, but because you were a good guy. Yeah, because you don't want to evolve or include me as he hoodies. Well, no, you're just busy building Legos and doing gardening stuff.

By the way, when you're gardening and you're doing outside stuff, do you have overalls that you're wearing, which is like one party overall connected and're one of those big straw hats. I'm not blame, Ler. That's debatable. Your name is Brad. Yes. Well folks, this week's episode was called A Quality of Mercy, where Starfleet's Boy Scout, aka original Pike, attempts to change the future after a chance encounter with a child, one who will perish during his future accident. A future pike, warns of catastrophic consequences of this action and shows him what's to come if he does through the power of time crystals. I want to point out time crystals, I feel like a very dark crystal vibe from it. That's just me. What's that?

I hate what I hate the term time crystals. Is what's dark crystal? It's a movie. Is it a movie? We'll move on. Upon touching the crystal, uh, O P, I'm going pun touching the crystal. O.P. I'm gonna call original pike O.P. because that's how I roll. O.P. is called Zaddy Pike. I mean O.P. sounds like old pike to me. Or overpowered pike.

Oh, it's original pike though. Or do I do C.P.? No, we can only do Zaddy Pike and Zaddy Ur Pike. I'll just do Zaddy and then Zaddy Pike and Zaddy Ur Pike. I'll just do Zaddy and then future Pike. Or Zaddy Ur. Zaddy. Er.

Zaddy. Er. Zaddy is thrust into the future where the accident still occurred. How about it? What? Oh my God. You just said Zad is thrust and I love

Hey you guys losing your crap this morning. I really hope you are. I'm sorry Well, well, well, Mr. Zaty is Thrusted into the future where the accident still occurred, but no one was killed because of his actions. He finds himself performing a wedding not knowing the names of the bride and groom. Saved by the bell, I mean, Red Alert, Zaddy makes his way to the bridge. An unknown threat has attacked multiple outposts alongside the neutral zone. Almost immediately after arriving at the outpost, a Romulan ship de-close and destroys the station.

Thankfully a starfleet vessel called the Farragut warps in to provide the Enterprise assistance. The captain of the ship turns out to be Sam Kirk's brother, Tiberius. Spock identifies a possible way to track the cloaked ship and both the Enterprise and the Farragut navigate their way to follow. Eventually, Ujura and Spock identify a signal that may be coming from the Romulan ship and will have an opportunity to see the Romans for the first time. And it turns out they look like Vulcans. I want to comment like to this part is that after a hundred year war, they never saw what Romans look like and they're very surprised with Vulcans. Yeah, there's a little little little, little, little much. I did like the dramatic zoom-in

of Ortega's face where it's like highlights or eyes, but like, oh my god, what is this? Both crews make an attempt to disable the Romulan ship, but it turns out they were tricked, and the Romulan's decloaked behind the Farragut, badly damaging the ship. Tiberius and the crew beam over to the Enterprise, and it turns out, Singh came back to Sarplet after only two episodes, and is now a commander on the ferrogate. Spock identifies the Romulan ship is damaged, and Zaddy makes an attempt at a ceasefire with the Romulan's, and it works! Both ships work towards repairing their ships.

This is a short lived however and insubordinate member of the Romland crew sends a message calling the Romland fleet to their location. Out shipped and clearly outgunned the crew of the Enterprise has no chance of surviving. Therberius takes a shuttle from the Enterprise and gets multiple mining ships to warp in to have a ruse of indicating that that is the Star Fleet's Armada. After the Enterprise transmits, prove to the Romlands that they started the whole thing, they destroy their own ship, and then make an attempt to destroy the Enterprise. After narrowly escaping the engagement, Zadi discovers that Spock is severely wounded

from the battle while trying to repair the ship, and he's taking his place of being mortally wounded. Future Pike shows up again and to take Zadi back to the future past future past takes him back to the something that once there or the Zadi or decides not to write the letter. And unfortunately, he also finds out that number one is escortorted off the ship through Starfleet security because she is modified. To sum up this week's episode, Pike's pony's name is Sir Nasalot. Tiberias is such a really weird name and Pike inadvertently started a war with the Romlands.

Gentlemen, that was such a future-filled episode. And I feel partly that Majeed finally has his answer to what happened to those missing three days when the enterprise lost in the previous episode in the original series. lost in the previous episode in the original series. Well, technically, wouldn't this have occurred before those three days? Well, I know technically it happened after. Well, maybe the flash forward did.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Technically, it's after. Time travel is confusing sometimes. You're going to draw me a because I I didn't make the connection about the three days bread. It's gonna be the chart with Charlie pointing at the Pepe silver Pepe silver Pepe silver. Yeah, so so Joe man. How did you feel? Drew, let's start start with the elephant in the room those outfits man the the outfit from a, from future pike.

Where, where in the original, uh, the original movies outfit for, uh, Starfleet. Yeah. Um, man, to throw net, to roll next swagger. I love, love, love, love love love that uniform It is my favorite Star Trek uniform full stop and I just lost it the moment I saw Pike standing there in that uniform. I have to admit. I'm not a hundred percent crazy about the spin they put on it. I don't like that darker maroon on the sleeves, the pattern that they have on the the the current uniforms seems to have

made its way into that variance as well. And I thought that looked a little little weird, and I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. But I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that.

I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to do that. I had to literally I learned everything in Drew's explanation. Well, the last night, did you like the outfit? Did you think it was like kind of cool or just kind of like meh about it? I thought it was too much. Listen, in terms of practicality, you know, starfleet offers have to use the bathroom. That's a lot to go through to use the bathroom. He's wearing pants.

It's not a onesie. Yeah. Is that a onesie? No. No, it's a kind of like wearing jeans in a sweatshirt. Didn't, uh, didn't put a card to wear a onesie? That's a different uniform, sir. Well, anyways.

I don't know if you noticed, true. In the beginning of the episode, when Pike was talking with the commander of the outpost, before he goes to the future, the commander of the outpost had a different Starfleet batch. Yes, that is also a nice throwback to the original series. Was it uncommon for other ships or outposts to have different delta's, you know. And I'm pretty sure like they kind of unified those in like later series. Yeah.

They kind of made them all consistent the same, but it was a nice little, I fell a little easter egg in that sense. Yeah, I totally loved it. I think there was another episode too two where there was a different ship Um, and their uniforms also had a different insignia as well too. I'm trying to remember Not 100% sure on that but but in in in strange the world I mean in the original series that happens frequently, you know We'll see episodes where we'll run into other Starfleet vessels and they'll have a different insignia.

So, I'm guessing from your earlier comments through the time crystals, we're not one of the things you're very favorable of. So it's the name, right? I hated it in Discovery, I hate it in Strange New Worlds. I feel like they're sitting in the writer's room and basically it's like, okay, we want them to travel a through time. Oh, I got it. We could use crystals to do it. All right, cool. What are we going to call them? Time crystals. time crystals. How about you, Midgey? Were you a fan of this little plot point having time crystals? Um, I mean, it gave me MCU vibes, you know. Well, I think it was Dr. Strange.

It was the same color, right? Time stone and, um, I think the M screen. It was like a green, yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess that's going to be the standard color of right? Time stone and, um, I think the end of the screen. It was like a green, yeah. Yeah, well, I guess that's gonna be the standard color of time stone is going forward. It's clearly diverse. So I said last night, watching this episode,

I said this episode was made for me, right? And Drew's like, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, I'll talk about it right now. Yeah. Well, tonight, today, this morning. So what I mean is, partway through the season, I said to Drew, which inadvertently gaslit him. I said, I want them to change Canon.

I want them to alter Canon so we can get more time with Pike. I want to see what he would have done during his 10 year if it had not been cut short. So that being said, this episode gave me that. This episode gave me a point of time where the timeline was changed. And Pike is still captain of the Enterprise going forward. It gave me a ticking clock. You know, much I love ticking clocks,

I love tension. I love a mystery. Work names. I love all that. So this episode was made for me, and it threw in fan service Easter eggs that even me a casual issuever was able to appreciate. So the audio cues from Jim Kirk, James T. Kirk, when he walked onto the bridge, he walked into the enterprise, not sure if you caught the audio cue. I heard that, yeah. It was subtle but well done. Yeah, it was very well done. Yeah, it was very well done. The mutual respect that's spock and kind of had immediately. I thought that was pretty cool. And they changed up Fortegas.

They did. Yeah, something happened to Fortegas, where she is not a smart ass so much. The entire episode is an alternate look at the events of a original series episode we have not watched called Balance of Terror. The plot of Balance and Terror is everything that we saw involving the Romulans. But James Kirk is in command of the Enterprise instead of Christopher Pike, and things went wildly differently. Or Tegas is essentially playing the role of another character in that episode. of another character in that episode. So there's a there's a crewman at the helm that is freaking out in the same way that Ortega is is that says the mildly racist things that Ortega said about Spock. She's filling those shoes. I'm not entirely sure

what the crewman's name is, but we'll see soon because I think that's the season one, isn't it? It is. It's coming up soon. It's probably one of the, I'm pretty sure, you know what, I think it's the next, it's two episodes from now once we start recording TOS again. So we have two episodes, and we're there. And I'm very excited, like, I've been looking forward to watching this episode because I'm very familiar with Bounce Terror.

I've never seen it though. Ooh, I can respect that. I can respect that, because, you know, I am very familiar with various movies, some movies that are, you know, really well received. And I've never seen them. Sure, I just am familiar with them. So I can't respect that.

I respect that. So, gentlemen, what were your thoughts on James T. Kirk? Not my Kirk, hashtag, not my Kirk. I'm trying to keep an open mind. It's difficult because we didn't get enough time with the actor in the role to give him a fair shake, right? We got maybe half an hour of him in this episode. We've had multiple hours of Chris Pine and we've had, you know, hundreds of, uh, uh, no,

Chris Pine. Oh, oh, uh, Kelvin Universe. Yeah, you know, he's done three movies. So we've gotten a decent mass screen time with him. And obviously, you know, hundreds of hours of volume shatner. So it's hard for me to like immediately say like this guy is is no good. But the way that he portrayed it, it felt more closer to Chris Pines than the actual Shatners. Paul West is the actress name, by the way, he's got big shoes to fill. Let's make no mistake. So if this episode is a parallel of Beyond the Terror Don't, no, Beyond, Beyond, Beyond, Balance of Terror. Yes, yes, there you go. Now, Mad Max. So balance of terror is supposed to be a mere events

of this episode. I think when you get there, when we get there, you should compare William Shatner's performance to whatever hashtag, not my curk, and kind of see then, because it's essentially curk and Kind of see then because you know, it's essentially Kirk in the same time. I don't really think so because it's it would be Shadner as in what pikes position So it would be kind of a different role reversal

I don't even know I don't know much about that episode But is there even like another Starfleet ship that helps the enterprise in that case? The Farragut? No, well, the Farragut is the ship that Kirk was stationed on prior to the Enterprise. So what basically happened according to this timeline is instead of leaving the Farragut

and taking over the Enterprise, he just of leaving the Farragut and taking over the Enterprise, he just took over the Farragut. Okay, so then there's no other ship in that episode that comes to help. And so there's not like two captains trying to figure out. To my knowledge, no. Okay. So we'll see, we'll see what that episode is like.

Yeah. But I do think the, and Obviously, from what I recall, a lot of the pictures I saw with the character was from this episode. Yeah, in hindsight, I'm pretty sure it was. I remember reading he would be coming in season two. Is that still true or is it just something like it was like a one shot? I really hope it was just a one shot though. No, they announced them for season two. Well, they announced him for season two, but I'm wondering if it's under the guise of him being in season one in this episode, because they've done stuff like that before where they've kind of given red herrings and in season finales and stuff like that. That would be nice.

So I also want to point out that we got more screen time of Jim Kirk in this episode than we did of Sam Kirk being entire season. Just gonna put it out there. Yeah, that's pretty accurate. We Sam did show up. Sam showed up and by the way, at the very end of the episode, when we see, you know, the the injured crewman on the biobad, I said, oh my God, you got his

wish. Sam Kirk is crazy. I had to rewind. I had to rewind a couple of times. I'm like, oh my God, is that is that is that Sam Kirk they burn off his mustache? I'm pretty sure he was fine Yes, I mean Sam Kirk as far as we know survived this however Here's blown out the airlock our beloved spark did not fear. Yeah I it really did feel like there was some sort of change or distance within the crew from the previous episodes with this one. Clearly was it seven years in the future about something clearly happened or time had progressed

and changed the actions and the crew definitely felt different. They weren't just bonded. Which I actually kind of liked because it made it feel a little more realistic. People do drift apart. It felt like you could tell that it's not your timeline. Right. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, they needed to kind of do those little things to set that apart to really hammer that point home and you know, there were I don't know it definitely felt like the things that had happened had changed the crew like number one not being there Yeah, you know, for example, which we can get into a little bit more in a moment.

But, um, you know, her presence being gone and lawn being off the ship and on another ship at this point. And, um, well, Mijie mentioned Hammer, um, is gone. And we, we got a little audio clip of Scotty. We did. Yeah. Yeah, we definitely got a little, and we got a little arm action too.

Ooh, I don't wanna say arm action. That sounds weird. Yeah. Do we know who that person was, who was doing the audio clip for Scotty? They never made any kind of public announcement. I really hope it was Simon Pegg. Yeah.

I think it was a generic, or you know what would have been really cool is if they did some sort of like recording from like a TOS, they found some sort of recording and they could use that. I'm sure we'll kind of get the scoop in about a week or two from memory alpha

but just kind of quickly combing through that. Yeah, it's also possible that even Ants and Mount himself or some of the cast will just say, oh, did you happen to catch all these knots, the original series, we did X with X because why? Oh, they do have a name for the actor that did it to. It's an excellent name. A gentleman by the name of Matthew Wolf, he's an English actor. Oh, um, well, I mean, you know, James Deweyne was Canadian. So at least this is in the same,

you know, region of the world. Canada? No, never mind. All right. That's a dimare for you, Mj. You can't give Demarits. Can I? Yeah, go for it. You get a Demarit. No, Drew can just cut me out of the podcast. He has different power. He's the almighty editor.

Right. But it would be interesting to see who they cast. Because I could also see them just using a random voice actor to do it somebody that they feel is like a generic Scotty voice and then they the real real actress somebody different in that. Do you know who Brad you may know who this is Ross McQuade? McQuade. He was other walking dead. He played Red Skull in Avengers Infinity War, and he did like a spot on impression of Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. And then he also did the voice of Ultron in the What If seasons. I know If seasons. Yeah, I know you were talking about it. I can't picture the face, but I know you're talking about.

Hey, it's generic face. But the reason that I'm bringing him up is that he is such a versatile voice actor. Like he is able to, you know, change his voice depending on what he needs to. So I'm sure he could have also pulled off that role. If they ever to cast someone as Scotty, I hope they would pick up Ross McQuade. Well, the guy that they had do this is pretty prolific in voice acting.

He's lent his voice out to a number of video games and animated movies. I'm looking at his IMDB page and it's no joke. This guy's this guy's put in some work. I'm looking at his IMDB page and it's no joke. This guy's put in some work. 84 credits. So moving on to number one, that ending with them taking her away. How did you guys feel about that? I'm gonna go with Drew first, Drew.

I feel like you are not very favorable of that whole little segment. Well, I just kind of wish that we had more time with number one. I feel like the character was underutilized this entire season. We had a great episode at the very beginning of the season that really focused on her. And then we just sort of kind of got little bits and pieces ever sprinkled throughout. And I don't know if it was, you know, just, um, you know, COVID protocols in, uh, you know, when they were filming this, that kind of kept actors apart from each other or, or what the case was.

But I don't know, I just feel like they didn't really use her to her full potential. I thought Rebecca remained at a great job and I really liked the character of number one. We just didn't get to learn enough about her. So when they cuffed her and took her away, it didn't really have the impact that was kind of hoping it would have.

Well, this may also bring back, Lonn, this may bring her back because Lonn and I have no doubt in my mind that that, you know, one is going to be in season two. And I, and I have no doubt that number one will be in season two. I, you know, I suspect that that's pretty much where things are going to pick up is we got to go get our first officer back. But, but maybe, maybe not.

Maybe this is how Spock becomes the first officer. If that's the case, I feel like they did it too soon. I agree. If anything, it would have been season two. They do that. Yeah. So I guess what it leads to is we need to wait and see. Yeah. and a stepping stone for season two, because you could tell the end pike didn't, you know, wasn't really happy about that decision. Yeah.

And I doubt he was happy that his girlfriend was the one that had to execute it too. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. I mean, is it really his girlfriend though? Because, you know, he slept with the other, you you know woman made way through the season. Well I mean whatever you want to call it professional hookup professional booty call friends with benefits what do you call friends with benefits in the future officer's with benefits. All right I'll accept it. So one of the things I kind of really stood out with me with this episode was that there was a certain level of cheesiness to the overly dramatic points where it just seemed a little ridiculous.

I'm not sure if that kind of fit with you guys. Elaborate on this, please, because I didn't get cheese. Yeah, when you finished the episode, you saw it before I did. And you sent me an animated photo of cheese. Giant cheese. Cheese being poured onto nachos in a very thick and liquidy state. And I got very hungry.

It was very central too. It was very central. Well, there are things like the whole reveal of the Romulan's being exactly like Vulcans. And like the camera angle pans and it's like explain this, Spockens box like I'm curious just as much as you are. It just, it felt very overly dramatic and there were moments that were along through the episode that kind of felt that way to me.

I guess I'm a little singled out with that. And you guys don't feel it. No, you know what, I get it. I chuckle a little bit at the single eyebrow raise by Spock and then they cut to commercial. They cut to act break, you know? I wonder almost as if, now that I know that they had a the 2S episode, that they were trying to do a lot of the same shots in homage to it,

and that's the reason why it felt that way. Because, you know, I can't wait. Now that I know about that, I can't wait to see that episode because I kind of suspect that that may be the reason now. Yeah. I suspect that's exactly why. In doing some reading prepping for this recording, I discovered there are a lot of homages to balance the terror. Probably more than you realize. I'm going to refrain from talking about them because I think it'll make balance of terror all the better when we do watch it. But it's going to be one of those things that once we watch balance of terror, I'm probably gonna wanna watch this episode again. Yeah, just to compare it.

So how about you, Magie? Were you kinda feeling that? It wasn't really that cheesy, but you kinda liked it? I was, listen, I was totally invested in this episode. I think Drew, I messaged you, again, because you know, we're best friends. I messaged you partway through the episode.

And then I... You know what, I've got comments from one or two of our listeners that you two pick on me so much. And you know what, now that they mentioned it to me, I want to admit, I see that a lot from you, Mijid. Quite a bread. I don't think I'm taking exception to that. I don't pick on you, Brad. It's true. You're nice to me. I try to be. I disagree with you a lot, but that's different. Well, I mean, technically Brad deserves it because he inadvertently gasped right.

Stop, gasped. Sliding Brad. Answer his question. Now I feel like I have to defend Brad all the time. Let me be a hero, baby. I don't remember where we're at this point. Oh God. How'd you feel about the cheese? Oh, yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't remember where we're at this point. Oh God. How'd you feel about the cheese? Oh, yeah, no. I didn't really get a lot of cheese, but I was also like very, very invested in this episode. Drew, I keep saying I said it to you, but I tend to do it to our group.

You have my curiosity and now you have my attention gift. I listened. After that, I put my phone down for the entire episode. I even got a few work messages. I was like, no, I'm not. I'm actually going to pay attention to this. That's super important to me, guys. Having my full attention for the episode. That does say a lot to me because I know with you you you flipping through the phone is kind of a commonality for you You try to say Brad now you picking on me Brad

So sledge all men anything else you want to talk about or cover for this episode? Would you guys think about the Farragut? I don't know enough of it. It was mentioned in the Kelvin universe, but like Drew's yelling me before I can't talk about the Farragut, the Kelvin universe. Well, the, the, I'm more, more kind of leaning towards like, you know, what do you think of the ship design?

Oh, yeah. Cause I, I think about that kind of stuff. I love that kind of stuff. It, it seemed pretty, no, basic to me. You guys are making me mad. I mean, it was, I listened to it. It was an okay ship. You're an okay ship. Thank you.

Even, even Kurt James T was like, oh, he got a prize as sweet. You know, the moment he got into it, even Sam was like, oh, he's jealous because the fairie get his garbage. Did you approve of Kurt's strategy to bring all these unknown ships into battle? Yeah, they're all sweet.

Well, those are like mining ships, right? Yeah. Yeah. Unman mining ships. And I guess his logic is, oh, the Robins I've never seen our fleet. We've never seen theirs. Aha, pluff, pluff, pluff.

That was an interesting twist. It seemed a bit of a stretch to me. It's like, how did he get access to all these ships within like a period of time? It was convenient. Uh, slot number. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it didn't overly impress me as far as a very good tactical strategy, but, you know,

worked for the temporary moment. Makes me kind of wonder if they did something similar in the original episode. Something else that stood out to me too, Brad. And I'm saying Brad, particularly because Najeed doesn't really have a point of reference for this. I'm sorry, Najeed. I don't mean to exclude you, but it's stop believe me. Pike took a very diplomatic approach to his dealings with the Romulans, one that sort of backfired. But I feel like Jean-Luc Picard would have also taken the same approach.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty accurate statement, because it's... What did Pike say to Kirk in the episode where it was something along the lines of like yeah, you're going to take more risk than me. I'm. Geez, I can't remember that line. Yeah, he said something along those lines where it's he knows the Kirk will take a much bigger risk while while he would take much more diplomatic approach to it. To your point, I think just like John Luke Wood, I kind of feel like some of the captains we've seen in the past are kind of hit or miss because

it's just really, you know, certain ways to handle it. But I think in this case to the reason why things go so well is that Kirk takes the more aggressive approach, which works better for dealing with problems. Do you think it's just the situation in particular? Like, I'm just like the whole time I'm watching it and I'm thinking myself like, all right, what if we had Jean-Luc Picard instead of Christopher Pike in the captors chair here? And how would this approach have gone, would it have gone the same? Would it have gone differently? You know, and I'm wondering if it's just a matter of the circumstances because they're coming off of a war when Picard is in charge of the Enterprise, you know, it's peacetime, so that diplomacy is maybe a little bit more important. Well, to me, it's kind of the...

When Pike was having the conversation with Spock and explaining to him, he's from the past. He was sent to the future to identify potentially the bad decision or the bad thing that's happening, you know, a box like, well, you can't change it. You have to see why it's bad. You have to do your normal actions. And so he chose diplomacy, whereas Kirk would have done much more aggressive approach. Right. And therefore probably would have prevented it from occurring.

Right. You know, to me, I think it's a good show of the difference in Captain Styles and how, you know, how things could turn out poorly, you know, if somebody is in a different situation or a different spot. Yeah, I agree with that. So, Mijee, let's start with you, buddy. How are you feeling with the overall field of this episode?

The what really called out to you, maybe it didn't like or was it really an amazing episode for you? This is an amazing episode, and I can't think of anything I didn't like. So why would give it a 10? Oh wow. Everything from the tension to the, again, the whole bright canon forming, show me,

give me what I wanted. Let me see Pike continue his career. I think that was really good. I think that was really good. Sorry, Stella, this client on my chair. It gave me Pike in his career, gave me an older Pike, an unindered Pike, somebody who knows his future and said,

well, I'm going to take control of my. And at the end, he accepted it, which by the way, that leads to some pretty interesting storytelling for season two, right? He knows his future, he's fully accepted his death. Oh, I'm not death, his accident, right? He knows this is gonna happen and he's made peace with it. Right, you know And I'm told me therefore fully vested but my phone down the entire episode so 10 nice

How about you Drew? How did this episode really Call out to you is it you know very you know very powerful and did you enjoy it? It's like to weigh your thoughts. My favorite kind of Star Trek episode is alternate timeline episodes. I love them. I love everything they do. I love the idea of seeing how a butterfly effect could change everything, right? One small thing is different and the whole world is upside down. And I don't mean in a way like the mirror universe,

because the mirror universe has its moments, but it's not the same. I like those little details that change the course of history in Star Trek and how those types of things play out. I like seeing alternate uniforms. I like seeing different captains and different roles or different crew members on different ships or certain crew members being dead or otherwise removed that normally wouldn't have been affected by the the prime you know in the prime timeline and

I wished that like part of what I really enjoyed about this episode was the surprise that I did not know that they were going to be doing this. But I also at the same time really, really wished that I had an opportunity to see balance of terror before watching this so that I could truly appreciate it. And I think I'm looking forward more than anything to watching Balancetare than circling back and rewatching this and picking up on all the things that I missed the first time around. I can't wait to do that. I do have to kind of hold them the task for the way they handled number one.

But I think that's a long-term problem with season one, and I'm not sure if it's fair to hold it against this episode. Well, again, it's something that we always talk about where we have ideas of how things could play out, because I remember we talked about when Hemmer died. Would they replace Scotty next episode? And right now, I mean, technically we, we, we see Scotty. But that's seven years in the future. And that's after, you know, Scotty should be on the ship at that point.

So, you know, I guess from, from looking at it, it's to how the episode is, you know, being a time related, you know, where do you kind of stand with the self-contained story? 9.5. Ooh! That's a real high episode there for you. That's my highest score yet. I definitely agree, like, one of my favorite type of themes is that time travel alternate alternate, timeline, type of stuff, because those are always

the most fun. They are very different from the mirror universe, but like the alternate timelines, I feel like they have more leeway in doing with the things that they never really are going to do, they're going to stick, because in that way they can just have this one thing. I mean, I think back to some of my my most favorites like the Star Trek Voyager year of hell, where it was just like one episode of them, you know, surviving this violent thing and things like that were just so much fun to watch when they at the end of the episode, giant reset, everything's back to the way it was. And it really is a fun way to tell a lot of different stories.

I do agree about the number one part that didn't really bother me as much. There were some cheesy points that kind of made me, you know, kind of throw my hands up and be like, what's this? But that was before I knew that there was a lot of homage to the original TOS episode. So I'm going to give it some benefit of the doubt. I'm going to be a nine with this episode. Yeah, it's a pretty solid episode. I didn't like it as much as Majid, but it was definitely an overall pretty solid episode for me. Yeah, Majid, you've given two episodes this season,

a 10, memento, Mori, and this episode. I stand by those numbers. I think you've given your tends to word the episodes. And Brad gave a lesion kingdom a 10. Yeah. And I think that was a worthy episode. Yeah. I think this season, I'm looking forward to talking about it

when we do our season wrap up to really discuss how everything was. And I'm interested to see if I'm able to write a quick summary for the entire season without having it be a 45-minute summary. So let's see how that goes, Jelma. I would anticipate that our season wrap-up will quite possibly be a longer episode than usual. Well, I look forward to that, gentlemen. Yeah, me too. Anything else you, uh, you two would like to add before we part ways today.

Brad, even though I, I, I believe I love you. Thank you, Micheal. That means a lot. I'd love to. Oh, yep. On that note, folks. Thanks for listening and have a good one. And I, guys, see you later. Good day, good morning. Thanks for listening to yet another Star Trek podcast.

We're a part of the retro sessions network. This episode was recorded on July 8, 2022, and is hosted by Brad Drew and Majid. This episode was edited by Dastardly Drew, Marvato Brad, Rothus and Absis, and Miraculous Majeed takes care of the artwork. A special thanks to William Grobalar Music for our music warp speed into the stars. You can find him on SoundCloud, we'll have links in the show notes. Also, special thanks to George Retau for his additional artwork. He made us look like lower deck characters, hit him up on Fiverr and you can too, while drop a link in the show notes as well.

We'd love to hear from you, hit us up on TikTok, Instagram or Twitter at yet another ST pod or shoot a sneak-mail. Yet another ST pod at gmail.com. We've also got a Discord room, so come chat with us and say hello. Next week we'll be doing a season recap of Strange New Worlds. Tune on in to hear our thoughts for the entire season. Like our podcast? Give us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.

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