Hello and welcome back to Subspace Radio. I am Rob and with me as always is Kevin.
It's me, Kevin!
And we are here to talk about Star Trek, to get together with a dear, trusted friend and talk about our feelings about it.
There were definitely some feelings in this week's episode of Star Trek.
So many feelings, so many Easter eggs. I hope Lower Decks are taking notes about how many Easter eggs you can drop in a single episode. We're talking about episode six of season three of Picard: The Bounty.
The Bounty, and I was kicking myself at the end going, I can't believe I did not look twice at that title and realize that we were going to be revisiting Star Trek IV.
We are.
In this week's episode of Star Trek Picard we have the promised infiltration of Daystrom Station that we picked last episode. And they well and truly fulfilled that promise. And while that little team, that black ops team is infiltrating that station Picard and the rest of the crew of the Titan are pulled away and visit the Fleet Museum, led up by Commodore Geordi Laforge and his other daughter.
Played by his real daughter.
Played by his real life daughter. Yes, indeed. And we spend a little bit of a little bit of fan service time flicking through the collection of the Starfleet
Look, it's a it's a nostalgia war on two fronts. Cuz not only are we given the feels at the Starfleet Museum, but we're given these little tantalizing hints on Daystrom Station as well. So it's just, we are bombarded with all these Easter
There's nostalgia on, in both the A story and the B story. Both of them end up in a very nostalgic place.
Exactly. So the Titan is on the run. They've been given a little bit of time by the sacrifice of Ro, and they have escaped and they're being hunted down, pursued by Starfleet, which has been infiltrated by the Changelings.
And we meet up with Worf and Raffi, they all come together and the waiting for them to show up is another excuse to have some deep and meaningful conversations. And we get to learn about Picard having passed along, apparently, his Irumodic Syndrome to his son Jack. And the, the effect that's having on everyone.
And yes, we, it was making those connections strong there, but also making us wait for that moment of, finally, Worf being in the same space as some of his original crew. And, gosh, do they lay it on thick and fast and beautifully. We hear the wonderful Klingon music played as he beams on over.
It's laying it on a little thick, this episode, I, have to say. On, on first viewing, every single one of them delighted me. On second viewing, I'm like, come on, you can write some original music,
I I think I did count about 87 music cues in this
right. It's every time the camera cut to another character, it switched to their
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, Or ship or whatever it is. They just hit it. Yes. I particularly loved the just that reconnection. You know he is not a hugger. Yes. I like this. And he goes, I'm practicing pacifism now. Great moment from Michael Dorn. Michael Dorn's been given all the zingers, this, this episode, this season.
Sour Mead. The Sour
Sour mead line,
quite tart, sir.
Quite tart, sir. And then the line about pacifism and Riker goes, really? He goes, I just said that. Just a look of, I said it.
Yeah.
and later on there is the, is there a reset button?
Yeah, they, they are writing Worf exactly right. And it's working every time.
It's a great joy to, and this is what we've been hanging out for, this is what we've been waiting for. And done on a, on good terms to see, see these characters back and connect
Beverly Crusher seems to be the hug committee, this episode. She, her job on the ship is to hug people as they arrive in the
she's outta Starfleet now, so she's been given the right to actually, share emotions and hug.
I noticed like Geordi comes on and he makes that very tongue in cheek speech where he is like, I was trying to decide whether to be super formal or to give everyone an overdue hug. And he goes for the hug, but only Bev gets the hug. Everyone else gets an implied
Tell you what, though. Oh, LeVar Burton. Is there anyone more in line for a sainthood?
They're letting him use his eyes fully this time.
They are very blue, obviously, but oh God, he's good. Oh my heavens. Oh, LeVar Burton, please just stop being incredible. No, never stop being incredible.
Uh, I feel like on the one hand I agree with you, but this left me wanting more. I thought Geordi's storyline and, his concern for his family, trying to talk his daughter out of putting herself in harm's way and being upset at Picard for putting his family in peril. Like all of that stuff just barely landed for lack of time for me. Like it moved so quickly. Geordi's arc felt underserved.
I feel like maybe they felt they, they shot about twice as much material and cut it back to the bear essentials here, which on the one hand is a shame, but I guess I'd rather be left wanting more than feeling like we were wallowing.
Yeah. And it's also a case of this is, this was always gonna be the trouble when you're bringing back like nine cast members. And no matter how many hours of television you're streaming time you have, it's gonna be tricky to find that balance of everyone getting enough time and or cramming in too much in a short amount of time. And especially cuz we took quite a while.
We started with just Picard and Riker and seven, and there was that episode two, which was just laying groundwork and kind of treading water a bit. So now we're at the sticky end. We are where we're looking at things going. We've only got three eps to go.
I counted Troi got all of two words in this episode. So of, of all of our cast, I feel like they have all now been given a chance to shine except for Troi. So she is going to have to play a pretty pivotal role in the last couple of episodes of this season in order to to feel like she got her due.
Exactly. Let's go straight to I think the, oh God, yeah. I think the first one was the little hints of Easter eggs on Daystrom Station. So we got the Genesis device. We got Kirk is there for
Kirk's body. We got the genetically modified Tribble.
Yes. That looks very
is almost an Animated Series reference.
and a little bit horrifying. As in completely horrifying. And we've got a, I've watched the episode twice and the linguistic grammatical like vocabulary gymnastics that everybody is going through to explain the fact that they have got an aged up Brent Spiner playing Data, I'm there going, oh my gosh, they are doing so many loop de loops to
Yeah. I feel like it's all gonna be worth it because like they would not be going to all this trouble unless there was a big payoff. And my understanding here is the big payoff is they put Brent Spiner back in a position of playing a character like Data in a way where his uh, just like the rest of the cast, his present real world age is explained in the story. And we can get back to enjoying having Data on. Adventures with us.
That presupposes that this crew, these characters are gonna continue on past this story, but I feel like they are making a investment in that possible future here by doing this very heavy lifting from a plot perspective to justify, oh, Altan Soong, good scientist, is dead. By the way, died off screen. And one of his dying thoughts was, it would've been selfish of me to put myself in my, in the cybernetic body I built. That would be bad science and bad humanity.
That the line he says is evolution is not preservation or conservation. It is addition. And so adding all of these, different family members Soong into one body that that can carry the line forward, that is a much more noble pursuit, a much more scientific achievement than selfishly prolonging his own life would've been. And I'm thinking, gosh, that is unbelievably unselfish. Gosh, I would not blame Altan for grabbing that that last body and running with it.
Look, yeah. It's a lot of heavy, a lot of heavy lifting. I, and we've been talking about the heavy lifting of justification of just a British accent this season. So to justify the fact that, yeah, Brent Spiner is old. We can't do this without him, and also we need to keep him interested, so let's give him split personalities because Brent Spiner's the quality of actor who couldn't just wanna play the one character. He goes, oh, you've gotta give something challenging to do.
But it's like I always say, Rob, if the story is worth it if what we get from the characters is worth it, I will suspend disbelief all day long. And getting to see Brent Spiner in a moment shift from Data to Lore to B-4 to Soong, and each one of them landed, like each one of them, I went you are instantly in that character. You didn't even have to tell me who that was. It was instantly recognizable. I, I was like, okay, cool. All is
He's just, sitting on a couch. He's just sitting there, just whipping in and out. Doing it on multiple takes, on different angles. Oh, there's no denying the masterclass of a performance it is. I'm just, that air of cynicalism is with me no matter where I go. But to have that joy of seeing Picard, but especially LeVar Burton, acting his socks off when he sees, and even Riker as well. Frakes did a great job as well when they see their old friend in this new form.
And just the smile on LeVar Burton's face of going Data
And Picard as well. I'm glad they are acknowledging it out loud. The very first thing is we've seen this guy die twice, now. And A, that's weird. We should say that out loud. Great. But also what does that do to us emotionally? Do we wanna go through this again? Is it worth it?
Exactly. Exactly. And it's not exactly the person that they know. It's, it's a mixture of other presence. And so that's an emotional state for them as well.
Once we got into that room with Brent Spinner and we had the reveal, it was good from then on. The stuff leading up to it, I had questions. The idea that Data has been plugged into the matrix to be the security system of Daystrom Station, questionable, even as a premise. I'm pretty sure by the way in that scene when they first beam in and Worf is casually like swapping the chips while the rest of the team is like writhing in pain on the ground, which was enjoyable to watch, just cool Worf.
But when he plugs in the chip and the system resets, it's a woman's voice that the the computer's speaking with. But when it glitches, one of the glitches I'm pretty sure is Brent Spinner saying Thank you. And so it's just a hint. But then we get the crow, which for fans, for like big TNG fans, it was like, ooh, is that Data's crow? There's no other prominent crow in all of Star Trek history. So I was immediately thinking Data, but I don't know why Riker would be thinking Data.
Like we got to watch all of Data's dreams, but the rest of the crew of the Enterprise didn't. So unless Riker watches a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which we know he does watch a bit of Star Trek Enterprise on the holodeck, so who knows maybe he's been reviewing his own historical tapes as well. But it did seem like just they, they were breaking the fourth wall a little bit there with Riker, recognizing the crow. And then we have Moriarty.
And at this point I kind of went, look, I am enjoying this because it's silly, but it is very silly. When they were setting up the station, they said that this security system was quote, breathtakingly lethal.
Yeah.
And what we saw of breathtakingly lethal was a holographic crow, a Moriarty with a old fashioned pistol.
Fires live bullets.
Missing every shot. And not a whole lot else. There was nothing very breathtaking about the lethality of the security system for me. If anything, it was, it was breathtakingly confusing.
Fair enough too. Yeah, it was very much just a spannering nostalgia hits.
And so much of this felt like it was there to confuse the fans in the trailers. Like we saw in the trailers that Moriarty would be a part of the season. We saw in the trailers that Lore would be a part of the season.
And those things had been set up as having a presence in the season and their presence in a trailer, I think, oversold them so that we were expecting coming into this season that somehow Lore and Moriarty, and who knows who else got together and formed a band of villains and were coming against our crew. That's like what we were expecting. And Moriarty, it turns out, was just a
Just a cameo, beautiful little cameo. And a great work from Mr. Daniel Davis. Great to have you back. Anytime to see him on screen is a joy.
And Lore, Lore seems likely to play a bigger part in the rest of this season to me, because he does survive this episode. But I feel like Moriarty's appearance in the trailer was almost more powerful than his presence in this episode.
very much.
And when you're putting things in your episodes in order to create a good trailer, I feel like you're a little off track.
Okay, so we then flip back to the Fleet Museum,
I just gotta say, sorry. Before we flip back to the Fleet Museum, one more thing. That flashback to Encounter at Farpoint, when Riker is recognizing the notes and then they give us just enough of the tune to think is that Pop goes the Weasel? Where have I heard Pop Goes The Weasel before? And they cut to Young Riker stumbling on the Rock. Ah, my heart exploded. My TNG loving heart exploded. Encounter at Farpoint, not the best episode of Star Trek.
It's pretty clunky as a two hour bloated introduction to this crew. But that moment in the Holodeck where Riker meets Pinocchio, is is pure. It is pure. I will leave it at that. It is a pure moment and that they like without warning, threw us back into that moment. Every fan of TNG instantly recognized it. That, that was good. That was probably the high point of the
Oh, and the cut to, very young Brent Spinner just looking and admiring the whistle of from over 30 years ago and just saying, Marvelous.
My partner was very annoyed that Riker completing the melody with his whistle was out of tune that, that they had so, so leaned on the fact that he had perfect pitch in recognizing all of the notes that he could not whistle in tune with what had been established was, that was a bit a heart of a heartbreaker, but,
And that's a part of drama, Kevin, isn't it? The heartbreak that, you know, you know, and you recognize all of it, but when you have to do it yourself, you're just offkey just by a little. It's heartbreaking.
So the other big dose of nostalgia was the Fleet Museum. And while Picard and Geordi were sitting together at the conference table swapping fatherly advice, we had Jack and Seven on the bridge of the Titan casually flicking through the historical archives and spotting ships. What did you think of that,
Oh, of course. First one up we hear music sting. Music sting. Music sting. Music sting. So of course we hear music sting again of that sweet Deep Space Nine Tune as the Defiant's there. The New Joisey. I just I don't, I, I can't say New Jersey, I have to say New Joisey. I'm not, so that must be a classic series.
That is pure Terry Matalas. Terry Matalas grew up in New Jersey and the registry number of that ship is his birth year. So that is not a reference
that's not a reference to anything. That's just for
That is just a reference to Terry Matalas! You know, they do that in Star Trek a lot where they'll give you like two familiar references and then a weird one from Planet Zenar VII, you know, that was the New Jersey this episode. They had to throw one in that we didn't recognize in order to make the university seem a little bit bigger, because otherwise this Fleet Museum is really just a collection of the ships we have seen in the audience, and it makes the universe feel quite a bit smaller.
I mean, but you know, the characters that we have been associated with are always there in those big key moments. That's what Lower Decks is for, to be there going the California class or doing the, the odd, the shit kicker jobs as it were.
I did want them to at least try to justify the New Jersey. Oh, the New Jersey that fought that battle or that was there on that fateful day. They just said, oh, it's the New Jersey.
That's really good ship. Uh, it was great to, finding out Jack has a love for the for, for the retro design, the classic streamline
Yeah. I'm not sure I bought it, but I guess someone had to be. Like, I am glad that they justified giving us a long, slow look at that Enterprise A from the movies, because that is my favorite ship. I too am a Constitution class man, at the end of the day. And I'm not sure I buy Jack being. In fact Seven, Seven is surprised that someone who didn't grow up in Starfleet would know all of these ships. So at least they talked about it, but I, I guess the, The ends justify the means here for
It is an odd choice of, so it did seem a bit like, okay, we've got this list of cast. Who will fit in here with Seven?
It could have been almost
Yeah. Like, I'm there going, would it been better to be Sidney? Because, Sidney does have a relationship with Seven and she's a pilot. And there hasn't been, oh, there's been a little bit of moments of trying to build up some sort of connection between Jack and Seven, but not so much. Um, and we get to see a ship from my movie. We get to see the Bird of Prey, as Worf describes later, with superior Klingon technology.
In the ring just behind it, another Klingon ship. And I believe if my research is right, that is meant to be the ship on which Chancellor Gorkon is assassinated at the start of Star Trek
Well, There you go.
I'm not sure how Starfleet managed to hold onto all of these alien ships. There's a Romulan bird of uh, in, in one of the rings as well. And I'm like, wow. Not only are they like possessing these these foreign assets, but they're letting it all hang out there by putting them on display. It's like the British Museum where they are showcasing artworks from their conquests.
Up there going oh God, are you gonna really make a colonial? Yes, it is a col It's more of a colonial.
A little bit. It's a
Yeah. Yeah. And the moment that made me swell up when they kick into Voyager. And then you hear Jerry Goldsmith's incredible score, just sting a little.
Star Trek IV really got me that the soundtrack of the whale movie is so distinct. It is. It is pure Star Trek, but the melody is completely unfamiliar, so
Yeah.
like, oh my God. Instantly back in that film. It was so
Yeah.
Yeah. And Voyager did it too for sure. What I like, we've seen glimpses this season of Seven being a ship nerd. She's been like working on models in her quarters, and it's never commented on, but each time I've thought that is a strange hobby for Seven of Nine. And she's got gold ships on her shelf and I'm like, I've got some ships on my shelf too, but I did not think you were that kind of fan, Seven of Nine.
But the fact that she of all the people is now sitting on the bridge, like flicking through the fleet library it like a nice little character detail.
in um, in incredible writing an incredible performance from Jeri Ryan as, as well. If, If you haven't already picked up from the months and months of podcasting we've been doing, I'm a bit of a fan. Beautiful lines like, Voyager, she earned her name further out than any other ship has. You go, oh my God. And he goes, this is where I was reborn. And you go, oh my God!
So much in so little lines. Yeah. Very good.
Beautiful poetic words in such a conversational way. It was.
I love how non-cynical Seven is becoming. They're letting her, they're letting her feel, they're letting her acknowledge the feelings she's having. She does not question it when Jack says, oh, we're all just looking for a family or a place to belong. She goes, yep, that's it.
And that line of this was my family. And you just go, that's ama because especially, Seven's connection with The Doctor and Janeway, those type of and Naomi Wildman were, were family connections, familial connections, which she was, she lost because of her real family being killed and assimilated. And then her assimilated family. So she's had this family connection with her the whole time. And it was very powerful. A lot
The Bounty gives us the cloaking device, which I noted two non-engineers managed to integrate with the ship systems remarkably well, remarkably quickly, off screen,
well enough, though. So that's a good, yeah. Enough to get it started.
The effect when it first activates and we see the cloaking effect from inside the bridge, like Seven runs over to the workstation and the entire panel behind her kind of cloaks and uncloaks. I thought that was amazing.
well done. Yes, definitely. And yes, there was a little bit of that play of, I'm not putting my family at risk, this is my family. This, that, that whole talk about family was a massive part of this episode. And then, the kids have stuffed up again. So therefore, the old men have to come and sort it out. And LaForge giving the, yeah, Geordi giving the whole old man vibe. Looking at Jack going, Hey, stay away from my daughter. What are you doing, slick?
And Sidney giving the whole, Daad, what are you doing here? Very cute.
I have to say I was disappointed because as soon as I recognized that the episode was titled after the Bounty, and famously that Klingon ship was commandeered by a Star Trek crew in Star Trek IV, I thought they're doing it again. We have established that current Starfleet ships are all connected to each other, they're all trackable, so the Titan cannot do what we need it to do here
on the bounty.
Get on the Bounty! Go on that bridge. I think the only reason they didn't do that is pro probably they ran out of set money and they could not rebuild that Klingon
I was just about to say, it's a shame that the original interior of the Klingon Bird of Prey was actually an early 21st century bar. Oh, look at this interior. It's the same frigging bar we've been
Yeah, that's right. Hang a few knives on the
a few batleths on there. It's fine. A spinny chair, it'll be great.
It would've almost been worth it. Yeah. Just the thought of them and everything else that happens in that episode would've worked perfectly with them flying into Daystrom station, surfing over the surface of it, and beaming out the crew, the the team just in the nick of time from that aging Klingon, Bird of Prey. It would've been great. I'm so sad they didn't go there.
The reality of the real world coming in onto limiting you as a show. There's only so few, so many sets they've been using. And so
They do go back to that bar again. There is once again, a, a need for a stick stiff drink, half an excuse for a stiff drink, and they're back on that
You can drink anywhere. You do not need to just go to that specific holodeck to drink alcohol
Yeah. I'm really mad at my dad, so I'm gonna go drink in his bar.
So yes. Will has made, is it the ultimate and supreme sacrifice? He sacrificed himself so the others could get away. And now he's been taken by Vadic.
Yes.
Who had a typical, had a very cliched villain moment where um, she ordered the death of one of her crew who was insubordinate.
Yeah, it was good to see a bit more of her. I am still enjoying her performance, but I think the writing has gotten a bit thin.
She was very generic this week. I'm hoping we get a bit more time with her. If we have more time with the character, then we can get outta that cliched
It was just very content poor. Like the, all the stuff she was saying was just, I'm a villain. I'm a villain, I'm a villain. And it did not advance the plot. It didn't enrich the situation or, raise the stakes really in any way other than let's just reestablish how evil I am. I will order the, shooting of my own crew member. I also noticed at the end when she appears in front of Riker, and then kills the two Starfleet officers, that tells me that they were real Starfleet officers.
So she was posing as one member of a three person security crew. And then when she reveals herself, she kills the other two. The other two, they, when she shoots them, they dissipate in that same sort of drifting red dust. That now I'm a little confused, cuz I think we established at the start of the season that the dust that is left over from shooting people is a sign that they were Changelings.
Like that is when Riker and Picard come on board, Crusher's ship at the start of the season, they go, oh, have you ever seen dust left over from a phaser shot like this? And they'll say, Nope, never seen that before. Very weird. It seemed to me the only explanation was that is a sign that they are Changelings. But now they're using that same visual effect for people who are not Changelings, so I'm a little confused. Does everyone have dust now?
Or is the dust just, is that red trailing effect just standard phaser now and the dust is a separate
Yeah. It is definitely a a glitch within the continuity of stuff that there hasn't really clarified that cuz it has become that case of, its the default effect for anybody but being wiped out by yeah, a lethal phaser.
Well, It's just like a set, right? They gotta reuse the CG effects
They've gotta use this. Yeah. And there we go. Reality seeping into our fantasy sci-fi world, dammit. They need the big Star Wars bucks, apparently. We had Riker dropped the S bomb. He dropped a bit of a "shit" while being beaten up
Yeah. He did say, he said, How much of that goo shit did they pour into you? And I am not sure what he meant by that.
I have no idea either.
It seems to imply. I feel like maybe they may have shuffled the story around a bit here and that Riker's line there is left over from a time where we knew more about Vadic's crew by now. At this stage, there's all still behind masks. Vadic said something to one of her bridge crew as well of that they were half something. I didn't really catch it, but I get the sense that they're, at one point they had revealed more about her crew now than they have.
And I hope they eventually fill us in because it would be weird. It's weird enough that Riker is commenting on this person's biology and we don't understand what he knows or how he knows it. I hope we at least know it by the end of this season cuz those baddies have been wearing those masks for a long time now. I, I better be hiding something good.
Are they mandalorians? They can't take their mask off. This is the way. But yes, and of course it all led up to the tragic, horrifying reveal that they've got Troi, or
or something that looks
something that looks like Troi. You can't tell with the Changelings.
I think it's gotta be Troi because they just they went out of their way to, to show Riker. By the way, we're Changelings, in case you forgot, there's a lot of Changeling going on here. These Changelings are gonna get you to talk. Uh, And the reason is we've got Troi.
And yeah. And Vadk took a lot of time earlier on to say, we need to find every, oh, and what can I just say? Amanda Plummer's pronunciations of Jean-Luc Picard?
Oh yeah. She's insisting on
The Picard doesn't, not the hard D. Picard. To focus on her saying, okay, we'll find out every single person that they could, he could turn to. We'll find them and seek them out. So yeah, that so much laying of the groundwork, it's gotta be the real Troi. Plus, we've only got three episodes to
Yeah, exactly. She's gotta, we gotta get her into it. So I'm glad she's there, even though all she had to say was, Oh, Will.
But re-watching it the second time, there was a lot in there. You know, it hit the nostalgia things for me, but the, Worf finally arriving on the bridge, finally Geordi getting back there. I, there was a lot of stuff in there for me to really like, oh our God, we forgot to mention. Finally we get to see Shaw show some respect for someone in a higher place. And of course, it's another engineer.
Yeah, for sure. He also, he gives like a nod of respect to the use of the word burgle.
Yes. It's
Excellent use of the word burgle, sir. I thought, I thought that is weird. Like, I don't know. Yeah, it is weird. It was very, it was a very strange tone
Yeah. But
But, but Shaw was okay with it.
Yeah. I like the word burgle. I'm going, alright. Okay. Let's let, is there some sort of deep connection here? If you can find that out, Kevin, I'll be really
Yeah. I did not catch it. Um, Seven and Raffi's reunion also uh, like there were a couple of moments and this, and it was very,
Yeah. Yeah. It was there,
They weren't gonna tell us what was going on. I think it's just gonna be left unsaid. And somehow at the end of this season, they're gonna be, yay, everything's fine. Let's get back together. And we're gonna be expected to feel good about it even though we don't, we still don't understand what's going on with those two.
Uh, they haven't earned anything. It's, no, it's a nothing relationship. Seven can do so much better. Seriously. But yes
Even, even Jack understands her
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I just, I love Shaw being very it's actually an honor and they're all looking at going, what the hell? And how j.
a weird day.
I'm there going, this is so cool. Anyway.
Yeah. So the big thing that that we pulled out of this episode was this infiltration mission. This, going behind enemy lines or like going into Daystrom Station and the ship they depend on has to leave and they're on their own, sneaking into someplace. And I thought let's revisit a couple of examples of that happening in the past. It happens surprisingly infrequently, I think.
Yeah. I've pushed the boundaries of what the definition of this means just to fit within my type of justification of it. Yeah.
I was thinking back and these missions are a little bit Mission Impossible. And it is it is interesting to me that Mission Impossible was the other successful Paramount franchise that came out of the 1960s. In fact when Star Trek was canceled, Leonard Nimoy went and became a regular cast member on Mission Impossible.
believe he was, he became the, like the master of disguise. He was the one who was always the lead guy who could put the mask on and change into a different person.
That's right. He was like the Ethan Hunt for a while, effectively. And it was, I don't know if it's because Star Trek would become too Mission Impossible if we did too many of these kind of like spy missions. Maybe they don't want Star Trek to be about spycraft, but knowing there's a, a potential Section 31 TV series coming down the lines, I do wonder what would a spycraft Star Trek series be? Because most of the time when they do this stuff it's an episode that gets my attention anyway.
Yeah. for me, I'm always, I've got a love hate relationship when it comes to Section 31 and I'm there going, they give it way too much importance. So they're going, oh, they know everything. They're connected everywhere. They know all that type of stuff.
It's that tension of if Starfleet is meant to be a force for good and they keep endowing it as having this shadowy subsection that everyone knows about, and does evil things, then how good can Starfleet be anyway? Like there is an inherent conflict in that, in that setup that the closer you get to it, the less believable it
And this is where we get into the a little bit of the fractionizing of that whole perception of the utopian world of where we are at the moment in society. There is a hopeful future where we will go beyond these petty things of discrimination and violence and poverty and disease and find this pure world of, what we uh, deserve to work towards and strive for that.
It's almost as if that Vulcan gangster was right, that utopia cannot exist without a bit of organized crime.
Yes, when they start to bring in that fact of the balance of this and what sacrifices have to be made underneath, it's
it much less powerful and inspiring as a vision of
There is that. Yeah. And that's a whole it's happening within the world of yeah. I'll jump across to another franchise in Star Wars at the moment. They're focusing in the Mandalorian on the New Republic five years after Return of the Jedi. And so how the New Republic is just caught up in the same bureaucracy and diplomatic machinations that making it not too dissimilar to the Empire they just overthrew.
And that's a powerful comment, as they do in Star Trek, on modern society and how we, from one warfare to the next victory, history is written by the victors, but is there any real sense of good or bad? Or is it all gray? And that's fascinating sci-fi stuff.
But when you come to the world of Star Trek and Star Wars, which is that very clear black and white of what is good and what is bad, how much gray is welcome within this black and white world that doesn't dilute it away from what it originally was.
Yeah, I think the promise of Star Trek though is that you don't need to balance. That, like good can be self sustaining. That if you look after everyone then we can all end up on the same side.
It's very beautifully said, Kevin.
But anyway, infiltration missions, I did find a couple, and I'm happy for you to bend the rules however you want. Uh, at the end of the day, we're here to have fun talking about some old episodes of Star Trek.
I was afraid that halfway through I'd get a Excuse me, Rob, that's not actually what we set
Not at all. That would be not Yes And of me. That would be very Section 31 of
Hence I love doing podcast with an improviser.
I'll go first. The first one I picked out was from the Next Generation, and it is season six, episode 10, Chain Of Command, Part I.
Right.
Chain Of Command, Part II is the one that gets all the glory. That is Picard captured by the Cardassians, being interrogated. There are four lights. We get to hear the Cardassian talk about how Cardassian culture has evolved from artists to military industrial complex. Chain Of Command, Part II is definitely the high point, but Chain Of Command, Part I is the infiltration mission that leads up to Picard's capture.
And that's full black ops.
Yeah, it's full black ops. They are literally dressed in black, head to toe. It is Worf, Crusher and Picard. They go on a mission together and they are all wearing basically scuba diving suits with backpacks. And they spend much of this episode training on the holodeck, in preparation for the mission. They're in caverns. They're trying to beat their best time. They're complaining about sore muscles. Crusher is in Ten Forward at one point saying, Sore doesn't even start to cover it.
And Troi looks worried, and Crusher says, I know, I wish I could talk about it, but I can't. So they're like sworn to secrecy about the mission, even in their training process. And then they head off on the shuttle. They make a stop to find out where they're going. They sweet talk a Ferengi into giving them the information they need before they head to Celtris III the supposed Cardassian weapons research lab.
It was interesting to me that they don't get their briefing from Picard until they are on board the shuttle. So it's secrecy around the mission is enjoyable to watch. They spend all this time training their butts off for a mission they don't even know what it is yet. And then once they're on the shuttle, Picard goes, okay, you're probably wondering where we're going, what we're doing, and why you were chosen.
And they're like, Crusher, you're here because there's a chance there's biological weapons at play and we need you to identify and disarm any things that we come across. I'm in this, Picard because the subspace carrier waves they're using is something that I was an expert in earlier in my career. And Worf, your presence on this mission is obvious. They actually say that, but yeah it's very, procedural. Like there is.
The scenes, once they're on the mission, it's like there is the, scanning for where to go scene, and then there's the rapeling down a rock wall scene. There's the phasering a hole in a blocked cavern scene. And there's the climbing through a lava tube scene. All of it is just very kind of like professionals doing a professional job. They've got each other's backs, but there's not a whole lot of character revealed through those scenes.
It's very much I was watching it when we did the previous one with a celebration of David Warner. I was struck at how unlike any other Star Trek: Next Generation episode, it was before. Where it's normally it's that episode of this new anomaly or this new species, something comes along and it has to be solved or a character development of cultures and stuff like that.
A moral dilemma to overcome. But in this it's very much like we gotta get to there and shoot the thing and get out and there's no talking
It feels very Dirty Dozen. It feels very Rogue One. It feels very much a case of that World War II type of, Where Eagles Dare or Guns of Navarone going. All right, chaps, we've got this thing to do. We need to walk it out. We can't tell you the information until, cause Jerry might find out. So we'll just pip pip, get your training done and keep it to yourself until we go on the mission.
I think that's what part of what I like about these episodes is that they are a big change of pace. They're a deviation from the format in a way that so often in Star Trek, there's a sense that no matter how bad things get, there's a great big ship around you and unless the shield percentage gets to zero, you're not actually in trouble.
Whereas when these things, when you're out on your own and there's a point where a lava tube collapses on top of Beverly Crusher and the rocks pour down on her and you think, wow, she's getting hurt.
Definitely.
So Yeah, Chain Of Command. Don't skip the first part, I guess. The other big thing that's going on in this is like Riker dealing with a new captain in Captain Jellico. Yeah. And it's really good. Just the, it is again a professional procedural, that nothing that that Captain Jellico is ordering is actually unreasonable, but Geordi and Riker both arc up and go, this is arbitrary change, and the guy's like on a power trip, and we don't wanna adapt.
And no one is right, except maybe Jellico's right? Cuz ultimately he's the boss. He gets Troi to wear a regulation uniform and she looks way better in that regulation uniform. I don't know why she doesn't wear that all the time.
I miss the tunics of Farpoint.
Yeah. It's really good. The, yeah, the sense of we're gonna see a workplace drama here in this first episode of Chain Of Command. I I really recommend it.
Oh it's great. I'm so glad to have watched it for the first time with our previous episodes to go back to celebrate David Warner and to find that first part and going Warner's nowhere in sight but it's, yeah it's such a step away from what the usual Next Gen episodes that I had seen before.
What's your first one?
I'm stretching it a little. But I am going to, to my default, Deep Space Nine. We're going season five, episode 15, By Inferno's Light. Now this is right in the heart of the early days of the Dominion War. It's been going for about a year or so. And I wanted to focus on what you're talking about, like when you are cut off. How do our characters survive when they don't have that security blanket of a ship, or especially Deep Space Nine an entire space station.
And so this is at the heart of Dominion War. We've got the Cardassians are building up their strength, the Dominion are making their way in. There's an uneasy alliance at the moment between the Klingons and the Federation, and we have some of our heroes cut off, and they are in a Dominion internment camp. So you've got Martok. Oh, we love Martok. We've got Worf. We've got Bashir and we've got Garak. We love Garak. Real Bashir. That's right. And Changeling Bashir is back on Deep Space Nine.
So there's A plot and a B plot. The A plot is focused on our heroes in the internment camp trying to survive. And their mission is to shut off the shields, get through to a specific areas so they could be transported back up onto their Runabout, which is still up circling the internment camp planet that
I really love this episode for that reason, just how different that time in the internment camp is. It's an unusual configuration of characters in an unusual situation, and we spend a lot of time
It's, it really where Deep Space Nine really shines at just how bleak things are. Like the Cardassians are winning and we see how brutal it is there. Like Worf is forced to fight every single day up against Jem'Hadar. It's just for the pleasure of his captors. We've got Changeling Bashir mixing things up and trying to deceive things.
This horrible plan of trying to create a supernova to not only wipe out all of Bajor and Deep Space Nine, but also take down as much of the Federation's fleet as possible, cause it's uh, you know, summoning them to this location where there's gonna be a big battle, and that battle's never gonna happen. They're gonna be wiped out. It's all this darkness.
And plus on top all that, you've gone from a supernova darkness to the deceit of someone in our ranks not being who they are, to the brutality of an internment camp, and then the darkness of someone having to overcome their own fear and they have to battle it so as to get out and survive. And it's an incredible performance. Garak is in, in one of the greatest performances of Garak ever in that episode. It's just insane of how everything works together and how brutal they are.
So many deaths, like the Jem'Hadar killing prisoners and going, I'll kill another one unless you tell me what this is used for. Then a Breen comes in and kills, come to the Jem'Hadar, then the Breen's killed. And, all, crew members and prisoners are killed, left right, and center, and Jem'Hadar doesn't kill Worf, and so he's gonna be killed as well. But just as they're teleported away, Worf survives, but the Jem'Hadar who saved his life, he gets killed. It's brutal.
Yeah.
Then right at the end, Sisko and Gul Dukat have a debate. And at this point, Gul Dukat's daughter is on Deep Space Nine. And Sisko says, your daughter would've been killed as well. And he goes, she's not my daughter anymore. She made a choice. And you go,
Yep.
my gosh. So
There are a lot of, like in this war arc, there are a lot of kind of hitting the low point. But for me, every time I think of how bad things got during the Dominion War, I think of our characters stuck in that prison, cuz that's when it felt most hopeless to me.
Exactly. Exactly. And it's true that, that Martok builds up his respect again for Worf and how he put himself on the line. And there's that new align, cuz there's issues with Gowron on the outside and Martok comes and goes Nup, I'm completely a hundred percent. I've seen what Worf has done. He has got nothing but honor. And the fight that Garak had to do for his soul, for his mind to keep on doing this and how successful he was to push himself beyond reason and sanity.
It's that whole thing of when you lose, like we talked about, all that security blanket. The security blanket is gone. Everywhere that we thought was safe isn't, and the people we thought we could trust, and there's a flippant line at the end when Miles doesn't realize that Bashir was a Changeling. He goes, oh, I should have realized he doesn't annoy me as much as you do. Um, Oh, O'Brien. Wawa. So yes, that's what I focus on. Cause the mission is there to get out of the camp.
Yeah. It's not an, it's not a premeditated infiltration, but they definitely behind enemy
And each have their role, each have their role to help each other out, and how they get through this desperate situation of when the safety blanket of the Federation or your ship is gone and all you've got is each other.
I think the fact that the Dominion War is such a big deviation from form in Star Trek history means that a lot of these behind enemy lines missions will naturally occur during wartime. And my next pick is also a Dominion War story. This is Deep Space Nine, season six, episode 16, Change of Heart.
Ooh,
This is during that lovely period that you love so much, Rob, after Worf and Jadzia are married and we get to see stories about a happily married couple in the Star Trek universe. And in this one, Worf and Dax are assigned because everyone else is off on mission, they're the last two people left available, they're sent off on a Runabout to go behind enemy lines and meet with a Cardassian spy who is working as an informant for Starfleet.
His Vorta suspects him and he wants to be extracted from where he's working. He has a bunch of intelligence about the presence of the Founders in the Alpha and Beta quadrants to share in return and its Worf and Jadzia's job to land on a planet, hike through a jungle and pick this guy up, but it does not go to plan. Jadzia gets shot by a Jem'Hadar early in the mission and is bleeding profusely and Worf ultimately is faced with the tough choice of, do I save my wife, or do I complete the mission.
And the title gives it away Change of Heart. This is where Worf, for the first time, puts his loved ones ahead of the mission. He tries to complete the mission and leave Jadzia behind, and he can't bring himself to do it. He turns back and carries her to safety. Um, Terry Ferrell's work in this episode is extraordinary. It, on paper, it sounds a bit cliché and a bit soap opera, but the pain on her face and the way she tries to make it okay for Worf to leave her behind is heartbreaking.
I've seen this episode many times now and I watched it again today and it still brought me to tears, even though I knew every beat that was coming. When she wakes up in sickbay at the end of it and is heartbroken. She wants to apologize to Worf for what she made him do. She feels like she should have been stronger, she should have walked further. And he says, no, nothing to apologize for. You're my wife. You come first.
There's also a great scene between Worf and Sisko where Sisko says, it's my job to tell you you made the wrong call and a reprimand is going on your record, and you'll probably never have a command of your own because of this, Worf. But as a husband who lost a wife, I'm glad you didn't leave her behind in that jungle. So good. Ugh. I love it.
a great one.
It is a perfect blend of that sort of behind enemy lines procedural, characters like operating without a net in real peril in a way that feels unusual. But it is character building. It is heartfelt. It brings you to tears in the darkest moments of that. This, for me is the best infiltration mission behind enemy lines story we've had in Star Trek.
Well said. Yeah. It's a beautiful episode. And yeah, what Farrell and Dorn had with their chemistry is just incredible stuff. And yeah, there's just, done on just a sound stage with, rehashed sets and outdoor facades that they have
same patch of jungle from a different angle.
Again and again and again and again. And that's just where, the craft of acting comes in and how you can make any space believable if you're good enough.
I feel bad for missing it when we were revisiting Worf's greatest moments, cuz this is a real good
Oh it's a good thing. We've been able to bring it here now. It's a great episode. Well spotted.
You got a number two,
I do, I this is a different type of infiltration in a different way. After we talked about Tacking Into The Wind a couple of weeks ago, we're going onto the very next episode of that, season seven uh, 23, which is Extreme Measures, where Bashir has to go on a mission inside the mind of of Sloan to, to get the cure, who's from Section 31 obviously, to get the cure for the disease that has
Great link to this week's episode of Picard. They, in the conference room, they talk about how Starfleet developed that virus and then delivered the cure. And it was all thanks to O'Brien and Bashir extracting that secret from the mind of Section 31 operative here.
out of the safety of their reality and into the reality of someone's mind.
I don't Remember any of the details of what they found in there. Uh, this sounds like a weird one
It's a weird, it's the great William Sadler is there as Sloan, a brilliant actor. You may remember him as the Grim Reaper from the Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, and most recently, Bill and Ted's Face the Music. Incredible actor. Great actor, wonderful actor playing Sloan.
A very different character.
Very different character to, to the bass playing Grim Reaper. They Melvined me. But you see those different incarnations of Sloan's mind. So you've got the one that feels guilty and wants to apologize to his mother and father for betraying staff lead, and now wants to give the cure away. But then that Sloan is executed by the 31 version of Sloan. And you know, what is reality? What can they believe? Time is running out.
If they don't get out soon, Sloan will be brain dead and therefore they will be dead inside his mind. They're trying to find this cure not only for the greater good of the Dominion War, but also we've got that, that danger of Odo is there dying. And he's sent off Kira who has to go and train the Cardassians cuz they're liberating against the Dominion. Which is a, a, a great thing.
Only in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, would you have a freedom fighter who was going up against the Cardassians at the end of their seven year arc, has to now go to the Cardassians and train them to liberate Cardassia. I find that hilarious. But yes, inside the mind of Sloan, and I'm sure we could cover this in, you know, how science within the mind is explored within Star Trek and all that internal stuff.
I've, we've had moments of that, like in Lower Decks with with, certain characters before they become hybrids and all that type of stuff, like with Ruthford. But yes, this is the, all the safety net is taken away and the mission is O'Brien and Bashir working together and working to the heart of this character to find out what they need.
Is there a dilemma here? Like Is there a sense that O'Brien and Bashir are ultimately crossing a line? Like I'm seeing the title Extreme Measures, and I'm wondering are all, are they at the end of the day doing something regrettable here or something that feels like well, this is the cost
It. Yeah. It is that case of, extreme measures within the extremeness of war. It's never a moral dilemma of going, we are going inside the mind. They're going, this is dangerous. So it's all about the danger of going inside someone's mind who is dying and will be brain dead soon. And we need this and the only way we'll get this information is this way.
That's right. It's so morbid, like visiting a dying mind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's and losing all that that safety and security and it could be, you need to find this cuz if there is no hope after this. And Bashir and O'Brien have that quite humorous relationship back and forth, tete-a-tete type of thing. But to have them in this situation and how they pull each other out of, how they justify it to each other is a good moral balance to have.
Yeah, it's a good one. We're definitely revisiting this like final chapter and that's what it's called on Memory Alpha, by the way. The last nine episodes of Deep Space Nine are called The Final Chapter. It's considered an arc. And it feels like we are mining that period of Star Trek history pretty deeply this season on Star Trek Picard. So it's no wonder if we're being brought back.
There's so much changing law as reestablished and confirmed within these final arc within the Deep Space Nine Dominion War period, and so much that us as Deep Space Nine fans have been longing for for so long. I think I've talked about before, going, this is crucial. This is universally crucial stuff, and no one's talking about it. And now, decades later, they're finally not reinventing the past of Star Trek. They're finally going into the future of this future world.
were the last questions we asked that we didn't
Yeah. And finally they're being, yeah. What does this mean of going like they've got this unstoppable creature, let's wipe them out with genocide and a virus. And then Picard saying, almost offhandedly go, oh yeah. And by the way, we have we found a cure as well. Okay. So we're not completely the bad guys. The moral line being drawn. It's great to have that finally be explored, whether it be, 20, 25, 30 years later.
That those questions are still worth answering after all this time speaks to the strength of that original storytelling.
it shows, there are more stories that can be told. And through other characters more than just the ones that we have been mining for the last three seasons. But yeah, so that was, that was my other one bit of a divergent away from that. But the mission within someone's mind and the danger dangerous stakes that, that raises really tickled my interest to explore with this world of black op operations for this episode.
going on that unplanned mission with you, Rob.
I, I love the fact that you brought in a Deep Space Nine episode. We talked
Yeah.
three this week.
Yeah. Don't put it past me. I know some Deep Space
Oh, look, I do not mean, and to imply that, I shortchange you in any way, shape, or form. Um, So yes, we are back next week with episode seven. And we're in pretty dire situation. We've just found out that they have got the body of Jean-Luc.
We've definitely got a ticking clock now. Less than 48 hours to Frontier Day. There's no more time for deep and Meaningfuls in the bar is all I'm saying, Rob.
Look, it's not a bold prediction, but I think we will see that bar at least three, at least three more times. The final moment. Everyone together again, having one last drink, maybe tipping their hat to someone who's moved on in that frigging bar.
Yep. All right let's see if we're right. Talk to you next week, Rob.
See you around the galaxy.
Ah, you did it to me.