Hello and welcome back to Subspace Radio. It's me Kevin.
And me Rob.
This week, we're looking at Lower Decks, season three, episode three, Mining, the Mind's Mines. They do those kind of titles just to mess with us.
I think so. Yeah. It's very much a tongue twister for all us nerds out here doing reflections online. They're going. Yeah? You want to talk about us? You gotta work hard for it, baby.
A sciencey episode for sure, this week. Both plots were science based. Even if they didn't end up there. We had the story of the mines on the planet Jengis IV with these psychic mines that make your fantasies come true and then turn you to stone.
Another week where Star Trek and fantasy comes up, but we will not be discussing that further. We're gonna make it a long tease, Kevin.
No one had any actual sex in Star Trek this week. So I'm holding my ground.
That's very true. And there was just a lot of sexy talk about…
Speedy McWheels!
You know what we haven't done a lot of? We haven't focused a lot on Rutherford or Tendi, so it's good that we've got a whole B plot story about Tendi finding her way training, to be a science officer.
More Rutherford. More Tendi. I love their vibe. I think Tendi is my favorite character on Lower Decks.
She's definitely got that great positivity and energy that isn't annoying at all. It's infectious. And yeah, it's great cuz especially when you look at it, they all four of the main characters are all nerds in their own way and they all express it in different ways, which I absolutely love.
Tendi really wants to take a test.
Well look, and wouldn't you rather take a test than hang out with that bird brain?
Dr. Migleemo. I enjoy the fact that you're not supposed to enjoy that character.
Yeah. Well, That's a whole other topic as well about Star Trek and psychology. Cause in this one they're very leaning much into the way of, yeah, we don't really like this guy.
Yeah, exactly. I think I, what I like about Tendi is she has got that relentless positivity, but so many characters that have that aspect to them come from a place of like obliviousness. Like they're too dumb to know any better. And therefore they're relentlessly positive. But Tendi is obviously wicked smart. She's the first one gonna get promoted to an officer job. I am sure.
I particularly like the fact that they do challenge her as well. So she's had to step out of her comfort zone so many times, and she has evolved so much as a character that, she just doesn't get everything her way and not everything is easy for her, which I really like.
Her positivity is there most of the time, but when she shows up and realizes she's gonna be training with Dr. Birdbrain today, she gets bummed out, just like we would.
There's some really beautiful little Lower Decks lines that I particularly grabbed onto, especially Boimler's lines where they're going, "We do get up to a particularly large amount of shenanigans."
Yes.
Any time when shenanigans is brought up, I'm very happy. And how…
They mentioned shenanigans and then they all talk over each other referencing past episodes. Oh, it was that…
…and there's that time of this, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I actually had time to go back and watch this episode a second time this week and that confusion about, does the Cerritos have a bad reputation? It is very well written that when you watch it the second time, it does play the other way, that the crew of the Carlsbad are looking up to them and they don't want to be seen as slacking off. So they say, "We've heard how you do it on the Cerritos. We don't slack off." But what they're saying is we don't slack off either.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So it sounds like a criticism, but it is actually admiration. And I love that it plays both ways. You don't get writing that subtle in a typical— typical Star Trek story, even!
And they do hide it behind things like Beckett's girlfriend there going settle down with me in full werewolf mode. And Boimler saying. I think you should go back to your therapist.
It has the subtle and it has the gross. They're both represented.
It has clown Klingons with bat'leths for arms. Very cool. And one of the, one of the deepest cameo cuts I've ever seen.
Leah Brahms?
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I had to go do a thorough Googling. That's not a euphemism, okay Kevin? I had to do a— She was talking quite provocative about doing some research.
Geordi LaForge's would be…
…would be girlfriend, yeah, in hologramatic form.
But yes, I am the kind of fan who, the moment I saw the beauty mark, I went "Leah Brahms?" And the next line was "Leah Brahms?" Going back to the ship and Tendi's mission for her science officer's training, I really loved the idea that the challenge for a science officer is getting the attention of people who don't care about science. Speak for science. Be the voice of science.
And again, taken out of her comfort zone and she rises to the occasion beautifully.
She smashes that pyramid real good.
She smashes it so good. And rewatching it the second time, the first time I watched it, the look that the scientist and the indigenous species gave each other was gave a look of oh what's going on here, but the second time you watch it going, oh no, they're in on it! It was a really lovely moment to pick up those little details second time round.
It's so good. It's it's a short show, but it's worth watching twice.
And the one thing that I was really noticing, I like this exploration of finding out more about how the Federation actually operates as a social entity. Because you hear this stuff all the time, the Enterprise is the flagship of the Federation. So to have Lower Decks be able to have Federation people talk about each other's ship. They gossip, they complain, they think that Boimler's a little computer, little robot.
Yeah. I love the idea that the Cali class gossip about each other. Just that visual at the start of the episode, behind the title card, of the three starships in formation above the planet surface. The other thing we get with animation is some visuals that would usually be too expensive to do in a casual shot like this in a small episode. But there we go, we see the USS Hood floating above the two Cali class ships, each of which has a different color scheme. And it's just, it is beautiful.
A lot of the kind of panning shots of the two remaining ships that were used as establishing shots throughout this episode, they really took my breath away. There were moments of light glinting across the saucers there that I just thought those are some beautiful ships and this is animation.
It's really good that they take that time to enhance the show that way. And it's a, it was a beautiful opening shot to literally show what happens when, okay, all the big work is done.
Yep off…
So the big ship moves on the next one. And it's the first episode I think I've seen in a long time that I can remember that has the traditional cold opener.
Oh, yeah.
Normally they do a little gag at the start and then go into the credits. But this was a traditional cold opener. You didn't see any of the lead characters. You saw the threat come about, and it ended in that heightened moment of oh, good lord, and it had the alien species show up and nod approvingly. And then it cut. They do that in so many regular, genre based TV shows, or even in regular procedural shows.
But that was the first time I can really tell that they, drop that type of traditional cold opener for Lower Decks.
So speaking of where things started, like I said earlier, everything in this episode started with science and that was my inspiration for what we could talk about this week on Subspace Radio. That is a uniquely Star Trekky thing, that stories start with a scientific enterprise, if you'll forgive the term. That people are out there for science and then something goes wrong and drama happens.
At the time when Star Trek The Original Series came out, the Western ruled television and film. And so sci-fi was this novelty. But it was sold as, stage coach or wagon train in space. So it was there's certainly, and especially The Original Series, that that sense of what a Western is. So like space, the final frontier, is like the wild west. And and I always look upon, the science colonists are out there like the extreme pilgrims going out to try and change the indigenous culture.
And they're not protected by, the towns that are establishing.
It's a, very similar…
Yeah, it's a long, it's a long bow maybe, but…
Yeah. It all comes down to exploration, yeah. Where did you wanna start us?
Do you have anything from the original series?
I do not have anything from the original series.
I'm gonna go to, for me, the biggest of these science colonists going out, on the frontier of space, without the protection of the Federation, really. So they're really pioneering scientists trying to push new things, with disastrous consequences, but starting with honorable intentions. I'm going with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with…
Ooh!
…Dr. Carol Marcus and her scientists on the Genesis project.
Of course. Yes.
On Regula I their, station/laboratory, and as she says, can I cook or can I cook?
So they are building the Genesis device, which will terraform a planet near instantly, and there's the famous industrial light and magic CG fly-by, the first use of CG in a feature film.
Incredible sequence of showing the entire planet evolve from barren wasteland to just flourishing, healthy environment.
But they get themselves in trouble because their scientific device is also a potential weapon, and it attracts the attention of some unsavory characters.
Yeah. Yeah. And so it's that whole case of, the best version of science in science fiction is they start off with honorable intentions, they try to play god and then it serves them right.
Shouldn't have used that proto matter, David Marcus.
Exactly, David, you deserve to get stabbed. Oh my god. Take it back. I take it back. I can't believe I said that even in jest.
They walk a fine line with this story, because during that CG fly-by, Carol Marcus is narrating and explaining the purpose of the Genesis project. And she says this torpedo could be deposited on any moon or other lifeless body. And it would become immediately sustaining to life. And we could deposit whatever life forms we choose upon it. And it's just that slight, like wording is just slightly ominous in like our intent here is to do with this planet what we please.
Yes.
Yeah.
That is the definition of intelligent design.
So the hubris of the scientists…
Ah, always get 'em into trouble, always gets them into trouble. It's such a glorious idea, that is really the McGuffin of the piece. If it could do that to a dead planet, it could do that to a living planet and it, immediately would lose all its funding.
No one thought they were gonna succeed; that's the impression I get. Until Khan was threatening to blow stuff up.
And what species would you choose to have exist on that planet, Kevin?
What are you talking about?
Well as, as Carol said, we can choose whichever species we want. I'm relating it back! Come on.
Ah, of course, of course.
I'm not just speaking weird to you, okay? We haven't got to that point in the podcast.
It was sounding a little sexy is all I have to say. I wasn't sure.
You know I'm always gonna try and get that talk in. Can we talk about sex and Star Trek this week? No, yet. Not yet.
Maybe next week.
Next week's never coming, is it Kevin?
I like how Star Trek III actually also starts the same way. Star Trek III starts with a science vessel now studying the Genesis Planet. It's the USS Grissom floating there, scanning for life forms. And the drama of the opening of that movie is a blip on a sensor panel. And that feels very Star Trekky as well to me.
So what about you? What's another sciencey episode for you?
I'm taking us into The Next Generation for one of my very favorite episodes of Star Trek TNG, season three, episode four, Who Watches The Watchers.
Who Watches The Watchers?
Like some other episodes we've talked about before, I'll say if you haven't seen this one, this is essential TNG viewing. This is a high point of the season it finds itself in, which is already a strong season, season three. In Who Watches The Watchers, it starts with a duck blind mission, where Federation anthropologists are spying on, effectively, a more primitive culture.
They are in a little station embedded in a rock face, hidden by a hologram, and they're watching these bronze age proto-Vulcans. So they are pointed-eared aliens, but they are in their bronze age era of development and the Federation scientists are just watching them, studying them and learning from them until the power systems of the duck blind start going haywire. The Enterprise is rushing to rescue them, but doesn't get there in time.
The power systems overload, the hologram falls down, the scientists all get electrocuted and one rolls out the window and is found by one of the natives. One of the natives gets electrocuted as well and needs medical attention. So wrestling against the principles of non interference, they decide we'll beam him up and fix him up. We'll wipe his memory before we beam him back down. So while he is up in sick bay, he sees captain Picard giving orders to his crew in a God-like fashion.
And then Dr. Crusher does her best to erase his memory and return him to his home, but it doesn't take!
Of course.
He returns to his people with stories of The Picard, the god who is the overseer of their people and who must be pleased. This relentlessly rational race has now been poisoned by the ideas of religion. And they start thinking, what is the god in the sky want? What do we need to do? Do we need to punish someone in order to please him? Picard himself has to beam down and explain to this primitive race that I am not a god. I am a flesh and blood person just like you.
I am bound by mortality just like you. And if you don't believe me, go ahead and shoot me in the chest with an arrow, which of course they do.
Of course they do.
There are no phasers, there are no ships swooping around. This is all about science and the prime directive. And how do we keep this perfectly nice race from being ruined by our scientists unintentionally revealing themselves.
Exactly. We talked about this pre-recording, it has that essence of the duck blind as well in Star Trek insurrection.
That's right. Yes. Insurrection is almost a direct sequel in terms of the way it starts with this cold open of the duck blind revealing itself to the natives of the population.
Whereas in this one, they have the honorable intention of just observing them. Whereas in Insurrection, it's all about, we want to take the well of eternal life from these people.
That cold open, though, of Insurrection, to me, it's the strongest opening of any Star Trek movie.
Yeah?
I don't know if you would agree, but the mystery of we are looking down on this village, and the people in the duck blind are half wearing Federation uniforms, and half of them are the Son'a who we haven't met yet, but they look pretty dicey. And then you get to see the little visuals of the invisible scientists walking around the village, that no one can see. Then Data comes running down the hill and causes absolute chaos.
And Data's doing something he doesn't do. He's being dangerous and violent, but then you're going, what is all this?
Ah, the throwing the invisible man in the water and splashing around, Data taking his helmet off and his disembodied head floating there in front of the natives, it is all so strong. Like it is so much fun. So unexpected, not like anything we've seen before.
I agree.
At least the first half of that movie, I love without reservation.
I adore it as well as one of my favorites, and no matter what criticism it gets, I will stand and defend that film, with every fiber of my meagre being. But yes, back to Who Watches The Watchers. It is, the beauty of Picard. He is the diplomat. He is there to broker a calm and peaceful resolution to all situations. He may end up with a arrow in his chest, but he will get up and like Chumbawamba he gets down and he'll get up again.
It's a very good Riker/Troi episode as well. When they first find out that a scientist has been captured, Riker and Troi, get surgically altered to look like the native population and beam down and attempt to like, Hey, we are strangers from over the hill. We are here to help you deal with this situation. And they try to influence the natives.
Are they as convincing as you just gave those lines then, Kevin?
They did a little better. But if you 'ship Riker and Troi, it's a good one. When they first beam down, they look at each other in their surgically altered states and have a chuckle at each other. And it's very sweet. They walk along, and Troi is talking about how in this race, the female always walks in front of the male. And, Riker says, is that because the females are superior? She goes not so much, it's more like I'm the one you have to barter with, if you would like my male's services.
And Riker says, what kind of services? And Troi says any kind of services.
Ohhh, that's uh, that's some spicy flirt right there. Now is this season— so this is season three. Is this still when Riker's smooth as an Android's bottom? This is beardy Riker. Oh, I love a good bearded Jonathan Frakes.
Yes. And just like in Star Trek First Contact where Lily gets beamed on board the Enterprise and has that Alice in Wonderland moment of, oh my gosh, I'm in the future above my planet, we have that here as well. The leader of the natives, Nuria, ultimately Picard in order to try to sway them and explain the situation beams Nuria aboard and gives her that, that Alice in Wonderland tour to see her planet from high above. And to explain that technology isn't magic, it's just technology.
And it almost works.
So is it one of those poignant endings? Is it, a happy ending?
It's A happy ending. Yeah. They sort it out. Of course they have broken the Prime Directive by revealing themselves, but that damage is done in the opening moments of the episode. And the whole rest of the episode is about minimising that damage. What can we do to not make this worse?
And by the end, the natives, or at least that little village, fully understand there is a starship in the sky and there are other races that travel the stars and we may get there one day, but they also understand why they're not ready for that yet, and why the Federation must go away and hide themselves. And one day their descendants will join them among the stars. So it's very inspiring.
Well look, you haven't set me astray with TNG episodes so far, I'll continue on. And so should the listeners.
I have another TNG episode, but do you wanna take us someplace else first?
Let's go to your recommendation to me, which I rewatched today for the first time in a while, Children of Time. So not only is it sciencey, but we also dabble in a bit of, time travel, which we've already touched on.
Yeah.
So, Deep Space Nine, it is episode 22, near the end of season five, where it's really this is Deep Space Nine firing, on all cylinders. Season five of course is, the season of Trials and Tribble-ations, and so many great episodes. The 30th anniversary year of Star Trek, obviously. But yes, the Defiant is out going through the gamma quadrant. They're just about to make their way home when, they're getting some sort of signal.
Dax in her scientific curiosity wants to go and explore and find out what it is. They're pulled into this planet with, a barrier on the outside. So many planets with barriers on the outside that affect them, Kevin. Draws them in, and makes them uh, not crash, but you know, land awkwardly, and—
So before we go any further, I just wanna point out this moment of the crew of Deep Space Nine being tantalized by a scientific discovery, it's surprisingly rare in this series. Like I went looking.
Yeah. And especially around about this time, cuz they are well into the Dominion fighting and wars and, and it's all about battle fronts and alliances and stuff. So to actually then go, oh, remember we've we're scientific explorers. And of course, as always, their scientific curiosity gets the better of them. They make their way through and they find that there are inhabitants on this planet, and they are the descendants of the crew of the Defiant.
Whaaaaat!!
Dun dun dun!
What a great Star Trek idea.
That's a cold open from hell. So they find out that, they try and take off, it sends them back. They go through a time loop. Pesky time loops. Sends them back 200 years. They crash. They can't escape again, so they settle and have a life on, this planet. However, Kira is affected by the time loop, and she dies a couple of weeks later. So here's the dilemma: they have 8,000 people who are descended from the crew of the 48 who survive.
And it's that wonderful dilemma we have, the good of the many outweigh the good of the one. Are these people, will they be killed off if the Defiant makes its way out and they never existed? Is that mass murder? Because they never existed, does that mean its means anything? That great balance of, you know, head and heart that Star Trek does so well.
I love that this takes that pattern and amps it up by 8,000 times. What often happens is there's been a transporter accident and now I have a clone. Do we kill the clone?
Yeah. Like, Tuvix
Yeah. Tuvix, or Thomas Riker. There's a…
Yes.
We should do a whole episode on these things. But often it's one life that hangs in the balance, but here they went, we will increase the stakes exponentially. There are 8,000 lives and everyone who led up to that 8,000 that hang in the balance. That entire civilization now will no longer exist if you make the selfish choice avoid the crash.
It's the dilemma that plays out, and all the machinations behind as well, because Dax's symbiont is passed down over 200 years, so we meet the next incarnation of Dax. And the lying and deceit so that, that Dax can try and save their colony, really, their civilization, is quite interesting. To have Dax feeling betrayed by themselves. It's fascinating.
And O'Brien not embracing the wonder of it all, cuz he's, keeping himself quite distant, Worf finding his place within, the long line of how the Klingon species has evolved on this particular planet. So there's a lot going on there, and we haven't even touched on, Odo and Kira's, revelations.
Old Odo gives away uh, his younger self's love for Kira.
That's right. And Odo finds out that she knows that he knows that she knows that he find out from himself from a future version of himself that he knows that she knows that…. Yep. It's very Star Trekky,
It is that perfect blend of hard science fiction and soap opera that we come back for every single week.
There is so much soap opera-ey stuff in there, like coming back from the ad break and Jadzia is, you know, going, you lied to me, you betrayed me. But let's still talk about the fact that the symbiont carries on. Oh, without batting an eyelid they go back and forth from soap opera to sci-fi techno babble. And I love it. I love it. It's great. And you get to see René Auberjonois in less makeup. And it's always great to see that beautiful man's beautiful face.
Him and Nana Visitor just are so good together. They work so well together, cuz it's not like young love, puppy love type stuff or anything like that. These are two characters who have gone through a war together who have gone through, who've gone through like occupation together, who have had so much pain and anguish and they both deserve to be happy, but they just don't know how to, and it's just powerful, so they go through all this.
The richest blend of will they, won't they.
Oh yeah, that final scene where she is just outraged with the future version of Odo that's not even there and Odo's there going, I don't know! I was in a bucket. Literally, I cannot tell. I don't know what's going on. And she's angry and he's, it's great. It's a great way to end the episode. So yeah, that's my jump ahead. Or maybe it's the same time. It's season five. So maybe your episode is around about the same time.
Oh, maybe it's not too far off. I'm taking us back to TNG season six, episode 19, Lessons.
Lessons.
This is the time Captain Picard got a girlfriend.
Hey!
Commander Nella Darren is a scientist onboard the ship, and most of this episode is about Captain Picard meeting her and falling in love. And they date and they deal with the sensitivities of the crew and the optics of a captain dating another officer. Captain Picard has a really nice therapy session with Troi where she says, Captain, are you asking my permission? And he says, if I were, what would you say? And she says, I would say yes. And it's just very sweet.
It is so uncharacteristic to see Captain Picard let his guard down and fall head over heels in love with someone in the space of an episode. The sciencey bit of this episode comes right at the end, when there is a distress call from a Federation outpost that has, for some reason, been established on a planet that has firestorms. And the firestorms are twice as bad as they usually are, so outpost is gonna be destroyed and needs to be evacuated.
The Enterprise comes rushing in and they won't have time to evacuate everyone, so they hatch a plan to put up heat shields, big deflector screens, on the outside of the outpost. And Nella Darren is singularly qualified to lead this very dangerous and hazardous mission on the planet. So here is Captain Picard in a position of, do I let my girlfriend go and risk her life? Which of course he does. Of course he does, but you see him wrestle with it.
You see him pacing the corridors, listening to the comms chatter of, oh the screens are weakening, we're gonna have to stay here and adjust them manually. And she has feared lost. And Captain Picard like immediately spirals. He seems completely destroyed. A lot of this episode is about the two of them connecting around their music. She's a piano player. Captain Picard has a Ressikan flute that comes from another very good episode called The Inner Light, which is many people's favorite episode
The Next Generation. And there's just this heartbreaking shot where he's sitting stone faced in his quarters, understanding that she is dead, and he walks up to his table and the camera swoops underneath the glass table so you're looking up through the table to the box of the Ressikan flute and to his destroyed face. And he just shuts the box, closing himself and his emotions off from ever letting his guard down like this again.
I won't spoil the ending, but an entire starship full of people comes swooping in and put themselves in harm's way to protect a science outpost with hundreds of people living there to study firestorms. Why were we there? Because it was scientifically interesting. Who builds a habitat for hundreds of people on a planet with firestorms. That's what I wanna know.
When it comes to Star Trek, there's not many relationships that last the distance. Stay with the show long enough, there's always gonna be some sort of romantic tragedy or heartbreak that comes along the way. And not many people, get to have a happily ever after in the Star Trek universe. It's that cold, hard scientific exploration of something. Well, nothing can stay perfect forever.
Yeah.
Let's firestorm this relationship.
Yeah, tour to force by the guest star who plays Nella Darren. Not an easy assignment to come in as a single episode, guest star
And who is that? Who's the actress who played…
Wendy Hughes…
Ah, Aussie Wendy Hughes!
There you go!
The great Wendy Hughes, Aussie actress, sadly passed away a few years ago. Incredible Aussie actor, who appeared in one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Homicide: Life On The Street, playing the love interest for Ned Beatty, but had a distinguished career on the Australian screen, Careful, He Might Hear You, one of her best films.
A great casting choice. She is beautiful. You can believe Jean-Luc Picard would fall in love with her, and at the same time she has that gravitas of command that you also believe that she would lead six teams of engineers to set up a firewall in front of an outpost and command them all over the comms.
She has an incredible voice, too. She had a beautiful, deep, resonant, silky smooth voice to match up against Patrick Stewart. That's no easy task, but Wendy Hughes is definitely a match for it.
Well, there you go. Four examples of crazy Federation scientists being in the wrong place for science at the wrong time.
And no examples of crazy Federation sex, but, once we get through a episode about transport cloning, or we get through any other episode that you'll just leave me hanging on…
Lower Decks, you know what you have to do. All right thanks again, Rob.
Ah, Kevin, thank you so much for putting up with me for another week. And I think I can hear the sweet, dulcet tones of Bridget Hadley coming in, and that means we've reached the end of another episode.
We have. Hit us up on @subspacedotfm, that subspace D-O-T-F-M on Twitter, if you've got a science disaster that you would like to share with us that we missed in Star Trek history.
Oh my gosh. I just realized it now, like they did a couple of reveals for like Star Trek Day and stuff. Carol Kane is the new chief engineer—
All they've said is she is an engineer, but I reckon she'll be the chief engineer, at least for the…
Are you thinking what I'm thinking that they're doing the whole, Spinal Tap thing or the Harry Potter thing that each season…
Yeah. I don't like it, but I think they might be.
You're not getting Scotty yet, so you're gonna get a big celebrity each season.
Star Trek has a long history, a mysterious history of not committing to chief engineers. Like, TNG season one, La Forge was not the chief engineer. They had some random guest star who was there for just one episode. And they had a couple that we saw over the course of the first season until finally they put La Forge where he belonged. And Discovery, likewise, we had Stamets who was the scientist of the mushrooms, but who was the chief engineer of Discovery?
It was unclear, ambiguous, and kind of still is.
And then Tig came in as well, so there's just all these potential…
Yeah.
…of engineers, but there's no one head. So there's three heads, and…
I don't understand why they think we don't care who the chief engineer of the Starship is. That is an important job. I wanna know who the Scotty is.
As always, they just do not understand what the fans want.
And Strange New Worlds, now they're killing them off and giving us a new one each season because they wanna mix it up for some reason.
Why do they treat us so badly, Kevin? Why do we keep on coming back?